The Orm'del Sea is an ocean that separates Eastern and Western Idalos. It is said to have many horrors awaiting those that wish to travel through its waters.
Routine was a good thing. It made sure that everyone was in the right place at the right time as they should be. Routine brought order and prevented chaos. That's what the masters said, and she believed it. Chaos was bad. The masters said that a lot too. She heard the masters say that every time one of them explained to a group of newly captured slaves what their lives were now. Chaos was bad, and order was good. She believed that the same way that she believed that the sky was blue. A slave who created chaos was punished. And punishment was...not bad. Never that. A slave who did something bad deserved to be punished, so punishment couldn't be bad. Even so, she didn't ever want to be punished; no slave wanted that. So she did everything she could to obey her orders and be a good slave.
As she moved from the slave hold to the galley with the other slave children, she saw how the children of the masters' family raced about the ship screaming, laughing, and playing. Chaos. And chaos was bad. The children of the masters' family seemed to like it though. And they were never punished for creating chaos. Slave children were different; probably because they were not real like the children of the masters' family were. Perhaps that difference...the fact that they were real children was why the children of the masters' family were not punished for causing chaos.
She entered the ship's galley, still lost in thought as she automatically took her place at the end of the line. The slave children were quiet. Obedient. They woke up at the same time each morning. Ate the same thing for every meal, and ate every meal at the same time each trial. Lined up quietly when it was time to get their meal or their first job for the trial. Everyone knew their place, and they were in the right place at the right time...if they knew what was good for them. It was good to know what one's place was in life because if one didn't know that, it was all too easy to get into trouble.
She knew this. Most of the slave children did. So why was one of the girls who had been born to the same woman as she had been trying to disrupt the morning routine? The girl was standing behind her, jabbing her in the back with her finger and laughing with the other girls who had been born to the same woman as she had. Normally, she would simply have ignored it as best she could. Most of the slave children knew not to bring punishments down upon themselves that could be avoided. Those that did not tended to learn quickly. And those that did tried to avoid notice by the masters when those that did not earned their wrath.
But totrial was different. Being poked sharply in the back hurt. A lot. She had been awake all night in order to finish the task she had been given the evening before, and she was exhausted. She knew better than to cause further disruption in the line. She did. But exhaustion dampened her better judgement, and she turned to the girl behind her with narrowed eyes. Just that. She didn't poke the girl back, or do anything that might draw the grownups attention to her. She just turned and stared at the other slave child with narrowed eyes.
Stop. she thought firmly.
She didn't expect it to change anything. The other slave girl couldn't hear her thoughts after all, and even if she could have heard it, she had no right to give anyone an order. She was a slave, not one of the masters. She knew her place. If she was a real person, she would have said it out loud. Just that one single word. Then she would have turned to face the front of the line once more and ignore the other slave child as best she could. She was about to turn around without saying anything to the other girl when she noticed the girl's shocked expression.
"How did you do that?! You just talked to me, but you didn't open your mouth!"
Her eyes widened. She hadn't said anything out loud...had she? But no...the other girl even said that she hadn't opened her mouth to speak...was this a new trick of some kind?
"I was poking you in the back, and you told me to stop!"
Or maybe not a trick...how did the other girl know what she was thinking?! She hadn't said anything! She shook her head. She didn't understand what was going on. By now, all of the other slave children were staring at them in confusion. Before she could think about it, one of the masters entered the room and yelled at them all for causing a disturbance. He told them that since they were being bad and were causing trouble for everyone, they would be given extra work totrial. He left soon after that, and the taskmaster came in to give them all their first task for the trial.
She stood in line silently, staring at the floor as she waited in line. But her mind raced with thoughts about what had just happened. How could someone talk without using words? Had it been some kind of fluke? Would she be able to do it again if she tried? Should she?
Can you hear this? she asked the other girl in her head.
There was no response. Did that mean that whatever had just happened was some weird fluke? Or was the other slave girl too afraid of being punished again to answer her? There was no way to be certain.
When it was her turn to get a task, the taskmaster told her that Master Orik wanted her to work with him again totrial. She nodded to show that she understood, and stepped out of line to wait.
Having been to Master Orik's study several times over the arcs, she was familiar with the route to the room she was being led to. That was a good thing because it allowed her to think about what had just happened rather than focus on where she was going. When the door was opened, and she was ordered inside, she obeyed automatically. That too was a familiar order.
As before, she was ordered to sit at the desk, and she did so. She tried to push her thoughts out of her head as Master Orik set a book, the notebook she had been using to take notes on the things she had been reading, and a pen down in front of her, but it was very difficult to do.
