Stock in Trade 3

The humming of machinery made Steffa wince. She wasn't sure why Animal Masters like her Mistress Willow needed them at all.
"You know that I'm not meant to use this in this manner," Willow said, quietly. "They're meant only for animal uses."
In Steffa's quiet way, the need was made clear. When her eyes focused upon the cooling body of Faranat, all she could do was blink her tears away.
"...Please?" Steffa said, "if I ever do anything in the future, I'll do it more than willingly if only you do this for me..."
Willow turned and looked at the odd woman. Her bearing was a Slave's, but not like Willow had been when she was still of that Status. When her Owner realized the potential of having fostered a truly tuned mutant child in his house he raised her and had her trained up to her Status of Animal Master. Willow and he were quite close, and it often surprised the long-eared Mistress that he hadn't asked her to marry him sooner than he did. She had gently turned him down, but promised that some day she'd say yes.
So Steffa had a stranger look to her than Willow had. An almost defiantly tired look, not particularly eager to please like some Slaves looking to gain favor, and not quite angry in the way that many Permanently Bonded folks could be. Something in this woman's history was making her this way. Eventually, Willow decided, she'd find out. But she wasn't the type to pry - she knew that this request was the only thing standing between having a truly great partner in work, and having a Slave who would never speak or act for herself again.
"It's not an easy task - I mean," Willow reminded Steffa, "he's ... well, he's dead. But, if this will make you happy I'll do it. I'm sure there will be a time when I call in this favor, and not as a Slave owes their Lord, you understand?"
Steffa nodded.
There were extraction tools which Breeders could use, that could take cells from donors and allow them to be mixed - the most advanced form of Breeding available was only to the most rich and well-trained medical professionals.
It was also available to Animal Masters, with the legal stipulation that it not be used on anything save beasts.
To make Steffa happy, then, Beast Mistress Willow began to extract sperm cells left in Faranat's dead body, into the machinery for storage.
"You understand that I can't use this for a typical insemination," Willow commented as the device hummed. "That would require an actual... donation, on his part. There would be other chemicals and reactions taking place. So, that means that at some point I must do the same with your eggs. If you want a child, Steffa, it's going to have to be created by hand, and placed back into you later."
Steffa nodded. Though Faranat had been dead for mere hours, this was the only way she knew to commemorate his existence. She trusted him with her life and her secrets - what few she would give away - and now he was gone. But Willow was very kind to her. She asked private questions carefully, exactly as a woman of stronger Status wouldn't have the tact to do. Steffa wasn't ready to tell her story, but perhaps some day she would.
She also knew that while she was fertile like the rest of her family, time would eventually run out on her and she'd be left barren and cold like Szhe. She shuddered at the thought.
When she did so, Willow turned and tilted her head. Because she had those long somewhat floppy ears, it made her look far more curious and soft than anyone else would have. Steffa let a tiny grin cross her lips. Her lips hadn't been all chapped and sore as they had been while she was working in the stone quarry. Her fingers had healed from constant cuts. Her back no longer ached from sleeping on a mere cot in a chilled barrack.
Willow seemed to treat her few Slaves as though they were her family - and expected their loyalty in return, which she got for the most part. Since she'd gone around buying estate stock, she was pretty much getting someone else's cast off and non-Inheritable individuals. Some of them worked better than others. In the six years before Faranat's death, there had been two other attempts to acquire good Stock, but of the four Slaves that were bought, three of them had to be sold off almost immediately. They were just too used to an Owner or High Holder bossing them around, and expected their new Lady to do the same.
In so many ways, certain Slaves were just exactly as snobbish about things as their Owners.
Steffa realized that the process of collecting her dear friend's cells was over. Willow indicated a small chilling box which contained samples of dozens of animal sperm and eggs, and now had Faranat's as well.
"Now, I can't explain to anyone why he's been in here. I'm afraid we're going to have to move him, again. So far as anyone else knows, he's been laying in his deathbed and we've merely cleaned the sheets and his bedclothes." Willow announced, standing. She put her furry arm around Steffa, and nuzzled her ear, "he loved you dearly, too, Steffa. I could feel the both of you so strongly. I think you're doing the right thing, asking this of me."
Steffa nodded again, and they took Faranat's body back up to the Slave quarters, where his bed lay properly made and clean. Only one other knew about this at all, and it was a rather dull-witted servant who barely understood the concept of death let alone the complexity of 'legal use' and 'time of death established'. Willow didn't really have to report the death at all, but for her records and yearly worth she'd be best off doing so. The expense of burial was one they would soak up. Faranat had been just as loyal to Willow as he had to Steffa in those years, offering exceptionally well-timed advice on Hard Stock command, and the like. Who else better to instruct someone than a man who'd done nothing else all his life? He would be missed.
