Hello,

I've never really posted this sort of stuff before, but I'm hoping the gamesas community will be a welcoming, and like minded bunch. Over the last few days, I took up the idea of trying to write a novel based on the life of St Alessia. I've take a few creative liberties, which would be explained later on in the novel, and a lot of the work is just filler for now. Still, I'd like to get some opinions on it, if anyone can make it to the end. I will post in a few separate boxes, to avoid the wall-of-text.

EDIT: Since this is going to be such a large ask, I would like to ask if anyone would be interested in becoming a co-writer. It would be similar to an RP, you'd be assigned a character, but you would write independent chapters for each of your posts. In the event of interaction, you would work out what would happen in the interaction and then have one person write it, to make it a more flowing narrative. Please post and PM if you're interested.


Thanks in advance,

ThoseTolerableNoobs

Prologue:

Hallion, in his capacity as High Justiciar to the Ayleid Kings of the Heartlands, had become adapted to dealing with those with whom he fundamentally disagreed. The usual revulsions or fits of anger that accompanied meeting a person of such low character that they would defy what Hallion believed to be a core tenet of a worthwhile life, had been slowly whittled away over his lengthy career. In fact, Hallion had met so many lowlifes in his time, that he had come to expect each person he met to be inherently flawed, in need of immediate and final correction.

The young elf-lord who sat before Hallion, face half obscured by gloom, adhered perfectly to formula.

'You freed them?'

Hallion sat up on his stool - an inelegant contraption fashioned from cheap wood - and pressed a bony finger to the desk. His opposite moved to match him, brimming with measure of calm and confidence at odds with his dire situation. The old Justiciar knew better, of course. His prisoner moved forward only to seek the defining light of the candle. The natural fear of the unknown was a tactic Hallion employed extensively, and the knowledge of this fear was what had informed his choice of dim candle-light for the cell. With a single ornament, Hallion had penned the scared little-lord a second time.

'I gave them what they were entitled to, as any Lord should'.

Hallion's prisoner toyed distractedly with his chains, carefully composing himself before meeting Hallion's eyes with a feigned confident gaze.

'What they were entitled to?'

Hallion raised a crude leather water vessel to his lips and drank, taunting his prisoner by maintaining his gaze. This was going to be a hard interrogation, fought with off-the-cuff and disingenuous facial expression.

'Tell me, Lord Morihaus, do you hunt?'

Morihaus' eyebrow fluttered, his confidence knocked by the peculiar question, but the major player, his eyes, remained steady.

'I haven't found the time for it, of late...' The Lord chuckled.

'I'll take that as a yes. Now tell me, what right, for sake of argument, would you say your hounds have, hmm?'

Hallion lent forward, emphasising his 'h' sound such that an uncomfortable breeze teased at his opponent's face. Morihaus saw immediately where the Justiciar was intending to take his point, but took permitting him to rattle on to no effect to be his first crucial victory.

'You see, I treat my hounds well, my Lord. I give them meat to satisfy them - cooked if we have a good hunt - and the run of the stables to fornicate and reproduce when they're bored. Occasionally, I may even give them the grace of my discipline.' Hallion slapped the table, causing it to wobble a fraction before settling again precariously on its mismatched legs.

'Now, I wouldn't, obviously, afford them the run of my lands. I wouldn't trust them, you see, they may do another some harm, being at their core feral beasts. It's basic compassion. I show them love by...by keeping them from the chance to exercise their true, vicious nature, and I show my fellow Mer, my fellow Elf, endearment by not putting them needlessly in harm's way...'

Hallion rocked back on his stool, pleased with the dramatic style with which he had executed his metaphor.

'You are a most kind master...' Morihaus replied, crooking his heady cockily 'I fear I owe my hounds an apology'.

He pressed his left palm to the desk, intending to hide his shaking, but the unstable thing jittered along with him.

'Quite so...' Hallion observed the shaking, and decided to press his advantage with more taunting drinking 'You see, I think that Humans are exceedingly similar to hounds. They are so easily mindlessly enraged, and yet they yearn for nothing more than their better's compassion. When they play, they writhe in the muck, and a fleet of newborns are surely to follow any streak of boredom.'

