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jeriendhalFair warning: This is a rough section, with discussions of topics that might be too close to home for some on my FL, even if the setting is a silly sci-fi universe.
“To begin at the beginning, Sallivera is my twin. We were born five minutes apart, her first, myself second. My mother and father liked to joke that Salli came out ahead in everything.”
“That’s a rather cruel thing to say in front of a young male,” the Red Vixen noted.
“I didn’t begrudge them the joke,” he told her. “You had to know Salli to appreciate it. She was always ahead of me. She was smarter, she was more beautiful, she was more at ease in matters of leadership. She was one of those persons who are natural leaders, whose inner beauty granted them the ability to speak plainly, openly, to inspire those around them follow and accomplish things greater than themselves. If she had asked it of me, I would have followed her into the Cold and Dark, naked and without question. As it was, I looked forward to the time when our mother handed over the reins of managing our estate and lands to her, and I took my place at her side as our family land administrator.”
“Are you hearing yourself?” the Red Vixen, her face a study in curiosity. “You speak of her in the past tense, as if she was one of the dead.”
“She may as well be,” Rolas said bitterly. He clamped down on a brief spasm of anger and continued his story. “Given her accomplishments, her beauty, when Lord Kev’s family approached with the idea Salli being mated to their only offspring, we all thought it was only a natural progression of her accomplishments.”
“And it would leave you the heir to your own family’s estate,” she noted dryly.
He nodded. “I won’t deny that the idea pleased me. But I was thinking more of what my sister would be able to do eventually, with a Countess’ title and her own wit. Given the possibilities, we all ignored the age mismatch. Lord Kev was in his late forties, my sister not yet twenty. Given modern medicine it would hardly be noticeable as they both grew older.”
“Still, it seems odd that a Countess’ heir should mate so late in his life,” she said. “Did he have another wife that he lost?”
“No, there was no one,” he said. “We should have taken that as a warning sign, but we were too dazzled by the idea of Salli marrying up. If I thought about it at all, I figured he might be more attracted to males, and was merely marrying my sister to provide the requisite heirs for his family.”
“All you need is suitable genetic donor and a gestation tank to get around that.”
“If that had been the only problem then things would be vastly simplified, and our family would not be in such a bitter state. As it was, the real reason for Lord Kev’s extended bachelorhood became more clear as their marriage went on. We didn’t think it odd that she didn’t speak to us very often at first. She was a newlywed, settling into a another family’s household. Kev needed her at home. Kev wanted her for a project. Kev thought she was talking us too much instead of taking care of her household there. Sometimes she wouldn’t be available for weeks on end. And when we did talk to her…” Rolas buried his face in his hands briefly. “You could see the light in her soul was dimming, as if it were a candle in a sealed room, with the oxygen running out.”
The Red Vixen leaned forward in her seat, her expression dark. “I do not like the sound of this tale, Lord Rolas.”
“I like it much less,” he replied, his voice rough in his throat. “Finally, the autumn of her second year with him, we received word passed on through the servants’ grapevine, from the Highglider household to ours. Salli had been taken to the hospital, and Lord Kev and his mother hadn’t seen fit to tell us. When we finally got a hold of the Countess, she said that Salli had tripped and broken a rib.”
“Tripped over what?” she asked.
“Lord Kev's fist, apparently.” Rolas shut his eyes and clenched his paws, feeling his claws dig into his palms, leaving little bright sparks of blood and pain. “He was beating her.”
The Red Vixen’s muzzle opened, closed, but no sound came out. Finally she said, “We are not humans or creo or galen. Vulpines do not do that.”
“Sane vulpines do not do that,” Rolas corrected. “Lord Kev Highglider, by the Council of Farm Lords’ eventual measure, was not sane.”
"She left him, of course," the Red Vixen stated.
"She should have left him. She didn't."
"By the Holy Den Mother's Rose of Peace, you didn't leave her there!"
"We didn't have any proof, just rumors passed between servants. The Countess and Lord Kev certainly weren't saying anything and the few times we were able to talk to Salli directly she was too frightened to speak out."
