Legal Tender 9

By the time Oolath had finished her Bayaran, at around age thirty, her younger sister and their eternal third Loneset were finishing up their own Status exams. Loneset would pass her Membayar exam, with ease. The fifteen year old would really make a killing in finances. Nooni went from one side of the fence to the other constantly. Should she just take the easy way out and remain Bayaran with Tal until she knew what she wanted to make of herself? Or should she try the FreeWorker exam? She knew she didn't want to mess with the Membayar one - that was too much math for her. Their elder sibling and friend was happy Working for Tal doing errands and reception work at one or another of Tal's business locations.
Someone in the Qhaleb line had commented about Nooni's disposition toward work, that she was rather like her grandfather - he'd work when he really thought he could get something out of it, and when he didn't he just sat back and allowed the bills to pile up.
That was why Loneset decided to keep an eye on her Holdsister's assets. Nooni was good with saving money - until she saw something she absolutely had to have. Normally her 'auntie Tal' would set her up with it, but sometimes she dug into her own savings and came away from a shop with some useless item or other. She was faintly artistic in her bent for decorating her rooms, though, and Loneset suggested that she try interior design for a living. If anything, she could just get out of it later on, and do something different.
"Maybe you could be a spy like your dad."
"Daddy is not a spy," Nooni insisted. Though he had on occasion accompanied the others in the family on their little 'outings' which he never spoke about later on. She always wondered what it was that they did on those outings. And one afternoon as she came home with Loneset, she found out.
Because that day, she had her first vision.
Loneset bumped into Nooni's back, because the tall slender sunset-colored girl had abruptly stopped in the middle of the hallway. She cleared her throat, nudged Nooni, but nothing happened. Then she noticed that her childhood friend's skin was turning very slowly from yellow to violet, starting at her head and face, moving down her arms and torso, and to her feet. It had never done that before - it was actually very pretty. But Loneset correctly assessed that Nooni was not controlling it. She had never been able to, not as a child, certainly.
"Nooni," Loneset said, quietly, "do you need any help?"
"No - no," she said, "I'm just... seeing something. Weird."
Loneset took Nooni's books out of her hands, and placed them in their study room. She turned back to see Nooni's skin was now heading back through reds and golds. All colors she'd displayed before, she never had any of Loneset's bluish black coloration.
"When you're ready," Loneset said, "I'll help you. What are you seeing?"
"My ... dad, and his cousins..."
Loneset noticed that Nooni's eyes which were normally the same sunset-colors as her skin had swirled dark, almost black. Veni's would do that, on occasion, when his powers were controlling things and he wasn't able to stop them. Loneset decided even more strongly that she would have to remain with Nooni until this changed. It was possible that she'd never control this, and that could be bad.
Finally, after many minutes of the two girls standing in their shared Hold's hall, Nooni blinked and shook her head to clear it. "Wow," she whispered. "Weird."
Loneset flopped down on the thickly cushioned couch, threw her grey-blue hair over her shoulder, and tilted her head. "Okay? What?"
"It was definitely my father, and his group. I think they were breaking into something."
"When!? Are they doing that now?" Loneset perked up. "This could be fun to watch!"
"Well, it's over now, it was like... I was just there, looking over their shoulders." She furrowed her brows, "it was a familiar place, too. Big wooden house, trees, that kind of stuff."
"Nooni, we live in a big wooden house surrounded by trees and ... stuff." Loneset said flatly, looking unconvinced.
"In the peaks, in the summer."
"Oh." Loneset said, it was midwinter now, and their Hold was at the flat end of things in Imat. Since transpanting there, so many of the houses and locations in Imat had been supported by the Qhaleb family in some way... The place had become quite the nexus of transport and Steeding of late. And their family dominated the transportation and housing industries. The house where they lived with Oolath was closest to the township and the Academy, while most of their family holdings otherwise were up in the hills or in the fringes of Imat.
"It was before I was born, before you were born..." Nooni said, sitting down carefully and locating her books. "I should write it all down, and see what he'll say about it."