'They also built ships sturdy enough to sail the Ghost-Sea. And I seem to recall having quite the bit of trouble we've been having with the kingdom of Skyrim.'

Morihaus was surprised at the stupidity of the Justiciar's statement. That it was so easily exploited was somehow unsettling.

'My hounds know how to swim. And to call that tattered collection of pack-minded war mongers a kingdom is an insult to the Falmer they deposed.' Hallion's tone turned to the aggressive, he did not appreciate his prisoner's talkback, and toyed fancifully with the idea of having his tongue struck from his mouth.

'The facts are these, Lord Morihaus. The humans you released were, by decree of the Great Umaril the Unfeathered, High King of the Ayleids, of us, to exist in just servitude to we, their elven superiors!'

Morihaus wiped his right hand across his mouth, masking the laugh which was forming. The fact that Hallion's speech was obviously rehearsed was so jarring that Morihaus could not help bit grin. Looking down, he saw the table's jittering increased steadily in pace, and was once again conscious of Hallion's speech.

'...And you, in freeing them, have not only committed a treason against your benevolent King, but also a sin against them. The humans are simple, and they will not last long in the wild you've introduced them to.'

Morihaus was struck suddenly by a pang of guilt, as if for a moment some part of him believed what he had done was fundamentally wrong. Hallion leaned over his shoulder, a quill now balanced in his right palm.

'You know the punishment for treason, no doubt' Hallion whispered, in a crude attempt to placate the youthful Lord beneath him. 'But I can keep you from the knife'

'Only tell me where you've sent them...'

ONE - PART I:

Red was, all in all, a happy colour. This epiphany had enthralled Alessia since the moment she had unhooked the bejewelled amulet from her father's neck and begun rhythmically tossing it over between her palms. It was a beauteous thing, to say the least, a fist-sized ruby, whose numerable facets created an amusing reflection if one looked at the right angle, set into a triangular-gold base which was itself encrusted with jewels. It was the kind of thing which filled a person with unexpected and immeasurable happiness every time they met its gaze.

It was from this bewildering feeling that Alessia's love of the red stemmed. She had decided to call the feeling given by the pendant warmth, and warmth also came from fire. Red was the colour of fire, and fire made a person happy, Alessia had found, in a host of different ways. Fire provides comfort in the frigid night, heat for preparing a much needed meal, and fire is always what one turns to in a dark place when they can't see where to go. That others thought immediately to blood or to suffering upon seeing the colour red seemed absurd now - there were so many counter connotations - and many ways for blood to be shed in a beneficial and gratifying way.

'Are you sure you should let her carry that?'

Alessia's sibling, Leed, tugged at their father's leathered hand, apprehension heavy in his voice.

'Why not?'

Their father grunted, keeping his eyes fixed firmly on the horizon. To Alessia this reeked of an agitation to match her brother's, but which he was either to proud to openly display, or too afraid acknowledge for fear of amplifying his discontent.

'It's really hers, anyway'

Leed had evidently expected more of a debate, and though affronted by the implication that she could not be trusted to carry a prize as great as her pendant, Alessia knew that her brother was only picking a fight to distract himself from his nerves. Her brother had always sought confrontation when distressed, a trait he probably inherited from the mother they did not share, for Alessia's father had always tempered his nerves by engaging with his surroundings. This, of course, was a fancy term he had concocted to excuse his habit of absent-minded staring.

'Well, I don't think she should carry it, she's got slippery fingers, she'll lose it'

Leed was sixteen years old, and had a build that threatened of maturing into a fighter's, but his speech had never really developed past that of an infant's. Blunt, to the point statements and unsophisticated observations were about all he could manage. Alessia did not think herself particularly intelligent, but if her brother was the average then she was most certainly above it.

'Where we're going, I hope we won't need the damn thing. Too heavy anyway...'

Her father grunted again, still playing a starring matching with the horizon which he fully intended to win.

'To stay with the cats? Do the cats not like jewels?'

Leed enquired, innocently, evidently soothed by the talking.

'Cats like jewels just fine' chirped Alessia 'we just hope they dislike the Ayleids more'.