"You could have gone to the Council of Farm Lords and petitioned for an investigation!"
"And what would we have told them? That the son of one of their peers and a countess' heir was committing a crime reserved for madmen? That one of their vassal nobles was accusing him of one of the most heinous acts imaginable? And worse, if we did do such a thing, what would happen if we were proven wrong? And, as you said, vulpine do not do this. To our shame, for the longest time we simply could not believe it was happening."
The Red Vixen shook her head, the look of disbelief still on her face. "How much longer was this permitted to go on?"
"Almost another year. We learned later that she was hospitalized twice more during this period. By that point Lord Kev and that b-- the Countess had cowed the servants sufficiently that we weren't receiving any more information, until that last night."
"What happened?" she asked softly.
Rolas clasped his bleeding palms together, trying not to weep in front of his captor. "Lord Kev came home drunk, not for the first time we came to understand. When he entered their bedchamber he... he tried to rape Salli. When she fought him off, he... the bastard... he struck her in the scalp, dug his claws in, and ripped half her face off."
The Red Vixen made no reply to this. She merely let him sit there in the conversation pit, allowing him to rock back and forth while the memories washed over him and the tears for his sister poured freely once again. Eventually, when his weeping had slowed, she went to the autokitchen and came back with a tissue for his eyes and a cup of water for his seared throat. "When did you find out?" she asked softly.
"The call came in the middle of the night. Lord Kev's personal manservant, whom I gather had been wavering between his loyalty to his lord and horror at the crimes he was witnessing for some time, made the call personally to us, after he contacted Emergency Services. This time Civil Protection took pictures. After Council viewed them a week later, it took them only a half-hour to declare Viscount Kev Highglider insane and to commit him to a secure mental health facility."
"I can't believe something like this went before the Council and was not publically reported."
He let out a bitter, hollow laugh. "Oh, it was all done very discreetly. Countess Highglider isn't one of the Ten, but she had enough connections to make sure her son's appearance before the Council was done at a closed session. The records of it are sealed. The official explanation is that Salli and Lord Kev were in a debilitating skimmer accident, and so for that reason he was removed from the position of heir and they both retired from public life. If I was to speak the truth to anyone outside of the Council I would risk my own family's censure."
"You're discussing it with me," the Red Vixen pointed out.
He grunted in acknowledgment of the contradiction. "You are not of the Noble caste and I hardly think you would profit by spreading this about."
"No, I would not," she admitted. "So, how fares your sister now? I gather from what your parents said in their message, that she is still healing from this."
Rolas took in a long breath. "The surgeons who reconstructed her face were very good at their job. Her skin was pulled back into place, the scars smoothed over. She dyes her fur now in that area, so the hairs of her pelt that grow out white now will match her natural colaration. The artificial eye that replaced the one that bastard tore out is indistinguishable from the original. But the wounds to her soul are not so easily repaired. The light of her spirit is nearly extinguished, the bright spark that drew people to her merely a dim flicker of what it once was. She keeps to her rooms, sees no one, and weeps often. She has sworn that she will let no male touch her again, that she will bear no children to continue our House's line."
She nodded, offering no comment. Did she understand his sister's pain, did he understand it, truly? Could he ever? "And how do you fare?" she asked.
"After seeing my sister in the hospital, after looking at the pictures the CP's took, I wanted nothing more than to rip out that bastard's throat. My plan was to challenge him to a duel of honor, and permit my sword to 'accidentally' slip during the fight. I was persuaded... with some difficulty... that such a course of action would cause more problems than it would solve. So he sits in his rooms at the facilty, alive, unharmed, out of my reach." He drew in another breath and unclenched his paws. "I thought it was most unfair, that he should be permitted to live in relative comfort, while my sister still suffers so. These past two weeks of my own incarceration have enlightened me to his situation, however."
The Red Vixen raised her eyebrow in surprise. "In what way?"
For the first time since he'd begun his searing narrative, Rolas permitted himself to smile. "To be held in such a place as this, in comfort, treated with respect, but never, ever, trusted, I think is as much of a personal hell as anything to be found in the Cold and Dark. I have found a fortnight of it to be humiliating. To imagine a Countess' son enduring it for decades, perhaps over a century of it if his health holds, grants me quite unexpected satisfaction. For that insight, I thank you, madam."
