Rysthin An-ha
The servant market felt like an odd sort of hybrid between a cocktail party and a ritual dance, oddly enough. The path Laura was being led along seemed to follow some complex pattern, weaving in and out of the crowd of the Radinri elite, each one of them decked out in custom-made dress armor. Accompanying a few of them were Quara servants, although most of the buyers came alone. Laura and her salesman got little more than a few courtesy glances until they stopped, either by coincidence or design, in front of a squat emerald-green lionesstaur with elaborate gold-colored armor. She was staring intently at Laura, although whether out of a desire to hire her or with some more malicious intent, Laura couldn't tell. At any rate, she was being led right up to her.
Laura and the salesman stopped in front of the taur, and the salesman intoned in a grave voice, gesturing toward the warrior: "Rysthin An-Ha of the Radinri Homeworld, Honored Warrior and Skilled Hunter, seeking a Quara," and then, indicating Laura, "Thess Laura of Earth, Slave, seeking standing as a Quara." He then stepped back, crossed his arms and closed his eyes as if meditating.
Rysthin An-Ha spoke quickly and with a hint of a slur: "Listen, Thess. I'll cut to the chase. There's dozens of Converts exactly like you who won't get jobs. Consider yourself lucky you're getting an offer at all, so you'd be a fool to reject this. I want a servant. You'd be looking at cooking and cleaning, dealing with guests at my estate, some basic guard duties, nothing too important of course, clerical duties, occasional courier-type stuff, keeping my wardrobe spotless, and if you're lucky I'll let you follow me on a hunt and clean up after me. I pay an eyestone per moon cycle. You interested?"
Laura's subconscious stepped in to help a bit with this. An eyestone was a Radinri unit of currency; the smallest denomination was the clawstone, an amber spheroid with a claw-shaped marking set into it. Ten of those made an eyestone, a clear spheroid with a black eye set into it. Ten of these made a mooncoin, the base unit. The mooncoin was a large coin. One side was silver with a blue gem symbolizing the Radinri Homeworld's ice moon, the other side was a gold with a red gem, representing the fire moon. The moon cycle was the Radinri base unit for time. Because the Radinri Homeworld was in a tidally-locked orbit with Proxima Centauri, so one side of the planet was always in daytime, the other was always in darkness. This made 'day' a geographical, rather than temporal, distinction for the Radinri. Instead, they marked the time with the orbit of the planet's twin moons. A moon cycle was the time it took them to orbit the planet once, roughly 50 Earth hours. The subconscious tutoring failed, however, to tell her whether the deal she was getting was a fair one, or even a normal one (if all Quara were being exploited, she realized that she'd just have to take it, at least for the time being. If she was getting an even worse deal than the other converts, on the other hand, she felt like she should protest).
This sojourn into the mind apparently irritated An-Ha. "Listen," she hissed, "I don't have forever to wait for you to decide. What will it be, yes or no?"
Written by Zodiac on 31 January 2009
