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+--- Thread: Raedoria Ocelot (/showthread.php?tid=1143)
Raedoria Ocelot - Ovadya|Ethan - 05-29-2020
Few understand the extent to which Raedoria doesn't sleep. It's a tireless place, bustling at all hours in a manner similar to it's new Lord Cynric Degenhard. Having ascended to the lordship through mysterious means, he now pushes the people into a fervor. Gathering and building, repairing worn out carpentry and installing new stone work. The cost is inconsequential, many of these are retainers of infinite loyalty, men and women born in Raedorian service and would die for it.
Cynric had paused on the grand stairs, observing workers moving barrels of tar and gravel here and there. His attention became immediately diverted to the presence of a great feline interloper. Cynric froze and eyed the beast, his bannerman and guards seemingly obvious to the large ocelot that stood before him in the main doorway of the Raedorian castle. Slowly he bent down, determined to not let his men notice him falter, and held out a hand in welcome to the beast. Something about it told him it wasn't as mindless as the other animals in this strange land.
The Ocelot approached and bumped its head against his hand and he laughed with relieve, taking a moment to risk a scratch behind its ears. To his delight the animal was friendly and quickly sat down on the steps, reveling in this odd but welcome distraction. Around him workers continued there labors under the watchful eyes of the Raedorian Chamberlain, Cynric's hand picked successor to his old position. He mused to himself about his fortunes, his determinations, his great work ahead of him.
And his fears. His spymaster has been busy and the murmurs of discontent and rivalry drip in from his reports daily. Cynric sighs with frustration and barely notices the ocelot beneath his fingers transform into a woman of stunning Andusian beauty. Cynric froze and again attempts to hid his surprise, his need to seem in control to those around him overwhelming.
"You are a good man," She said, underneath the Andusian dialect.
"Jadira is very kind, " Cynric responded, mangling what Andus words he could recall from his tutelage some years ago from a passing scholar. He recognized her from a brief meeting in Tarafeyn, it was prehaps what saved him from complete panic.
The conversation was short but parsed quickly into the great topic of service. She explained her history, her former bondage under servitude. Cynric didn't bulk at the institution, but found its use compromising for his own ends.
"Here jadira, one is invited to take on the responsibility of their own purpose," He gazed at her mustering an expression of authority, "Not through bond but through undertaking the weight of real service. Here one is expected to be hand which supports others and themselves."
Her expression turned harsh, "'Real Service?' Sayyid's service is no better or worse than the service of those that draw their bath or serve their food."
Cynric paused, diminished by her anger, the authority broken.
"Agreed jadira, but perhaps what I meant to say was that here, I have no use for those who will not take responsibility for their own purpose. Service here is to take on the weight of the world entire."
He smiled but she merely looked down, dismayed. But it was dark now and the chamberlain began his nightly duties as the keeper of the watch. Cynric offered a room for her tonight and she accepted, showing her to cozy room in one of the wings. Secretly, Cynric hoped she would consider herself, abandon her presumed station as a servant unto others and be a servant to a greater purpose. He doubted it, but hoped. There was something behind those eyes, even in human form. A hunger. A power. An -authority-. She could be so much more, he opined to himself, but she may never realize it.