The Slave

Introducing some characters to test the waters.

           The curtains were satin and draped across the stage and the tent walls around the audience.  There were a hundred or so souls waiting for the performance in less than comfortable chairs and a dozen or so nobles flapping fans in their faces, trying not to look too eager, only annoyed.  There were more men than women, but that was to be expected when you take into account the performance itself.  The presentation appealed to a certain audience.  The women present were either accompanying their husbands for the show or about to be enraged by their spouses’ interest in it.

            Behind the curtain, in an alcove below the stage, there was a poorly lit room with more people squeezed into it then common sense would permit.  People were bustling all about, in a frenzy to get every thing perfect.  Hang the fabrics on a teenage girl’s body just right.  Adjusting the lights so they would shine exactly where they wanted them to.  If there was a stray string, snip it off!  If there was a wrinkle in the skirt, press it out!  Everything had to be right and everything had to be double checked.

            It was a ritual Karenina Von Jor, had become all too familiar with over the last three years.

            “How many plush purses do we have out there?”  Karenina blurted out to the anger of her stage-hand.  “What?”  She shrugged nonchalantly and then turned to her father with a cocked brow.  “How many?”

            “Archon Danarius and his wife are seated in the front, Kara.”  He said while fastening the strings to her corset.  He yanked and gripped her shoulders so hard her flesh pinched beneath his calloused fingers.  “Stay still girl or we’ll never get the blasted thing on!”

            “Ooh!  Did you hear that, Baleen?!  I have an Archon in the audience!”  Karenina beamed a little breathlessly at her hairstylist who grinned back.

            “You’re getting more famous every day, love.  It’s no surprise a Lord and his Lady came to see you tonight.”  Baleen chirped while rearranging the mass of curls bouncing around on her head.

            “Shut it, you two!  Concentrate on your work!”

            “You seem a little anxious tonight, Josep.  What’s wrong?  It’s not just me, right?”  She turned to the seamstress fusing over the skirts’ hems.  The tailor shook her head quickly and then went back to work.

            Her father shook his head as well and narrowed his eyes at the pink frills along Karenina’s collar.  “Who put these monstrosities here?!”

Before Karenina could recoil, Josep reached up with a meaty fist to rip the collar from her neck.  She yelped partly in surprise and partly in pain.  Her father was never a gentle man, but he was also never this forceful.  Something was wrong, she just didn't know what.

Baleen and the tailor scurried off.

            “We can’t afford any mistakes tonight.”  Karenina looked away to wave off another make-up artist who was stalking over.  She already had about four coats of powder and eye shadow on already.  A fifth coat wasn't going to make much of a difference at this point.  When she didn't respond immediately, Josep reached up with another meaty hand and snatched her chin in his grip.  “Listen to me girl.  We need this.  You mess up tonight, and everyone goes hungry again.  Do you understand?”

            Karenina tore from his grasp and shoved him away.  “So I’m to blame if the crew doesn't get to eat, am I?!”  She reached in her bra and pulled out a fistful of crumbled receipts.  She shook the fist at him and a few stray papers escaped.  “What about the debt you've been racking up on your weekends, father?!  Maybe I should tell the caravan about these?!”

            Josep’s eyes grew wide before he snatched his daughter’s arm and yanked her off the fitting platform.  He pulled her close and Karenina tried not to gag at the stench of spirits and vomit desperately "and poorly- covered up with licorice.  The mix was revolting.  Josep, ignorant to her disgust, whispered close to her ear, his rank breath flowing over her.

            “You say one word, and I’ll break your legs, little girl.  You hear me?  Huh?”  He then suddenly released her, stepping back quickly as if the contact had been as vile for him as it had been for her.

            “One word and I’ll make it so you never dance again.”  He told her under his breath.

            Sounding braver than she felt, Karenina hissed back, “Oh?  And then how will you eat???”

            “Lights on in one minute!”

            Everyone in the dark space scurried away and found their places in the back.  Josep even retreated.  Suddenly, Karenina was alone.  She took a deep breath to steady herself and help wash out the bitterness her father had started stewing in her chest.  She climbed the slight case of stairs in the right corner of the alcove and fluffed the auburn curls on her head one last time before reaching the polished floor of the stage.  She was welcomed by a nearly transparent curtain being the only thing the separated her from the eager crowd.

            Another deep breath and she took her place, center-stage.  Crouched on the balls of her feet, one knee bent so high that it touched her chest and her left leg was outstretched to her left, her toes pointed.  She took another breath and let the stage-fright climb to the highest parts of her throat before she swallowed it down and exhaled, lowering her head in the submissive expression of the character she played tonight.

