Pawn to King's Rook in 3....2...1...

::having cried herself out she ate some bread and cheese and splashed cold water on hot cheeks. That was enough of that and she eyed the silent place, grabbing a piece of paper and scribbling a note::

my very great thanks for your help, I will find a way to repay your kindness

::No signature, she left the attic and booted fet made their way downstairs. A nod to the one guard she saw, dressed as she was from a distance he seemed unphased. Once out of the grounds she was off. When in doubt go to ground, seek roots and there was one place for that. Only three men might even guess she would go there. One was likely at his villa, another was missing and the third, well, here's hoping kindred minds might think alike tonight::

Lost Soul

They said the name of this house is Lost Souls and I do not think a place has ever been more aptly named. Oh they have not mistreated me in any way in fact Master Drystan was almost solicitous in seeing that I was as comfortable as one can be when secreted in an attic holding several jit monkeys.

Everything feels wrong though and the weight of worry has settled tight and close around me like wet suffocating cotton. The clothes I wear, men's clothing, it makes my flesh crawl. The place is strange and the jits are loud and nothing has been right since I found Master's clothing bloody, his harness as well tacky with dried blood in the trees at the falls park last night.

Master Kade said perhaps Master did it himself, a ploy to snare Skirt into finding him, but I cannot even imagine that in my mind. Not sure which is a worse thing to consider, that he would do so base a thing or that he would be so weak as to trick her into seeking him. No, no I cannot concieve of him doing that.

Frustrated. I was very frustrated last night, a part of me just knowing that something is wrong, deeply wrong. Master told me of the thief he left with a placard in the area of the Plaza of Tarns. He knows I knew the one woman, with the corpse, he even had Kade searching for her. Then he goes missing and why in the hell does it feel like I am the only one believing that the city should stop and a full search be made?

Probably because I am only a slave. I even know better logically. Men get into fights, the underbelly of the Anbar seethes and roils with chaos and danger every ahn of every day. I went to find Mads today, surely if anyone could think of a plan her Master would be able to. We were with a group of young people and just as we began to speak of the disappearance, a trio of city guards showed up in the city square.

We heard enough to make my skin run cold, they were seeking Master and for questioning. I had even gotten up to approach a guard when Master Nash called me to him, I went and bowed my head right to the stones, concealing my collar. They left and Master Nash ran off to try and get to the den before they did...we heard them say they were off to search his property for information.

Mistress Rami gave me a cap and the clothing of a male slave and we went to the cave above the waterfalls. The news was not good when Master Nash returned to join us. The Den had been searched brutally and he heard the one guard saying to find the black bitch. Sometimes I wish I were easier to conceal but after much discussion they decided the safest thing to do was to bring me here to a house I have never seen by a man I do not know.

What if they find the will though? What if the Scribe is implicated? Short of finding Master alive and well I want nothing more in this world than to see the Scribe. I ache for some form of familiarity, some pause to the dark desperate thoughts that are crushing my head. All of the what ifs collide and sitting here helpless, unaware of what transpires, it is making me mad.

What if Master is dead?
What if the ones he sought found him first?
What if, being barbarian, he has been sold into slavery?
What if he does come back, only to be arrested?
What if the city guards get hold of me?
What if the people I care for get hurt over all of this?
What if I am left here....

I have not cried since finding the clothing. Too much to do, too many thoughts, too many reasons to have to be strong. I do not think the jits will care though and even I have my breaking point....

words words words

Sometimes I feel as though words are too much, but then my thoughts continue to spin and what good has it done me in the petty refusal to put them to paper? None really. They are still there, in fact they seem to grow weight each day and so, I surrender. Here are my words. Good, bad, ugly, all of the words. May they free me from the cling of melancholy.

He freed her. I almost understand that. What I grieve is that neither of them saw the need or even desire in letting me say goodbye. The deed was done long past whn finally he admitted it. By then, who knows. She might well be in Tor by now, or Schendi or hell, maybe she has fallen to another's collar. I wouldn't know. She was my friend and he my Master. I assumed too much I suppose in thinking that either factored in the ripple effect every action has.

Maybe I have no right to be upset by it all. Too bad. I am. I am upset about a lot of things these days and all of them each to its very core comes back to my growing belief that I am simply not quite right. I feel very much as if the tide is going out as I stand still, mired deeper and deeper in sand and helpless against the rising waters. I suppose it is fitting for a slave be that...helpless.

I do not like change especially. I go to the parks and feel a sense of loss, no more fireside talks, no more going to familiar feet and being permitted to touch and be touched. Kade has barely looked upon me in a hand or more now. I will not pretend it does not hurt. The Scribe is a busy man, but I will not pretend that I do not crave time with him. Zebediah is my Master, but he is nursing a hurt I am not fully sure he knows he has. The Magistrate, he too has had little use for me.

I feel many things. Jealous, insecure, hurt, lonely, hopeful, sensual, emboldened a bit, steady. So many contradicitions. Maybe steady is not so good when all around me turns like a mosaic that spins too fast to follow the stories told in each tile and bit of glass. I don't know and that simple truth irritates me all to hell. I prefer to know things.

I know I am fuckable, desireable, sensual, outspoken, salacious, wanton. See, those are things I can hold tight to. They do not change. Except when they do, as in the desireable part. Still, the rest hold true.

I want to be the lovely dancer setting the pole afire, I wang to be the slave called to a man's side and held close, stroked and petted. Hell, sometimes, in my most secret self I want to be the slave that is loved, though I'd settle for lovable. These are all just words though, silly useless self serving pathetic words that can burn to ash in a heartbeat.

He asked me if I needed to be coddled. No. I do not need to be. Sometimes I want to be but that brings me back to feeling versus knowing versus wanting. Here on these pages I can spill out my thoughts and feelings. Nowhere else. A smiling slave is a pleasing slave and it is no lie, no front, no deceit. I will live for him, for the men I serve. I even take pleasure in doing so, for while I stand knee deep in rising waters, they deserve and will have better of me than they have of late.

The words? Are just that, words on a page. Of no consequence whatsoever.

Too

I feel.....well, period.

I feel too much too deeply too ugly too jealous too needy too fragile too brazen too worried too shaken too tall too Gorean too dark too hurt too much..it is all just too much.

This was not supposed to happen, it was never supposed to happen and I am mad as fuck that it is. Rather like opening a hole in a dam, the pressure behind the small tear is too much and all of the emotions behind keep flaring out and running amuck and I sit here sometimes and see myself in the glass and wonder who the hell I am and what happened to who I always was.

He no longer desires me.

