Chapter 2: The Spring Court
KIANNA
The swift wind came rushing through the swaying canopy of the evergreen forest, leaking warm butterscotch light through the falling of the new leaves, and illuminating the open field that led to a vast and painfully elegant Manor beyond.
The Manor house of the Spring Court was built for opulence, from a visitor's eye it had many pillars of alabaster, balconies swallowed by vine and sweet produce, and below it lay cobbled patios of gardens, loading spaces for the wagons that exported goods, and quick-footed slaves that filled them, seemed to be rushed under the unrelenting sun's eye and the Fae Masters.
Beyond the Manor, the green landscape was a mixture of tumbling and rolling hills, fields of spring flowers, only disturbed by the sunburnt backs and straw hats of human slaves that labored in the sun to feed and serve their High Fae Masters. It seemed their laborious lives went unceasing as they plucked from the ever-plentiful earth, the years came and went when another younger and stronger human would take their place of labor, and so went the eternal dance of Spring.
From one of the erected balconies of the Manor, Kianna could move her toy kelpie horse along the ledge that she could now reach.
"Kelpie swim, swim, swim mommie!"
Her mother's delicately arched ears, and naturally bronze long-limbed skin was only a few steps away minding her daughter for the few hours the servants needed to have their own break, "that's right little one," she said while rubbing her growing belly that brushed against the fabric of her silk dress.
"You like swimming, don't you my little kelpie. You swim better than I do now." She reminded her daughter, while using the back of hand to shield her face from the sun rays. Below the hand to her temple, bright emerald eyes narrowed, troubled. "How would you like to go the lake later on today?"
"Yes! Yes please!"
"We will." Her mother's attentions were stolen once more in her distractions of surveying the fields of human slaves.
As the smaller version of her mother, Kianna played a bit louder to get her attention.
It worked. "What game are you playing my little one?" Her mother threaded her manicured fingers through her daughter's golden head of tumbling curls, and then playfully outlined her long-pointed ear, and Kianna moved away giggling at the tingling feeling it shot through her.
"The Kelpie is swimming mommy, play with me, play!" Her own small bronze hand moved the toy in a swimming motion, showing her mother how she imagined a kelpie would play.
"It is!" She leaned down, moaning a bit as she held her very pregnant belly to squat, but still managing to act as if Kianna was the center of her world, "would you like to go for that swim then?"
It had become hot after the hour they had stood here, appraising their wealth in flesh and production of food at work, and a soothing swim in the lake's cool and steady waters sounded very nice to the little faeling, relaxing even, and she nodded in delight when her mother's soft hand smoothed her baby hairs.
"Then we shall go my little one, would you like me to get Willow"-
"No," Kianna would rather not share her mother, keep her and the baby away from any humans, even if they were nice ones like Willow, but sentries would come as they always did, to watch over their well-being as they were sworn and bound to do. Just as they were bound to keep things in order as the High Lord was away, "I like to be with just us, just the two of us- "
"Cauldron's fuck! Get the hell up!" An angry snarl broke the revelry of their shared peace.
All thoughts of swimming left when a human drenched in sweat and exhaustion tripped and lost her grip on the basket full of produce, scraping her malnourished bony knees against stone, and dropping perfectly good produce she had been carrying on her head. "Pick it up!"
The slave-girl made no move to pick them up.
Instead her dark big eyes dared to look up at the gleaming armor and fine arches of the Fae male that addressed her so, his hand tapping against the half-arm sword at his waist, and the insignia of the Spring Court on his chest, a pale cream five-petaled flower, with a backdrop of deep green and thorns encircling around the circular edge. The symbol was imprinted on every crevice of the Manor, and Kianna knew the expectations that came with it.
"Pick them up." The sentinel snarled at the human woman.
She dared further by narrowing her eyes at him. Ignoring how the now imperfect oranges and apples rolled ominously across the flagstone courtyard, the silence stretching, and both Kianna's and her mother's Fae eyes becoming fixed on the High Fae sentry that picked up a whip from one of the tables, the one they used on the horses, and without hesitation descended it on a human head.
It coiled into the air before landing a blow that was too quick and powerful for mere human eyes to detect. Too fast for one of their kind to even get away. An angry red welt was left on the human's face, on her outstretched arm, she began howling in pain, refusing to go on with her business, and nursing the stinging wound as any creature would naturally do.
"Silence! Silence you filthy human!" The whipped slave wailed louder despite the sentries' command.
Kianna hid in her mother's skirts, because this was the Spring Court, and even Kianna knew that disobedience was never left unanswered.
"How dare you disobey!" Another whip came down once more over her wailing head, but her cries did not end, ringing through the halls of the Manor, bringing more than a few eyes on the scene, and she continued to cry even when one of her companions came to pick her up, leading her safely away from the hateful glares of the High Fae sentry.
