A Dancers Sorrows and Joys

[Taylani]

90 Summer 513

How nice of these barbarians to hunt down a pencil and paper from one of their 'stranger' merchants. They don't even use paper and pencil here! But I must write, or else run the risk of forgetting who I am amid these people. I want something left to commemorate what happened to me, even if no one might ever read it. I fear I am trapped here and will never see Mama again. I suppose for clarity sake, just in case these horrible people do not destroy this or lose this when I am gone and someone can read it that they will know. I am a prisoner, a captive, a..I don't know. Today is the first day that I have been within the city that these people call Endrykas. Up till now I have been forced to travel with a man from Syliras who joined them and helped them. I am not the only one but I do not want to know the other captives. I want to be left alone, to lick my wounds.

So I decided to write. There are some here who want to be here, others who are so catatonic with perhaps terror or grief that they have to be forced fed. What do these people want? I don't know. I wish I had studied better at school, writing is not easy for me but its necessary. Every day someone comes to take me through the city, pointing at things. Sometimes they only spoke Pavi -the language of these detestable people - other times they try to speak in Common. They seem to be trying to teach me where things were located in the city. Am I to be a slave? A servant? When I ask the only thing that is told to me is that Drykas need more Drykas....and that sounds ominous. One lady offered to braid my hair.

Normally I wouldn't mind, but I have noticed that Drykas women braid their hair almost to the last one of them. I will not braid my hair. Some try to act nice, others ignore us. Very few are outright cruel and mean and those might have been provoked by one of those who are too far gone in their grief to contain their emotions. All I know is this is bad. This is very bad.

[Taylani]

1 Fall

This has got to stop. I am getting as bad as the ones that cry all night, crying wont help so why do we do it? I haven't even been able to practice any of my poses because I just cant force my body to do them. Not even sure what the word is for what I am feeling, other then just hopelessness. Was informed today that they hoped that the captives would become Drykas. Considering I was expelled from Syliras and don't really have a home that might be an option, not so bad as being a slave as I had thought it would be.

Still, I am not one of these people, and what right did they have to steal people to force them to become one of them? Why were there far more women and children then men? Perhaps because men are stronger, can fight more. Did no one tell these chiefs..leaders..or whatever they are called here that people did not just fall over themselves to join a culture after being whacked in the head with a club. One wonders if they had thought this through, it seemed a little fishy to me.

Some things I have noticed about the Drykas. They loved color, they loved horses. Everywhere I go there is horses. They smell, they are big, and they could do a lot of damage if they decided to kick you. These people seemed to take caring for their horses to a different level though. And the beads, I think I saw one that had to have at least thirty beads in her hair.

We seem to have the run of the city, though there were always watchful eyes on us. Not sure why, if we run off there would be nothing but grass..and more grass..and more grass.

[Taylani]

8 Fall

Met a horrible little man today, someone by the name of Fallan. If I could have scratched his eyes out I would have. I have been slowly adapting, considering a life here in this bizarre place with these barbaric people. It would be lonely it would be hard, I still miss my mother and I would have to give up Dance. If I hadn't been expelled I would be kicking and screaming and fighting for all its worth. But really what is left to me? I might have been able to find a way to Riverfall but unlikely.

Then today I met someone who called me a slave. said I spoke common and that was the tongue of slaves. I assured him as politely as I could that I was not a slave. His smirk just made my blood boil. I have never met someone who could get under my skin so fast. I know I am not the most gentle natured person but within a mere minute of meeting him I was fighting going after his eyes with my nails. It was just the briefest of meetings but I sincerely hope I never see that barbaric man again ever. Maybe he will wander out and a bear will eat him. Would serve him right. Slave indeed..

[Taylani]

10 Fall

Devastation. Horror. Humiliation. Unmitigated rage. All these feelings and more are crowding my thoughts this evening. So much has happened. I was sold today. Sold. SOLD. Like some discounted piece of meat. Paraded in front of these horrible people, that had told me they wanted nothing more then to make me Drykas. Laughable that I was in a position to almost accept that..until they put me on the auction block. Standing up there with all those eyes on me. It was horrible, I am a stage performer but for that..that was the worst e...well at the time I thought it would be the worse experience of my life..until I found out who had bought me.

