Shadow of a Sun

[Amatus]

Winter 5, 508AV

Candle light stained the polish of a spilt drink, flickering kernels across a pond of russet ale. The yellowed dewdrops rolled from the bar's brink and settled with a plink into the loch underneath. Amatus' jaws stretched wide, a groan of a yawn protested his chore and the hour at hand. "Why do we need to be up? The sun has not even rolled from bed." he grumbled, jerking a scrap of rag from a niche along the haggard counter’s edge.

"Just clean the mess, Amatus. Marcus had to run out for provisions, so the least you can do is help out before we open." Melaquin sat along a far table, shawl capped about her hunching shoulders, and brows ever rigid with tension and grief. Whatever her reasons were, for complaint of being left to deal with the boy on her own, or for some other implicit concern that went unnoticed to the boy, he really did not care. All he saw was the woman still curled in blankets warmth while he sponged the cloth across the icy, dank counter, dribbling the remainder of the muddle about his bare feet.

"What about Clara?" he persisted. He pitched the rag into the puddle, splashing the hem of his pants in a darkened stipple. "Why does she get to-"

"Enough!" she clutched a handful of creamy hair in her bowed head, rubbing temples with whitened tips. Her overlay unruffled like spreading wings, clopping her bony knobs along the swirled cedar surface. “Clean. Marcus will be home in a couple hours."

His nose scrunched, raising pinked creases along a once smooth bridge. His toes dragged the sodden scrap through the muddle in a half-hearted effort. His father could have asked it of him and left Melaquin to sleep, and then Amatus would have no one to mumble to and no show to put to his annoyance.

"As you wish, Mother " he droned, as he slopped his sulking steps toward a fresh rag.

......................

Several bells had befallen. Melaquin was easily tired by Amatus and his unrelenting mouth and had fled to the chamber behind the bar as soon as Clara had risen and flitted across the bar. Clara, Melaquin's niece, was ever fond of Amatus. She could be trusted to keep an eye on the boy if only for her own senseless whims. She fawned over him, and he never hated her as much as he loved to torment her.

Sun swelled across the cities silhouette, snuffing a wax flicker with shimmers of orange and white slipping between the stilted shutters. "Are you almost done?" Clara's fingers twisted through long strips of dirty blonde.

"If you’re going to harp, then leave." he snapped, twisting glass necks on their rack so the bands along their mouths were clearly seen. "I wouldn't want your pretty little dress to stain." Amatus' foot kicked at a bucket of mop water, sloshing its innards with his threat as he continued his tasks.

Clara's yelp of surprise was rebounded by the creaking door slicing the room in half with a beam of daylight. "Now Amatus, that's no way to talk to your cousin."

Marcus slithered inside boots squeaking across freshly waxed boards and pulling his coat off as he did. He was a tall man with dark messy hair that peeked from behind his ears and waved at the ends so it gathered above his brows.

"Yes sir." The boys tone immediately adjusted, shooting Clara a sideways glare.

"Hmmph." Clara turned away from him, swiveling toward Marcus with wide green orbs and shameless questioning.

"Did you have a good trip Uncle?"

"Uhh...well." He began, flinging his coat onto the waiting nails sagging along the wall.

"Where are all the things you were going to get?" Amatus intercepted, popping around the counter to join Clara.

"And who's that?" the girl added her finger darted toward the figure Marcus had pushed behind him in the space of the open door.

Amatus had not noticed him. He was too focused on his father's return, but all that peeled away as soon as Clara had announced her discovery. Two curious blonde heads nearly knocked together as they tried to peek around the older man for a better look.

"Well that's the thing." Marcus sighed, and glanced toward the back room behind the two. "I need to talk to your mother." he began to tread away, the door swinging shut with his gait. He stopped and glanced back at the boy. "Amatus, keep an eye on him for me, ok?"

“Sure,” he shrugged watching Marcus’ back as he passed them by “but who is he?”

His question was ignored and Clara nudged him forward with bending tips. His eyes scanned the boy over in one quick sweep looking for one blemish in particular, an inky sun burrowed into a hand’s thin veneer. “So, you’re a slave?” his lips pulled into a slanted grin before dragging back to greet vibrant cerulean irises.

