Ancient Wounds Pt6
Previous Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5i, 5ii
----<3
“Prethee tell, sweet Master” you, my cherubic little prince purred within the ancient ear “how was it such a creature of wonder as yourself, found themselves alone here?” your hand beckoned mine so pleadingly.
Your simple inquiry seemed to beg a thousand answers, each of them unlike the one before it which could yield no satisfaction in knowing any particular conclusion. But regardless I was compelled to bestow upon you something or another, that you might perhaps understand yet a little more of what I knew, rather affectionately, as ‘the days before you came’. I wanted you to know all things, for you were my beloved pupil as well as lover.
“You assume I came to these land alone?” I smirked as if cocky, taking your offered and outstretched palm into the tender whiteness of my own. Joining you in the chill of the early eve upon our own balcony whence you stood before me, you were almost looking into me.
“Surely, my Lord, their were others like yourself?” you breathed soft and in calm question against the presence of the icy air “If not when you arrived here, then from the way you came?”
I winced just slightly in remembrance of times far gone into time itself, that held bittersweet upon my colourless lips but to speak them in the more resplendent present.
“You are right to say thusly, my love” I began, now looking into the crystal that was your gaze, a hand daring to touch your cheek “That is to say I was not the unique, nor eldest childe to that you was my maker”
I knew you sensed the discomfort in me in which rested these words, and because you are kind you cared not to mention anything more-or question any further on those of which I spoke so coldly.
As we often found ourselves, you held me close to you like a child and dared not crush me in a warm embrace as you would have-for fear you might even break me. How ironic you felt the idea, I thought as my fingertips ghosted over the ashen lips I longed to kiss, that truly I have already been broken once before. I gave my stony will leave for a moment, that I might kiss you and overshadow any sadness in my mind that wanted only to be full of you.
“Master,” came words through your gentle rosary of kisses, so quiet that they strained to make themselves heard against the ever fevering sounds of my whispering affections “are.. are there ever…to be others like me?” your breath became laboured as your eyes sought to close under the touch of my kiss “Born and…belonging to you alone..”
You spoke as if with gentle worry that others, brazen and beautiful and, yes, perhaps as fair as yourself I would perhaps birth to our blood. That I would perhaps one day take others to me that they may rival yourself for my love. I was angered, no slightly saddened you did not already know the answer.
“Do you worry, Bam?” I sighed still in your all-encompassing arms, brushing away the misplaced hair that the wind strew upon your illuminated face “is it not within power and capacity of our kind to love more that one of our beauteous creations? Surely we do no feel jealously, as mortals do…” I sounded patronizing and regretted it instantly.
“Yes, Sire. Indeed it is within power” you held me as devote as before, but by your tone and eyes sullen I knew you were somewhat defeated by my stand offish remark. I knew I had to console you, I could see your little heart’s frailty.
“Yet,” I smiled lovingly upon you and embraced you in the light winds, allowing you to feel the coldness of unfed preternatural flesh “know always that it is not my desire to do so. You are for me, only for me. For you were made for me out of adoration. It is for that reason that I found completion in you; No other will share our home” and then, as if tempted by some force or desire, whether to reassure you of my faithfulness (or perhaps an underlying lust) I added in whisper slyly “or our bed”
Your smile was unrivalled and in understanding you lay your head dependant against my chest, and it seemed as you listened to my slow and steady breathing, and I watched you be enthralled by it, we drifted in to our accustomed silence which was neither awkward nor heavily intimate. In a word, it was contentment we had settled to. It was so rare to feel that, at least to one as old as I.
It was never within strengths for me to see you saddened , and it was within unfazed infatuation that I took you by the hand and lead you-that we might feed together amongst the busy hum and blinding lights of the city bellow.
No matter how long we exist. Always there are memories. They are panicles in time which time itself cannot displace or erase from the mind. Although suffering distorts these backward glances into existence, suffering can not hope to dull the beauty and splendour of what is now.
….…..
It was nights after my survival of the Scandinavian snowy darkness, that I began with caution, curiosity and fear to discover all the nuance that was about me now. My Master, I had now surmised, was akin to a wolf of the wood-in that he was largely unpredictable in mood, and often violent or sharp of tongue and teeth; And he would also present himself to his own house only in sunless evening-I thought this quite odd if nothing more.