She bowed in her seat to him. "I"m glad I could be of some comfort then, given what has happened to you. But this is only half the story, is it not? You still haven't explained what circumstances would drive your parents to abandon their son, especially after their only other cub suffered so terribly."
"Ah, well, the one incident leads to the other. After Lord Kev was put away and Salli's divorce was granted by the Council, Countess Highglider held a grudge against us, as I said earlier."
"Held a grudge? I should think she would prostrate herself before you and beg forgiveness from the Holy Den Mother for not stopping her son!"
Rolas smiled again, quite bitterly this time. "Oh, but why should she? You see, her son did nothing wrong."
The Red Vixen gaped at him. "Nothing wrong?"
"Oh, but you see, it wasn't his fault that he'd hurt Salli like he did. If she had just listened to him, if she had't been so arrogant, if she hadn't charmed the servants out from under him, if she hadn't tried usurp his place of authority in the Countess' household, he woudn't have been so provoked you see. Her darling cub is a complete innocent in the matter, and his incarceration an unforgivable insult to her House."
"That is the most self-serving, arrogant, Varn-ish thing I've ever heard. She didn't actually say that to you, did she?"
"In the council chambers, spoken to Salli directly. It made my sister weep. Again."
Now it was the Red Vixen's turn to hold her face in her hands. "Holy Den Mother bless..."
"The first incidents weren't much more than odd coincidences. Losses of power in our sector during planned events like the harvest festival. A water treatment plant suddenly dropping offline for a day, forcing everyone to boil their water. Later, she became more blatant. Rent increases, denial of permits for infrastructure improvements, harassment from the municipal CP's against shopkeepers and residents personally sworn to us."
"Surely if there's a pattern, you could go to the Council again."
"Oh, she's been careful about it. There's no one incident where we can go, 'There! You see what she's doing!' It's all been well within the law, I can assure you. One forgets just how much power an individual countess holds in her home district, until she starts wielding it against you."
She frowned. "Well, what were you going to do about it, before I interrupted you?"
"Leave," he said simply.
"What, ask to be released from your oaths to her and move under another countess' rule?"
"No," Rolas tolds her. "I doubt if she would grant it even if we asked her. No, we were just going to leave. Pull up stakes, pack ourselves and everyone sworn to us aboard a colony ship and head outwards, to Whiteland."
"Whiteland is a colony word," she said. "Rough territory, about far from Vulpine Prime as you can get and still find vulpine. That's a rather drastic solution to put upon your people, don't you think?"
"Our people, the commoners sworn to our House, love Salli as much as I do. After her divorce from Lord Kev and her voluntary withdrawl from society, there was no containing the rumors about what had happened from their ears. Once the harassment from the Countess began..." He smiled grimly. "They are not fools. They knew the reason why. So, many of them, almost all of them, decided to go with us, a secret conspiracy of escape. We did the calculations and figured out that using the profit from the Sallivera's trip, we could to lease colony ships and bring them into orbit around Vulpine Prime. Once they were in place, we were going to move every commoner personally sworn to my mother aboard them, with everything they could carry that was not nailed down, along with enough supplies and equipment build a small community. We figured we could do it all in twenty hours. In twenty hours strip that arrogant bitch of nearly one sixth of her population and rent revenue. Then we would go out and leave Vulpine Prime and Vulpine's useless Council of Farm Lords behind us, forever."
"A remarkable plan," she said. "Epic, even. I don't think I've heard of any vulpine noble breaking their oaths so, er, dramatically." She seemed a bit taken aback. "Though it would appear that I have thrown a very large spanner into it by taking the Sallivera and kidnapping you."
He nodded. "Oddly though, the fact that my parents chose not to pay my ransom gives me hope. The contracts for the lease of the colony ships have already been signed you see. That fact that they haven't broken those contracts and used the remaining unpaid half of the rental fees to rescue me, means the plan is still going forward. Once the insurance for the lost cargo is paid out, everything should proceed on schedule."
