[Flashback] There's a Curse On Us (Dor)

[Duvalyon Hellebore]

AV 510, Late Spring “She’s growing older quickly,” Svoreador told Duvalyon across the table in his office, “Who’s to say what another year will do to her fertility.” Duvalyon shifted in his seat, trying to act disinterested. “I’m not going to father a crying babe without anyone to watch it.” The younger Symenestra smirked, “You wouldn’t want me to ruin my reputation by having children out of wedlock.” Svoreador lifted his eyes. There was a sudden tenseness across his shoulders as he considered the idea his son’s reluctance might be due to something worse than fear of responsibility. “Your sister would happily watch it. As would your mother,” he answered. The elder Symenestra’s voice had barbs of suspicion. “You know they would. You’ve always known. Ever since your pet decided to parade about in her shapely shell.” Duvalyon inwardly swore, remembering the day Dor took her petulance to a new frontier. Why couldn’t she walk around, she taunted, nobody cared. In that moment he had a powerful need to feel what it was like to squeeze a woman’s soft throat. Shrugging, Duvalyon dismissed the suspicious tone of his father. “True, but I would owe it some sort of responsibility and I am much too busy for that. I’ll need sufficient time with the child for it to develop a true and proper dislike for me.” Usually that line worked, or the one about Dor being too young physically. The latter had been losing its usefulness in the past months, though. “Fair enough, Duvalyon,” his father began, and Duv inwardly uncoiled his guts. “But..” Zlynge. “…she is still getting old quickly. What will ten months do to her? If you aren’t going to use her, she needs to be seeded immediately by someone else.” Duvalyon chuckled, “You’re worrying about nothing. She’ll be ripe for years yet.” He took on a new posture as he leaned over the table, one of wronged honor and anger. “And I have been the one to cultivate her. It’s an injustice to give her to any but my wife. She is mine.” “Yes,” his father’s voice was calm and it made Duavlyon afraid, “She is yours. Your responsibility. The webs have been talking, they think her womb will rot by the time you settle down.” Duvalyon’s smirk grew, “The only thing worse than being talked about, is not being talked about.” Svoreador picked up a quill and began scratching out a note. “The Curare web has offered a generous sum to purchase her for their son. It’s enough to buy good slaves and pay for travel. It is more than adequate compensation.” “I—“ Duvalyon began sharply but was cut off by his father. “If you don’t want her now, you musn’t be selfish.” The elder began to expand with a possible rage, though his voice was even. “Unless you are unwilling for some other insidious reason?” “No,” Duvalyon answered coldly, taking offense at the very suggestion. “Then will you sell her?” “I will not.” The elder stopped writing and sighed. “Very well, she will be transported to the nest so you can do your duty to your people.” His father droned on, and Duvalyon did everything to appear only vaguely miffed. “Your next fertility cycle is in a few days, yes? It will be a quick business then and the Curare web will stop squawking in my ear.” “Glad to be of service,” Duavlyon said with no little venom. Giving a brief smile, Svoreador looked up from his work. “I knew you’d be cooperative.” As Duvalyon turned to go, his father threw the final knife. “Which is why the Ochya have already transported her.” Shrugging, Duvalyon lazily answered, “Things are so boring when rushed, but such is life.”

[Dor]