The manor in which I lodged was most vast and indeed obscenely decadent. To the front of the estate lay a wide expanse of unhallowed orchard, surrounded by a density of dappled forest to the far corner of which lay a lonely, and strangely predetermined dirt path I had entered by-which lead back to the nostalgia of my former life.
In the centre of all this visual busyness, stood the great afore mentioned commanding manor. This great structure of three stories in height, which impoverished the overcast sky with its immensity, I was to learn held many a button mouthed secrecy-but we shall touch upon that in the latter.
Behind the bulk of the heavy entrance I had first been denied access, lay a hansom spaciousness of immaculately kept rooms. Studies, numerous dining rooms, shady halls, plethoric libraries and a number of kitchens that seemed all too luxuriant for a manor with seemingly few residents. I was to learn. However, there were a good amount of servants for this particular manor, at least thirty from what I came to know.
Everywhere was a feast for my observation, colours that seemed so brilliantly raw that they stung my eyes and textures that caused me to shiver like I had never touched anything so heart-stirring before. I was like an orphan prince learning to understand beauty and vibrancy again.
I never envisioned such a place could truly exist; it had been many hundreds of years since a home had ever seen such rich silver candlesticks, heavily carved and ornamental armchairs, comely chest or cascading velveteen draperies such as I witnessed in this new place. I hungered to know it, to touch it all.
Ah, I do go on though, do I not? let me most assuredly tell you this pretty portrait of a warm and brilliant life, that I paint for you now, was not as wondrous as I have just allowed you initially believe.
For it was that my nocturnal keeper slept far bellow, a descent into the frozen earth from a supposed flight of steps beneath a bedroom floor on the first level. Though I was not permitted to see this at that time, this bedroom was his mock place of rest, to cover the reality: at the end of those time warn stairs lay a lightless grave to which he would retreat each morn.
The creature, as I referred to him often, (though never to his face, you understand) in the first month of my residence made transparent his wishes of me. I was to be his apprentice, his devote listless pupil until he saw fit I knew all he had to offer. However, it was not revealed to my young and curious mind exactly what he intended to make of me.
Of course, I was not the Master’s only pupil residing within the manor walls. It was the second eve of my stay (travelling back from the sights I have previously described to you), when I had been given the most elegant of quarters such as I had never fathomed, my Lord bought his charges to formally greet me. My ‘brothers’, as he called them, had been here some years longer than myself.
They came to my chambers that second evening, and were presented to me with amazingly refined obedience and control on Master Vuori’s part. I was taken by how very hansom they all were, in similar white shirts of warm cotton and britches of great expense (most certain, imported from the rising cotton establishments to the east) , long hair wrought from their visage neatly as fashion then decreed. They were so unearthly white of flesh and hard eyed, yet very robust and emulative of the now dieing aristocracy.
The eldest of these new brothers was Henri; slender and pressed with deer-soft hazel eyes and dark hair to rival the beauty of my mother’s. I gauged him to be about six and twenty years. I knew the instance I saw the Master’s eyes upon him that he favoured Henri most of all the young men, as if there was a quiet intimacy between the two in the way they exchanged intense yet restrained glances during the introduction. Were they lovers, perhaps? Whatever the case, the connection seemed to be revered by the Master’s other pupils.
Second to valiant Henri was the equally insipid and distinctive Mikael, four years his junior. The young blonde gentry would easily have been mistaken as the Master’s own son, but the manner in which he spoke established him to be from the north of Finland in using a different dialect.
I was most caught off guard on meeting with Antonious, not by the unusual darken hue of his skin tone and eyes (though sullen he still appeared), but by the way in which he faltered from Master Vuori’s gaze-as I had- to kiss my hand. This was very unusual, being that I was not a member of the fairer sex (though it would not be difficult for me to appear thusly). He clearly was from a more exotic birthplace than the others.
The youngest of all my new siblings was presented to me second to lastly-I was to know the reason for this rather soon. William was a year my senior and standing around the same height, he was close to enthralling me with the articulate clarity in which he spoke, and his unnaturally ebony hair and eyes.
My greatest shock, was not the ungodly countenance they all held, nor the fear or obedience Master Vuori inspired upon them…my greatest surprise was produced from the oak of my bedroom door in the shape of the fifth brother. Standing as sturdy as I ever remembered him, more eminent than I could recall, the ghost of my childhood greeted me. The former blacksmith boy, Dyre Kupari.