That ...that Fallan was the one who bought me. Bought me. Then accused me of lying and called me his slave. His slave! Well this time I did go for his eyes, and he will bear my marks on his cheeks for a while. I hope it takes me a month to pick his skin from under my nails. He told me that I was going to bear his children, even now my hands shake so hard these words are difficult to write legibly.

I told him I would do everything in my power to kill any child he forced on me, and then he threatened if I did that I would be put in chains and bear everyone's child. How I hate him, how can anyone be such a cruel uncaring person. Even now as he snores in his bedroll I would love to find something good and heavy and smash in his skull...I would...but he offered me an out.

He struck a bargain with me, two healthy children weaned from my breast and he will take me back to Syliras. It is still not sure that I wil be able to talk to Knight back in but its hope at least. Otherwise what else do I have, stay here in this dreadful place and just pop out children? At least this way...at least this way he didn't hurt me.

He did bed me....after plying alcohol on me. Nasty stuff that. My first time with a man, it was not my choice. After I didn't even have tears left to cry. Now I am his toy to play with, to force children on. But at least I have hope that I won't always be that. I can only pray that pregnancy comes quick. I am not sure I can bear being with my rapist for very long without killing him...or myself.

[Taylani]

20 Fall

Today was hard. I am losing myself to him. I feel everything that makes me Taylani bleeding away with every night spent with him. I have tried to avoid him as much as possible during the days. Finding errands to run, walking away from he and his family when it is time to move. I am sure that they think me a petulant child sulking when I am punished for my own good, but I know that the more I am drawn into his world the less I am me. I don't want to be his whore, his bed slave. Whose only purpose is to provide him pleasure, and eventually children.

Yet what else am I? I can dance in a place which doesn't have a stage. I am a singer who can not speak the language of the people, and who really would not pay someone to sing. I have no other skills for that was my life. Now I am learning skill sin the bedroom. Skills in which I did not ask to learn. I am finding myself wishing he would fully treat me as a slave, then I could hold onto the hard hatred I had for him when he bought me.

Instead he has been gentle, patient. He has tried to teach me his life, and he has never raised a hand to me. It is really conflicting when at the same time I want to hate him, I want to hurt him the way he has hurt me. He doesn't even seem to understand the ways he has hurt me. Today when he forced me onto a horse, to teach me to ride he had ample opportunity to show me what hides behind his eyes at times. The darkness that plays in those gray depths that I know is there, yet he never lets it out.

I also lost my own control, and ..encouraged the bedding this afternoon. I just wanted a moment of comfort, or happiness. I knew it was wrong, I should not enjoy anything at the hands of him who would force me into his bedroll, even reminding myself of his threat to have me bear multiple children for multiple people..did not stop me. There must be a reason I did that. Am I really just accepting being his bed toy? Is that what is happening? Why do I find it more difficult to anger now, and easier to just let him do what he wants.

Am I no longer Taylani? Is whatever made me me already dead?

[Taylani]

22 Fall

It's not right. How can he humiliate and shame me in one moment, and make my heart beat anew in another. Does he even know how much shame I feel at his hands? Or does he know and not care? Everyone, obviously, knows what he keeps me for. What most of the captives who were bought are kept for. Are we no better then walking wombs to them? Do any of them care that we were loved, wanted, and cared for once? No. All they care about is getting more babies, no matter what it does to us. Perhaps Fallan is right, perhaps I had a romantic view of the world and how it worked. It just shows to prove that Syliras was the better place to grow up in, where children didn't have to be jaded by how hard life was.

No matter how many times I remind myself that he rapes me every night, even though he doesn't physically have to subdue me I still have no choice in the matter. I choose no every night but I can't voice that choice, why? Because of the bargain...and why did I accept the bargain? Because he was going to father children on me with or without my cooperation. I thought this way would be less painful...I was wrong. There is no physical pain, if there was perhaps I wouldn't be so conflicted. The emotional torment is worse. Because ....Dare I even write it down? If I write it down then it is real and not just in my head...or evident to Fallan as I am sure he has noticed. The fact of the matter is ..I am beginning to get pleasure from his touch.