He says I should be happy. That he will seek his pleasure elsewhere in certain regards. On th one hand, if it prevents me from fucking up again, maybe I should be happy. But it goes deeper than that. Nowhere in his words or tone was there even a hint that he thinks I can improve or change. What slave would be happy about that? He said he will not play games and I wanted to smack him.

Game playing? I have never been a game player and I cannot help but feel that some portion of his response is colored by his experiences with others. That he is giving up makes me freeze like a tabuk hearing a hunter's step. Do I charge ahead, run away, stay still? I do not know, I have no idea what will make it better, or if it can ever be made better if he has no faith that I can succeed where I failed once.

I think that is what has me the most upset, the thought that he will so easily go elsewhere or, as he put it, find himself a slave more willing to please him. As if I am not willing, have not been willing...I do not understand.

I think it is kind of funny that I strove some months back to be less about the sensuality and more about the intellect. That did not work out either but at least in that endeavor I did not fail so spectacularly.

I will not give vent to these feelings elsewhere, they are displeasing, I have been told so. I will not allow myself to look beyond the steel that binds me, it is not my place to do so anyway and I was foolish to let myself become embroiled in emotion.

He has his love slave.

I earn him coin.

I will just have to be okay with that.

Hell, if it pleases him then it is not even so very bad a thing. I'll find a way to brace the dam and stem the tide. I have to, for so very many reasons.

Shades of Green

I used to think of myself as a simple slave. Really, not a whole lot of twisting snakes of complexity beneath the surface all in all. I do not seek freedom, I enjoy serving, I thrive in the steel of men.

I cried yesterday.

Not a brief spring shower either, the sort of crying that leaves your stomach hurting and head thick with hot cotton and sleep the only possible refuge from the exhausted emptiness that follows a truly thorough sob session.

I hated it.

I am so deeply ashamed. Strange, really. I have done things over my time in a collar that would make most slaves pall, and yet this had nothing to do with a specific act or even a style of service. I was jealous. Kings, I cringe even writing that. The slave was nothing extraordinary, pretty enough, seemed trained, so....why?

I have been accused recently of having more emotional issues. I had not thought of it in those terms, but on reflection, maybe there is truth to that. I am at a loss really. There was refuge in the easy sublimation of emotion to seduction. Uncomplicated, smooth, pleasing. Ever a smile, never a tear, it...worked.

I need to work on that. The notion that slaves should be emotional people, easy to read and helplessly vulnerable? No. The tears at the springs were likewise displeasing and on the whole, I think I prefer the cool surface of calm over the seething roil of emotions that I have no idea their source and damned little hold onthem.

I just wish I could turn the thoughts off, the creeping feel of dread and shame weighs on me like a double weight cloak and I have no current solution for the feelings. I ache for the clean fire of the whip, the refuge in tears clear and understandable and the lingering ache of knowing that leather eradicated what clings to me like cold spider silk.

He would never understand, I cannot risk the disappointment. I'll force it down, stomp it over. In the meantime, I will wait. It will be hard, so very hard, but I will wait. Perhaps I will be pleasing in the sufferance, that is a hope.

I Won't

"Don't let go. Don't ever let go".

Did he know, I wonder? Was it calculated, planned, set into motion too far beneath the waters to draw my notice as days turned to hands? I am torn, unsure if that would make it that much more amazing or somehow tarnish the epiphany of comprehension that I felt as I pressed back against his body and those words were whispered in my ear.

In every sensible slant of light brought by reasonable dawn I should be beyond pissed. Kings knows that I was more than ready to lash out, to strike out and make it clear beyond measure that there were some lines I simply do not cross. Bring on the bladed whip, I...will...not....go...there.

Or would I?

Damn the man. Why is it that I am even wondering when I have always known and been perfectly fine knowing. No. Just no. I guess I just expected that if the day came it would be a command from a distance, a show to be watched, a proverbial pit into which I would fall and I was certain that I would draw blood before acquiescing.

Only, that wasn't the way.

There was no cold distance or sharp command. There was a warm body and hot words and snaking breath and quickening pulse and it was oh so very easy to obey. Frighteningly so. The ahn was late and his grip did not relent even as he drew me away from the bladed edge that still makes my insides squirm in some strange mixture of fear and ...something else.

I sat for a time today in the early morning quiet of the den. The wooden pole was tall and dark and though I did not go to it, please it, wrap my limbs around it..I did consider it. I almost wanted to, a tenuous draw it might be gaining on me. Then again maybe that has nothing to do with a pole and everything to do with his words. I hope he realizes what he asked with those words....don't let go...

because I won't.

Dream

The fire is almost out, only embers shimmer over white coals and the horizon holds that certain held-breath feeling of being too far from sunrise to quite exhale. The camp guards are quiet, restless shadows between the here and there. A slave awakened by strange dreams is of no consequence and I do not seek their attention.

It was so strange, the tent silent and the air strange. Funny how that happenes, that once upon a time I found the scent of the air in Ar so very foreign. Gone were the verdant undertones of old growth forest and rich loamy earth. Replaced by the scent of merchant stalls, the kitchen, the streets, it was all so strange. Yet I find myself here, far to the south and tasting the air is a new experience. It is not familiar, not steady. It is not home. I have to laugh to think that were I to go back to my birthplace, that too would taste so strange.

I hope they find the woman they seek, healthy and whole. I am eager to help but quite often in recent days have found myself in the role of listener, observer, without the knowledge or skills to truly be helpful. I do not like that feeling. And so I offer what thoughts I have, see to the free in camp and keep a wary eye on the horizon for what may come.

Tonight, yes well. Strange and yet not so much that I thought to find myself here with a cup of water and this book, a cloak draped over me against the chill of night as I seek to unravel the disjointed fragments of the dream that wrested me from slumber. More than the images, the faces, it was the feel of it. It felt important, crucial even, as if I could not handle letting it slip away like spider silk upon waking.

The stones were cool beneath bare feet and the air was that summer morning kind of cool where moisture brings it close against bare skin and th promise of warmth touches you. Sunrise over the Viktel Aria and a cloaked figure just ahead. His head was down, hood drawn, a walking stick in his left hand. No matter how I paced myself, I could not close the gap, distracted by the small wooden box I carried.

I stepped from the stones and was within the sheltering boughs of a wooden glen. Trees stood tall above me and in the light of the fire ahead two women danced. Their bodies moved with a strangely underwater slowness but they moved beautifully. I felt I should know the dance, but I did not and then their fire was a small greenish blue globe. It had the sense of a ritual, a slow yearning worship of the fire that was no longer fire. I turned away, remembering then that I was not to dance to that tune.

