#Lore24 – Entry #123 – Muckenmyre Month #2 – Awakening Upon an Unfamiliar Bed

From the journal of Takara, Slave Inquisitor of the Stellae Illustris.

I have vague impressions of the times following the storms.  The seas were peaceful once more, perhaps within minutes following the sinking of our fleet.  I can recall the sunset as I lay upon the piece of shattered wreckage, too incoherent to attempt to free myself from the rigging.  I could tell I had many broken bones, that I still bled.  Pain is a constant companion for one such as I, and though I can deal with it far better than most, even I can become overwhelmed if it is great enough.

My next memory is perhaps of the following morning, or perhaps it was a day or more later; regardless, it is of the ship approaching, turning alongside the wreckage.  Ghostly images then, of the sailors cutting me free, hauling my shattered body aboard their ship.  I cannot remember their colors, only vague images.  I think I had began to hallucinate, perhaps I even had a fever as my body stubbornly refused to submit.

As they cared for me the best they could, perhaps only in the hopes of giving such a pitiful creature as merciful ending as they could, I dreamed.  Strange visions, likely caused by the fever that ravaged me, or perhaps it was the souls of those who were lost alongside me, coming back to try and draw me into the void alongside them. 

Perhaps the tormented screams I heard were my own; I had not screamed from inflicted physical pain in decades, so perhaps this was purely my own internal suffering given voice by the fever?  I have a vague remembrance of one sailor’s face, pale and terrified as he backed away from me.  What demons did I release during my lapse in control?  Perhaps I will never know.

It was sometime after this that I awoke on land, in an unfamiliar bed, in a strange room.  It was the morning sun beaming through the window that awoke me, the sound of distant thunder filling my ears, normal thunder, not that of the Dragons’ Fury.  Beneath the heavy aroma of healing poultices, I could smell odd scents, people I didn’t know, a land I had never been to before, the thick, sickening odor of the swamps.  Beyond the small room, I could hear the din of a busy town, the chatter of its people as they went about their lives.

For a wonder, I was not restrained, and I had survived the fever, though some of the visions within my mind will forever remain burned into my memory.  For a wonder, I was not bound, aside from the bandages that were wrapped around my various wounds.  I could immediately feel the pain in my bones, knew immediately that some had begun to knit crookedly. 

I then realized that I was naked.  Not for lack of clothes, for I had been covered in a simple linen smock that smelled faintly of dust and age.  No, someone had removed my collar and cuffs, the spiked steel that marked me as not only a slave but a trainer of slaves, the metal that had been sealed upon my body for over a century, perhaps never to be removed.  As I breathed faster and became more aware of the place I found myself, I realized that I could not feel their reassuring weight, could not feel the internal spikes that constantly pricked and pinched at my flesh, their reassuring touch that signified that I was property of the Inquisition, of the Emperor’s most loyal Stellae Illustris.  Perhaps in another few decades I may have even earned the privilege of wearing a mythril version of them, that I would have become a full-fledged slave knight as a reward for my loyalty. 

To my horror, as I forced myself to rise from the bed, my body protesting with fresh pain that sharpened my senses, though I made not a sound, I saw my cuffs and my collar sitting on the nightstand by the bed, the metal ravaged by rust and sea salt, their once welded clasps broken and newly melted in order to remove them.  Panic filled me, for it was not allowed that a slave of my position ever allow their collar and other adornments to show such lack of care.  I reached simultaneously for my collar and my neck, wincing as the broken arm I extended to the collar refused to move as I had intended it to, the fingers of my other hand finding my throat, bare but for the bandages. 

I swung my legs over the edge of the bed then, gritting my teeth against the pain of a shattered femur and broken ribs and picked up the spiked collar once I could finally reach it.  My tail twitched anxiously as I stared at the broken, rusted steel, my mind struggling to come up with some way that I could fix it, some way that I could atone for the offense of going uncollared, that I would dare disrespect my Emperor in such a way.

That was when I heard the sound of heels crossing the wooden floor, then that door opened, revealing a human woman, wearing a most curious smile upon her face.  It would be some time before I understood what her smile indicated.  At that moment, I was simply too distraught over the loss of my adornments to process matters.

I may have even had tears in my eyes.