[Trente]

Trente's flesh ached, echoes of violence skimming across itching skin, and piercing into tender muscle. The pain traveled primarily along his outer thigh, and throughout a lower rib specifically. He had, in his foolishness, fought. It had gone poorly, quite poorly. The situation had now been made more than clear to him. He was lucky to be alive, beyond any luck he could expect in the future. Times had been fun, but not he was left with the burning question of weather it was worth it. Was this fate? Karma, and its vengeful reaping? He thought of the skin of those women, the taste of foul words on his tongue, and the heady rush of lies after lies. If karma indeed was a vengeance to be pulled, Trente had yanked with all his might. He still felt quite bitter toward the whole ordeal, guilt never lessened pain.

Another awkward glance from the scraggly haired man ahead of him triggered some malice in Trente. This man didn't even want him. Out of all the buyers in Ravok - Trente stopped himself. Ravok was a shadowed place, a dark and reviled city, which Trente had jumped head first into. The lowly station of his new owner was meant to be an insult, but Trente was not so daft as to know there could be less savory owners. He could think of a few disgusting men, off hand, that would have allowed for arrangements for him to fall into their homes, and at best into their beds. At worst into their dungeons. A shiver ran violently over Trente, winning another specular look from the man, his new master.

Trente gave no look of apology. He hadn't yet decided how to receive his new station. He had practice, but not in present company.

------

The smell of stale alcohol caught him, churning his recovering stomach. A not all together unwelcome smell, and by no means unknown to the young mutt slave. He knew what came with stale beer, fresh wine. Voices sounded from beyond the man before him, and Trente decided, reluctantly, that it was pertinent to his comfortable survival that he listen. He hated that thought. It had been so long since he made decisions in order to survive, he shivered again, drawing unwanted attention to him. Words of question rushed toward him, then over him. He wasn't one to be spoken to, the man was, Trente expected that though it still stung. A decent girl, though clad poorly, her voice unpleasant, though that may simply have been his mood adding darkened tinge to already dark rooms. And to think, he was usually an optimist. Even he had his limits.

His master, his protector fled slowly, upon old creaking floor boards, and the two infantile demons were left to hold dominion over the slave boy. Trente had to admit to some level of fear at the mere prospect of those two holding anything over him.

Trente took a deep breath, and brought his eye to them both, with a passively dignified expression upon his face, unmarried to any persona fake or not in that moment. And such breath taking eyes they were, a curse perhaps that fear and reserve created sure an alluring splash of patterned hues within his watery globes. Like the sapphire waves of the south Suvan the fear tumbles and turned, welled and fell in his ever changing foreign eyes. His face was unadorned by its usual fixings, though still smooth and light skin glowed softly in flickering lamp light. Years had taken him in Ravok, and with it slipped his time upon the waters, upon that ship, and as a reflection so had the deep tan of Syna's kiss been bled from him. Ravok had been slowly poisoning his already delicate body.

His shirt had been stripped, from violence, not depravity, and his black cotton slacks displayed a wide tare from one of the packet's seams. Bruises had began their trek across his arms, chest and side. Lower they were worse, below his concealing clothes, reaching into vivid greens to prove a more painful beating. His face, however, had gone untouched. This, no doubt, had been a deprived jest.

Trente looked at the two, who seemed all together unrelated. Their eyes looked over his features, and rested with intrigue upon his hand, quickly sweeping back up with a renewed air of confidence.

He was a slave. And so, he acted as such. It wasn't choice, he knew the line he walked. The lady could have had him dumped in the waterway without any questions. She had chosen this avenue of punishment for the modest profit, and the snide knowledge that Trente would find it more degrading than death. Just as well for her, Trente thought, as he silently vowed that if death fell upon him for this, he would return and undue her as she undid him.

"Yes, young master." Trente looked the boy directly in the eyes, almost challenging, but almost something more sensual. He didn't care for the boy, he wasn't even convinced he was a boy. He cared for the situation to be easy. He would be charismatic, and he would be passive. Under no circumstances would he let himself fall vein in agitation. At least, this is what he promised himself.

