Folds of Silence

Learning the rules of the House and becoming familiar with my chores had taken up a great deal of my time. Too, I find myself lost in the sea of books when I’m not needed elsewhere, the library having become my sanctuary.

I have always found peace within the pages of books, be it the fanciful illusions of another’s life or the stoic revision of governmental laws. Even as a child I craved escape in this way, knowing the life that awaited me. Knowing a life I would never have. I find the musty smell of ancient rence comforting, a familiar scent that takes me back in time, that reminds me of my family. I wonder often how they are. This.. oddity I have with books makes me feel closer to them, as bizarre as that may sound.

My excursions beyond the estate are few and far between, my relationships with the other slaves still held on precarious ground, I, the new slave, not yet trusted. I’m not sure that I will ever be.

Favoritism is not always a symbol of acceptance.

The Waiting Hand

I am not allowed to leave the estate without an escort. Mostly this consists of Glee, though occasionally I am accompanied by one of the other slaves. The reasons for this, I assume, is so that those who watch over me can report back to Silas. I’m finding it quite uncomfortable to always have someone looking over my shoulder, watching my every move, waiting for me to make a mistake. I think they would enjoy seeing me punished. I shall try and not give them this opportunity.

I shall be allowed to sleep in the Master’s chambers indefinitely. He said the only time I will be refused the sanctuary of his room is when I am being disciplined.

There are times I catch him watching me, when he thinks I am unaware. His look an odd mixture of appreciation and.. hunger? He wants me, I can tell, and yet, he denies himself of me. Perhaps this is some strange ritual I’ve not heard of. Or perhaps he has no plans to ever touch me other then the contact of night’s sleepy embrace.

I have much yet to learn about being a personal slave to a man I desperately adore. The Waiting Hand is not easy.

Routines

I have settled into a rounded routine of chores, exploring and trying to make friends with the other slaves. The house, though large, is not as completely confusing as I had previously thought, though I have made it a point to stay away from the wing where his sisters, whom I’ve not yet met, reside in.

I still stay in his room at night, yet privileged to sleep on the rather large, ornate couch, though I’m sure this will change. I don’t think he expected me so quickly, hence I don’t think he knows quite what to do with me yet. The cards are beginning to speak to me again, perhaps forgiving me for my earlier diversions. Or perhaps they speak to me because I am yet pure of a man’s touch.

The other slaves still look at me as if I have some ill fated, incurable disease, all save Glee and even she can be unnerving at times. Jaspin has promised they will all warm up to me in time, though I’m unsure how much time it will take. In the meantime, I’ve tried to show them that I am more than willing to do my share, and more.

The Journey

"Set what you have brought from your past life upon the floor, and bring your hands behind your head."

All was removed, I now the naked slave, save the cold dark glitter of the key I yet wore about my neck and the virgin belt that still separated me from my unsure future. I bore no collar; I sported no lying veils of modesty. I was an owned bit of flesh with one purpose in life, to serve and please the man that owned me.

The man who owns me. Even now, as I write this, recanting the day’s events as best I can from beneath the pale glow of lamplight, I feel the familiar flush creep upon me. Even now I can feel the wild hammering of my heart at being the possession of such a man. I still do not understand what it is he sees in me or why he has chosen me from what I’m sure is a grand collection of very appealing slaves. I am more then not, too quiet, losing myself amongst the multitude of other collared chattel.

But he sees something within me others do not.

I am not a stupid slave, I know there are those that wished to own me for my ability of reading the cards, something I once wanted, but I now know that sort of ownership would have been hollow and without substance. He offers me so much more. He offers me growth and what he takes is so much less then what I receive in return.

When he looks at me I can feel the stirring echoes of something untapped, something intoxicatingly carnal and delicious.

I slept by his side last night, though he made no move to touch me other then allowing me to snuggle against him. When I awoke, he was gone, replaced by Glee who was smiling down at me, urging me to hurry and dress. My collar, for now, is a burgundy ribbon tied about my throat holding a tag that dangles downward, stating my ownership. My new garment is also of a burgundy hue, apparently my Master’s favorite color and one he wears often, while the other slaves wear a shade of blue.

The other slaves. I believe fitting in will be harder then I earlier anticipated. They tend to be very cliquish, save the Gleeful one.

I miss Perelandra. I’ve so much to tell her!

The Chosen

My sleep was laced with turmoil, my mind fighting the sands that held me captive. I was dreaming, standing on the edge of a cliff, the cards fluttering from my grasp and cascading into the deep chasm of an endless cavern below me. I was crying. I was empty and I was completely alone..

This morning I find I am a melancholy slave, a woman in chains who is very uncertain of what her future holds. What I think to be real constantly changes, morphing and mutating into something I don’t fully understand.

