an estate sale

[namesthesky]

Damn the old lady. Damn her into whatever creative torments have ever been invented for priests to wish on their theological opponents, all simultaneously, for ever and always, let it be done.

Aya is quite aware that she'd revise this opinion if her opinions had any power over the fate of the old lady. Since they do not, she will stand here and silently call down curses.

She was supposed to be willed to herself. She had plans. She was going to sleep in the temple attic and work for the post office and save up enough to go to Carthapane. She was pretty sure she could be enrolled in a college by twenty-five, doing something useful by thirty - she was undecided pending her more formal education between illegal human export and working within the system for debt relief or purchase-to-manumit programs -

And now she'll just count herself lucky if she gets bought by someone with loose enough security that she can flee over the border without falling into a magic, attempt to teach herself Tsopixi, and do - she doesn't have a plan after that, now. Her plan went up in smoke when the old lady's will was read and she was left to the idiot grandson and the idiot grandson traded her to a reseller for enough to cover his bad investments. She can't go work for the post office with marked heel and no papers.

And she is keenly aware that she is sixteen going on seventeen, which is a much different situation than she faced when she was on the block a decade ago being advertised for her literacy, assessed for her ability to take dictation.

She shifts position. The chain between her collar and the wall jangles. She watches people going by, browsing, reading the sign posted in front of her.

"Ayabel" - 125 seo
16 yrs, healthy
Reads & writes (Esevi, some Ancient Sudre)
10 yrs housegirl experience, previously farming
No history of rebelliousness

Yeah. No history of rebelliousness, because the old lady was old and coming up on the end of her life, the old lady let her read books and left her enough free time to think and draw, the old lady was going to will her to herself and then she could get started on her life.

This history won't last long, Aya doesn't think.

Most especially if anyone looks at the second line and brings her home for the obvious thing.

Comments

[namesthesky]

"...Do people in general - I guess practically speaking I'm mostly asking about Berete and the kitchen slaves - know about - things? Is there a reason not to mention it, or to make something up if I get asked about the gauze or the missing aloe leaf or anything?"

[anotherbreeze]

"Berete can probably guess," he says. "She's been around long enough. I don't think she knows how bad it is, though. And it might be a bad idea to let her find out. She's nice; she might fuss."

[namesthesky]

"And her fussing would - get her dismissed?" guesses Aya.

[anotherbreeze]

"Or something. It definitely wouldn't do anyone any good."

[namesthesky]

Aya frowns, but nods. "I'll avoid bringing it up."

[anotherbreeze]

"Thanks."

[namesthesky]

"You're welcome. There's nothing to be done, is there?"

[anotherbreeze]

"About Father? Besides wait for him to die? Not really."

Well, there's always... not waiting. But that can be part of 'not really', because it would be so very hard to pull off.

[namesthesky]

"Right."

So she's waiting for somebody to die, again, and this one is younger. While she's since grown older. Great.

"What are you going to do when he does? In general, I mean."

[anotherbreeze]

"Celebrate," he suggests. "No - I don't know. A lot of things are going to be different. It's hard to say what sort of a Duke I'll be."

[namesthesky]

Aya nods, momentarily - wistful.

[anotherbreeze]

Well now he's curious.

[namesthesky]

Aya decides to... see if he's going to ask.

[anotherbreeze]

He doesn't.

[namesthesky]

Then it can wait.

Although she does say:

"You've been very successful at not frightening me. Unless something changes I think we could have ordinary conversations without me thinking you're about to snap if I say the wrong thing."

[anotherbreeze]

"Well. That's good."

[namesthesky]

"I think so." It occurs to her to ask: "Do you need your bandages changed or are they okay for now?"

[anotherbreeze]

"...Probably they should be changed," he admits.

[namesthesky]

"I'll go get more gauze," she says. And she heads down the stairs again.

[anotherbreeze]

When she comes back, he is sitting on one of the couches in his little front room, looking slightly despondent.

[namesthesky]

She sets about the bandage-changing procedure.

"You could talk to me," she mentions. "If you want, if it'd help."

[anotherbreeze]

"I don't know," he says. "I don't know if it would help - I don't know what there is to say."

[namesthesky]

"Has there never been anybody to talk to? At all?"

Sure, that's her experience, too, but that was because she was the only servant in a household in the middle of nowhere. If they'd lived in the city she could have lingered longer here or there, made friends. And she has her drawings, which as far as she knows are not a common outlet.

[anotherbreeze]

"Not really."

[namesthesky]

"That's a pity." She gets the last of the old bandages unpeeled, starts wrapping him up in new ones, making little ch noises at the progress of healing but no comment.