After they had a small and very personal ceremony to mark his death, and buried him in the lovely area near a large tree of the Mistress' namesake by the mansion, things largely got back to normal. It took several days, but not long after was when Steffa finally came to Willow's office door and timidly knocked.
Steffa had been working with the feed and equipment, mostly, because she would hardly take instruction for her suppressed powers. Now, though, she had little else to do but wonder what they really would do.
"My mother could call animals, we never went hungry because of that," Steffa said, almost startling Willow from her paperwork. The Animal Mistress beckoned Steffa in and pulled a seat up next to the Slave. Her voice was low, careful, half-pained, but it was music to Willow's long ears.
"She always brought something in with her, a tree-flier, or one of those fat ground birds," Steffa said, her eyes were misted with memories more than a century old. "And I remember she would find these wonderful little beetles that only flew in the summertime. I never saw any of them in the desert - only up in the woodlands where I grew up."
"Where was that, Steffa?" Willow asked, and Steffa's eyebrows knit together. Her dark skin had paled a little over the last few years, from not having to work under the sun, but her bright orange-yellow hair had maintained its color and proved fascinating to watch as Willow tried to get a bit more out of the woman.
"I... I don't even know. I was young when we were sold, taken I should say, so ... We weren't living in a Zoned place, just a ..." She went silent, "My father was a Slave, but my mother was like you, she would have been a Beast Master, if she hadn't stolen him away from - Szhe," she almost said 'that bitch' again, but her bitterness had been so old and tired by now that it wasn't even worth the effort. "It was north, not here at all. We flew over the water to get to the quarry site, and I've never seen woods like that again, the whole time here on Kiran. I miss the trees."
Willow leaned back and gave Steffa a different kind of look. Under that gaze, Steffa started to wilt and withdraw but then the Mistress turned to look in a drawer for something.
"I want to bring you to this Breeder I know for testing, Steffa. You've never been properly screened for things. He is very good at his job, he taught me to use the collection devices and work with cells - it's all theory until you actually get in and do it, you know?"
"I guess," Steffa said, worried. Szhe's on-hand healers and medics were rarely Breeders of any high degree, so she'd never really met one - like any of her mother's side of the family for instance.
"I trust his abilities, you should too. He..." Willow looked away, "don't be offended, but I think he ought to be the one playing with your eggs, not me. As I said, it's in theory all the same thing, but I'm used to working with animals. Not people. I think he'll understand why I've collected Faranat's cells, because it would have been too late for it to wait. But I'm just not comfortable doing it myself. I don't want to mess it up."
"If you think he's not going to get you in trouble," Steffa said, but Willow waved a hand.
"I'd be in far more trouble if I were found to have done it myself, that's how things work. But you need to be screened for tunings and anything else on the charts. They're not done mapping everything yet you know."
Steffa was confused, but curious. Her mind hadn't been truly engaged in anything more important than which stone was the right width for almost eighty years. Now, it was as if a child was aching to come back out to play.
"Mapping?" She asked. Willow grinned.
"Let's go, and I'll show you." She stood and held out her fur-covered hand, which Steffa took.
When they arrived at Muyar's main business strip - it was hardly considered a city by most standards but it was home, and it was better than a desert to Steffa - Willow took her Slave in to a big office that showed the Breeders symbol on a large window, and had photos of many happy children stuck haphazardly on the walls of the main room. The success stories.
"I called," Willow said to the receptionist. The Bayaran nodded and pushed a button to alert the Breeder in his office beyond that he had visitors of some import. Willow turned to Steffa, "since he was my instructor, I get to go on back," she grinned widely.
It looked to Steffa that Willow thought of this as a bit of a game. She loved annoying higher Status people like Owners and High Masters, but anyone else was given more friendly treatment or ignored entirely. Apparently this Breeder entertained his students at a more personal level than some.
When Steffa entered the hallways Willow immediately pointed out a huge tract of lines along the wall. Steffa thought it was merely artwork. It was a genetic map of the Zekiran genome.
Small bright lines connected and made a bit of a colorful map. While she was looking at it intently, Willow noticed her Breeder friend exiting his smaller room.
"Any new additions to the map?" She asked, and the tall teal-grey colored man shook his head.
"Not since last month, Willow dear," he said. His voice was high, hardly even masculine. Steffa looked up at him and almost immediately away in a submissive posture so familiar to her under Szhe. The Breeder ticked his tongue. "Now now, no need to be shy. You've got fascinating eyes, my dear. Show them to me, please?"
"I... My grandmother or someone had them like this too," she said. She'd never met Khadja of course, how could she know?
