- 62nd of Winter 519 AV
One's understanding of time was wholly dependent on context clues and socialization. In a deep, dark hole far away from light and genuinely pleasant company, this context was lacking. Time meant nothing when the sun couldn't be observed, when days bled into one another in an endless stampede of shifting to and from different aspects of a pitifully mortal shell. To the undying, time was irrelevant. The day was marked only by invested self-interest; a seven day schedule could be counted fairly accurately when the keeper had the steady march of the heavens to light the way.
What did time mean to the irreverently imprisoned wight stuck under the crafted stone of man's nasty little secret in this godsforsaken city. She could count the days on the back of her hands, marking morning with pale skin the texture of smooth marble and night with tawny flesh tattooed by the long dead lovers the hand once touched. The days were easy. The bells, chimes, ticks? Significantly less so, though also significantly less meaningful. The seasons? Impossible. Once upon a time this wight could string her fingers through her hair and know instinctively at what point in the year it was by the colour of the strands tangled around her fingers. Now her hair was blonde, always blonde, and had been blonde for as long as the wight's keepers had been alive and longer still beyond them.
It had been two years. Three years?
It had been a long time since Ciraaci had seen the sky and tasted sunlight on the gilded marble of her skin. It had been longer still since she had seen her reflection, known the gentle words of a loved one, longer still since she had last looked up at that sky and loved the sun that nested itself sweetly in a cradle of windswept clouds. She missed the wind on the Sea of Grass, longed for the tall stalks to tickle her palms as she walked through them, dreamt of horses thundering over the rolling Sea, cried for the laughter of Drykas children.
Time was irrelevant.
It meant everything to her keepers, though she knew nothing of that. Ciraaci had been staying at the Kelvic Research Institute for well past long enough. She was a drain on resources now that it had been proven, time and time again, that seed wouldn't catch.
She had been exposed to Kelvic men, half-Kelvic men, men who dreamt of being Kelvic but were little more than sewer rats salvaged from the lake and returned to their watery grave when they'd served their purpose. She'd endured the conception of one child late at night when all noon activities had failed and carried to term one fragile, deformed thing that she'd hurled against the wall when her keepers handed it to her.
Time meant everything.
She couldn't stay any longer. Ciraaci endured the treatment of her captors without pride; she'd cried for food during the long winter night of a year's past when she had been left without for days and days and days. She'd begged to be washed, to have her hair brushed, to have the bite marks of an overexcited mate treated, to be spoken to just once and be reminded that she was still a person, that she still had a voice. She didn't scream and fight unless they threw a dog into her pen and it had her pinned to the floor. She didn't raise a hand when they struck her. She hardly met their eyes in acknowledgement of the simple truth of men being that they would always rise to a challenge. Humans were a blight, a pox on the land, and the sickness they carried was arrogance and ignorance. She was ethaefal, forsaken though she may be by Syna and without the guidance of her mistress Dira, but she was beyond the men that kept her in their dungeon.
Time was up.
Auction day was coming and she was being preened and fawned over by pretty little slave girls with brushes and wet rags. She sat still under their care, let them poke and prod and take experimental tugs at the jagged edge of her damaged horn, kept her tongue tied and her eyes down. She was being watched by the guards and didn't want to tickle their fancy to hit her today by expressing curiosity.
What did time mean to the irreverently imprisoned wight stuck under the crafted stone of man's nasty little secret in this godsforsaken city. She could count the days on the back of her hands, marking morning with pale skin the texture of smooth marble and night with tawny flesh tattooed by the long dead lovers the hand once touched. The days were easy. The bells, chimes, ticks? Significantly less so, though also significantly less meaningful. The seasons? Impossible. Once upon a time this wight could string her fingers through her hair and know instinctively at what point in the year it was by the colour of the strands tangled around her fingers. Now her hair was blonde, always blonde, and had been blonde for as long as the wight's keepers had been alive and longer still beyond them.
It had been two years. Three years?
It had been a long time since Ciraaci had seen the sky and tasted sunlight on the gilded marble of her skin. It had been longer still since she had seen her reflection, known the gentle words of a loved one, longer still since she had last looked up at that sky and loved the sun that nested itself sweetly in a cradle of windswept clouds. She missed the wind on the Sea of Grass, longed for the tall stalks to tickle her palms as she walked through them, dreamt of horses thundering over the rolling Sea, cried for the laughter of Drykas children.
Time was irrelevant.
It meant everything to her keepers, though she knew nothing of that. Ciraaci had been staying at the Kelvic Research Institute for well past long enough. She was a drain on resources now that it had been proven, time and time again, that seed wouldn't catch.
She had been exposed to Kelvic men, half-Kelvic men, men who dreamt of being Kelvic but were little more than sewer rats salvaged from the lake and returned to their watery grave when they'd served their purpose. She'd endured the conception of one child late at night when all noon activities had failed and carried to term one fragile, deformed thing that she'd hurled against the wall when her keepers handed it to her.
Time meant everything.
She couldn't stay any longer. Ciraaci endured the treatment of her captors without pride; she'd cried for food during the long winter night of a year's past when she had been left without for days and days and days. She'd begged to be washed, to have her hair brushed, to have the bite marks of an overexcited mate treated, to be spoken to just once and be reminded that she was still a person, that she still had a voice. She didn't scream and fight unless they threw a dog into her pen and it had her pinned to the floor. She didn't raise a hand when they struck her. She hardly met their eyes in acknowledgement of the simple truth of men being that they would always rise to a challenge. Humans were a blight, a pox on the land, and the sickness they carried was arrogance and ignorance. She was ethaefal, forsaken though she may be by Syna and without the guidance of her mistress Dira, but she was beyond the men that kept her in their dungeon.
Time was up.
Auction day was coming and she was being preened and fawned over by pretty little slave girls with brushes and wet rags. She sat still under their care, let them poke and prod and take experimental tugs at the jagged edge of her damaged horn, kept her tongue tied and her eyes down. She was being watched by the guards and didn't want to tickle their fancy to hit her today by expressing curiosity.
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