Nooni got to doing that, while Loneset worked over another set of tables for her next class. She was taking hard core Law and Land Holding courses, while Nooni concentrated on the more delicate design and art that she'd agreed would be best. Fabrics lay everywhere, swatches of materials with colorful patterns were draped in books, slung on the walls and everywhere else they could reach. Loneset was glad for that, because she found that while she had no time to do it herself, she'd far rather be studying in a colorful and relaxed environment than a sterile study hall. The other Membayar students and legal instructors were so stuffy it was a wonder that anyone wanted to work with them at all. Boring!
Nooni finally finished the writing she felt she needed to do, and then began flipping through her own books. With Loneset, there was never a bad time to study - Nooni thought that they should keep their work in one room though, because cluttering up everywhere in the house with their stuff looked unappealing. She really was good at what she'd chosen.
"It's way too quiet in here," Loneset said after half an hour of silence. "I want to know more about this vision you had."
"Of course you do," Nooni said with a wry grin. "But I'm studying."
"So am I," Loneset reminded her.
Nooni closed her book and looked at Loneset, then they leaned in together the way that any pair of teenage girls telling secrets would. She related the tale - what she saw of it anyway - of their parents finding their way into HighMaster Temello's estate in G'lan. They both marveled at the fact that she'd had a vision in the first place, and came to the decision that they would ask Tal about it instead of Veni. She was always more willing to talk about things to them, perhaps because she was a woman, but more likely because she was an incurable gossip.
It looked like Loneset inherited that at least. Within only two weeks, everyone at their academy knew that Nooni had a vision. The reports of what she'd seen varied so widely as to be sheer fantasy. Nooni and Loneset walked to their one shared class, a basic history class, and Nooni mockingly glared at her friend the whole while. There were no hard feelings, of course, they'd been through far too much together as children to bother with jealousy or anger. Their instructor was not so forgiving.
"Mistress Loneset, Worker Nooni? I would certainly like to know what it is about each other that is so entrancing that you cannot keep your eyes on the board?"
The two of them glanced with the same knowing look at him. He wasn't a pleasant person - no one really said they liked him grandly, but he was fair so no one really ever said they hated him either. His pasty grey colored skin was hardly complimented with weak-tea colored shortly cropped hair, and his eyes were like runny egg yolk. In other words, two teenage girls did not find him in the least attractive. Certainly not attractive enough to stare at when they had better things to do with their eyeballs.
"Well, we were having a discussion before class," Nooni said, "about the vision I had that Loneset blabbered about to everyone she could pull aside."
Loneset made a silly noise, but did not complain. She'd done the deed after all.
"And?" Instructor Forlan said, impatiently.
"And, well, actually I was wondering if you could help sort something I saw out. There was a ... group of people up in the hills..." She explained her version of the vision. As she spoke, the Master stood back and stared at her oddly.
"That's ... hardly public knowledge, but it was well known after the fact. You are saying that you did not know of this event? In your family?"
"Well I know it's my father, and hers," Nooni said.
With a smug grin, Master Forlan spoke at length about the process of Exile to the group. While it was hardly on their current subject it was clearly something that he'd encountered or at least knew a bit about. To Nooni and Loneset this was all roughly new, at least in the context of their parents having been involved so deeply in a huge Exile case.
"That would explain why Oolath remained in Bayaran so long," Nooni said, "and why mom still is."
"They're still worried about Xeos and his sister coming back from Exile?" Master Forlan asked. "I doubt that my word would do any good, but I think that given the terrain and the time of year they were sent out of Imat, they did not stand a chance."
"You never know," Loneset said, quietly. "I think it's actually a better idea to know for sure."
"You advocate a death in this case?" Master Forlan said, surprised.
"Well, perhaps not in this particular case, but ... they did effectively 'kill' a man. They did it on purpose and there's no reason to believe they would stop there. Sometimes I wonder, if Exile is too light a sentance."