They are making me choose, the cards, their whispers less commanding and their truths more confusing. I have never been afraid as I am now. I never mourned my freedom, my purchase or the daily toils of a slave. But this, it is as if a piece of me is being ripped out. Through all my trials and tribulations, I have had the safely and security of the cards, cards that now seem to rebuke my choices.

He said he would want me, even with out my odd ability. He said it wouldn’t make a difference, but the cards whisper otherwise. They taunt me; they tease me with their mirthless meanings. They test me, daring me to let them go.

Though I had hoped to be sold, the decision was so quick and unexpected, I’m afraid I wasn’t at all prepared for it. I think I was still in shock by the time we came upon the estate, the thrall and I.

My first impression of the house was one of ominous overhang and I’m afraid I annoyed the male slave I was following because my pace grew weak so that I could stare. It was probably nothing more then the catch of lar torvis lingering just below the horizon which gave it its other worldly glow, darkly silhouetted against the tangerines and orange-ish hues of a rapidly receding day.

By the time we at last reached the back entrance, I was both out of breath and blinded by the light that was released from the open door, stepping back while my eyes adjusted. I was.. home.

Faces I remember, but names not so much, a slave named Glee spewing them out in rapid fire succession. Carry, Silent, Maid, Pain, Brawn and of course, Glee, slaves named by attitude or appearance. I was suddenly a scrutinized slave, one that had become the spicy entrée of an otherwise boring meal. They weren’t at all as I had expected them to be, though truly, I’m not sure what I expected.

Soon my scenery was changing, Glee taking me to meet the man that now owned me. I still couldn’t believe my luck, a man such as he wanting a slave such as me. Even Glee admitted to a bit of envy, I being the first personal slave she could remember him ever having, one picked by his own hand.

The gleeful one had pushed me through the door, already retreating into the candle lit passage as I crossed the threshold that would forever change me.

As I stepped over the blurred line between one world and into the next.

As I became, not one of the many, but one of the chosen.

The Cards

… are displeased with me.

Never before have they given me such contradictory answers in one reading. The man Rooster speculated that I had been opened, for my talent of relating the future was noticeably altered.

Are they toying with me? Warning me what will happen if I succumb to the true possession of man? I was so sure..

Mistress Nika had wanted her reading, but the interruption of my Master’s associate had pushed the cards into silence. At times they do seem to be so temperamental. He had suggested she draw another.

I have always been their slave; the slave of faded rence. I have always belonged to only them, body, heart and soul. Even as I was put beneath the choking metal of man, I was owned by cards decree.

But things are changing and the cards are not happy.

Dark Confessions

"I am yours. I can be no others, not my body, my soul or my heart, no matter whose collar I bear, it is your symbol, your brand that I will claim, your stamp that will always remain seared upon my inner core. I love you."

How easy it is for a slave to give of herself in the deep darkness of an unseeing night. How easy it is to allow loves prose to play such a large part in words meant to bind.

"What if his asking price is to high, or if he refused to sell me? I shall surely die and fade away if I cannot be yours, a slave left to rot upon the unweaned deliverance of loves bounty. Do not leave me! Take me with you; make me yours in every way!"

I begged not to be left behind. Even as I spilled the words, I saw the bodies of Ruby Red and Quinn littering the floor of the inn bathed in blood. Am I a foolish slave for having fallen into the same crevice? I tell myself that my ending shall be different, that I shall not betray the man that owns me, that I must invoke patience.

"Give him time to come to his decision. No coin would be too great, but if it is...You will not be left behind, Fate.”

I clung to him as long as possible, my cheek crushed against his chest, my heart beating in a wild uncontrollable tattoo, the purplish mark upon the side of my throat my own small measure of security. I had told him I loved him. I hadn’t meant to, but somehow the words had brought me a thimbleful of peace, if only for a moment.


Freedom. It is answer to my curse, albeit I had always thought it meant I would be free of collar, I now know it means I must find freedom in my bondage. It is not the freedom of choice but the freedom of something so much more. The freedom of offering myself to another with no stipulations, the freedom of love I never thought to hold. The freedom of belonging to one that truly wants me..

To Dance or not to Dance

He made me dance, my owner. He gave the orders of my actions and commanded me to follow his instructions.

I have never danced. Well, I have, but only in the privacy of island’s blooming foliage, never in front of anyone. I was terrified, but I believe my reasons were two fold, the first being I was sure I would make a mistake and would be punished. The second reason is more complicated. Much more complicated.

To dance is to give of oneself, one’s emotions, to show the inner soul in the dance’s reflection. I am afraid of that which mirrors me, that which is inside, that which may be seen.

