Chapter 334

"Pretending to be bad…?" Raymond asked when she looked him over again for what he was sure was the third time.

"Yes…" Nua said, she took a half step… hesitated… then strode toward him. "Pretending. Go on. Beat me. Hit me. Slap me around… Ray-mond." She said his name, dripping it from her tongue. "I just used your name without calling you 'master', at the very least you should be…" She walked away, snatched the horsewhip from the corner and thrust it toward him. "I know the position, Ray-mond." She said and went to the wall, he was frozen, staring down at the whip that his fingers unconsciously closed around when she placed it there. But her nimble fingers unlaced her shirt and cast it aside at his feet.

Her hands went to the wood, spread just a little more than shoulder width apart so that her back in all its vicious history was laid bare. "Ray-mond." She said it again. "In the Slane Theocracy I'd be lashed till I fell to my knees for such… disrespect as using my master's name without his title. If you're not just 'playing' at being bad… then prove it."

He stared down at the whip, then at the crisscrossed map of scars that ran up and down her body. He could picture it 'clean', how smooth it must have been, she was pale there, for a wood elf, which marked her as someone who worked indoors a great deal. 'She's right… I should. This is… this is how it is. She's a slave who disrespected me…' He told himself with an empty hollowness to his thoughts even while he looked down at the lash in his hands.

He looked at the trail of marks, like a wild mountain range of ugly flesh, jagged, broken and grown over. 'She's just… daring me to add more. Is she insane?'

'No. No she isn't.' He realized. Her breathing was slow and steady, calm and without fear now, far from when he stood over her with the knife in his hand.

"I-I don't want to." He said, staring down at the whip.

"Am I not chattel? Am I not rebellious chattel that dares to disrespect you, a superior human, Ray-mond?" Nua provoked him further, his name dripping from her tongue, she didn't break position. "Aren't you called by your gods to punish me? Maybe you prefer to blame a curse nobody can find? Maybe call someone else to do it if you can't." She spat onto his floor.

"I'm the enemy of mankind." She repeated the words he commanded her to say.

"I'm the enemy of mankind." She said it again.

His breath began to quicken as she spoke. "Be quiet." He said in a small voice, his eyes staring down at the whip and then back to the slave.

"You told me to say it! I'm the enemy of all mankind!" She shouted it back at him, looking over her shoulder at last.

"Shut up!" He yelled at her, "What are you playing at?! Why are you doing this?! Do you want me to beat you bloody?!" He roared back at her and flung the whip down at her feet, it skittered across the floor and stopped at the wall, streaking her spit with it until it came to a thudding stop.

"No, Ray-mond!" She spat his name like a curse. "I want you to stop playing games!" He was struck by the steel of the blue in her eyes as ferocity like a warrior met him. "You're telling the truth… you don't want to! But why! This isn't a master not in the mood to discipline his property. That's what you're trying to tell yourself! I hate hypocrites… at least Dominic was honest." She spat on the whip and whirled on him, heedless of the fact that she was naked from the waist up, she took long, bold steps, and raising her hand, she struck him across the face as hard as she could, snapping his head to one side. "There!" She snapped at him and looked him square in the eye.

"Now… tell the truth. Why don't you want to?! Why aren't you picking up that lash?!" She yelled an inch from his face and pointed behind her, breathing hard and tears of rage in her eyes.

"Because you're… because… because you're beautiful… I… I don't want to hurt you, isn't that enough?!" He snapped and stepped back away from her. "Isn't that enough?! Most elves in the Slane Theocracy dance for joy about that!" He threw up his hands and grabbed his thick brown hair.

"So you want to fuck me." She crossed her arms in front of her chest and stared at him with neither desire nor fear in her eyes, her feet shoulder width apart, it was he who blushed and she who showed no mercy in her steel blue eyes. "So just tell me, you won't be the first person an elf woman has pretended she didn't loathe. I've got your number now, Ray-mond. No games. No obfuscation, no hiding or disguises… You know I know…"

"No! It's not that! I-I just…" He closed his eyes, his hands fell together between his knees as he fell back into the chair, he didn't look up at her. "It's wrong! Alright! I saw the way… the way you looked… I didn't see what I've always seen… your race… you're just background to me, you always have been. I had none of you growing up, traveled too much to bother owning any, I never cared for brothels… I'm…" He chuckled, "Even the others all say I'm addicted to my work."

