Solo Every Stone Turned

[Kryos Coal]

Every Stone Turned
5th day of Fall, 513 A.V.

It was two bells before dawn when a form shifted upon the dried rushes that made his bed. One hand seemed to crackle like gravel as it pushed against the worn floorboards of the tiny room, shadowed figure sitting up slowly, letting the sleep slide off of him like water pouring over river stones.

If there was a time Coal enjoyed most, it was probably now. He grunted softly as his legs picked him off the ground and brought him slowly outside, dark eyes gazing up into a sky that was going to get lighter by the chime. It was quiet now, save for the chirping of insects and peepers, tree frogs and the sometimes the call of a loon or owl. Most everything was either settling in for the daytime hours, or not yet woken, which went for slaves, freeborn, and dynasty families as well.

Dark black fingers, smooth as marble and hard as granite slid up along his neck, feeling for the mark in his skin, the brand that marked him as Radacke property. He took comfort in knowing precisely where he belonged sometimes, and it was a bit of a habit in the mornings before he began his routine.

First he paced behind the wooden shack and began his morning stretches. He always began with his dark left arm. It wasn't that he faulted his right arm, but it had neither the strength nor the finesse of his left, and thus, it simply needed the extra care, or so Coal liked to think. He pulled it across his torso until he could feel his shoulder creak with the effort, then rotated his arms and leaned them forward along his toes, leaning forward until he felt his back crack. This continued with his legs, his neck, even his fingers. He was simply a tool, like a plow behind a horse, as many of his overseers liked to say, but no tool could be kept in good condition without a little work.

Any tiredness was gone at the end of his stretches, and the Isur rose off the ground, turning to lie flat upon his stomach, placing his hands beneath him and pushing his full weight off of the ground, then lowering himself back down until his chest brushed the dirt, only to do it again. Often he would try this trick with one hand, which he could almost accomplish with his left, but never with his right. It wasn't long before his breathing got heavy and he took a short break, just long enough to fit his feet beneath a loose slat in the shack, and begin doing sit ups, arms folded neatly across his chest.

When he was done he gazed back up at the sky, a lightness to the fields around him that hadn't been there upon him first waking, and Coal rose once more and returned to his room for the simple shirt he wore over his chest. Now he could here the stirring of his fellows, and see candle light from the plantation houses. Now his bit of peace was nearly over.

"GOOD MORNING, SLAVES!"

Rang a voice whose cheeriness had long stopped being amusing. The day had begun, and it was time to get to work.

[Kryos Coal]

One would think that picking plants would not be so hard. Coal himself did not find the task overly difficult, and would let his mind drift, though to where even he wasn't certain, as he methodically put his hand around the base of a tobacco plant, making sure to get the roots and all before placing it in a cart to be taken to another section of slaves who stripped off the choicest leaves for bundling and sale. Usually his job alternated from picking to tilling the soil which was rotated and added to behind each line of plants that was picked up, sometimes with plows, sometimes simply with hands. He enjoyed tilling the earth and adding new fertilizer to it. There was a time and place to be disgusted by excrement and for Coal it was long past, but there was a satisfying feeling in feeding the earth and seeing the seeds of a new tobacco crop sink into the soil. It was difficult, tiring, and at the end of the day bodies, his own included, reeked of Tobacco and felt old and worn, but it was what he and his fellows were for, and that was that. Rhythm, patience, and work a cycle the Isur hardly minded.

There were others that did though. Coal was a quiet being, worked quietly, followed orders quietly, and rarely spoke to anyone slave or servant or master. It seemed to him, though, that others needed speech far more than he did himself, for those around him liked to share the family gossip, news of big building jobs that the Radacke's had been contracted for and by whom. And of course, they complained. You didn't complain when an overseer was around surely, or when a family member was standing over you, assessing your condition, so why then complain when they were not around? Coal had always wondered.

The source of the complaints today, and for many days previous to it was a slim female, though he couldn't remember her name. It was some sort of flower, of that he was sure. She had formerly been a house slave, but had been sent to the fields upon being replaced by a more buxom and simpering female, of that Coal had heard a great deal. The woman herself may have been comely in her youth, she had fine features and soft lips, but now Coal could see lines etched into her face, and a back that seemed a little stooped, even when she was standing up straight. She had barely been working in the fields a season and most everyone else was already tired of hearing her complaints. So generally Coal was stuck working side by side with her. Since he never said much of anything, the woman took it as room for her to speak, and thus their day went, with one silent and one chattering, albeit quietly, while they worked the fields. Coal preferred silence, but he didn't begrudge the woman her bitterness, something she seemed to have quite a lot stored up on.

