The orc opened the door and concurrently half dragged, half walked Iris while she stumbled inside. She immediately caught sight of the light from the far wall, another one of the girls was dancing, but the seat where it would be watched from was empty. Instead there was a single man seated on a far table, with another hulking orc bodyguard standing at his side. Iris pulled at her arm, “Please… let me go! I didn’t do anything!” She exclaimed in a desperate hiss, she didn’t even shake the orc’s arm.

“Let her go, Xagen, if the lady is that disgusted with the idea of my company, I certainly won’t detain her, slave or not.” The figure at the table said politely, and the orc let her go just as she tugged as hard as she could.

Iris fell to the floor with a crumpled thud just as she realized she knew the voice. ‘The one who asked for a spark… he really is up here… but then, the orc wearing the purple…’

The realization hit home and Iris did not get up to her feet, she only went to her knees instead and bowed her head.

“Raise your head, it’s alright.” The man said with a more gentle tone, holding out a hand invitingly, “If you want to go, you can go.” He said, and drew back his hood. “I’m sorry about the misunderstanding, I hadn’t meant to frighten you. Xagen is new, a… gift from the one I defeated earlier. All I said was that I’d like to see you. I hadn’t intended any rough treatment, I promise.”

Iris raised her head and saw the familiar face. “Gottfried… Gottfried Jabara…?” She paled. “First Son of Terror… Godsheir… the strongest man in the world…?”

He made a bit of a sour face, “That’s why I wear a hood, I can’t go anywhere without hearing all those nicknames.”

“I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to offend, My Lord.” Iris immediately rushed to apologize, but he shook it off.

“Please, sit with me, if you don’t mind. Of course… if you want to go, no harm will come to you. I was just… curious about you, that’s all.” Gottfried replied to her, and Iris looked over at the door, then at the table.

She slowly got to her feet and curtseyed deeply, bending deep at the knees, then went to the door and put her hand on it. She turned the knob, and the young man at the table reached back and slid his hand over the surface of a glowstone. A pale light went up around his private seating area.

“Xagen, have some food brought up, I’m famished.” Gottfried ordered, “Oh, and don’t trouble the lady again, you’ve scared her, so leave a good tip for her with the manager.”

The orc grunted, and Iris’ hand fell away from the knob with the orc standing behind her, waiting for her to leave.

“Wait, so you’re really going to just ‘let me go’ My Lord?” Iris asked with disbelief.

Gottfried took a sip of the drink he had sitting on the table and nodded. “That’s what I said. I have enough to deal with in life without company that doesn’t want to be around me.” His lips curled into a tiny smirk, “Though I’ll admit, you’re the first one to ever feel that way as far as I know. Most people want to be around me, usually because they want me to do something for them. But sometimes I think I might actually have a bit of charm. I guess not this time, though.” He laughed richly, and Iris let her hand fall away from the door.

She was caught in a moment of indecision, she brushed back her hair, “I’ll… sit with you, My Lord.” Iris said and approached the opposite chair. She put her hand over the top of the ornate wooden seat with its wide wing designed back, “Is it alright if I sit here… Sir?”

He inclined his head and gestured to the seat before looking over to the big orc guard. “Xagen, have enough food for two brought up.”

The orc grunted. Gottfried then looked up at the other bodyguard who stood silently just before the booth, “Xagin, go to the base of the stairs and don’t allow anyone but your brother to come up.”

The towering orc grunted in acknowledgement and left the room with a long steady stride. The music down below was reaching a fever pitch just as Iris sat down and she was left alone with the strongest man in the world.

“Xagen and Xagin? Strange names.” Iris said by way of opening as she scooted her chair closer to the table.

“Orcs are like that, twins always have matching names, they were the bodyguards of the orc champion I defeated earlier. He gave them to me as a thank you for sparing his life.” Gottfried replied.

“You’re not worried about their loyalty, master?” Iris asked, “I saw part of the fight, you were hard on their champion.”

“No, orcs have their faults as a people, but they’re a loyal lot and true to their word. There’s a saying, if a man says he’s never told a lie, he’s either a liar or an orc.” Gottfried explained, he chuckled a bit, “It’s honestly a relief already to be around them, they’re more likely to rub my face in the truth than offer some comforting lie.”

He then lowered his head a little in contrition, “I am genuinely sorry about how you were handled, I didn’t expect Xagen to be so hard on you. I should have been more specific, since you did tell me you’re one of the fallen ones. Is your arm alright?”

Iris flushed bright red at his unexpected apology, “Ah, yes, I’m fine…. Th-thank you for asking.” She pulled back the short sleeve of her black dress and exposed her arm. “See, nothing broken, just a bruise, and I get groped all the time, that’s the smallest thing to happen to me just tonight, let alone in all my time here.”

