Fawn: A Woman of the Deer People

[fawn]

There comes a time when a mother must choose between turning her children away and telling them to go and live their own lives, or putting her own needs aside and living for her children. I chose the second path. My farewell from the temple was heart breaking. I cried as I told Ursa and Glassere that I had to go away. But family is family. Then I left.

I was greeted at Zenko by an interview with Lord Kabul and his lady, I'm sorry, I foget her name. I hadn't expected any such honor. They'd clearly heard of me, and tried hard to impress. I was just feeling uprooted, stunned. Moving home is never an easy thing for me. I excused myself as soon as I was able.

Zenko was a constant temptation for me. Aside from the black stone tower that dominated the island, the whole place was made of rice paper, bamboo, and grass mats. Rice paper is a delicious confection that melts on your tongue. Bamboo is a kind of grass, giant chewy grass. Grass mats are yummy. It was like living in a gingerbread house, I had to exercise constant self control.  In I the yard there were these straw men that the soldiers used to hit with sticks and blades. They called them dummies. I called them dessert: they were old armor stuffed with prime quality straw, well dried and aged. At the end of my time there people were commenting how thin they were starting to look.

I confined myself as much as possible to old and worn out straw matting, there was a storeroom full of it. Maybe a few bamboo and rice paper screens looked a little bit nibbled around the edges. I don't think anyone noticed.

My time at Zenko was a lonely one. Ashara was away more and more, learning magic, she said, including healing. She didn't really need me at all. I was left alone. The monks and warriors had no time for me. I would sit in the courtyard for hours and watch them exercise, and look down at my hooves. I was pregnant, babies growing in my belly, it was easy to sit and dream, and when I got bored with that I'd go and make a pot of tea, drink it, and then sit some more.

The monastery was abuzz about something. It had been founded originally, centuries ago, to keep some kind of a gate closed. I'd never fully understood what that meant: it was variously described to me as a sacred fire, or a pool, or a shimmering portal. In truth I don't think anyone living had ever seen it, it was buried under that tower of black stone. Now the magic users were talking about a prophecy from their Goddess, a way of using the portal safely. I don't think they meant to talk about it in front of me, but I was quiet and they'd gotten used to be being there, part of the furniture, and deer have excellent hearing.

Still, I didn't know what to make of what I was hearing, they were all excited by the direction Lord Dartun's investigations were taking. Nobody spoke of danger, there wasn't even a note of caution, it was all wide eyed wonder at the possibilities. I know nothing about magic, and for the most part magical beings ignore me as beneath their notice, and I believe that is the safest way to be. I had no idea of the consequences that were about to unfold for Lord Dartun, and the whole island. Even if I had I don't know what I could have done about it: he was the great magician, I was just a deer.

It started with an earthquake, a low, low groaning deep in the ground that made me leap to my feet and prepare to run. There was nowhere to run to, the gates were closed, they had been for days. I had been sitting in the courtyard, thinking nothing, hardly present at when it began. The ground trembled, then shook. I clung to a tree and waited for it to end, but it didn't end, it just got worse and worse. The ground began to roll like waves. There were cracking sounds and one of the buildings just folded up on itself and collapsed. Then I ran, even though there was nowhere to run to I ran anyway. Other people were running too, they were running towards the tower. I ran away.

When I reached the gates I had to stop. They were solid wood and iron and even through they now leaned at a crazy angle they blocked my path. Stones were tumbling down the walls and thudding into the dirt, and still the waves in the ground rolled on and on. I turned and looked at the tower, and it was falling, it was leaning over towards me, reaching for me, and pieces were breaking off as it fell. It seemed to happen very slowly. Then pieces of stone were raining down all around me and I ran. I ran for the broken walls, even though they were broken to bits and the tumbed rubble was no refuge. Something hit me hard, like a lion, I went sprawllng onto the rocks and there was an enormous crash, and then it got very dark and very quiet and the only sound was the clinking and sliding of settling rock.

I tried to move, and agony shot through my leg. I was jammed into the rocks and I couldn't move enough to even feel what was wrong or how bad it was. It just hurt and it kept on hurting.  It was black under the rocks. I realized that I had been buried alive. I called and called, but there was no answer. I think I slept.