            The skirts were pooling around her thighs, with slits that reached her lower hip.  The was supposed to symbolize restraints, dragging behind her.  She sought inside herself for a deepest sadness she possessed and pulled it to the surface.  Tonight’s performance required nothing less than despair and hopelessness.

            Tonight, she was a slave.

            Lights flooded the crowd before dimming to a soft orange hew and with a soft rattle, the curtains were pulled back.

            The first vibrations of the violin echoed through the room and slowly, Karenina rose her head.

           

 

The crowd gasped at the glowing yellow of her eyes, the eyes that only ever came forth when Karenina truly fell into herself and her dance.  Every one of them was mesmerized by the lithe movements of which she used to portray the pain of a slave’s soul.  Her arms flowed around her to ascent every motion.  Her legs were long and beautiful in the air as she leaps for freedom and falls hard from the burden of confinement.

No matter how she tried, she could not escape the binds.  The feeling, Karenina looked back on and realized, was all too familiar.  She may never have been incarcerated or chained in a physical sense, but she had been a prisoner of self.  She used this in her performance tonight.  The result was surreal.

Every expression was breathtaking and every shadow cast by her danced as well, making it a harmony of dark and light.  The darkness of the heart and the light of hope bursting at the seams.  The very real tears in her eyes glistened with the glow of those inhuman eyes.  The entire audience was taken by her.  Unfortunately for her, by performing so magnificently, she had proved worthy of Archon Danarius Delaine’s attention.

Lady Olivian Delaine looked over to her husband and wished she hadn't.  He stared intently at the young lady on the stage with a perverse tilt to his lips and a dangerous sparkle in his eye.  He leaned forward in his seat with his elbows poised on his knees and his chin resting on his interlocked knuckles.

Instantly, without a second thought, Lady Delaine prayed for the girl’s safety.  As far away from her husband as the Creators would allow.

The violin music built to an epic scale where Karenina followed the music with every note.  The pace quickened and she glided across the stage at the amazement of everyone watching.  And then, just like rehearsal, the violinist glided the bow across the wires and a heart-shattering note rang through her ears.  That was the cue.

She closed her eyes and fell to the floor, a blood-curdling scream startling the crowd into applause.

Everyone stood as the music ended the exact same instant her cry did and the curtains were closed, even the Archon and his wife.  Though Lady Delaine was at a loss for words, the thought still rang through her mind, it is criminal.  That a sound of such sorrow should sound so beautiful.

Josep Von Jor sank hard into a wooden seat in the darkest corner of the tent.  He tipped his head back and drank heavily of the absinthe in his flask.  He made a noise as the drink found purchase in his knotted stomach and leaned back to watch the show, guilt and self-loathing eating at his heart.

It goes without saying that his daughter’s performance was fit for the Regent himself.  He knew she wouldn't disappoint him.

Oh!  But his girl has the temper of her mother!  Damn the woman’s soul to hell for leaving him with her child.  Sure, Karenina was his child too, but never before has he seen a child take so strongly after one parent and not the other.  She was practically a reincarnation of Dahlivadia!

As he stewed over this, he tightened his fist around the flask and glared down at his tattered attire and damaging hands.  He thought to himself in a moment of weakness, maybe, just maybe, that isn't such a bad thing.

He looked back up to the stage, where his darling Karenina was balancing on her tip-toes and kicking her leg out to spin faster with the music’s quickened pace.  Her face was so beautiful.  Karenina’s eyes resembled an orange light coming straight from her soul… Just like her mother’s had.

Josep wanted to weep like he always did when he remembered Dahli, but he wouldn't.  He wasn't deserving of her memory any longer.  Where Dahli had loved their daughter before even giving birth, Josep was about to turn his back on all that she asked him to pass on to their children.

His actions were of necessity though.  If he didn't do what he did, he’d have been castrated and left to bleed to death in a gutter outside The Copper Squid.  A fleeting thought raced across the track of his mind, when, in the absence of Dahli, did I become such a survivalist?

But it was true, no other act in his business could even compare to the feeling Karenina gave her audience.  The sword jugglers were limited to intermissions and the acrobats in his company were still recovering from injuries inflicted last fall.  The contortionists were a local favorite but far too wild for the wealthier districts.  He wasn't even going to think about the lack of profit in his sorcery act.  The Archons wouldn’t be Archons if they didn't already possess a greater affinity for majik.  The three sorcerers he’d picked up in their travels could barely light a torch without getting a nose bleed.