I am to learn this art of movement, practice it and make it perfect. It is something I never thought I would be expected to do.

Slavery is not at all what I expected.

Contemplative Kisses

"Or is it the death of who you are now, Fate? For when a slave gives wholly of herself, she does find freedom, and in that freedom, all that she has known before meets a death of sorts."

Is it the death of who I am, was… that can break the curse? Or is that merely a sweet play on words? Would it be worth the risk, would the cost out shine the end result? Could I live as other slaves do? Perhaps I could have both. Or perhaps I would end up with neither.

"Who you are now will die, yes, Fate, but who you will become will be far more. Freedom such as possession of a man, acceptance and submitting to him can open you to more than you are limited to herein. Perhaps, even, bring your gift to a new level. It has happened, Fate. Slaves have thrived and bloomed into beauties where they were but plain and simple, once placed within the ownership of a man more willing to stoke their potential, instead of suffocate it with indifference."

Until now, I had never wanted to be the eager slave. I was content with my life, settled comfortably within the crevice of non emotion, inhibited by the steel about my throat. He sees me, past the veneer, through to the inside.

His words rumbled against the corner of my mouth, seductive, drawing me further into the mortal complexities of my existence. I wanted him to taste me, my exuberance, my excitement, the unconditional emotional elixir at what he had stirred and I was not disappointed.

The kiss was as quiet as the man, soft and gentle and without force, but I could sense the craving, a hunger that was stilled, controlled. My want, however, was not as easily subdued.

I am engulfed in want, a woman on the verge of learning something secretive.

I think I shall be surprised at the way this begins. Or ends..

Falling

Danger. Over and over it kept repeating in my head. Beware, slave, take heed and do not allow yourself to fall. That which makes you different shall be forever lost.

But falling I am; a slow spiraling decent into the unknown, into the unbreached uncertainties of what true slavery is.

“You should know how to crawl.”

At that moment, I would have crawled over broken glass to gain a nearer position to him, to gain favor with him, to have him look at me with desire. Thus I was instructed in the proper way to approach a man. I never realized it could be such a sensuous journey from one point to another, such an escape into the surreal.

“Stand and turn away from me. Rest you arms at your sides, and do not peer back to me. If you do, I will cease this lesson, and be disappointed in the promise I believe you hold."

I am not a completed slave, but a work in progress, a piece of drift wood found upon the shore, slowly being carved into a beautifully enchanted sculpture. Normally, this is something I would have avoided at all costs, but that no longer seems to be my decision. Truth be told, it has never been my choice to make.

I did as bid, resisting the urge to turn back and look at him, half believing that he would take this chance to disappear in to the night, the joke being on me, but he did not. Instead, I felt the wispy trail of fingertips traveling over the soft skin of my arm, his other hand set to the light curve of my hip. My heart raced and my pulse fluttered, the small intakes of breath now tiny gasps for air.

"I teach you now to listen to your body. Hear what it is telling you, what it wants from you. To be truly pleasing, to free yourself and be the most beautiful specimen you can be you must release yourself to the voice inside."

His hand rose over my silks, upwards and across my breast to rest over my heart, I falling prey to the intoxication of touch. Yes, me. But there was something I needed to tell him, the curse. My inability to..

Once I wanted to be an invisible slave, to serve out my time only beneath the supervision of the cards.
Once I wanted to be sold to a collector, to never feel the emanating warmth of a touch, a kiss.
But it is changing, my interpretation of the future. I am falling quickly into the arms of the name he has placed upon me.

Fate.

Fate

He calls me Fate. Perhaps he should be calling me Faith, for mine seems lackluster lately.

He asks many questions and he preys on emotion. So why is it I look forward to seeing him? Why is it I now tend to look for him daily in the parks, between my shifts in the arena? He stirs something alien within me, something other then curiosity.

I have thus far, been a lucky slave, a contradictory term in itself, but one that is no less true. I have no feelings for the man that owns me, nor does he hold any for me. In fact, the only emotion I have for him is one of fear.

I do not envy other slaves that love their Masters. I am not jealous of those that have gained their eye. I would not wish to be one of the many that are expected to serve in any and all concubine delights. But, having said that, I must admit that there is something inside me that bids release, something that yearns to be free.

Men are bizarre creatures. Just when I think that I understand, I find that I do not. I know them only through what the cards tell me, but sometimes even that is not enough. Other times it is too much.

He is different, though I cannot quite explain it. He draws me in, unlike any before him. He sets my body to quiver with just a look, though I know that can not be a good thing.

I do not wish to admit it, but I can hardly wait to see him again.

Betrayal of the Heart

I had read for her once, near the fountain in the Great Square. I had told her what her future would hold. I had told her that it held betrayal. Again the cards were right, not that they are ever wrong.