[Amatus]

Amatus said nothing, an exhale of a laugh cooing through his watertight entrance. His head sloped to the side and shook in a toss of sun-bleached pine needles, and the amusement flitted over his face. He turned to Clara, with an uneven smile. Her giggle chittered behind a tiny fist balled before her impish grin. They had never had a slave to his prior knowledge. There was never need for one even at the best of times. The prospect excited him, so much so he forgot about his father's expression as he left the room. It would be an unhampered experiment if nothing more. Clara was predictable, he knew too easily how to contort her into a nicely woven package of his liking.

He pivoted to front Trente again. Tucking stray threads behind his ear, their shortened length letting them sway free exactly as they had been. "Young master?" the corner of his plump lip tweaked between sharp edgings, and his head bowed, a look from beneath a long splay of lashes that older men would find harmless and unassuming. "With such formality, what shall my sister and I call you?" that's how it began, tiny meaningless lies dappled conversation, it was a test of his own proficiency. He would not bat an eye nor avert his relaxed scrutiny, and by this point most would be none the wiser.

A long drawn step leisurely closed their distance, his feet skated as if he was on ice and he stopped just before him. He was small still. Even Clara nearly rivaled him in stature. His chin tilted upward toward the bottomless orbs looking back so guardedly. "Do you have a name, or should I make one up?" he leaned forward, only to walk around him before they contacted, but bitter breath still lingered upon his face.

He fidgeted with the windows shutters, his fingers flicking over the freshly dusted surface and trembling fresh light across the floor. "Amatus don't be rude." Clara, always the gentle savior, interceded.

A wet click of his tongue dragging across molars inflated his annoyance. He hated when she acted that way, if they were two halves of the same coin she was the polished and shinning side. It made him want to heave sludge across her sanctimonious surface. His back arched as a bristling feline, and he pressed the shutters shut, so the light was snuffed. "Was I being rude? I did not realize.” His voice was still soft and decisive despite himself. “Is the new rule: do unto slaves as we do unto one another?"

Her face fell into something like pity as she took in his back. Some unspoken sentence augmented in her throat and held her from admittance. Instead she ignored him, giving her attention to Trente.

"My name is Clara." her hand flattened over her developing chest and then she nodded toward Amatus. "And that is my cousin, Amatus. Please just address us by our names." she beamed sheepishly, rather entranced by the strangers appearance, his dark hair falling over such cascading shades of blue. "So what is your name?"

[Trente]

Trente observed quietly as the shifting framed of the moments passed. His face remained stoic, unattached to any true demeanor, and he drank what he could in. With speech he could tell the thin set one, androgynous at such a young age, to be male. Male enough for his ego to already be taking hold. Issues with his father, he assessed without a blink of the eye. Then the girl, frail, and quite the opposite. She seemed innocent, and that appealed to Trente. Perhaps there was fun to be had here, even as a slave. Could he make a home in her sympathies? In her obsessions, perhaps.

There was conflict between them, and Trente knew certainly, instantly, that an alliance though prone to change must be made. There was no middle ground, not in the eyes of the proud golden locked boy. He would be pleased by resistance, Trente knew this. He, after all, would if he were in such a place. But the girl, she wanted something pretty, shiny, and even cordial perhaps. Having a slave meant wealth to her, as Trente could imagine. And what prestige was there in a haphazard dirty slave boy? Nothing. But a tragic, mature, and prestige young man with potential? Trente's conceded, though not wholly unbased confidence held no doubt that he already possessed a face striking enough for the part.

He smiled, allowed only the slightest glimpse of whites between barely parted lips, measuring out his charm with modesty. A modesty that only Trente would consider discretion. "Trente Ostentatoire-Criard Eclatante." It was a struggle to keep his lips from a smile, struggling them back to a more even face. He looked her in the eyes, allowed his face to shift quite deliberately away from the shunned cousin. "Likewise, however, simply Trente would be well received, and quite enough by your lips." He lets the words sink for a moment, feeling quite awkward with the boy still closer to him than the girl. He wondered if he would invite an attack, either verbal or physical. Would he defend himself in either case? He wasn't quite sure.