"We have no death penalty for crimes such as this," the Master said, "because we value more the lesson to be learned."
"But, wait," Nooni said. "My mother could at any time be kidnapped by this exile and we wouldn't be able to do anything about it?"
"Of course you would. Exiles are not bound by our laws. Killing an exile is like... killing a wild rat if it breaks into your Stock. They are nothing more, legally speaking, than animals."
Nooni nodded, saying nothing more. Master Forlan thanked them for sharing something worth while, 'this time' he added, with a grin.
The rest of the day was spent working on color charts for Nooni, and drawing a big chart for terrain use by Holding type. Neither of them said anything on their way home, they were both lost in thought. They arrived at the Hold and Nooni's elder sister greeted them.
Her bright smile faded as she saw the looks on their faces. "What has happened? Did something bad happen?"
The edge of worry in her voice brought the pair back to reality. "No, nothing wrong - we were just thinking about a law, that's all."
"Which law," Oolath asked. "And why do I get the feeling that you don't want to talk to me about it because it involves me?"
"Well, not you specifically," Loneset said. "But ... do you remember Xeos?"
Oolath winced at the name. "I ... I know I met him at the trials. I was terrified of him. I'm very glad he's gone."
"Well, we don't know what happened to him and his sister," Nooni said. "Don't you ever get afraid for yourself?"
Oolath leaned against the dark wood of the doorway. "I suppose I do, but with Suzerinne Tal dragging me around all the time I hardly have time to worry, really. Mother would probably disagree."
"But she's always worried about something," Loneset said, "she's ... well, no offense," she said indicating both sisters, "but she's a total worrywart."
"Tell me about it," Oolath said, and they followed her into the brightly sunlit kitchen. "When I told her I would be going to live here with you two, she nearly tied me down and refused to let me leave!"
"Yup, that's mom..." Nooni muttered. "Why do you think she's not like that with me?"
"I always was the one she overprotected..." Oolath said, halfway dreamily and half to poke at her sister. "Probably because you were such a relief to her, when you were born. I remember the stress, she was crying most of the time when I was little." She paused, and then as they were fixing salads before their big study crush, Oolath said, "why are you wondering about the exiles?"
Nooni and Loneset looked at one another. Though they were not related, they were not connected through any way other than having been brought up together and being naught but a year apart, they did not have to use telepathy to convey what they were thinking during their class.
"We want to make sure that Xeos and his sister are dead." Loneset said.
"We can't be held responsible, there are no laws against killing an exile." Nooni added.
Oolath looked a bit sick. "That's... hardly what I expected to hear, but... I suppose that it's a thought. Count me out of it, kids..." She swept around and tried to look like she was busily preparing her own dinner. It didn't work, Nooni and Loneset cornered her.
"You asked," Loneset said.
"And you answered, and I told you what I thought," Oolath said, staring at the plate before her. She put some fragrant rice on it, didn't smell it at all.
"You think it's a bad idea," Nooni commented.
"I think that killing people is wrong," Oolath said, sharper than she meant, "and I think that what you want to do is like ... hunting people. It's wrong, and I don't like it that you, my own sister, have that in you." Oolath turned back to her food and grasped the plate, taking it into her own suite.
Nooni and Loneset did not follow her.
"I think... maybe we don't talk about this thing again," Loneset said.
"I think maybe you're right." Nooni glanced side to side, and then they tried to bury those thoughts of final revenge.

"How is the planting going?" Asked Nooni, of her group of workers. The senior of them stood and brushed the fresh dirt from his pants and hands.
"It's going well, but there is rain on the horizon. We may need to finish up and wait it out. We cannot plant in mud."
"Oh, I know it." Nooni said, nodding. "So, just try and get as much done in the meantime, and then head home. Be sure to cover up the plots," she shouted in general. She made her way off the grounds of the Owner's estate where she was setting up a new courtyard. The Lord would be happy, she thought, because she'd managed to incorporate every color that they found inside his grand homestead into the courtyard's twisting maze of plants and pathways. Not only was Nooni proud of having graduated at the top of the class' expectations when she finally did bring herself to take all the exams, but Nooni's project won a widely-read horticulture magazine's cover-piece award. The offers for work started the day after it was printed.
