Context for words: wup=orc offspring, teffrel=a thirdgender role in nobility who handle trade, messenging and recordkeeping (variations are either social-status indifferent or plural form of the word.)
It was captured when it was a very small wup, from a orc clan near the City.
The adults, scared off for being dangerous, left the child there. And the guardsmen took it in, brought it to the Monren (nobles).
They decided it needed a propper education, they raised it carefully but it was just so illmannered til it grew old enough to speak.
But it was growing, and clumsy. They always felt the need to stretch out, to run, to use their full strength, and taught strictly to use it to restrict their own strength instead
They had a bed, a room, and Mother would have them sit at the table with her during important dinners and meetings. As they grew, so did their spot at the table
Their heart was soft, and their voice was terrifying, they didn't know that. They thought they were told to be quiet bc they were not grown enough yet to speak on such important matters between the Montre or older tefferen.
Dance, gentleness, quiet manners, no running or stretching, and now they were learning to write as a teffer should at their age
They learned to read, and had asked how they were born, why it was different for them. "You were found outside the city, abandoned by those raiding, scavenging monsters who had taken you from own." Said their mentor.
They grew larger, and they needed a special pen made from the leg of a small table. They began to tremble with their caution in this small delicate home.
And one day this tremble would ruin Matron's important dinner meeting. A pearl plate fell and shattered, an heirloom, a traditional and personally sacred thing to the Matron and her peers.
They were scolded by the company over, monsterous, the guests said, "proof it cannot be done", the guests said.
They banished from the dinner, their door barred, as it hadn't been since they were a roughousing child crashing through the halls after a boring, pent up fiveday.
They asked to be let out, they cried, promising to be good and that they didn't mean to. They only heard the guardsmen putting more bars on their door
When their consequence was over they were told they needed to be on their best behavior, to study hard in reading, not taking, managment of documents and to listen quietly at the dinner meetings so they could learn an example of the gentlest and most diligent of Teffren there, for they would be given a proudly title, the Gentlest Teffrel, soon.
They trembled and their muscles grew sore, they craved bigger helpings, which they were given. The chef came by their room, and even the courtyards frequently and gave the best, fattest steaks, bone, broths. The physician came by often, to check on them and measure their body with all manner of sticks and tapes and pronged things, the physician would first congratulate them, speak to the Matron and chef, then depart.
The gentleness teacher said it was time for them to wear shoes and gloves.
They performed their gentleness demonstration, supressing every tremor, their muscles grew hot. Everyone was so surprised, they said, excitedly telling matron as they walked besides her to dinner, and she said her approvals, pat their head like they used to as a child. "Soon you'll be given a ribbon of snail silk to show your gentleness, and your proudly title of Gentlest Teffrel if you keep up on this progress."
They followed Matron and sat at the table, their cushion somewhat too small for them, the cuttlery now easily shattered without care, and the food cut into small bites that were small enough to swallow, but not small enough to eat without chewing.
The guests arrived, they looked busy, didn't acknowledge them, and during dinner they were distracted watching them. Until they swallowed their food before chewing, on accident
And coughed, a huge cough, they coughed until they fell off their cushion, and being off balance they kicked out their legs and upset the table and it all collapsed and was ruined, they were dragged by many guardsmen back to their room still coughing now confused and they cried out "wait!" Strained
Not just from the food, and the fright of falling over but the sadness that maybe they ruined it again and hope that itd be understood a mistake
They reached out and left a huge tear in the carpets and boards, they tried to crawl forward and dragged with them the guardsmen and didn't see, more ropes, more men
They were locked in their room again
The word "monsterous" repeating again and again.
This time when the door was shut they were too distracted by this thought to knock and try to open their door and plead for forgiveness
In their next lesson they learned more of the monsters that lived far from the courtyards, far from the city, the things that pillaged and tore and pummeled through homes and ate the good people.
On the stroll to dinner with the Matron, they told her what they had learned that day, about those fierce orcs and how the guardsmen outside the city and in the towers protected the people from the momsterous "Orcs"
Matron stopped, then kept walking. Stimming differently than usual. "Those men are brave men. They cannot be gentle, so they help everyone else who is gentle. They stay outside the city walls and the ones who are less brave stay within them and work the fields so we all have grain to eat." When the both of them arrived at the dining hall, the Matron paused. "Because of your recent behavior, you cannot join our meeting. I hope you understand."
They drooped, and sat outside the door til they fell asleep.
Guests spilled into the dining hall, stepping amxiously past the soon to be Gentlest Teffrel, and joined in the dinner. They discussed with the Matron of the heavy hill of grain, and trade, and the sooncoming seasonal rebuilding and storage of resources. They spoke of a recent attack, a band of orcs, a minimum of ten but likely more, had breached one of the rifletowers, wiping out a squadron of men.
At this, the soon Gentlest Teffrel woke, their ears perked by interest in what they had learned, for they could hear through the thick walls.