"I kept that house sparkling, not a spec of dust to be found had you ever tried to look. My knees would be raw at the end of the day, and they throw me out, like...like..."

"Like a lame horse?" Coal offered, watching the woman's back stiffen at his words. She put another few bushels of crop in the cart and looked up at him, as if seeing him for the first time as an individual actually absorbing her words.

"Exactly, its outrageous."

"But you are a lame horse." He said patiently. He simply did not understand what she was failing to. If she had been fit for the job they would not have replaced her. She had somehow gotten this sense of entitlement from her work in the house. He saw two angry eyes glare up at him before furiously picking at the Tobacco again, her mouth closed for the first time in weeks, or so it seemed. Coal shrugged and went back to work.

[Kryos Coal]

It was slow work, tiring work, and for the remainder of the day, Coal suffered it in silence, for his picking partner...Daisy? No...Saffron? No...well she was silent. Every now and then he could feel the hot glares of her beady eyes boring into his back, but every time he glanced over she was hunched concentrating on filling her basket with the tobacco plants, in fact, it was probably the hardest Coal had ever seen her work.

He did not regret his words, but after the short break they received for drinks of water and heels of bread, the Isur had to admit that the silence bothered him. In its absence he heard the humming of insects, the occasional shifting of vegetation under a stiff breeze, and the breathing of his fellow slaves, along with the methodical motion of uprooting the tobacco to line the baskets and carts and crates.

And it was dull.

Coal's fingers were stained from the juice from the plants by the time Syna had set low enough in the sky that they were released from their labors. Toward the end of the season with the last of the harvest torches would be put out to ensure that they worked throughout the night to get in the crops, but for now, they were allowed the precious hours of the night in which to rest and re-cooperate for the next day.

Coal sat outside the little shack where a collection of slaves slept, sitting alone with his wooden cup of water and another heel of bread, filling his stomach upon the food. He watched the stars emerge behind a blanket of clouds, Leth dark in the sky, and wondered if tomorrow the woman would be just as mad at him. It was strange that it bother the Isur this much, it shouldn't, for he had done nothing particularly wrong, yet he still felt a bit badly.

Teeling himself it was nothing, Coal went inside and curled up upon his straw palette to get some sleep.

When he woke next he knew that it was earlier than he normally did, perhaps it was the very black quality of the night, or something about the air, or the heaviness of his lids as he blinked them a few times to restore functionality. Despite the mistake, Coal knew he wouldn't be able to fall asleep again, so instead he rose quietly, body slowly rising off the mat so as not to disturb his peers before walking barefoot and cautious out the doorway into the night.

His process was the same, he lowered himself upon the ground and began his push ups. This time he completed one fully with his left arm, and a new trickle of sweat began on his brow by the time he had moved to the sit ups. He stretched his arms and legs, rolled his neck, then tried a few more push ups for good measure, all the while watching the sky, which refused to begin to lighten. Frowning the Isur paced around the small shack a few times, knowing he wouldn't go back to sleep, his efforts halted when he nearly tripped upon a stone in his path. Recovering, the Isur knelt down and lifted the stone close to his face, unable to make out much except the rounded shape of the object. It was smooth under his finger tips though, and Coal sat down upon a rickety bench outside the shack and pondered over the stone for a moment.

Slowly he began, using his left hand to shave away sections of rock with his hardened fingernails. Like wood flakes the pieces of stone fell to the ground beside his feet. Even though he didn't have an idea when he began, the Isur had a plan for this piece of stone, one he had to check with his fingertips every few ticks, since he couldn't quite see what he was doing.

First he made the shape, small ridges he gouged around the edges, forming what would be petals. In the middle of the stone, or what he sincerely hoped was the middle, he made a rounded shape, and using his pinky finger for detail made a small moat in the rock around it, wishing he had better tools than simply his fingers. Using his callused palms he smoothed the stone as he work, rounding out the petals and inlaying them with lines for depth.

Slowly Syna's influence tainted the horizon, but Coal barely noticed save for the fact that it gave him more light to work with, so focused was he on his task. Now that slivers of light crept in he could see the petals of the flower were misshapen, and odd, so he created new grooves in the stone to make it look like they were overlapping, deepening the lines he had originally dug into the petals with his thumb. The center he rolled upon his palm to smooth it, poking it with his pinky to create grooves in the spherical middle akin to the indentation upon a real flower.

A call went up and the commotion of the slaves began. Coal looked up, eyes wide and startled, realizing how much time must have passed, and quickly flipped his design over, tending to the back swiftly by grinding it against his flesh to smooth it out.