There was a sense more than a visual, something beckoned me deeper into those trees, the darkness giving way to daylight and there was a storefront but no store. The frame of window held no glass and where display of merchandise ought to be there was only a small wooden table. It felt important and I looked to the small box I held. When looking back, the table was now made of chain and had become a glittering square..

There was a taste in my mouth, a sweet warm burn as if I had sipped sulpaga. The table of chain wrapped the pulsing form of a female. My pulse was loud in my ears, quickening in tandem with the table girl. Much more than chain but secretive, careful, it was important to let the chains shine, they drew the eye from the girl whose eyes snapped open and met my own. A finger touched her lips. Shhh. She knew the secret, the table knew the secret and I turned away.

The scenery slid away, sunset on a shoreline I am very sure I never touched. The box in my hands had a hinged lid and I stepped into the water. It was warm, no hot, suffocating and the waves that lapped at my ankles rose higher despite my feet not moving. A figure floated past, and I took from the box a dina petal. I slipped it through her lips and like a small fish she flared to life, swimming away in a streak of silver. It was then that I realized so many more forms lay dormant, floating in the water, lifeless.

I became panicked, reaching again and again into the box for petals, each revived by the gift and swimming away. It was only when the last dove deep that I realized the waves were at my navel and tugging me harder. The tide was rising and I was too deep in to wade out to safety. I could taste the salt water on my tongue, braids heavy and pulling my head back, the triple moons full above and a stone rising from the water upon which stood that traveling man with cloak and stick.

Too far away, the water lonely without anyone who needed help. He could not hear me, and yet he turned his head and in that moment I knew him. I opened my mouth to call his name and a great wash of water filled my mouth, my throat, The moons shimmered above the watery surface and I remember feeling achingly calm as I went under. The box clutched tight, I looked within, dismayed at the very many compartments. Such craftsmanship, it was lovely, each was unique and yet all were devoid of the petal I would need to learn to breathe when air was taken.

I woke to the very real sound of a shhh in my ears. Disturbed, panting, it was the swirl of emotion and sensory images that gripped me, led me to grab this book and try as far as possible to bring solidity to what was fleeting thought. I make no pretense of having done so well. I do not speculate as to the meaning of any of this. For all I know it was a dream like countless before it that simply caught on my consciousness and prodded me to write.

I do not know. I know so little really. Maybe that is the hardest part.

Tumbleweeds

In the blink of an eye up can be down and inside turns outside.

In the space of a breath reality slipstreams into a blur of colors and emotions

Singular heartbeat keeps steady time while the cracks diverge and ice floes melt

Time, a fickle whisper across too warm flesh in the span of a sigh

Choices choices his not his theirs but hers his and his and maybe mine too many choices

Grip it tight,
clasp it close
learn to swim
mind the jagged edges
Let night unwind
give in
find breath amid the fire
Relative truths
raw existence
sing it
swallow it
feast on it
thrive on it

Complicated
Unapologetic
Fevered
Yearning
Yielding

Simply...only...honestly...proudly...

slave

Mmrf

four silver
five copper
need help counting the extra due...

::and words trailed off, journal open, braids spilled, room door open, yeah that was about as far as she got. Should have bathed. Would have drowned. Maybe there will be a lot of salve later..zzzzz::

If I had a hammer...

bosk is bosk

tospit is tospit

benches can be bought or made, collected or even stolen

not every man is a carpenter

some are collectors and still others are renovators

pleasure or chore? depends on the man

whatever you do, do not order bosk then bitch when it is bosk, not a tospit

how many nails would it take? if you sand it too far what will be left? who sweeps up the sawdust and does anyone mourn it?

is stripping a well crafted cabinet preferable to buying a new one or building your own?

would the bench be stronger if more planks were added or is it better to lighten the load by restricting who can use it?

is a well crafted piece of molding worth the cost if it does not match the decor?

can a repaired joint ever be as strong as the one first created? could it be stronger, sleeker, more stylish, more...pleasing?

really never was up to the tree that was felled to harvest the wood to occupy the idle hands of a man was it?

until it was. which is when the tospit tried to be a bosk and everything went to hell.

I am so very sore, though I counted, if bruises count as marks, charge an extra 32 copper. I begged for each and every one. Wouldn't know what to do with a day off. A hot bath sounds good though. Wake me up if I drown.

Ka-ching

::she had a heache, a dull pounding throb that was as much the result of too fucking much hair pulling as it was everything else. a quick note scrawled across the page diagonally::

four silver, fifteen copper

::drops the book and stylus, off to bathe, again. Somehow, it was never hot enough to soak it all away::

Liar, liar...

I am so grateful that Marcellus, or whatever his name really is, was almost killed. No, really. It was due to his injuries that I spent the night curled on a bed at the clinic, stroking his forehead and serving as warm human pillow rather than returning here to stab something. Alright. Someone.

It is a lie.

My world is a lie.

I am a lie.

It is all just one big fucking lie. I get it now. Fuck you very much for clarifying.

What baffles me is how the fuck I am still this stupid after so many years? I seriously have to question the grass I am sitting on and the stone I lean against to write this. Hell, even the fall of nearby water is suspect right now. I was stunned last night, but that wore off, revealing the depth of seething emotional chaos. How could I be so absolutely stupid???

How could you lie so smoothly? Yes, a better question.

I get it now though. Is that why you have so carefully kept Skirt and I apart in any physical way? Why when we are both in the same room you limit yourself to a touch of hair or a stroke of cheek? What would your precious love slave think if she knew what you were truly capable of? Because do not think for one hot second that you are not fully and utterly a Master. I may feel as though I know nothing at all right now but one truth remains.

I am a huntress. I can smell weakness on a man like death rotting him from the inside out. You are not weak.

When I think back to the kitchen, better a thousand times you had used that blade to raise a fresh scar. Those I understand. Pain I understand. The lingering remains of the men who have used me, I understand. Being just another whore, I understand. The way you could speak as you did, move as you did and know with every syllable that it was all a great big lie to you? That. I do not understand.

Fuck you.

You have been trying for far too long to live with one foot in both worlds and perhaps my role here is to be the truth you so desperately avoid but so dearly need to face. You cannot serve two homestones. You cannot keep your worlds, your desires, your truths so separate any longer, for as we see, the walls break down.

I feel filthy, like some sick pocket of rotted infection that you keep a bandage over, only to indulge yourself with in the fascination for exploring desires you believe she would never understand. I knew before ever I begged your collar that you love her, that she would always be first in your heart and mind and I was fine with that. I even willingly tempered my own desires around her so she would not feel ill at ease.

