Count On Me (Don't Tear Me Down)

The night proved to be incredibly fitful for Sienna. She was not used to being asleep during the night. She was nocturnal. She could see in the dark just fine without any sort of aid of magic. It was an inherent ability to pretty much all Faunus so she didn't understand how or why Faunus wouldn't be awake during the night especially when humans were pretty much strictly diurnal. Why not live separate from them? The duke was a Faunus so he ought to be asleep during the day and active at night. She just...could not wrap her mind around it. The dark of the moon did make it much harder to be active without that light from the moon, but they could make do. Her body and mind kept screaming at her to get up and not just lay there, but she couldn't exactly get up without waking Yang. The girl was cuddled up to her closely, obviously in desperate need of affection. All she could do was lay there until Yang woke up. The next few days to a week or so would be torturous until she could get her rhythm to adapt to being diurnal. She hated it. She hated all of this but what could she do about it? Trying to fight against the duke would get her nowhere aside from maybe being killed somehow. She'd barely survived transport. She was utterly exhausted, but she could not get her body to fall asleep no matter what she did. She was just too used to being awake at this point. The little nap she had during the day would have to suffice. Maybe she could take little naps during the day to help tide her over until she was able to be awake fully during the day. She just... She hated all of this. Eventually, dawn crept over the horizon, the sunlight beginning to fill the room. She could feel her eyes start to close, but she shook her head to keep herself awake. This was going to be a pain in the ass. But her life was out of her own hands now... Yang at least didn't give off the sensation of being the type to try to kill her just because she went against what Yang wanted. She would do her best to give Yang what she wanted and needed, but still... This was going to be absolutely miserable from now on. Unless Yang could somehow gain the power to free her, she was completely and utterly trapped in this terrible situation. She didn't know the lay of the castle and... It seemed like Yang could use somebody to be there for her. The poor girl was completely despiritied and had her manservant, but that was it. Yang stirred and yawned, sitting up. She looked around and sighed. Sienna could read she really didn't want to be there. She seemed homesick for wherever she'd come from. Yang's accent was definitely foreign compared to the duke's and the men that had killed all her people off. Sienna wasn't sure where she was from, though... Who would beat somebody down that much and intentionally at that? She didn't understand cruelty like this. To break somebody's spirits so effectively to the point she seemed to almost want to die. "Good morning," Sienna said softly, trying to hold back a yawn. Yang frowned. "Rough night?" "I'm...used to being awake during the night and asleep during the day. So forgive me if I seem a little sluggish and out of sorts during the day." She frowned. "Would you be okay if I took a nap for a couple hours during the day? Just to help tied me over until I can get used to being diurnal." Yang really didn't seem the type to deny someone what they needed. She was trying her absolute best to be a 'good slave' but...it was hard when her basic needs weren't being met. The duke would probably disagree with how Yang was treating her, but there wasn't much she could do about that. Yang was treating her kindly despite the situation. Then again, it wasn't like Yang had asked to be given a slave. At least Sienna had a good mistress... Anybody of lesser moral fiber would probably have raped her into submission and forced her to bear bastard children that would be kept in bondage for the entirety of their lifetimes. Yang blinked but nodded. "Yeah, of course... Maybe in the afternoon after our reading and writing lessons?" Sienna nodded. "That sounds good." They would have lunch then those lessons. She still found it astonishing someone would be willing to give her the time of day, let alone teach her to read and write. It really was insane to think that she'd learned to be literate... She knew she wasn't stupid by any means, but to these people, she was literally just a savage. A stupid person who was warlike and violent and couldn't possibly be capable of love, compassion, and other similar emotions. How did people believe so badly...? She didn't understand. But she shoved the thoughts down and stretched. The front of the dress she wore gathered on her chest and she frowned. "Do you know if there's a tanner here? If so, I can make myself some clothes that'll tide me over until the seamstresses can get to my clothing." Considering she was a slave, it would probably be the lowest priority. She wouldn't mean anything to any of these people. She just knew they wouldn't care about her. A savage and nothing more. They probably wouldn't give her clothes until weeks in the future, not without some sort of external pressure. "I'm...not sure. We'd have to ask Sun most likely." Sienna nodded a bit. It was early and he may not yet be awake. She yawned a bit and stretched. She was so used to woolen and leather clothing, not this soft material... Her clothes needed to be tough and resistant to any weathering. Wool and leather were the go-to for her tribe. Especially leather. It could be so soft and supple and absolutely comfortable to wear. Not the best in the dead of summer, but it was what it was. They needed to be able to resist tough weather especially in the winter. "I suppose we can talk to Sun after breakfast..." that was all they really could do, she supposed. Yang bade Johnathan get them something to eat, so they sat in relative silence until he returned with a tray bearing two portions, one large and one small. He handed the large one to Sienna and she dipped her head to him. She was thankful to get everything she needed. The duke would probably object if he knew how much she was eating, but wasn't that truly up to her mistress in the end? She just hoped they didn't get on the man's bad side... He was ruthless if the absolute