The finished product was a thick petaled daisy, a bit lopsided, but made with concentration and care that fit neatly into the center of your palm. Coal's lips twitched somewhat, and he stuffed the carving into his pocket before heading back into the fields.

[Kryos Coal]

Back into the fields he went, treading the same path he had the day before, and the day before that and the-

Dark eyes met with still angry one's, was it Tulip? No...Iris? No...Dammit he was no good at this game. The Isur slowly trudged into the fields, shoulders hunched as he was so used to doing, just another sign of deference to tired eyes with steaming cups of cider that would keep the master's warm as they oversaw their workers.

Despite the fact that Coal had learned much about patience in his short time upon Mizahar, he found his fingers twitching excitedly as he picked the crops, having to tell his mind to calm in case he ruined the stems or leaves, or crushed them, as was easy to do in his stone like grip. But he was quite excited to show...the woman...the other slave his gift to her. Possessions weren't allowed among slaves, Coal kept his pendant of Izentor buried in a small hole beneath his bed of straw, and rarely removed it lest it be taken away from him. Giving her something even as small as a shoddily carved stone could prove difficult and risk getting him in trouble, something Coal was usually quite against...

Yet as the silence continued throughout the day, both work partners slowly pulling up plants, stripping away dirt and roots, Coal rising and bringing the full baskets to the carts which were slowly taken creaking away to the store houses to be hung and dried. Every time he returned to the woman's side he hoped she would speak. Perhaps it should really be he who broke the silence, but the Isur couldn't bear the thought. So he waited, just as he was so used to doing, and when the short break for eating a bit of dried bread, perhaps old cheese or maybe even scraps of fruit depending on what came out of the kitchens came, Coal got an extra bowl of food and brought it to the woman, fingering the small stone which he had kept in the pockets of worn trousers, and slid it onto the edge of the plate, beneath the heel of bread.

She snatched the food away suspiciously, and Coal sat down cross legged, inhaling most everything in one swallow. It didn't pay to take your time eating, Coal had found, for food could go missing quite easily from a wooden plate or bowl, but it could not go missing from one's stomach. He sat quietly, eyes watching the rolling fields of tobacco, wondering if others would think the site beautiful when to him it seemed dull. His reverie was interrupted by a small gasp, and Coal's eyes slid slowly over to the female, whose hand was in her empty plate, clearly examining his gift. She ran her thumb and forefinger over the flower petals, chocolate brown eyes looking up to Coal whose lips twitched in the suggestion of a smile.

In one quick motion the woman slid the carving into the apron of her dress, handing the empty bowl back to Coal who went back to the table to deposit the dishes and return back to work.

When he turned around to find his partner, however, she was nowhere to be found, and dark eyes found her almost half a field away settling in with an older woman. Coal frowned, confused. Had she not liked his gift? Was it perhaps because the flower did not match her name, or that it was so poorly done? Coal returned to work, alone for the rest of the day, his mind puzzling over the potential meanings of his companion's vanishing act, fingers slowly staining from the plant juices of his work.

Another day gone Coal returned with the rest of his enslaved brethren to the ramshackle houses in which they slept. A small meal was ate in silence and darkness, and the Isur, a bit saddened by the events of the day, walked ponderously back to his bed, ready to sleep and begin it all again the next day.

It was lucky a slant of moonlight crept in through the slats in the wooden structure that provided him shelter, or he would have collapsed upon the plants that had been placed upon his sleeping spot. In the darkness Coal could not identify the object, so he gently picked up the stem of the plant and brought it outside, holding it up to the moonlight, then quickly brought it down. What he had was a sprig of lavender, and though it was a small piece, it was a grave thing for a slave to take from the fields, even worse than trying to dry and smoke the tobacco yourself since the plant was so valuable as dye. The Isur hurried into his hut and moved away the straw, digging into the earth until his fingers met the solid piece of stone that was his religious amulet. Gently Coal pulled it out of the earth, rubbing away the soil and holding it to his chest in a mute prayer. He then ripped off a strip of his trousers wrapping it around the lavender sprig and placed it into the hole with his stone necklace, replacing first the earth and then the straw upon them.

Coal had a hard time falling asleep that night, but just as his eyes closed and his mind began to drift he remembered her name, so obvious it had been.

[Translucent]

Congratulations On Your Hard Work!

Kryos Coal:
XP:+2 body building, +3 agriculture, +1 sculpting, +2 observation
Lores: The comfort of belonging. A slave is only as good as they can serve. Hiding possessions as a slave.

Notes: This is odd. I distinctly remember grading this thread.. Maybe I forgot to past the grade in? Anyway here it is again Also, *coughs and points to winter thread calendar* Sorry for the problems Radacke slaves might get in this season ;0

As always PM me if you have issues.