[fawn]

Darkness. A voice whimpered, "We're in Hell! We're in Hell!"

I groaned, and croaked, "Shut up, oh please shut up," but it had been my voice, I realized. My throat was raw, parched, I was so thirsty. When would they give us water? Oh, please, Goddess, let them give us water soon. "Water, please, water..." I croaked.

"Wait," a faint voice called. "Hold up, listen." A faint sound sound I'd been aware of on the edge of my hearing stopped, and it was silent. I strained to hear, the silence stretched. "Hello? Is there anybody there? Can you hear me?" the voice called, muffled, a long way away. Suddenly it hit me. I wasn't on the slave ship, that had been years ago. The tower had fallen, I was buried!

"Hello," I croaked. "Help me."

"Is there anybody there?" He called again. "Call out if you can hear me."

"Help!" I screamed. "Help Me!" Well, I tried to scream. It came out more like a rasp.

"There's someone there. Someone's alive. Hold on, we're coming! Hold on!" The scraping sounds resumed. It was digging. They were coming to dig me out. I held on: there wasn't much else I could do.

When I woke up I was lying on a bed in the temple. My leg didn't hurt any more. I'm told it took them two days to find me and dig me out. In the end they had to use magic to lift the stone off me, it was the only way to move it. Then they used more magic to heal my broken leg. I don't remember any of it. By some miracle my unborn babies had survived,

I thank the Goddess for that. Ashara was among the missing. At first I thought she must be dead, buried under those piles of rubble, but it turned out she'd been seen leaving the island with the Gypsies. A few days after the quake Lord Ashtyn had expelled them from the island. He'd finally had enough when they refused to help in the rescue efforts or share medical supplies. We have our own wounded, their queen had said, it's none of our affair. By the time I woke up they were gone, and Ashara with them. There was nothing I could do.

Lord Kabul and his acolytes were never found, they just vanished. Personally I think some of the bodies were just so deeply buried as to be unrecoverable, but people say, well people say all sorts of things. Some claim they were sucked through the portal into another world and trapped there. The most popular theory is that he had angered his Goddess and she came down and struck down the tower and punished him.

I was there, and I didn't see anything like that. However, I was running away at the time, so it could have happened. Most people agree that Lord Kabul's pride and magical experimentation was the cause of the disaster. It's true, I think, that he was doing some kind of experiment with the portal buried in the heart of the tower. I don't think it's ever been proved, however. It's possible it was just an ordinary earthquake that struck at the worst possible time. They are not unknown on Lismore.

Whatever the cause, the results were the almost complete destruction of Zenko, with the portal glaring nakedly among the ruins. Lord Ashtyn placed guards around it, he expected an attack, but none came. The city was badly damged, repairs went on for months. There had been rock falls in the caves, and new chambers had opened up. The temple was largely spared.

I ate and drank and slept again. They'd healed my leg and all my cuts and bruises, but for some reason I still felt weak. When I woke up I went and laid by the fire and watched people numbly, moving about and doing things. It all seemed faintly unreal. Then a male strode into the temple, a wolf, he carried a staff and wore a traveling cloak. His clothes looked dusty and sweat stained.

"Hello?" he called.

I sighed and got to my feet and went over to him. "Welcome in peace," I said. "My name is Fawn. You look like you could use a bath..."

[fawn]

Although no attack eventuated through the portal, Lord Ashytn was still concerned. He recruited soldiers and reformed the monestary, and he chose Cloudchaser to lead it. Cloud's moving out was either the cause or the effect of a quarrel with Glassere, and I think they didn't speak to one another for months. Cloud took the baby Liam with him when he left. Soon he was calling himself Lord Cloudchaser.

What else happened in this period? David Chronos... reappeared. It's all very strange to me in my memory. One day I got up and started making porridge for breakfast and David was there and everyone was making a big fuss over him and I couldn't see why. Everyone was saying he'd been raised from the dead and it was a miracle, whereas I remembered him having lived with us for months and months. And also... having died.