"If you'll come into the office, and allow me to take a blood sample, I can show you where you stand on this map here," he indicated the big lined work of art. "I'm Breeder Vel, by the way. You are?"
"Slave Steffa, Lord," she said. Nothing more came from her lips, but Vel knew it wasn't because she was being obstinate. He'd seen his share of well and truly abused Slaves in his day. There was something strangely familiar about this one, but he couldn't quite place what it was.
Something she'd said, perhaps something Willow had mentioned, in the few words there was a secret. But until he had a sample under his scope, he couldn't say for sure why she was making things click in his head.

"But you think it's enough to Raise, then?" Willow asked, and Vel nodded.
"There's still something else. I don't honestly have the time or the talent to hunt this down, but... I know there is a match to this code somewhere." He tapped his finger on the coded results of the blood work. "There are some very rare recessives playing about in her genes, Willow. And you said she's wanting to be spliced with this deceased man?"
"I think it would be a good match," Willow said, "but you're the expert. He wasn't a powerful psionic if he was at all, but I know he had many other qualities I'd call desirable. He certainly lived longer than most Slaves, I know that. I don't think Szhe had any of her Slaves tested or even brought in for Breeding evaluation on a regular basis, so I can't say if his code is cataloged. I have an image of him somewhere. You'd see it I think. I don't pretend to have the Breeder's Eye, but I know you do."
"And you know me rather well," Vel laughed. "I'll do that for you, if you'll Raise her. I would never want a child of the quality she'd offer to be born Slaved. Not even to a father who was one as well."
Steffa would be so happy to hear this. The mixing of Steffa's features with the pale beige skin and white-silvery hair, Willow could imagine that the offspring might even have the same color skin as her own bright yellow fur. But the powers! Oh, how Steffa was a prize catch - and dirt cheap. This was the kind of news that anyone wanted to hear. That their hidden prize would really turn out to have the potential of a true master.
On that note, "She might never reach her true potential, Vel," Willow said in passing. "She's never been allowed to use her abilities, so I don't even know where to begin. And what was that feature you were saying was so special?"
Vel nodded, and took out his notes again. "It's odd, and not really something that any usual Tuned mutants have, but she's got a line of strong weather-shaping or pressure-sensing ability in her. I doubt it would show up in her, not even as a latency, but with the right coaxing that sort of thing could be very useful in the future."
"And you think this is something that you've seen before?" The Animal Mistress asked. Vel nodded again.
"Yes, in the Breeders community itself. Vain little notes we pass around to each other about our families and ancestry."
"Now that's definitely a silly egocentric thing to do," Willow giggled.
"But handy. Because I swear I've seen that combination - feline features and weathershaping - in another line. I very much doubt that it appeared out of nowhere this strongly, in a random Slave."
Willow paused. What was it that Steffa'd said? "... Her father was a terraformer, but her mother would have been an Animal Master."
"Eh?" Vel said, looking up from the notes. He would often fall into a trance watching the lines of information come together. "She carries only the faintest amount of her father's abilities, then. A strong telepath, suppressed so long or untrained like that, some kind of coercive ability I think. Not everything is clear. But perhaps if she starts to bloom these powers will be written down on my wall first."
"You've been first before," Willow laughed as she left the office to give Steffa her great news, "and I'm sure you'll be first again."

"What if I don't want to pair with this Jeelat fellow?" Steffa pouted, "I ... I wanted Faranat's child first."
Willow sat across the big table from the now Animal Master status Steffa, and leaned on her elbow. "... Consider this your payment for me, then. I told you it would be important, when I asked, and I told you it wouldn't be a Slave's obligation to her Lady. It's me asking you, person to person. And believe me, I understand your feelings - I can sense them from across the field, you know," Steffa softly muttered a 'sorry' at that, but Willow continued, "but this one time, it's more important to the ... well, to the whole world, that this pairing be approved. I know you'd want to care for Faranat's child, more than one you don't want. But you might change your mind when you see Jeelat. And, besides," Willow waved her hand, "Vel has agreed to your splice already. ... Stars, we could do them both. There's nothing saying you couldn't donate two eggs instead of one, and fertilize them both in the clinic. There are always women who can carry a child to term even if they can't create their own."
Steffa's mouth moved around a snack, while she thought. "I don't know if I like that thought, somewhere out there a child with my half of the gene pool in it, and I don't know them?"
"I never said you'd not know them!" Willow said, exasperated. "I swear, Steffa, you're impossible."
"But you want me to do this, really. You're asking me to forsake my one true desire and ..."
