Shinigami-cat: Hey guys. Sorry it has been a while since I last updated. You all know how busy it gets around the en of the year… I OWN NOTHING!
Itch
He never could see too well in the darkness. His eyes couldn't adapt very well to the lack of light. Being plunged into darkness so suddenly meant he had to wait longer then most to be able to see clearly.
He reached down and touched the floor. It felt cold and hard. Some kind of stone perhaps. Cautiously he shuffled to the side, reaching out for the wall. He came into contact with something hard and smooth, yet covered in a series of curves. Wherever he was confined, it was odd.
Suddenly a dull red light started to glow, quickly illuminating the place in a dull light. The floor was stone and so were the walls, but the walls were carved to look like faces. Hundreds and thousands of faces. Looking in ever direction with the same vacant look in their eyes.
One advantage of this new situation was the ability to see a pathway out of this place. Without much hesitation he walked down the pathway. There wasn't really much else he could do.
As he walked the faces on the walls smoothes out into the flat, narrow, walls of a hallway. He continued straight ahead until he got to a wooden door. It was unlocked, so he easily pushed it open and stepped inside.
Standing in the middle of the room was a woman. She wore similar clothes to that of Queen Jade, but these clothes were black as soot and this woman's long, white, hair was caked with dried blood and some kind of other spongy, pink, organic matter. Brains?
He cautiously took a few steps backwards. Somehow, this caught the woman's attention and her head snapped around to face him. Her head bent at an unnatural angle and her mouth hung wide open, as if her neck and jaw were broken.
Frozen in place, he could only watch as she slowly raised her hand and pointed at him. No, not him. His right arm. The skin on that appendage was quivering on its own. Almost violently convulsing with a will of its own. With very little warning, the meat, bones, skin and tendons connecting the arm to his body exploded in a shower of gore and maggots.
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Gilbert sat up quickly with a gasp, effectively falling out of the tree he was sleeping in. After travelling back to the kingdom, Gilbert had been allowed a day off, along with Liz and the guards that accompanied the royals there and back.
He was meant to be helping his mother with some yard work, but ended up falling asleep instead. "… Why didn't you wake me up?" Muttered Gilbert.
Ula chuckled a little and continued to rake the leaves. "I thought you needed some sleep. I didn't expect you to fall out of the tree. You and your father are like cats... Speaking of which…" She picked up a small pebble and threw it up at Maverick, who had fallen asleep on the roof.
He jolted awake and quickly looked around. "Who the? What?"
"Have you fixed the damn roof yet?" Snapped Ula in frustration. I'm tired of birds flying in and out of the house!"
"I'll be done in a minute, love."
She nodded in approval and turned back to her son. "Once you've recovered down there, I want you to go and take baby clothes on the kitchen table down to the orphanage."
Nodding, Gilbert slowly got up, rubbing his aching limbs. "Okay." He went inside, collected the clothes and started to make his way to the orphanage.
Once every few months his mother would go out and collect clothes from families that their own children had grown out of, fix them up and take them to the orphanage. She loved children and happily filled her time helping out there when she could. Gilbert had a feeling she wanted a large family.
After a few minutes, Gilbert made it to the orphanage. It was a relatively large building just off of the main hall where the priestesses preached to the masses.
The orphanage itself was a two story building made from wood and stone. Simple enough look and design. Probably the most interesting thing about it was the multicoloured glass windows. No two windows were the same colour or if they were the same colour they were a different shade.
Gilbert walked inside. There was a small front desk, but the post was abandoned for the moment. Humming a little to himself, Gilbert put the clothes on the desk and waited for someone to show up.
He didn't have to wait long before a young woman in priestess garments appeared to greet him. She smiled kindly up at him. "This is a surprise. We don't often get visits from the Royal Bodyguard."
"Ah, well my mother couldn't make it down with her monthly clothes donation." Said Gilbert as he gestured to the clothes on the desk. "Would you like me to carry them to a room for sorting?"
"That would be lovely. Please follow me." She walked down a hall and Gilbert quickly followed her with the clothes in hand.
The pair walked down the wide halls in relative silence. The sounds of children playing outside floated in from open windows, drawing Gilbert's attention. They all looked rather young. No one older then ten.
"… Where are the older kids?"
"They are in class." Said the Priestess. "Anyone under thirteen plays in the morning and then do two hours of learning after lunch. The older kids learn for two hours in the morning and have the rest of the day to themselves."
"Huh… So what happens to the kids that don't get adopted?"