It was strange, I now had two contradictory sets of memories. David had been killed by Tibur and David had defeated Tibur and seriously injured him. Some moments it seemed one thing was true, another moment, especially when David was present, the other memory would predominate. It really messes with your head remembering two different things at the same time! Anyway, David was back. He seemed different, gentler, less hostile. He had changed.

Svart, the slaver wolf, was around a lot more in those days, he seemed to like our company. The first indication of just how much David had changed was when he took a collar and became Svart's slave, voluntarily. Ursa was furious, of course, and snapped at him for being a fool - and then snarled at anyone else who dared criticize her brother. I kept very quiet.

The truth is I'd never understood slavery in this land. When we first came here and I'd heard there were slavers roaming around and slave ships in the harbour I was terrified, thinking I could be taken as I grazed in the forest. Later I gained more confidence and realized this wasn't true, I was protected by the Temple. New slaves could only be made in Lismore if they sold them selves into it, or if Lord Ashtyn ordered for debt or other reasons.

Foreign slaves, however, could still be bought and sold in the marketplace. As well, a slave in Lismore had the option to put aside some money to work towards buying their freedom, and in theory their Master was not supposed to touch this. Slaves could also be freed by Masters grateful for their service, and this happened more often than you might think. Lord Ashtyn could order the freeing of slaves who had been abused or neglected. In all it was very different from the slavery I had known.

David received money from Svart for becoming his slave, and he used it to buy the Inn in the marketplace, which he then gave to his Master. They both went and lived there and ran it. Svart renamed it the Slave's Gift.

Ursa had been away for a long time. After the trip to the Holy Island with Glassere she and Naurel went on another journey to her home land, a place called Rome. They were away for a long time, making peace with Ursa's family. When they returned they brought fine gifts for everyone, and the temple. It was the first time I realised that Ursa's family were wealthy. It must have been about this time she started wearing the ladylike dresses she wears today.

[fawn]

Deep in the forest is a place sacred to Her. She is our mother Earth and there are always places to worship her if you know what to look for – caves, grottoes, and forests themselves. Most people are just not looking.

In the heart of the forest, far from temple and city there is a place where rocks come up out of the earth and a spring comes out of the hillside. Beside the spring is a gap in the rocks, almost a cave, and in the cave there is a small statue carved out of rock. She's just a rough shape, head bowed over swollen breasts and pregnant belly, half buried in the earth. You can't even make out what species she is, sometimes I think rabbit, sometimes fox. Or deer I suppose.

I'm not the only one who worships there, although I've never seen anyone else go there,  sometimes I find fresh flowers laid before Her. I don't know how old this place is, but something in my heart whispers very old, and very secret.

This day I slipped into the cave and knelt, murmuring my prayer quickly: "Heavenly Mother, please look after my daughter wherever she travels and bring her back to me safe." There was no sound except the dripping of water, and when I looked up Her stone face was hidden, gazing down at her breasts, or her hooves.

But as I crawled out of the cave the hair on the back of my neck lifted and I knew she was smiling at me. I turned, but she was already lost in the darkness, hidden, but I could feel that smile all the way home.

[fawn]

A couple of days later I went up to the bar to see David, but he wasn't there. The place was deserted, filled with mid-morning sunlight, and I wandered across the marble floor wondering if I should wait for him, or just leave. There was a doe stretched out on one of the rugs asleep, pretty deeply asleep if I could sneak up on her like that. I extended my snout towards her, moving softly so as not to wake her, and sniffed her scent a couple of times.

She smelled vaguely familiar. I looked her over, noting the slave collar and her long, willowy body. Then I settled down by her, thinking that a nap might be just the thing, when her ear twitched and she opened her eyes and woke up, and just about jumped out of her skin. "H-Hello?"

I smiled. "Hello. My name is Fawn."

"Fawn? Mother!"

We just blinked at each other in shock. "I'm not your mother, dear," I told her gently, thinking the poor thing's mind must be a bit touched. "I'm Fawn, from the temple here. I'm guessing you've newly been brought her, by Svart?"

"M-Master Svart, yes. I'm Demeter."



"Welcome in Peace, Demeter."