It seemed it was Gottfried’s turn to blush. “Oh… I… I’m sorry.”

Iris’ heart locked up when he said it, because he sounded completely, totally sincere. “I sort of sold myself to this line of work, this is just part of what I have to put up with if I want… doesn’t matter, tell me about yourself, My Lord.” She put on the face she’d practiced in the mirror many times, her ruby lips glinted in the glowstone’s light and looked utterly enticing.

‘I almost slipped up there, keep them on themselves, that’s what makes the money.’ She reminded herself, but he didn’t immediately answer.

“Want what?” he asked and cocked his head.

She made a faux tittering laugh, “What does it matter what a slave wants? Just tell me about yourself, what brings you to the White Stag?”

Gottfried however, wouldn’t be dissuaded. “I’m serious, I’m curious, everybody wants something, even me, and people think I have everything.”

It became clear that her usual manipulations weren’t enough, and it rankled. ‘Great, no way I’m going to get anything really good out of rich boy tonight, he’s one of those, ‘let me pretend to be interested so you’ll bounce on me’ types. Or worse.’ She held back a snort of derision, the bruise on her arm was hurting more than she wanted to admit. And his last comment rankled enough to prick her temper like a bee sting.

‘Think you have everything? You ‘do’ have everything! Wealth, power, a future! Rich boy took everything from us, rich boy has everything he could ever want at his beck and call… fine, you want a look at what the lowest class dreams of for tomorrow…’

“I want my mother to live. I want the rest of my family found and taken out of whatever hell they’ve been sold into, and I’d like to be able to sleep on my back instead of my stomach. I’d like to live free of the constant cycle of debt that keeps getting my ass swatted or pinched by customers night after night. I’d like to wake up not wondering if this is the day or the week that I fail to make enough money to cover the magic used to treat my mother, if this is the time I won’t be allowed to take on more debt and I’ll have to start whoring to keep her alive. I’d like to wake up not wondering if this is the day Lyrica sells me off to a brothel because of a bad quarter of earnings. I’d like there to be a day when I don’t wake up from nightmares about what your family did to my city. Those are the things I want, Master.”

Gottfried was silent for a long moment. “I see.” He said. “What city?”

“Abacleon.” Iris answered, “We were lesser nobles there when you took it.”

“I see.” He answered. “I did try to spare as many as possible.” He said defensively.

It was true enough, and that rankled too. “That doesn’t make my current life any better, Master.” Iris said as a scathing retort.

“And we didn’t ask for your city to rebel either.” Gottfried pointed out. “Whose side did your father take?”

Iris lowered her head, “He was one of the rebels… my mother… she tried to talk him out of it. I was actually in the house for some of the talks beforehand.” She rolled her eyes, “Idiots, they were utterly convinced that your family wouldn’t come personally, and that it would take you months to get there and that our neighbors would just… buy our city off of the Empire. That there’d be no need for a fight at all.”

“Unfortunate thinking.” Gottfried said succinctly.

Iris nodded, but a mystery still rankled. She recalled her father’s cry of alarm when the Jabarian army appeared at the gates. ‘How did they get here so fast, we only switched sides a few weeks ago!’

The old mystery baffled them up to the moment he’d lost his head, and it baffled Iris up to this very hour. Now, with the young General in her company there was a chance to finally find an answer.

“So… can I ask, master, how did you get there so fast? That troubled all of us, some insisted that you had high magic that could move you very quickly from place to place, but the rest didn’t think so. We just couldn’t work out how you could get an army together and to our walls before we were able to prepare for a fight or reinforcements from our neighbors could get there.”

“Oh, that? That was mother’s doing.” Gottfried answered, and Iris looked at him with expectation and confusion.

“We had a report that your city’s lord was preparing to rebel, and predictably her brother said we should investigate thoroughly. But she said, and I’m quoting her here… ‘That one has all the ethics of a drug addled thief, if we’re hearing word of his treason, I say we go deal with it now and make him pay.’ So, we got a hasty army together and sent messenger birds to the other cities, towns, and villages to equip five hundred, two hundred and fifty, and ten, respectively for a fight. Then we just picked them up on the march. By the time we arrived we were enough and your rebellion had only been announced… well you know the rest.”

Iris nodded, “Stupid, stupid fools.”

“Agreed. I’m sorry you had to pay for their mistake.” Gottfried replied, “But some wanted everybody killed… I didn’t want to do that, and neither did my mother or uncle.”

“Well, what’s done is done.” Iris said fatalistically, “Now you know what I want, master.” She said, and chose to change the subject, “What about yourself, question for a question. Tell me what do ‘you’ want? What does the man who has everything, want for himself?” She propped her head up on one hand with her elbow on the table.