Now? Fuck that. If you will live a lie then I will live a truth. I get it now. I am your whore. I earn you coin. I finance your lie and I will live with that. But I want, no I need you to know how close you came. How desperately close you came to being the one who slipped through the walls and saw me. But I know now that all you ever saw was a lie.

It tastes like ashes and blood. I hope you choke on it.

Shadows

The Den is strangely quiet tonight, quiet enough that I find myself with the luxury of being able to sprawl here on the furs before the roaring fire and stare at this page of blank rence. The shadows cast upon it by the flames intrigue me and the facing page is, while not what I might call art, a true reflection of those dancing shadows. There are no sharp angles or straight lines in shadow I find. Everything is fluid, shifting, overlapping and all too easily the charcoal sketch could bleed into one grey mass had I not stopped the stylus.

I feel a bit like that sketch right now. What used to be clear and distinct lines are fading, blurring and the desire to redraw them straight and clean is just not there. Look twice and the lines change three times and I find it frustrating. When the fuck did I become the woman who ebbed and flowed without questioning every angle and line? When did change sneak up on me and begin the transformation that I am still not sure I am even capable of?

The pole.

If I am honest with myself that was the genesis of it really. He knew it scared me, but he accepted intimidation as my word. I thought I could evade the whole matter with a press back of hips and that simple word. Kings how I underestimated him. The brass was so cold at first, but he was not. He could have simply told me to go to it, to touch it, but he did not. He stayed with me. His voice guided me and somewhere along the way he was no longer touching me and the brass was no longer cold and it was....amazing. Scary, thrilling, exposing, arousing, so many other feelings that I cannot even put to words but they were there. They linger still.

I see the looks. I am not blind. Mixed hues seek hers and I can even admit it, here at the least, that those looks arouse something in me akin to anger. Oh not at her, she does not understand. I might even, in her stead, have my own share of looks to throw. I just wish sometimes that I could pause the world long enough to...to what?

Maybe to lash out, to give voice to that hollow core where all is silent when that voice is gone? It seems so useless for her to worry, for either of them to worry, not for one ihn. I know all too well the realities of things. I am a plaything, a pretty posable placeholder for certain desires to be slaked upon. I serve, in my own way, as a decadent dessert. That is all. Mind you, I enjoy it, cherish it even, because when all is said and done, even the prettiest and most pliable of dolls are placed back on the shelf. There is safety on the shelf, respite even.

That either would worry is....laughable. I am like a shadow really. There and gone again, a dark sweep across a page, decadent and even pretty but of no substance when the fires are low. I know this. I accept this. I...sometimes think I am coming to hate this.

Fuck it. No. I am so not going to slide into some damned well of self pity. Not. going. to. happen. I am stronger than that and frankly, why am I even letting myself give voice to this nonesense? See? This is why I hate journaling and yes I hope you are reading this. Just let me be what I am. To be more is just......

So anyway. I went shopping for more fabric. It is a very pale green this time and I think Skirt will look good in it. I enjoy designing the silks, it has been too long since I was indulged in such creativity. Oh, and I made flyers for the Den. I passed them out to the local Inns in hopes that they will offer them to male guests. It may be good for business and more coin is always a good thing. An easy thing. A clear, linear direct thing. That, I understand.

Dam

It feels like forever since I have had a spare moment to actually write. The Den is open though, so I suppose that makes sense. I have a feeling the men would object to my penning a new entry while they get their two coppers worth.

Two. Coppers.

::grunts::

I am still not sure why that pisses me off. I was worth three copper an ahn once upon a time. Hm. Seeing that in writing actually drives home the depths of my own foolishness. A difference that makes no difference is not a difference, hm? It still pisses me off though. He could be making much more coin if he simply let me ....

oh

Damnable man. I think I get it. If I was still able to negotiate my own prices he would turn a much bigger profit but at the cost of allowing me that freedom. At the potential cost of allowing me the retained illusion of being worth more than two copper. It is rather funny really, as I am far more keenly aware of my own lack of worth than most anyone would suspect.

Anyway.

So far the Den is going well, more clients are coming in and I have seen several slaves arriving. Truth is, that familiar feeling of disconnection is settling in again. Around me the hustle and bustle of life flows and ebbs and I find myself cut off at near every conversaton, no focus my own, not even a moment to finish a single sentence it seems before some other man wanders in.

Part of me hates it. Absolutely loathes and detests the pull and tug and hurry and just all of it. I do not think I have seen Skirt or Master for more than two consecutive ehn in the time since the doors opened. I could so easily drown in the chaotic rush of it all, allow resentment to rise perhaps if I worked at it.

But no. If I am to be honest another part of me loves it. To be not only allowed to but required to spill from hand to hand, to give my body freely to random strangers...it is safe. It feeds a large part of me to know that feeling of lust risig in a man by the simple turn of hip or bend of knee. To be so acutely aware that in my body lies the power to divert the floodwaters, to channel them where I want them to go. That, I like.

Stone by stone the dam holds steady and protects me against the whirpools that could otherwise draw me to the bottom and crush me. It better hold. I do not know how to swim.

Dreamscape

Sweat beads along the curve of dark velvet spine

Unyilelding metal curls at wrist and ankle

A singular muscle quivers along the long sleek line of leg

Fractured images of flesh and leather, stone and fur

Fear breathes to life deep within the naked coil of heat that slinks from nerve to nerve

Logic drowns in a pool of raw biting need

Somewhere a whip cracks the air, splitting the fear and desire into twin demons that wrap close between flesh and air

Pulse thick at the back of throat, a frantic stacatto within a cage of shattered glass

Broken lens of realism bleeding into submission without benefit of breath to gasp

Somewhere between what was and what willl be shrieks what is

Heat radiates from depths not yet disturbed

The serpent wakes

Black scales ascend within

Scent over sight, instinct over instruction

Hunger permeates every pore

::staring at the page, realizing her hand is shaking, a slow deep exhale brushes over rence::

No. I did not sleep in peace.

Circular

The door is not red.

My price is lower.

I am no longer a menu item. I am a condiment.

I will not lie and say that those facts make me all moist and needy, but they are what they are and I am, above all, a practical sort I guess. I have been guilty of my emotional moments, my moments of weak sentimentalism but in the end, I know what I am and that comes down to a numbers game.

