Completed Revelations

[Estrellir Konrath]

Winter 13-16, 514 AV
Continued from here.


After a small break of one day which she spent fending off the questions and curious glances Mell shot her way, Estrellir returned to her desk. The first try had already provided her with important information: Like Odella had said, her pretty slave was totally unresponsive to every sexual trick she had up her sleeve. He simply didn’t stir emotionally. She supposed the key to understanding his behavior lay buried in his past – finding that particular part and interpreting what she saw would be the real challenge.

Nevertheless, she climbed back on the polished surface of her desk, crossed her legs and rested her palms on her knees. Once she was comfortable with her back straight and head held high, she closed her eyes and began listening to the steady sound of her breathing. It was easy, following the air as it was sucked in and rushed out in one great sigh. Rinse and repeat.

Mell was cleaning the dishes in the kitchen. Since the door was ajar, the faint clink and clank of mugs could be heard, complemented with splashes of water. Every time a mug connected with the edge of the basin, Estrellir had to cling to the sound of her breathing. Somehow she managed not to lose concentration. Focus on the In, Out. In… out. And again, in… out.

Having dipped into his Chavi before, she found Churil almost immediately. Remembering the feeling of his earth-colored writhing swirls, she carefully felt her way into it. Before plunging into his memory, she took a moment to focus on how he felt. Quiet, obedient, unassuming. Following the ‘gaze at the floor’-policy at all times, he was the perfect slave.

Eventually she went into the mahogany and rich orange swirls, swam through faint moments of pain and suffering, countless of those, and even farther into the past. She had to squint her mental eye in order to not to lose focus or lose sight of his meandering Chavi. Being kicked out meant starting all over again.

Estrellir was looking for an event that would’ve left a deep impression in his memory – the exact moment he had been captured and enslaved. It would’ve cut a deep chasm into the colorful path of his past experiences, the Konti imagined, yet she didn’t see it coming.

Until it hit her in the face.

Suddenly there was darkness, confusion and overwhelming primal FEAR all around her. Invading her mind, the intensity of his feelings manifested as a tingling at the back of her throat and almost made her forget who she was. At the same time, losing control meant she was thrown out of his Chavi and crashed down on her desk.

With a sharp exhale, she slumped and had to plant her hands flat on the polished wood for support. The sudden return to material reality felt as if she’d fallen from great height and gravity was still pulling her down. Briefly she wondered if it could drag her through the floor and all the way into the wet earth, burying her alive.

At that moment, fortunately, Mell entered the room and, noticing her state within a tick, rushed to her side. “Mistress, what happened? Are you alright? You look awfully pale…”

With a sound between sigh and grunt, Estrellir climbed down from the desk. Holding on to the taller girl’s arm for balance, she ran the other hand through her locks, slightly damp with sweat. “Yes yes, not to worry. You know I hate it when you panic… Anyway, I’ve learned two things today. Suppose it’s time to take another break.”

[Estrellir Konrath]

“Enough. This is not for you to know.”

Mell hung her head, trying and failing to conceal her disappointment. At least she didn’t retort like she had done the last two times Estrellir had denied her the full story.

On the one hand, the Konti didn’t feel like sharing every single thought bouncing around inside her mind. The cup of hot coffee warmed her fingers and drove the shock from her limbs, but it couldn’t erase the memory of what she’d experienced and felt chimes earlier. On the other hand, Estrellir sincerely wished to protect Mell which included withholding sensible information.

For a slave, she could read and write remarkably well, but Mell would know not to snoop around the archived reports if her mistress forbade it. That was the amount of loyalty she felt towards Estrellir.

Eventually the detective sighed. “All I will say is that the reason for his problem is buried deeper than I thought. It’ll take a lot of concentration and effort to access the memory I’m looking for.”

Mell cocked her head to one side, slowly sinking down on the couch beside her mistress. “Haven’t you put a lot of concentration and effort into your meditation earlier?”

The girl didn’t quite understand how Divination worked – to her Estrellir seemed to be meditating. The Konti shook her head. “It wasn’t enough.”

Drinking her coffee in small sips, she analyzed her last session and tried to identify her mistakes. First of all, Mell had been working in the kitchen which had made concentration more difficult. Once in the Chavena, she’d looked at Churil’s Chavi from the perspective she’d chosen the last time, moving into the past slowly and with much effort. She already had a good grasp of what his Chavi looked and felt like – in theory she had to be able to access it from any point she wanted. Next time, she’d try and jump to the experience that had broken her concentration and kicked her out. Risky, of course, but it’d save her a lot of work.