"Back to work!" Kianna watched as the slaves did as they bid, another slave child coming up to wipe up the blood of what the wailing girl had left behind. The slave boy looked up, his brown eyes connecting with Kianna's, and she turned away before he could see how terrified she was.
"It's alright to be afraid Kianna," her mother rubbed her back as they walked away from the balcony. "The hand of power is not an easy one to bear, they are but humans," her mother made a noise that usually meant she had no power to change it. "They will not have to suffer for long." '
They will not suffer for long.
Suffering.
For some reason Kianna felt like she knew nothing of the word. "Why do they suffer Mama?"
"Because they must, all of the Cauldron's creatures must suffer in our own way Kianna," her mother's once so reasonable words struck her as silly.
Kianna could not seem to agree, not when people were beaten so savagely that it made her skin crawl.
She liked to think that one day the humans could be put to rest, that they could return to their own lives and the Fae theirs.
That lovely dream broke when her mother continued in a tone too sweet for the words she spoke, "such is the way of their short lives Kianna. Our immortal dominion and protection is the only natural solution to their fragile lives. We are saving them from their own destruction and brutish ways."
"Hm." Kianna tried to understand, but fell short.
Unlike her older brothers that understood, trusted the order of things, she felt just as fragile as the humans.
That fragility frightened her, frightened that her own kind would see it in her, call her out, or one of the humans would act upon it as vengeance for the pain they suffered under her guilty eyes.
"We should speak to your father about beating slaves where you can see. You are too young for such things. By my mother's grave, at ten summers I was still in the nursery, in Vallahan girls are kept inside. Where is your father to deal with these things? He should be here by now," she muttered to herself, still looking out into the fields, more worried about her Lord and husband, and possibly when Kianna's equally wrathful father would return to cause an even bigger stir among the sad and beaten slaves.
"I don't want him to come home," Kianna grieved whatever peace they had found in the absence of crude words and crueler hands.
"I don't want to hear you say that Kianna." Her mother heard her, "you'll hurt your father's feelings." Kianna was very sure her father had no feelings and her punishment for saying so was to go back to the dank and dusty nursery of reading books and playing with dolls.
After Kianna sat in front of her dolls, too sad to do anything with them.
Her mother said it so sweetly it surprised her, "don't be upset my little one, I will see what I can do for that slave."
"Will you free her?" Kianna said hopefully.
"I will see what I can do," her mother chuckled as if she found her request adorably cute, "see if one of our healers can see if she needs anything," her mother said, so alike to a Fae Queen of Old in the stories Willow read for her to get to sleep, that if Kianna had not known she would have guessed her mother was not upset in the least bit. But Kianna could see it.
It worried her mother that her daughter fussed over the humans. She worried, and Kianna knew now would be the only time to really get her mother to understand. Her mother opened the conversation once more. "Would you like to go for a swim Kianna before your Father and brothers return home?"
Kianna little throat became parched, she no longer felt like going anywhere, more interested in what happened to the slaves when she wasn't watching.
"I'd like to heal the slave-girl."
"No Kianna," her mother gave a low growl, she was going to get it now. "I already told you, that is not our place, I will try to have a healer see her-"
"Why can't we be good people to them?" Kianna stood, throwing her doll against the wall, it's face smashing. "No!"
Kianna had not meant to do that, and she tried to pick up the pieces with Willow, but there were too many, too many sharp ones, and it made her hands bleed red. Willow plucked the glass from her hands, and still Kianna felt like no one was listening. "I don't want to be mean to the humans anymore Mama! Listen!" She yelled at her mother that was rubbing her head.
"Hush little Lady." Her mother's slave (Willow) turned nanny thought it appropriate to intervene, pulling down Kianna's raised arms,"little Lady listen to your Mother please. You must stop this."
Kianna howled and struggled against her, "don't you want to leave! Aren't you done with all this fighting," Kianna felt like this was more than a tantrum, for once she felt assured after sorrowful and suffering look Willow had showed her when they were alone, "get out while you still can! I know you want to! I can see it in your eyes-"
"Little Lady stop please!" Willow's eyes widened in horror and she shook Kianna to get her to stop, "please before anyone hears."
Her mothers' smile soured to something frightful as she back-handed Willow.
That made Kianna stop. It made her regret ever saying a word.
"How dare you touch my daughter!" Her mother took Kianna's hand away from Willow, bringing her to her side, and turning on Willow that held her strawberry red cheek, three scratches from her mother's nails made for her blood to smear on her quivering hand.
"Don't ever touch her like that. If I see you shake her again, you will lose your livelihood."
Willow wiped the blood from her lip. Her fingers shaking. "Yes my Lady."
That was all that needed to be said.
Kianna's own tears fell as she was being led away, and yet she couldn't help but notice how both Fae and human bled the same.
How strange.
That despite what she had been taught, she felt more closer to Willow than she had ever been to her mother.