She kept looking at me with those big, big eyes, following my every movement. She extended her nose, tentatively, to take my scent. I nuzzled her cheek and sniffed her scent again. She did smell familliar, I felt some kind of a stirring inside. Could she have been of my people? Was that why she thought I was her mother? Demeter frowned at me, looking more and more troubled in her mind, it was clear she still thought so.

"I-I can't be your mother," I protested. "I would remember. Um, I think I would remember. Well, probably." She just gazed at me then with a look full of pain, and I felt.. confused. "I-I was injured, I guess, I think I died, and a large part of my life is a blank, but I would remember... wouldn't I?"

"Mother, you got sick, you were taken from us. We thought you were dead!"

I got to my feet. This was too much. I had to run, I had to be free! "I, I, I have to think about this! I'm not sure. I don't remember. I'm confused! I'll come back tomorrow!" And with that I dashed out of the Inn. I trotted home through the woods in a panic, my thoughts in a whirl. Was she really my daughter? Try as I might I couldn't dredge up any memories of her. She did smell familiar though, her scent made me feel confused, sad, protective. It came to me suddenly, she smelled like Ashara, my little lost fawn, gone with the gypsies.

"Oh my Goddess," I whimpered. Could she really be my daughter?

*

Next morning before dawn horns blared from the Zenko ruins. The temple scouts and guardians raced off into the darkness, later a messenger came back: bugs were attacking, stay in your homes.

"Demeter!" I thought, "I must go to her!" Glassere tried to stop me. "I promised," I explained. "I have to see her." So bugs or no bugs I raced off through the forest.

When they said bugs were attacking I thought it was something like a swarm off bees, not acid spitting creatures the size of oxen, covered in chitin and mandibles. Bees, though, were worrying enough: What if they stung my new daughter? Some time during the night I had accepted the truth. I found Demeter lying in the slave cage in the marketplace, the barred iron door open: Svart told her to sleep there. With some difficulty I persuaded her to come into the Inn.

"Bugs are attacking! Bees! You must come inside!"

"But Master said..."

"What will he say if you are hurt? Svart will probably thank me for protecting his valuable property," I said bitterly. With much agonizing and persuasion I got her inside. The thing about slaves is they never do what you tell them. Daughters too, really.

[fawn]

I got Demeter into the Inn and we went down to the room where David and the other inn slaves were sheltering and we hid with them. The inn rooms are built into the hillside and the inner rooms have no windows, so by barring the door and stuffing the cracks with vinegar soaked rags I reckoned we were safe enough from bugs or bees or whatever it might be.

David was clearly in a state of anxiety, and Demeter was rolling her eyes and starting at ever sound so I was occupied at first just trying to calm and reassure them. Svart was away, David reported, and he didn't know when his master would be back, but it would be soon. I didn't know David very well. He'd always had an antagonistic, sarcastic manner towards me, and then he'd died suddenly. The others claimed to have seen his ghost, but I never had, and that may have just been talk based on fond memories, I don't know. Now he was back, and the new David seemed very different: submitting to Svart and becoming his slave where the old David had fought everyone and everything. Was he even the same person?

But you have to take people as they are: you can't change them, and in truth I wouldn't want to. I'm quite sure our Mother doesn't want to: she loves us the way we are and wants us to love Her and do the right thing of our own free will.

i curled up with Demeter and we slept. We huddled in the stuffy room until the all clear was given, then we staggered upstairs. Svart still had not returned and David was growing more and more anxious, but what can you say to a person in that situation, beyond "I feel for you." Then we sat down and waited. As the days wore by I thought about what I would say to Svart, feeling more and more hopeless. What could I offer him in exchange for my daughter?

I had no money, and no prospects of getting any. It wasn't likely he would swap me for her: Who would want a worn out old slave woman in exchange for a young one? The only practical idea I could come up with was that I would have to get a job and help Demeter to pay off her freedom a bit at a time, which would take years. Maybe he would give me a job serving at the bar? The problem was all the Inn slaves, serving and cleaning and cooking and laundering all without pay. And it was the same in every other profession on the island, everywhere you looked there were slaves fetching and carrying and working. How could a freedwoman compete?