Having devised a strategy, Estrellir finished her coffee and told Mell not to wash the cups until later. On her desk, she assumed her meditation posture and listened to her breathing to calm down. Her hands shook and her heart was humming with caffeine, but eventually she found her way back to Churil.

This time, she already knew what happened behind the border, she could steel herself. The panicked fear, labored breathing, sweat and screaming muscle pains threatened to devour her and wash her away once again, but this time she gritted her teeth and endured.

I’m not him. I’m Estrellir Konrath, a Konti, a Dynast, a Kenashian. I’m not him. I’m NOT HIM! Gasping for breath, she forced her eyes to remain shut. Not him. Just a spectator. I need to see. Look at it. Everything. It doesn’t touch me. It has NOTHING to do with me. Just look. See and UNDERSTAND.

After that session, she had to take another break. Mell knew better than to ask questions. Wordlessly, the slave refilled the dirty cup and put it between her shaking fingers. Estrellir remained in the bureau, slumping in her comfortable chair, sipping and thinking. After a while, she straightened and called for Mell. “Get pipe and fire from my coat, will you?”

Wordlessly, Mell obeyed and watched as Estrellir exhaled the first cloud of smoke.

[Estrellir Konrath]

Two days later, Estrellir had acquired dark bags under her eyes, a nervous twitch of the left eyelid (supposedly from too much caffeine, tobacco or both) and unearthed most of Churil’s story. She’d worked with bits and pieces, painfully small and fuzzy, but she had thought it all through multiple times before arriving at the conclusion.

There had been a long and exhausting hunt for the pretty Benshira. Churil had been herding sheep near the border. As a nomad, he knew the land well, could survive for days on end under tough conditions and in constant fear, endured the cruel heat of the desert with steel determination and outwitted his pursuers time and time again. In the end they caught him, not because he’d made a mistake, but due to their sheer numbers and steady flow of resources. Slavers planned each and every trip with meticulous care and executed their plans with ruthless ignorance for those they went to capture. In Churil’s case, being captured didn’t only mean collapsing from exhaustion, it also meant losing much of his self-respect and pride as a Benshira, a nomad of the desert.

The following days and more days, all the time it took to reach Kenash, he was consumed by shame and homesickness. He missed his family which, for a Benshira, felt like having a limb amputated.

Estrellir had only gotten glimpses of his experiences and feelings during the hunt and journey through Cyphrus, but she’d pieced the rest together using logic and reason. As a slave, Churil had nothing to lose, no drive to escape and return to his homeland. People like him made the best slaves, obedient and meek.

Still, it didn’t explain why his relationship with Odella Askara didn’t elicit any reaction. Any other young man, as healthy and handsome as he was, would’ve done something. Having seen more than one generation of humans grow up, Estrellir liked to think she knew when and how sexual maturity manifested in them. Churil was definitely old enough. Where was the difference?

As she climbed on her desk and assumed her posture this morning, Estrellir didn’t have a particular method or goal in mind. She merely resumed her search through his Chavi out of habit. Having run out of ideas, she didn’t know where to look anymore.

By then his Chavi felt as familiar to her as the back of her own hand or a map she’d drawn herself. Calming down and finding it had gotten progressively easier. This time, she went far into his past, skipping everything she’d already gotten glimpses of, and tried to look at his youth. If nothing had happened during his time as a slave, nothing except the usual torture and humiliation, the key had to lie in Eyktol.

Unfortunately, his Chavi thinned out and the memories she saw became blurrier. Of course, since Divination let her view his memories, it depended on how much Churil could actually remember. Few people could recall scenes of their early youth or even childhood with perfect clarity… so the Konti had to make do with what she had.

Suddenly a little piece of stinging pain tugged at her wrist. Flinching, she tried to hold on to that particular memory and looked at it. Squinting into darkness, she could discern moving bodies, writhing limbs and then desperate thrashing. Churil, barely a boy, was struggling against a bigger and heavier man in the dark. Considering the lack of starlight and a moon, Estrellir supposed they were inside a tent.

