l'Homme. [Izdihar]

[Elymas]

1st Fall, 511 A.V.


It was difficult to imagine that things might get worse. Xy had been a living nightmare, every waking moment tormented by his captor's, his dreams haunted just as well. But to escape? To take a life and sacrifice it on the altar of his own self-interest, break free of those bonds, only to have it ripped away so very quickly again?

Elymas was at rock bottom. He couldn't possibly sink lower. Even the notion that there was a free kelvic out there because of his heroics did nothing to soothe him. He was so distraught that he felt numbness more than the pain, and even his prayers felt watered down and weak. Had Yahal abandoned him at last, leaving him to his own devices in this hell of a life he'd been thrust into?

Ely didn't believe that. Never. Even as he crouched along a line of other men, shackled like chattel, his fingertips were free enough to curl into his own palm and feel the mark of his God there. Yahal had promised. He had promised to never leave him. And so, though darkness consumed him and there was positively no sign of divine intervention, Elymas had to believe that. He had to cling to such hope because to give up his faith in Yahal would be to tug the cornerstone from beneath his character, his identity, his world. No, as he knelt in dusty streets, inhaling the salty breeze from the sea, Elymas could not give up his faith.

Even when those chains clanked as another, stockier, less beaten slave to his left was purchased and taken from his bonds, he would not falter. Elymas was weak and dehydrated, fatigued and clueless. He had slept the latter part of his journey to this place, whatever place he was in. Even the glorious architecture and other beauties he had been paraded past had been blurred, distant. A part of him wanted to die. The rest of him wanted a cool drink of water and some sleep. Who had the energy to be distraught?

Yahal wouldn't leave hm. He had promised. Elymas was slowly learning, though, that Yahal was willing to go to a lot of dark places to keep his promise.

[Izdihar]

Man's circumstance could change with the shift of the wind, the flip of a coin or the crack of a whip. It was so for Elymas, though the long term effects may not have been immediately -- or even any time soon -- recognized.

A flurry of sweet smelling women descended upon the Benshira, releasing his chains and herding him like a sheep to slaughter into the baths beneath the auction house. Known as the Undertakers throughout all Ahnatep, the sisters were swift in their responsibilities. Elymas was given basic instructions, things such as remove your clothes, use the soap, put this on, turn around. he end result was a cleaner, better clothed slave to be hustled up the steps and through a back door into the auction house above. Sunlight spilled through windows, gleaming off the rich curtain on the other side of which the conversation of bidders and guards carried up walls glossed in turquoise and gold designs.

A marble block rested between the curtain and a cedar podium Nizam the Auctioneer stood at, finishing scribbling something up a scrap of parchment. He looked up briefly, stripping Elymas with pitch colored eyes before the guards swept Elymas from the Undertakers to chain him with manacles wrought of bronze to the block.

The curtain was pulled aside to reveal a sprawl of Ahnatep citizenry, glittering and twisting, moving and sprawling from noble to servant sent on errand to foreign visitor come to witness man's second oldest occupation swat and sing amid unexpected opulence.

It went fast, the bidding, Nizam's voice seeming a living thing to roll through the shadows and light, navigating the intricate channels of commerce with an admirable ease. Chains clinked and jangled and a guard all but shoved Elymas off the block and into the shouldering of guards in crimson and gold. They were tall and proud, in service to what they would swear was the greatest house in all of Mizahar, let alone Ekytol. The curtain swept back up, the crowd flurried in dissonance, arguing over how well the West Winds had worked that deal, if the next was going to be better, if there was time to have a nap before preparing for the party tonight. On and on until it was gone with the shuddering of doors behind Elymas and the accidentally too rough shove of a guard caused Elymas to stumble to his knees in the street.

It was like so the first he saw of Izdihar of the Westwinds was daylight winking off sapphires studding the gold painted straps of her sandals. Embroidered ribbons tied her ankles, their loose ends fluttering in a bit of leftover breeze from the passing of a bustling palanquin. Pale sky silk dripped a hem sewn with tiny, intricate thread of emerald outlining a leafy pattern that danced up across the swell of a hip, swinging across the curve of her bodice. A sheer veil covered the lower half of her face, the shadow of scrutiny glimpsed in the curve of her lips behind it. Thick lengths of unpainted, rich brown hair spilled from the scarf loose about her head, tumbling down the gilded, porcelain skin of skin arms gleaming more with snaking bracelets.

Elymas would find her eyes gazing directly down at him, lined in kohl and the color of an oasis. Spring water. Autumn skies. This noble daughter was a goddess of Ahnatep, a jewel of her people and true asset to her race by all of her delicate appearance.

"Hullo," she greeted in Common, the language terrifying simple on her tongue, one accustomed to the vast intricacies of Arumenic. Her voice was sweet, however, but not too sweet. Young, but not too young. Fresh and, it was sometimes said by both her supporters and detractors alike, disturbingly kind. How irritating that was, how deceptive, how awful or wonderful or any number of things depending on the person uttering them -- kindness was. Genuine or false. Real or fake. Tool or truth.

