"What's all this noise, damn it?!" Nua bellowed at the chaos and stormed out of her office, her statuesque form was already on high alert and her hand was on her companion, her knife.
Her long ears twitched about, 'Rasgen? What the hell is he doing here? Cure Poison?! Someone poisoned the Prince?!' The thought burned through her brain like a brushfire and she immediately reached out to Yersin.
'Yersin?! Can you cure poison?!' Nua asked and activated a martial art to boost her speed and carry her faster to the source of the chaos.
'No, of course not. I spread death, I can heal an injury on someone evil enough using negative energy drawn from the death near at hand… but no. I can't cure poison.' Yersin answered, a hint of mild annoyance touched the voice in her head.
'Shit.' Nua thought as she hit the long hall, grabbed the rail that overlooked the lower floor and hopped over it. She dashed down the long hall to the great stairs, sprinting past several maids who flung themselves out of her path, her powerful legs pushing off the top stair and she cleared the staircase.
'Sorry, partner.' Yersin replied with a touch of regret.
'There's nothing to apologize for, you're not a god after all, at least not outside your world. Regardless, if he dies, I will ensure you feast on the ones responsible.' Nua promised just as her toes touched the floor and she burst into the main hall.
Yersin accepted her promise quietly, then Nua stopped briefly, dumbstruck by the sight before her.
Rasgen was indeed there, and he was down on his knees, but he was, by all appearances, fine. Several servants were gathered about, butlers and maids, and a magic caster in a silver collar was frantically casting spells that glowed over a limp body. She saw the glow through the gaps of legs and bodies, but not who it was.
Nua forced herself to stride forward, "Get out of the way." She barked the order, and the little sea of slaves parted for her, allowing her to see what she did not expect.
"Freyjin…" Nua didn't shout, her voice was hushed and disbelieving. "How…?" She asked, her last few steps were more of a stagger and she crashed down to her knees beside her Steward.
She took up the limp hand, the naturally pale face of the elven warrior and investigator was already becoming more so as the blood pooled in her back as it ceased to circulate in her veins. Nua looked up and to her right where the magic caster, a man of middle years in a silver collar, wearing mage robes distinct from the pants and maid dresses around them, looked vaguely panicked by his failure.
Nua held up a hand with her right palm toward him, "There's nothing you could do, slave… she's gone." She shook her head.
Nua's head snapped away from the slave to look at the Prince. Already she could feel anger and hurt boiling behind her eyes. "What happened, Prince Rasgen…"
The Prince of Pas'en was no coward. But as he felt the eyes of steel turn on him, he felt more 'interrogated' than asked.
Nua reached over with her shaking left hand, and placed her palm over the fine boned face, then with two fingers, closed the empty eyes of her slave.
It was with momentarily mute respect that he let her shut the pale eyes of her bronze collared slave. The tension in her body and shaking in her fingers answered enough about how she thought of her possessions. When it was done, he relayed the events that unfolded up to the present moment.
When the story was told in full, Nua reached down to the limp body of one of her first slaves, and brought it up into her arms to cradle it against her flesh. Her heart all but broke when she realized the one thing she wanted to do, she couldn't. She kept her eyes on her husband to be, "You barely knew more than her name, and I have no business asking you to do this but… I'm… I don't have warmth to pass on to her… not like you. They say the mind lives for a little while… if it's true… I want her to feel warmth… I can't… can't give her that. Help me. Please." Nua pled.
"What use is a husband who does nothing for his wife?" He answered while already moving to press himself closer, sharing his body's warmth with the dying flesh, he put an arm around Nua's upper back and pulled as tight as he could. Her chin was past his shoulder, and his past hers, a bridge forming between them that pressed against the fading warmth clutched in Nua's arms.
"She trusted me to protect her…" Nua uttered quietly.
"She was trying to do the same, everything she said… she trusted it wouldn't be worthless, that she could protect you this time… sacrifice for sacrifice…" Rasgen whispered into Nua's ear, "She was very brave, very… very brave."
"She was Komestran. Bravery is like breathing… it's what they do." Nua said with pride through her unhappy sniffles.
After a few minutes under the eyes of slaves who could do nothing but wait for orders, Nua put one foot flat on the floor, and Rasgen broke his hold. The mistress of the house stood up, lifting Freyjin in her arms. "You." She said, looking at the magic caster, he immediately knelt, "I need her body preserved for her funeral."