[fawn]

And so we waited. It was another two days before Svart returned. He took one look at us and grunted: "Oh great, what is she, sister? Cousin?"

"Demeter is my daughter."

He went away muttering about his luck and the Gods.

Shortly after Ursula arrived, and wrapped us both in a great, warm bear hug. "Fawn I've been so worried! The temple was attacked, perhaps it's just a well  you were here. And this is Demeter? Welcome. Swart sent me a message. No, don't worry about all that Mistress stuff, I was a slave too. I'm just Ursa." She went away to find Swart, and as she put it "Sort him out."

Ursa bought Demeter and freed her. Her family was much richer than I'd thought, and she'd started a "foundation" to free slaves. Demeter was one of the firsts. She cried, I cried, Ursa cried, David cried. I think even Swart had a tear in his crusty old eye.

Demeter and I returned to the Temple, for more tears and hugs, and then we went grazing in the forest, for peace. There were so many questions I should have asked her, but i couldn't remember them. I still couldn't remember anything of my time as a slave, so I listened as Demeter told me about the wolf clan and the fear they'd felt when I was taken away. I knew in my heart she was my daughter, she must be, and that had to be enough, didn't it? Still, sometimes it got in between us, that I couldn't remember anything about her at all. Maybe that's why she left, eventually wandering away to find her own destiny?

But I'm getting ahead of myself, and anyway, all of my daughters are wanderers.

[fawn]

And so Demeter joined us and came to live with the tribe. A bit later my other daughter Persephone turned up as well. That year I gave birth to triplets: Cernunnos, Gaia, and Nimue. It was obvious that Solarius was Nimue's father: She had scales, and wings. They grew up fast as all deer children do, and soon they were talking and wandering off by themselves. For a few months I was gloriously not pregnant.

One day Radem arrived on the island. He was a slave, brought from overseas by a woman owner. Radem is a buck rabbit, grey and white in colour, but with a strange purplish cast to his fur. His story is that he stole something and was enslaved as punishment. He seems to come from a good family: they own a farm, and they're not dirt poor either: they read and write and from his words seem well respected, so it's hard to say why he went wrong. His people say that purple rabbits are bad luck, and from Radem's own story you could be forgiven for wondering if it was not true.

But this all came out later, at the time he was just a slave brought to the temple. The woman had tired of him and she sold him to Lone. He was worried. If I'd been in his fur I'd have been terrified. Lone was not a nice wolf. Ursa had tried to buy him but Lone wasn't selling, he just smirked, enjoying his power over everyone. There was nothing he liked more than making people dance to his tune.

So Ursa and I were in the kitchen, trying to give him advice on how to cope with slavery. "Make a place in your mind where you can go," I suggested. "A place they can never find or destroy. No matter what they do to your body, inside your head you can be free."

"Smile and be agreeable to whatever he says. Learn to be invisible - keep your head down and your eyes down and escape notice. To be noticed is to invite punishment." Ursa said.

Ursa and I looked at one another, and smiled sadly. It was obvious we'd both been there. "I was a slave once too," Ursa admitted.

"You were?" I stared at her. How did a girl from a rich family become a slave? I shook my head. "I never knew." Maybe she'd been captured in a raid like I had, that can happen to anyone. Maybe her family had spent years looking for her, and found her at last, like some romantic tale?

"It's not something I talk about too often."

Radem was just kind of staring at us gob-smacked as we reminisced. "You were both slaves?"

I shrugged and smiled. "We offer sanctuary to runaways and abused slaves, so what do we get? Runaways and abused slaves."

"Most of the temple staff are former slaves," Ursa added.

"We will do whatever we can to help you," I assured him. It turned out that wasn't much. Lone came and collected him and took him away. Radem and Lone soon became a fixture around the island, Lone squirmed his way into everyone's affairs, and Radem did as he was told. He's a nice boy with a hard-bitten, realistic view of the world. After his experiences that's no surprise.

*

I few weeks later I was sitting by the jail chatting to someone when a male walked by. He was some kind of a canine. He carried a weapon, a crossbow. I said "Hello," or "Welcome in Peace," or something like that. If he replied I don't remember it. I returned to my conversation. A few seconds later bang everything went black.

