3 comments/ 5505 views/ 1 favorites Nights of Alsitor: Xanthe & Narciss By: Synovex The candle-light played on the tribal patterns stained into her cloak. Though it was a warm night, she trembled- she could not shake the feeling at the back of her mind that she might not survive the night. She could see through the eyes of the featureless black mask covering her face, this wooden platform up on the highest tree in the oasis. The floor of a small room, a thatched roof and only net for walls, she was glad she succeeded the long climb up, an ancient trial of fitness long expected of those seeking the next level of status of that society. The climb wasn't easy in that mask and robes; in her world, males and females are raised separately, as independent nations. Boys and girls don't meet each other until teenage, and even then hold for each other a place similar to elves or goblins- strange, mythical, inscrutable beings to whom the other was inexplicably drawn and bound. The robe was necessary, none of the young boys in the village were allowed to look upon a woman until their awakening. Her mind wandered, and when she turned forward there was someone standing in front of her. She gasped, staring at his bizarre features- he was tall, as tall as the tallest woman, but he was unlike any woman she had ever seen growing up at the neighboring village. His chest was flat, his hips narrow, and the shadows on his jaw and chin turned out to be hair! All that was strange, but what she noticed most was his build; muscles, thicker and bigger than anything she had grown up with. Shoulders so broad his arms hung swinging, wrapped in tight flesh, wearing nothing but a patterned fabric wrap girding his loins. "Tell me your name" Her guts trembled at the rumbling of his baritone voice- of all the voices she ever heard, none of them had ever made her feel like that. "I am Xanthe," she spoke in a gentle voice. "You succeeded the climb up. You have come for tribute, yes? You understand what this means?" Xanthe gulped. She had grown up hearing stories about the ongoing war with the neighboring village, and she was born to the defeated nation. As a condition of peace, seven young women were sent as prisoners to the other nation, to be punished and suffered in penance for their nation's defiance. Every generation, those women who were brave enough to volunteer were admired with great reverence for the selflessness they offered for the peace of the nation. Nonetheless, most were far too frightened to take the role of [guest/prisoner/slave/student]. Through diet, medicine and generations of eugenics, a healthy female like Xanthe would be well educated, emotionally developed, self-dependent and well-rounded people by the time they are permitted to volunteer as tribute. Xanthe, only just turned 22, had borne menarche on a tribute year, having bled first only four months prior, and bravely offered herself out of love for her home. Hesitating, she slowly nodded. "Good. Take off your mask." She reached up and pulled the plain, shiny black slab from her face. She had orange hair and pale, freckled skin. She was very pretty. He looked at her and smiled, his blue eyes stark against the jet-black hair all over his body. "Good," he said, reaching out and taking the mask. "Now the cloak." It was late and they were far from the ground, so none of the boys would have seen them. Still, she hesitated. She looked into his eyes. As he was about to say something she tugged a pullstring loose, tugging the cloak away. She was slim but muscular, only the slightest wisp of orange flaming from the low corner of her belly. She looked strong, toned muscles all up her petite frame, which was covered in black and red markings staining her skin. The tradition of tribute was ancient, and had developed sophisticated rituals, such that the spirals and zig-zags and spots all across her thighs, arms, neck and back were unchanged from previous tributes for decades. Her eyes lowered as the cloak fell to the ground, but she tried to stand stalwart and intrepid. "Good," the man continued, stepping up to her, illustrating his advantage in height. "My name is Narcissus. The elders have appointed me your host. Starting today, you are my initiate. You understand what this means?" From as soon as she had studied logic, ethics and history as a child, the role of the [guest/prisoner/slave/student] was stressed as indispensably important, and that, for the sake of the country, their cooperation and obedience were sacrosanct. For the sake of everyone she'd ever known and loved, Xanthe was bound to unquestioning obedience. She nodded. "Speak up," he rumbled, "It's important that you say it out loud." "Yes, I understand," she spoke plainly. "Good. Now, Xanthe," Narcissus leaned forward, closing their faces together, "I'm going to give you an order, and you're going to obey it. Do you understand?" "Yes. I understand." "I want you... to tell me what you feel. Right now." She stared at