"I'm going to send the workers home before it rains, Lord Dhela." She called into the home. She heard him in his office nearby, closing a briefcase and pushing the wooden chair he loved so much away from his huge desk. The rich wooden floor was worn slightly from his eternal work at that desk. Nooni leaned against the dark red wood doorway and saw his shadow pass the office.
"They are almost finished?" He asked, his Stetil accent strong. Nooni nodded, and smiled a bit.
"They're going to cover up the plots and make sure that their hard work isn't going to wash away in the storm. It looks to be a big one, too," she glanced to the south, where the dark line of clouds brewed thickly. The mountainside area where Dhela had his Homestead was regularly washed with rain and covered with snow in the winter months, but it was not so high up in the peaks that they needed to worry about permafrost or too-frigid summers. Nooni had found plants native to high altitude and rainy areas for this project, that was her forte.
She escorted Lord Dhela over the bridge to the plot of land where they were planting the colorful vines and low-clinging ground cover. "It won't take more than another few days to have the whole placed planted, Lord Dhela, so after that we'll just have a couple people tend it perhaps once a week until the winter."
"And in the winter, it all gets covered up again, whether we like it that way or not, eh?"
His voice was lilting in a way that entranced the low-lander Nooni. Dhela was a handsome man, nearly twice her age, with a busy life but a strong desire to show off the finer things he could find. Nooni was extremely flattered that a man of his ability would have asked her to design his courtyard. In fact he was looking for more than that, it seemed, he kept hinting that another of his Holds would do with a makeover.
"Perhaps once this planting is done," Dhela suggested, "you could take a look at the beachfront property I've just acquired."
There it was. Nooni smiled widely. "I've never done a beach house before!"
"Well..." he drew out the L-sound. Casting his bright yellow-gold eyes skyward, he rocked back and forth on his heels. "That's the thing, LandMistress Nooni. There isn't ... exactly... a house there. Yet."
When Nooni realized what he was saying, she nearly burst. "Oh - well, then." She said, trying to clamp down her excitement, and after a moment she added, "we'll just have to rectify that!"
"That would be perfect," Dhela said. "After seeing your work here, start to finish, I'm positive that the beach house will be something you'll enjoy. And I know it will be another award winner."
He flickered his dark red eyebrows at her, and Nooni flushed and giggled. Her skin coloration suddenly went wild, a display that would embarrass her surely. Here was a finely bred Lord, with aspirations higher, and she was just a Land Holder with a gift for color... All kinds of color, it seemed.
He tilted his head, watching her skin. When he suddenly blinked and shook his head, he cast his eyes down and gave a pleasant chuckle. "I apologize, LandMistress, your - I rarely see such things. None of the people I usually work with have such intriguing an appearance."
Nooni waved it off, but noted well to herself that he was apoligizing to her. That was something new. "Don't worry about it. It's been a pain since I was a child. My father could control his coloration, but I just can't seem to get that down."
Dhela blinked and looked at her oddly. "People can do that?" He asked.
Nooni's expression changed to surprise. "Well, yes! Some can, anyway. Many of my cousins can do it. It's in our line."
"What an interesting thing to have..." The Owner pondered. Then abruptly he tilted his head and checked the sky. "Oh my, I do apologize again but there is a hover I have to catch. Help yourself to the amenities, if you would like, I must - hrm," he muttered on his way down to the carriages. Nooni chuckled. He certainly was a character!
He looked too young to sound so distracted. Nooni knew that he was married, but had never met his wife. She thought that the woman must be lucky. Both of them - he was a nice man, and a keen investor.