"I suppose you are right," she said. She scratched her ear in frustration. "Now I just need to figure out what to do with you."
"Galley slave?" he offered, half joking.
"The mess is well staffed already, thank you."
"Cabin boy?"
"Ah, that's more tempting. You're certainly healthy enough, judging from the evidence I saw when I entered," she said, flashing the first smile she'd dared since he'd begun his narrative. "Let me think on the matter. We still have over two weeks before your thirty days are up. Surely some solution with occur before then." And with that she stood up and bowed to him. "Forgive me though, for bringing further grief to your family. You do not deserve it, Lord Rolas."
"Accepted, Madame Vixen," he said, standing and bowing in return. She left him, the cell door shutting behind her. He was left to his thoughts once more, though his heart seemed lighter now, for the telling of his tale. He could only wonder why.
TBC
Note: As I said, a rough one. Going by a conversation I once had with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
chaypeta on the subject, spouse abuse is one of those things, as the Red Vixen said, that simply does not happen among the vulpine, mostly due to cultural hardwiring. The few incidents that do occur are treated as Rolas relates, with the abuser treated as mentally ill.
While this seems remarkably more pleasant than how women are treated in our own world, there is a dark side to it. Given the rarity of the crime, it stands to reason the resources to treat the victims of such abuse are not as well developed among the vulpine, hence the fairly gothic reaction of poor Salli.
Of course if I really wanted to be remarkable, I should have had everything happen to Rolas' twin brother instead, instead of resorting to a refrigerator trope.
“To begin at the beginning, Sallivera is my twin. We were born five minutes apart, her first, myself second. My mother and father liked to joke that Salli came out ahead in everything.”
“That’s a rather cruel thing to say in front of a young male,” the Red Vixen noted.
“I didn’t begrudge them the joke,” he told her. “You had to know Salli to appreciate it. She was always ahead of me. She was smarter, she was more beautiful, she was more at ease in matters of leadership. She was one of those persons who are natural leaders, whose inner beauty granted them the ability to speak plainly, openly, to inspire those around them follow and accomplish things greater than themselves. If she had asked it of me, I would have followed her into the Cold and Dark, naked and without question. As it was, I looked forward to the time when our mother handed over the reins of managing our estate and lands to her, and I took my place at her side as our family land administrator.”
“Are you hearing yourself?” the Red Vixen, her face a study in curiosity. “You speak of her in the past tense, as if she was one of the dead.”
“She may as well be,” Rolas said bitterly. He clamped down on a brief spasm of anger and continued his story. “Given her accomplishments, her beauty, when Lord Kev’s family approached with the idea Salli being mated to their only offspring, we all thought it was only a natural progression of her accomplishments.”
“And it would leave you the heir to your own family’s estate,” she noted dryly.
He nodded. “I won’t deny that the idea pleased me. But I was thinking more of what my sister would be able to do eventually, with a Countess’ title and her own wit. Given the possibilities, we all ignored the age mismatch. Lord Kev was in his late forties, my sister not yet twenty. Given modern medicine it would hardly be noticeable as they both grew older.”
“Still, it seems odd that a Countess’ heir should mate so late in his life,” she said. “Did he have another wife that he lost?”
“No, there was no one,” he said. “We should have taken that as a warning sign, but we were too dazzled by the idea of Salli marrying up. If I thought about it at all, I figured he might be more attracted to males, and was merely marrying my sister to provide the requisite heirs for his family.”
“All you need is suitable genetic donor and a gestation tank to get around that.”
“If that had been the only problem then things would be vastly simplified, and our family would not be in such a bitter state. As it was, the real reason for Lord Kev’s extended bachelorhood became more clear as their marriage went on. We didn’t think it odd that she didn’t speak to us very often at first. She was a newlywed, settling into a another family’s household. Kev needed her at home. Kev wanted her for a project. Kev thought she was talking us too much instead of taking care of her household there. Sometimes she wouldn’t be available for weeks on end. And when we did talk to her…” Rolas buried his face in his hands briefly. “You could see the light in her soul was dimming, as if it were a candle in a sealed room, with the oxygen running out.”
