[Flashback] Monsters

[Sama'el Sunsinger]

OOC Note: This is posted in Sunberth because that is where it ends. Also, I give you a video for the lyrics of the song I used because I can't find a linkable mp3. You needn't watch, but you might enjoy listening to the song while you read. Though, I was surprised by how some of the images in the video worked. Funny, that. Okay. I'm done. Enjoy! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Syliran Wildlands, near the border of Cyphrus 500 A.V. The sky was an aching, brilliant blue. The ground beneath him was hard and uncomfortable, but it cradled him for a little while, stunned and stunted. He wondered if he was dead, then wished he were so when the memory of night returned to him in flashes of swords in torchlight and the screams of dying horses and Drykas. His eyes burned, but produced no water for the dead. Zulrav had swept the sky clear of clouds as if to say, "The sky is great and can hold your grief." But he wasn't ready yet, not for grief. There were too many enemies about, the bandits who had fallen upon them after their ill-advised venture outside the bounds of their native grass-sea. "They all dead, little vagik," said a smirking man the day before when he had woken for the first time, reborn. Sama'el of the Sapphire Clan was dead. In his place was the orphan, who was most commonly referred to as that paragon of uncleanliness. "Yer still alive, little vagik," said another man in the here and now. "Off yer petchin' arse." A sharp kick to the ribs sent stabbing pain through him as he curled into the fetal position, knocked out of the hard earth's embrace. Not even the harsh comfort of Semele was afforded him long. On his knees as soon as he was able, he suffered more abuse until he was on his feet. The cuffs and snarled slings and arrows abated only once he was moving again. Not morning, then, but another unmanly faint on the forced march to whither they were bound. He didn't know. Far from the home of dead Sama'el. The rough ropes around his wrists had cut into his skin, stinging and itching as the blood crusted. He hoped it would burn off the windmark stuck to his skin when he had finally gentled wild Hasieran. Even as a colt, the frisky stallion seemed to have chosen him, but while they would frolic together, wrestling and playing tag, it wasn't until his seventh spring when he proved to the strider and to the pavilion that he had earned the right to bond with him fully. When Sama'el, the seven year old man, had stumbled out of his tent, drawing his scimitar, it was just in time to see them cut the proud stallion down, guarding his tent. He walked with his eyes cast down at unfeeling Semele, Zulrav gusting against his back, a small comfort from Syna's glare. He thought he could sense Hasieran walking beside him, but he didn't look up anymore. The disappointment on top of everything else would be too much to bear. It felt strange, this long walk. He could sense the dead and the gods everywhere. Perhaps grandfather's webbing was reacting violently to all the snapped threads, whipping the poor orphan vagik now residing in the body of Sama'el. Viratas's new scapegoat, punished for living. He had no shoes. There had been no time in the fire lit chaos of the attack, and once he had nearly been brained and the battle lost, the victors slung him over the back of a seme. There were more of them than the surviving striders; the powerful pack horses that carried the pavilion from place to place had not put up quite the fight that the striders had, used as they were to protecting their riders. Now they hauled what remained of the pavilion toward wherever these blackguards made their base of operations. There would be no return to Cyphrus, he decided. Knowing from stories what would happen to him as a slave far from Drykas lands, the shame would be too great to show his face to the vast grassy expanses. Rubbing at his neck, he sighed. The soft skin there was rope-burned from his attempt to decorate a tree. They had laughed at him, and the wild kicking and clawing he was not man enough to prevent had earned him another name, ballerina, before they cut him down to gasp with his face in the dirt. Semele's hand on his cheek. At least if she couldn't hide his shaking shoulders, she could dry his tears. A tree for all these problems They can't find you for the moment Then for all past efforts They're buried deep beneath Your heart and somewhere in your stomach And hatred for all others When awful people, they surround you Well, ain't they just like monsters? They come to feed on me Giant little animals to feed Though to say we got much hope If I am lost it's only for a little while Lisnar, Sylira 500 A.V. "He's not prime material, I'll give you that," said the slaver, spitting into the grass, "but someone ought to need a stable boy... He's Drykas stock. None better, none better." "Bollocks, Sadi." The other slaver held out the boy's wrist to his colleague, showing him the intricate windmark, a work of art. "Not only is he starved half to death, but the little bugger thinks he's a man. And here..." He flattened the boy's hand. "Calluses." He pointed. "Sword." Pointed again. "Dagger." And again, "And a petchin' little archer to boot. He's going to be trouble. Aren't you going to be trouble, you filthy little glob of shyke?" The boy shook his head. Sadi smirked. "We beat the man out of him. Then we had to beat the wetting himself out of him." "Nikali's arsehole, Sadi. Don't you know how to properly