*

Blackness, I was swimming upwards through the blackness. Or was I swimming down? I opened my eyes and emerged into the light. I was lying on a bed by the fire, in a courtyard. I tried to sit up and failed, I groaned, my head hurt.

"Easy, Fawn, easy. Just take it easy." A male said. He was a white leopard, with blue eyes, I'd never seen such a thing. He was a slave, he wore a collar, a silvery jeweled thing. He looked expensive.

"Fawn?" I asked. "Is that my name?" I couldn't remember.

"Of course it is. You're Fawn. I'm Glassere. You were shot in the head with a crossbow bolt. Don't you remember?"

"I was shot?" I raised my hoof gingerly to my forehead, then reached for my throat, and rubbed my hooves and stared at him.

"Sister Naurel healed you. You've been asleep for days. What's wrong, Fawn?"

"The collar, the manacles, they're gone. The ship! I was on a ship! Where am I?"

He sighed. "You're safe, you're safe and well. You're free."

"I'm free," I just stared at him, gobsmacked. Free, after so many deaths, so much blood, so much darkness and suffering. Suddenly I was free, delivered from the hold of that terrible ship, I was free. "Thank the Goddesss," I whispered. "Thank the Goddess I'm free at last."

[fawn]

Glassere was a wonderful conversationalist, I could easily see why some rich old male had decided to clap a diamond collar on him. He told me the story of my life as he knew it: I had washed up on the shore of an island: a different island to this one. I had joined the tribe and served in their temple, giving people baths. I had given birth to two children, now grown, Isis and Ashara, and two more still babies, Cern and Gaia. Then I had been struck down by a male firing a blunted crossbow bolt. Unfortunately I could remember none of it.

The children were sweet, timid little things, worried if their mommy was alright. They were strange to me, but they smelled like family. Cern, the little buck, was mute. People said he spoke in their heads - his sister especially - but I didn't hear anything, it's possible she was just telling stories. Gaia, the doe, was a frail, sickly little thing. She would sit by the fire and stare into space for minutes or hours, and once she fell over had had a most alarming fit, shaking and foaming at the mouth. I tried to help but there was nothing I could do. Glassere said she had done it before, she was touched by the Gods.

I don't think either one of them would have worked out on the plantation. The masters would have sold them or gotten rid of them, one way or another.

One day Glassere came to talk to me about my attacker. I could tell him nothing. He said the male had claimed to be an assassin, that he had shot me because I'd been kind to him. The story made no sense to me. "What kind of an assassin would attack a slave woman? Who would pay him to do that?"

Glassere shook his head. "I don't know."

"Sounds like a lunatic to me."

"Maybe."

People had been asking for the male's death. I shrugged. "Nobody was killed," I pointed out. "There's no need for a death. Just keep him away from me."

Glassere went away and the attacker was eventually released. I don't know what happened to him, I never saw him again.

A few days later a white female came up to me in the temple. "Fawn, how are you feeling?" I didn't recognize her.

"Um, better, I think. Still getting some headaches, though. Look, do I know you?"

"I'm Naurel."

"Sorry, it doesn't ring any bells." She was a curious thing, some kind of hybrid, she smelled cattish and doggish. The white colour was pretty though, as a slave she would have been delegated to some kind of decorative role. Here she was a healer, apparently.

"May I?"

She examined my head gently, then made me lie down. She laid her paws on my forehead, as I watched the damndest blue glow formed around them, and grew and grew, and then... pow! My head exploded and filled with burning blue fire and I knew no more.

[fawn]

Darkness. I opened my eyes. Someone was bending over me, a white figure, Naurel. "Did I fall asleep?" I asked.

"Yes, um, I think so. How do you feel?"

I sat up. "Better."

"What do you remember?"

"I was sitting and talking on the grass near the smithy, and then, wham.. I was attacked! And, and... Demeter and Persephone, and the ship, and the plantation, I remember.. everything!"

"Do you remember the last week?

"Yes. It's like I was another person. I couldn't remember you or Ursa or the Holy Island, but now I can. Have you healed me?"