“Compared to you… mine sounds stupid, now.” He admitted, then asked, “If you really don’t want to be here… I meant what I said. It must be hard to sit at the table of the one who… kind of… put you here. I ruined your life… I’m… I’m sorry.”

She’d heard many lies from many liars. And she’d told many of her own. Iris counted herself good at telling when she was being deceived. If he was lying, she couldn’t tell. He had a chiseled face in a manner of speaking, but a kind of boyish innocence that bordered on stupid, and he looked at her with what disgusted her most. Not lust, to which she was accustomed.

Pity. It rankled. ‘I still have my pride! No matter what they’ve done to us, done to me, I have my pride! I am not going to sit here and be pitied by the man who had the collar put on my neck!’

Iris narrowed her eyes, her fingers tensed, his pity grated on her. “My city did more than you did to ruin my life. My father did too, so did most of my family… they’re probably dead now, or so I imagine. I’m no fool, I know our lord’s rebellion is what put me here… it would be easy to blame you, master. Part of my deed, but I was a noble once. I know very well whose choices set us on this course. I’m just lucky you weren’t as cruel as some would have wanted you to be. Don’t add ‘pity’ to the things I have to hope I don’t experience more of. I still have my pride, even if I’m now ‘this’.” She lifted her chin and touched the silver collar, its light glowed a little when she did, and then she dropped her hand down and lowered her gaze again.

Gottfried inclined his head contritely. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to make it worse for you. If you want the truth, I’d like to not have to make decisions like that. I like being in the arena, but I hate war. I hate having to decide things about people’s lives… I’m just not that man. I do what I have to do… but when I look at the people who suffer for it… it’s just not something I’ve ever been comfortable with.” Gottfried answered with a distant voice, he looked away from her, the music down below had begun afresh, and little yelps came up from those who came a little too close to a swatting hand, or just close enough, if that was how they sought to make extra.

“So why do you like the arena so much then?” Iris asked, raising one dark eyebrow, “You’re hurting people then, even killing them sometimes.”

“Because they chose to be there.” Gottfried answered, “I’m still from a line of warriors, it’s in my blood, but there… it’s honest. There’s nothing but me, my opponent, and the crowd. The only ones to get hurt are the ones who chose to accept that they might be the ones to fall. There’s no one… no one like you. Nobody dragged along into the fight who doesn’t want to be there.”

He cut off his speech and chewed on his tongue for a moment, she could feel he had more to say, but was weighing whether or not to say it. She waited.

“Plus… this is useful. Displaying a godsheir warrior’s full strength before the might of kingdoms makes the rest hesitant to go to war. When the Orcish tribes gather to think about whether to fight someone in a given year or not, they will remember I broke their strongest without breaking a sweat. They’re less likely to choose here. They won’t want my mother’s wrath, or her brother’s armies, or my sword… it’s a deterrent.”

“Not a perfect one.” Iris retorted, raising her chin to expose her collar again.

“No… no it isn’t. But it’s the best I can do. I know my mother’s reputation, but if I could spend time singing, dancing and fighting just for fun, that’s how it would be. But people never get tired of war. People never run out of greed. So here we sit, me here, you there.” He answered, and with that, Iris couldn’t help but agree.

Further conversation was briefly halted when Xagen returned with a tray holding two silver plates with a silver cover over it. He removed the cover, exposing rich fatty steaks and skewered shrimp smothered in a creamy white sauce with flecks of peppers scattered over it.

“Thank you, Xagen, wait outside unless I call for you again.” Gottfried ordered.

The orc grunted, leaving them alone again a few long steps and one shut door later.

Gottfried began to eat, and Iris waited patiently. “You may eat.” He said after his first bite, she blinked, briefly surprised by the quickness of his permission.

“Th-Thank you, Master.” She said and took up her knife and fork to begin to cut the steak.

“You look hungry, I wasn’t going to keep you waiting until I’m done.” He answered her and for a few minutes there was no conversation, just the sound of knives scraping over silver plating and the slow soft noise of chewing.

Iris wanted to cry, she blinked her eyes as hard and fast as she could to keep any sign of the sheen of tears from coming. ‘It’s so good… it’s… it’s like how things used to be… like when I was home…’

She ate slowly, trying to enjoy the pretense, to genuinely pretend for her own sake that this wasn’t just to amuse the young man in front of her, that she wasn’t a slave, that her mother wasn’t constantly in a state of near-death, that nothing was as it was. That everything instead was as it had been before the rebellion.