"Like the last time you were here, you will read this book, and take notes on what you read if needed. You will learn as much as you can. When I tell you to stop, you will do so, and I will question you on what you have learned. If you learn enough to please me, you will come back here again. If not, you will be punished. Do you understand?"
She nodded.
"Do you have any questions?"
She hesitated. The right answer to that question was no. Questions were bad. Slaves who asked questions deserved to be punished. A slave either listened to their orders and obeyed, or they did not, and they were punished for their crimes. It was that simple. And yet...Master Orik knew that she had been marked by Yvithia. On more than one occasion since then he had ordered her to tell him if anything strange happened that might be connected to Yvithia's mark. She didn't know if what had happened when she was waiting in line earlier was connected to Yvithia's mark or not, but she did know one thing. It had certainly been strange.
"This unworthy one..." she began softly.
Master Orik frowned when she spoke.
"Something happened earlier. One of the other slave children was poking this unworthy one in the back when the meal was being served. This unworthy one turned around and looked at her. Just that. This unworthy one did not speak. But...the other slave girl heard what this unworthy one was thinking." she told him.
Something that she did not understand flickered in Master Orik's eyes as he considered what he had been told.
"Try it now." he ordered.
He stared at her expectantly.
Can Master hear this? she asked carefully.
There was no reply. But when she remembered that when it had happened the first time, it had been as if she had been talking to the other slave child silently, she tried it again. This time, she tried to push the thought towards him somehow.
"Interesting. Yes, I can hear you. Try talking to the taskmaster now. Tell him to come here."
She obeyed, but several bits passed and the taskmaster did not come.
"Perhaps there is a range for this. I am going to go outside this room and close the door. When I do, you are to try and tell me something."
She nodded. She watched Master Orik leave. Once the door was shut behind him, she tried to push her thoughts at him as she asked him if he could hear her. Once again there was no response, and after several bits, Master Orik came back into the room.
"Try again." he ordered her.
She obeyed. He repeated the order several times, moving to different parts of the room each time he did so. It didn't seem to matter where he was standing in the room. Or even outside it for that matter. What seemed to matter was that she was able to see his eyes. If she was unable to, no matter how hard she tried to speak to him with her mind, it didn't reach him.
"So. Distance doesn't seem to matter, at least as far as being in the same room, or in the corridor. But you have to be able to see the eyes of the person you are trying to talk to. So if someone has their back to you, or there is enough fog that you can't see them clearly, or if you are blindfolded, or otherwise unable to see, the ability will not work. It would be interesting to see if it will work over larger distances such as being up on the deck, but I'll have you try that another time."
Master Orik got another notebook, and wrote something in it.
"The next thing I want to try is if you can hear someone else's thoughts as well. If so, I can think of a lot of things I can use this ability of yours for."
She didn't know what to say to that, so she said nothing. Instead she waited. And waited. And waited some more. After several bits, Master Orik scowled. She shivered in anticipation of punishment, but he didn't punish her.
"Were you ignoring me?" he demanded.
Her eyes widened in horror as she shook her head. She would never ignore one of the masters!
"I didn't think so. That means that you can't hear the thoughts of anyone else. You can just project your own. Still, there are ways that that could be useful. I will have to think about this. For now, you have a book to read. If you finish the one that I gave you, or if it is too difficult for you to understand, you may read any of the books in the pile on my desk. Now get to work."
Last edited by Sei'rue on Sun Aug 01, 2021 1:19 am, edited 1 time in total. word count: 963
She obeyed quickly. The book that Master Orik had ordered her to read was thick, and when she opened it, she saw that the writing was small, as if to make room to fit more information on each page. She had learned in the past that the table of contents of a book could tell you a lot about what the book was about, so she started there. By doing so, she learned that the book was about the study of languages. The first half of the book was about languages in general, but the second half was about languages that the author was fluent in. She herself knew more than one language, and she felt a strange feeling that she didn't understand at the thought that she might be able to learn more by reading this book.
She took a few notes based on what she had learned from the table of contents before turning to the introduction of the book. In it, the author said that linguistics was a complicated subject that the true scholar never truly stopped learning if they were devoted to their field of study. The introduction spoke of things that were related to linguistics like the history of language in general, and of each language that existed. It mentioned that there were languages that were thought to be dead because no one who was alive totrial still spoke them. He also mentioned the languages that he spoke fluently. And there were a lot of them. The author was fluent in Common, Common Sign, Haltunga, Lorien, Rakahi, Scalveen, Xanthea, and a language that he called the Ancient Language. Finally, he could read Cursive, a language that he said could only be written; it did not have a spoken form. Some of the languages were ones that she knew herself. She was fluent in Rakahi and Xanthea, and she knew a few words of both the Ancient Language and Common. She could also read a few words of Cursive. But the rest were languages that she had never even heard of before.