Yes, Karenina was his last chance to have his “beneficiaries” forgive his previous “indiscretions” in their establishments.  Dahli will haunt him for the rest of his life, and surely he’ll be condemned to hell, but what other choice did he have?  Karenina was the only one of her kind.  The girl was driven for greatness.  In actuality, Josep was doing her a favor.  Yes, without him, she’d never become more.  She should be thanking him for arranging the entire thing.

Even though he thought these ruthless thoughts, he still felt a heavy burden anchoring his heart.  He said a quick prayer and hoped, desperately begged, that his actions would not condemn him.  My beloved, do not look down from Quasar in these next days.  I fear you will not like what you see.

Suddenly, Josep was startled out of his thoughts by the thunderous applause.  Unconsciously, he stood with everyone and watched as his shining gem of a daughter lay still on the stage.  Soon, she was out of sight and the dimmed lights pierced his sockets as they turned back to their original brightness.

The old, bitter man staggered through the crowd and refused to meet Archon Danarius’s searching eyes.  Once he’d reached the door to the under croft of the stage, he was abruptly cut-off by a bouncing, bubbly, irritating, fragile sight of a blond who was trotting her way through the doorway.

Baleen side-stepped out of his way quickly but spoke to him in her constantly giggly voice.  “Our Kara was absolutely marvelous tonight, wouldn't you say?”

“Our little gem aced her audition, that’s for sure.”

The absinthe was blurring the borders of objects and murky-ing the rays of light on the surface of her skin.  He needed to go lay down or the light-headed-ness was going to bring him to the floor.

“Audition?  What do you mean?”

Was that the absinthe talking?  Did he really just say “audition” to his daughter’s best friend?  Couldn't have… That would be stupid…

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  Josep grumbled, shoving pass her.  The hair stylist actually dared to grab him.

“Audition for what?”

Karenina quickly got off the stage to find Baleen.  The lights in the tent now fully illuminating the crowd.

“Baleen!”  Karenina called down the staircase into the alcove.  “Baleen?”  Karenina stopped halfway down the stairs at the sight of her only friend with tears running down her face.  It only took a moment to get over the shock and confusion and then Karenina ran down to her.  “What is it?  What’s wrong?”  Karenina searched her friend’s face for any explanation.  Was she hurt?  There were no visible signs of damage…

Baleen didn't say anything, she just clung to her childhood hero and cried.  Karenina stroked her hair and hugged her back, more scared then she’d ever been in her entire life.  For Baleen was not one to shed tears lightly.

Oh, and how she cried!

Karenina could only remember one other time Baleen wept soulfully.  And it was after her father was imprisoned for stealing their dinner and her mother was forced to sell her body to feed her daughter.  Her mother soon became sick from a disease she contracted in the business.  Where, soon after, Josep caught Baleen trying to steal herself a blanket from one of the textile wagons.  He beat her like crazy and she didn't even whimper.  When Karenina left her chamber tent to see what all the commotion was about, she was devastated by what she saw.

Without even thinking about the consequences of her actions, she bolted across the camp to grab her father’s arm, mid-strike.

“Spare her.”  She told him in a tone that he had never heard her use before.

It wasn't a request.  It was an order.  And for some reason, she cannot guess, he actually listened.  Though he stalked off in a fit, he had, in fact, listened to her.  It was a nice change, but Karenina, for the life of her, didn't know what she did differently from all the other times she tried to get him to do what she said.

When she turned back to face the girl in the dirt trying to get to her feet, she looked down at her with what should have been a warm, apologetic smile, but was turned sinister by the orange flashing of her eyes.

“Your eyes!”  Baleen had gasped, her hands quickly covering her mouth in astonishment.

Karenina was confused at first and then remember how they change when she gets worked up.  She closed them for a second and took a deep breath, expelling the anger her father’s actions had caused.  When she opened them again, they were a normal, natural green to Baleen’s relief.

“How did you do that?”  She asked.

Karenina didn't respond.  Instead, she reached behind the shivering girl and pulled a wool blanket from the back of the wagon.  She shook it out to make sure there was no dust and then put it around the girl’s shoulders.

Karenina never gave her an explanation for her eyes, but Baleen had moved away from being wary of them, to becoming fascinated with them.  The second time Baleen saw them, Karenina was performing on a stage, those same eyes glowing for the audience, the same way they had glowed with anger at her father.  The reason behind them must have been a very well-kept secret because no one else in their little convoy knew how she did it.  And she wouldn't dare ask Josep.  He was likely to beat her down for merely inquiring about them.  So, Baleen learned to admire them from afar.  And eventually, she stopped noticing them all together.

“Come with me.”  Karenina had told her.