The Red Vixen leaned forward in her seat, her expression dark. “I do not like the sound of this tale, Lord Rolas.”
“I like it much less,” he replied, his voice rough in his throat. “Finally, the autumn of her second year with him, we received word passed on through the servants’ grapevine, from the Highglider household to ours. Salli had been taken to the hospital, and Lord Kev and his mother hadn’t seen fit to tell us. When we finally got a hold of the Countess, she said that Salli had tripped and broken a rib.”
“Tripped over what?” she asked.
“Lord Kev's fist, apparently.” Rolas shut his eyes and clenched his paws, feeling his claws dig into his palms, leaving little bright sparks of blood and pain. “He was beating her.”
The Red Vixen’s muzzle opened, closed, but no sound came out. Finally she said, “We are not humans or creo or galen. Vulpines do not do that.”
“Sane vulpines do not do that,” Rolas corrected. “Lord Kev Highglider, by the Council of Farm Lords’ eventual measure, was not sane.”
"She left him, of course," the Red Vixen stated.
"She should have left him. She didn't."
"By the Holy Den Mother's Rose of Peace, you didn't leave her there!"
"We didn't have any proof, just rumors passed between servants. The Countess and Lord Kev certainly weren't saying anything and the few times we were able to talk to Salli directly she was too frightened to speak out."
"You could have gone to the Council of Farm Lords and petitioned for an investigation!"
"And what would we have told them? That the son of one of their peers and a countess' heir was committing a crime reserved for madmen? That one of their vassal nobles was accusing him of one of the most heinous acts imaginable? And worse, if we did do such a thing, what would happen if we were proven wrong? And, as you said, vulpine do not do this. To our shame, for the longest time we simply could not believe it was happening."
The Red Vixen shook her head, the look of disbelief still on her face. "How much longer was this permitted to go on?"
"Almost another year. We learned later that she was hospitalized twice more during this period. By that point Lord Kev and that b-- the Countess had cowed the servants sufficiently that we weren't receiving any more information, until that last night."
"What happened?" she asked softly.
Rolas clasped his bleeding palms together, trying not to weep in front of his captor. "Lord Kev came home drunk, not for the first time we came to understand. When he entered their bedchamber he... he tried to rape Salli. When she fought him off, he... the bastard... he struck her in the scalp, dug his claws in, and ripped half her face off."
The Red Vixen made no reply to this. She merely let him sit there in the conversation pit, allowing him to rock back and forth while the memories washed over him and the tears for his sister poured freely once again. Eventually, when his weeping had slowed, she went to the autokitchen and came back with a tissue for his eyes and a cup of water for his seared throat. "When did you find out?" she asked softly.
"The call came in the middle of the night. Lord Kev's personal manservant, whom I gather had been wavering between his loyalty to his lord and horror at the crimes he was witnessing for some time, made the call personally to us, after he contacted Emergency Services. This time Civil Protection took pictures. After Council viewed them a week later, it took them only a half-hour to declare Viscount Kev Highglider insane and to commit him to a secure mental health facility."
"I can't believe something like this went before the Council and was not publically reported."
He let out a bitter, hollow laugh. "Oh, it was all done very discreetly. Countess Highglider isn't one of the Ten, but she had enough connections to make sure her son's appearance before the Council was done at a closed session. The records of it are sealed. The official explanation is that Salli and Lord Kev were in a debilitating skimmer accident, and so for that reason he was removed from the position of heir and they both retired from public life. If I was to speak the truth to anyone outside of the Council I would risk my own family's censure."
"You're discussing it with me," the Red Vixen pointed out.
He grunted in acknowledgment of the contradiction. "You are not of the Noble caste and I hardly think you would profit by spreading this about."
"No, I would not," she admitted. "So, how fares your sister now? I gather from what your parents said in their message, that she is still healing from this."