In some ways it feels as if I have come full circle to the days of the red door. Earning coin is my business again and I am sure I will succeed at it. The simple fact is, though, that I am less certain of the thrill of that hunt I guess. Maybe it is as simple as the fact that I no longer have the relative freedom to go seek who to serve,. If it walks through the door and buys a paga, it gets me too.

He has stated his determination to see my utter deconstruction, walls gone, defenses melted, soul bared. I asked him the only question that occurred just then...."and what then Master?". His response was...I am not sure of the right word. Irritating? Scary? Prickish? Those all work, but they do not quite put the finger right on the pulse of it. Oh I laughed it off, choosing to take the words a a challenge, but in reality it makes me feel a bit off balance. A bit cynical and yes, a bit scared.

If you lead someone to the edge of a cliff over what appears to be serene warm waters and bid them jump, is it a kindless to whisper about the jagged stone just horts beneath the surface? Is it some twisted form of compassion to share that truth even as one's hand tries to push them from the edge?

Perhaps. Survival instinct kicks in though and that hand may well get bitten, the ledge backed from with every hort of energy. It confuses even me. I despise lies and trickery and yet when the truth is so blatantly unpleasant, is it so wrong to want to take a measure of refuge in a sweet deception? It is. I know I would hate myself for the weakness of accepting the delusion.

I am his. Of that there is no question, neither legal nor practical. He is in no way mine, however, and that was a factor that made him seem at some points a bit safe. I know better now, though. He is by no means safe, not for me. He is downright dangerous, and for better or worse, danger draws me like a flame. Knowing he could watch without pity as I am immolated in those flames, torn to pieces on those jagged stones should make me hate him. And yet I don't.

I do not love him. I will not love him.

I think I'm fucked.

Mosaic

I am a mosaic, pieces dark and light and all shades between and beyond, casting bright rays or slivers of shadow, depending on the illumination.

I am ancient stone illuminated by the pitiless cast of full moonlight, curled close around the shadows I conceal

I am fire, changing with what is added or removed but never less than destruction dancing on the edge of beauty

I am a hidden brook, best savored in the sudden discovery of a new bend, a new flow, almost never the same from two exposures

I am the eye of the storm, alert and observant as the world rages around me

I am the hiss of dark serpents close along the line of flesh, slow feasting on the caught breaths betwen fear and desire

I am early spring, coltish and wild with storms cresting the horizon leaving an aftermath of new growth

I am dusk, the deepening mystery between light and dark where shadows stalk the fading sunlight and anything can happen

I am sunshowers, unexpected and refreshing in the midst of a tedious day

I am finger cymbals, demanding and rhythmic in the pulsing fire of the dance

I am .....more than meets the eye
I am ....no less a Huntress
I am ....a willing slave
I am ....exquisite heat
I am .... yours
I am ....

Relativity

Truth is relative.

That sounds weird, I know it does. That does not mean it is not true. Oh. Hm. Right, so...that does not mean I am not right about it. Yes, that works better.

I have met more than my share of people who claim to want the truth, but as soon as they are presented with it they either get mad, sad or indignant. Maybe I am simply going about this wrong, but if asked a question I have always been truthful. Sometimes, why yes, yes you do actually look enormously fat in those robes. For example. Sometimes you are not the proud possessor of the greatest cock on Gor and seriously, sometimes, you really are just being a big whiner about life.

See, no one wants to hear those things. The truth can hurt, it can distract, it can take a perfectly nice trip to the fair and turn it into a potential trip to hell...just not for me. And that is right where I am stuck and stuck fast.

I did not set off on any grand adventure. There was no method to what happened. Maybe fate dealt a had, but I am not much a believer in such things. I do not know why I came to be where I was or that what I found was there, but the truth is. I was and I did and now I am rambling.

The fair itself is nice, but I was in one of those moods, the ones where I need to be alone, to set myself apart and wait for the hum of energy to dissipate, to center myself to where I can hear each individual hearbeat. Try it, it is a lot harder than you might think. I needed to think and yes, it was his words that triggered the need.

"happy"
"content"
"strong"
"always"

Those are all good things, and as I look at them on the paper I actually feel a bit of remorse that I heard anything in them except the face value. Truth is, though, that I did. I mean seriously, me? He sees me as this always happy slave, so content and strong...I was so angry. How is that for irony? Tell me I am wonderful and I develop the urge to knee your nuts into your sternum.

It is more complicated than that however and I wanted...no I needed...to figure out which layer bore the anger that should not have risen. I needed to try to understand why in the world I would feel that pang of hurt when I can only imagine he meant what he said. That was why I was there.

I left the fairgrounds. I did not have much chance to do so when last I was here so I took the opportuity to get closer to the mountains. The trees and rocks were inviting and no one stopped me. I am a good enough tracker to not get lost, and cosidering the size of the fair, one would have to be struck dumb not to find it again. I have heard rumors, legends, of the Sardar Mountais, but I saw no larls, no blue flames.

I did not ascend very far, maybe a pasang and a half before I left the trail. There were two voices, male, and although I was not technically doing anything wrong, I was not very keen on being found wandering about. Common sense? Instinct? I am not sure but it is why I climbed atop the small ledge, the indent of a small cave was accidentally found by falling into it.

I intended to stay only long enough for the men to go elsewhere but once I saw the thing, I have to admit, I was too intrigued. The case seems broken and it fits easily in my palm. I have no idea who it belongs to or what it might be used for, there are no words in Gorean that I saw. I pushed a few buttons that looked like they might be letters or numbers and nothing happened.

It made me nervous. While I have never seen the blue flames strike anyone, being this close to the sacred mountains, indeed within a pocket of one, well that made all of the legends seem realer. There were papers scattered as if they had fallen and been left behind. One boot was also against a wall as if thrown off. It seems in good shape, it clearly has not been out there long.

The papers are, I fear, in English. I have seen Taharian script and I am literate in Gorean, but this is utterly unfamiliar. I took the largest piece and will show it to....well someone.

Which brings me back to truth.

Am I obligated to tell him? To tell Skirt or Mads? I do not know all that happened when they returned to their barbarian village but I know enough to know it was tense and not fun. What if whatever this is causes them pain? What if it would get him in trouble, to have known his slave wandered there? How does he feel about his slave having touched something like that thing?

That is where it gets to be a relative subject. It is unlikely he will ask directly if I wandered up into the mountains at all, so not mentioning it would not be technically a lie. Trouble is, I would know and I would not like it. Which is worse, my own discomfort with the hidden truth or protecting them from something that might, at the very least, cause painful memories?

