I still don't own Chrono Trigger. Little bit of a history and culture lesson this chapter.
Lyn woke alone in her bed, and for a moment she knew absolute panic. If she was alone in bed, that meant Flea had already woken, and left, and that couldn't bode well. The quiet and fluent murmur of the language used for spells only added to her fear, and she bolted up, opening her eyes and looking around. The murmur stopped, and Lyn realized that it had just been Janus, who was now looking at her oddly.
"You're skittish this morning," he observed, going back to pacing.
"I… thought I slept too much," Lyn answered in a shaky voice, trying to calm down. "Mistress Flea wasn't in bed, so…" she trailed off, realizing she wasn't making much sense.
Janus just shrugged, sitting on the edge of a cot. "So you're her bed slave in addition to everything else?"
"I… well, that is…" Lyn hadn't thought of it that way, even when she'd realized that what she and Flea did was, in fact, sex. "I… guess."
"Can't be too bad, you're not seeming bothered by it," Janus observed.
The conversation was interrupted by Slash, opening the door and entering the room. Glancing at Janus, he said, "Right. Authority and rank. Boy, you know where the new building is going on, over by Medina?" At Janus' nod, Slash tossed him a small packet. "Go and make sure it's progressing well. Take the girl with you so she can start to learn the rank she has." Finished giving his orders, the violet Mazoku left.
Lyn looked at Janus in confusion. "I have rank?"
Janus was busy glancing over the papers as he answered, "Of course you do. You belong to Lady Flea, and the only person she answers to is Maou Ozzie. C'mon, we don't have time to be lazy. Get your ass out of bed and let's be going."
Standing, Lyn glanced at her clothing. "I- I can't go anywhere like this! I'm not decent!"
"You are wearing one of Lady Flea's old dresses," Janus said flatly. "Trust me, no one will think less of you for that." Realizing Lyn was still less than inclined to follow him, he once more grabbed her arm, trying to ignore how soft her skin was under his callused fingers.
The sun had barely cleared the trees by the time the pair reached the construction. Underfed Humans worked under the direction of a couple Imps, wrestling logs into position for a wall, building what would probably be a pen for more slaves. A dozen Hench, both yellow and red, were watching them, and one came up to Janus, asking what they were doing there.
Showing the papers, Janus answered, "Sir Slash told us to watch your progress for the day, and to make sure things are going well."
With a snort, the red Hench handed the papers back and pointed towards an awning. "Ya kin stay there, outta our way," he said.
Janus turned and walked to the awning, leaning against one of the poles. In a quiet voice, he explained to Lyn, "We actually out rank everyone here. It goes smoother when you don't make an issue of it, though."
Lyn barely heard him, looking at the brown clad slaves. "Green is trusted… Undyed is neutral… brown is… What is brown?" She turned her head to look at Janus, asking him, "Janus… what does the brown mean?"
"Insubordinate," Janus answered swiftly. "They earned their colors in much the manner you did, only instead of accepting their place and working with it, they fight it."
"What… happens to them?" Lyn asked softly, not even sure she wanted to know.
"If they never move up, they are worked to death," Janus said, with no pity in his voice.
"Oh." Lyn watched silently as one of the slaves dropped his end of the log and was whipped for it. She tried to reconcile this scene with her own experiences, and found to her surprised that it wasn't that difficult. Herbert, she realized, and probably Tobias as well, if they hadn't been killed, would most likely be here. It was clearly unsafe to put them anywhere they could do actual damage, but letting them free wasn't an option either. And she'd heard stories form Porre, about the lands to the east… about Choras, where the nobles ruled, and the peasants didn't own the land they tilled, or even the food they grew. Was this so different? Except, the peasants hadn't been taken from their homes. But they didn't have the choice to make things better for themselves, either.
Janus followed Lyn's rather blank gaze, and noticed that at least three other slaves were taking exception to Hench whipping one of their own. "Ah, Lardon damn it," he muttered, mimicking the Mazoku curses he'd heard. "Lyn, get your head out of the clouds and pay attention, we might need a healer…."
The Imps, who had been fine-tuning the placement of the logs, were trying to get away as more Hench responded to the violence. More Humans were dropping the heavy timbers and picking up whatever was small, came readily to hand, and might be used as a weapon.
"Are they rebelling?" Lyn asked, coming out of her thoughts. One of the Imps, the blue one, suddenly went flying when a brown clad slave hit him with a shovel, and Lyn answered her own question. "They're rebelling."
"Stay close," Janus warned, going to aid the Hench. Sure, they could take care of this on their own, but that would be messy and cost a lot of lives on both sides.