"I think so. The crossbow wounded your head again. Lucky that idiot fired a blunted round or I don't think you'd be here now. This time I was able to heal you." She shrugged. "I don't know why." She had healed my head? I could almost remember it, her paws wreathed in a blue glow, reaching towards me, a flash, a bright light, a voice... But no. It was gone, there was just nothing.

"Thank you Naurel," I whispeered. We hugged.

"That's alright, Sister. Don't you go worrying me like that again. I thought we'd lost you."

"I'll try not to get in the way of any more crossbow bolts."

"See that you do."

So that's how I recovered my memories, with a blunted iron bolt smashing into my skull, and a flash of blue fire. When I say I remember everything, it wasn't everything, of course. Some parts are still very strange and dreamlike, my last days on the ship and what happened afterwards, for instance. My childhood in the forest seems like a quaint fairytale, a story told around a fire, memories so old and repeated they've become tales, fogotten tales. It almost seems like it happened to someone else.  My real memories start with the slave raid, although that is more like a nightmare, perhaps because that's how it came back to me. I remember my time as a slave distantly, as if it happened to someone else. The memories seem to lack colour and flavour, and I get confused about the details. It's impossible to say what happened first and which events come after which others, and some things are just disconnected.

I remember Shadow, though, sitting in the darkness inside the slave shed, her dark eyes reflecting the red light of her little fire, speaking about her life as a slave. I remember it as clear as I'm sitting here telling you about it. But I can't remember what she said, exactly, I've got the gist of it, I think, all the rest is a reconstruction.

At last I knew who I was, where I came from, everything I had done, good and bad, all the questions that had tormented me sitting on the beach with Aeon. It seemed so long ago. Know the truth, they say, and it shall set you free. But what if you don't remember what you know?

[fawn]

PART 4 - MOTHER

There's not really much more to tell. The children grew up rapidly, Nimue flew off to join her father. By this time Solarius was banned from Lismore, so they both left my life almost completely. So Solarius did not join in my rut that year, which brings me to Lance.

Lance was a black and white Sergal, random, boisterous, a troublemaker by all accounts. Some say all Sergal are. He came to the island and promptly got into some sort of fight and was killed. And that's where the story gets... interesting. A necromancer raised him back to life as part of some plot, although his soul was lost. The plot failed and Lance was left wandering around Lismore, well, like a lost soul. He was banned from Zenko and the Inn and unwelcome in most places, but allowed in the temple - we don't turn people away unless they break the peace.

His behavior was bad, he was constantly provoking people and trying to make them angry. He was a sore trial to Ursa and anyone could see that wasn't going to end well. However for a time he was welcome, and that time co-incided with my rut that year. The children that year were Areon and Despoina, a buck and a doe. Despoina had long, silky black and white fur, like a Sergal. Like Lance.

*

Radem, meanwhile, was owned by Lone, the black wolf.  We'd been having troubles with a half feral wolf attacking people. He walked on his hind legs, but didn't speak or use weapons. He couldn't or wouldn't talk and couldn't or wouldn't understand that he mustn't attack people. He could neither be reasoned with like a sentient or trained like a beast. In short he was a problem. For a few days he was chained up in the Temple by the Mother's tree. I took him bowls of food and water and kept out of his reach while he lunged at me, brought up by the chains.

I don't know if he ever had a name, I suppose he was given one, but if so I don't remember it.

There was a great debate about what to do with him. Many were in favor of killing, I said he should be taken a long way from Lismore and left there, so he wouldn't wander back. This was rejected as being irresponsible, so I suggested using magic to transform him into something peaceful and useful, like a tree. It happens all the time in the old stories! This was laughed off and declared to be impossible. I swear I don't understand magic at all: it's fine for killing people and raising the dead and changing shape and sex, but a simple useful thing like turning someone into a tree is impossible.

In the end he was given to Lone. That was never going to work out well, Lone was a cruel and abusive male.

[fawn]

One day Radem came to me in an unusually glum mood. He wanted to talk about something, but it took a while to get it out of him: Lone had given him a knife and made him castrate the savage wolf he'd been given, and Radem felt bad about what he'd done. Not that he had any choice, as a slave, I pointed out, but Radem had been born free and he felt the responsibility of free action, even when his weren't.

