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 Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2012 7:43 am
  Agave was still more then a little bit jittery as he left the meeting with his mother. He was fairly certain that he had managed to escape too much suspicion..but lets face it, such intellectual pursuits as manipulation and subterfuge were far beyond his capabilities. Agave had been taught to fight with brawn not brains. In point of fact he'd always been told that was pretty much his only strong suit...it had been fairly early on when his mother had deemed him unfit for a more 'leadership' type of role in her forces.
Still he had tried to give his report and the excuse he had come up with for being late in his typical calm and indifferent manner, as though bored with the whole process of the debriefing. It was important that he keep up the illusion of normalcy - even if everything inside of him was spinning about in anxious,confused chaos.
It was like being a foal again - when he had always been a ball of nerves, living in fear of surprise 'training' encounters or punishment for not living up to his mothers and She-ra expectations. He hadn't liked the feeling them and he certainly didn't like it now. Leaving the meeting he kept the strong but aloof expression on his face as he wound his way down to the canyon where the slaves were kept. There had been a bit of an explosion in them lately - but there was only one that Agave was currently interested in.
Supreme. She had been his nanny when he was a foal and after he had grown his mother had considered getting rid of her - Agave knew what 'getting rid of meant' and had insisted that he wanted the brown mare as his healer. She had proven herself submissive and docile he had argued..someone that could handle his wounds without him having to constantly keep her in line. After a hard days fighting who wanted to bother with a difficult slave? To his surprise his mother had agreed and so Supreme had lived.
She had been shuffled out of his quarters however and pushed in with the other slaves but Agave still got to see her quite often - he was almost always returning with some sort of wounds on him.
"I require my healer..instantly" Agave stated to the guard at the canyon mouth, giving the lowly minion a glare as he did so. There were some good things about being his mothers son and the guards instant obedience was one of them. He acted as though he barely heard the guards 'of course sir, right away sir!' And waited with seeming impatience as the stallion scurried off to fetch the mare.Supreme looked up as the guard roughly yelled out her name..well sort of he yelled for 'Mud' which had been her moniker among Pirata's minions for nearly as long as she had been here. They knew her real name - she had told them it many times when she had first arrived, still full of hope and resistance...but now? Now, she just answered..what else could she do?
Head kept lowered to keep the guards from tormenting her she hurried to limp along towards him. "Agave requires your services" The guard told her with a sneer - as though the green stallion wanted her for something lurid. They all seemed to think that was the only reason he had spoken up to keep her around - it was absurd really , but if it kept her alive then fine..she was willing to let them think whatever they wanted.
"I live to serve" Supreme answered meekly, moving towards the canyon enterance before the guard could find a reason to hurry her along. When she saw Agave waiting for her she sighed - he had been fighting again, the wounds along his hide would be added to the many scars he already possessed ..and she didn't want to think about what he had done to receive them. Poor stallion - like her he was trapped, a slave as much as she was even if it did not seem like it to everyone else. Something must have happened today however, Agave looked different..beneath his standard commanding and aloof look she could see anxiety flickering in his eyes. Her heart instantly beat faster..did he have news regarding her station? Supreme lived in almost constant fear that Pirata would learn that Agave cared for her as more then his healer..would figure out that she had been slowly skewing his mind towards the light ever since he was a foal. If Pirata ever found out such a thing well...no one would be able to save her then.
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Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2012 8:40 am
Agave could see as she came towards him that she knew something was up, but he turned away, motioning roughly with his head for her to follow him. "Come along Mud" He told her in a cruel voice. With the guards watching he could hardly afford to show her any sort of kindness, though he had never liked the nickname the others had given her.
Picking up a quick pace he led the mare from the canyon, keeping his ears pinned and a foul look on his face to keep anyone they passed from stopping to chat. Agave honestly couldn't be bothered to speak with the majority of his mother's minions - for the most part they were untrustworthy, looking for any and all opportunities to gain favor with Pirata..Agave already had enough conversations where he had to guard what he said. He wasn't looking to add any more if he didn't have to.
No..all he wanted to do was retreat to his private area of the mountain, a wretched, and cold windswept cliff that, while not exactly comfortable, was fairly secure. The wind kept him from being overheard by those coming up the path of which there was only one. No one could sneak up on him and no one could spy on him - both things that Agave found highly important. It wasn't until they arrived at his quarters that he slowed and turned to look at Supreme. "You've been wounded" He remarked "One of the guards?"
