Merry (Early) Christmas! My gift to you: a chapter from each of my stories. Thanks for reading!

 

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Aithne patted Chtonji’s back as she made her way past the Arcanaeum’s foyer, an open area made of very inflammable material where the students had taken to practicing smaller spells. The baby waved one arm and made an adorable cooing sound as he shifted, and Aithne smiled down at him. He was only three months old yet was already almost too large for the sling she wore around her shoulders. She wondered how Urag would feel about a pram in his library.

 

A brief glow filled her peripheral vision and she turned in time to see a student wheeling his arms as he stumbled backward toward an inevitable horizontal conference with the tile floor. She held out a hand and mumbled, “Tìk ṛoph,” and the student stopped falling. Aithne pushed her hand forward a little to boost the student back to his feet then stepped to his side.

 

“Are you all right?” She placed a hand on his arm and he turned to face her. “Oh! A Khajiit! I didn’t know we had any of your species here.”

 

The cat laughed. “You did not until very recently! J’zargo is the first ever, or so he had been told. Many times.”

 

“Well, welcome. J’zargo, you said? I am Aithne and this is Chtonji.” The baby waved a hand as if in greeting and J’zargo laughed again.

 

“J’zargo is pleased to meet both of you. Are you the one who saved J’zargo from falling?”

 

“Yes. It’s a spell I came up with by necessity. This one,” she smiled down at the baby orc, “is only three months old but he is already trying to pull himself up to his feet.”

 

“It is a handy spell to have around children, J’zargo agrees! Orc children must grow fast indeed if he is already standing. Khajiit children can crawl almost immediately but J’zargo understood most other species cannot even do that for at least half a year.”

 

“That is true. His father was…”

 

Aithne stopped as a sharp wave of fear and lust waved through her body. Backtracking on the calendar, she had deduced that she had spent roughly a year and three months under her former Master’s thumb (or, more correctly, dick) and it had been nearly another year since they had been forcibly separated. Yet the imprint he had left on her remained, stabbing her like a hidden needle at the most unexpected times. The vision she had seen during Chtonji’s birth flashed through her mind and she wondered for what felt the millionth time if it had been true or some sort of hallucination borne of longing to disconnect herself from him. She cleared her throat and changed the subject.

 

“What were you working on that had you falling?”

 

J’zargo was giving her an odd look but he kept whatever he was thinking to himself, for which Aithne was grateful. “J’zargo was attempting to recreate Around’s Flame. It was the first…”

 

“…spell to be recognized in the school of Immolation, yes.” Aithne tilted her head as he raised his eye tufts. “Why? It is a dirty spell. The more modern versions…”

 

“Yes, J’zargo is aware. But J’zargo is also intent on mastering Destruction magic and therefore wishes to go back to the beginning and work through how it progressed over time.”

 

“That is very interesting! I love the way J’zargo thinks! So what went wrong?”

 

“J’zargo is not certain. He followed the text, here...”

 

The Khajiit stepped sideways behind a podium he had dragged onto the foyer and tapped at the book on it. “…but something went wrong. It…seemed to push back on J’zargo.”

 

Aithne glanced at the spell. It was as she remembered it. She pointed to the third word, spa. “This is why it is a dirty spell. When Around made it, specular grammar was still in its infancy. This word actually means the opposite of what he intended so, in order to compensate…”

 

“The hand motion must be reversed. Of course! J’zargo is an idiot.”

 

Aithne laughed. “J’zargo is certainly not an idiot. No idiot would spend his time on such worthy pursuits. Try it!” She motioned toward the stone wall and stepped back.

 

The Khajiit grinned as he stepped away from the podium and lifted his hands. “Zliiph bree spa!”

 

J’zargo’s hands glowed briefly before a burst of orange flame flashed toward the wall. It wavered as it went and dissipated halfway to its intended target.

 

“Well, that was…anticlimactical.” J’zargo shook his head. “J’zargo expected a little more.”

 

“Well, it was the first one, after all. But you can probably get a little more from it if you lilt the verb. Here, hold him, will you?”

 

She shrugged Chtonji out of the sling and held him toward J’zargo. The startled looking Khajiit took him as Aithne shifted the sling to her back.

 

“Have you learned about verb apirations yet? No? I’m not sure what year that comes in, but it is helpful for a number of things, including giving your spells a little boost.”

 

She raised her hands then began to move them. “Zliiph bree spa!” She gave her voice a rising crescendo on the last word and felt the energy rush through her, gather in her hands, and then shoot forward. A moment later, red fire blasted against the wall, separating like a stream against a boulder before dissipating.

 

“J’zargo is impressed! J’zargo has not heard of this verb aspiration, but he will certainly look it up!”

 

“Apiration.” She shifted the sling back to her front and held out her arms. J’zargo handed her the baby as she added, “Yes, but be careful with them. They need to be used in conjunction with…”

 

“Oh, so the slave thinks she a teacher now, does she?”

 

Aithne froze with Chtonji partially into the sling.

 

“Slave?” J’zargo frowned at a spot behind Aithne and she sighed as she finished re-seating her baby and turned to face…

 

“Merks.”

 

Her old nemesis sneered up at them. He looked much as he had all those months ago, although his forehead sported a faint scar that gave Aithne quiet joy. “Yes, she didn’t tell you? She’s not a teacher, she’s just old Urag’s fuck slave. Don’t listen to anything she says.”

