AN: This has become a favorite story of mine to write, so expect more of it.
If however…you want a double release of it…you'll have to bribe me. Specifically:
A year ago a friend of mine named Lucy Morgan passed away, and last year we memorialized her life by paying for kids in a developing nation to get an education. This year, we're doing the same. We want to raise $300 to pay for the tuition, books, materials, and food, for a secondary class of children at the Kasese Humanist school in Uganda. Help me reach that goal by donating to bdgiving dot org and I will do a double chapter release.
OK let's begin:
...Kami Miyako...Climb's 'Quarters'...
The orange glow drew Climb from his bed, and he went to the window to look outside, the air was cool and crisp, as one would expect for this time of year, its why he left the window open in the first place. He did not have to scan the horizon to find the source of the blaze, it was deep in the city. Cries and shouts began to reach his ears, and he tensed up, his hands rested on the stone windowsill, and his fingers curled under his hands and formed fists. His entire body shook, helping in times of disaster was his nature…yet here he stood, trapped in a tower able to only watch as people screamed. He strode away from the window and walked to the door, he pounded hard on it and called out, "Hey! Anybody! Guards! Someone! Let me out of here! There's a fire! We've got to do something! I promise I won't try to escape! Just let me out and let me help!" He pounded on the thick door as hard as his fist could do without breaking. He knew the sound of his ponding was echoing down the curved stairs, but no sound echoed back up to him but the sounds he made.
Nobody was coming.
He looked around his room for anything he might use, and then he rushed to his window again and leaned part of the way outside so that he could look all the way down to the ground. It was perhaps thirty feet down, if he jumped…he'd just end up with broken legs again.
He slapped his forehead with an open hand. "No…not that…anything but that." He said with a frustrated groan. "To think that would EVER be useful." He said softly, and then he went over to his bed and with some frustration due to its awkward shape and flexibility, he took his mattress off the bed and forced it out the window and watched it fall to the ground. He then pulled his bed over to the window so that the post ran perpendicular to the opening, and while giving some begrudging praise to every author who ever wrote a terrible escape sequence, he took off his armor and tied the end of the sheet to the post, then tied the blanket to the end of the sheet, then tied the towels to the end of the blanket, and then to each other, and he reenacted the worst and most cliched jail break scenes he'd ever read, and hopped from the bed frame to the window sill. He let out an annoyed sigh, and gradually walked himself down the wall of the tower until a minute later he had reached the end of his makeshift rope and dropped the remaining ten feet to the mattress below.
He tucked his feet together and fell to one side to minimize injury and sprung up hale and hearty. He rushed in the direction of the smoke and flames that lit up the night, and he soon found himself where the disaster lay. It was a two-story building of simple construction, wood, brick, and a straw thatched roof that would have laid over a wooden frame. People had already formed a bucket brigade and were throwing water onto the flames, the noise of collapse like that of battle and nearby people with injuries lay collapsed into heaps, coughing and clutching their wounds when conscious, laying utterly still when dead or unconscious. "Who is in charge here?!" He shouted the question, and a man in armor spoke up.
"Over here!" He shouted, and Climb rushed over. He didn't wait for the man in charge to introduce himself, the orange light of the flames spoke of the urgency of the matter and the cost of engaging in trivial formalities in the moment. Instead Climb shouted, "Listen to me! You've got to wet the surrounding buildings! If you don't then the fire will spread! You can't stop that building from burning down, its clearly done for! But if you don't wet the area around it, this fire could spread to half the city!" He shouted out his instruction.
The man looked taken aback by Climb's directions, "How do you…" he began to shout.
"I'm from Re-Estize, we see lots of fires! Just take my word for it and do this! You cannot save that building; you can only contain the blaze!" He shouted as part of the roof caved in with a thunderous crash.
The man looked at Climb's urgent expression, and then as if finding something in his face that made the young blonde knight someone worth listening to, he gave a serious nod. "Alright!" He snapped and began shouting directions to the bucket brigade, who though confused, appeared to trust the armored man enough to take his direction.