The storm spattered the first early bits of rain down onto the estate a few minutes later, after Lord Dhela had gone and the Slaves at the Hold welcomed back the carriage. Nooni stood and chatted with the foreman of her work force, and sent the Workers out. She gazed at the garden walk. It was a pretty thing, really - echoed with the peaks above in white, but also with the mirror to the coloration inside the estate she thought that perhaps it might be one that could warrant some media coverage. She decided to send a letter to the magazines to find out if they wanted to cover it.
She wanted to find out more about Lord Dhela, too. He was certainly a conesseur of beauty - was his wife beautiful? Did he have beautiful children?
As the storm broke, she found herself on a tram owned by a distant relative headed down to the low lying ports. She thought about what she'd say to Loneset about this. Because of course, her best friend Mistress Loneset would just sit down and start typing in requests for all the information she could gather.
That wouldn't be a bad thing, would it? Would it be prying? Nooni had found that different people - no matter their Status - would want different levels of attention. There was one stuffy Suzerinne that had almost thrown her out on her ear when she commented that she'd need to clean up and where was the restroom? Then there was Dhela, whose casual manner caught almost everyone on the site by surprise. Some land Holders wanted complete control over where and when the work was done, some never even came to the site to look at the results.
It was all in the personality, and Nooni decided that she liked Dhela best.
"I'll have to find where this beach property is," she muttered to herself, drifting to sleep on the trip home.

"This is not ... quite what I expected to find," Nooni laughed. Dhela and his wife Tanzu accompanied their architect to the strip of cliff-backed beach. Tanzu laughed in return.
"That's what I told him too," she said, "when Dhela said he bought a beachfront Hold, I hoped he was talking about some sunny strip in Bohata!"
Dhela merely turned his eyes to the beach, then up to the cliffside. "Anyway... This is all the Hold - from the road's end," he waved his wood-orange hand toward the south, where the steep cliff wore away to a more leisurely incline and there was clearly a built road, "to the black cliff wall there," he indicated it, it looked to be about half a mile away to the north-west, "and to the road again back along the cliffs."
Nooni stood in awe. The village up in the wooded hills was calling itself Ist, perhaps a bit more than a thousand miles from Imat, at the sharp end of Altem. Situated thus, it was hard to see what would happen in this township. Would it be a Steeding land? A transport capitol? Were there mines and metals to be had?
It was then that Nooni had another of her very infrequent 'visions'. Dhela and Tanzu both reached out to steady her, as the forty-year old stood trembling and gasping a bit when she was finished.
"Are you all right?" Tanzu asked, worried. "Did you have a seizure?" The Owners stood close to Nooni, and she faintly heard Dhela whisper to his wife something about 'see, I told you her skin does these things!' to which Tanzu shushed him.
"No, no, Lady Tanzu, I... I had a vision. Sometimes, they come to me. This place is remarkable. I know it's here, there was an earthquake here some time ago - perhaps a thousand years. This cliff was exposed. I ... I've never seen a vision about a place, before. Just people." She breathed more steadily after a while, and returned her eyes to the high cliffside. Her coloration subsided into a dark red.
"Do you think it will be dangerous to build here, then?" Dhela asked, a bit disappointed.
"I think the contrary, Lord Dhela, I think this is a great place to build. In fact I think I need to do a bit of research. Climbing. Is there an outfitters here for hiking and wilderness survival?"
"I dearly hope so," Tanzu muttered. "This forsaken place is so isolated you'd have to have some kind of preparations... for... you're not going to climb that, are you?" She said, weakly raising her white colored fingers to the steep cliff face.
"I'm going to be looking for something deeper in the hill, on the cliff top itself. I ... I saw something that you two will probably like quite a bit."
The trio got back to the carriage, a low-slung enclosed cab that trailed behind two short-legged grounded Steeds fit best for the twisting switchbacks of this mountain retreat. Once they reached the little village of Ist, they realized that they were the only tourists - now Holders - crazy enough to work the land right over the ocean.