him, confused. He stared back, his face motionless, quiet and patient. She glanced at the ceiling, then the floor. "Uhm... I hear rustling of wind through the canopy, I feel the wind blow on my back, warm in the night. I see candle-light-" "That's not what I mean," Narcissus interrupted. "What do you feel?" He pointed at her, moving his hand up and down her body. "What do you feel in your head? Your heart? Your gut? Your toes and scalp?" She inhaled, stalling. "I've been fasting for tribute, so I'm quite hungry, my left foot is sore from getting pinched on the climb up, and-" "Not like that," Narcissus cut her off, leaning in to put his face closer to hers. Xanthe felt a powerful connection before she realized he was looking at his own reflection in her eyes. "What do you feel?" She held his gaze for a moment before her lip trembled and she looked to her feet. "I feel scared, I fee I i feel scared and i don't know what's going to happen to me and i'll be punished if i say something wrong so i please don't hurt me, please i-" she bit her lip, hugging her arms to her sides an she pressed her knees together, shrinking down. "I see." Xanthe's breath froze inside her as Narcissus stooped down, picked up the robe, and with a skilled fling had it wrapped around her shoulders. She looked up at him, confused. "But i am-" "Afraid," he finished, "I know. It's normal. But the initiation doesn't work if you're scared. It must be a strong feeling, memorable and moving, but fear will warp these magics and create powerful curses that bring pain to both of us." He tightened the draw-strings, fitting the cloak snugly around her. "Get some rest. Tomorrow we will try again. I will wait however long you need." "But the tribute must be-" "No." He wasn't angry, but the word was final. "We try again tomorrow." Nights of Alsitor: Xanthe & Narciss Ch. 02 Xanthe awoke to sunlight. From the platform high in the tree, the sunrise came much earlier than the lowland swamp she had grown up in. There was a plate of strange nuts and fruits beside her on the dry, well-sanded planks, and a small block of cereal loaf. She sat up and ate breakfast as the sun came up, glittering over the expansive desert that surrounded the oasis. As she'd finished eating, she nimbly hopped down the gnarled trunks of the live-oak, touching down on the carefully-maintained graphene-soil moisture turf, wandering off. Xanthe spent a good three hours wandering the oasis- at that time of the week, most of the boys that would have been playing in the waterfall or helping to weave baskets and hunt scorpions all over the oasis were back either in their caravans or one of the shimmering desert cities- Xanthe's time at the oasis had been carefully planned. She wandered the camp in amazement, wondering at the science to maintain such a lush biome in that unforgiving sun. She'd abandoned her heavy cloak once the sun neared its zenith, and lounged by a clear pool, fully naked under the shade of a date-palm, her sides and flanks still painted with red and black figures. The sound of a bell startled her, and as it kept ringing she followed it up to a wide, low-roofed hut balanced between seven trees over the top of a small waterfall. She entered the hut, finding Narcissus sitting cross-legged on the thick-roped mesh net that the roof was built over. There was a cutting-board in the middle of the hammock-floor, as long as a man and covered with bowls of diced vegetables, piles of spices, and several short, curved knives. Narcissus had a burlap bag on his lap and as he saw Xanthe approach, he opened it and reached inside. "Salutations," he said, "I hope you slept well?" "Yes, Cxyeiur," Xanthe answered, using the polite honorific for speak to a Myieaoul, "And I'm grateful for breakfast." "Oh? You enjoyed it?" He answered, pulling from the bag a large brown dune-hare with double-black stripes running down it's back. "Good, you'll like lunch even better. Have you thought about what I asked you last night?" Xanthe nodded. The hours she had whiled away around the oasis were spent mostly reliving the dream that had been the night before. "Yes, and I'm ready to answer your question." "Alright. Are you afraid?" "No." "Why not?" Narcissus asked, looking calmly into her eyes as he grabbed the hare's head and twisted, snapping its neck. Xanthe gasped as the body twitched, and Narcissus grabbed a knife from the cutting-board and began flicking it up the rodent's belly. "You're far from home, in a strange land. You're at the mercy of a complete stranger, you don't have a clue who I really am." He had neatly separated the hare's flesh from its fur and scooped the offal into an empty pot. "You see this?" He pointed the bloody knife at a cluster of dried, dark-red fruits. "We grow these peppers special here. They have an amazing property, the flavor of a glowing-hot ember, inflicting burns on whoever tastes it... and not just their mouths. See this?" He picked up a dried scorpion and turned it