Welcome to Gaia! ::

Cedric looked pained. That was because, if they had been allowed to talk for very long before Ross' departure many years ago, he would have made his previous occupation quite clear. Back then he had felt the need to shout it in protest, which he sometimes had when he had first been caught and before Ross had met him. That urge didn't disappear, he just controled it better. It's like the urge to shout "You are wrong!" and it made him talk as if he would hate to be interrupted.

"Why didn't you just ask? The women told me not to tell any one, of course. And I don't. But I know you won't alert the whole compound when I break a stupid rule like that." The idea was that by not telling people, he wouldn't give the other slaves an idea of what men were like outside of Feretris. "I forgot you didn't know." He scratched his chin thoughtfully, where a beard would be growing if he didn't shave regularly. "I expected to be king, you know, but now it seems less likely."

He laughed and slapped Ross on the shoulder. "Ask me anything! Kings know every thing."

Cedric drew back from him immediately. He hadn't expected Ross to ask. He thought all the slaves here assumed that you couldn't escape, and that you would die in the wilderness if you did.

"I have some ideas that won't work. I can't write them down any where... it's hard to work on them," he said in a whispering, aggitated voice. He wasn't stupid enough to try for the brazen ideas that first entered his head, ideas that consisted mostly of 'Just Run!' Writing it down meant it could be found out, but trying to remember all the details of a plan in progress was difficult with the stress of his job here.

"You've got a tactician's mind. So do I. But I can't seem to keep it running." Yeah, depression will do that, not to mention the tactics the women used to keep the slaves in line. He looked sideways at Ross. "I could tell you what I have come up with, I guess..."


((*runs off to come up with something* hehee)

((I was thinking of drawing some things up... I've got some pictures in my mind for how the inner compound is gaurded. Not many, but if you want 'em I'll make 'em. The characters don't know yet that he won't be escaping while he's there heart ))

Cedric believed him. Well, that had been easier than he had thought! His spirits rose, even knowing that he would probably never escape after all. But just having some one validate that desire, that was nice. And having some one to trust, of course. And, well, they would be discussing tactics!

He clasped his hands together. "Good!" he said in a hushed whisper. "The first problem is getting down to the first floor-- but I've got that almost worked out. Here," he sat cross legged on the floor and gestured for Ross to sit with him. "There is a passage way from Marean's room to mine. There is a plant that grows near by, I've seen it-- I can use it to knock her out for a time. No one will bother to check for the night, and they'll be guarding her door more than mine." He paused, sure that Ross saw where he was going with this. "The hard part, as I see it, is that there are so many checkpoints. If it was just one I could miss it, but with each checkpoint my chances decrease, evening if I knew all the ins and outs of it."

(ahaha, few on one fight...)

"Most of them are men. Knowing the rounds, I could work it so that almost every one I have to get past is a man. The second some one is alerted, that won't matter any more. Ross, I was wondering. If I were caught, do you think they would kill me?"

He looked up at Ross, not with a worried look exactly, but one of curiosity. He prefered being dead than living here the rest of his life, but he prefered living over both of those if he had the choice.

Cedric nodded. "I would guess that I would be safe enough, then, unless I killed some body. I'm fairly good at disarming people without much harm to them, as you are. And for the women I might run into, I was wondering if there was a way we could make a sort of blow dart with a tip that would put them to sleep. The same plant I mentioned should work, but I dont really know how to make the weapon."

Cedric rubbed his temples. "I want to draw you a map of the inside, but we can't leave anything like that around. Ross, do you think you could get one of those sand boards tacticians sometimes have?" A sand board was just a shallow box with fine sand in it and a pointed drawing tool. For ones that would be reused, the sand was all the same color and the indents from the tool were the only markings used, easily erased. "They wouldn't mind one in your room, would they?"

(mwehehehe THEN Ill get you a drawing.)

"Why don't you offer to train some of the other men in whatever it is you guys use a sandbox for?" he suggested vaguely.

"Ross, I've got to get back before I'm missed." With a grin, Cedric leaned closer and tapped Ross lightly on the head. "Just keep your wits about you. A lot of strange things happen around here." If by strange things he meant strange animals come out of the woods, then yeah, that had always happened. But if he meant men talking behind their backs, pulling pranks, and the women resorting to creative control techniques, that was because of unusual men like Ross and himself. The delicate balance of social norms had been damaged irreparably the moment Ross said he would help another slave escape. Cedric liked the balance tipped in his favor for once, and he would be sure to use it to its full extent.