The Priestess smiled a little. "Well, when they reach fifteen or sixteen we offer them a chance to become Priestesses and eventually Healers. At least to the girls anyway. We used to offer the chance to become Healers to the boys as well, but they just didn't feel to get it as fast or as quickly as the girls… A lot of men seem to find it impossible to focus on more then one thing. They just can't make snap decisions the same way a woman can."
"Fair enough. What about the boys?"
"We offer basic healing and hygiene practices for them so they aren't totally dependant on women." She thought for a bit. "We also help try to find them apprentices in what they want to become. We offer the same to the girls who decide not to become Priestesses or Healers. It's only ethical that we do so. We consider all the children that come to us as our own."
Gilbert nodded a little as they walked past an open door. Inside he could see several older students with their heads down, writing into wax tablets. "Hmm…"
The Priestess opened a door and smiled a little at him. "Please place the garments on the table for sorting." Gilbert nodded and did as he as told. "The children will be happy to have some warmer clothes. Last winter was much colder then we expected."
"No one died I hope?"
"Everyone managed to stay warm, and the worst that happened was a few caught a fever."
"Ah, well I guess that's good." Muttered Gilbert. "Is there anything you particularly need? Jackets? Woollen tights?"
The Priestess smiled sweetly at Gilbert. "You are too kind. Some more blankets for the babies would be appreciated. Thank you."
"Hey no problem. Every little bit helps, right?" He stepped out of the room and started to walk back to the front exit. "Well, I'll see you next time I need to drop something off. I know my way out."
"Ah, actually I want to speak with you some more." Said the Priestess as she walked after him. "The Head Priestess wants to speak with you, and has asked us to send you to her when we next saw you."
This surprised Gilbert a little. Normally the leader of their faith didn't seek him out personally. It had to be pretty important. "Okay, where is she at the moment?"
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The Head Priestess was sitting in her chambers, found just off the main sermon hall. The chambers themselves were decorated with a mix of earthly and man made decorations, illuminated by the huge window.
Gilbert stood in the middle of the room and waited for the Head Priestess to speak with him. She was going sorting some things out on her desk, ignoring him. Gilbert didn't raise his voice to get her attention. He didn't interact with her much and he didn't want to come off as rude and have her dismiss him before he knew why he was summoned.
After a few more minutes she looked up at him. Her right eye was a dark chocolate brown colour while her left was a cloudy blue colour. It made sense though, she was blind in her left eye and the scar that ran through said blind eye helped confirm it.
"How are you today, Bodyguard?" She asked.
"Well I fell out of a tree today, so things could be a little better I guess."
"That's no good. Did you go and see a Healer?"
"Thank you for your concern, but I am perfectly fine. Would you mind if I asked you why you called me here?"
She nodded a little and stood up. She closed the curtains, plunging the room into darkness. After a few second she lit a couple of candles and sat down again. "What do you know about Purple Stone?"
"Not much." Admitted Gilbert. "As far as I know it can cause insanity and violence when exposed to it for long periods of time. That's about it."
The Head Priestess nodded a little. "That is true. It's also highly unstable and has dangerous results when mixed with other metals and materials. Because of that it's usually used as a tool for slow torture and murder. As far as e know it's only found in the deep valleys and caverns that belong to the Night Kin."
She opened a drawer on her desk and pulled out a small box. It was about the size of her palm and pretty unremarkable. She opened the box and left it on the desk for Gilbert to look at. The inside of the box was padded with a white velvet material. Nestled right in the middle of it all was a small purple gem, about the sixe of a thumb nail.
"This Purple Stone was found by a servant in one of the pockets of Prince Matthew's shirt."
This shocked Gilbert. He would have known if someone had done something like that. He ran over every possible moment when someone could have slipped that into his clothes without him noticing. "… That's no possible. When the heck did this happen?"
"Sorry to say, but it's true." She said. "I don't know when it happened, but it's safe to say it happened when you were visiting that other kingdom. As a precaution the clothes of Alfred and our Kings have also been checked." She closed the box. "This is very troublesome… It seems that a Night Kin might have tried to assassinate Matthew. Either that or it was a warning of some sort."
"Maybe…" He needed to be twice as vigilant from now on. "I'll keep a better eye on the Princes from now on. If they are suddenly murdered it'll be my head on a spike…"
"Indeed." Said the Head Priestess. "… I have been meaning to ask you, is your right arm okay?"
"Why do you ask?"
