There Came A Knocking At My Door... [Gerhardt]

His question fell upon her ears like a death sentence, her ears pinned against her cranium, and her face steeled into an expressionless mask of indifference. Not... that she had expressed much before but the choice of topic was not her favorite and clearly this was so. Whether it was aggression or sadness she felt on such a subject could not be read. never the less, she had pledged her loyalties and he had asked, so she would answer. Tones hollow and devoid of emotion. "My mother was the Arkhos wife. Our version of a King. She was an easy woman, manipulated by lies and false accusations, she was besotted by a rogue with a clever tongue, during her heat she bred him twice. She was the color of fresh snowfall as was her mate. Their clan prided themselves on a pure bloodline, untarnished by color. As you can see I am no ivory beauty. From the day I crawled from my mothers womb I was a slave. A toy to be tinkered and played with whenever they saw fit. I snapped back with tongue and recieved my banishment." She would not speak of how many times they raped her, how many times they destroyed her body to the brink of death. She had spoken enough.

Her name would fall from his maw as he tested the weight of the foreign word. Her name was not of this land, nor was the accent that most carried with it. It was a strange name, bizarre. But she made no further comment. When he answered her question asking what skills she harnessed she answered swiftly, still not put off by the direction their conversation had turned. "I poured myself into knowledge. Minimal skills at best with herbs. Endurance of pain. Strength. Stamina, and I have been in more fights than I rightly care to admit. Any number of these skills I could bring to your kingdom, but I will conform to whatever you wish of me."

Speech!