"Mistress, the bodies of slaves go to the Tlalmok to-" He began.
Nua roared her order like a lioness protecting the body of one of her cubs, "I said preserve her for her funeral!"
The entire assembly jumped back a pace at her anguished bellow.
"Yes… mistress… right away. I have some preserving cloth…" He stammered and rushed out of sight.
"My Prince… Rasgen." Nua said with much greater calm, "You've done something good for me… good for her. I am eternally grateful, you don't know, you can't know how much so." Nua shook her head and hung it, staring down at the limp body in her arms.
"It didn't save her life. We were so close… If only…" Rasgen swept back his dark hair with his fingers and clenched a fist.
Nua's eyes narrowed with sudden viciousness as she caught something of his tone.
"If only what?" She didn't bother with the honorific.
"The caster followed what she told him to do, and healed the poisoned man. But then she told him to heal herself and the other two Questioners." Rasgen explained, and Nua looked at him with brief confusion.
"That's not unreasonable, they might have been poisoned." Nua replied, but Rasgen shook his head.
"No, I mean it should have been obvious that she was at greater risk after the man spasming on the ground, but… they were healed first even though they might not even have been poisoned. She was on top of him wiping away the poison to try to buy seconds. They took priority because they were free and…" Rasgen sighed deeply and didn't finish.
"My… Freyjin, my Freyjin died because a slave who was almost certainly poisoned, was less important to look after than… than two Questioners who probably weren't? Is that what you're telling me, Prince Rasgen?" Nua said with unnatural calm.
"Yes. The free take precedence over the rest… he didn't have enough mana left to cast it a fourth time." Rasgen replied with ample regret.
"She has children… four of them… little girls who-" Nua ground the words out through clenched teeth.
"Who are your property and your responsibility. A slave essentially holds her children for their owner. The parent means very little under the law. You know this already, the fact that she has children wouldn't have changed his decision…" Rasgen's voice was without reproof, but it was sharp regardless, and Nua felt the sting.
"Prince Rasgen, are wedding gifts customary in Pas'en?" Nua asked with a cool, collected voice, still focusing her eyes on the limp body.
"Yes… why?" He asked with some reticence.
"Then I want you to pass a law for me as your wedding gift to your wife. Call it, 'Freyjin's law'. Let it be written that treatment of injuries through Pas'en goes by severity, not by status. The severed limb of the slave takes precedence over the splinter in their master. Can you give that to your consort?" Nua asked, turning her sea of blue up to meet him. Her endless pools loomed large to him, and it was all he could do to draw himself back from her desperate, longing wellspring to answer her.
"Sobella would have approved… yes. I will pass that law. For you…" He said, and put a hand on the dead woman's cooling cheek, "and for the brave ones." He answered with a little nod, his sharp features loomed statue-like in Nua's eyes.
She didn't know how long they stood like that, but it was long enough that the magic caster came back and laid out the cloth to preserve the body. Nua laid her gently down as if setting an infant to rest, ignoring that the chaos and bellowed orders had drawn others to see the commotion.
Several slaves approached to assist, and Nua quickly snapped out, "No. This is my responsibility." The hands yanked back, and with trembling fingers, she folded the sheer cloth over Freyjin's front, then took the other side, and folded it over the first.
When she'd secured the body to protect it from decay, she slowly stood, while not tall as the elves of her homeland went, she was a full head and some taller than most of those who lived around her in Pas'en, and so she had to look down to catch the myriad of watching eyes.
"Go fetch Kaiji, Priceless, and all four children. Have all of them come to… no… not my office. Have them come to my bedroom." Nua ordered. "And four of you… prepare a pyre on the grounds beside my temple. Spread the word, I want every slave on my grounds, gathered out there in two hours, carry Freyjin with you."
Nua reached out and put her right hand on Rasgen's shoulder, she blinked her eyes to fight against her tears, "You don't have to stay, this is death worshipper business. One of the ways we say farewell in my faith. It's the way I think she would want this done."
"I… I should see for myself. I will attend." The Prince answered after a moment of doubt.
"Do you want to stay with me then, until…?" Nua asked and let the question hang.
"Yes. I should stay with you." The Prince replied, and he followed Nua to her room.
Nua flung open the curtains of her room as soon as they arrived within, it wasn't long before Kaiji and Priceless made their appearance.