destruction of her people was anything to go by... What would his son be like? But Yang seemed to trust him. Then again, Yang was naive and obviously incredibly sheltered... She wasn't sure if she could trust Yang's judgement or not. They ate and headed out of the room where Jonhthan led them to another room and knocked. It took only a moment for someone to answer, a blond young man with a monkey tail. He grinned a bit. "Hey Yang, sup? Wanna come in?" Well... That was enough to prove to Sienna he was nothing like his father. He was bright, warm, and welcoming to others. He hadn't addressed her but...that only made sense, she supposed. She was a slave, below even the lowliest of servants unfortunately. She wouldn't be treated well even by the servants, so it was good that she had Yang. Yang seemed to want to treat her well despite their situation. It wasn't like Yang had asked to be given a slave. They were just trying to make the best out of a terrible situation. They all entered the room and Sienna tilted her head a little when she saw the young woman dressed in nothing but a small top and wrap skirt. For humans, especially high nobles, wasn't that scandalous? The white-haired girl took notice and waved. "Yeah, it's pretty scandalous, but that's for humans. I'm not a human." Wait, what? How could she-- If she wasn't human but she looked it... How? "I'm a mermaid!" That definitely explained a bit then… "I see... but how can you read my soul?" She had let her defenses drop the past little while, but she'd apparently need to put them back up. She hadn't expected to turn into any soul readers upon arriving here. But she was still tired, so she had no idea on how to handle any of it... She knew she needed to put her defenses up, but she was still exhausted from the lack of sleep and no food for five days. "Natural for us," the girl said. "Just a natural ability we have. I'm Weiss, by the way." "Sienna." She settled down in a chair with Yang taking a spot on the couch, though with her body language, she attempted to make herself look as small as possible. It was sad to see somebody so dispirited. Yang had literally no fight in her at all. It was so sad to see somebody so broken. They'd attempted to break her with what had happened, but the souls of her people burned brightly. The older girls and young women wouldn't be broken quite so easily... She hoped and prayed that they wouldn't meet the fate of being raped and turned into sex slaves... The thought made her shiver a little bit and she pushed the unbidden idea away. "So Yang said you're essentially her slave...?" Weiss frowned. Sienna nodded and sighed. "Unfortunately." "That's...absolutely terrible. I don't understand how people can do that. You're a whole person. You have a soul too. I can feel it burning brightly." Sienna shrugged. "Some people just have a massive superiority complex... Most nobles think they're well above those they see as lesser. And I'm just a 'savage' in the duke's eyes. I'm probably not even worthy of being a slave." She sighed, her ears flicking back. Yeah, that was probably what the duke thought or something along those lines. She looked at Sun and could feel the disgust roiling in him. His expression was one of malcontent and his tail lashed a bit. "I'm so sorry this happened to you, Sienna. What exactly is your story?" he asked quietly, gently. "You know those tribes on 'your land' that migrate around? I'm one of those people." The truth was it was actually the tribe's land and the duke had come in and laid waste to it some centuries ago. They had pushed the tribes onto smaller and smaller areas, forcing them to range farther and farther afield from their traditional lands into other lords' lands. That just made the lords angrier and angrier at them over time... All that had remained were around a thousand people in a couple of bands but one band, around three, four hundred people, had been destroyed by the current duke. Anger flared in her chest, but she kept it down. "I'm so sorry. If I were duke, I would've tried to help your people but...my father is merciless. Even I'm not spared his ruthlessness." Sienna winced. That definitely explained the scarring around his soul. He was warm and kind, but there was definite anger buried in there. She hoped he would never turn it on any of them. People could only be pushed so far before feeling like a trapped animal and lashing out. "I'm so sorry." She didn't know what else to say to him. The duke apparently had no way of discriminating who should earn his ire and who shouldn't. Not everyone deserved one's ire. Sometimes, people just made mistakes and needed to be given grace. Sun had apparently been through a lot despite how young he was... She estimated she was a couple years older than him, but it was an estimate. Once people hit their teens and such, it was a bit harder to tell who was what age between teens and thirty-somethings. "Though, I will say I'm surprised how articulate you are in our language. I don't mean that as a slight; I just wouldn't have expected anybody from those tribes to have known the main language so well." Sienna's ears went back a little despite his attempts to explain himself. It was still veiled racism. "I am... Was, I suppose... A sub-chieftain. Most of the average people didn't know any of the main languages spoken in the areas we traveled around but chieftains and sub-chieftains needed to know them to a high degree in order to settle disputes between our people and the people who settled our lands." She still hated that they'd had their lands slowly relinquished over time. They'd been pushed farther and farther afield and squeezed into smaller and smaller areas. Their oral tales spoke of how they had once had a rich, green, lush land under them, given to them by the gods, but the duke's ancestors had slowly pushed them away from their traditional lands. "That does make sense, I suppose. I can only imagine the sort of spats you had between the peasants and yourselves." His tail curled a little. Sienna nodded and sighed. "People would claim lands that hadn't been theirs the year before suddenly as their own. It led to a lot of strife when we settled somewhere that had been uninhabited the year prior, only to find new settlers there. It was a pain." She hated it. They really