Climb then rushed over and grabbed a bucket, and poured its contents over his head, soaking him from head to toe, he quickly soaked a rag and held it to his face for good measure, and then he charged headlong into the blaze. The heat was tremendous, and he coughed through the smoke as he went from room to room, keeping as low as he could from the smoke. "Can anyone hear me! Is anyone alive?!" He shouted over the thunderous blazing inferno. He found bodies as he moved, and his critical, trained eye was unnecessary when determining that some of them at least, had died violent deaths, with severed heads and crushed throats. He made his way up the stairs, still calling for help, below he heard the fires intensify, he'd seen what looked like a bar as he came in, and he guessed that the bottles had ruptured and added to the flames.
Still he did what he went in to do, and went from room to room, but found only empty chains and the very violent remains of the obviously dead. He heard a collapse behind him and whirled around, the roof had caved in, leaving him trapped where he stood, he looked around frantically as the smoke began to overtake him. "There!" He thought to himself with relief as he found a window, he tried to open it, but it was…oddly enough, locked shut. He grabbed a burning chair and began to beat on it until both it and the chair began to break.
He started coughing worse, he couldn't breathe, in a frenzied fear of death he shouted for the help that he had tried to be, and he tore at the broken parts of the locked up wooden shutters and sucked in a gulp of air from the outside. It was not enough, he began to sink down to his knees, as his vision began to blur, he saw the shutters break open from the outside, and someone climbing in, but that was all he made out before unconsciousness seized him.
When he woke up, he was in his own bed with Aorli looking after him and Zesshi sitting at the table sipping tea. The sheets had been replaced, as had the blanket and mattress, and he shot upright and looked around, he clutched his chest and gasped for breath, his eyes looked around frantically.
"Was that…it wasn't a dream…was it?" He asked. Aorli shook her head and Zesshi put down her teacup and looked over at him.
"No, you really were that stupid, that weak, and…I will admit…that brave." She said the last part somewhat begrudgingly.
"So…the fire?" He asked.
"All too real." She said. "And apparently you did some real heroics out there. From what I heard you gave completely new instructions to the brigade commander and had them stop fighting the building fire and had them soaking the surrounding buildings, had you not done that, well…" She looked over to the window at the clear blue sky, "I might be seeing smoke out that window right now." She said softly.
"Anyway, it might still be burning, and it isn't, chiefly because of you." She said politely, "As it is, all that burned down was one brothel, and the only ones to die were a bunch of customers and the elf slaves that worked there." She said as she bent her elbows and raised her arms up at her side and put her hands out, she looked down and smiled, "Not a big loss for the city compared to what could have happened." Zesshi said.
Aorli looked over at the black and white haired Zesshi and her eyes welled up, "I…" She began to say, but Climb spoke up.
"No, that isn't right." He said.
Zesshi looked at him, "What do you mean?" She asked curiously.
"I went in that building, and I went through all of it, the people there were already dead, and there were no elves, unless you're going to tell me that the humans in charge over there would unchain them all and let them leave…and kill their own customers." Climb said with a sarcastic voice and a grimace on his face.
"Oh, so you didn't just go straight upstairs then, very bold to search the place to that degree in those conditions. But I guess that just means that the elves killed their customers and escaped, doesn't matter, they'll be hunted down soon enough, there will be guards out scouring the countryside for them. Whether they died in the fire or die in the hills, doesn't matter, dead is dead, and nobody cares what happens to broken tools, toys, or weapons when their usefulness is done." Zesshi said dismissively.
Climb and Aorli looked at her, and she poured out three cups of tea and gestured at them to join her at the table.
"You're not even bothered by the deaths of the humans in there, mistress?" Aorli asked.
"Not really." Zesshi said as she put sugar in her tea, poured in some milk, and began to stir. "Why would I be? Those are the kind of people who would do…whatever, to me if they got the chance, why should I care if they burned to death?"
As Climb added milk to his tea, he said, "I wish I knew which of the people there pulled me out, I'd like to thank them for it. I'm lucky to be alive after that."