It was supposed be a place of peace. For that reason the Blue Grotto had become a favorite sanctuary for her. The need to retreat to it only when otherwise unoccupied failed to disturb her as if the cool waters were surrounded with their Symenestra natives she felt peace might flee. Dripping stalactites created haunting music, splashing and spluttering with ancient notes onto water and stone. Music owned a strange fascination for her, revealing its wealth rarely within the eternal gloom of the subterranean city. Without lyrics, without the barrier of language forever blocking her, it spoke to a piece of her soul that did not know it was shriveled and caused it to swell. Bare feet dangled in the water, swishing in off beat harmony with the song of the slowly growing stones. She watched the ripples, counting the beats in her head until they ruptured and faded either out of lifespan's end or the veil of gloom constantly harnessing even her sharp sight. Hours once held in content check by her makeshift falconer, reeling on close, clockward tether had been transformed into an aching discontent. Up continued to elude her and this morning she had overhead the strangest of conversations while perched upon a stall in the Orchard Market. It was again with that word: surrogate. She could not find it in any of Duvalyon's books and had no friends in this dark place to ask after its meaning. Tonight, she determined, she would find an angle through Duvaylon's cool distance and her own wounded reaction to it to ask him. "Don't fight." There came a whisper and a scuffing of footsteps behind her and instinct left her startling. Feet withdrew from the water, sought purchase on the cold stone beneath her to rise. Her thoughts had held her too close, muffling the approach of Those Who Belonged Here with its embrace. Turning too late, lightless eyes widened at the sight of three pillars of this poisonous society -- the Ochya -- so swift, so lethal in their surrounding of her. "Don't fight?" She echoed, bewildered. "I'll leave. I'm sorry." Delicate hands rose, gesturing outwards in an attempt to more fully communicate her regret for having trespassed. Truthfully, she regretted being caught, but a life with Duvalyon Hellebore had taught her better than to admit as much. Her gesture was aborted by the clamp of a clawed hand and, unaccustomed to touch, she automatically jerked backwards. That was a mistake. "I -- what -- " A second hand caught her shoulder, a third her throat with claws an ominous presence though they failed to dig into tender flesh. Words were thusly cut off as her hand gesture had been; and before she could even fully form enough thought to think to fight, there was something heavy being cinched around her throat with a clanking of metal as it fastened. Instinct flared fear high -- they had trapped her, ruining her ability to skinwalk into her feathered form. The dark of the city no longer felt clean. Rather it clung, suffocating, forcing the needle of her inner compass to spin and spin as in her reactionary panic she began to lose her ability to tell which was was Up. She was screaming for Duvalyon when the Eyes of the spiders knocked her into unconsciousness and a very different kind of dark.

[Duvalyon Hellebore]

Duvalyon had feigned work at the Place of Purging after the news. It wasn’t so difficult, duplicity was part of his nature. There was the Duvalyon for public consumption and the one for private hours. Neither was fully false or fully good. He worked for several days, pretending his father wasn’t marking the hours before he should go to the Nest. The old man’s ruddy eyes seared the space between Duvalyon’s shoulders when he was at the Place of Purging. Taking some pleasure in his father’s frustration, Duvalyon was especially obliging and pleasant to the old man. It was Svoreador who would have the final triumph, though. Either he got his grandchild or the appearance of generosity in compelling his son to sell his ripe surrogate to a needy web. Both gave some satisfaction. Duvalyon’s irritation at being forced was just another echo in the massive cavern. Svoreador knew his glib son was devoted to Viratas and would not defy the mandates of his blood and his community. Duvalyon’s home felt empty of warm sounds. He sat at his desk reading books, perpetually expecting interruptions that never came. The hand to swat away, the extra meal to make, the feathers to brush away. With every twinge came a quick reminder and the terrible question: “What are you going to do?” He tried to work the dilemma over in his mind logically. Dor’s life was going to be a brief thing. How many years would surrogacy really take from her? And the child she would bear would live a dozen years longer. It was less life giving birth to more. Would Viratas agree with such reason? Within the Nest the little bird would have all the affection and comfort she craved. The keepers there risked nothing in showing kindness. The sows there were indulged and almost loved on account of the precious child they carried. But then an image of what he would have to do flashed in his mind, paired with her young expectant face. Duvalyon grit his teeth together. She had been unruly since he denied her bond. He learned that’s what her desperate need for connection was called. She had brought him trouble, vexation and hours seared by anger, but that-- that would be a crime against Viratas. He had allowed this girl to enter his community, his home. He could not strip her down to shameful nothingness, rape her and watch her swell with poison for his race’s sake. If not him, though. It would be another, crueler hand. When the first day of his season came, Duvalyon still had no answers. Only a vague plan that bought him time. He arrived at the nest, in what was expected to be a first visit of many. The Symenestra were efficient when it came to making sure the surrogate was seeded. The attendants were happily aflutter with his presence. He was finally to be a father now, they gushed. And the girl was so lovely with that saffron colored hair. Duvalyon made light, mildly scandalous comments in return, sending them into giggles. Finally they left, after pushing him into Dor’s cell. It was small, but the bed and milky fabric were more luxurious than anything he could currently afford. “Dor?” he asked the shape on the bed.