Rolas took in a long breath. "The surgeons who reconstructed her face were very good at their job. Her skin was pulled back into place, the scars smoothed over. She dyes her fur now in that area, so the hairs of her pelt that grow out white now will match her natural colaration. The artificial eye that replaced the one that bastard tore out is indistinguishable from the original. But the wounds to her soul are not so easily repaired. The light of her spirit is nearly extinguished, the bright spark that drew people to her merely a dim flicker of what it once was. She keeps to her rooms, sees no one, and weeps often. She has sworn that she will let no male touch her again, that she will bear no children to continue our House's line."
She nodded, offering no comment. Did she understand his sister's pain, did he understand it, truly? Could he ever? "And how do you fare?" she asked.
"After seeing my sister in the hospital, after looking at the pictures the CP's took, I wanted nothing more than to rip out that bastard's throat. My plan was to challenge him to a duel of honor, and permit my sword to 'accidentally' slip during the fight. I was persuaded... with some difficulty... that such a course of action would cause more problems than it would solve. So he sits in his rooms at the facilty, alive, unharmed, out of my reach." He drew in another breath and unclenched his paws. "I thought it was most unfair, that he should be permitted to live in relative comfort, while my sister still suffers so. These past two weeks of my own incarceration have enlightened me to his situation, however."
The Red Vixen raised her eyebrow in surprise. "In what way?"
For the first time since he'd begun his searing narrative, Rolas permitted himself to smile. "To be held in such a place as this, in comfort, treated with respect, but never, ever, trusted, I think is as much of a personal hell as anything to be found in the Cold and Dark. I have found a fortnight of it to be humiliating. To imagine a Countess' son enduring it for decades, perhaps over a century of it if his health holds, grants me quite unexpected satisfaction. For that insight, I thank you, madam."
She bowed in her seat to him. "I"m glad I could be of some comfort then, given what has happened to you. But this is only half the story, is it not? You still haven't explained what circumstances would drive your parents to abandon their son, especially after their only other cub suffered so terribly."
"Ah, well, the one incident leads to the other. After Lord Kev was put away and Salli's divorce was granted by the Council, Countess Highglider held a grudge against us, as I said earlier."
"Held a grudge? I should think she would prostrate herself before you and beg forgiveness from the Holy Den Mother for not stopping her son!"
Rolas smiled again, quite bitterly this time. "Oh, but why should she? You see, her son did nothing wrong."
The Red Vixen gaped at him. "Nothing wrong?"
"Oh, but you see, it wasn't his fault that he'd hurt Salli like he did. If she had just listened to him, if she had't been so arrogant, if she hadn't charmed the servants out from under him, if she hadn't tried usurp his place of authority in the Countess' household, he woudn't have been so provoked you see. Her darling cub is a complete innocent in the matter, and his incarceration an unforgivable insult to her House."
"That is the most self-serving, arrogant, Varn-ish thing I've ever heard. She didn't actually say that to you, did she?"
"In the council chambers, spoken to Salli directly. It made my sister weep. Again."
Now it was the Red Vixen's turn to hold her face in her hands. "Holy Den Mother bless..."
"The first incidents weren't much more than odd coincidences. Losses of power in our sector during planned events like the harvest festival. A water treatment plant suddenly dropping offline for a day, forcing everyone to boil their water. Later, she became more blatant. Rent increases, denial of permits for infrastructure improvements, harassment from the municipal CP's against shopkeepers and residents personally sworn to us."
"Surely if there's a pattern, you could go to the Council again."
"Oh, she's been careful about it. There's no one incident where we can go, 'There! You see what she's doing!' It's all been well within the law, I can assure you. One forgets just how much power an individual countess holds in her home district, until she starts wielding it against you."
She frowned. "Well, what were you going to do about it, before I interrupted you?"
"Leave," he said simply.
"What, ask to be released from your oaths to her and move under another countess' rule?"
"No," Rolas tolds her. "I doubt if she would grant it even if we asked her. No, we were just going to leave. Pull up stakes, pack ourselves and everyone sworn to us aboard a colony ship and head outwards, to Whiteland."
"Whiteland is a colony word," she said. "Rough territory, about far from Vulpine Prime as you can get and still find vulpine. That's a rather drastic solution to put upon your people, don't you think?"