Rasgen sat in a chair in the corner of the room and watched the way the pair approached her. Nua had her back to the door and was looking out over her grounds. The pair approached her with small, almost timid steps when they saw the way she failed to completely contain her body's own trembling.
But most of all what struck him was the reverence and affection that they flung at her feet as if it were an offering, the timid steps that he first thought were fear, were something else. Worry for their lady. She stood at the window, shaking in her light armor, a statue that could shiver, and yet still they came on and without a word or even without kneeling, they went to her and embraced her from behind.
In spite of the gravity of it all, it reminded him of the half elves in his service, their resolute devotion to his house was never in question, but he wasn't so naive as to believe that was common. Yet here it was in front of him, the iron will of Komestra embraced her lady and shared in her mourning, as did the smaller human servant. Nua didn't move to return their embrace, but it was clear that, in private at least, she felt safe savoring it.
'So it is… what a cruel system we have in some ways… only behind closed doors do they mourn together… the fact that I'm here… she must put greater faith in me than I realized.' Rasgen pondered, almost rising to join them, he chose not to move, and remained only 'present'.
There was a knock on the door, and like it was an undisclosed signal, the pair disengaged themselves from their lady. Kaiji went down to her knees, and Priceless went to open the ornate entrance, the handle clicked, and four little girls walked in with slow, hesitant steps.
"Come here." Nua ordered softly, Veema, Straen, Lenah, and Shi lined up in front of her and sank to their knees. To their surprise, Nua went down to one knee in front of them, she put a hand on the shoulder of Veema, but kept her eyes going from one to the next.
"This is… the hardest thing I think I've ever done…" Nua began, her lower lip trembled in spite of herself, "I… listen to me, Freyjin… your mother… she was investigating the murders, you recall?"
Four little heads nodded.
Nua explained everything, and Veema felt a sense of pride swell up at her mother's cunning that had her face beaming, oblivious to the severe nature of the mistress of her mother.
It fell away and paled when Nua explained the rush back, the poison, the rush within.
"But she's fine, she'll be alright, right…?! Right?!" Veema demanded as the true answer began to rise up in spite of her plea.
"No… I'm so sorry… but she passed away." Nua replied, "There's nothing I can do for her."
"No!" Veema yowled like a wounded cat, "But you're a goddess! She said you're the goddess of Will! You can bring her back! What kind of goddess can't…" Veema fell prostrate and began to beg. "Please bring her back, please… please… I want my mother… I'll give you anything… anything please… please… I'll be your slave again, I'll do anything you want if you just give her back…"
"Veema… I can't. I'm not 'that' kind of goddess… that's not what she meant… I'm just a servant of the god of death… she spoke of me as a symbol… I'm not divine, and I can't give you what you want… I'm so sorry…" Nua replied and pulled the girl into her arms.
Lenah and Straen stared in mute disbelief as they lost another mother, eyes wide and staring deeply into their mistress's eyes, searching with longing for some way to believe she was lying.
When they could find none, they fell into the body of their rescuer and sobbed desperately. "No more mothers… no more… all they do is die on you…" they murmured through their sobs.
Shi, however, scratched her head briefly. "Oh… I liked our nestmother… I didn't think she would become meat… I'll miss her." The blue haired girl said with dry eyes and a calm voice.
"Shi… really?" Kaiji said with some reproach.
"Did I say something strange? I've lost lots of nestmothers, they take care of the nestlings and talkmates and make lots of nestling meat until they're taken away to heaven. Isn't that normal? Someone just took this nestmother to heaven… right?" Shi asked.
"No… Shi. No." Priceless whispered and drew the girl away while the others lost themselves.
"What do you mean, 'No'?" Shi asked with a furrowed little blue brow. "Crawlmaker told us that we shouldn't be sad when someone gets taken, they go to heaven, that's what happened with my talkmates and older nestsisters, nestbrothers, and all the nestmothers from the breeding pairs when they stopped making nestlings… so isn't that what happens when-" Priceless covered Shi's mouth with a finger.
"No, Shi. No. When they took your nestmothers, they were killing them for food, they didn't go to some place called 'heaven' none of them did, all that was a lie, done to keep you obedient. When someone is… killed, what you call being 'made meat' they don't go anywhere, they're just… gone. That's what someone did to Freyjin. That's why your sisters are sad."