Her head spun with the information that she read, and she took notes in the hopes that she might remember some of it later. In those notes, she made certain to include the names of the languages that the author knew. Deep down inside of her, the part of her that had made her try to learn the letters that the children of the masters' family had to learn when she was much younger stirred restlessly. It made her feel strange when she thought about the languages that she knew nothing about.
"What have you learned so far?" Master Orik asked sharply.
She jumped a little at the sudden voice. But she told Master Orik what she had learned from the table of contents. She also told him some of what she had learned from the introduction of the book, but before she could finish, he ordered her to stop.
"It's good to read the table of contents and the introduction of a book because they can teach you a lot. Reading them is a good way to learn if the book you have will be useful to your research. But you have already been reading for a break, and you have a lot more to read. Hurry it up."
"Yes, Master Orik." she said quickly.
She turned the pages until she reached the first chapter. Then she began to read once more. It was hard to get through, and there were a lot of big words that she didn't understand. The book seemed to be meant for the scholar that the author spoke of in the introduction of the book. Although she took notes on everything she read, she found that she understood very little of it. Only two things really made sense to her. The first was that it was a good idea to start with learning the basics when studying linguistics. The example that the author gave was that the alphabet of a language formed words and from there, words would form sentences. In that way, people were able to express thoughts and ideas in written form. Once again, she thought back to when she tried to learn the letters of the alphabet while she was working when she was younger. Once she had done that, she recognized the letters when she saw them written down, and she was able to understand small words in the picture books that the young children in the masters family had. From there she had slowly learned to understand bigger words until she was able to read. When she thought of that, what the author said made a lot of sense to her.
The other thing she managed to learn was that it was possible to puzzle out the meaning of words through context. The word context confused her until the author explained that it was the words around the word that you didn't know. The author gave a few examples of this, and she tried it out herself a few times in the hopes of understanding some of the big words that she didn't understand. Sometimes it helped, but most of the time, it did not. She thought that it was because there were an awful lot of big words that she didn't know.
When she reached the end of the chapter, she took some time to finish taking notes on it. The notes wouldn't help her learn anything since there were too many big words for her to understand much of what was being said. But Master Orik had ordered her to take notes on what she was reading, and that was what she was going to do. No matter what. An order was an order, and she would obey it.
If anything, the next chapter had even more big words, and she couldn't really understand anything that she had read at all. Some of the words were so big that she couldn't even sound them out never mind know what they meant. So she turned back to the table of contents to see what page the part that talked about languages instead of linguistics started on. Maybe she would be able to understand more of than she could of what she was reading now.
It started on chapter nine, and that chapter was about the language that the author had called Lorien. As she read, she learned that Lorien was the language that was spoken by the Avriel, and that it was spoken mostly in Athart. She also learned that Lorien could only be spoken because it did not have a written form. There was more to the chapter, but she was afraid to read it. The Avriel were dangerous. Even the masters were very careful around them, and they spent as much time as they could catching more slaves to sell to the Avriel and as little time as they could in Athart with the Avriel. Master Orik had ordered her to read the book and take notes on it, and she would do just that. She had done just that. But rather than learn more about a language that people her masters were nervous around, she quickly moved on to the next chapter.
Chaper ten was about languages that were not spoken. Several languages were mentioned, including Avrielian Script, Cerke, Common Sign, and Cursive. When she learned that Avrielian Script was a written language that was used by the Avriel, she shied away from reading too much about it. According to the chapter, Cerke and Cursive were written languages. They could be written and read, but they could not be spoken. Common Sign on the other hand was a language that was spoken with one's hands. She had no idea how someone could "speak" using their hands, but she carefully took notes on everything she learned in the chapter.
The next chapter was about the Ancient Language. Master Orik was fluent in that language. She didn't know why it was called the Ancient Language, but she had learned a few words of it here and there by listening to Master Orik. As she read the chapter, her eyes widened in shock. According to what she was reading, the Ancient Language was the language of the Immortals. It was also spoken by the Eidisi. The language had both spoken and written forms, and it was very hard to learn. The strange feeling from the part of her that had made her take the risk to learn how to read when she was younger rose up in her again. The language of the Immortals...it made her feel strange to learn about it. That didn't stop her from taking notes about the chapter though.
When she saw that the alphabet of the Ancient Language was written in the chapter, she took notes about that as well. Then she glanced at Master Orik uneasily. He was doing her own work, and she quickly turned back to what she was doing. She had more than one sheet of paper to take notes on, so she used another sheet to copy the alphabet down a second time. Then she folded it up as small as she could. Ever so slowly, she pulled her leg up, and stuffed the piece of paper between the bottom of her foot and the rags that were tied to her foot for protection. The part of her that had earned Yvithia's attention and her blessing demanded that she do so. She would be punished if caught, but Master Orik showed no sign of noticing what she was doing. And just as she had been driven to learn her letters when she was younger, she was driven to try and learn the letters of the Ancient Language now. As soon as the sheet of paper was hidden, she went back to her reading.