Aorli smiled. "I'm glad you are."
Zesshi rolled her eyes. "I should say so, weak people shouldn't try to play hero, but…" She leaned forward and grinned slyly at Climb, with her hard scary eyes twinkling at him, "recklessness is your virtue. If you only had strength that was its equal, I promise you'd not be going back to your precious princess still being 'cherry boy'." She chuckled and leaned back in the chair and finished her cup of tea. "My that was good. I hope tea survives this war."
Climb blushed a beet red at her teasing and looked over at Aorli. "I can never tell if she's being serious or not, but worse than that…I get kidnapped, thrown into a sack, hauled halfway across the world, locked into a tower…and what do I get watched by? The only other woman in the world who will call me 'cherry boy'." Climb sighed with irritation and shook his head. "Why me?" He asked as he looked up at the ceiling as if entreating the gods themselves to render answer.
Aorli smiled and gave a small giggle at his exaggerated annoyance.
"You're looking better Aorli." Zesshi said, "Are you eating more?" She asked.
"I am, mistress, one of the other slaves told me that she heard from someone else that there was a complaint that we were being fed too little to work properly, and the complainant was important enough to get our food rations doubled." Aorli said, "Plus he feeds me too." She said and pointed at Climb.
Zesshi arched her brow at him questioningly. "I'm not going hungry," Climb said, "Its really no big deal, its just that I don't need it all, so why not let her have some of it. It is the least I can do…" He said trailing off somewhat as Zesshi nodded in silent approval.
"Well you're a lucky slave, aren't you?" Zesshi said to Aorli, who visibly flinched at the term.
"Please don't call her that." Climb said.
"Isn't she?" Zesshi asked.
"No." Climb asked.
"Yes." Aorli said softly and looked down. "Meat is a slave…a slave…a lucky…lucky slave."
Zesshi looked over at Climb. "She's a slave till she gets free, not just because you don't treat her like one, you'd best remember that, this is Kami Miyako, not some fairytale world where you can just call her free and she is, and if she forgets that, she WILL die. You already got her beaten up, don't get her killed too." Zesshi said with a sharp rebuke, silencing Climb.
Aorli managed to raise her head enough to ask…" A lucky slave?" She sighed, "Is there such a thing?" She asked bitterly. "I could be worse off, the breaker training house in the city is supposed to be a nightmare." She said and began to tremble, "The stories out of there…from the ones who make it out…"
"The what now?" Zesshi asked.
"Forgive this slave," Aorli began, "but Meat thought that mistress lived here in the city, how is it that mistress knows so little of it?"
Zesshi frowned. "My position tends to keep me…elsewhere. When I am here, I work deep within the capitol, when I am not there, I am usually far away, if you want to know the truth, I've never in all my years, really taken the time to explore the city I call home."
"That makes sense, well those are something Justicar began," she said, and spat at the floor at the mention of his name, "he realized that breaking so many slaves required a legion unto itself, so he got the cardinals to establish a school for men and women to do what he does…did. Breakers go there to learn the trade, and to make sure they learn it well, fresh unbroken captives are brought in…being 'broken' by one is bad enough, but an entire class of men and women who hate you, revile you, and are solely focused on the humiliation and abuse needed to destroy you to the very core of your soul…turning you into a pliant plaything, an empty doll, a field laborer, a miner…the things they do there…" Aorli shuddered, "Meat supposes she is a lucky slave, mistress, that she did not end up there and that she was…was instead only broken by one…just one." Her voice trailed off and she slipped off the chair and down to her knees facing Zesshi.
"Meat will not forget her place again mistress, if that is your will, please do not punish her to harshly for sitting on a chair or smiling or talking without permission…please don't report her…please don't…" She shook where she knelt.
Climb was shaking with rage, but to his surprise Zesshi reached down to the girl's chin and tilted her up to bring their eyes to meet. "Sit in the chair Aorli. Its alright, but don't get sloppy, you step out of turn outside this room, and that idiot," she gestured to Climb, "will be unable to protect you." Zesshi's voice was kinder than Climb expected from the battle maniac, and he asked….