As soon as he was close enough, Janus began casting, carefully aiming his lightening spells. He focused on the first row of slaves, the ones close to the Hench, trying to take them out before they hurt the Mazoku. He heard Lyn chanting behind him, her ice spell, much to his surprise. "Not bad," he admitted as a bolt of ice flew past him and impaled a Human who was preparing to use his shovel on a Hench.
Lyn stared in the direction her spell had soared, half trying to see the man, expecting him to get back up perhaps. The violent mob hid him from her sight, however, and she had to give up. She prepared to cast again, but Janus stopped her.
"Save your magic for healing," he snapped between spells.
After a few more moments, the Hench and Janus' spells ended the rebellion. "Go heal the Hench, but don't let them use you on little things," Janus directed Lyn, staying where he was. He wanted to see how, or even if, she used the authority she had.
Lyn went to the Hench and looked around a little. Seeing one who was injured worse than his fellows, Lyn started towards him, not entirely surprised when the same red Hench from earlier stopped her. "What you doin'?" he asked.
Lady, and even the Mazoku's Magician, how she hated Hench's accents. Medinian was still hard for her to understand, and the way Hench mangled the words made it even harder. "I am going to heal him," she answer, barely remembering to drop the 'sir' that wanted to come out.
"Yer notta healer! You was using ice back there, I saw ya!" the Hench declared, seeming happy about this for some reason.
The whole situation reminded Lyn of her time in the Choras infirmary, and the absolute authority the healer-mages had there. Unknowingly mimicking her Mistress with her glare, Lyn narrowed her eyes at the Hench. "Move," she repeated in a deliberate manner. When the Hench didn't move fast enough, she pushed around him, hiding her surprise when that actually worked. Barely five paces from the Hench who was her target, Lyn paused briefly and called on her tech, healing the injuries almost completely.
Murmurs ran through the Hench, and Janus smiled. Seemed Lyn was doing just fine. Now would she have the presence of mind to stop after the major injuries were healed, he wondered.
It was surprising how few of the Hench were hurt, in a way. Then again, the Humans had only had makeshift weapons, and Janus had been keeping them away from the Mazoku. Lyn had already healed everyone who would have seen a healer-mage normally, and the worst of those who would otherwise be given tonics. She was feeling pretty good; she could probably heal everyone here fully. But she found that she didn't really want to, and she knew she didn't have to. Hell, she hadn't even had to heal any of them, except for the fact that Janus had ordered her to.
Leaving the Hench, she went back to Janus, who was once again leaning against one of the awning's posts. "You out rank me, don't you?" she asked when she was close.
"Yep."
"What if I had beaten you when we first met in Sir Slash's rooms?" Lyn asked. "I mean, obviously you'd still out rank me, but—"
"No I wouldn't," Janus interrupted. "I'd still belong to Maou Ozzie, but you would have shown yourself stronger than I."
Lyn didn't answer, once again confused by an aspect of Mazoku culture. "Janus? How… That is… do you know how this war started?"
"Don't you know?" Janus shot back, startled.
"Not really. Humans and Mazoku have fought… before the founding of Guardia, even. I was never told why."
"So far as I've heard, Humans started it. Kept the Mazoku as slaves, until one, named Lizard, decided he'd had enough. He got Warrior and Magician to help him, and the three of them became known as the Liberators. Lizard lead the Mazoku here, tried to live peacefully, but Humans weren't very willing to loose all their slaves, so they kept attacking. The one who'd owned Lizard was named Lardon, I think, he's worked his way into enough curses. I never did work out how we got from that to where we are now, but I'm working on it," Janus answered, telling the story Ozzie had told him.
Yet again, Lyn had no answer. She had never heard that story, or any version of it. Humans vilified the Mazoku for keeping slaves; she didn't know how to take the idea that Humans had once kept Mazoku slaves.
At lunchtime, an Imp brought the Human pair food. Janus accepted this as though it were his due, and Lyn did her best to imitate him, trying not to stand out. As they were eating, Lyn asked, "So… Are Mistress Flea and Sir Slash the same rank?"
Swallowing some wine, Janus shrugged a little. "Between the Generals, it gets messy. Officially, all three are the same rank. I think they try not to challenge each other. I get the feeling they're pretty similar in fighting ability, and none of them are willing to find out just who would rank whom from a fight. Then again, at least half the combat is decided by conversations, and I'm generally not around when they're really competing like that."
"Three…?" Lyn asked. That was right, Shanda had mentioned there were three… Lyn had forgotten that, since she had only seen Flea and Slash.
"You haven't met Sir Tihl? Just as well, he has no respect for magic users. He's got light green skin, with orange and white hair and amber eyes, so you know who he is if you ever see him," Janus said with mild disdain.
"Right. Thanks, Janus," Lyn said, giving a smile.
The history I'm using is based off of Weiila's stories. Yes, I do have permission to use it. Now go read her stories, and review before y'go!