over in her view. "They have a stinger with powerful venom. We take it and make a tincture that can be mixed with wine, a powerful soporific that renders its drinker helpless to fight back. For all you know, I'm putting some into lunch right now. Are you so naive as to think there's no danger here? Do you think the only purpose of this tribute is to teach you not to care for your own safety?" Already pale by her ethnicity, she grew even paler as Narcissus, as he was talking, chopped the hare up by joints and dropped them into a pot hanging from a rope. He untied a rope stringing from a lever and lowered the pot down to the fire on the ground below. "Lunch will be ready in two finger-widths of the sun. You may have the day to enjoy the oasis however you please. Tonight, I will try the initiation again." Hours later, the sun was down and torches were lit around the platform on the high tree, where Xanthe stood, bare-skinned and with a stern face. Narcissus looked back. "I'm going to give you an order," he repeated in a rumbling baritone, the torchlight playing across the lines of his taught muscles, "And you're going to obey. Do you understand?" "I understand," Xanthe answered, squeezing her clammy palms. "Tell me what you feel." "I feel nervous, and excited, but I am not afraid." She spoke with certainty. "Why are you not afraid?" he asked calmly, listening intently. Xanthe clenched her fists, taking a deep breath and straightening her back to look up at Narcissus without flinching. "I trust you." Narcissus gazed at her. A smile crept onto his face, growing wider and wider until a toothy grin pushed his eyes shut. "Good," he answered, putting his hands on her shoulders, "That's good, Xanthe. That's very good." He reached back and pulled something from his belt, lifting it to Xanthe's neck. He dragged it under her hair and twisted it around her neck; a leather strap, lined in fine, smooth, velvety fur that Xanthe realized had come from the hare, with the two ears draping down the front like ribbons, the white fluffy tail on the back, four hare's-feet resting on her shoulders, and the edges lined with a double-black stripe. "I, Narcissus, claim you, Xanthe, as my ward and prisoner. This charm marks your status under my control, and its talismans shall ward off danger and ill fortune." He took her hand and turned around, walking off, his face still chiseled into that grin. "Come. Let's begin." Nights of Alsitor: Xanthe & Narciss Ch. 03 Narcissus was quick to reach the bottom of the tree, but Xanthe was quickly learning how to safely climb down the trunk. As her feet touched the moss covering the ground of the oasis, Narcissus took her hand, looking into her eyes with a smile. He walked away, leading her, to the edge of the oasis. He didn't pause when he reached the sand, pulling her out onto it at a steady pace. Xanthe was frightened at first- she had been delivered by caravan, and fear of the burning sands had kept her isolated to the green jewel in the vast desert, but with the sun low, her bare feet sank into the sand with a sensation of pleasant warmness. As the sun disappeared and starlight began to leak from the heavens, she turned back to see the oasis disappearing behind them. She was lost. The desert was dark, with only starlight to see by, and endlessly vast in all directions, yet Narcissus kept steadily leading her forth. Fighting a brief moment of panic, she reminded herself of the answer she gave minutes before and continued to follow in his tracks. Though it felt like ages, they had only walked a few hundred yards from the oasis when they approached a jumble of crooked boulders sticking out from the sands. They were massive, piles of obelisks thirty feet long and a dozen thick, some standing, some broken. Narcissus never changed his pace as he walked up to them, and Xanthe noticed a path leading from the sand up a groove between some of them, criss-crossing up their height. She heard voices. Deep voices, like Narcissus, and her heart skipped and tripped when she realized they were approaching a group of Myieaoul like Narcissus. The urge to flee crossed her mind, but she remembered his question and her answer. Gritting her teeth, she followed after her keeper. They crossed the crest of the pile of boulders. She could see the shape of this rocky island- it was like a nest, a wall of stone surrounding a deep indentation, a hundred feet across and at least thirty deep. A natural-looking formation, composed entirely of lazily-crooked boulders except for some kind of flat, smooth altar, and a fire-pit which was blazing brightly. A handful of Myieaoul were lounging on the stones around the fire, laughing with each other as they stirred small pots and turned spits with fish and fowl. One of them caught sight of Narcissus and waved, shouting something in a rough, guttural language- she understood only the word 'Narcissus,' which prompted the others to look up and cheer his arrival. Narcissus stopped on the