A Rose by any other Name

Waves ravage the coastline like Mist is throwing the tantrum of all tantrums. Many many people are displaced and the pickings are rich. I went from campsite to campsite along the coast. Cold, hungry, penniless and without any prospect for better. Families torn apart with dead or missing members. All a good recipe for profit for me. Sometime it amazes me how little it costs to buy a child's life. A few pieces of gold, some food, warm blankets and a smile. Only a few ask for the reassurance that their child is going to a better life. The ones alone are even easier. This latest batch I have delivered to the temple. Gifts for their better patrons. Three girls and two boys. Very pretty, very eager to serve the Mistress. I wonder if I will see any again.

A chance meeting. She's still very pretty and it would seem she is gifted. But she is a child and will always be a child. I have my doubts she'll ever be a woman. Rose is what the called her. She was a playmate to her master's daughter. Her master being a puffed up buffoon trader. Their importance seem to ebb and flow but does not seem to extend far outside the city itself and not outside Alindor.

Cards. Fate. Destiny. Dribble. She seems to believe it. We talked for several hours by the campfire. Rose wanting to read my cards. I indulged her. She does seem to have an aptitude for spinning a tale but then the line sometimes between bardic and sorcery does seem to be thin.

Steel has lost no time capitalizing on her talent and naiveté to prostitute her to his clientèle. I've given her options and a key to the house. She might come in handy as I build the business and its easier to keep an eye on her. I'll have to inquirer at the temple about her. They may also have eyes on her and a plan.

She tried to scry on me ! Cheeky and infinitely stupid. She hasn't the skill. I can not understand the mass fascination with scrying. It seems to be the answer to everything these days. Any magic user that can memorize a chant and some arm movements thinks they can sort the threads of the Al'noth that lead to the mind of another or oversee the acts of another. They have no comprehension the risks. Of what it can do to you mind or the mind of the target. I give her a taste of her own facination

It has been months since I have seen Rose either in my travels or at the Dove. I am concerned for her. Those that she thinks are trying to befriend her are using her. They have no care for her, only what she can do for them. They call her a witch because of her gift. I would wear that term as a badge of honor even though the misogynists that reign amongst us certain throw it about to demean. I tried to find her using her methods. Perhaps my touch reminds her she is not alone and that someone does care.

Rose is back, but Rose is broken. They starved her and they beat her. Because they are men, they see no harm in what they did. They use her and then toss her aside. I can't fully lay all the blame on them. She is weak to allow them to do what they do. She has power but does not use it. She chases after the power she thinks her gift is and cannot see the power that lies untapped.

I will provide her an anchor. I have petitioned her masters to allow me to act as her agent to prevent this happening again. Given her character I suspect it will not be the last time.

Well, I knew it couldn't last. Rose had to poke the bear. Once again one of her so called friends sought to use her for their own means and she ends up in the line of fire. This time the bear she poked is a vampire lord. One that can turn her gift in on her and scramble that pretty head like the cooks do the eggs for my patrons. Of course Steel is also mixed up in this, offering her some kind of sanctuary. More like once again using her to his own ends. He has the affront to summon me. I hope his messenger conveys my answer appropriately.

Sophia to the rescue. Again. Her mind broken. Jibbering nonsense. I managed to get her out of that place and back home where she belongs.

This has to end or she will be insane of her own making. Rose needs a firm hand and someone to train her skills as it is obvious that if left to her own devices it won't end well. She'll be of little use to me or the temple as a babbling idiot. Mistress knows that the Toranites and halflings have that covered very well.

I contacted the one other person I think I can trust to have Rose's interests in mind and not use her for his own ends. The Lucindite Connor Garvil and his mistress Anna agree she needs training. We decided that the Xeenites should be given the chance and they would likely be more agreeable to her masters, the Singletons as she is their property. I think the temple can convince them.

Since she entered training, Rose has been much more stable. She is fun to be around when she's not babbling. We attended the fights in Katherian. I must look into establishing a stable of my own. They'd be quite useful as protection for the club and I can imagine they'd command a good price from the ladies of Leringard tired of their milk toast husbands and lovers. A few choice coins in the right hands and we might be able to hold regular matches at the Dove in the dungeons.

Its been a long time since Rose and I have talked. I know she's in and out of the Dove as she pleases and still working with her mentor. I've been busy working on my own projects and haven't really spent much time outside the business and the dungeons.

When she came to me asking to use the workroom to do some scrying for a lost child, I thought little of it. I guess I should have asked more questions but I assumed Rose had finally grown up. She hasn't. I put in the usual protections for scrying and asked the priestesses in residences to add some divine protections but I didn't count of Rose being stupid enough to scry on a divine entity.

It went horribly, horribly wrong. All the magical items in my work room are stripped of their properties. The walls and floor are bleached whiter than driftwood. Rose has been left blinded and cannot use her sorcery gifts.

With friends like Rose's, who would be in need of enemies. Instead of trying to keep her spirits up and helping her through her blindness they sabotage her. Some want to cure her, they can not believe that their measley powers would not touch the error she made. Others want to coddle her and turn her into a puppy dependant on them. Its not a big guess to know those would be the same men that called her a witch when her gifts worked. Just as the properties of the items in my work room came back with time, I still believe that Rose's gifts will return at some point. I've had the healers from the Xeenite temple have a look at her. They hold no hope. Her handlers and trainers have dropped her and told me to dispose of her. If I send her back to the Singletons as she is, they will most likely lock her up or sell her to someone with a blindness fetish. I don't think there would be coming back from that degree of broken.

Lexander helped me find a young thing that looks like Rose. Shes not gifted, not particularly special in any way but since the Singleton's property was damaged under my care I offered her in exchange. I hold Rose's papers now. What to do with them?

Its been well over a year since I aquired Rose's papers from the Singletons.  In that time she has done little to grow or expand her skills.  She still has not regained her magical skills to the level of where they were before the accident.   Although she has refrained from scrying, she has done nothing to find a new mentor either.  Is it fear?  Laziness? or has she been so reliant on someone else directing her life that she lacks any ambition to do anything for herself?

She seemed genuinely terrorized when I mentioned that I might just burn her papers.  That would force her immediately to face independance.  She believed that my doing that would mean she would be forced out onto the streets and she would be right.  Burning her papers would sever all my ties to her.  Any and all responsibility I have toward her welfare would instantly be gone.  Any and all responsibility I would have to her mistakes would be instantly gone.  I have to wonder at all those hypocrites that blast slavery but quite easily walk past the indigent and hopeless that line the slums of this city that outlaws salvery.  Those that cannot look after themselves, who are too ignorant, weak or stupid need the guiding hand of the those with the capability to direct them.  Their part in the relationship is to serve, and do the menial labors that are below their superiors.  That is the way of civilization.

Tonight I will leave her papers in her room.   I will leave them along with the new parameters that she must live by.  I won't toss her on the street just yet but she now has to earn her keep and that of her pets too.  She no longer can stay in the servant quarters with her friends but must pay for a room .   How she pays is up to her.  She will have direct her own training.  I can stop petitioning for a divination tutor for her.  She can make the choice to intenture herself or not as part of her training.