"And have another baby. But as I said, there's nothing against having a foster mother, instead. Just that you okay the pairing, and donate if you won't bear the child yourself. Most women would count themselves lucky to even think of two children, let alone one."
"You sound like a Breeder," Steffa said.
"And I know you've been hearing a lot from them recently." Willow grinned, popping a baked treat into her mouth.
"Well, I guess it couldn't hurt while I'm already there for the splice..." Steffa said, and Willow almost breathed an audible sigh of relief. "But I'd have to think about it, first - and I want to meet him. You say he's clever."
"I say he's brilliant."
"That remains to be seen, Willow - you think a Steed standing on its hind legs is brilliant."
"You're the one who keeps getting offers," Willow said. "It's up to you to turn down or agree to any of them. I'd say that Jeelat is one of the more promising male psionics on the Land, and they're seeming kind of rare nowadays."
"Vel tried explaining that to me, but ... I just don't have the head for it."
"That's steed-droppings and you know it. Your family line is all over the Breeders and Animal Master's markets. You're bred for this."
"Peh."
"He's very handsome," Willow prodded after a moment of silence.
"And you think that stinger-beetles are pretty! You're hardly one to judge attractiveness!" Willow knew that this was just a delaying tactic on the part of her friend and now-cohort. It had taken three years to get her out of the silent shell she'd lived in for nearly a century, but it was well worth the effort.
"If I told you I wanted to breed him myself, you'd probably think less of him for it. So I won't, I will just say that Vel chose him out of hundreds of eligible males all around the world, and I think he's right."
Sighing, Steffa finally said, "if it'll shut you up about him, fine. I'll agree to meet him. I don't want this to go like some bad viddie. And I don't want this to wind up like my first ... encounter with a man."
"That, I swear, will never happen again," Willow said, her voice a low tone telling of her deep sympathy. "In fact for things like this there are laws against it that really really mess the perpetrator up. So just be fair to him, will you? Give him a chance. I know he won't be Faranat - but maybe he'll be warm and cuddly and sweaty later on."
"... You are the dirtiest woman in the world, Willow," Steffa grunted, trying not to laugh.

"And you're certain that you aren't uncomfortable?" Asked Vel, and Steffa shook her head.
"I have to pee, that's all."
"Well then thank you for sharing that," Vel laughed. "It's a good thing that both of these children will be small. While you've got good wide hips, there is only so much space for two growing babies in there," he indicated Steffa's taut belly. She was more than half a year on in her strange half-spliced half-natural pregnancy and showing as if she were two-thirds through.
Of course, Jeelat had been to her liking. He had a beautiful ruff of fur down his back - such an exotic feel under clenching fingers. His eyes that matched hers only in different colors. His striking orange and black velvety skin intrigued her intensely, and would surely look very fine combined with her dark coloration.
She was already thinking like a Breeder, true to her blood.
The rest of her term was spent in a relaxing and small homestead that she had built with several others. While they couldn't legally share the land the way they wanted to, they each took turns in it anyway. But she Held the land - her very first homestead that the law acknowledged. It was near Willow's land, on a rockier portion where there was a stream and dark-topped trees, overlooking the lower flatter land where Willow's homestead mansion sat.
From that mansion, one could barely see the little stone and beam cottage among the trees. So Willow decided that at least a small amount of Steffa's sire's genes showed through: her design for such things was pure and solid - and she'd helped with certain animal enclosures to the same effect. That was the subtlety of her Status, that any small aspect could be used to help out the breeding and fostering of beasts. She could do more now than before, but her true power hadn't surfaced properly yet. She could control animals already. But both Vel and Willow knew that she would also be able to do so with humans eventually.
Steffa's tales of guiding Faranat to her side, of nudging the opinions of those around her, and similar things over the course of her Slavery led them both to believe that she'd always had this power. Perhaps it was that which kept Lady Szhe away from their home as she was an untrained child? Somehow combined with her ability to foretell events, which had slowly dwindled in its intensity.
No one could ever really know what it had been that saved them for those years, Steffa certainly couldn't figure it out.
By the end of winter, Steffa was ready to pop. Almost literally. Her small muscular frame dragged itself around almost unwillingly, from seat to seat - unless she was feeling stiff and needed to trundle about. No one had ever seen a woman quite as pregnant as Steffa was with two children.
Vel insisted that she come to the clinic to give birth, even though Steffa's wish was that they were born on her own Land. He convinced her that though her heart was in the right place, there might be complications with twin births that could not be fixed far away from the medical center. The good Breeders' sense in her head let her agree. There was no actual emergency - when the babes were ready, they were birthed quickly, in short succession, and it was very obvious who was sired by which father.