[Dor]

Hope was a dangerous thing. Maybe it had no place in the black of Kalinor, but then neither did she. This is what she had learned since being imprisoned in the gilded cage that was the Nest. The women here had spoken to her in both whispers and swiftly smothered furies. The cacophony of their secrets had swept through her, riddling her soul with cruel epiphanies. It had sent her into the cell, trying to make a nest of the fine bedding, trying to claw the collar off of her throat so that she could huddle within the cradle of her own wings. Truth had taken the form of a storm and had begun to swallow her whole. There was no hiding from it, no matter how she struggled with the collar's buckle or tried to twist and shove the sheets into something resembling safety. By the time Duvalyon walked in, elegant and pale, beautiful and sharp as he had ever been, a place had been reached past panic. The heart in her that yearned for the sky had found in the waking of her life's nightmare that it could beat stronger than she had known, louder than she had known, steadier and more determined than cobwebs. The sight of him might have thrown that heart of her's right up into her throat, but it was still her's. "Duv," she said, his name on her tongue soft and husky as she rose from the muddled mess of bedding to sit up. A pale, silken shift clothed her, insisted upon by these new, self called keepers with their sickeningly pleasant smiles. Now she understood that people could wear more than one face and, sometimes, it was impossible to tell which one was real. For once the riot of hair was tamed, combed with patient, poisonous hands, braided and coiled with artful tastes. The bird had finally been groomed and in the grooming it was suddenly apparent that she was beautiful. For a human. For a less than human. For an animal with an annoying mouth and grabbing hands and eyes that were watching him, hooked upon him in this distasteful den with an unexpected calm. She was waiting to learn his intentions now that all of their possibilities were known. "I understand." That was not preemptive forgiveness. That was expectation. She understood. It was time to go Up now.

[Duvalyon Hellebore]

The Symenestra sucked in a breath, stunned by both Dor’s sudden loveliness and grim words. “A little late.” He seized her by the arms, his harsh fingers trying to press against bone. Duvalyon’s face was marble, unyielding and cold. He was going to achieve his ends regardless of what qualms might awaken in him. Dor was pressed stumbling and thrashing onto the bed that dominated the room. The Symenestra let her buck and twist, tearing the bed apart, but his grip did not relent until she had almost upended the bed and cursed him aloud. Sudden as the attack came, it stopped. Duvalyon released Dor and retreated to a corner of the massive bed. He gave a calm command, but made no further move toward her. “Cry. Loudly if you can. Yelling will do as well. Whatever would seem fitting for the occasion, then grow quiet.” Ignoring her, he extracted a vial from somewhere on his person. It’s muddy color discouraged questions as to its contents. He slowly stretched his legs and leaned against the wall, waiting for her to finish.

[Dor]

"Duv!" She screeched his name, feeling hope shatter like her heart had when he had so coldly rejected their bond. Banal things were known by her bones that had never been known by the rest of her that wanted nothing of harm to come to the physician. Those things had her struggling against his grip, thrashing at him in desperate struggle when he forced her down on the bed. It hurt more than any bruises they dealt each other with their bodies, those they offered each other's souls in those violent, struggling moments. It hurt so bad that it left her dazed when he was suddenly not there, not fighting her, not trying to shove her down into a black far greater than that of the gorge he had long since forbidden her fly. Breath gulped into her lungs, the fine silk of her shift torn and all of those perfectly plaited loops of hair straggling and tangled almost like they were supposed to be. She stared at him -- she had spent her life staring at him, it felt remembered right now in the thud of her heart still lodged somewhere in her throat. She knew then, too, that it would not matter how loud she screamed, there was nobody in this dark place who would come to her aid. She had already known that with the impressions of the Ochya's hands on her, with the cinching of the collar about her throat, with the disgusting wilt and sooth of the Symenestra tending their surrogates in this nest. It was different, however, from witnessing it happen. People wear many faces, she thought with a fine tremble in her limbs, eyes yet on Duvalyon. They have a face for everything and some of them are sewn of lies. Yet among their faces, no matter how great in number the deceitful ones, there was at least one that was real. Though there were those who thought her stupid, thought her too basic and animal to be more than annoyingly sentient or adorably dull. It was possible that they would be right, but if she knew nothing, she knew that the way to Up was through Duvalyon Hellebore. It always had been. She released a resounding shriek, one laden with fury and pain. It was not so hard to choke on sobs, to let them be loud and unforgiving; but all the while, she was watching him and his real face, damp eyes possessed of that eerie, determined calm.