If I really am the strong happy content predictable slave he thinks, then I guess I would not even ask the question. Trouble is, his truth is horribly skewed in this matter and I have not got the faintest idea how to rectify that.

Dammit to hell, life was a lot easier when all anybody wanted or deserved was a good fuck and a smile.

Windy Twisty Road

Ok,. so I actually might not hate this whole journal thing.

It is a good place to sort out the day after all is said and done. Some days way less gets done than said, but others I am so busy I seem to not be aware of my own silence. The latter being, these days, far more rare. In fact I am pretty sure I could happily hold a full conversation with a tree stump if given half the chance. I am not really sure how I feel about this shift in the winds of things, but so far it is going alright I suppose.

I guess I just never figured myself as any sort of wise sage woman to a pair of barbarians I have come to call friends. I mean seriously, me? How do I even begin to help another person understand or discover what remains such a mystery to me as well? Oh not the logistics of bindings and rings and positions and so forth, that is fairly simple. But the plain fact is that I do not really know what drives the fire within me, let alone how to even start to explain it to anyone else.

I think I first realized it when Master put me to the ring last night. One part of me was fully aware of Mads' fear and Skirt's hesitation, but most of me was busy being swallowed whole by the rising tide. It is not something I can control, not exactly. The feel of his hand in my hair, the casual way he used me as an object lesson. I suppose I should hate him for it, be defensive or affronted...but I am not. I should be ashamed to have been so heated so quickly in front of them, or maybe afraid that my own display would set Mads back, but...really..if I am honest...I am not.

See, there is this, well this thing inside of me. I don't have some fancy name for it or any real experience analyzing it. Imagine, maybe, living with a serpent in your belly. Not quite right, but close. It is made of darkness and feasts on fire. Fear arouses it and slavery brings it alive. Disconnected almost wholly from head and heart, it just...is. And when it scents its' desire, well it can scare even me.

I don' t talk about it, nor do I encourage it to wake up. Nor do I want to do either, just in case you read this Master. Just sayin'.

It makes me feel a bit binary I guess, like I have another self, a shadow self. There were legends and myths in the pack of such things. Stories of how a soul gone bad can tear itself from the whole and walk alone. Not entirely sure where I went bad though. Was it the first rush of wetness while bound over the rail on the ship? The first flush of heat when thrown to the pens following a spar?

Ugh.

Seriously, does it even really matter? I am who I am and on the whole I am pretty happy with it. I am not prone to fits of soul searching and I am not wanting to start. It is there, I acknowledge it, I keep conrol over it most times and that is that. It reared its head last night, but I was able to tamp it back down and all was well, I slept without dreams. If seeing it scared the barbarians, or made them think me some mindless female trained to juice at the hint of chains, well whatever.

I have never lived an apologetic life and I do not damned well plan to start now.

Fuck this writing thing. I start one place and end up somewhere entirely different. I think I hate it again.

P-p-p-p-pokerface

Right then.

My day. An observation...sirik chains get damned cold when it is, you know, cold out. I also found out that if one rolls around in them, body heat can warm them up. Lesson the third? Try not to do so in the street, the weird stares and slipper to the ass are so not worth it.

I do not deal well with free women as a rule. Not the hyper-prissy "help eek a naked slave" sorts. I mean for fuck's sake, are free women born blind? Maybe raised in windowless boxes? Pft. I was raised in the damned forests and even I was not sent into a fan waving frenzy of kicking at the thought of naked women.

Seriously.

I had very strange dreams last night. There were talking larma and giant sandhills and something about if I just knew the correct rhyming couplet I could find my way to the fairs where something was important and hidden in plain sight near water. Oh please. I am not even going to try and analyze that one. I will, however, share it with Skirt and Mads, they like to think about stuff a lot and are smart about those things. Plus? Other people's wack-ass dreams might make take their minds off of other things.

I have to be honest, I do not exactly know what those other things are but I am fairly good at reading people. Sort of a required job skill for a whore. Skirt, there I think it is something between her and Master. They both seem tense, edgy, and I am absolutely certain that every time we are in the same room I am observing a long discourse without benefit of spoken word. Not a bad thing per se, but it is something I observe without trying too hard to figure it out. Interrupting conversations, spoken or not, is rude.

Mads, I think her issue right now is far more overt and yet perhaps far more difficult. She loves the Scribe, though I am not sure yet if she knows it. She at least loves the fact that he will not leave her in peace. See, because all women, at their core, are discontent to be left to themselves for too long.

'Course there is not a damned thing I can do to help either friend with what ails or at least occupies her. So, I'll hand them a puzzle, Skirt will especially like that, of dreams and see what they come up with. It is a small thing, and their findings irrelevant really, but it is something I can do.

Mads asked me to speak in poetic terms to show her how chains ought to make her feel. She also told me I was perfect. Woman has got to be mental. There are no words I can share that would give her what she is looking for, and speaking of how I came to be where I am today may have horrified her more than helped.

That is the thing, though. I could describe a moon dance a thousand times and not one syllable would gain the listener a single inkling of what is is to feel the trees pant, to smell the earth heat and to know one's own blood as a primal thing.

Mreh.

That was many lifetimes ago. Who I am today is...well, different. In some ways wonderfully changed, in others, the jury is still out. The Desert Man actually asked me that last night...who am I? Why do men ask such ridiculous questions? I am stark naked, in sirik and on my knees at your feet. Hello, I am the Tatrix of Tharna, care to wager on my basket at the fairs? Stupid men.

I am Portia. I am a slave. I am, all in all, a happy slave. I am and enjoy being a whore to men. I like chains, sometimes. Why is there a need to know more than that? Men seem to think that layers and walls are bad things, and to forget that sometimes walls hide unsightly landfills or half done construction. Layers can enhance the flavor of food or warm you on a cold night. Walls and layers insulate, lend strength to and can even beautify a place. Without walls, nothing within survives intact. They are not, inherently, bad.

I do not lie or deceive when I use my body or my words to distract a man from my own layers and walls. I offer myself, freely and with genuine pleasure. I am an exquisite whore of a slave. To survive as a whore I cannot, logically, extend a depth of energy or emotion with every man that takes me. The ability to separate the external and internal is a skill, not a disorder. So stop with all the mind numbing excavations already and enjoy me as what I am. I am Portia. I am a slave.

I still do not see the fun and empowerment in this writing thing. I have charcoal on my hand. Better wash it off before I go and be precisely, exactly, perfectly, what I appear to be.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-chainges

Hm.

Where to start.

::stares for a while::

I do not necessarily understand why Skirt and Mads find this so, so. Um, is the right word empowering? Relieving? Fun maybe, that might be right. Maybe not, but they sure do it a lot.