Leed gave Alessia a look, at first vacant, and then vaguely appreciative, before turning his gaze back to the ground. Alessia followed suit, observing the mud as it slithered between her toes and collapsed over the tops of her feet with a satisfying squelch. She was grateful for the muck, it was cool and soothing, and a much welcome relief from the sun-scorched dust she had trodden over for most of the day. The sun hung low in the sky, and cast a captivating crimson streak across the calming ripples of the great Nibben river, which met the mud at an undefinable location somewhere to Alessia's left. The first of the moons, the great red Masser was bisected at the horizon by the last streaks of blue, whose disappearance would herald the end of the day. Turning to look behind her, Alessia could make out a gilded ivory tower, sitting on an island for which the river parted as if in submission or in respect.

'They call it the White-Gold Tower'

Alessia turned to face a near-middle-aged man, with ruggedly chiseled features who was clearly overburdened with camping supplies. Tent poles, horse-leather (cattle did not take to the sodden fields on the Nibbenay valley, for what little grazing stock could be provided would be swiftly washed away by one of the basin's frequent thunderstorms), lanterns, and crude cooking pots adorned a few tattered straps struck over his back. Alessia crooked her head, and saw that the straps cut horrifically into his flesh, melding with it in a fashion that could only have been achieved with excruciatingly painful heat.

The man grimaced, evidently saddened by Alessia's preoccupation with his enforced deformity.

'Ayleid smarts for ya...' he sighed 'Why waste time finding a pack mule for the worker when you can make the worker the pack mule?'

The man set his burden to the ground, inelegantly detaching the more awkwardly shaped elements from his back-strap and letting them half sink into the mud. A flock of similarly burdened, though not so painfully deformed, workers arrived at his back and deposited their load in the mud. Their imitation gave away that he must be their leader.

'Are we stopping here, Mule?'

Alessia's father bellowed from behind, and it struck her that she had lost pace with her father for quite some time. Mule's flock shifted awkwardly on their feet or looked intensely at the ground.

'if it pleases you, Chieftain'. Mule bowed respectfully to Alessia's father, and peering over the crest of his back she noted a few more golden-metal hooks welded into Mule's back.

Chieftain nodded, still unable to fully hide his fear.

'We won't be needing tents on this muck, tell your flock to prepare their food and to bed down on the mud.'
'I'd be surprised if they hadn't heard you already...' Mule smiled, as if to encourage laughter, but his chieftain's stern gaze told him his joke was mistimed, and he began nodding intensely.

'And this must be your daughter?' Mule quickly shifted the subject

'Alessia' Her father muttered. He raised an arm so as to pat her on the head, but realising she was too tall settled for a rather awkward rub on the back. Alessia was grateful for her father's public affection nonetheless.

'You can tell, She's got a fit of the stares, just like you, chieftain' said Mule, forgetting that his earlier flirts with comedy had been swiftly rejected 'came up on her staring at the White Gold tower for what must have been ten minutes!'

The chieftain grimaced, and withdrew his hand. The mention of the tower had obviously stirred something unpleasant in him, for he promptly took one of the cooking pots and made off without speaking another word. Alessia made a move to dutifully follow, but Mule grabbed her hand.

'Best you don't go after him. Men like have a lot of ghosts, and it's not right you help him confront them when they're brought up.'

Alessia didn't fully understand what he meant by 'ghosts'. She had heard of spectres and shades, but these things couldn't have arise out here in a humid Nibenese twilight. If it was a metaphor, then she did not follow, and she was slightly irked that a until now stranger had presumed to know her father better than she.

'Come over here and help us make the supper. By the time it's ready, he'll be ready'

Mule beamed a smile that forced compliance. It was bewildering that such a damaged man could display an emotion like that, but that he did entrhalled Alessia to at least give the time to learn more about the man. She gestured to a cooking spit, which Mule dutifully handed her, and she began negotiating the mud to find in a sticking point.

Out in the distance, Alessia's father stood silhouetted against the Nibben, starring out of the bay toward the shimmering pillar at its centre. The White-Gold tower lived up to its name.

I love it so far! I like how you had Morihaus help the humans, as that truly is historically accurate. Shoddycast's video on the Ayleids says that not all the Ayleids were Elven supremacists and had slaves, in fact a lot of them helped in the rebellion. I'm hoping to see more of them show up.