The Zekirans still had their habitual fear of water - light-bodied people like they, with uniformly little in the way of body fat, and practically no talent whatsoever for swimming, they were a bit stymied by the water around everything. Their culture refused to revolve around waterways and transport over oceans or lakes. Instead, their technology had remained constant to bring supplies and people to the farthest reaches of the world with out once stepping foot into a puddle.
But it would be a challenge, then, to build something dramatic as the surroundings - Nooni was determined to locate the thing she'd seen in her vision.
Tanzu sounded openly doubtful about the process of finding an outfitter, but was actually right up in front when they'd bought the right kind of boots and hefted their day-packs. Her white nose was brightly red, by the time they had hiked an hour. Exhausted but thrilled, Tanzu held back her husband while Nooni explored a certain reach of their new Hold.
"I think she's wonderful," Tanzu said. "Have you told her anything yet?"
"I was going to wait until you gave the word. You know I would never make a move like this without you."
Tanzu leveled her washy green-blue eyes at her husband. "And you know that's what makes you the best man in the world."
They waited, watching Nooni as she lifted branches and scuffed her thick boots on the turf. Finally, though, she gave off a cheer that squealed into the air. Tanzu and Dhela approached, quickly.
"What have you found?" Dhela asked. He peered over her shoulder, where she was proudly indicating with a pointed violet-swirly finger.
It was a bank of dark, grey-green marble. The whole cliffside below them, a jolted few spans exposed by that earthquake that she'd spoken of. "It's going to be your new homestead's material. That, and these beautiful trees. The wood is brittle, but I think it can be treated well enough. It lives here perfectly fine. It'll do as your home."
Tanzu recovered her senses, after the stunning sight. She nudged her husband and grinned widely.
"Ah - ah! Yes!" Dhela said, trying to adopt a casual air as he walked toward Nooni. "I ... we have a bit of a proposition for you, Nooni. You've worked with me for what, three years now?" Nooni pondered and nodded. "And I was a fan of your prior works, as well, you know that. You make our homes feel so ... homey."
Tanzu snorted and rolled her eyes. Butting in, sidling up to her husband, she said, "we'd like you to become, well, part of our family. Dhela would like to marry you, and I have no objections to him having a second wife. It would be a pleasure having such a talented woman in my family."
Dhela nodded, "Tanzu speaks for me. Would you perhaps consider marrying me?"
Nooni was numbed, half from the chill in the air and their climb, but this? Her skin turned an almost sunlit golden red. Blinking, she turned her eyes from one Owner to the other, and tried to formulate a way to say she'd think about it. But that did her no good - she couldn't even bother with it.
"Of course I would!" She exclaimed.
"Then you'd be living here, if you wish?" Dhela said.
"It's much too cold, this time of year!" Nooni said, "but I think if I worked on it I'd be able to swing a homestead that's warm and dry looking over the cold wet cliffside. How's that?"

It was a convienence that Dhanoo's weakly inherited locating power allowed him to wander through the warehouse and gather whatever he needed for his projects. His half-brother Zudhi on the other hand kept intricate notes for any given item they required. Both of them were apprenticed to Dhanoo's mother for the duration, they exhibited the desire to learn her architectural trade at an early age.
With only six years separating them, Dhanoo the elder concieved during the celebration of the new homestead's finish and Zudhi born of a splice technique to the largely infertile Tanzu, the brothers were as alike as they could be - and as different as night and day.
"When you said you knew what you wanted," Zudhi said as he pushed the hand truck behind Dhanoo, "you were lying, weren't you."
"If you say it like that, of course I was lying." Dhanoo chuckled. "Ah - that'll do it. The wood glue we have is just about gone."
"Then get two - I'm going to start something that I don't want to be hammering through." Zudhi said.
"Done," Dhanoo nodded and dropped two of the heavy jars into the basket on the hand truck. "Dare I ask what it is you'll be doing?"
"My mid-year project will be coming up soon." The peachy-colored young man said. "And since you've already done all that I don't want to be copying your work."