Just write, she said. Start when you start, he said. No offense, but they both suck at advice in this area. ::stares:: Oh damn. He is going to read that, but if I cross it out it will ruin the page. Sorry Master!

Alright, so every story has a beginning, a genesis in something. I am not inclined to peel back too many years, and so I will start with this latest version of life. I am now owned by Zebediah Bronson. He owns Skirt too, and he loves her. They are really interesting together and both remind me of one of those snakes that tries to swallow its own tail sometimes. Or maybe that only makes sense to me.

The time at the Spa was...intriguing. I have to admit, the small matter of assassin contracts was a hurdle. Could the woman truly not have thought I would know not only what but who she was? She wore the robes of a perfumer years back but I knew what she was even then. Thankfully, the Mistress went away and the whole matter died away. Oh. Bad pun.

He is safe now, or so I tell myself. He is also gone though, and that I do not let myself think on much. The blessing and curse of a whore's mindset I suppose. I told him he was dangerous, and he did not disagree. He asked me why I did not beg his collar and I could only repeat, he is too dangerous. Fuck, he is gone anyway, I am not going to write anymore about it. There!

I knew I was in far too deep with the freelancing, and I knew that...wait. No. The past died that night. He said so. So it does not matter.

::sighs and a lengthy time passed staring again::

This is so strange. The sirik chains move with every stroke of stylus. Yes, he has me wearing one. It is an odd thing really. But fine, I mean, yeah, it is all good.

I never thought twice about writing when I wrote, but I know he will read this. And that changes everything. My words have all been born of darkness, and when standing in light as I am now, I seem to be rather speechless.

I think I will seek out the Scribe. I bet his advice might be better. I mean, he is a Scribe, they write. Eh, we'll see.

Oxy with a side of Moron

Weary.

Yes, that is as good a word for it as any. Oh I quite enjoy the physical exhaustion. From it stems dreamless sleep most nights and I actually enjoy the soreness of well worked muscles. I have never been afraid of hard work, and that has not changed. No, the change is something internal, something I am still not at all certain of.

Simple.

Yes, looking back now it does seem to have been that way, once. I find it almost funny that it should be so, and yet there is no denying the rosy haze that only looking back gives. To think that I took for granted, well, everything, that is less rosy and in plain fact burns like a papercut dipped in salt. Lovely image, hm? Not critical, but enough to hover at the constant edge of awareness and color all the ihns of the day.

Frustrated.

I spent several ahns last night just walking. Equal parts bliss and despair, how is that for a nightmare match? What is wrong with me? Even as my thoughts raged at my own weakness, as close to self loathing as I have ever been...every time my back ached or as I drew my tongue along swollen lower lip...a flutter of undeniable heat rocked me. Kings, I suck. I swore to myself that I was going to be strong, be different, be...more than I once was. Kind of laughable now, in a stomach churning sort of way.

Confused

I wish I could say with any degree of honesty that I spent less time with this emotion. I truly hate it and it never had a place in my life until the past few months. As a Huntress I knew precisely who I was and what my life would be. Even once captured, after the initial horrors I came to know, even embrace, what I was as a slave. It all changed when the Poet sold me. After much thought I would have to say that yes, that was when life went from certainty to an uncomfortable game of avoiding the thin ice and praying for safe patches.

Lost

I returned to the kennels as the herlits were sending up song in the dawn ahns. No one questioned where I had been. Why would they? Hell, there have been brief moments of insanity where I wonder if it would be worth it not to return at all. Too bad I have an issue with women who willlfully disobey for attention. I think I knid of see why they do it now. Still, it is not in my nature to try and cause trouble. Day by day the temptation grows though, perhaps one day I will snap and be found shrieking atop the central fountain in the great square. Right, cause that would help.

Resolved

I know now that I am too weak to tempt fate. I will have to avoid the man as best I can and keep praying that he did not hear my words. I believe he did not, and that is likely for the best. It is better to pretend that he would act on them if he had heard them than to know he heard and did nothing. There is a place for some small measure of self deception, if only to get through the day. No, I will stick to the tasks assigned me, approach none but those known to me and hope that the Scribe chooses to depart soon. I am looking forward to the time with him, no question of that. I would also be a liar if I said my thoughts never leaned towards wondering what his lips would taste like or how his flesh would feel beneath my fingers. There is a measure of peace in his company, and I enjoy that. I do not want to do anything to jeopardize the time he allows. He seems to listen when I speak, his interest surely closer to my ability to shelve books than his urge to throw me up against a desk and take me.

Question remains...is that a good thing?

Damned if I know. All I do know is that I am savoring every ache and bruise from last night and trying very hard not to think about where any man's heart really lies. To do otherwise only makes that papercut sting like a bitch and pain for pain's sake serves no one.

::the small book was tucked away again, no one ever bothered it. The daylight stronger, and without sleep to be had, she lifted and picked up the bundle of kirtle and cloak and sandals. She would drop them at the shop and see if there was work to be done. Being busy was a boon these days::

Teapot

Sticky. Hot. Textured and long and rather large in my hands. The spurts got simply everywhere. Let's not even discuss the screaming.

::sigh::

I hate verr. More specifically, milking them. See above. No, seriously, I loathe it with an unholy passion and having been rented to a small farm for the past hand has only solidifed that simple nugget of truth in my universe. Give me an animal to stalk and kill, to field dress or harvest and I am fine. Ask me to grasp the foul teat of a bleating beast and squeeze and twist until it shoots milk out is....disgusting.

Oh stop snickering. Irony, yes yes, we all see that.

::huffs::

On the up side? A hand of toiling amid the animals and rotting about in the dirt for roots and herbs has reminded me that perspective is a slippery bitch. I am no less disgusted by the way things were handled, but I am reminded that there are fates far worse than being property of the City of Ar. Such as being the property of some kings be damned farmer with a sick thing for watching me milk verr.

I lived. I survived it. I will doubtless continue to survive for quite some time. The ahn upon ahn of labor in the fields and pens did give me time to think however and I am not convinced that simply surviving is enough for me. It is not enough to wander through my days and nights and see the world through a haze of anger and apathy bound together in the demonic waltz that has had me caught up of late.

No.

I will lay no claim to knowing what it is or may be that will trigger the sense of serenity I crave, but I do know it is possible. For several years I knew it, quite ironically under the steel of a man with a distinct talent for the written word as well as dealing with women as women. He never once professed to love me or find me amazing or seek to clothe me in jewels or gold. No, he whored my ass out in the city's seediest district and kept me bringing in the coin for years on a diet of gruel and the occasional lick of grease from his fingers.