"Wh-What?" Shi asked in a tiny little voice. "My brothers… big sisters… and… and… F-Freyjin… she was nice to me… she was nice! She was nice! You can't be saying something true! You can't be! You can't be you can't be it's not true it's not true it's not true nottruenottruenottrue! It's a lie! Lie! Lie! Freyjin's not gone! My nestmates aren't gone! They went to the heaven place!"
Shi's voice rose to a shout for the first time since any of them had known her, it became a kind of a keening screaming denial that became a fit of violence. Priceless held the blue haired girl against her as small fists pounded and she kicked, screamed, howled, and keened out numbers like they were names over and over again, and ended the cycle with Freyjin's name before starting the cycle over.
Despite her denials, little things were falling into place in Shi's mind that she cursed herself for not understanding before. The constant references to meat, the way they were kept apart, the constant need for more, that nobody ever came back, even the fact that they were all well fed and kept fat. Having seen the way fattened pigs were brought to the estate for meat… it all made perfect sense.
She went utterly silent after awhile and began to reevaluate everything in her life before her mistress took her. Coming down to one inexorable realization about what must have happened to the people she lived with the night she was taken. 'She knew. She knew and said nothing.'
When they'd finally been calmed down enough, Nua began to rise, calmed down herself enough, she addressed the four, "Your mother had given herself over to my beliefs, and so we'll do a funeral in our fashion. There are a number of different rites depending on what someone wanted, and I think I know the proper one for Freyjin. If you have no objections…?" Nua asked, and their little heads shook, mute and numb, they accepted her will.
"There is one more thing," Prince Rasgen interjected, and at Nua's attentive look, he explained the issue of freedom that had concerned Freyjin the most.
"Are we allowed to refuse, mistress?" Lenah spat the words out in a rush.
"I won't make you leave, if that's what you're afraid of." Nua replied, "Your mother died in my service, I don't think she wanted that for you."
"Mistress…" Straen pressed, "Can we say no anyway?"
"I-I don't…" Nua stammered, briefly flummoxed.
"I want to stay, and to learn… and get even with the one who did this." Lenah snarled out, her eyes bright and little mouth clenched in childish fury.
Nua rubbed her temple, "I… fine. This isn't the time to force you into anything. Just know that the day you despise my service, I will permit you to go free, consider it 'delayed' for now."
'By the god's own bones, what have I done…?' Nua wondered, "Come along then… It's time to settle the matter of her rest."
Priceless released Shi and scurried to the door to open it, and Rasgen passed through, followed by Nua, the four, and Kaiji.
The door clicked shut, and an empty house greeted them, no sound of footsteps, only the occasional rustling of a curtain and the sound of their footfalls eerily over the wood. Sunlight streamed bright through the windows and cast shadows over the floor while Nua moved to the front, her shadow passing over the Prince as she took the lead in her home, and walked out the back entrance.
The grass was soft beneath her feet and pressed under every step. The small temple stood a proud monument to not only her commitment, but that of the slave that oversaw the project for her.
'A place of confession, repentance, and guilt for me all at once.' Nua pondered as she passed it by, there, assembled in long squares were her many servants. Warriors had chosen to deck themselves in armor for the assembly as the story spread of their fallen comrade, heads were bowed in anticipation as the last of the pyre of wood was stacked into place waist high.
"Go… say your goodbyes." Nua said to the four, who ran to the wrapped body which sat laid out on the grass. Little arms and legs pumped like grown warriors rushing into the fray, their hair streaming high behind them, caught up by the breeze, for a moment a vision passed before Nua's eyes of what she felt lay ahead.
Powerful figures without fear and moving that way toward a most unfortunate target, no more little girls, but grown women. Nua glanced to the sky, 'Freyjin… you'll be proud of them, wherever you are…'
Nua walked more slowly, steadily, and Rasgen fell in beside her. He didn't say anything, but he did catch a part of her by surprise when he took her hand in his.
When they reached the assembly, Freyjin had been fawned over by farewell little kisses and hugs that brought most of the assembly to tears.
"Will you help me with this part, Rasgen?" Nua asked, "I'll take her at the head, you at the feet?" She clarified.
A lifetime of Princely dignity shouted at him, 'You're the Prince, you don't do grunt work.'
The memory came back to him of Sado in his youth, jumping into some mud to help push a peasant's cart out of a rut, and waving farewell to a grateful old man with a boyish grin. "Yes." Rasgen answered with a solemn nod and stood at the feet of the fallen slave.