"What was that about?" Climb's face reflected his uncertainty as Aorli got slowly back into the chair and settled down.
"What do people with self-respect do when they're abused?" Zesshi asked.
"They…oh." Climb said as understanding dawned.
"You treat her like a person too readily and to easily, you insist she's not what she is and she gets…I don't know…her 'soul' back, and the next thing you know she back talks a guard, and then she ends up with her head on a spike on the wall over there." Zesshi said, pointing out the window to the city's walls. "I saw one of those yesterday, so unless you want her to end up that way, she can't forget for to long. Your little fantasy about getting her out on your own…don't even try to deny it Climb, I can see it all over your face, but it won't work, you'll get beaten up, she'll get killed, and that'll be on your head." Zesshi said sharply.
Climb looked down. "I know but…"
"But nothing. Unless you're strong, you can't do anything." Zesshi said flatly.
"Now take up your position, its' time to see if we can't beat some strength into that body of yours." She said bluntly and Climb grinned as he took up his stance.
Three seconds later he couldn't get up anymore and Aorli was pouring a healing potion down his throat.
"Congratulations Climb." Zesshi said as he lay there with his head in the elf girl's lap. "You lasted a full half second longer than your personal best." She grinned down at him and held the practice weapon on her shoulder, tapping it there in a rhythm as he thanked Aorli and got back up to his feet.
"I wish I could stay and talk, but I have some business to take care of, I'll be back in a day or two." Zesshi said as she waved behind her while she walked away and closed the door.
Zesshi did not come visit him the next day. Or the next.
That night he saw the orange blaze in the sky again in a different part of the city, but this time Aorli had taken away his sheets when she'd left, leaving no way down, so he could only watch as the sky burned at the edge of Kami Miyako.
…Council Chambers of Kami Miyako…
"All of them are dead!" Dominic raged and slammed his fist on the table.
"We know that, you thundering imbecile! We're all looking at the same damn report!" Berenice said in a way that was very unmatronly.
"An entire class of breakers, all of them…" Maximillian said in a disbelieving tone.
"And all those lost slaves too." Ginedine said with a shake of the head.
"Damn the slaves! We're talking about PEOPLE here!" Dominic snarled.
Zesshi leaned against the wall, bored and with her customarily neutral expression on her face, she traced her scythe lovingly as she listened to the cardinals speak.
"Well it's obvious what happened. The elves who escaped from the brothel are on a killing spree." Yvon said simply.
"Well, what do we do about it?" Dominic asked, forcing himself to avoid asking the question in a rage.
"What can we do, we've emptied the city of most of the military force while we prepare to send it north to reinforce the city of Ikari?" Maximillian asked unhappily.
"Well we need to do something," Yvon said with frustration, "We saw that invitation for the gathering in the Draconic Kingdom…to…what was it, 'Set the terms for war'…if we don't go, we'll look very bad, and if we're going to go, we have to leave tomorrow."
"Well just have the city guard ask for citizen volunteers, we can triple the guard if we create temporary positions and pay them a reasonable but not excessive sum." Berenice said.
"Sure, all we have to do is station them in all the places where elves are used, a motley band of elf whores with no training to speak of are no match for armed guards. And if they flee the city, well catching them in the country will be even easier." Dominic said smugly.
"Now, what do we know about this?" Yvon asked, flipping to another piece of paper.
"Seven former city guards sent north a few days ago, all found dead. Could the Sorcerer King have agents in our country already?" Ginedine asked.
"I expect so." Maximillian said firmly, "These weren't elite troops or anything, but they were soldiers of Kami Miyako, a cut above the norm, all of them were cut in half at the waist, it takes a monster to do that. We should set out more patrols along the route, otherwise have their bodies returned and properly buried, they died as soldiers for humanity fighting a monster, they deserve respect for that."
"Alright, we'll have to make sure we do that, and if it is possible, at least one of us should attend the funeral to pay our respects to the families. Is Raymond staying back, where is he today?" Berenice asked.