Jeelat's child came out first, a head full of bright red hair contrasting against his rich brown-striped black skin color. Faranat's son was pale golden in skin, hair a shimmering wet-looking platinum. Both of them were quite loud upon their birth.
"Jeff and Faras," Steffa breathed, face still red and sweaty from her efforts. The pair were bundled in warm towels and handed off to their mother - while Jeelat proudly looked on. He wouldn't really become part of an intimate family - he knew that he could never compete with this long-dead man who'd sired his son's companion. But he did have land nearby, and he would certainly be a father if Steffa wished him to be.

"Social butterfly."
"Wallflower."
They went back and forth all night. The trip to Jokan to celebrate the four-hundredth anniversary of the Colonization of Zekira they were taking was a big event to the Kiran natives. Though they were both of the same mother, Jeff and Faras seemed like night and day. They looked it, certainly, and their seventy years of bickering certainly went to prove it, but still - they were brothers so far as they were concerned, and as brothers they did things together like this.
In fact they'd wooed the same women, not necessarily at the same time. They went into complimentary services, Jeff was ideal as an Animal Master, while his half-brother quickly realized his potential as a Breeder. His powers were weaker, but more focused; Jeff's were broad and covered many strange aspects of beasts and men alike.
When the party was to start was anyone's guess. The time of landing in Nakani - technically the first colony - was well documented. But this was half a world away. It would be close to midnight, but the party invites stated be there by dusk. The sun was setting, and with it Jeff and Faras saw dozens of other vehicles (both steed-drawn and self-powered) heading toward a large sprawl of buildings. Lights were everywhere, dotting the grassy grounds around the huge edifice. They blasted brightly into the evening sky, equaling those which were spread at intervals around the whole planet at large gathering places. Everyone wanted to celebrate.
It was an odd way of commemorating the fact that not one of the original colonists were alive any longer - every single participant in the party this year had been born on Zekiran soil. The last such century celebration had two extremely old holdouts from the colonization process, both born less than a year before land fall. This time, they were gone. They would honor their dead, praise those to come, and largely get into a drunken stupor that no one dared disturb the next day. The whole next week was pretty much off limits for anyone with a real life - of course there would be transportation Workers and people who kept the food and drink coming... But for anyone else, it was a week off that would never been seen again for another century.
Both Faras and Jeff doubted they'd be seeing the next one - but for different reasons. After all, they did have wildly different lifespans to look forward to based upon their genetics. But they both believed they had made enemies that might try killing them somewhere along the way. That is, unless they got to do to each other first.
They had never come to serious blows - but that might change when they saw one particular woman at this particular party.
Jeff and Faras arrived together, and immediately split up even though they could still contact one another telepathically. They'd done so since long before their birth - and they double-teamed people they disliked by dropping hints to one another this way.
But it was as though their eyes fell upon the same woman at the same moment. She was a stunning violet-skinned beauty with red-shaded curly hair. She wore the latest fashion and did so the way that a professional model might. Her smile was dazzling and her manners were obviously highly Bred - or at least highly refined. Since Jeff and Faras had not been raised among the Owners of the world, for obvious reasons, they were only aware of a tiny fraction of social interaction. Faras was most comfortable among people, Jeff preferred animals and other beast lords.
They both seemed to pause in deep thought upon seeing this woman, though. Their thoughts crowded together and most likely bled over to other telepaths and empaths in the room.
~~She is the most beautiful woman in the world, isn't she?~~ Said Faras.
^^I would tend to believe so, yes,^^ thought Jeff.
~~I saw her first.~~
^^... You'd like to think so, wouldn't you?^^
They met each other's eyes across the room. Both had their mother's variegated iris coloration, Jeff's eyes were slit pupiled to go along with the dusting of fur on his dark skin - but they could both focus on one another at quite a distance.
They were about to have a more heated discussion at a distance, when another psionic mind cut in to theirs.
++I believe I would have the say as to which of you might provide the most entertainment, this evening, but I would far rather you both not fight over me. It's terribly unbecoming for the occasion.++ The voice was strong, subtle, and feminine. Dark around the edges - so foreign to their well-tuned minds. It was very rare that anyone else disturbed their private mental landscape.
Both left blinking and somewhat paled, they realized as one that she'd been listening in on them.
Faras knew that she was stronger than he by a long shot - and immediately his Breeder's instincts ran into high gear. Rather than embarrass himself and his brother any farther in the eyes of this woman, Faras made his way around the large dance floor and to his brother's side.
"I can't believe we-" They both started, and laughed. It was typical. They couldn't stay mad at one another for long, but... She was there, beyond. Surrounded by a cadre of Lords and Masters, Ladies and Healers. And, obviously, a knot of Slaves. At least one of them was a bodyguard, while two others kept getting this drink refilled or that snack off a tray. A small amount of prying on Faras' part brought her name and Status to his ear: High Mistress Cheval of Zovora.