Bastard.

Kings. If I knew where he was I might well crawl to his sandals and beg to serve him. No. No might about it.

The bath was long overdue and it felt wonderful, cold water and plain soap not withstanding. The ahn is late and I have missed my walks to the park. Hopefully I can find Skirt or Mads, we have a ton to catch up on.

Numb

I do not know what to say. I no longer know where I start and despair begins. Somewhere long the line he dragged me away from her and the next I could fathom I was on the slave rug of the city kennels. I do know where I went wrong. Fuck that, where HE went wrong.

Flexible can go get fucked. Obedient can kiss my ass. Submissive can take a back seat to subduing this unending ache in my chest. Trust is fragile thing, difficult to come by and even more tenuous to hold.

He tore from me the last vestige of what I thought I possessed. I hate him for it. As soon as the curtain came down he was swift to be done with me and that is a lesson I shall not forget swiftly.

Offer nothing but a smile. Advertise nothing but flesh. Faith betrayed, trust shattered. Beware any man who gets too close. This bitch would rather go down in flames than drown in tears.

You have been warned.

Breath Held

::Rashid took her to the city kennels. Removed Asad's collar and sold her back for whatever price he could get.::

Vertigo

I have said it so often, but seriously, it amazes me the way in which the perfectly ordinary run of the mill life can suddenly turn on its ear and you find yourself....wait. Let me start at the beginning.

Sitting by the fire, so perfectly common a thing for me. A man beckoned me over, again, common enough. What was uncommon? The kinetic spark that sizzled between us and I all too happily heeled him to the Inn for what proved to be a very pleasurable night of service. Even the next day, in being brought to his home, I was simply happy to be with him and eager to get to know him better. The way we mesh is simply amazing, frighteningly natural and hotter than I could have expected.

Mine.

Thje word stunned me. Apparently while we slept in a tangle of blissfully exhausted arms and legs, Rashid had gone to the kennels and purchased me for this desert man. My breath left me, thrilled, terrified, excited, so many things flashed through my mind. It has been so long since a man purchased me that I was at a loss and, as I shared with him, some part of me is still a bit worried that I will wake in the kennels and realize it was an unreal and deeply intense dream.

Ironically, I was so deliciously spent in mind body and spirit that I fell deep asleep last night while we were speaking. He did not kick me awake or berate me though. Instead he carried me to his chain at the foot of his couch and there I woke. More and more deeply drawn to him, that is the truth of it. I just hope that I do not wake even if this is a dream, as it is a wonderful one thus far.

His.

I like the way that sounds and even now I listen eagerly for his footfalls.

Perception

The day to day life at the kennels is going well so far. I am almost always rented for the day and though I wish the tasks wree more carnal than practical, none have been overly horrid. Well, okay so the child tending came close. Seriously, who in their right mind rents a whore to tend children? Sticky fingered demanding little bastards. Still, I have a mat in th cage, get first choice from the trough and have only had to beat down one bitch so far. See? Not so bad.

I am having a bit more difficulty with the transition of time outside of my daily rentals. I vacilate between a sense of purposelessness and an excitement at what new prospect might wander down the path. Many if not most of the slaves I knew have gone, either sold off or perhaps traveling, either way the fireside is quiet. Being a public slave has led to the assumption that I am untrained, undesirable, even stupid on a few rare occasions. Might not be mighty slave like but I would so love to sucker punch those people.

The bright side? Has got to be him. Yes yes I know, arm's length or longer is the best choice, distance is an ally, don;t be a sappy ass.....all those phrases come into play here. And yet... ::sighs:: It is not usual, hell it is not ever really, that a man chooses to look me in the eye and want to know what drives me. Frankly, quick alley sex with a coin tossed after is easier and less dangerous. But no, he seems determined to know me.

Trouble is, I want him to. I want him. There, I said it. And having said it, I feel like an ass. I do not do this, I do not get involved, I do not seek more than the physical and it has always worked to keep me in lots of sex and no danger of anything deeper. So why is it that he sees deeper than that, demands more than that? Worse, why do I want so deeply to give it to him?

Partly I want to see if, when confronted with the whole truth of me, if any man could stand it. If the liquid darkness ever touched the light would it make him recoil in horror? I am not sure I want to know and i damned sure do not want to voluntarily offer to lift shades of myself and open them to his perception and plunder.

Life was a lot easier as a coin whore. Not nearly as deep a tug hung with me ahn to ahn day to day, but it was...easier. Damn the man.

Chaos

I am pretty sure that I just hate men. Maybe. Oh who am I kidding. ::sighs:: Walking into the park for the first time since my brief orientation at the kennels was over I no sooner set foot to grass than I was summoned. The man was not familiar to me and yet, serve unseen, he stated a desire to purchase me. Okay, so I stared. Marcellarius, the kennel Master in charge of my section, has made it plain that I am in a holding pattern. Seems a minimum of two hands assessments, training and so forth are in order before they will entertain anything other than rentals.

It was Skirt's owner, the water happy Zeb, though that damned near made my heart crawl up my throat and right out of my mouth. He came bellowing over, claiming I stole something and damn, if he ever doubted his ability to instill fear? He needs to get over it. I was terrified, the men exchanged words but no blows and I found myself at the end of Zeb's whip being dragged to his cylinder.

I....well I am really not sure what to say about the rest. Unsettling. Frightening, and for reasons that have nothing to do with bodily harm. I am disquieted by so simple a thing, and that bothers me. Still, meeting his gaze and holding it was far harder than any lashing he might have given. ::grunts:: I need to work on keeping my eyes averted. Damn the man.

Unexpected

Well. I suppose, in the abstract, every slave ought to know that she can be sold at any time. That did not make it any less of a shock. The man who came had very calloused hands. A strange thing to notice I suppose, but it was somehow important. The guard spoke to him briefly then removed the black steel House collar that I have worn for over a year. The collar now is a well brushed steel. Plain and rounded, it bears the marks of having been in many uses. The tag is simple. "Property of the City Kennels of Ar. Inquire at kennels for rental"

Sigh. I did look back, I admit I did. I have never easily walked away from any portion of the path in life I have walked. The House was as impressive as ever and I knew that somewhere within he was turning a page. Yes. It really is that simple. Whatever lies you may be told about love and devotion, possession and fire....know that they are just that. Lies.

I can live with that. I am a survivor, always have been. Shield the heart and strengthen the outside. It works, quite well. We'll see where this path leads me.