He stayed his course, and remained with trained eyes upon the immature girl. "Please, Beauty," he was plenty aware of the social overstep, and flaunted it without shame, though measured a tone of respect and subservience just enough to seem almost passive. Quite a leap from his normal haughty nature. "Do not bother yourself with politeness for me. I am, quite clearly, a simple slave. You cousin must be right," he by no means took his side, but cleverly took favorites to the girl, "I am worth no such attention."

Still keeping his eyes on her's, worried what looks he may be winning from the boy, Trente dipped his head ever so lightly, and opened his hands to motion toward his body, mostly exposed and quickly approaching bruised. "I am in a pitiful shape, though perhaps I could fetch something for you. I am," he held his pose slightly bowed, looking at her, "yours to command."

He had a distinct advantage over the straw haired boy. Their hearts matched in wickedness, perhaps. But, Trente held experience and wisdom that Amatus' age had unlikely allowed for. Wit, however, was a trickier element to gauge. Trente had found before those half him in age with twice him in wit. He would not drop his guard against the situation with ease.

It was the gesture to his body once more, the slight bow, and Amatus' new position that allowed for a new glimpse. Along injured, though otherwise unblemished skin, stretched upward across ribs then shoulder blade, set upon Trente's right side a deep and vivid scar. It was clearly no accident, a dread "X" tinged boldly with crimson red ink, it seemed to glow aggravated upon his back, almost as if an infection upon his small frame.

[Amatus]

Amatus glowered, put off by the waft of lure dethroning his control. He simulated insouciance, lowered away and widened the distance between himself and the slave. He could hear Clara's bustle, the sudden inhale that puffed her chest as Trente burrowed his hooks into her inexperienced ribcage. Turquoise discs flashed skyward for a mottled view beneath translucent lids. She was too likely to see the virtuous in people, even in the complete absence of. If she had hung to the idea of him so voluntarily, it was his safest and only assumption.

"Oh-No, no, please do not bother." Clara's hand swayed before her glowing cheek, dismissing his offer. It was not until his presentation of leading gestures had she realized his bare chest, blotched in angry hues like seasoned produce. The petite girl had been too pulled to his eyes, the ripple of rolling waves with beams of shifting light punching through the sheen. It was some magic she had never seen in Amatus' steely gems, etched and hardened into icy globules. Her love for his eyes was equaled by the discomfort they beseeched. It was visible that something had walled away behind the jeweled barriers, an attachment snuffed and buried away. She was no fool, but still Amatus was correct in his assumptions. She was still young, guileless, and an overzealous sympathizer. Her heart was her ultimate weakness. "Do not expend yourself, Trente. You must be in pain."

"That's quite a title..." Amatus snapped in, a sulk prickling over his features fleetingly before mutating into a smirk. "Our dearest Trente," his arms looped about his chest as he leaned his thighs back against a nearby table. "How exotic you must be." his head pitched with an airy laugh.

"Here, let me get you something." the girl had ignored her cousin, scurrying across the room in search of any reproaching authority.

"Who are you looking for? Am I not here?" the boy’s brow rose as he watched her caution. "Do you think I'd really cover for you, if you expended product on a slave?"

"Oh!" Clara's cheeks puffed as she rolled about the counter. "Unruffle your feathers Amatus, I'm only getting water."

A straightened digit smoothed his crinkling brows, rubbing over the ridge of bending strands. "If you want to petch him, you don't have to flatter him with such extravagant gifts." his tone was flat despite the palpable tease, the closest to annoyance it had rang since he opened his mouth in front of the mixed-blood. He straightened and pulled closer to Trente once again, his eyes stationary over the punitive 'X' depicted across his side. "He does no look all that well taken care of." a nail flicked out at the irritated looking flesh, all too tenderly following its path from one tip to the other. "Maybe you should nurse him into your cotton bloated bosom."

Her hand shuddered, her face concealed behind a drape of dusty blonde and rapidly bursting with blood. The cup dropped across the counter with a hollow clank, and jumped down across the wooden boards. She leaned against the counter and shielded her mouth, as if holding back the wretch that would expel her sob.