[Duvalyon Hellebore]

Duvalyon made a gesture for quiet, not unlike the ones he gave her when immersed in his studies and she had a mouthful of questions. All the while, he didn’t look fully at her. Her gaze was fixed on him, but his was discretely cast elsewhere, as if bored. Once she wore her voice to hoarseness, he casually he reached forward and adjusted her torn shift to a more modest position. There was a little more time, before his lingering attracted attention. “I had hoped you would never have to understand, but you were perversely stubborn.” He gave a rue filled smile, showing a little of his fangs. “What can one do against a girl’s curiosity?” Duvalyon slid off the bed with his usual elegance of motion and walked closer to Dor. She began to realize what he must be like to his patients. There was a detached, appraising look in his burgundy eyes and a crispness to his posture. He motioned for her to come closer with his claws, so he could inspect her collar. If allowed, he gently held her jaw and cradled the back of her head so he could turn her head. Apart from the recent rough handling, he never came this close. And he had never touched her so lightly. There was nothing to be lost from this kissing nearness now. In the warm light she could see the lace of veins beneath his pallid skin. “Do you know how it works?” he asked in a low hum as he squinted at the contraption around her pale neck. "How does it feel?" he asked softly.

[Dor]

Touch was not something, she was beginning to understand, either of them were much accustomed to. They were very contained people, enclosed by the earth, cocooned by the silk, trapped by society. Though the bond between a kelvic and their master had been aborted between conception and birth, there were other bonds existent in this world that had, perhaps, just as much if not more magic. It was such a bond that caused them both to be contained yet house a struggling sprout of wild. It was what helped maintain her calm and him his rebellion in this grim hour of their history together. It was as well that which had her head turning beneath his hands, throat bared as she sat on the edge of the bed with her hands not grasping, not reaching for connection because it was suddenly there with clarity so sharp it stabbed like the sun's light she had never known. "It feels like the gorge," she said, throat raw and words soft as the walls of not just her cage, but his. "There was a key the Ochya used. A locking mechanism in it. I could cut through the leather with a sharp enough knife," and she would, gods helps them, she would. "Duv, what's in the vial?"

[Duvalyon Hellebore]

Duvalyon nodded, “A knife, simple enough.” While the whole undertaking was stupidly dangerous, this portion would be easier than he had suspected. When she asked what was in the vial, the Symenestra narrowed his eyes. The questions never stopped, no matter what. He wondered if she would have asked questions had he kept throttling her earlier. “It’s ‘evidence’ of your being taken. This room should look the same as every other new surrogate’s first night.” His expression said this explanation was vulgar enough and he wasn’t going to give her any further details. Blood from the vial was dribbled on the bed, amidst the torn bedding and impressions of a body desperate for escape. He wanted nothing to make the attendants curious. “I will be back tomorrow and, if necessary, several days following. Whatever it takes to extract you without shedding suspicion on me.” He began to straighten his clothes and untied his lightly mussed hair. He hated letting it hang loose. It was an unkempt overtly feminine look. Like a dozen times before, she watched him pull it neatly back after smoothing the strands. “Dor,” he wanted her attention now, “Behave as if something happened.” Briskly, the Symenestra knocked on the door while speaking a word in Symenos. An attendant opened it with a bit of ceremony. Duvalyon pretended he saw neither her nor Dor behind him. “Tomorrow, I want a candle to remove her smell.” He looked over his shoulder at Dor, and gave a sadistic smile for the attendant’s benefit, but it was convincing enough to unnerve. It was a merciless glimpse at the Duvalyon that could have been had his loyalty to Dor been a fraction smaller. “No sedative will be necessary.” And with that, he was gone.

[Dor]

It was as if all the stories she knew were turning out to be more than real, more than true. They were flushed with murder, blood rich and chilling as the false face offered by Duvalyon when he departed her silken cell. Tales tumbled from the tongues of the surrogates bright flashing and vivid as coins falling in the dark. By the time they hit the bottom of her understanding, they were already ringing an ominous tune. It was a tune that threatened to reverberate in her bones until they were shook to dust. There was a woman who remembered her mother. Mention of this was vapid and venom. The Symenestra said she had been fierce, but she did not intend it as a compliment. Dor gulped down the knowledge regardless, franctic heart bid still -- her mother had known worse than this. "What was her name?" She demanded of the attendant, dark eyes staring back at themselves in the murky looking glass. The attendant had elegant fingers buried in the braiding of Dor's hair, preparing her for Duvalyon's return. If she mistook the surrogate's pallor for fear, then Dor knew no reason to explain it was fury. "Oh, I don't remember," the attendant said. In a different hour of her life, Dor might not have found her smile obscene. Only it was and Dor forgot then to ask after what poisonous sibling she might possess in this dark place. "Are you coming with me?" Were the words later while standing in front of Duvalyon, the door of the cell closed again and she unraveled from her cowering. This is what she found the courage to ask him, bravery bought with life's blood. When the black was threatening to gulp you down, wrap you up in silk and poison until the bones of you turned to pulp, your love being dismissed for a second time was hardly anything. "Is it time yet?"