Whatever it was and was not, that kindness appeared in a smile that was visible in her eyes as she did the unthinkable and offered him a few hands up. Her guards sighed. Clouds skipped across the blazing orb of Syna in the sky, rippling shadows through all the light.

"Let's go home."

[Elymas]

Home was a dusty place far away, where the voices of his small children squealed a most delighted 'papa!' every time they fell upon him, whether he had been away for days or mere hours. Home was the warmth of his wife beside him as she slept, the sound of the animals nearby. Home was something distinct and precious to Elymas. Home was something that had only been a dream for years now.

This woman, whose sandals likely cost more than his purchase, could not offer him that. Elymas, having stumbled to the dirt, had sat back on his heels and allowed his gaze to follow the feminine lines of her form upwards until her young face swam into view. The picture of her was lovely, if the extra arms were a bit disquieting to the human. Her dress and mannerisms together besoke of an inherent importance, a nobility that he could understand even if he had no idea of the politics in this city.

Elymas was scarcely equipped to hate. He had even felt a measure of guilt and sorrow for the Zith who had made his life so terrible for so long, when his own hands had wrung the life from her. And now, he wanted to hate. He wished he could spit venom at the face above him, the one who had purchased him as one might an animal. But he couldn't. Both because he simply wasn't equipped for it, and because her apparent kindness disarmed him. Did he trust it? Of course not. He felt more wariness than anything, said emotion reflected in his scruffy, scratched face.

And then, dainty hands were offered. Elymas glanced down at the smooth, delicate things hovering before him, as if the slight weight of her frame were enough to draw him upright. His own calloused, rough, deeply tanned hands seemed entirely inappropriate to offer to such a grasp. Elymas had learned, the hard way, that following his own desires often equated to pain. And so, not trusting the kind eyes peering down at him, he reached up to accept her grip.

"Hello."

She was as soft as he would have imagined. A strength underlying the satin delicacy, he pulled to bring himself upwards. And then they were off, Elymas pleased to be free from the slavers and the block, but dreading more than a small measure this indoctrination into a new household. After all, people rarely bought slaves for no reason at all. There would be some purpose for him, some responsibility or task. Something that was demanded of him, when all he really wanted was to go home.

[Izdihar]

"I am Izdihar of the Westwinds," the young lady educated him while eyes tipped up through a thick veil of lashes in order to maintain her regard. This was her first significant purchase with funds earned by her own right, unattached by gift or expectation to the treasuries of her noble house. It left a pool of wonder in her eyes, enhancing the aura of innocence that could be shallow as precious rain puddles or deep as the pit into Hai.

"I am your mistress," she went on to say, two pair palms spreading skyward between them with a chime of bracelets and a slither of silk. No intention to address the slave in overly simple, potentially demeaning tones was harbored; but it may have been the result all the same of her ingrained talent at verbal communication attempted to fit itself into more banal boxes of language than that to which she was accustomed.

There was, as well, the understanding that this man was likely undergoing a sense of shock and disorientation brought upon him by the swift casualty of the auction house.

"What's your name?" She wanted to know, a collection of dainty fingers curling in a beckon as she turned adroitly about to face the lavish palanquin lowering to street level by the hardened shoulders of Westwinds slaves. It was a stern faced guard who aided her up, proper and exact, before raising his eyebrows at Elymas -- he was to embark as well.

The first personally purchased slave of disgraced Dirames' daughter would not walk to his new home.

[Elymas]

Elymas was far too desensitized to captivity to roar and rave, to foster bitterness or rage towards this strange, fragile seeming woman who stood before him, speaking to him as if he were a child. He pressed his tongue to his teeth, forming the shape of her name on his tongue, though he did not speak it. Houses and winds made little sense to him, but Mistress was a word that carried enough weight.

So close to freedom. So very close to home and family. How old were his children now? The days had blurred, he couldn't remember. The youngest wouldn't know him at all, would the others even remember? Did his family think him dead, lost forever? To be with Yahal would have been a most exquisite alternative to the hell he had lived in since he had lost everything. It would take a lot for this pretty, tinkling thing standing before him to rival the horrors of a dank cavern filled with Zith.

"Elymas," he responded, his voice subdued. Was it respect, or self-preservation?

It wasn't until the surly guard fixed him with a look that clearly indicated he was meant to board that Elymas balked. What an uncomfortable notion, to climb into such an ornate box and have other men carry him about, as if his legs were useless. He opened his split, bruised lips to argue. Not with the guards, but with the Lady herself.

Something in her gaze arrested his pride before he could display it, though, and with no small measure if discomfort Elymas dipped his head. His discontent was likely evident on his handsome, if injured face, and perhaps it was for the better. He was obeying her, already, at the cost of his own comforts. With sore muscle, and a languid, masculine sort of grace, he climbed into the vehicle.

[Izdihar]

"Where are you from, Elymas?"