break a slave? Can't have him making a mess." "I said we beat that out of him too, didn't I?" He spat in the grass again. "I'll give you forty-nine mizas for him." "Are you off your tit, you old fox? Forty-nine? What kind of arbitrary shyke negotiatin' is that? He's worth at least a hundred fifty." Sadi put his hand on the boy's shoulder, as if he held tender feelings for the orphan he called vagik more often than not. "Oh, please. You took him and his pavilion somewhere between Cyphrus and Syliras, am I right? And I don't see anything Drykas with you except that nancy sapphire dangling from your ear and this half-dead slave. If he was worth anything, you would've sold him long before dragging your arse all the way to Lisnar. Sixty." Sadi's eyes bugged out and his face went red. His fingers tightened cruelly into the boy's shoulder, but whatever warrior they hadn't beat out of him bit his tongue rather than cry out at the pain and injustice done him. "One hundred. And nine," he added spitefully. "Seventy," the man countered, looking at his fingernails, suddenly bored. "Ninety!" Sadi demanded. A sheen of oily perspiration gleamed on his upper lip. "Seventy-five." "Eighty!" "Seventy-seven or get the hells out of here. You're wasting my time, you sick vagik." The boy looked up at the word, perhaps surprised it wasn't directed at him. Sadi wilted, and though the boy knew this other man was likely no better, a small part of him warmed at his tormentor's deflation. He slapped the back of the boy's head, sending natty old braids swinging. "Done. You mind the good man, y'hear? Then maybe next time he won't try to rape me over a barrel when I have a packet of slaves to sell." A tree for all these problems They can't find us for the moment Then for all past efforts They're buried deep beneath Our hearts and somewhere in our stomachs And hey, transform all others When awful people, they surround you Well, ain't they just like monsters? They come to feed on us Giant little animals for us Though to say we got much hope If I am lost it's only for a little while Sunberth, Sylira 500 A.V. The sea had been an adventure for the boy. Though he had seen it, played in it, this had been his first voyage in a boat. His green-faced retching had first drawn mild pity, then amusement, and finally exasperation from the guards. Thankfully, he recovered soon after setting foot on solid ground again. Thence they recommenced their campaign to put a little weight on his spindly body. He was clean now. The rags he had worn had been laundered, and all the salvageable Drykas embroidery cut off and worked into his new clothes. To him it looked like patchwork shyke, but they seemed to think he would be more marketable as a Drykas stable boy, or that they might dig some strider training out of him. The city was chaotic, almost half again as populous as Lisnar. The whores and thugs seemed to outnumber the normal-seeming people. They passed a gallows with some stale and stinking occupants, their death dance long past. Some citizens were cutting one down in order to replace it with a fresh and screaming woman. He shivered. The desire to dance on a death-tree still came to him from time to time, and he had definitely wanted to end his sufferings by jumping into Laviku's cold, briny embrace, but that woman's fear sent an atavistic thrill up his spine and he decided that for the time being, at least, Kihala's gift of life was better than a love affair with Dira. The day blurred by. He waited his turn on the auction block, stopping his ears to what was going on after a while. He understood and spoke Common; it was necessary to trade with the barbarous outsiders. But the welter of dialects sounded like thunder in his ears and he was thirsty and starting to feel the cramps of hunger as well. The noise and the bright sunlight were going to give him a headache before long. When it was his turn, his stomach began churning. He was hauled up on a dais and stripped naked. The nudity itself did not pose a problem. The Drykas, as a people, were remarkably comfortable with their bodies, and proud of their ink. But here he was with nothing between him and the crowd but his hands. While shame had been his constant companion since waking up an orphan, this was a new aspect. He began to shiver despite the heat, bells ringing in his ears. In shock, he was. If power corrupted and absolute power corrupted absolutely, as his grandfather, the Ankal, always said, then he was pure as the driven snow. Powerless. No memory remained of the sale and the transport. When he regained sense, he smelled horses, and that was a comfort. A woman, round and soft, yet hard and bitter, was sawing off his braids with a dull knife and cursing someone named Pipa for not sharpening it properly. It wasn't within him to protest this added defilement. "What's your name, lad?" she asked. It wasn't exactly motherly, but it was more than he had a right to hope for, he decided. "Well?" she asked, jerking his head to the side by the hair. "Answer me or you'll get a walloping. You're not a warrior anymore and I'm mean as they come." "S... Sam..." he managed, dredging up a piece of himself. A compromise. No longer a man, but a boy and a slave. No longer a warrior, but a boy in some rich man's stables. No longer Sama'el or vagik, but Sam. It would have to do. Though to say we got much hope If I am lost it's only for a little while If I am lost it's only for a little while If I am lost it's only for a little while lyrics by band of horses