Also, it is very flowing in most places, but in some parts I feel like it hasn't been fully edited. Places like "she's got a fit of the stares" don't really make sense, but it could just be me.

Also, "still playing a starring matching with the horizon" doesn't make sense to me. I can gather that you mean "staring match" by the context though, so at least I know what you mean.

But overall, it's really great. I can't wait until you continue this.

Love the story so far mate! its an entertaining read and a story that needs to be told. A few things if your trying to keep a more 'lore accurate' perception:

Alessia wasn't her real name and is a corruption of the title Al-Esh, and in fact we don't know her actual name but Morihaus called her Paravania and to most others she was known as Perrif.

Your portrayal of Morihaus is also a bit unique if I may say so, since I always imagined him something more Nordic than Alyied, especially with his association with Kyne.

Also, I assume the jewel your talking about is alluding to the Amulet of Kings?

Thank you very much. You are right, a lot of it hasn't be edited yet, probably a product of writing this into the wee hours . I don't mind the 'she's got a fit of the stares' because I want to portray Mule as being a little uneducated- slaves aren't known for their intellect.

I will change the spelling of staring though.

Thanks for reading. As for continuing it, I'll post a chapter a night. I would be greate if I could turn it into a community thing though, get a few co-writers on board?

Thank you!

I'm aware Alessia wasn't her real name, and I was toying with the idea of changing it initially, and then having her follower come to call her Alessia, but I thought that may be a little confusing. I wanted to make Morihaus a little bit more humans (well, elven), because I want to remind people than not all the elves were inherently evil. I will be doing some interesting things with him, though.

The Jewel? Sort of...

ONE - PART 2:


Mule's 'supper' was more akin to a celebratory feast than to a sombre gathering of human on the river banks. The day he had spent lagging dangerously behind his one-hundred strong group, his tribe, had obviously been a fruitful one. Alessia had spotted at least thirty hare carcasses, though of varying stock and age, two wicker-baskets worth of a delightful hobble pot of pomegranates, pears, oranges and bright red apples, and at least the leg of a rather well muscled horse.

Mule, was, naturally, not the man's real name, but a crude moniker concocted from necessity. Mule's original name, which he strained to recall and which Alessia could not pronounce, was simultaneously too common and too awkward for the majority of people to bother with. So, instead, they used the most descriptive name they could think of, besides the obvious 'middle-aged man', of which sadly there were few.

'I suppose you'll be wanting to know how I got these?' Mule muttered in a resigned sort of fashion. He did not need to gesture, the leathered-chasms streaking down his back were the only things remarkable about him. Alessia nodded awkwardly, realising that a forceful apology for her interest would have fit the situation far better. She had not yet grasped the social intricacies and graces that came so naturally to her father, and she feared the chieftain had begun to take notice. After all, he had chosen to rejoin her just as Mule had struck up a conversation, no doubt fearing the embarrassment his timid little daughter could inflict upon him with a single mislaid word.

'Well, sit down then?'

Alessia swiftly complied, buckling her legs and coming to sit cross-legged in a manoeuvre which on any surface would have caused serious injury. She looked up at Mule attentively, absently swirling her finger in the muck in an infantile attempt at stress relief. Mule pulled a pomegranate to his mouth, allowing the juices to flow gratifyingly down his chin. Alessia was struck by a sudden desire to eat one too, but was too tired to attempt a request. The muck was a welcoming cushion after a long walk, revitalising her with an icy-amorous embrace she wasn't quite ready to shake off.

'It was near the that there tower...' Mule gargled through a mouthful of fruit, gesturing at the illuminated pillar at the centre of the bay 'or, at least, I think it was. Time sort of blurs you see, when every day is the same, and the elves don't tell us much, as I'm sure you well know!' He paused to accommodate a nod, which Alessia supplied a fraction too late.

'Where I met your father, actually!' Mule remarked, as if the story he was supplying was revealing itself to him as he recounted it 'Did you know it took a-thousand of us men just to build the groundworks for that thing? Drove us hard those days, the elves did. Terrible...' He shook his head sombrely, and Alessia dutifully followed suit.

'You're too young to know what the Ayleids are capable of, I suppose. What is it they have the young ones do, gardening?'