Amid the silk draped seats of the palanquin -- that, if not for its luxury would have seemed cramped; instead it was intimate, perhaps thus to the dismay of the shell shocked Benshira -- she occupied more space that her physical form ought have allowed. It was space dominated by the sheer intensity of her regard, space steadied and made certain by the weight of her presence, certain and comfortable. Sandals had been discarded, dropped in a disarray against the floor to skid against the raised, gold pained edge as the palanquin was rose in a wobble she never seemed for a moment to doubt.

Not even a slave of the Westwinds would have dared navigate a daughter of the house unsafely through Ahnateps half crumbled, half opulent streets.

For all of this, she was yet curled up tiny and fathomable in a corner, the curve of a chin cradled by a pair of left sided palms. One corner of the sheer veil shielding her mouth and nose from the dusty of the street had been unhooked, left in revelation of her face in entirety. It held an expression like still water, calm and deep, breath held for all the bright and decayed leaves floating their way down.

That was alright. She was prepared for them. Or that, at least, was the impression she emanated. It was a untroubled balanced between calm and chaos, a janus of a crossroads, pointing toward endless paths. Her face was young, but those eyes of her's were old. Time was a thing with which she had gained close acquaintance in a life where patience had been hard won. But won. Won, after all.

"And what brought you here?"

[Elymas]

For all the feminity the owner of the vehicle possessed, exuded, the slave was the polar opposite. He had been cleaned well enough before his time on the block, but somehow it seemed otherwise. Somehow Elymas was blood and dirt, grit and grime in the fine fabric of her opulence. He'd certainly leave no trace of such on her silky cushions when he stepped out, and yet it was this brutal, raw masculinity which somehow defined him in their limited quarters.

"Near Yahebah," he answered quietly. What point in avoiding the question? What secret worth keeping? His people had suffered for a long while under the tyrrany of the six-armed creatures, but that time was no more. He did not know what had become of his family at all. In his absence, who had stepped in to protect and care for them? Were they well, at all? And what would it matter to this petite picture of feminity fixed across from him, with eyes that demanded an answer without ever narrowing? "Among the Benshira."

With one question answered, the Benshira wanted to laugh at the second. The most terrible misfortune, perhaps, had brought him here? Twice he had sacrificed his freedom for the well-being of another. And though his faith in Yahal was strong, there were days when he felt so very weak, so very tired, so very worn. He wanted the salt of his wife's kiss, the warmth of his children's soft skin beneath his calloused hands. He wanted home.

"I escaped a Zith colony," he said, summarizing half a decade of absolute misery in five words. "Unintentionally injured a kelvic in the wilds, and fell to the raiders I was protecting him from. They brought me here."

How could the fall of his happiness, his entire way of life, be summarized so easily? Elymas felt hollow saying it as simply as all that. Her stare unnerved him at last, so ambiguous, and so he dropped his eyes to his hands and the myriad of gashes and healing wounds atop them.

[Izdihar]

Ambiguity vanished like dew drops in the desert sun with the mention of the Zith. Breath escaped her in a hiss of both horror and disgust, as natural and banal a reaction as any true bred Eypharian would ever harbor.

"Gods of my fathers, Elymas," she swore in fluid Common, a shiver coursing through the whole of her until she clutched at the edges of the sheer shawl as if that might protect her from the taint of so beastly a fate.

A surprising emotion arrived within her eyes on the heels this horror: sympathy. It snuck in like a spy, creeping around the edges of her expression until smoothing away those less palatable biases with hands of hope.

"Nothing like that will touch you in my care," she murmured her promise with a strange vehemence, as if she might actually care. Maybe she did. Maybe it was nothing more than transposed pride. "Once we are home, a physician will see to you."

[Elymas]

Elymas simply stared at her. The delicate fingertips which clutched fabric so frail and lovely, the eyes which hardened as he spoke of the Zith, and then softened with an expression he had not seen in far too long. It was such a humane response that he couldn't help but feel the resonance of it. And then they were jostled, ever so slightly, in their ride. It reminded Elymas of just where he was, and it reminded him of the fact that he was as much a slave to this woman as he had been to his Zith Mistress. What response to give, to that promise? What words to say?

Elymas simply looked away.

"What shall I call you?"

It was a logical enough question. A nice diversion. What else did he have to say? If she was moved by the truth of his miserable life, what more could he add? Would she want to hear of the beatings, the near starvation, the illness, the weakness? Would she like to know how long he spent without the light of Syna upon his skin, or of the scores of women who wept beneath his touch? Would the seemingly delicate thing across from him wish to hear of how they'd all suffered so very miserably? Would she think worse of him for all of the squaling life he created, for the sake of his own survival?

Elymas thought not. His misery, as well as his sin, was his own.

[Colombina]

OOC: WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY FORUM? ::cries:: Check if all the editing bits were closed: [jjjj] [/jjjj]

I may try to move this thread if it doesn't work. Then again, I might be the only one seeing a weird version.