"I spoke to him earlier, he's having a bit of an upset stomach, he said he plans to depart with us, but he's staying on bed rest today, nothing requiring that a healing magic user be taken from their duties over." Yvon said.
"Alright, well that is everything, we should get going and pack for the trip." Dominic said with some annoyance in his voice as they stood together.
Zesshi was the last to leave, and when she did, she went to Raymond's home. It was a large but not an opulent manor, what you'd expect of a top tier official, she knocked on the door and waited, a moment later a dignified elderly butler answered the door. He recognized her, and immediately bowed before admitting her.
He was an elderly human with a thin gray mustache and a head of neatly trimmed silver hair. Despite his advanced age he was able to move briskly about the house, but Zesshi did not require him to escort her, "You are here to see master Raymond?" He asked reflexively.
"Of course." She said.
"He's in his bedchamber, do you require an escort?" He asked rhetorically, more out of routine than expectation.
"No, I know where he is." She said.
"Very good then ma'am, I leave it to you." He said and with a polite bow to end the conversation, he straightened up and went to supervise the other maids. Though she had never considered the matter before…now it stood stark and obvious. Raymond owned not a single elf slave of his own. Not one. His servants were all humans.
She walked up the stairs and enjoyed the smooth feel of the polished wood on the bannister and looked around, she'd been here a thousand times since he'd become a cardinal but never really appreciated the stark simplicity of the place. There wasn't a single unnecessary piece of furniture, a few paintings hung on the walls, but these were ones he'd done himself, they weren't half bad really, or so she thought of them herself, without pretending to know much about art, they looked nice.
He seemed to like the dark wood to shine, and to let copious amounts of light into his home, particles of dust hung suspended in the sunbeams as she passed down the walkway to his room, when she reached the thick cherrywood door, she knocked firmly in a way that only she could.
"Enter!" He called out and coughed.
Zesshi walked in and found a rare sight, Cardinal Raymond Zarg Lauransan…not working.
She closed the door behind him and pulled up a chair beside his bed.
"How are you Raymond?" She asked in a voice that was…well as warm as her voice ever was.
"I've seen better days." He said with a grimace, but I'll be fine, just a day of bed rest is all I need, I won't be getting buried tomorrow." He forced a thin smile.
"What brings you here today though, you look like you've got something on your mind?" He asked.
Zesshi didn't look at him. She sat horizontally to the bed and looked at the wall.
"What if I'd been born without power?" She asked.
"What?" Raymond asked, this was a surprise, and it showed on his face.
"What if I had been born without any power?" She asked, rephrasing her question.
He didn't answer.
"I met an elf…recently, she was taking care of Climb." Zesshi said.
"And?" Raymond asked.
"And she's weak, a slave, she's got a brand on her skin in a place that only the most intimate should see, and she was, until recently, being very badly abused." Zesshi said.
Raymond didn't say anything.
"…And I think she's my little sister. Well, half sister anyway." She said.
"Oh." Raymond said solemnly.
"I never gave any thought to this before, but…the elf king didn't only rape my mother. He's done the same to his own people for centuries. I wonder how many little brothers and little sisters, or big brothers and big sisters I have out there." She said.
"I met one, talked with Climb for a little while about her, he told me about how she spilled food on the floor, and then got down there to lick it up because that's what she thought he was telling her to do when he was offering to feed her while she was half starved. Can you imagine…what if you had a little sister…and that was how she was living?" Zesshi asked him.
She snapped her head to look him in the eyes.
Raymond said nothing.
"Well?" She asked him.
"I…" Raymond started to speak, then stopped. He thought, "Zesshi you've never cared about this before…what's going on?" He asked.
She looked at the wall again, there was a mirror there that they could both see hanging over a low dresser.
"Look at my face over there Raymond. What do you see?" She asked and touched her ears.
"I see you…" He said.
"And you see the face of your enemy." She said.
