6 years before Summerlight
“Come on then. Wake up.” a voice said in the darkness waking him with a kick. “Get up. Time to go.”
Declan climbed ungracefully over the man sharing his bed who let out a small groan of protest. In the doorway of the underground cell that was Declan’s home, backlit by the flickering of torchlight stood the silhouettes of two men as different in shape as two beings from the same species could be. Declan’s eyes worked rather well in the dark, better than most near-human species, so for him, in the pitch-darkness of the cell, there was no mistaking the differences between the two men. They were both guards here at Blackborne Manor in service of House Nerezza.
Rot and Stutter they were called. Rot’s true name was Roitland though Declan did not know if that was a first name or last. He was of average height for a human man and was wider than he was tall. Rot was also covered in thick black hair everywhere but the top of his head where Declan’s advanced sight could see the flickering reflection of the torchlight in the bald spot surrounded by a crown of hair that came down his face in a set of sideburns that connected to the man’s rather bushy mustache. It was like a normal beard except Rot made sure to shave only his chin. Declan’s bunkmate had suggested Rot would be better served shaving the thick tangle of dark black hair that ran down his arms and over the guard’s massive hands that were so big they looked like they could crush cinder blocks. Declan had heard there was a connection between the size of one’s hands and the size of their…well you know…Declan had also heard that the size of Rot’s hands was vastly different than the size of his…clears throat…and now no matter the situation Deck’s eyes always seemed drawn to the guard’s giant hairy hands.
In contrast Stutter’s hands were sharp and often found in places they did not belong; The pantry, silverware drawers, in the skirt of some unlucky maid. His hands were sharp and never gentle. Declan did not know Stutter’s actual name. The man had only been at Blackborne for a couple of months at most, whereas Declan had come here nearly two years prior. Cleverly, Stutter was called such because of his habit of stumbling and stammering when speaking, Declan had to say he was glad the man did not also spit. Where Rot was wide, dark-haired, and grim, Stutter was lean, fair-haired, and chatty even with his impediment. Despite the two guards seemingly being opposites when it came to amiability, it was no secret that the women who worked in the kitchen felt much better when dour Roitland showed up, not sweet-talking Stutter.
“Where we going?” The man lying next to him asked sleepily. Declan shared his cell and often his bed with Sero Valrel a fellow slave and pit fighter. Declan had first met Sero close to fifteen years ago. Neither had yet celebrated twenty years of life. Declan had grown up the son of an Alpha and had spent practically seventeen years as royalty. Sero was hardly able to remember a life where he was not a slave. As a boy, he did small tasks. Clear tables, chop food, deliver messages, clean, whatever work was fit for small hands. He would grow larger as he grew older yet his temper grew shorter and so he spent some time being trained to fight on the glorious sands of the gladiators. For Sero Valrel that glory never came and he instead found himself sentenced to die in the pits. Life as a gladiator was a life of relative glory. One saw stature that far exceeded any other slave, for that is what they were. One would also see fame on many worlds where fighting in the arena was considered near divinity. Perhaps most importantly, one had a chance to earn freedom in the gladiatorial arena. In the pits, the only thing you could earn was a brutal death. Sero had looked so young then practically a boy still and now he was a man. Close to six and a half feet in height and weighing more than two and a half hundred pounds, covered in scars from his time fighting for his life including one from a blow meant for Declan that had come closer than any before to end Sero’s life. Declan had not and never would forget that selflessness. He quite literally owed Sero his life.
The two had grown close over the years as pit slaves first of a Hutt named Valturla and now here at Blackborne Manor on Evaria under the ownership of House Nerezza. A well-famed house from Islimore with a history that dated back to William Blackmoore himself or so said Declan’s new master Arezzo Nerezza, inheriter of not only a vast fortune of wealth but Blackborne Manor proof of his family’s blood-ties to The Conqueror himself. Declan was very familiar with William Blackmoore’s campaign on Islimore having lived the first half of his life on that very world as a member of the very people William Blackmoore had waged his war upon. At least Blackmoore’s war was about land and resources. Those who descended from his people sought the death of Declan and his kind for far less savory reasons. Religious intolerance, bigotry, and centuries of hated proximity had festered into something terrible that saw the near extinction of Declan’s kind at the hands of the very people he was now forced to serve.