---------------------------
Time Jump
---------------------------

Ross was not able to get the sandboard right away. The border patrol was being rearranged by Marian, and no one had time for little triffles like that. Before, different types of guards reported to a single female head for each side of the border, and the female might keep advisors and appoint trainers (with the approval of the compounds' head trainer) of both the male and female persuasion as she wished. But that method had been a throwback to when Elric Estates was much smaller, as many other compounds were. It worked just fine when either your borders were not far from the center, or when no real threat was posed. Because of the forest and wilderness to the south and west, Elric Estates had always faced more of a challenge than many other compounds. In the past, it met this challenge simply by having more men at the border points that were least defendable.

But Ross had not been the only person to go off for training. Four women had gone off with him with the original intention of replacing the four border generals, with Ross as an advisor to Marean. But instead they had benefited from a learning experience that the government of Feretris had conducted. There is a narrow shaft above the mountains that border ToK and below another set of mountains. A mounting problem with wild animals came to a climax there when it was found that, some how, wolves were organizing themselves like human troops might under an intelligent leader. A temporary outpost was established to house troops and deflect the intelligent attacks, but the help of guards from many nearby compounds was needed to crush the enemy. Each troop faced the unique problem of defending new territory while its leader, formerly a compound border tactician, had to also obey the orders of a government official. The result were moving groups of mixed soldiers, and the flexibility of this structure was key to defeating the wolves.

Marean immediately took the advice of her border guards, creating mobile units that would benefit from trusting their teammates and understanding their commander when things got tight. She decided that some of the smaller units could be headed by men, because in the end they still reported every decision to a female under Marean, even if it was sometimes after the fact. The male and female leaders for these units were given the authority to think for themselves when they were on their own, but were still completely accountable to a woman over them, depending on her for their rewards or punishments. These teams would rotate around the border and some of the inner compound (but always outside), becoming relatively familiar with all of Elric Estates. Should a strange animal attack, or a raid from wild men to the south, one or several of these small teams would be available and able to defend the compound at any point along its borders.

Ross was made the head of one of these units. At first it would be very small and intended for very specific tasks like the monitoring of a guard tower for a night, but eventually it would grow to about twenty people. The largest unit at that point was thirty-seven people, and run by a woman who lacked Ross' training.

Things were moving very fast for Ross as he and Cedric tried to devote some of their time to an escape plan. At first, Cedric's life did not have the same fast-past newness about it. The busiest tourist months rolled into the calmest, and Cedric's job remained about the same. Guards that stayed inside buildings were run as before, as individuals rotated to different posts. When Cedric was rotated further away from Marean, he had time to see Ross because the lady of the House would not bother herself to fetch a slave from far away. When Cedric was rotated close by, it was better that Ross not attempt to see him, for he would be busy and preoccupied when he was available-- and then he was all business, but not the business they wanted to talk about.

The first day that Ross got his sandboard and Cedric saw it, Cedric fell to talking about his old life instead of an escape plan. Not that he didn't want to work on the plan, but the twinge of hope he felt reminded him of what he was hoping for. Through their many causual encounters with each other (it was easy enough with Ross having to report to a woman who lived in the House), Ross would have noticed that Cedric never talked about any thing with the other slaves-- just him. If Ross had not known better, he would have thought Cedric was the type who simply did not find a need to talk. But when they arranged to see eachother in private, this seemed absurd. The best conclusion Ross might reach was that the man was profoundly depressed to live where and how he did. It wasn't just that he didn't trust the other slaves to talk about things like escaping, it was that he found no kinship among them because he could find no joy in talking about the present day. He could not say "My, what a nice day out!" or talking about his guarding duties unless he had to. Even healers found a certain perverse joy in talking casually about the nasty wounds they had or had not over come.

But Ross, he knew, understood that he hated this place. If he did say "What a nice day" he knew that it would not make Ross forget that fact. Occassionally he would complain about the other men he worked with, or bitterly complain about the women he worked under, but he never complained about how he felt unless he was physically ill. But he would talk about his former life, or about escape plans with ease-- with Ross, at least. He would even repeat himself, answering the same questions without missing a beat, and telling the same stories when they had the time. But, because Ross was often so busy, he knew when he saw that sandbox that they'd better get down to business.

"That reminds me of an artform we call a sand garden back home. I never much liked doing it myself, but sometimes what other people did seemed artful enough. But then, the wind blows and it's gone. All the red mixed in with the blue-- How did you finally get this, Ross?"