It was all because Baleen had followed, that they have become such wonderful friends.  That night, when Karenina asked where her parents were, was the first time Baleen had cried in front of someone since her infant years.  The act forever solidifying Karenina and her’s bond.  When she found out Baleen had a hidden talent for styling hair, it only took a brief audition for her to convince her father to hire her to the caravan.

That was two years ago, to the day.

So, when Karenina saw her crying, all kinds of terror flashed in her mind’s eye.  What could possibly bring Baleen to tears that wasn't a complete and utter tragedy?

Author's Note

This chapter mainly centers around the main female protagonist, Karenina Von Jor, Lady Olivian Delaine and Josep Von Jor. I added a few paragraphs in his perspective that might help understand the character a little better. I might or subtract parts later though.

Any advice is better then none so throw it at me. Or, simply tell me your thoughts about it, is it you type? What you don't like about it? Where you hope it will go, story-wise? It doesn't even have to be advice or criticism. Just let me know what you think.
I've got a good feeling about this one guys! :D

Reviews

[byPatKeegan]

Wow. I'm stunned. Really. This is great.

I look for two things when i review someones work right off the bat: identification and dramatic conflict. If they don't have those two things in short order, the reader will become disinterested, no matter how good the narrative is.

The first thing i look for is to connect with the characters. Which means the writer has to create identification. This is done by letting us know the character(s) mindset and emotional state at all times. This is accomplished by giving us their thoughts. You have done this marvelously throughout. It's key to keep the reader interested and caring. That only happens when we can get inside their head. Great job!

The only critique i have in this area is that maybe we could get more thoughts out of Karenina...I didn't really connect with her, because i couldn't get in her head. We get plenty of thoughts from the her father Josep, so we are totally in his head and we know what he's about. We get thoughts from the Lady Olivian, so we know where she's at. But the least amount of thoughts comes from the one whom i''m assuming is the main character. I don't feel like i know emotionally where she's at and what's going on with her. But overall? wow, you did a good job.

The second thing i look for is conflict, and lots of it. Not just ordinary conflict, but DRAMATIC conflict. There is definitely conflict here all over. conflict between Josep and pretty much everyone else, conflict between the Delaine's etc. So again, kudos to getting that too!! For me, dramatic conflict means that the character MUST act even if he/she doesn't want to. And failure to act means that the character or someone close to him will suffer great harm (physical, emotional etc.). That's what separates dramatic conflict from ordinary conflict. Fiction demands the dramatic kind.

Anyway as i said, you've got lots of good conflict, and seem to be building to dramatic conflict with Karenina, where very soon i feel she will be forced to act or else suffer great harm. You definitely "get it" when it comes to writing.

Great job all around. Can't wait to see how this unfolds (sorry my post is so long, but that's just me :)).

Keep writing!

[Elizabeth Marie O'neil-Smith]

First off, thank you for the wonderful review. I read over my chapter and I couldn't agree more. Karenina kind of lacks perspective for the reader. I'm grateful you told me. (: I'm working on the second chapter as we speak and there is nothing I'd like more then for you to review that one as well and see if you were able to connect with the character.

(I don't mind the length of a post, I'm always happy just to get one)

Thank you so much! And I will keep on writing!

[byPatKeegan]

Often times peoples' main characters are modeled in some way after themselves, either consciously or subconsciously, and very often people have a difficult time putting down the thoughts of the main character for that reason. It's hard to think what the "you" as the main character would really think in that situation, or at least identify what you think you're supposed to think...maybe :)

I'd be glad to read the next chapter when it's ready :)

[Elizabeth Marie O'neil-Smith]

Karenina's sarcasm and temper is a reflection of myself in a lot of ways. I find what you're saying to be absolutely true. I'll have to really dig in deep and pull up something.

Thanks again. (:

[Ahmad Cox]

I enjoyed this story and the set up of the characters very nicely. I can definitely see this continuing into the beginnings of a really wonderful story.

[Daxis S. Dundra]

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Josep grumbled, shoving pass her. The hair stylist actually dared to grab him.
“Audition for what?

---I felt that this part was off somehow. When reading it felt rough.



---Near the end Karenina is remembering the past, but it blurs together with the present. While reading it's hard to separate the two.

---I love how there is work up. Something beyond the now. You can tell you've made a real story with this small part.

[Elizabeth Marie O'neil-Smith]

I agree I could have smoothed in the details better. Thank you for your input.

I've spent many a nights on this. I plan on spending more time on the beginning chapters (: that's why I post them, to get helpful feedback. Thank you for reading and reviewing. I will think over what you said.