'I did chiselling, mostly' Alessia said, beaming a smile of inappropriate pride. She'd recalled quite liking stone, that something so base and brutish could be carved into all manner of fanciful shapes was a powerful comfort to her young mind, though she did not yet know why.

'Ay, that's light stuff. I'm glad your father made his escape with us, before you could get to the real work. You ever see a rock the size of a house? No? Well I had to lift one, alone! With ropes, mind, or maybe there were a few other people there, like I say, blurry...'

Alessia wasn't sure whether to laugh at that last statement. It seemed primed for comedy and yet simultaneously begging for some pity. The man was so broken by the very condition of existing that any attempt at making light of his situation seemed terribly tragic.

'But don't mind me, I'm just reminiscing. Anyway, I lose my point. My master had decided he fancied a hunt, and had dragged three of us along to carry his...well, his victims. He had gone off into the forrest you see, spotted a white stag, apparently. I Wasn't sure what a stag was at the time, but it sounded impressive. While he was away, well, one of the others was struggling with his horse. Angry little fellow, it was. The thing just didn't want to take a load, rearing and wailing about the place before we could get anything on him. In the end, I just, forced a couple of foxes onto it's back and SNAP, it crumpled to the ground. Then of course, it wailed even more. Breaking a horse's leg is like ripping a man's heart out, they just can't live with the strain. I didn't want to see it like that. The others didn't seem to know what to do so I just...snapped the thing's back. It wasn't hard. Just turned, like a lock...nice and quick. Merciful, I think they call it, not wanting something to suffer.'

Mule wiped his brow, his sentences becoming more and more fragmented. Alessia once again got the impression that Mule's story was as new to him as it was to her, and he was coming back up to a painful event which would leave fresh scars even around the strap on his back.

'Anyway, my master comes back, a slave dragging this...big...white...beautiful creature and he sees his horse, lying in the shrubs. He looks at my hands, and sees the blood, sees the sweat on my brow. There wasn't any doubt what I'd done. I tried to make a case for myself, explain how it had suffered, but the elf screamed me to silence. Turned out he'd loved that beast, reared it from a foal or something...I don't remember the details. Anyway, he looks back at the stag and gets a wild look in his face, like an idea had formed. He took the straps from his horse, big leather things you understand, and he began...whipping me...and the others. Then he gets this grin, flicks his wrist. Some sort of magic. Anyway, the next time he whips me I feel a singe along my back, my skin bubbling off like a pot of water. Then I think I fell asleep or something. When I got up, I had these, smoke blowing in the wind over my back...'

Mule shook his head and stared at the ground. Alessia felt the urge to embrace the man, but the absurd cruelty of the tale demanded a period of silence. Then, unsettlingly, Mule smiled.

'But I got them beat, you see, because I can smile about it!..'

Alessia looked suitably puzzled.

'You ever heard someone say 'we'll see whose smiling in the end'? Well, I'm smiling, and that elf's probably long dead, so I guess I've won. No sense crying over the past, dear, the present's enough to worry about!'

Mule tossed an apple, as if to sever any last threads of the sombre mood he had concocted. Alessia caught it clumsily in her right hand, not willing to engage fully in the move for fear of dropping her amulet and loosing it to the mud below. She wasn't quite sure what to think of Mule's story, it certainly had the dramatic flare of a campsite story, and could have quite easily been put together on the spot. The lesson at the end was surely too poignant, too agreeable, to have been produced conveniently from real events. And yet, Alessia thought, that had been flickers of genuine pain in the man's eyes...
She would have dwelled more on the subject, but the fleet of workers suddenly rose to their feet.

Her father had returned.

This is good, really good. Since you've offered I'd like to ask if I may be allowed to become a co-writer? Perhaps we could sort this out through PM?

Anyway, really good. Liking all of it really well, especially the development of the Slave Culture.

It's an RP that hasn't taken off yet, but feel free to help get it farther off the ground!

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1467583-the-slave-queen-rp-oocsign-up-thread/

Thanks a lot! Since I realised that fan fics garner little attention, I thought I'd try and open this up as an RP. EmperorCharles has provided a link to the sign up thread, it would be awesome if you would come on board. You can take any existing character, or create a new one.