“Not you. Just the dog.” Rot said. Rot had grown up on Islimore, grown up hating Declan’s people just for existing, and for Declan’s part, the feeling was fairly mutual, though decidedly more personal.
Declan pulled on a pair of trousers and followed the armed escort from his cell, through the labyrinthian underground tunnels that the slaves used to travel the grounds so they would be less likely to be seen. Red claystone walls illuminated with every flicker of torchlight that they passed. Stutter and Rot kept a slow careful pace given how limited their ability to see down here was. They complained in hushed tones about the Nerezza’s eccentric desires for torches instead of something more modern and luminous. Despite their whispers, Declan had no trouble hearing them clearly or hearing the sound of dripping water somewhere further down the tunnel and the chittering of rodents coming from seemingly everywhere that wasn’t touched by the yellow-orange light of the flames. He also had no trouble seeing where he was walking in the limited light of the torches. The smell of lichen and guano was for a while overwhelming but steadily faded away until they reached the bottom of a set of duracrete stairs that would lead them to the grounds proper.
Morning fog milled around his ankles and he could smell the sun about to rise in the west as he was led along the garden path. Just the garden itself not considering the vast woodland that bordered it was something like six hundred acres with pristinely manicured lawns, several high hedged mazes, hundreds of gazebos, countless benches, two hundred fountains with twice as many sculptures, and when in season more color than Declan had known existed in the galaxy. He must have seen a thousand shades of ten thousand colors and it had all served to make him think of the greys, the greens, the browns, and the white of snow that colored his youth.
It was there in the gardens that he met his master, Arezzo Nerezza. A man in his early thirties with jet black hair that he always kept slicked back.
Clean shaven and cleanly dressed was one way to describe Arezzo. Declan had been this man’s property for nearly two years and had never seen him with so much as a shadow of a beard on his face. His clothes were always the latest galactic fashion, Declan had often heard him boast that he dressed better than any Sabathian. Not that Arezzo went around gossiping with Declan but the perks of advanced hearing meant you often were privy to conversations not meant for you.
Arezzo, a man who had grown up in a culture that taught and reinforced the thought that Declan and everyone like him were evil had been surprisingly kind to Declan. He took no hand in Declan training for the pits and let him and Sero train at their leisure. he hadn’t even had them leave for the pits in over a year. now if Declan fought at all it was with Sero to entertain some guest of Arezzo’s and those were never a contest of serious consequence. Scrap for a few minutes let the guests get their fill of blood and try not to hurt one another. Days like that often saw the two of them fed off the scraps from whatever grand dinner had been prepared and they would even be gifted a bottle of wine or two. Life on Evaria was easy and easy suited Declan just fine.
“Ah, Declan! I have something for you!” Arezzo proclaimed as the guards left Declan standing in front of his master.
“For me, Dominus?” Declan asked, genuinely confused. Arezzo preferred the styling Dominus to “master” they meant the same but Arezzo thought they sounded too much like Jedi when the slaves said, master.
Arezzo snapped his fingers and a pair of guards walked over caring something between them. It took Declan a moment to realize it was a girl. She did not fight but instead held herself as still as possible and so when she was being carried her feet were being dragged through the grass. She was younger than him by several years with honey-colored hair and a fat busted lip. There were bruises and scrapes down her legs and her feet were bare. She was clothed in barely more than a sack but even then he could tell her figure was boyish. It was not her look however that drew the breath from his lips. It was her smell.
“Have fun. Do not leave the grounds.” Arezzo told him, eliciting another look of confusion from Declan. “A gift, Declan. It would be poor form not to let you play for a while, yes? Not too long and not too far, she still needs to be cleaned up. But you go, go, enjoy yourself.” he said with a gesture of his hands, and with that Arezzo and his guards left Declan there with this barely dressed girl who despite her best efforts not to move trembled fiercely.