"So you never had to actually hurt one of my kind before…" Nua stepped away and turned her back to him, she began to pace and lowered her eyes, she closed them and inhaled deeply through her nose, placing thumb and forefinger over her forehead as if it ached. She exhaled as heavily as she inhaled, "This… explains a lot. You really have been just playing at evil… an… innocent, like I first thought before you first reached out to mutilate me."

She noticed how he winced when she used the word 'mutilate' so casually. "So… I suppose that means you're not just going to screw me either…" She said and turned a side eye to him.

"No… I've never had an elven mistress before." He said, raising his face to look at her as she paced back and forth on steady steps.

"We have a different way of describing our place in that arrangement… usually." She said with a scathing voice that dripped sarcasm like acid. He could only look down again in answer.

"So… what do we do now?" She asked him as she came to a dead stop.

"You can start by picking up your shirt and putting it on." He said, managing a chuckle when she looked down and realized she'd been so caught up in the moment that she'd forgotten all that she'd done to provoke him.

"Damn it!" She cursed and bent down to do as he said. She started to lace up the front of her shirt while facing him, and he had the decency to look away from her while she did it.

"I meant other than that… am I still just a dangerous animal in your eyes, Ray-mond?" She asked him, he said nothing, she came close, crouched down so she was beneath his lowered gaze, and reaching up to touch the other side of his cheek, she gently pushed him center face so that he was looking at her again. "Am I your enemy… like you said… do I deserve to suffer or die… do you really believe it… can you honestly say… those scars are well placed…? The truth. Please. No more games. It's just me, when you take me back to your country and give me back to Dominic, there's nobody I can tell, nobody will believe me even if I did… but while we're alone… do you want me to beg?"

"No." He muttered, he tried to tear his gaze from hers, and couldn't.

"Then tell me." She whispered her urgings, her fingers quavered against his cheek while her eyes searched his own.

"No… no, you don't, you aren't… it's… I'm sure you couldn't have deserved whatever was done to put those there. I tried to convince myself. I failed. If the gods are testing me… I failed." He said and resting his elbows on his knees, he held his head and stared down between his feet.

"Maybe you didn't, maybe you passed. Maybe you're one of the few in your country to ever pass." Nua answered, "But… what will you do with me now? Send me back? Back to Dominic…?" She swallowed the lump in her throat and felt it settle in her gut.

"I… I don't know. I'll… I'll talk to him." Raymond looked away from her. 'If it weren't for that… I could just… but then she's as good as dead.' He mouthed a slew of coarse words as two blue seas hovered just out of view, he could feel that staring, wondering at him.

"You'll stay… stay with me." He cleared his throat and forced himself to look at her, "You'll stay with me for now… I'll work something out."

"Right… right…" She rose to her feet, and it was her turn to look away.

"I suppose… you're not all I thought. I will address you as I should in public. But when we are alone…?" She asked the question and he answered her, it was softly said, but it was said…

"You are Nua. I am Raymond." He then rubbed the cheek she'd slapped earlier and actually let out a laugh, "And Nua has fast hands."

He then enjoyed the way her smile lit up the room.

After which Raymond stood up and said… "Come with me, we've got somewhere to be."

"Let me do that." Layali shot out the words and rushed on the longest steps she could take, to seize the spit away from Brain before he could stick the meat on it. Her little hands snatched the spit away, but the meat was out of reach… until she jumped up and took it from his hand.

Brain didn't resist her actions, he allowed her to take both from him, "We had a deal." She insisted in her indignant little girl pitch, and she impaled the flesh on the long wooden pole and then slapped it down on the stakes holding it over where she would light the fire and put her hands on her hips. "There. Besides, I've gotten better than you at this." She said with a cocky little smile and a sharp nod that fairly dared him to argue.

"I don't know about that." He dared to venture.

"Hmpf." She turned up her nose, "Zesshi, what do you say, who is the better cook?"