That is wrong and disgusting, I know. I must be losing my mind, today I tried to make him angry. I know that I do, but he refuses to touch me, to hit me. If he hit me, if he beat me, if he would put me in chains then I can go back to hating him. Instead he is breaking me slowly, I know it. I feel myself slipping away, the will to fight ebbing slowly. I fear that even if his seed took hold tonight it would be too late for me to ever extricate myself from here without lasting results. I am no longer Taylani.

[Taylani]

25 Fall

Met another captive, I guess there were so many of us that I just didn't get around to meeting all of them. She frightened me, only because she was what I am becoming, I know. She walked around camp proudly on the arm of her "Drykas". She wasn't one of the volunteers, but then again she wasn't one of the catatonic captives either. Instead she bragged ..ok maybe just told..that she had accepted him and could learn to love him.

Learn to love someone who purchased you? Perhaps he hadn't threatened her with chains and rape by different men if she didn't comply. Ugh. I am afraid though, that I am slowly accepting his touch as normal. Slowly accepting his way of life...slowly accepting him.

I don't know which would be worse. Being broken so badly that I was little more then a eating and drinking shell, or being broken enough to accept him and no longer long for Syliras. I don't know which would be worse I just don't know.

[Taylani]

30 Fall

I wonder if Fallan sent the message as he promised. He has yet to not do something he has told me he would, so I am thinking he did. I caught myself watching him today as he worked with his horse..or strider I guess I should call it. He is so infinitely gentle with her, but I catch some of the similarities on how he is with her as he is with me. When I am annoyed or upset he often uses the same calming voice, as if I was a horse to be tamed and settled. The worse thing is it petching works.

Frighteningly I asked myself today if it would be so bad to just let go and enjoy my time here. If I truly trusted that he would take me back to Syliras as he promised after the second child, why do I fight him so? I had to actually remind myself why I had to hate him. ...The thing is I don't hate him. Not any more. I could almost like him if he wasn't forcing me to copulate. If he had given me a choice...if he hadn't called me a slave and so casually talked of bedding me for children...I might have learned to love him. Just like the captive I had saw the other day.

The thing is...this is so soon..after a year, or two..will I still feel the same? Or will I have gone too far.

[Taylani]

32 Fall

Liar! Filthy scoundrel Liar. Fallan has lied to me, he has spoken untrue to calm my fears and get me to agree to this stupid bargain. Went to see a healer, and met Waisana. She is very young, though I suppose one might say that about me as well, but she seemed to know some of what she was talking about. I had hoped she could tell me of some herb or trick I could to to increase my fertility. My mother did not conceive me until very late in life, and I do not want to wait until my forty second birthday to bear him a child. Not if I needed to give him two children.

Waisana and I chatted, she did not know of anything really that could help me except suggest that I gain weight, but she did mention that she was in the same position I am in. She is Drykas and is being pressured to bear children too! Fallan promised me that any children I bore him would be Drykas and thus free. I outright asked him if any girl children I bore would be sold like I was and he said no, that they would be free and could choose. But Waisana is not the only Drykas that I have met who's fathers were trying to sell them off. It seems Drykas women are not as free as Fallan promised me. How can I leave my babies here with him? I can't. I must begin to look for a way out. I can not leave girl children to be used as baby-making toys, and I can not leave boy children to learn that this is what girls are for. I am crying now, so angry and alone. I am tired of being alone, tired of having no one to turn to when I am upset.

[Taylani]

49 Fall

Today was the day I was suppose to start my cycle. I waited all day, before my visit with Waisana I wanted to miss a cycle. The earlier I get pregnant, the faster I can deliver and get pregnant again. But after my discussion with Waisana..and reflecting on what Rue said her father was doing..I have been praying that someone from Syliras would ride through the camp, to trade. Someone I might be able to alert to my plight. If I am pregnant now that severely reduces my chances of being able to wait until a merchant caravan comes.

Perhaps I am not pregnant, perhaps I am just late. I am never late, or early. My cycles are always like clockwork but now I am under a lot of stress and anxiety. Not to mention he is driving me insane with the confusing actions. That would make my cycle to be a little crazy maybe. Please. Any gods that are listening, you have done enough to me. Please do not let me carry Fallan's child.