did no harm, taking only what was needed from the land, hunting what they needed to put in the bellies of her people. But others claimed that land was now theirs. She didn't understand the obsession with 'owning' land. Land wasn't something that could be 'owned' in the end. It was land; it had been there long before the settlers had arrived. Why they suddenly believed they owned it was beyond her. It was their ancestral lands, ones they had roamed for centuries, possibly millennia beforehand. "I'm sorry... If I could, I would make it right but... People don't want to be moved from their homes elsewhere. And it's not like I have the power to do anything. I'm just a son. I won't take over power until my father dies which should hopefully be in the next decade or so... He's about twenty years older than my mother but he's in his sixties... Not sure how the bastard survived this long though." Sun shook his head. Yeah, that was entirely fair... Most people only lived until about forty in her band. Their lifestyle was rough and hard on the body with the constant moving and everything. But there were some elders who lived until their sixties and seventies, even eighties, who had much wisdom to share. It was through them that traditional knowledge had survived and been passed on. She frowned. That knowledge would be lost now. She put the thought out of her mind. "It's not your fault. You don't seem like the type that would go out of your way to harm others even if you don't really understand them." He was an honest, good guy. His soul burned brightly and cleanly without any of the taint of greed or corruption in the sense of just wanting money and such. She'd met greedy people before. Merchants that only wanted more money and would refuse to barter for their animal skins and such. They only wanted money and wouldn't help other people out even if they were just trying to get some supplies to help then last until the next spring. She hated how greedy some of these people were... She hadn't gotten a good read on the duke because she'd been so frazzled by everything happening to her. He shook his head. "Despite what my father says, I don't think your people really meant any harm... Right? You were just trying to survive." Sienna nodded. "Survival was all we cared about. That was it. We never took more than we needed from the land. And we never stole from fields despite what you might have heard... We know other people rely on things like wheat and barely to make it through the long, cold months. We only took from land that was uninhabited by others. Though we often got accused of 'poaching' on king's land or duke's land. I still never really caught the meaning of that word." She knew it related to hunting in some capacity, but she hadn't been able to entirely parse out what it meant. "Ah, yeah, the king and other nobles often set aside tracts of land for themselves to go hunting on. If anybody else hunts there, it's called poaching. It's basically taking wildlife illegally." "But it wasn't illegal; nobody lives there and nobody is even there most of the time." "By our laws, it was illegal. If the land belongs to somebody, that means only they can take from it. But since you and your people weren't citizens of the land, it would be hard to prosecute. There are rangers in the lands that patrol to mete out justice but if you guys were swift of foot, it would be hard to prove much." Illegal when they weren't even citizens... What was the harm in taking from lands next to nobody hunted? She didn't understand. She wasn't stupid... She just didn't understand the mindsets of owning land and forests and everything. It made no sense to her. "I don't understand your mindsets of 'owning' land." She just didn't get it and said it as a statement. It was an observation, nothing more. It wasn't an object for one to own. It was inert and ought to be available for everyone to take from... Land was supposed to nurture everyone, not just one family. She didn't understand how it worked at all. "Anyway, do you have a tannery here? I doubt anybody is going to want to make who amounts to a slave nice clothes." Sun shook his head. "You need to appear well put together. Yang's technically my fiance, so it'll look bad on her if you don't have proper clothing. I've seen setups like this and the women are usually still well furnished with nice clothes. Maybe not as nice as their mistresses, but nice enough. Plus...I'll order 'em directly to do it. The only person that can override my decisions is my father...but I don't think he'll want to override that. Not like it'll most likely get back to 'im anyway." Yang sighed. "I'm still a noble so yes, appearances do matter a lot to everyone around us... I doubt the duke would want one member of my entourage to look bad in comparison to me." Appearances, appearances, appearances... She didn't really get it, but she had to try to play by their rules. What was the obsession with appearances? Yes, being well groomed to deal with people outside of the tribe as a sub-chieftain was important, but that was about as far as it went for her in her tribe. Being well behaved was important too. But looking nice and having nice clothes? That didn't make any sense to her. She just gave a resigned nod and sigh. "I'll try to play by your rules even if I don't really get it." She had never been around the courts and it was just a foreign as anything else to her. She would try to adapt as quickly as she possibly could, but it was going to take time. She knew Yang would treat her badly, but it was the other people around Yang that worried her. The duke namely. From Sun's description, if even he wasn't spared the duke's mercilessness, then where did she stand? She was lower than low in the duke's mind. Simply a savage even though she was quite well spoken and articulate. She didn't necessarily understand every word or saying they threw at her, but she could understand the majority of what they were saying. "We'll help ya, Sienna; don't worry about it too much. Now how about we go down to the seamstresses and get your measurements taken?" Sun smiled at her brilliantly and she nodded. He really did have a good heart despite what he'd been through. She stood up and helped Yang up, stretching before following Sun, Yang, and Weiss down to the tailors.