But the knowledge kept creeping back. In front of her was the man who brought down her city, and he was being disgustingly nice. ‘Not at all what I expected. I expected a brute, a savage… I expected the royal family would enjoy taunting my fall… not… this.’ Iris tried to swallow her thoughts and feelings along with her food, the rich savory flavor and the gentle give of shrimp with every bite of her teeth, a reminder of what she’d likely never have again.

“Are you enjoying the food?” He asked, and Iris nodded.

“I-It’s much better than the usual fare.” She replied, “The stuff they feed us is filling and… I guess, healthy, but it’s bland. Very bland.”

“You can’t get anything better?” He asked.

“I’m allowed to keep the extra I earn, and mistress Lyrica is nice enough to let us buy better things for ourselves, but I don’t. All my money goes to pay off my debts and to pay for my mother’s care… I haven’t had anything this good since the day one of your officers put this on my neck.” She said and touched her throat again.

“What’s wrong with your mother?” Gottfried asked.

“She has Mysticrea. The mana sickness.” Iris explained, her lower lip trembled.

“Before the city fell, it was easy for us to pay for her to be treated. After that, there was no way.” Iris swallowed and then reached for the glass of wine from the tray, she drank it down immediately, barely tasting the rich red liquid before it was gone.

“I’m amazed she’s alive. I’m no cleric, but that’s a hard thing to endure, how… how has she survived at all?” Gottfried asked.

Iris couldn’t completely keep the bitterness from her voice, but for the moment, she couldn’t muster the will to care. ‘He wants to know how badly our lives were ruined, fine.’ She thought, and explained in brutal terms..

“Nobody would buy her, of course, and since you forbade killing the ones who surrendered, and she was useless, she was let go to die in the street. For all the good it did her. I approached the seller and explained my own… worth. He got me a good spot at auction and I met Lyrica while I was waiting to be sold. She stopped to chat with the merchandise, and I explained myself. She bid, bought me, paid the one who put me up there a nice commission, now I make her money and she lets me keep the tips to care for my mother. It pays for her to have a shack on temple grounds, and for the mana treatments to keep her alive.”

Gottfried couldn’t help himself. He was beyond impressed. ‘Somehow this one has managed to make enough on a daily basis to pay for mana treatments for a fatal condition… for at least a year… the resolve… the sheer will… the grit and determination to survive and the courage to risk herself… not to mention she’s doing it for someone else…’ He looked at her with unabashed interest, confident, even radiant, even where she was, her noble heritage was plain. But, true to her wishes, he withheld any evidence of pity. ‘It can’t last, this is a hard line of work, the debts have to keep growing, the condition will get more expensive to treat…’

He swallowed hard, a sense of guilt gnawed at him like a hungry dog chewing on a bone.

“What’s your name?” He asked.

“Iris… Iris Valoisin, Master Gottfried.” She answered, then closed her eyes. “Forgive me, Master, I hate to ask this… but I’ve spent a lot of time with you… if I don’t make enough, I know you have no reason to care, I’m just another defeated enemy… it’s just… tomorrow is a payment day. I need to return downstairs.”

“Do you actually want to go?” He asked.

Iris frowned, stood up, and asked him bluntly, “Do you know why I have to sleep on my stomach?” She asked him in the bluntest terms.

“No…” He answered.

“This is why.” She said, turned around, and flipped up her dress. With no undergarments, her hind end was obvious, and it was covered with hand prints or bruises from pinches. “Because it hurts to lie down on my back. Because of what I put up with down there. What I want is for my mother to live, and putting up with this,” she dropped the dress to cover herself again, “is how I make sure of that.” She turned around and lowered her eyes, “Master Gottfried… you’re not the man I thought you’d be… I’m grateful for that. Most would have enjoyed taunting me, knowing where I’m from, what I used to be. It’s part of the appeal of places like this, most of us are fallen nobles from Abacleon, a few from some of our little towns that you took, and that is a selling point for the White Stag, so I’m used to this. But… nice as you are, I have things I have to do.”

“I’ll cover that for you.” Gottfried answered.

“If I sleep with you?” Iris finished the thought, “I’m not reduced to that yet, My Lord… though…” She stopped the words when he shook his head with a deep red blush.

“No, I’ve… actually never done that, I’m just saying… if you aren’t averse to my company and would actually like to stay, I’ll make up whatever I’d otherwise be costing you… if you don’t mind?” Gottfried answered, and then asked.

‘He’s a virgin?!’ Iris almost shouted in disbelief. “Alright… Master, if that’s all you’re asking.” Her eyes fluttered a little, and feeling a little more confident, she sat back down, but this time, she sat next to him. ‘Nobody is easier to lie to than a virgin… and as far as patrons go, he’ll offer up more than any of them… so… screw it. What’s one more humiliation if it keeps her alive?’