It had been fleeting, lonely ,yes miserable years since we had set eyes on one another. He stared me in the eyes, taking my hand in old ceremony watched by my Lord from a solid armchair. Yet it appeared, in his emotionless voice and unchanging tired expression, that he would not acknowledge me as anyone of importance or relevance to him.
I should not have had a heart to hope for anything less, but it stayed within me for many times to come that I was bitterly comforted that, at least, something of my past might remain. But truth be told? The disassociating broke my heart.
Much like the Lord himself, all five of my brothers retreated by day, and follow on order the cobalt blue tyrant to the forbidden place into the cold ground. I would have dared know what was there if fear and reason hadn’t impeached curiosity, and nothing would come of descending to that place, the better of me knew.
It was in the daytime when I am most certain they slept (for they would inhabit the grounds only during the night and advance about their study), that I took to the judicious exploration of the manors boastful innards.
I loved the main library most- I have always adored the written word, it stems from my maternal parent most certainly. It was so fortunate also, that’s at this time in history printed works were readily available, although handwritten text was my favourite. It was the early 1900s that were regarded as the golden age of my country, I would see in many ages to pass.
There were hundred of subjects to study-and indeed on evenings the Master would demand I sit and recite the learnings he set the night previous from great thick volumes. He was almost delighted (if you could call the small weakening of ferocity that at all) by the fact that I was a very able reader. In particular he saw to it I study the literature of Aleksis Kivi and Elias Lönnrot from the century before, as well as matters of money handling and business. I often wondered in those days if he had meant for me to become a man of wealth like himself, but by makings of my own independence.
I was careful to learn it all, for should I but stammer in my recitation I would be rewarded with a backhand or more often a switch to the back of my bare legs for mere carelessness.
This was a common punishment, I learned fast in those days, and many times would I receive good hard, whacks across the thigh or wrist in equality to the mistakes I could not help but make. This only served to make me even more withdrawn and timid, as I rarely spoke to a soul in the manor as it stood. This punishment, I now realize, was the foundation on which my complete and control losing fear of Master Vuori grew.
-------<3
: ) hope this part was to par hehe, it was written on a verry painful flight to Turkey. How is everyone? Hope to hear from everbody soon!
*hands out cookies left over from lunch*
improvements are really encouraged :)especially from the more seasoned writers.
----<3
“Prethee tell, sweet Master” you, my cherubic little prince purred within the ancient ear “how was it such a creature of wonder as yourself, found themselves alone here?” your hand beckoned mine so pleadingly.
Your simple inquiry seemed to beg a thousand answers, each of them unlike the one before it which could yield no satisfaction in knowing any particular conclusion. But regardless I was compelled to bestow upon you something or another, that you might perhaps understand yet a little more of what I knew, rather affectionately, as ‘the days before you came’. I wanted you to know all things, for you were my beloved pupil as well as lover.
“You assume I came to these land alone?” I smirked as if cocky, taking your offered and outstretched palm into the tender whiteness of my own. Joining you in the chill of the early eve upon our own balcony whence you stood before me, you were almost looking into me.
“Surely, my Lord, their were others like yourself?” you breathed soft and in calm question against the presence of the icy air “If not when you arrived here, then from the way you came?”
I winced just slightly in remembrance of times far gone into time itself, that held bittersweet upon my colourless lips but to speak them in the more resplendent present.
“You are right to say thusly, my love” I began, now looking into the crystal that was your gaze, a hand daring to touch your cheek “That is to say I was not the unique, nor eldest childe to that you was my maker”
I knew you sensed the discomfort in me in which rested these words, and because you are kind you cared not to mention anything more-or question any further on those of which I spoke so coldly.
As we often found ourselves, you held me close to you like a child and dared not crush me in a warm embrace as you would have-for fear you might even break me. How ironic you felt the idea, I thought as my fingertips ghosted over the ashen lips I longed to kiss, that truly I have already been broken once before. I gave my stony will leave for a moment, that I might kiss you and overshadow any sadness in my mind that wanted only to be full of you.
“Master,” came words through your gentle rosary of kisses, so quiet that they strained to make themselves heard against the ever fevering sounds of my whispering affections “are.. are there ever…to be others like me?” your breath became laboured as your eyes sought to close under the touch of my kiss “Born and…belonging to you alone..”
You spoke as if with gentle worry that others, brazen and beautiful and, yes, perhaps as fair as yourself I would perhaps birth to our blood. That I would perhaps one day take others to me that they may rival yourself for my love. I was angered, no slightly saddened you did not already know the answer.