"Our people, the commoners sworn to our House, love Salli as much as I do. After her divorce from Lord Kev and her voluntary withdrawl from society, there was no containing the rumors about what had happened from their ears. Once the harassment from the Countess began..." He smiled grimly. "They are not fools. They knew the reason why. So, many of them, almost all of them, decided to go with us, a secret conspiracy of escape. We did the calculations and figured out that using the profit from the Sallivera's trip, we could to lease colony ships and bring them into orbit around Vulpine Prime. Once they were in place, we were going to move every commoner personally sworn to my mother aboard them, with everything they could carry that was not nailed down, along with enough supplies and equipment build a small community. We figured we could do it all in twenty hours. In twenty hours strip that arrogant bitch of nearly one sixth of her population and rent revenue. Then we would go out and leave Vulpine Prime and Vulpine's useless Council of Farm Lords behind us, forever."
"A remarkable plan," she said. "Epic, even. I don't think I've heard of any vulpine noble breaking their oaths so, er, dramatically." She seemed a bit taken aback. "Though it would appear that I have thrown a very large spanner into it by taking the Sallivera and kidnapping you."
He nodded. "Oddly though, the fact that my parents chose not to pay my ransom gives me hope. The contracts for the lease of the colony ships have already been signed you see. That fact that they haven't broken those contracts and used the remaining unpaid half of the rental fees to rescue me, means the plan is still going forward. Once the insurance for the lost cargo is paid out, everything should proceed on schedule."
"I suppose you are right," she said. She scratched her ear in frustration. "Now I just need to figure out what to do with you."
"Galley slave?" he offered, half joking.
"The mess is well staffed already, thank you."
"Cabin boy?"
"Ah, that's more tempting. You're certainly healthy enough, judging from the evidence I saw when I entered," she said, flashing the first smile she'd dared since he'd begun his narrative. "Let me think on the matter. We still have over two weeks before your thirty days are up. Surely some solution with occur before then." And with that she stood up and bowed to him. "Forgive me though, for bringing further grief to your family. You do not deserve it, Lord Rolas."
"Accepted, Madame Vixen," he said, standing and bowing in return. She left him, the cell door shutting behind her. He was left to his thoughts once more, though his heart seemed lighter now, for the telling of his tale. He could only wonder why.
TBC
Note: As I said, a rough one. Going by a conversation I once had with
chaypeta on the subject, spouse abuse is one of those things, as the Red Vixen said, that simply does not happen among the vulpine, mostly due to cultural hardwiring. The few incidents that do occur are treated as Rolas relates, with the abuser treated as mentally ill.While this seems remarkably more pleasant than how women are treated in our own world, there is a dark side to it. Given the rarity of the crime, it stands to reason the resources to treat the victims of such abuse are not as well developed among the vulpine, hence the fairly gothic reaction of poor Salli.
Of course if I really wanted to be remarkable, I should have had everything happen to Rolas' twin brother instead, instead of resorting to a refrigerator trope.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-07-30 07:39 pm (UTC)poor them...
no subject
Date: 2008-07-30 11:36 pm (UTC)Poor Rolas... and poor poor Salli. What a revolting fate. You're explaination for the councils ineffectiveness with dealing with the situation is fitting. A bit of snobbery... that things like that don't happen on Vulpine and certainly don't happen in noble houses and even if it does we don't talk about it: plus a lack of a support network to deal with it certainly could create this kind of situation. Lady Highglider is certainly a first class she-morowolf for ignoring her sond 'disability' and allowing another vixen to be exposed to it.
At least Rolas has had a little satisfaction in knowing now that his sister's abuser's life isn't as wonderful as it would seem from the outside. And that his families plan may still run to schedual. Running out on their leigelord though, wow that is going to cause a stir in the council.
I can see the Red Vixen's conscience being pricked about this though I can also see her finding someway of turning this into a profitable venture.
Excellent story as usual. can't wait to see what the next twist is going to be.
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Date: 2008-07-31 12:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-31 06:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-31 12:19 pm (UTC)