Sadly, neither brother knew exactly where Zovora was. They knew it wasn't in Kiran, their grasp of geography however ended with the Land's shorelines. Zerin was not their first choice of living space, but they'd been invited to this party rather than the one in Nakani as they had been staying to tend a friend's mansion.
They both determined they'd need to learn more about Zovora. If anything, to see when this vision of beauty and class would be drifting through it again.
When the pair found her eerily yellow eyes looking at them from over a wine glass, it was as if the world stopped turning. They were both about to fall off of it, surely.
"Hello, boys," she said. Her voice was liquid obsidian. It would sharpen later, perhaps, when it cooled.
"We're hardly boys," muttered Jeff.
"High Mistress," Faras nodded and she nodded back. "You must forgive us, we've... never seen such grace at any gathering in Kiran."
"Of course not," said some passing Lordling, "they don't grow them like her in the desert."
"Hold your tongue, Lord Berat," Cheval spat, that obsidian sharpness had shown up much more quickly than the brothers had expected. "My father is a council member in Telva, and I'd like you to remember that is in fact in the Land of Kiran." She turned back to the brothers, and her face softened from its mask of brief social anger. "Don't listen to the likes of him. He is jealous because I turned him down at a Steed race weeks ago."
"I imagine you'd have to turn down quite a lot of offers," Jeff had finally found his tongue.
Cheval laughed, "You would be amazed at the number, but you'd be more amazed at the number who never find the courage to ask."
"Then do turn us down some day," Faras said, making his brother smirk. "You do realize that as a Breeder I could insist."
Cheval's face turned down and her lips curled up. "You wouldn't dare. Using a Breeder's card on me?"
"Who better to use one on?" Faras said, almost flippantly. His brother choked down a laugh.
"He would try, I have to use the old fashioned way of swallowing my pride and simply asking. Would you care to dance?" Jeff said, slightly surprising Faras. Faras' pale eyebrow went up a little, as he watched Cheval mull this over.
There was a pack of eagerly waiting Lords and highly placed Holders nearby, waiting to descend.
She placed her wine glass gently into Faras' hand, looking right into his yellowy-green eyes. "This means I shall be back for it when the dance is over," she told him. He knew she was playing with them both, but ...
But it was a marvelous game indeed that she'd brought to their attention.

While the Healers worked, Jeff paced about and pulled on his hair. "Who could want to do this to her!?" He kept saying. He remained out of their way, as the group of psionic and well-trained healers did their work. Faras arrived a moment or two later, his Steed dancing about until a Slave took the reigns and settled her.
"Jeff -" Faras said, grasping his brother's arms and shaking some sense into him. "Let me look around, there might be something, some one, who saw it."
The assassination attempt was the third such in four years - someone wanted Cheval dead. This time it was far more serious because she carried her first child. Jeff did not want to lose either one, of course, but he was beside himself with grief.
Faras cast about the scene. His brother and Cheval had been walking to their carriage, when Cheval had collapsed. Jeff had found blood on his hand when he picked her up, her back slick with it as it ran from an open wound near her shoulder.
There was no weapon present, and no obvious traces of anyone who had been nearby.
When Faras walked into the stables, however, he felt something strange. A deep tingling at the edge of his mind. He was more than intelligent enough to keep his wits about him. He didn't jerk around or make any sudden moves, he merely looked as though he was examining the place for hidden weapons or people. Under this blanket, behind that door.
But while his body went through a mechanical examination of the place, his brain and powers were working very hard indeed.
~~There is someone here,~~ He sent to Jeff. They had practiced their telepathic links until Cheval couldn't hear them, so Faras knew he wasn't going to be pried in upon unless someone was far more powerful than he.
^^Find them,^^ was all his brother could manage. The grief spilled out and brought tears to Faras' eyes. She wouldn't die, he knew that much, but he couldn't even say why. Perhaps their mother's foretelling was beginning to show up in him as well.
Faras made to exit the building. There were two Steeds resting in their large stalls, but he felt someone above. The loft was filled with tools and feed sacks, and those were the realm of his distraught brother. Mentally he did the equivalent of flicking that someone's ear.
He heard a yelp - that person was clearly not a telepath, no matter if they had some other power.
With the strange whooshing and thud of a weight through the air and onto dirt, that someone leapt to the floor of the building and attempted to leave quickly.
Faras could not see them. But - he threw himself to the right, sharply intercepting a body that was all but invisible. Shortly, that body became quite visible as a man's shape. The air seemed to shimmer around him and finally exposed a briefly unconscious culprit.
