Beginnings

Updating Aftermath after finishing the writing for it is easy, remembering to update Beginnings is a bit more difficult as there are still several more chapters and it gets kind of pushed to the side whilst Una laugh at my reaction to Vera's words two and a half chapters away or so.

Vera is definately suited to the sunlight, Una I would say is more of a twilight guy, he works the most at dusk and dawn and during the day rarely moves while at night he sleeps... and does other things.

Read, Review and Enjoy.





I slept all night then awoke the next morning to the smell of tea, the sound of it being poured into dainty cups. The sound of tea pouring.

Well it sounds like water running. Which reminded me of a very important thing that, as far as I could recall, I hadn’t done in a week. I likely had while fevered but that did not help me then. I slipped out of bed, forgetting for a moment where I was. My body urged me to hurry. Every movement jostled my bladder about in the wrong ways. Halfway between what I thought was my bed and the door of the house, I realised my mistake and came to a complete stop.

“Chamber pot is there,” Vera said quietly, though her voice echoed inside my head, “by the door there with the.” I followed her directions and slid into a little wooden stall thing. Vera had put it in because she disliked the idea of someone walking in on her as she relieved herself, “stall there.”

I pulled my robe up, not wanting to dirty what I was certain was more expensive than anything I had worn before and spread my feet. I had learned to aim as many young men in my village had and luckily I hit the pot the first time. My body relaxed, tension flowing out with the urine. There is very little that a young man enjoys more than emptying a full, whining bladder. Food and sex, perhaps.

Relieved, finally, I sighed out and slipped the robe back down, leaving the stall. Vera glared at me as I came out of the stall.

“You are from a backwater village, so I will forgive you this time. However, you will wash your hands from now on. There is water beside the stall, there is soap beside it.”

“But-”

“Do you know what you’ve just touched?”

I felt my face heat up. Of course I knew what I had just touched, I knew what it was and what it was used for and there was nothing wrong with my manhood.

“Waste. Garbage. Food and water go in one end, garbage comes out the other. Would you stick your hands in manure and then eat?”

I had done such a thing. But in small villages people did not think of those things. It must have shown on my face, for Vera cringed, disgust playing over her features.

“It is the same as eating shit.”

Which was something my young mind finally understood. I went to the bowl of water and scrubbed my hands with the unforgiving soap. My skin was forgiving, is forgiving, I do no burn nor rash. Had my skin been normal, such a soap, being what soap of the time was, would likely have cracked and broken my hands over time.

Hands washed and dried, I moved towards the table and sat. In our night robes, Vera and I enjoyed tea in the light of two candles and a light repast of oatmeal. My first experience of cooked oats was one of disgust. Vera held back the honey, saying that it would be too sweet for my system. She also went without honey. After breakfast a servant entered with clothing for the both of us. Vera stepped behind a changing wall first, then urged me to do the same. The clothing given to me was soft wool, specially bred for Vera’s temples. Apparently the woman had grown weary of wearing scratchy and coarse clothing. Like anyone long in the world, she looked for a way to improve. The shirt was gray, the natural colour of the wool. The pants were a deer hide that were close but comfortable.

Brown pants, gray shirt a size too big for me. I most definitely was not anything much to look at, but everyone else would have been dressed in the same manner.

I moved from behind the changing wall, made up of wood panelling that was hinged together like the hinges on a door were attached. Vera eyed the clothing but made no comment on them. Her own clothing were the trousers of a working man and a shirt made of linen and pulled tight at the wrists and waist. The neck of the shirt scooped downward, revealing enough of her bosom to engage a man.

“Well. They will do. For now. Dyes are quite expensive still. But like sandals and shoes, it will become easier for us to make them as we discover their uses and abilities.”

“Dye?”

“Colours. All the colours of Mother, in clothing. Browns and whites and grays will be a thing of the past. I’ve commissioned several artisans to make me skirts the colour of the sky itself. Their work thus far has been very promising. Come, the gardens are this way,” Vera motioned towards the open door before she stepped out of it.

I followed Vera out of her bedroom and into a hallway lighted with candles. Past the hallway was a covered walkway. One side latticed with wood. Up the lattice grew grape vines, tangling and climbing ever upward, their flowers beginning to bloom. Sunlight filtered in through the leaves, not as bright as being in the direct light. Vera led the way past the lattice work and stopped just where the full light of the sun struck her.

Her hair, silken in the light of a candle, shimmered and reflected the other colours of hair. Red eyes narrowed to pinpoints. Vera stood in the light, warming herself as she watched me. She waited some time before beckoning to me. My eyes were adjusted to the light by then, the light of almost day. Stepping into the sunlight, I was blinded for too long before I regained my senses. Squinting, one hand above my eyes to block out some of the light, I looked at Vera.

“Bit more sensitive to the light than I am. You may be meant for the darkness, dear boy. Come now, the gardens.”

We walked through a small portion of Vera’s gardens. Vera tended her gardens the way most tended children. In all the stages of its life, the gardens were beautiful. Natural. Alluring. It was only a small walk, after a few moments in the sunlight I was trembling. Bone weary, I looked to Vera and she saw my exhaustion. So we returned to the bedroom and I rested.

Over the next week I regained my strength and my appetite. We walked each day and washed every three days. Vera made me responsible for caring for the rooms. Every third day, before washing, I would strip off the sheets from the bed. After showering, I would replace the sheets with clean ones. The servants tended to the chamber pots and the food in and out. The water being pulled for the washing and drinking. But any mess made in the room itself I had to clean up.

When laundry was brought in, I folded it or hung it in the wardrobe, placing each piece where it belonged. Vera, after our walks and as the sun set, would sit in front of the grand hearth and pull pieces of clothing apart to make them into something more useable. Some mornings before our walk, she would draw me to the beaten table.

Behind the table was a great cupboard with many dried plants in it. Spices and herbs, plants that people had never dreamed of putting in their mouths. Dried, ground, pickled, sugared, smoked, seeds of varying parts of plants and of varying ages. Vera’s pride and glory was a very specific breed of mint that was found very rarely, needed very specific conditions to grow under and was well known as being a reliever of pain and swelling.

The very mint that years later would grow abundantly across the lands. Given what Vera and I know of plants, we can surmise that somehow, once planted one of the seedlings grew unlike the others, in a way that it could survive anywhere. Not as potent as the original, but still potent enough to do the trick.

On days that Vera sat at her worktable and dabbled in her plant magic, I would sit across from her, watching. I did not, in those early days, correct Vera’s mistakes. Vera did not ask for my participation. When she worked at her table, she would consume what she made, to test its reaction to her body. We would walk and she would cut the walk short. Because of her mistakes, she would be ill.

I believe it was the night after she woke coughing up blood that Vera decided I was recovered enough. When she began coughing, I called the servant. I saw to her and sat by her side through the long night. Sometime in the night I did fall asleep and when I woke, I found my head by her leg, arms curled under my head and a light hand on my own head.

“Dear boy,” Vera whispered hoarsely, “it is time you realised what you are.”

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