"You haven't stopped gripping and scratching it since you walked into my chambers. Did you land on it when you fell?"
"Kind of… I had some stupid dream where it exploded off my body. That was fun." He said sarcastically.
The woman nodded a little and opened a thick book. "Dreams are very important to understanding ones self and the world around them. After all, we ourselves came from the blessed dreams of the Goddess. What happened in your dream?"
"Saw a dead woman, was pretty much trapped and my arm exploded. That's all I can remember clearly. I probably got killed too."
The Head Priestess nodded and looked over the pages of her book. "Hmm, you seem stressed and anxious about something that you can't get out of. I suggest drinking a calming tea before bed and trying to find the cause of your stress."
"Yeah, pardon me but I don't really believe much in this dream stuff."
"Sceptical of the Goddess are you?"
"I have a healthy curiosity that makes me question why we do and believe certain things about the Goddess."
"That is wise. Only a true fool would never dare question religion and let things be as they always were. People, like the dreams of the Goddess are ever changing and will never stop. To believe otherwise would make one a complete and utter fool."
Gilbert nodded a little. "Well, thank you for your information my lady, but I really should be going. It's only just past midday and I still have lots of things I need to do."
"Well whatever you do get your arm checked out too. If it gets infected really badly it might need to get cut off."
"I doubt it will come to that." Said Gilbert. It wasn't sure why she would say that. Probably just her being motherly again. Gilbert still remembered the days when Ula would take him to see her. The Head Priestess used to be a very good Healer. She still was, she just didn't practice anymore.
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When he got home he took to taking a proper look at his scar. It didn't seem any different, apart from some red scratch marks. It did feel a little itchy, but there didn't seem to be too much wrong with it.
"… Maybe I should try and get some cream for this."
"Some cream for what?" Asked Maverick as he walked by. "If it's anything below the belt I don't want to know about it and there's a bottle of cream for that in the bathroom."
"Ew. No dad. It's for my arm." Said Gilbert. He showed him the scar. "Its just gotten really itchy today and I don't know why. I could have brushed up against something or done something to it, but I don't really know." Heck he didn't even know he was scratching the damn thing. He probably would have scratched through the skin if the High Priestess hadn't mentioned it to him.
Maverick frowned a little and looked at Gilbert's scar. "… Yeah, some of it looks a little inflamed. You should cover it with something. At least that way you won't scratch the hell out of it."
"Ever had something like that?"
"Yeah." Muttered Maverick. "But it was the size of your big toe, on my inner thigh and filled with maggots. Fucking fly laid her eggs in me."
"… That's gross."
"Your mother had to cover it in oil to suffocate the bastards and make them move to the surface to breathe."
"Dad, stop."
"I could feel them wriggling around in that empty pocket of muscle they chewed out."
"I don't want to hear this dad."
"Then your mother had to squeeze them all out."
"I am going to throw up."
"Six popped out."
"Stop it."
"Six fat maggots."
"Dad, no."
"They all died of course. I have kept them in a jar."
"That's disturbing."
"And no I have a scar that looks like a star on my thigh."
"Yet another wonderful life story from my dad that I didn't need to know about."
Maverick chuckled a little. "Yeah… I just realized something, your mother and I never gave you the talk."
"Dad… I'm twenty seven."
"And we have never told you where babies come from. Heck I bet you don't even know how to use it, let alone how to use it with a woman or a man."
Gilbert couldn't tell if his father was being serious or trying to annoy him. Either way, Gilbert was torn between running away and just slowly dying of embarrassment. "Dad… I know how to have sex…"
"But how can you? We never gave you the talk." He gasped. "Unless… You've gone to those kinds of places… I don't know if I should be shocked that you went there or shocked that you couldn't be bothered to go out and actually get a significant other."
It was at that point Gilbert decided it was probably a good idea to leave. "Well, would you look at the time. I should probably go now… I have oil to put on my scar and maggots to pop out of it apparently… Ointments and creams to find... Royalty to protect… That stuff…" He quickly made is way towards the door.
"Wait! You need to hear about the complex process of reproduction!"
"And I am gone!" He quickly raced out the door. He expected that kind of weird talk from Ula, not from Maverick.
TBC
Shinigami-cat: I thought I might as well point out a few things about this chapter. Mainly the sexism and lack of rebut from Gilbert. This is because he has grown up in a society where women are seen as the most important gender, and because of this stereotypes such and judgements have been made about what people can and can't do for a living. This is just how this society has developed… Please review.