In his shock-green hand he clutched the hilt of a long bladed knife. In his other, a rope which became visible up to the loft. With his head sharply struck against the wooden wall of the stable, he had little ability to keep up his psionic camouflage. But, he would wake shortly.
"I've found him!" Faras finally yelled, and several Bayaran and Workers came running in. They were astonished, but no more so than when the man regained consciousness. He immediately tried to turn himself transparent again, but got a sharp kick in the ribs by Faras.
"You've got some talking to do," he warned.
"Not to you I don't," the man spat. He was led away by some of the local legal teams, they had been busy interviewing the stable hands.
When one saw this would-be assassin, his gruff face turned to a dangerous half-grin. "Well well well..." Was all he said, apparently he knew who it was. Faras left it in their hands, while he went to see how Cheval was doing.
He could sense the child was fine, Cheval was in shock. The medics began walking her about, and in the evening they finally had her fixed up enough that she would not need any more direct care. Especially since Faras was on hand now - he outranked all but one of the Healers, with his expertise and Breeding training. He would handle whatever other emergencies might arise.
"You were lucky," he announced to the pair. "If he'd gotten away this would go on again."
"I wish that he'd fallen and broken his neck, when you cornered him," Cheval muttered. Her shoulder was bandaged and her pride in strips along with her dress.
"Do you know him?" Jeff asked, and Cheval shook her head.
"I don't. But I'm sure that I may know who hired him, so when he begins to confess I want to hear it all. I'm rather tired of this." She looked at Faras and said, more seriously, "you know I can feel your doubts, but I assure you. I've not purposefully made these enemies of mine. And I'd no wish to share them or wish them on anyone else. You know that."
"I do," he replied. "But I do worry. Even though you might not have meant to, you've obviously made yourself a problem somewhere."
"If we find out who hired him, it'll be the end of it." Cheval said flatly. That meant that she'd use whatever she had at her own disposal to rectify the situation, even if it meant hiring her own assassin after her enemy. Such was the way of High Holders. It was not particularly Jeff's way, nor Faras' but since she'd situated herself with them her ways had to slowly become theirs. She wasn't about to change.
It was learned later, that there was a political move which she opposed blandly in the councils where she Held land. Someone wanted to change a certain Holding law or other, and while it was popular among a small set it certainly wouldn't do anyone else any good. She'd opposed it along with several other people. Yet, they were not getting targeted.
Her Holdings were the highest, so she was the biggest target. If she fell, the others would soon realize their mistake and vote for these changes. And naturally once they found this out, those Holders banded together and bought up nearly equal amounts of land in that Area - just to piss off the foursome of malcontents.
As she'd predicted. That was the end of it.

Faras had to admit it was almost more fun to work with his brother's Breeding than his own. It gave him a chance to look at both subjects at once, for one thing. Now that Valjee had come to term and showed them all that Cheval's psionics could be paired off with nearly anyone's and still remain true, both of them could be offered up for a new pairing.
Not that they would be having any time for about a decade, to do so! Valjee sported her father's stripes, but in darkest brown upon the richest violet-black skin anyone had seen before. She had vibrantly red hair that already had a bit of curl to it, and her father's line of it down her spine, only with a more narrow and tame look to it. Her eyes - lightning yellow on violet. She had a bit of a tail, one which would not be more than a span long, but it was tipped in that same brilliant red hair.
She'd know how to use it to her advantage. Faras swore that he felt the girl thinking while she was in the womb - and though Cheval didn't want to admit it, she'd heard it too.
Valjee grew up among splendors that a High Holder could afford, with the depth and love that an Animal Master would offer, and with an uncle who immediately spotted ways to best train her in body and mind. She was tall, like her mother, swift as her father could be. Her fingers turned out to have stiff claws upon them, but those only served to make her more exotic. All during her childhood Valjee knew there were people staring at her - and she like her mother learned to appreciate those stares as flattery. She maintained her education as well as she was Bred to, impressing everyone by passing her High Holder's status exam at only thirteen years of age.
But she also wanted more than this. She wanted to run with beasts - which her mother laughingly told her if she did, she'd wind up with burrs in her fur like her father would get.
"All the better to find someone to help groom them out, mother," Valjee purred.
When she was twenty, and Cheval had at long last agreed to be Bred again (to Faras, naturally - they were an inseparable trio after she came along) Faras also had found out about another tailed mutant who had been Bred by his Owner, a Breedlady Jheahante. Vante was his name, he was a year older than Valjee - and available as far as the Breeders' network was concerned.
"It isn't quite the same as love," Valjee commented to her uncle. "But I know what you're thinking. And I think the Breedlady also thinks it, so who am I to judge?"