Zesshi dutifully extended a finger and pointed to Layali. "Definitely you." She tried not to mimic the girl's smirk too much, and Brain ran with it.

"Fine, fine. Who am I to argue with the only two girls around? I know that's a losing game if ever there was one." He made a dramatic show of throwing his hands up at the sky and letting out an exasperated breath as they laughed, and went about setting up camp.

The bedrolls were laid out in short order, and while Layali completed her final tasks and saw to cooking their meal, Zesshi continued her instruction of the human swordsman.

Sweat flew from his hair as it was cast off, or ran down his face as the half elf effortlessly pushed him beyond his limits. The black and white hair trailed high in the wind as their speeds accelerated far beyond what Layali could follow. Brain's broken sword lay cast aside as he learned something of 'hand to hand' combat.

He tumbled backwards and slid to a stop, gasping for breath after Zesshi's fist connected to his solar plexus. He gasped and held the injured spot. The prior injuries she'd inflicted on him… they still ached, though he didn't reveal it, he went limp as she approached him. "You're getting a little bit better." She said as her hand extended to within reach of him.

He tilted his head back and waved off her hand while he chuckled and gasped at the same moment. "Give me a minute." He said while he rubbed the spot she struck. "That'll leave a bruise." He said before adding, "I may be improving, but I'm just plain better with a sword."

"You got a couple of hits in." Zesshi contradicted his self-criticism as he rolled himself over and pushed himself up to his feet.

He grunted when he was still on all fours, "Only because you let me."

"True!" She acknowledged as he got all the way up, then leveled a finger at him, "But, that would always be true. I'm… unique. And I limited myself to the skills of some of my country's… I mean, the Slane Theocracy's, finest. You're nowhere near on par with Cenna. But you might be around as fast as Raymond, and he trained Cenna. He used to be, when he was younger, one of the most lethal members of the Black Scripture."

"Raymond… your handler, the one you were with before, the old man? That old man?" Brain looked at her with cockeyed incredulity. "I figured he could fight some but… that guy?"

Zesshi looked back the way they'd come, "Yeah, yeah he was. He called me pretty after I put him on his ass when we met. He was younger than you are now, but he and Cenna were the ones I knew best… the others… comrades sure. But those two I could always count on. He was a vicious and savage killer when he had to be. I remember this one time, we were hunting down a vampire that had taken a few villagers… just a training exercise for me, but he captured the vampire, beat it to a bloody pulp, and then skinned it till it told him what he wanted to know. When it came to looking out for his own… you'd think he was a literal demon. But to me? He was always asking if I was okay, if I was happy… he was like a father or uncle or something. I liked that."

"You're young…" He said, and she put her hands on her hips to stare at him as if he were an idiot, "as half elves go, that is." He said and she relaxed a little, "It's not that surprising he'd take on that role without thinking about it. It happens in villages sometimes too, I saw it growing up before I left."

"Say, your family never objected to you just… leaving?" Zesshi asked as she thought that over.

"The dead never object to anything." Brain said, "Let's call it quits for now, since we'll be in Carne tomorrow, I want to be well rested. I'll need to buy some supplies and see if I can find somewhere suitable for Layali."

The half elf girl froze, except for her mouth, her lips quivered a little as she mouthed her objections, "But… but… you're going to Arwintar. And… and you were going to face Cerebrate and…"

"You're still coming with me that far." Brain promised, he went over to where she stood, her arm moving and turning the spit as smoke from the fire rose up and shrouded the meat. The smell was enough to make Brain's stomach growl, he tussled her hair and said, "I know some things just have to be done. But if I can find somewhere safe for you there, I won't have to wait until the last minute."

"But-" Her eyes began to well up.

"It's what's best." He said, and she hung her head.

"Is the food almost ready? It smells fantastic." He tried to form a bright smile down at her and rubbed his stomach while licking his lips.

"Y-Yeah, I tried something different with those spices you gave me." She perked up. 'If I just do enough for him, then he won't leave me.' She reassured herself and forced a grin to her face as she raised up to her tiptoes to encourage his continued tussling of her hair.