"Why not?" Dhanoo said, bumping his brother, "you know I scored well."
"I know your mother would give you a good grade - this isn't her class."
"My mother had nothing to do with my mid-year," Dhanoo insisted. "And I worked with stone and metal. You're going to make something nice out of that elva-wood we picked up last week, aren't you!"
They worked their way through the builders-supply warehouse, and managed to pay for everything with their own cash. Their few side projects had already started getting interest, and if Zudhi's work was more ornate and complicated, it was slightly less flowing and subtle than Dhanoo's. They both figured they could out-do one another some day.
Their parents collectively thought otherwise, of course, and were right. The young men came home to the big marble Ika mansion, put their work aside, and slipped into the steam room for a nice relaxing and bone-warming bath. The temperature outside was almost to freezing, but the sky was clear of any snow yet. The sea-water vapors from the ocean chopping below their home made the chill in the air cling to noses and exposed skin. It was their habit - and the habit of their parents - to come in and relax before doing anything else for the day. It was a practice that kept the household warm and civil, tempers rarely flew in this house.
Lord Dhela and Lady Tanzu's other Owner friends made reference to that fact as though it were undesirable or somehow less of an Owner's trait. It was when one of them tactlessly suggested that the Lord and Lady ought to divest and just bring themselves to a new low of LandHolding that everyone was surprised.
"We may," Dhela said, with a smirk on his handsome face. "But then we've got a number of good Slaves that I would never want to suffer at your inexpert hands."
The other Lord didn't return to any of this family's parties.
It was perhaps the strangeness of having a LandMistress for a second wife - not a mistress, not a hidden lover - that disturbed Lady Tanzu's friends most. "How do you stand her? Isn't she just a worker with a nice home? She's hardly an addition that any true Lady's house would be needing!"
Tanzu did not even let them finish their tea before escorting those 'friends' out of her Homestead. That home had been made by her step-wife's hands, and she appreciated every ounce of effort that went into it. Who better to have make a comfortable home? Surely not a stiff-lipped woman like Lady Amzhur, whose 'expertise' was in homestead acquisition. She'd gloated about a particularly cheap homestead she'd located out in the desert where some old Lord farmer had allowed his Slaves to go missing or starving. There was a house out there, she said, just waiting to be renovated and used.
"Perhaps as a Bond house, that sand could be used for cement or ... something decorative." Lady Amzhur was saying when the pair of young men came out from their bath. They'd listened in while dressing, and silently went past her. "Ah - yes, I would love to see what you would do with that kind of sand. It's... very yellow."
"Is it aerated?" Zudhi asked flippantly, "or is it just loose tumbled limestone? It's useless either way, unless you just want more desert in your house."
"Imagine that you could make a little sand walk or a pit or something," Dhanoo stated, trying to steer the conversation away from openly insulting the visiting Lady - it was too late for that at any rate.
"What, with one of those little rakes and the pebbles that HighMaster Nuz talked about? Feh," Zudhi waved his hand, "I hardly want to deal with something as gritty like that getting into any home of mine."
"Don't build on the beach," Dhanoo grinned. He tugged his brother's elbow and made wide-eyes at him directing him to the Lady's perturbed expression.
They heard the tink-tink of cups and silver spoons mixing more honey into the tea within. Zudhi grinned at his brother.
"You think I didn't know she was angry?" He said.
"You're wicked," Dhanoo agreed quietly, "I wish that she'd leave, we need to talk about where to rent space for the projects."
"That's right!" Zudhi groaned, "I'd forgotten, the last space was loaned out to the woodHold for their storage..."
Together they waited, comparing notes about what projects they would be mastering this season, and what direction they would take once they'd both completed their Ownership exams. Dhanoo wasn't positive he'd be able to complete it, he wasn't all that hot on all the complex issues of Ownership at all. Zudhi promised that he would help - and because Dhanoo came from a line of gracious people he expressed the relief that he felt. "I couldn't do it without you," he said.