"We've made arrangements that the child will not be born under Jheahante's Ownership," Faras said, and Valjee looked relieved. She was familiar with the Breeder's laws, but didn't know enough about how to write up a contract to get out of it. Currently an Owner who was also a Breeder would legally Hold the offspring of the pairs brought under them. But since Faras contracted the female half of the deal, and Jheahante the male, it wouldn't seem right for her to Own now would it? At the very least, Jheahante was happy with the deal, the man was her son as well as her Slave already.
Veva proved to be a slightly more difficult birth than either of his parents expected. His longer tail was bunched around his shoulders at birth - it was a good thing that his great-uncle and grandmother were both present to help out. Valjee was exhausted but would be okay - Veva mewled softly at first but like his grandfather before him he finally let out a howl to tell the world he was present and accounted for.
"I'm not doing that again any time soon," Valjee sighed, finally getting some sleep after he stopped his cries.
In another room of the Telva Breeding Hall, some hours later, Cheval said just about the same thing.

Being born half a day apart brought Charsfa and Veva close the same way their respective father and grandfather had been. They hadn't shared a womb, but they shared enough. A generation and sixteen hours separated the pair, as nothing else would.
Veva grew bored in their class. Charsfa could hear his mental notation of 'what time is it? why can't it be later? there are fish to catch and all the best places will be taken by afternoon... why isn't it later?' Charsfa smirked.
+It is not later because you have no patience, cousin.+
~Ahh, don't you 'cousin' me. This class is boring me to tears. I don't know how you take it.~
There were four other High Holders in their class. Even though Charsfa was meant to be nudged into Breeding classes, he didn't much feel like doing it at the moment. He was young, yet. Breeding was expensive and difficult. He'd rather learn laws. Veva was glad someone wanted to. His easily distracted mind latched on to his gently twitching tail and didn't stop until the instructor cleared his throat loudly.
"And, if High Master Veva would please explain how his tail has anything to do with the acceptance of the Fifth Breed Law accord, I would love to hear it."
Veva looked up and blinked. His red eyebrows went up, and he gulped. "Um. It doesn't sir. I'm sorry. But the accord is something I'm already familiar with. It allows for stock to be used in trade for work completed. Usually, that means that the Bred child in question is the stock - but not always." He grinned. He would have been that stock, if not for his father's abilities to write contracts. Another Slave had been traded instead, one who would fit in better with the Breedlady's entourage and had little to do when the Animal Masters showed up to party at his prior home.
The Membayar instructor tilted his head, and nodded after a moment. "...Yes. Of course. You do know the subject, but the lesson I'd hoped you would learn would be to pay attention. Now. Let us move on to the fourth accord..."
Later in the afternoon, when all the good fishing spots had in fact been taken and the teenaged cousins walked along the riverbank near their family's home, Veva sighed.
"And what's that sigh mean, cousin?" Charsfa asked. "It isn't the fishing, we can do that any time."
"That class got me thinking."
"They're meant to do that, yes," Charsfa chided.
"No, I mean, about how it really did affect mother and all. My father is a Slave. I should have been one, too, even according to the standard deals."
"And that's bothering you." The taller and paler cousin said. He could tell it really was getting to his dark and striped relative. It fairly poured out of him, he'd never been good at disguising his empathic overspill.
"It is. And I want you to do something about it. I know you're better with words and laws and things. I think it'd be more important to have the right Breeders doing their own particular work - but you know how to put that into words better than I could."
"I know, you just want to go fishing." Charsfa smiled. "And don't forget, cousin, that my grandfather was a Slave too. I'll try working some things out. I haven't gone through the right courses yet so ... I think it'll be a while."
"I don't expect you to do it overnight," Veva smiled back. "But, don't you think it'd be proper? I mean, right now things are the way they are because the Breeders can't agree on one course of action. Yet we know they each try specializing in their own level of work. Some just help out the pairs in need, and others splice like there's no tomorrow. But the rest... It's all like a big legal blur to me."
"It is a big legal blur." Charsfa said, and then paused in his measured walk. His cousin stopped a moment later and turned. Veva saw on Charsfa's face the telltale signs of rumbling thought. Charsfa's rich deeply golden colored skin was going to get burnt if he stood there much longer, so Veva took his elbow and dragged him into the shade of one of the large trees overlooking the river bank.
"So many Breeders only do certain things," Charsfa said, "you're right. I'm going to look into who does what. I mean, after I've gotten my Status finalized and all."
"And are you headed toward Breeding too, or just Holding?"
"What do you mean, 'just' Holding?" Charsfa laughed. "It's enough for almost everyone who does it..."