“Do you worry, Bam?” I sighed still in your all-encompassing arms, brushing away the misplaced hair that the wind strew upon your illuminated face “is it not within power and capacity of our kind to love more that one of our beauteous creations? Surely we do no feel jealously, as mortals do…” I sounded patronizing and regretted it instantly.
“Yes, Sire. Indeed it is within power” you held me as devote as before, but by your tone and eyes sullen I knew you were somewhat defeated by my stand offish remark. I knew I had to console you, I could see your little heart’s frailty.
“Yet,” I smiled lovingly upon you and embraced you in the light winds, allowing you to feel the coldness of unfed preternatural flesh “know always that it is not my desire to do so. You are for me, only for me. For you were made for me out of adoration. It is for that reason that I found completion in you; No other will share our home” and then, as if tempted by some force or desire, whether to reassure you of my faithfulness (or perhaps an underlying lust) I added in whisper slyly “or our bed”
Your smile was unrivalled and in understanding you lay your head dependant against my chest, and it seemed as you listened to my slow and steady breathing, and I watched you be enthralled by it, we drifted in to our accustomed silence which was neither awkward nor heavily intimate. In a word, it was contentment we had settled to. It was so rare to feel that, at least to one as old as I.
It was never within strengths for me to see you saddened , and it was within unfazed infatuation that I took you by the hand and lead you-that we might feed together amongst the busy hum and blinding lights of the city bellow.
No matter how long we exist. Always there are memories. They are panicles in time which time itself cannot displace or erase from the mind. Although suffering distorts these backward glances into existence, suffering can not hope to dull the beauty and splendour of what is now.
….…..
It was nights after my survival of the Scandinavian snowy darkness, that I began with caution, curiosity and fear to discover all the nuance that was about me now. My Master, I had now surmised, was akin to a wolf of the wood-in that he was largely unpredictable in mood, and often violent or sharp of tongue and teeth; And he would also present himself to his own house only in sunless evening-I thought this quite odd if nothing more.
The manor in which I lodged was most vast and indeed obscenely decadent. To the front of the estate lay a wide expanse of unhallowed orchard, surrounded by a density of dappled forest to the far corner of which lay a lonely, and strangely predetermined dirt path I had entered by-which lead back to the nostalgia of my former life.
In the centre of all this visual busyness, stood the great afore mentioned commanding manor. This great structure of three stories in height, which impoverished the overcast sky with its immensity, I was to learn held many a button mouthed secrecy-but we shall touch upon that in the latter.
Behind the bulk of the heavy entrance I had first been denied access, lay a hansom spaciousness of immaculately kept rooms. Studies, numerous dining rooms, shady halls, plethoric libraries and a number of kitchens that seemed all too luxuriant for a manor with seemingly few residents. I was to learn. However, there were a good amount of servants for this particular manor, at least thirty from what I came to know.
Everywhere was a feast for my observation, colours that seemed so brilliantly raw that they stung my eyes and textures that caused me to shiver like I had never touched anything so heart-stirring before. I was like an orphan prince learning to understand beauty and vibrancy again.
I never envisioned such a place could truly exist; it had been many hundreds of years since a home had ever seen such rich silver candlesticks, heavily carved and ornamental armchairs, comely chest or cascading velveteen draperies such as I witnessed in this new place. I hungered to know it, to touch it all.
Ah, I do go on though, do I not? let me most assuredly tell you this pretty portrait of a warm and brilliant life, that I paint for you now, was not as wondrous as I have just allowed you initially believe.
For it was that my nocturnal keeper slept far bellow, a descent into the frozen earth from a supposed flight of steps beneath a bedroom floor on the first level. Though I was not permitted to see this at that time, this bedroom was his mock place of rest, to cover the reality: at the end of those time warn stairs lay a lightless grave to which he would retreat each morn.
The creature, as I referred to him often, (though never to his face, you understand) in the first month of my residence made transparent his wishes of me. I was to be his apprentice, his devote listless pupil until he saw fit I knew all he had to offer. However, it was not revealed to my young and curious mind exactly what he intended to make of me.
Of course, I was not the Master’s only pupil residing within the manor walls. It was the second eve of my stay (travelling back from the sights I have previously described to you), when I had been given the most elegant of quarters such as I had never fathomed, my Lord bought his charges to formally greet me. My ‘brothers’, as he called them, had been here some years longer than myself.