The wolf didn't last much longer after that, maybe it died of it's wounds, or maybe Lone sold it or had it put away, I don't know. He'd broken his toy and now he didn't want to play with it any more. It's a shame to imprison wild things, wolves and deer are born to run, but to cut them so they can't run away is worse, and all you end up with is a twisted, bitter and broken thing that can never be wild or free again. And what do you gain from that?

Lone himself wasn't free, he was enslaved by his need to possess, owned by his possessions, because he could never let a single one go. He didn't last much longer after that, he overreached himself somehow and... the say Glassere killed him. I find that hard to believe: Glassere is a gentle soul, but that's what is said. They say Lone died by magic and it was terrible. I wasn't there, I only heard about it later, indeed it's not the kind of thing I wasn’t anything to do with. Whatever Lone did, in the end, must have been terrible for Glassere to do something like that, to pervert hi power... I, I, no, I still can't believe it.

Radem was taken by the city and sold to a trader female a feline, Svetlana, who had bought the inn from Svart. She quickly became a fixture around the town, Svetlana and her parcel of slaves, she had about three slave girls and Radem and soon acquired more. I mistrusted her on principle: slavers are not to be trusted, but she was kind to me, and kind to her girls, and after a while I started to feel a sneaking sense of liking for her.

[fawn]

Cat. Well, Svetlana brought Cat to Lismore, she's not much to look at, a black and white striped feline, named, um, Cat. A bit like a deer named Fawn. I scarcely noticed her at first because she kept her eyes down and never spoke. I think her former owner must have abused her.

Svetlana bought a few girls like that over the years, my memory blurs a little, I mean your sister Demeter was much like that, she wouldn't look at me, uncommunicative, until we eventually worked out who we were. Svart said I didn't want to know where he had found her, and she didn't venture to tell me, so I never asked. Was that wrong?

But Cat, Cat... I spent a lot of time sitting around on the floor of the Inn, Svetlana didn't mind me being there. I didn't have any money, I've never really understood now it works. These days I go and find and dig up pennies dropped between the stones of the forum when I want to buy a bowl of milk. In those days I preferred ale, but it made me act silly, taking off my clothes and dancing on tables and I'm too old for that now. So I stick to milk.

You know slaves are invisible to many people? I sit in the Inn and watch the slaves go back and forth with meals and pitchers of ale and wine, and many people just don't see the slaves who are serving them. But I see them. I know from experience a slave quickly learns to become invisible, to attract attention is to invite a beating. Cats are naturally good at invisibility, sitting and moving silently, escaping attention. So are deer.

So I have often sat quietly in the Inn and listened, and learned. And sometimes I would speak quietly to Cat about my life, about our Heavenly Mother and the life she wants us to have. I never learned very much about Cat's life: she never spoke very much about herself, but she paid attention to what I said, and one thing seemed to particularly catch her attention.

I'd been thinking about needs. "Everyone needs three things: Something to do, something to look forward to, and someone to love." It was something someone said to me once. I live in a temple, I talk to a lot of wandering sages, and so pick up lots of bits and pieces of philosophy which must be tried on for size and fit, but it caught Cat's attention.

"Like I love Mistress?" She asked.

"Yes," I blinked a little bit. "Yes. You need someone to love, and for you that is your Mistress."

She considered it, and nodded, seeming quite happy to make that identification. I took it a little further. "And Mistress Svetlana... loves her girls. Because she needs someone to love as well."

Cat frowned at this, and she was right, it was a little presumptuous for me to say so, but at last she nodded. "It seems to me," I murmured. "You serve her as much by being there for her to love, as you do by loving her. You both need someone to love."

And that was it. I sense this will cause trouble for some people. Some people feel a slave should despise and hate those who own them for their cruelty and injustice. I understand that point of view. Others will say it's wrong for two females to love each other in that way. I guess... Love should never be despised. Love is too precious a flower to be trampled on, no matter where it grows.

Our Heavenly Mother wants us to love one another, that is all she has to give us. While ever we care about each other we should never condemn love.