"What have you learned so far?" Master Orik demanded.
Like before, she jumped a little when she heard Master Orik's demand for information. But this time it was out of fear that he had seen her hide the sheet of paper. But when he made no mention of it, she hurried to answer his question. She told him that she had learned that it was a good idea to start with the basics when studying linguistics and that some words could be puzzled out by their context. Then she apologized for not understanding much of the rest of the first half of the book and her decision to skip to the second half where languages themselves were discussed. She told him what she had learned about the different languages as well. When she told him about the Ancient Language, he ordered her to stop. There was anger in his eyes for a few trills, and she tried not to flinch. Then it faded away. He did close the book she had been reading though, and take it away from her.
"The Ancient Language is not for slaves to learn about."
He paused for a few trills before continuing.
"There will be no punishment for what you have learned. I was the one who gave you the book, and you had no way of knowing that the Ancient Language is not for slaves to learn."
He paused again.
"Not yet, anyway. You have already proven yourself to be useful for more than just manual labor. If you continue to prove yourself even more useful, I may one trial teach you enough of the language to be useful to me in my work. For now, read another book and take notes on that one instead."
"Yes, Master Orik."
She reached for the book that was on top of the pile that was next to her. She opened it to the table of contents, and learned that it was about the Immortals. Then she turned to the first chapter and began to read. Like the first book, there were a lot of big words that she didn't understand. But she did learn that Karem was the Immortal of the Hunt, Survival, and Wolves. She also learned that Xiur was the Immortal of Clouds, Dusk, Stars, and Hope and that Ziell was the Immortal of Winter, Peace, and Prophecies. She didn't know what prophecies were, but she carefully wrote down everything that she had learned. There were more Immortals as well, but Master Orik stopped her before she could read any further.
"What have you learned from this book?"
She told him, and he nodded.
"You will read more from that book the next time I have you work for me. For now, go to the galley and tell the cook that you are to help him for the rest of the trial."
"Yes, Master Orik."
She left most of the notes she had taken beside the book she had been reading. But she felt the piece of paper she'd hidden in the rags wrapped around her foot as she stood. It made a slight rustling sound that made her freeze, but Master Orik didn't seem to notice. Or if he did, he didn't say anything. She left quickly and headed towards the galley.
Consequence #1: "Yvithia watches as Sei'rue attempts to make notes regarding Ancient Language. The Immortal of Intelligence is disappointed with the child's actions and decides that marking her at such a young age was a terrible mistake and removes the Xypha mark."
Consequence #2: When Moeske transports Sei'rue to Desnind, she removes all specific slave memories from Sei'rue. The child will remember being a slave, but nothing beyond that.
Notes:
Sei'rue - This thread was marked for moderation attention due to several factors. My goal is to lay out the issues in a concise and clear way to avoid confusion, as well as give you some constructive feedback.
At the beginning of this solo, there was a great deal of time expended on detailing the dangers of being a slave, which made the character's later actions of sneaking notes for reasons that seem fairly vague a bit nonsensical. Sei'rue has been written as a character that is very aware of her status and the dangers of not acting appropriately, so this seems wildly out of character and I couldn't find motivation in the writing beyond she was curious about the language. It left me very confused as a reader. If you are going to take a big risk, it's usually helpful to explain the character's motivations.
As well, Sei'rue has no stealth skill or combination of skills that would allow her to get away with sneaking/hiding a note. It is unrealistic that the npc would not have noticed, especially with the description in your CS of him being 'intelligent' and having multiple competent skills that reinforce that fact.
I'll be honest - I was uncomfortable reading a lot of this solo. There's absolutely nothing wrong with the writing itself - you are a lovely writer - but the content is disturbing.
Staff and peer review volunteers discussed this solo and it was the collective determination that the child slavery memory threads need to stop. Each time you do a thread like this, it simply means that Moseke would pull her out earlier and earlier. This was a large part of the decision to do this.
If you would like to continue doing memory threads, that is fine, but they can only be dated from the time Sei'rue arrived in Desnind. This decision was not made lightly, but we hope that it will allow you to focus more on Sei'rue's current story. Please keep in mind that memory threads exist to supplement and enrich a character's current story - they are not supposed to be the story. A writer's main focus should always be a character's current story.
The staff and volunteers involved in this decision are Jackalope, Pig Boy, Pegasus, Basilisk, and myself.
Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