Supreme hurried to keep up with Agave, her injured leg was painful but she managed to keep him from getting to far ahead of her anyways - if she lagged behind and they ran across another Agave would be forced to punish her for it. He wouldn't want to she knew - but they were both pawns in this larger scheme and there were little things that they could choose to do based on their own feelings.
Even with that knowledge however it was a blessing to arrive upon the stallions cliff. Ducking her head she moved to inspect his wounds even as she answered him. "No...one of the other slaves. Pay it no mind..it will be fine in a day or so." She told him, moving to collect the healing supplies she kept stashed in a small crevice of the mountain wall before returning to lay the healing leaves upon his cuts. They were filthy - but water was not in high abundance on the mountain, one had to collect it from a stream lower down but that was only allowed once a day - twice if they were lucky. In any case in lieu of the water she was hoping the leaves would draw out any infection that might otherwise set in. She would surely be killed if Agave got ill under her care.
After working in silence for several moment's while Agave brooded, Supreme decided to broach the subject that had been swirling around the back of her mind since he had come to get her. "Are you alright..your seem...troubled."
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Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2012 6:43 am
Agave might have laughed..if he were the type to do such a thing. Troubled? When wasn't he troubled ? Looking back on things he was pretty sure that he had been troubled since he was a foal, certainly he'd never felt safe or comfortable, that was almost a laughable thought itself here on this mountain. Still Supreme had asked him a legitimate question and Agave very rarely refused to answer while they were safely contained within his private quarters. "It's just been a long few days." He told her in an effort to stall for time while he worked out just what it was he wanted to say. Certainly meeting Aquitaine again had been confusing, he had thought of her several times over the years...her being one of the only other foals he had met in his foalhood, but he had never actually expected to meet her again. Now that he had however he couldn't seem to get her out of his mind and it had taken almost off of his concentration to retain his mask of normalcy during his meeting with his mother.
"Do you recall that filly I told you about when I was young?" He finally asked Supreme, knowing full well that his thoughts wouldn't leave him alone until he had voiced at least some of them. Turning his head he looked at the brown mare while he waited for her answer.
Supreme knew a stallion tactic when she heard one but she kept her mouth shut and just kept working on the stallions wounds, waiting patiently for him to decide what he wanted to tell her. She was sure that he would eventually but Agave sometimes needed a bit of time to figure out just what to say...she blamed his mother for that, the mare had taught him how to fight and think tactically but had utterly ignored the rest of his education. Pirata called her son stupid but Supreme knew that wasn't the case..he wasn't stupid..just uneducated and as much as she wished she could alter that fact Supreme also knew that she couldn't chance it.
Just as she had predicted Agave spoke up a few moments later, although the topic he broached was not the one she had expected. "Yes...vaguely." She answered after a few moments stopping her actions to look at him in slight confusion. "But what has brought her to mind again.?"
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Posted: Mon Oct 29, 2012 7:01 am
"I saw her again today." The stallion replied "And I did not capture her as I was supposed to..in fact taking her elsewhere made me late to my meeting with mother and I'm quite sure she is now suspicious." He shared with a slight sigh and a tinge of worry in his voice. Whenever his mother grew suspicious things went badly...to say that she was a paranoid mare was a bit of an understatement and her reaction to such paranoia could be the thing of nightmares.
Agave spent a great deal of time making sure that his mother had never had a reason to doubt him but this slip up, this one small incidence could very well undo it all. "It was stupid, I know it was..if mother finds out she'll start watching me and if that happens well..." Agave didn't really need to spell it out to Supreme what might happen then, certainly it would not work out well for the brown mare. Her life was terrible, Agave knew that, but it could still get much much worse and if Pirata started to question Agave's loyalty there was little doubt that she would start her investigations by interrogating his favored slaves.
Supreme stilled slightly as Agave finally admitted what was bothering him, it was not what she had hoped and yet it could have been worse...either way she supposed it wasn't good news for her and thought she hated to admit it there was only one thing the brown mare could think of to fix it. "then you must do something to ensure she does not become suspicious of you." She told the green stallion "Some sort of token or gift or show of your loyalty..." Supreme wasn't entirely sure what this sign could be but she was sure that given the idea Agave would be able to think of something. The green stallion was far more privy to what his mother needed or was currently looking for then she was.
"If you prove that your are still her loyal subject then she will have no reason to dig deeper." She went on in a reassuring voice. Supreme didn't want to think about what she might be urging Agave to do - likely it would be to kill someone, or capture someone or torture someone..but she had learned to put such thoughts out of her mind as best she could. One had to do whatever it took to survive in conditions such as this and she wanted to survive...someday she still hoped to find a way out.
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