Ruby Red, Quinn, Silas the pit, all dead with only a word from the man that owns me. All dead because a slave dared to love. All dead because they allowed emotions to override their common sense.

Never in my life have I seen such carnage. Blood seemed to seep through the cracks of the walls and I thought that I would never be able to make it stop, the more I cleaned, the more blood that seemed to come. My hands are dyed red, stained with the essence of those I once knew.

He had whipped her earlier that day, until she had at last admitted that he was her Master. Perhaps the Master of her flesh, but not her heart. I had applied ointment to her back and offered her food, but she would not eat. She was a defeated slave, a broken slave. A woman without hope. One that did not wish to live with out the man she had come to adore.

Though I know I held no power over the ominous inclusion of what I told her would come, I have to wonder if somehow, in the back of her mind, she remembered my words and that is what spurred on the action towards the path she took. Had I refused to read her future, would it have turned out differently? Is there a link between what is told, and what is to come? Can that link be severed?

I shall not read for a slave again, at least not what lies in their future.

The Spider and the Killer

I had been looking for my sandal, the one lost the previous evening at the falls. That is when I saw her again, Perelandra, a slave that I had read for by command of the strange man that had held me in service for ahns.

We had been talking when I felt the spider web upon me, likely gained while I searched for my errant shoe, but it seemed that was not all that I had gained, for I had collect the occupant of the sticky silk as well.

There is little that I cannot abide, but spiders are one of the few things that horrify me. I panicked, seeing the small arachnid parade up my arm and towards my hair, obviously in need of a new home. The slave whose acquaintance I had made deftly flicked the spider from my shoulder, a flick that sent the furry creature right beneath the boot of a killer.

I slunk into the crevice of the rock at his approach, not even daring to look up to see if he bore the mark which would place him clearly in killing mode.

He settled not far from us, she, the other slave, now sulking at the death of the small eight legged icky. He called us to his service, his boot propped upwards so that we could see his recent kill, the half attached spider that hung oddly from the sole of his footwear, an object we were commanded to clean. I held the leaf to catch the remains, while she scraped, all the while expecting my breakfast to be the next thing we would be ordered to sanitize.

And then the killer did a most inhuman thing. He told me to smell it, the dead thing he had liberated from life with a single step. Though the task was distasteful, I dutifully obeyed, but surely my expression clearly mirrored the adverse reaction I was having. Lucky for me, recently dead things have little smell.

Perelandra has promised to kill the next small furry offending creature herself.

A Faded Past

The cards do not always scream their intention, which sometimes makes it hard to pull from them the true meaning of what they are telling me.

I met such a man last eve while at the falls, a man that held a certain aura of which I have never experienced before. His reading was.. casual, to say the least, nothing too abrupt or surprising save the fact that he had chosen The Slave, and two Ubar cards. Rarely are a royal pair picked, let alone two of such a discriminating set.

Did I not know better, I would have suspected he cheated in drawing his fate, though that is quite impossible, considering. What good would it have done him anyway? He knew not what secrets the faded rence held, nor did he seem too pleased or displeased at the results. For that, I suppose, I am a lucky slave, even if I was a slave that started out in error.

I had gone to the falls for a bit if relaxation between my shifts at the arena, sitting near the water’s edge, my feet dangling in a cool pool. I had thought he was a sleen, my sandal held up in defense, though in hindsight, such a defense would have done little good. I am a lowly slave on my Master’s chain, one that could be easily replaced with little expense, therefore I have no guards as some other’s do.

I did not beg forgiveness properly, I sometimes still clinging to the life lost. I am not an arrogant slave, but one still realizing the complexities a collar brings.

I don’t believe he was angry, but I could hear in his voice he was annoyed, which sometimes bodes just as poorly for those of us that wear steal about our throats. His face was lathed in shadow, his expression unseen, though his voice was tainted with command. I obeyed.

When at last I got a glimpse of his face, sheltered in half shadow and buttery moon light, what I saw surprised me. I had thought to see a harsher manifestation of the man before me, something far more malignant then the carefully controlled façade he bore. Not that there wasn’t an ominous presence that surrounded him.

After I read for him, he directed me to a slave that he seemed rather interested in, though I believe he wished her fortune read for reasons of his own, reasons that I shall never be privy to.

When at last I was released from his service and he left, my name was called. My old name, the name that once brought me the gift of freedom. I had recognized him from the islands, albeit last I saw him, at his father’s pyre, my mind had been on other things. As had his.

He walked me back to the kennel at the inn, our conversation laced with talk of the island and those we both knew.

My sleep was tinged with unrest. I dreamt of moons and darkness.