 

“I never said I was a teacher,” Aithne said as she shifted the sling to conform to Chtonji’s gangly body.

 

“Shut up, slave, I didn’t say you could talk. In fact, why don’t we pick up where we left off? Your master gave me permission to…”

 

“No.” She faced him head on, though her heart was beating so hard against her chest she was afraid it would fly out.

 

“No? Think because you’re allowed to wear clothes instead of being buck naked, you’re something special now? You’re a slave, you can’t say no.”

 

“Are you certain?” She spoke with all the calm she could manage, trying to ignore the fear that crawled like maggots through her body. It had been nearly a year and the new rules had been firmly implanted in her mind. She knew – knew – Urag would not allow Merks to have his way with her.

 

And yet…

 

Technically Merks was right. She was still a slave and, in any other context, she would have had no choice but to obey him.

 

But this was here and Urag had made it clear the usual rules didn’t apply.

 

And yet…

 

If she was wrong – she was sure she wasn’t! – but if she was…

 

“Why don’t we go ask him?”

 

Aithne stepped forward, forcing her paces to remain calm and measured when what she really wanted was to run to Urag and hide behind him and beg for clemency. She settled for holding Chtonji with both arms, though she had to loosen her grip when he began to squall.

 

It took her a few steps to realize she wasn’t being followed. She stopped and looked back to find Merks’ livid face glowering at her.

 

“Well? Are you coming?”

 

“Pah!” Merks spat on the ground in her direction. “You’re not worth the trouble, whore.” He turned on his heels and stalked out of the Arcaneum, slamming the door behind him.

 

“He seems nice.”

 

Aithne blinked and turned. Two students, a dark elf girl and a human boy, sat at the table next to her. It took Aithne a long bewildered moment for her mind to clear enough to recognize them. “Oh! Hello again. Thank you for your help back when…” she stopped, unsure how to say the words, and settled for gesturing at Chtonji.

 

“Of course!” The girl jumped up and came to her. “We’ve been hoping to see the baby. May I?” Her hand was already at Chtonji’s head as she asked the question.

 

Aithne smiled and nodded. “Of course.”

 

The girl grinned as she placed her hand on Chtonji’s head. “He’s so cute! I’ve never seen a cute Orc before. What’s his name?”

 

“Chtonji.” Aithne’s smile widened at the girl’s enthusiasm as her adrenaline rush from the confrontation with Merks began to fade away. She felt her body begin to shake. “Do you mind if I sit at your table for a moment?”

 

“Of course not!” This from the boy, who had stood and moved toward them, but now pulled out the nearest chair. “Thanks again for your help that day. It really helped us understand that mess.”

 

Aithne sighed as she sat, then made a fuss about arranging Chtonji while she cast desperate thoughts back to try to remember what it was she had helped them with.

 

“Yes,” the girl agreed as she resumed her seat but continued to stroke Chtonji’s head. “You were right, that equation really helped.”

 

“Oh, right, I remember now.” Aithne laughed. “I’m sorry, I got a little distracted soon after that.”

 

“I’ll say!” The boy looked like he might want to touch the baby as well but didn’t move his hands. “That was such an exciting day!”

 

“Greetings,” said another voice from behind. “May J’zargo join you?”

 

“Sure,” the boy said, looking around. “Where is he? Or she?”

 

A soft laugh as the Khajiit sat beside Aithne. “J’zargo is J’zargo, and he is a he.”

 

“Oh!” The boy reddened and then stammered, “I…I’m Onmund.”

 

“And I’m Brelyna,” added the elf.

 

“J’zargo is pleased to meet you.”

 

“Why do you do that?” Onmund gestured. “Talk about yourself that way?”

 

“J’zargo speaks as J’zargo speaks. It is simply the way of J’zargo’s people.”

 

“Really? I’ve heard Khajiit say ‘this one,’ but…”

 

Aithne sat back and loosened her robe as Chtonji began groping at her, then lifted him to her breast as the others continued to talk. She only gave the conversation a portion of her attention; her mind was on Merks and her response to him.

 

She was certain she had done nothing wrong. Everything she had learned about being in Urag’s care screamed it to be true.

 

But, of course, there was still the chance she was wrong. If Merks went to Urag and told on her or, since there wasn’t really anything to tell, make up lies about her, it could still all come crumbling down. She shivered at the thought as she switched the baby to her other nipple, only noticing obliquely that Onmund was trying – with clumsy tact – not to stare at her partially exposed breasts. Brelyna slapped him in the arm and he reddened and dropped his eyes.

 

It was a microcosm of the odd contradiction her life had become. Since she was a slave, it was entirely within his rights to stare. Her body was not hers; legally, anyone could do whatever they wanted to it. Although it generally went poorly if a slave’s Master did not give consent, it was the official law. Yet here these students were treating her as if she was a person, not a possession. As if she had the right to privacy or shame.

 

It was a gift; a slave with the privileges she had been granted was rare, if not entirely unheard of.

 

At the same time, it was a curse; those privileges could be taken away at any time for any reason or for no reason at all. And she knew, in the darkest depths of her soul, that should that happen, should she be yanked once again into the hellscape that had been her year with Borkul (or, far worse, the seven days she had barely survived under Sutfu), she would crumble into nothingness. She had somehow gained the most prized possession – and the worst possible thing – any slave could hope for: happiness.

 

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