Author's Note: For Rosie, because she wants Ozorne more than I ever have. And because she looked it over first. Thanks!
Disclaimer: None of them are mine. Not even the make-up and the jewelry.
Rituals
by Seereth
Ozorne's life is filled with little day-to-day rituals. Most of them are little, anyway. There are some that he thinks might have been considerably more important than they are now. Or were more important to some of his predecessors, which doesn't necessarily make them important in any way except in sentimental value (an idea which amuses him when he is very bored, which happens rarely but more frequently now than it used to). He doesn't much care, however.
He has found he cares less for many things now. This development is not much of a surprise. Very little is anymore.
The Emperor Mage of Carthak misses surprises sometimes, but never very much, and it wouldn't really do for him to be surprised. He isn't sure if this is because surprises are beneath him, or if this is because they are dangerous to him.
He thinks this as he rises and bows three times to the rising sun, murmuring prayers under his breath. Ozorne doesn't like to think in the morning, though, because that is when everyone else thinks. It is better, he has decided, to think in the afternoon, when courtiers and slaves and servants are sleepy and lethargic from Carthak's impersonal and unforgiving heat. The heat has never bothered him, not for a moment. So he holds counsels during the hours when the sun is hottest and it beats down on his country, baking it in its golden rays.
It is his own ritual, and unlike the others, a very private one.
He doesn't realize he has stayed longer than necessary or long than usual in this submissive position that he usually despises until one of the slaves makes an awkward, ill-trained motion to his right. She freezes, knowing that it has been noticed and Ozorne hides a smile at the fear she should be feeling right now. Is feeling, he sees, and so he lets it go by. Not unnoticed, but unpunished.
The slaves come forward to robe him in dazzling white, careful not to touch him even by accident. He has never been sure exactly how they manage to do this without touching him once with their soft, silky fingers. There is a different kind of magic in the slaves, he had decided as a boy, an old kind of magic, a magic of people and metal and power, different in some ways from the Gift, but similar in others. Eyes averted – well, nothing new in that – the slaves step back, bowing three times to him as he does to the sun. More rituals.
He makes no motion to signal the next set forward, but then they have been doing this forever. He no longer needs motions. His opal collar settles reassuringly around his neck. It has always been the first piece of jewelry he dons, it always will be. He has always been pleased with the efficiency of his slaves. Moments only, and then the very last set come forward, arms laden with fine, soft brushes, lightly glimmering paints, and faint perfumes.
They take their brushes, whisking them over his eyelids and cheeks with an exaggerated care. And well it should be – one wrong turn of the wrist here could mean their death, or worse, perhaps. This is, without a doubt, the longest part of his morning rituals. A lengthy process, he finds he is unable to make up his mind as to whether or not this suits him.
Kohl lines his eyes, smeared carefully there by sleek, brown hands. Ozorne has always had a fondness for paints; his father despaired of it, his mother quietly ignored. He does not care what these slaves see, they are mute and illiterate, and one or two are blind as well. He revels in the feel of the gold dust as it is applied carefully – oh so carefully – to his eyelids, brushed along his eyebrows, and sprinkled liberally in his hair. His lips are painted too, the color applied liberally until parts of his face seem to be crafted of bullion. A fitting adornment for the Emperor of Carthak, beloved of Mithros and more…aware gods. None deny that.
None, he thinks with a small smile, would dare.
They are finished, quickly; suddenly. The slaves melt into the background, into the tunnels they think he doesn't know about. He hates the ignorance he pretends because it is another ritual. His days – his weeks, months, years! – are filled with them. They are absurd.
Not the one this morning, though. This lengthy preparation filled with smaller rituals is not to ready him for another meaningless ritual. This one has every meaning, the choosing of his heir. Or, it had every reason. Ozorne thinks he has successfully robbed it of that. This is, after all, the fifth time he's been through it.
He isn't worried that it is the last. Kaddar won't last long.
None of them have…