Panic rasped at the back of her – Churil’s throat – as the other man placed a hand over his mouth. He couldn’t scream, he couldn’t escape. The man’s broad knees pinned him to the carpeted floor of the tent. He shuddered as the man got hold of his pants, ripping them over his rear.

Soft rustling. Then everything went black.

When she opened her eyes, Estrellir gave a thoughtful hum and reached for her pipe. Ticks later she blew thick smoke into the air, observing it. That last kind of darkness hadn’t been the gentle hug of unconsciousness, it hadn’t carried him away from the unspeakable. Instead, it seemed like Churil himself had wrapped a wool blanket around this particular memory. He didn’t want to remember it and he never thought about it. Ever.

“Interesting,” she whispered, each syllable a small breath of smoke. That darkness had tasted a lot like his later indifference. Whenever Odella called him into her bed, his mind turned into stone. At last Estrellir knew why.

[Estrellir Konrath]

Odella was wearing a white dress that contrasted her wrinkled and sickly pale skin in a most unfortunate manner. A white lace fan and silver eyeshadow completed her outfit. All in all she looked like a woman who had always pretended to be beautiful, but obviously tried too hard. Her lack of taste was apparent, but what could one expect of a distant aunt whose veins held only a drop of Benjamin Askara’s blood?

Estrellir reluctantly exchanged kisses with the Askara, bid her to sit and folded webbed hands over the report she’d compiled. Pretty Churil stood near the door, head bowed, dressed only in linen pants and a leather collar.

Ignoring the new accessory, the Konti decided to skip the small talk. Mell served coffee as she launched straight into a short account of what she’d found out. Churil never looked up or even twitched. Perhaps he wasn’t even listening.

The more she talked, the more did Odella fan herself. Knuckles turned white and hands trembled, but at least she listened to it all before commenting. “So you’re saying that… my Churil cannot be cured, is that correct?” she pressed out between clenched teeth. “He has been damaged beyond repair?”

Estrellir nodded, keeping her face carefully blank. “Yes, that is what I’ve found out. He has been wounded very early in his life, long before he could’ve experienced pleasure. His body will never forget.”

Odella closed her fan with a sharp noise. “Miss Konrath, I am grateful that you have found the reason for his problem, but… I feel I’ve misheard. If you’re saying he cannot be repaired, what is there to do with him?”

Churil shifted in the back, but Estrellir ignored him. “Forgive me, but that is not my problem. You should’ve considered the risk when you bought him. It’s too late.” She shrugged. When the Dynast didn’t reply, she picked up the tied pages and rose from her seat. “I have done everything you asked. All that’s left for you to do is read this report, but I suggest you do it someplace else.”

Long wrinkled fingers closed around the small package, then her dark eyes narrowed. “You clearly have a gifted tongue, Miss Konrath, but that doesn’t mean I won’t notice when I’m being thrown out! I’ll go one step further and make sure my relatives and friends know of the lacking service they will find here.”

Estrellir managed not to roll her eyes at the outburst. It merely provided another facet of her lack of style, yet the Konti was beginning to lose patience. When Odella attempted to storm off, she called her back. “I hate to interrupt you, but there is still a price to be paid.”

Clearly enraged, Odella returned and, upon learning the price, thrust a thick purse into the outstretched hand. Estrellir brought out her polite smile, tinged with a hint of sarcasm. “It was a pleasure doing business with you. Now, good day to you… and your slave.”

The Askara merely snorted and left the office in a huff. Falling back into her chair, Estrellir lifted her arms in exasperation. “And please, do tell your friends about my terrible terrible manners. You’ll do me a favor if it keeps the pathetic old ladies away.”

Thinking about everything her Divination had revealed, she shuddered slightly. Churil’s fate truly was a cruel one – all the more reason for her to enjoy Dynasty privileges and make the best of her opportunities!

THE END

[Tribal]

G R A D E S

Estrellir Konrath

Experience

• Meditation: 3
• Investigation: 2
• Endurance: 2
• Observation: 2
• Logic: 2
• Socialisation: 2
• Rhetoric: 1

Lore

• Observation: Unsettling fear
• Churil: Familiar
• Odella: Lacks taste and style
• Bad publicity has its perks

Notes

You know when you’re reading something good when you start to develop an opinion of a certain character. I just know I would hate Estrellir were I to deal with her in real life which makes me feel like you portray her very well. Great story and wonderful writing as always! Enjoy the rewards.