ridge above the campsite, hiding Xanthe behind him. Someone shouted something in a tone that sounded playful and impatient. Narcissus answered in a calm, serious voice, stepping aside and gesturing to Xanthe. Standing in the light of fire and stars, with pale skin and fiery hair, naked except some bracelets and her new fur collar, she was outstandingly beautiful. She was healthy and muscular, but slim, and she surmised that any one of these muscular creatures could overpower her. She repeated her answer over and over, squeezing comfort from the confidence she'd had when she gave it; I trust you, I trust you. The camp went silent, every Myieaoul rising to his feet at the sight of Xanthe. Still holding his hand, Narcissus led her down the rocky path into the amphitheater. The gathering was a terrible sight; dressed for hot weather, they were mostly nude save for linen skirts and sandals, but each of the men wore masks of an artistic style Xanthe had never encountered- some covered the top of their face, some the bottom, but any parts left exposed were dressed in streaks of black or white paint, giving an eerie, inhuman feel to them. Narcissus reached the sandy floor beside the fire pit, and stopped. Pulling Xanthe forward by her hand, he placed his hands on her trembling shoulders and held her in the middle of the six men. "Friends," he said in a language familiar to Xanthe, "This is my ward and my student. Her name is Xanthe." Silence followed. A man stepped forward with a pronounced limp, a long-nosed mask covering his eyes but not his curly black hair. He held up his hand pleadingly, speaking with clearly-pronounced words. "Welcome, Xanthe. I am Hephaestus Please, if you allow, may I see your hand?" Unsure of what to say, she quietly held up her hand. Makeup covering his lips, the man smiled and gently took her hand, sliding a curl of wire around her ring finger, twisting it to just match the girth. As he worked, another man, olive-skinned and shorter than Xanthe, stepped forward. "Welcome, Xanthe," he said through the rectangular mask that covered his face. "I am Janus. If it doesn't trouble you, please, tell me... what is your favorite color?" Xanthe found her voice, politely answering the question. "My favorite? It is... the blend of pink and gold of a sunrise sky." A delighted chuckle rose from the crew, and Janus nodded happily and stepped back. He and Hephaestus retreated to the altar as another man approached, tall and slender, his skin black and his face covered from the nose down by a scarf. "Hail, Xanthe," he said, "I am Plutus. If you would allow it, may I see your foot?" Unsure of how to refuse the strange request, she lifted her leg as the man knelt down before her. With a jar of balm, he dipped his finger in and smeared dark stripes over the top of her foot and along her sole before pressing parchment against it, pulling off a stained copy of the dark stripes. As Plutus worked, another man, broad-shouldered with curly red hair on his chest, bowed politely. "Greetings, Xanthe. I am Apollo. Please, tell me- do you have a favorite song? Something famous, and well known?" Trying not to be distracted by Plutus, she thought a moment. "Umm... 'the Coal Miner's Lament' is a fond memory of my childhood." "Splendid!" Apollo beamed, "I know that one well." Apollo and Plutus both retreated to the altar. The last two men approached, each with a matching half-mask, each taking one of her hands. By their matching bronze skin, equal stature and pale-brown hair, she assumed they were brothers, or twins. "Well met, Xanthe," they said in unison. "I am Paris," said one, "And I am Perseus," said the other. "Please tell me, what is your favorite fruit?" asked Paris. "My favorite?" Xanthe thought a moment. "I am very fond of mango," she answered as politely as she could. Pleased with her answer, Paris retreated to the altar. His brother Perseus looked into her eyes and asked, "Tell me, Xanthe, and have no fear- what do you wish for your life?" Growing anxious by the many strange and personal questions, Xanthe struggled a moment to find the right response. "To... to be strong. To bring happiness on myself, and others. Also, to leave the world a better place, however I can." Perseus nodded, a wide smile spreading on the exposed half of his face. "Very good! That is a very good answer, Xanthe." He turned and followed the others. Narcissus stood in front of Xanthe, looking deep into her eyes. "Xanthe, listen carefully. What comes next is different from anything you have ever known before. The altar behind me is a portal into a world many will never know. Your entrance will be strange, and frightening. Be brave, be strong, and you shall know success and will some day understand everything." He held up his hand. "Do you still trust me?" They paused, a warm breeze of the desert night passing over them, tossing their hair about. Straightening her back and looking defiantly into his eyes, Xanthe reached up and took his hand.