They came to my chambers that second evening, and were presented to me with amazingly refined obedience and control on Master Vuori’s part. I was taken by how very hansom they all were, in similar white shirts of warm cotton and britches of great expense (most certain, imported from the rising cotton establishments to the east) , long hair wrought from their visage neatly as fashion then decreed. They were so unearthly white of flesh and hard eyed, yet very robust and emulative of the now dieing aristocracy.
The eldest of these new brothers was Henri; slender and pressed with deer-soft hazel eyes and dark hair to rival the beauty of my mother’s. I gauged him to be about six and twenty years. I knew the instance I saw the Master’s eyes upon him that he favoured Henri most of all the young men, as if there was a quiet intimacy between the two in the way they exchanged intense yet restrained glances during the introduction. Were they lovers, perhaps? Whatever the case, the connection seemed to be revered by the Master’s other pupils.
Second to valiant Henri was the equally insipid and distinctive Mikael, four years his junior. The young blonde gentry would easily have been mistaken as the Master’s own son, but the manner in which he spoke established him to be from the north of Finland in using a different dialect.
I was most caught off guard on meeting with Antonious, not by the unusual darken hue of his skin tone and eyes (though sullen he still appeared), but by the way in which he faltered from Master Vuori’s gaze-as I had- to kiss my hand. This was very unusual, being that I was not a member of the fairer sex (though it would not be difficult for me to appear thusly). He clearly was from a more exotic birthplace than the others.
The youngest of all my new siblings was presented to me second to lastly-I was to know the reason for this rather soon. William was a year my senior and standing around the same height, he was close to enthralling me with the articulate clarity in which he spoke, and his unnaturally ebony hair and eyes.
My greatest shock, was not the ungodly countenance they all held, nor the fear or obedience Master Vuori inspired upon them…my greatest surprise was produced from the oak of my bedroom door in the shape of the fifth brother. Standing as sturdy as I ever remembered him, more eminent than I could recall, the ghost of my childhood greeted me. The former blacksmith boy, Dyre Kupari.
It had been fleeting, lonely ,yes miserable years since we had set eyes on one another. He stared me in the eyes, taking my hand in old ceremony watched by my Lord from a solid armchair. Yet it appeared, in his emotionless voice and unchanging tired expression, that he would not acknowledge me as anyone of importance or relevance to him.
I should not have had a heart to hope for anything less, but it stayed within me for many times to come that I was bitterly comforted that, at least, something of my past might remain. But truth be told? The disassociating broke my heart.
Much like the Lord himself, all five of my brothers retreated by day, and follow on order the cobalt blue tyrant to the forbidden place into the cold ground. I would have dared know what was there if fear and reason hadn’t impeached curiosity, and nothing would come of descending to that place, the better of me knew.
It was in the daytime when I am most certain they slept (for they would inhabit the grounds only during the night and advance about their study), that I took to the judicious exploration of the manors boastful innards.
I loved the main library most- I have always adored the written word, it stems from my maternal parent most certainly. It was so fortunate also, that’s at this time in history printed works were readily available, although handwritten text was my favourite. It was the early 1900s that were regarded as the golden age of my country, I would see in many ages to pass.
There were hundred of subjects to study-and indeed on evenings the Master would demand I sit and recite the learnings he set the night previous from great thick volumes. He was almost delighted (if you could call the small weakening of ferocity that at all) by the fact that I was a very able reader. In particular he saw to it I study the literature of Aleksis Kivi and Elias Lönnrot from the century before, as well as matters of money handling and business. I often wondered in those days if he had meant for me to become a man of wealth like himself, but by makings of my own independence.
I was careful to learn it all, for should I but stammer in my recitation I would be rewarded with a backhand or more often a switch to the back of my bare legs for mere carelessness.
This was a common punishment, I learned fast in those days, and many times would I receive good hard, whacks across the thigh or wrist in equality to the mistakes I could not help but make. This only served to make me even more withdrawn and timid, as I rarely spoke to a soul in the manor as it stood. This punishment, I now realize, was the foundation on which my complete and control losing fear of Master Vuori grew.
-------<3
: ) hope this part was to par hehe, it was written on a verry painful flight to Turkey. How is everyone? Hope to hear from everbody soon!
*hands out cookies left over from lunch*
improvements are really encouraged :)especially from the more seasoned writers.