"It is a horrible and impending doom to keep an orc in the high manor of heavy hill! And soon you will see its full nature as it matures into its instincts!"
Others agreed, or interjected, some sarcastic. "Everyone the creature has been carefully shaped by our customs and the best of our science and medicine to serve the Heavy Hill manor and steered away from its base nature. It is a sculpture of society and i remind you it's strength is under MY command." She said.
"And your command is to upset The Way The Dining Hall Has Always Been? To shatter pearl and abalone cuttlery, shred mastercraft carpet and ruin the best meal in the city with its monsterous roaring tantrums? I disbelieve you! Yet you say it is the Gentlest, a title never seen before you had the physical therapist teach the thing to dance and upset the education of my tefchildren to join it in what? A sense of belonging?"
"Sphynx are intelligent animals." The matron spoke up. "Anything out of place, or so singled out as to signify its difference and it would be overridden with dangerous pride and gluttony so wretched you might see yourself as graceful."
They heard the two's dialogue dissolve into insults, and others join in, or try to resolve it. Before finally
"I will not stay and meet-dine with a matron who endangers the rest to strongarm her scientific superiority, nor will i stay here where a Thing could tear me apart! I take my leave"
Right then, the steps of the-other-matron-mother-was-angry-with's footsteps came close, duck down? Pretend to sleep still? Was i supposed to hear this? Would mothe-Matron be angry with me? Would-
The door opened, the-creature-that-mother-was-angry-with-and-currently inside my- Moth-
"YOU COME TO OUR HOUSE, INSULT MY MOTHER AND TELL HER LIES ABOUT THE PROUDLY HONOR OF GENTLEST AND INSULT MY MOTH-AT-ATRON-"
Pulled back towards their room
Terror. There was not a down on Heavy Hill within the manor.
Aching gave way to pulsing, trembling that supressed trembling burst open into rippling, rippling into pulsing, pulsing into throbbing throbbing into crashing and crashing into tearing and cracking and cracking into thrashing and thrashing was a childhood pent-up dash and the the dash was a hundred ruined feasts and a hundred ruined feasts could not stop and terror gave way to the unvisited feeling of being completely lost and the things that were grabbing it and prodding and pulling were shaken off in a mighty tremble that made the manor walls groan and the stone inbetween was now wooden and the wood was now paper and the paper was now-
"Mother! I found you!" but years of learning to speak had broken when the things that clung and stung were shaken off and rough voice the loud voice was left behind and mother did not did not place her hand upon its head and the matron called out eyes full of terror "RELEASE THE ORCS!" and somewhere deep behind them a gate was opened and huge heavy things lumbered towards them at the speed of a hundred felled trees and a hand was placed on their back,
Then pain as claws dug deep into the unfettered muscle, and clung to hide
And they turned their head to see that the orc was something just like them, but harnessed and steered by a man in armor and monster was both a suit of armor holding riegns and an enourmous beast that saw eye to eye but could not speak
And matr-mother was something small. "I can protect you, i am not gentle i tried to be, i am not the gentlest. I cannot have a ribbon of snailsilk but i can keep you safe and protect the manor-"
And Matron only heard roaring, not in her ears but in her heart.
And the Bravest locked hand with hand and saw-sanded nail to claw and saw that it was the same as their own, and behind both of them a small thing that was terrified and empowered and stood on two legs and spoke in high smooth voices and wore something flimsy to establish their purpose and in front of them was something that was free to tear and gallop and could not speak and never had learned to write and tore through walls and destroyed everything they touched and neither of them was gentle at all, and both were nothing without the biped behind them and both couldn't enjoy the privelidge they had been given for it wasn't made for them at all
And the matron was gone, and the soldier had dismounted, and neither knew how to stop in their restlessness, and they tore at eachother under both forgot what for, and the riflemen came and brave they were not, and the two orcs clashed through the city til they weren't in the city and rocks gave them bruises and the moss soothed their wounds and river both cleaned and dirtied them and they stopped to drink, and continued again til the old harnessed one was exhausted, and the Bravest sat over the other, and took in its form and collapsed into sleep.
And in the morning was scarred, and hungry, and called out in a high and strained voice that they were ready to dress, and were hungry, and opened their eyes and were on the hard ground and not their bed, and a beast lay on the ground half-in the river and it was a monster and its wounds had not closed yet.
And the city was far away, and a the gentlest had a limp now, and the blood and the prints in the dirt reminded them of every bruise, and the remembered that they are not the gentlest
And that the monster was a suit of armor and a harness and the head of the house, and broken tables and pearl and a door barred shut and the word Monster was the beasts that lived outside the city, and that the city had barred its doors
And the orc hadnāt found happiness yet, but it was the end of what the it thought was Gentleness.
origamiaround
jacobvanloon
izzy806
discoholicmusic
theartofmadeline
blakekathryn
snowghoul