He felt familiar eyes on him as he and Nua lifted her free of the girls and laid her on the pyre. Out of the corner of his eye, he confirmed the truth when Sado approached with Diana at his side.
"Master." Sado said to his old friend and bowed deeply, the word burned like fire in Rasgen's heart, but with nothing to be done for it, he acknowledged the greeting.
"You know already?" Rasgen asked while Nua took brief reports on attendance in hushed whispers.
"Yes, My Prince." Sado said with a voice more humble than Rasgen once thought possible for the warrior. The slave prince bowed to the body which lay there with hands crossed over her torso.
"I still find it hard to believe." Diana added, "Prince Rasgen." She raised her chin to show herself without a collar. "I didn't know her for long but… she was strong and getting stronger. Who knows what she could have been if…"
"Right." Rasgen acknowledged as Nua returned from her brief discussion with several household members that were heading back to their squares of butlers, maids, laborers and warriors.
"Fewer than I might like but… most are enjoying their time away." Nua admitted, and turned to Sado. "Would you like to speak, Sado?"
He blinked, stunned by the honor offered to him, then hung his head in deference, "I would… but-"
"Then you will. I'll give the order and address them after." Nua spoke in crisp, militant tones, which Sado quickly adapted to. "Kaiji, gather the mages at the front, on my order, hit this pyre with the hottest flames you can muster."
"Prince Rasgen… if you want to stand aside…" Nua gestured to a spot a stone's light toss away.
"No. If you're saying this is acceptable for you, then how can the Prince shy from it?" Rasgen said with a prideful reproach.
"You continue to prove the man you are, I apologize for my remark." Nua replied and smiled sweetly at him. Kaiji, Shi, and Veema stood near Freyjin's head, while Rasgen, Priceless, Lenah, and Straen stood at her feet.
In the center, Sado stood. "Bow your heads." He said in his princely voice. As the crowd obeyed, he said his peace. "I met Freyjin when I was inadvertently rescued by her mistress and the band of twenty-five. She was the first to say to her mistress that she wanted something enough to fight for it. Freyjin kept on fighting for her desires, through uncertainty, danger, confusion, and fear, she found her place in this world. Found children, and a life, and laid all that down on the altar of sacrifice for all those she treasured. Greater love has none in this world than that they lay down their lives for their comrades. Her love was her strength, and in it she found a death that, much as we might mourn it, was as glorious as any on the battlefield… because she found it protecting what she loved. We who live, must learn from her example."
Sado looked over his shoulder and nodded to his mistress.
Nua's eyes glowed golden as she addressed her people, "I was informed that bodies go to feed the Tlalmok. But I will not honor her courage by feeding her to those she hated. Freyjin served me loyally, and now, in death, she is set free! She is buried in the sky, where none can ever touch her and she may watch over us all forevermore!"
She raised her hand, and chopped it down in front of her. "Fireball!" Kaiji shouted, and a double line of magic casters sent flames roaring over the space between, the sticks and logs caught fire, the flames licked the sky and tore through flesh and cloth, sticks crackled and burned, smoke began to rise and carry the body of the slave warrior into the sky above, heads craned back, and a Komestran war song began somewhere, with some sonorous anonymous voice, where it was joined by another… and another… and another. Until it spread to the whole assembly, and rang out until the body of Freyjin was reduced to nothing, and the last plumes of smoke vanished from view.
The funeral dispersed little by little, as people lined up to give their sympathies to the children who had lost their mother, and pay respect to the place the body burned away. Sado placed himself in line, and even though she knew it was wholly inappropriate, Nua couldn't help but think… 'He reminds me of some of those priests turned paladins… every inch a warrior, every inch a priest. It's a good look on him.'
When the last of their number vanished, Nua saw Veema going to dig through the ashes.
"Veema…?" Nua asked and went to put a hand on her shoulder.
"I want something…" Veema urged and continued to claw through the ash and remnants of wood.
"Veema her clothing, her body… it's gone…" Nua said, until the glint caught her eye.
"That… I want that." The little blonde elven girl pointed to the bronze.
"Her… her collar? Why do you want that? She did have things to be left behind of her own… I won't take those from you…" Nua promised and tried to pull her back.
Veema violently shook herself loose and her fingers rushed into the quickly fading heat of vanished magic flames, her fingers dug through the ash where the enchanted collar rested, still locked as if it had not been around a woman's neck. "Because I want to wear it! I want my mother's place!"