"I see that, and I see my father. Every single day I looked in the mirror, I saw the parts of my mother's kidnapper, her rapist, and every day she looked at me, I saw her remember what he did to her. I know she loved me, but at the same time, she hated half of me, and I hated it too." Her face turned angry, "When I was very little, I tried to cut off my own ears, did you know that?" She asked him.
"No…" He said gravely.
"Yes, I was pretty young, don't know my exact age it was so long ago, but I remember seeing her flinch at the sight of me once, and I remember how when, she would bathe me, she wouldn't wash my ears, she wouldn't touch them, it was the first part of myself I learned to wash. I didn't know what my…father, had done to her, I just thought my ears hurt her. I suppose I was kind of right…so one day I snuck into the kitchen and stole a knife, and I went over to a mirror just like that one, and I started to saw at them with the blade."
She gave him a smile that was a mixture of pain and pride and sorrow as she said that, "I was a tough girl, even at that age. I actually managed to get halfway through sawing off the first ear when she came home and found me standing on a chair, looking in the mirror, and cutting away despite how much it hurt, how slippery my hands were with my own blood, and despite how much I cried. She wasn't a Black Scripture for nothing though, and she snatched the knife away and took me to be healed immediately."
"I'm…sorry." He said, not knowing what else to say.
"I didn't do that again." She said, "But when I started seeing elf slaves with their ears cut, I actually envied them because if I had ears like that…or like yours, then my mother wouldn't flinch. I didn't think about how their mothers would flinch if they could see their children after that, at the mutilation that was forced on them, and I didn't wonder if anyone among them was…like me." Zesshi said, her voice becoming an empty monotone.
"But having met Aorli…I wonder how many others there are. So I have to ask you Raymond…what would you do, if you found out you had a baby sister…half starved, branded, licking food off the floor because she'd been humiliated, broken…abused, and the only difference between you and her is…you were born with power that made you useful?" She asked.
"So…what if I'd been born without any power or talent, would Dominic have hesitated to throw me to a breaker? Would Yvon have cared if I was chained to a bed in some brothel? Would Maximillian or Berenice have given a damn If I spent my life sweltering away in a mine because of who my father was? Would you have cared at all, if my mother hadn't cared first? If she'd wanted nothing to do with me, and I'd been born weak…where exactly do you think I'd be?" She asked him.
"I don't have a good answer for you…for any of that." Raymond said honestly. "I can't answer what ifs, all I can say is who you are, the savior of humanity, and for all your…bizarre ways of thinking, as I said years ago…our job is to protect humanity, and humanity includes you. I won't pretend our country has always done the best things, but its always been for the right reasons." He said.
"Savior of humanity" She said, "I suppose that is a fair point." She said. "But save it from what? Elves? Demihumans? Demons? Or its own worst impulses? And what about nonhumans? I'm not fully human either you know, and I never will be. Suppose we win everything in the next year, the elf king is killed, the Sorcerer King dies, the demihumans elsewhere are slaughtered, all the enemies of humanity are dead or slaves…do you think they'll forget these?" She asked as she pointed to where her half elven ears poked out from the place her hair failed to cover.
"What do you think will happen when they no longer need a trump card to play? I'd never thought about it before, but seeing the disposable way Aorli is treated…well…you either play a card and forget it, or you discard it and forget it…and now that I think about it…if you were me…would you want either end?" She asked.
She sighed and stood up when he didn't answer, but she could see that everything she'd said had bothered him, seemingly as much as it bothered her.
"Thanks for your time Raymond, sorry to bother you while you're sick, I'll let you get some rest, good luck in the Draconic Kingdom. I appreciate you listening, and I'll see you when I get back." She said, and with a wane smile, she walked out of his room, and saw the sun starting to set, it was a nice night for a walk, and besides…she had somewhere she wanted to be.
AN: Well I hope you enjoyed this chapter, its been a blast to write this story, but the research for it is fucking brutal. I'll explain why after the entire story is done. Some of you, those with some knowledge in social work, psychology, etc. will probably already have guessed, and I can only hope I deal with these issues the way they deserve to be, and ask your forgiveness if I did not.