- 58th Winter 519 AV
Days passed. Days and days. Ciraaci was hardly alone for any of it during the sunlight hours, spending that time with Ennoia and having Common words and basic phrases hammered into her skull.
Ennoia had run Ciraaci through several different phrases, terms, basic verbs and their even more basic conjugations. She learned more about Rhysol and why he wouldn’t have minded her lying about love; the god of Ravok presided over lies in particular, and as she understood it, he grew in power with every lie told, whether it be the lie of her love for him or the lie a mother tells her least favourite child about loving him. He thrived on lies and Ennoia had seemed proud of her for having lied so much--even though she’d wondered if it counted as a lie when she was saying it at his request. He’d waved that off, of course. Intention mattered with the gods, but even an unintentional, instructed lie must have some benefit.
That seemed fair, in Ciraaci’s estimation of how divine beings worked. Considering her relationship with many, from Dira to Semele and Zulrav, were neutral bordering on positive and others, such as Leth and Syna, were on the lean towards negative, she couldn’t begin to comprehend what did and did not count as useful energy.
Today, about ten days after they’d started, Ciraaci was sitting in her cell, bubbling with foreign excitement in anticipation of the lesson Ennoia would be treating her to today. The day before, he had promised her something exciting, something a long time in the coming, and she’d had it in her head to get her hopes up on what that might entail. New verbs? They’d covered To Go, To Own, To See, To Hear, To Sleep. New nouns? She’d learned hay and Drykas and Ethaefal and Human and a handful of other things that she could use to string into a basic sentence. Perhaps something new?
The door opened and Ciraaci felt her hopeful flame die in her hands.
If she was going to be learning something today, it was not going to be with Ennoia.
The guards pushed into her cell as she rose to her feet, already intending to make this easier on herself having learned in the past that resistance was futile and would result only in pain pain pain pain pain. She held still as they looped a coarse rope around her wrists behind her back and, seemingly unnecessarily, dropped a cloth sack over her head that left her world a blackened void.
She was almost lifted out of her cell by two arms, one at either side of her body, and was quick to participate in walking so she wouldn’t bleed on the soles of her feet by the time they’d set her down. Words were said around her and, with her recent lessons in Common, she thought she understood a few and could pick out her name and the harsh intonation of a command. Was she being led to a breeding room again? They were usually not this rough whenever they took her there, seeming to value her physical health remaining at a reasonable high.
“What’s happening?” She asked. Her fingers clenched into her palms and her voice was muffled behind the fabric of the mask. They didn’t hear her. She was speaking Pavi anyway, so it wouldn’t have mattered. It wouldn’t have mattered. Ciraaci would have liked it to matter for once.
The clanging opening and closing of doors ahead of the procession alerted her to their destination. She started forward more eagerly, desperate to be free of these bindings and to see what new punishment these Ravokians had constructed for her. The man on her left laughed. The guard on her right, a woman by the sound of her own laughter, said something that sounded absolutely terrible, and withdrew her arm in order to push the ethaefal forward.
The man let her go and the ethaefal stumbled forward, sprawling forward onto her knees and ending up on her stomach, her nose to the stone, her entire body aching with fresh agony settling into her bones like an old woman settles into her deathbed. She might be bleeding. She was certainly crying.
Ciraaci was then hefted back up by a laughing person and pushed against a stone wall. She was left there then and was wise enough not to move, using the time to catch her breath and stop the tears before the blind was removed from her head. She refused to be seen crying anymore. She refused to seem weak.
775
Ennoia had run Ciraaci through several different phrases, terms, basic verbs and their even more basic conjugations. She learned more about Rhysol and why he wouldn’t have minded her lying about love; the god of Ravok presided over lies in particular, and as she understood it, he grew in power with every lie told, whether it be the lie of her love for him or the lie a mother tells her least favourite child about loving him. He thrived on lies and Ennoia had seemed proud of her for having lied so much--even though she’d wondered if it counted as a lie when she was saying it at his request. He’d waved that off, of course. Intention mattered with the gods, but even an unintentional, instructed lie must have some benefit.
That seemed fair, in Ciraaci’s estimation of how divine beings worked. Considering her relationship with many, from Dira to Semele and Zulrav, were neutral bordering on positive and others, such as Leth and Syna, were on the lean towards negative, she couldn’t begin to comprehend what did and did not count as useful energy.
Today, about ten days after they’d started, Ciraaci was sitting in her cell, bubbling with foreign excitement in anticipation of the lesson Ennoia would be treating her to today. The day before, he had promised her something exciting, something a long time in the coming, and she’d had it in her head to get her hopes up on what that might entail. New verbs? They’d covered To Go, To Own, To See, To Hear, To Sleep. New nouns? She’d learned hay and Drykas and Ethaefal and Human and a handful of other things that she could use to string into a basic sentence. Perhaps something new?
The door opened and Ciraaci felt her hopeful flame die in her hands.
If she was going to be learning something today, it was not going to be with Ennoia.
The guards pushed into her cell as she rose to her feet, already intending to make this easier on herself having learned in the past that resistance was futile and would result only in pain pain pain pain pain. She held still as they looped a coarse rope around her wrists behind her back and, seemingly unnecessarily, dropped a cloth sack over her head that left her world a blackened void.
She was almost lifted out of her cell by two arms, one at either side of her body, and was quick to participate in walking so she wouldn’t bleed on the soles of her feet by the time they’d set her down. Words were said around her and, with her recent lessons in Common, she thought she understood a few and could pick out her name and the harsh intonation of a command. Was she being led to a breeding room again? They were usually not this rough whenever they took her there, seeming to value her physical health remaining at a reasonable high.
“What’s happening?” She asked. Her fingers clenched into her palms and her voice was muffled behind the fabric of the mask. They didn’t hear her. She was speaking Pavi anyway, so it wouldn’t have mattered. It wouldn’t have mattered. Ciraaci would have liked it to matter for once.
The clanging opening and closing of doors ahead of the procession alerted her to their destination. She started forward more eagerly, desperate to be free of these bindings and to see what new punishment these Ravokians had constructed for her. The man on her left laughed. The guard on her right, a woman by the sound of her own laughter, said something that sounded absolutely terrible, and withdrew her arm in order to push the ethaefal forward.
The man let her go and the ethaefal stumbled forward, sprawling forward onto her knees and ending up on her stomach, her nose to the stone, her entire body aching with fresh agony settling into her bones like an old woman settles into her deathbed. She might be bleeding. She was certainly crying.
Ciraaci was then hefted back up by a laughing person and pushed against a stone wall. She was left there then and was wise enough not to move, using the time to catch her breath and stop the tears before the blind was removed from her head. She refused to be seen crying anymore. She refused to seem weak.
775
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