Declan took a step toward the shaking girl.
“Which clan are you from?” He asked her. She did not respond.
“Hverjum tilheyrir þú?” He tried now to speak to her in the old tongue and still, she did nothing but shake. He reached a hand out to touch her face, to get a better look at her hurts and she flinched away moving back a couple paces.
“Please. Just… please.” She said quietly, under her breath like it was not meant for him to be heard.
“It’s okay.” He spoke to her gently as he took only a single step forward, keeping mind not to intrude on her space. “I’m like you. Can’t you tell? I could smell it on you straight away.”
“Smell? I don’t know what you're talking about.” her shaking had stopped but now she was hugging herself like she wished to keep herself covered from his gaze.
“A Wolf.” He told her and her eyes lit up. Confusion, panic, fear, maybe even hope all raced to settle along her face.
“How do you know that?” She snapped in a whisper that traveled through her teeth.
“I told you. I’m like you. Surely you can sense something…familiar.”
“Maybe I can. I don’t know.” She was still frightened but she spoke and Declan had to think of that as progress.
“Who was your father?” He asked
“Xarin.” She answered.
“And he was Wolf?”
“No, He was a farmer.”
“Plenty of Wolves are farmers,” Declan told her.
“He was just a man.” She explained
“Your mother then?”
“Never knew my mother. She died giving birth to me.”
It was all too common throughout the history of their people for childbirth to claim the life of the mother. It was cruel and far from just, mothers were important. His mother had always said so.
“I didn’t even know I was one until a year ago,” she told him unprompted.
“How did your father take the news?” Declan knew all too well the ways humans treated Lupo.
“Well enough I suppose.”The guard in her voice lowered a bit and her arms uncrossed from around herself and for the first time, Declan noticed a thin silver chain around her neck. “My mother had warned him that I was bound to be like her. She told him to keep it secret, to keep me safe. He… tried.” her voice cracked. “The changes were so painful, so scary for us both that he tried to find help for me…” Declan could only imagine the terror that went through this girl as the change set upon her. It was agony to the point of ecstasy and beyond again into madness the first time you turned and he had been prepared his whole life to change. Been told from birth it was his right and the truest part of himself, he’d had family who loved, supported, and awaited his change as eagerly as he. This girl, she’d had no one, she’d had to take it on alone over and over unsure if she was going to die by changing or by trying to hold it in.
“...Eventually a man, no, several men but only one of them spoke to father, they showed up at our home. They said they could help me but I would need to leave with them. They offered father more credits than he had made his whole life and he told them no.” She had stopped shaking. “They did not want to hear that and so father was killed…”She trailed off.
“And you ended up here,” Declan said. The girl just nodded.
“How old are you?” Declan asked.
“I turned fourteen last month,” she said quietly.
“What’s that round your neck?” Declan asked pointing. The girl put her dirty, knuckle-bruised hands into her shirt and pulled out a silver necklace with a medallion on the end.
“My dad told me it belonged to my mother. Neither one of us know what the symbol means if it means anything at all.” She explained. Declan took another step forward and took the medallion in his hand between forefinger and thumb examining it. He ignored how she almost had taken a step away from him.
“It means something,” Declan told her with a smile, taking one of her hands in his free one and lifting it to the charm. “This is wufi. It is the language of our people. Your mother’s language. That symbol represents Cérmæ. Cérmæ is a goddess. Wisdom, strength, and protection, are her gifts to us her children. She is my mother’s god as well and that would make you like my sister. I’ve always wanted a sister.” She smiled softly at his warmth. Hearing the tongue of her people, and learning something about her mother that she never knew but somehow felt was true seemed to be getting through her guard.
“How’d you get so banged up?” Declan asked her.
“They tried to take my neckless.” She answered, eliciting a loud barking laugh of approval from Declan.
“And what’s your name, little sister?”
“Bec’irah.”
“Becks, then. Well met, I’m Declan.” He said with a warm smile and his hand out.
“Nice to meet you too...Decks.” She said, returning his smile.