Amatus' palm flattened against Trente's bend of rib. "Oh Clara, does this mean you have a new favorite? You may drive me to jealousy." His hand slipped up to nudge Trente's jaw toward him. He stared into his eyes, taking in each iris individually with equal scrutiny. "I'm not blind," he turned back to Clara, his hand still upon the others jaw, a lenient sulk plumping his bottom lip. "Such nicely wrapped packages are obvious to draw attention."

Glistening green eyes refused to look back for more than a second. "I'm allowed to be nice Amatus. It does not mean I will lay with whoever flaps their lashed at me."

"So you don't want him then?" he brushed thick chestnut from the slaves face.

She flustered straight and snatching the discarded cup. "W-What? He's not ours. He's your father's."

"It didn't look like he knew what to do with him" Amatus shrugged "You don't mind, right?" he addressed him again, an innocent inquiry from a wide-eyed child that advanced his own entertainment.

Clara dipped from behind the counter, glass in hand. They were both encroaching upon his space now, as she dipped in to offer the glass, her face sullen and uncomfortable.

[Trente]

The slightest crease fell into Trente's brow as the wicked child touched him, equally like he were some shiny new bauble and a gun to his face. The taunts rolled from Amatus' lips with practice, and they were taken unfairly weak retorts. Amatus was a kind of one, not himself, but he had won his sovereignty over the young Clara, or so it would seem. In another place, another time, he would have struck the malicious boy for impeding upon his prize, or at least taunted him in return without a breath's hesitation. Alas, there were factors to consider. As in all games, and neither Trente nor Amatus could doubt that Clara was little more than a game, there must be rules. It benefited neither Amatus, nor Trente to speak in Clara's favor, to protect her from the taunts. Though in the shining city of Syliras chivalry would demand the women's honor be saved and her self-esteem bulwarked against further degradation, they all lay on the dark game board of Ravok now. No, he would let Clara be worn down, let her heart grow callous, but not before working with Amartus to rip it open and drink from it's pit.

The youthful slave had confidence in his ability. For he, unlike his competitor, had indeed drunk from the veins of a women, he had tasted what makes them thrive, and this girl child would be pray without challenge in comparison to that heinous victory.

The glass seemed a trap as it extended toward him, followed by the gaze of generous eyes surrounded by flushed flesh. It seemed too delicate there, beckoning his parched body to drink of it. Not utterly unlike Clara herself. Still, Amatus stood close, holding Trente with opportunistic hands. Trente's mind bloomed with horrifying possibilities, the glass being pushed from his hand, the shatter of of it's fragile shell, the proof of water falling across him, and an angered father and freshly names master much to eager to beat the darkly fated slave closer to death than he had already drawn that morning.

Despite this fear he witnessed, more than commanded his hand's reach forward, grasping with measured strength at the glass, tender fingers brushing against Clara's, not entirely on accident. The globes of his eyes flicked more in contemplation, in anticipation then in true appreciation as he uttered with some deliberation through his scratching voice, "You are too kind."

He could not deny the simple pleasures, he had never been capable of this. Not with the noblewoman's daughter, and not with Amatus' trailing fingers, his intimidating glares, and dominate command of Trente's own body. The pain stung, but it made the pleasures all that more present. Tracing fingers, cupped palms along his exposed back, grasps at his cheeks, the cool of water along the clear exterior of the glass, and the nubile fingers of the budding Clara. It may have been the fatigue, or it may have been his hedonistic heart, but the sensations were getting to him, closing in on him, and all he could think of was water. The sensation of water pouring down his throat, spilling into his being. His focus slipped, and he brought the glass toward his face greedily, forgetting to brace against a potential attack by his new found rival. Aside from a vividly present touch still upon him Amatus seemed to dissipate from Trente's thoughts. He merely locked eyes with Clara, and begged his hand to deliver the water at a quicker pace.

[Amatus]

Clara afforded a nod, the point of her boney shoulder undocking from the ruffles about her collar to caress her jawline. Her huddled shoulders shadowed the innocent color bleeding into her cheeks, while her vacant hand discovered its way into a mangling grip with its matching part.

Amatus soaked her in, a deadpan scrutiny of the warmth sailing off her. Ephemerally he coveted the emotion, the exhilaration and insecurity of inexplicable attraction. He could decipher her thoughts as her extremities continued to sluggishly wrestle toward her nibbled lip. His mouth curled as he reaped in her prospective stare. He pursued the trail, his chin inclining before the stranger, a heads difference kept them at a plain that shaved at his nerves. He observed what he knew Clara to be so audaciously keen on: the cup ruched between two cracking humps of tender flesh, a tongue sagging behind a line of teeth to marinate in the lukewarm drink. A pit formed where the frayed nerves separated around his gut.

The indelicate pads of his fingers trampled over the crests of Trente's ribs, he could suffer each swallow with the rise and fall of Trente’s chest, an irregular rhythm of breath suspended and replenished. The small blonde forsook his side without forewarning, taking up a duster left weeping over the backbone of a nearby chair. His cheek pinched between the depressions of his molars as he began to smear ghostly rings upon the worn varnish of the nearest bench. The discontentment ravishing his mind was difficult to see beneath the normally capricious posture as it rolled from his stiffened shoulders. His cousin was a whore, she desired to be used, she allowed him to walk over her and now ogled a stranger as a plaything with girlish lust. Clara was after all his step mother's, Melaquin's only niece.

His tongue dampened his lips in motion with his pause. He craned in Clara's path, his eyes tightened and mouth twitching to fashion confrontations from the poison leaking from his sights. "You-"

Melaquin’s emergence from the room where his father had disappeared muzzled him gruffly. "Is everything alright?" She asked eyeing Amatus with a practiced wary; her steps, however, led her to Clara's side. His mouth forced into a firm line, his body imitating the motion straightened him from athwart the table.

"Everything-" Clara tore herself from an arrested stare with Amatus, her voice gradually salvaging a strength she lost in privacy. "Everything is fine. We were only getting to know Trente."

"Yes, well-" Melaquin all but circumvented the sight of the enslaved boy painfully centered upon her hardwood floors. "For now he is to stay in room adjacent to yours Amatus until the season is over."

A laugh shredded past her announcement, clouding the room with Amatus's pleasure. "The room" he resounded in the dying breath of a cackle. Clara's face disagreed with the seeming hilarity with a look of apprehension she pinned to her aunt. "The oversized closet? You mean to shove him into a glorified cupboard? Might as well put him into Clara's bed, I'm sure they would play nice."

"Keep your mouth shut, you vile child!" Marcus's wife had no patience for her stepson and now was no exception, her lip curled and readied for the boy's retort. Her fingers unbent to raise a blow to his cheek if she found a moment to approach.

"Alright! Alright!" Marcus emerged, hand ironing down the back of his disheveled hair. The ever present peacemaker of the unruly troupe was bellowing his disapproval to put a trap on all their disparities. "Amatus take the boy upstairs, make him a bed and we'll finish this later. Clara, why don't you gather some left overs and bring them upstairs for their dinner." He was met with dissimilar responses, before he landed upon Trente. He shifted at the sight of the boy. Their talks had done little to convince him of a proper place for him. Nevertheless there was always work to be done, work he could not effectually goad upon his disobedient son at times. "Tomorrow I'll find chores for you to do, likely cleaning and aiding behind the bar. I don't want any trouble.” The statement seemed an exhausted warning. “Have my son find you some clothes."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Amatus strode up the steps leading the way down a narrow hall toward his room. It was of reasonable dimension, enough room for a commodious bed with timeworn cotton sheets covered by a thick grey fur that nearly matched the shade of his distant gaze, and a dresser with just enough walking room for a few spare pieces of furniture in-between if they had need for them.

The room to the side of the ash wood dresser was as they said an expanded closet now stacked with a few straw filled wooden cases and old bottles. “There, my dear guest,” with hand outstretched toward the open space, “is your awaiting bastion.”

Amatus plopped down upon his bedstead a slender leg falling over the other. “I’m sure Clara will be up soon enough to entertain you with a melody and ballet.” He mused.