"And I probably wouldn't have completed that course on tools if not for you," Zudhi said, "so we're always even."
"Want to wrestle?" Dhanoo said, holding his arm up and making a small muscle. They were both fairly slender, neither of them overburdened with muscularity. They were still in their late teens and early twenties, though and had some growing to go. If they continued to lift and work with their tools, they would get strong in the way that only construction people did. Their mothers assured them that was a fine trait to have. Especially when impressing the young ladies was concerned. They of course perked up at that. Both of them were heartily masculine without being annoyingly so. Their father taught them the right way to greet a Lady, what not to say to a young woman even when she's of a Status considerably lower.
All in all, their family was a stable, pleasant place to be.
Until Lady Amzhur's highly competitive daughter entered the picture. Though she was in her thirties, and had long since passed her exams and been an Owner of some reputation in the Imat area, and though she claimed to be 'into Steeds more than anything' she suddenly expressed the grandiose desire to re-learn everything and become - of course - an architect.
Zudhi and Dhanoo would come home, bathe, and try to relax. When they saw Lady Amzhur's violet-trimmed carriage in the drive, however, they knew that things would just go to hell that day.
"Why can't she stay in Imat, anyway?" Griped Zudhi. "She's supposed to be Holding there. Not here."
"Ika's nowhere," Dhanoo agreed vocally, "it's a place where only the strong put down roots." Their voices were muted by the thick walls and the sound of the water moving below the floor - but they almost raised their voices enough to be heard halfway across the mansion. There was little chance that either Lady Amzhur or Ladyette (as they referred to her) Uryi could hear them through halls. Unless she was spying on them.
Which she was.
It was only in her nature, of course. Proper Owners could do anything they wished - and if spying on the Holders of the house was in order, she'd do it. With her mother's approval. Tanzu didn't realize that the woman was even in her home until one of the Slaves asked if she'd want something brought to her in the Tile room.
"The ... the tile room?" Tanzu asked, "why would she be in the tile room? We're chatting here, please tell her that her tea will get cold."
"Already done, my Lady," the dark-blue skinned Slave said, bowing his head a bit, "but she says that she's just going to wait for a few minutes."
Tanzu blinked, and then glanced carefully at Amzhur. "Your daughter is spying on my sons," she said flatly, and sipped her tea. "I would care to remind her that in my home, we have no secrets nor any great reason to invade one another's privacy." She sipped again, while it looked like Amzhur was gathering her wits for an answer, but she interrupted. "There are walls in this Homestead for a good reason, Lady Amzhur. I'm sure that your daughter realizes that, what with her being all intent on becoming as expert as my sons, in their trade."
Without being able to speak, and her tea cup halfway between her lips, Amzhur raised her thin grey-steel eyebrows over her cold blue eyes. But Tanzu wasn't finished, apparently.
"My sons enjoy their meditative bath about this time of day, before they get to work on their studies. You know that they are both about to graduate, of course."
"... Of course," Amzhur said, putting her tea cup down with a tiny twink noise. "Of course. And my-"
"And they have done so on the virtue that my step-wife is an expert in the field. Of building, and designing. Rather than ... locating things. Like homesteads."
There was a very awkward pause, and the Slave noticed that this was the moment he ought to say, "I shall retrieve the young Lady from the tile room and present her tea," and turned to do just that.
After the Slave removed himself from their presence, the two women regarded one another. "Young Lord Zudhi is your son, correct?"
Tanzu nodded. "Yes, he is."
"So your ... 'other' son, that is the offspring of your step wife? You really call her that?"
"Of course I do. Well," Tanzu gave a coy smile, "usually I call her Nooni."
"And you call her son yours as well," Amzhur said with some distaste.
"Of course I do," Tanzu repeated. "And that bothers you tremendously, doesn't it?"
"Why would it ever?"
"Because you are an arro- a proper Lady, and proper Ladies hardly like to consort with the lower Status. You believe that I have somehow ... sullied my Status?"
The Lady stiffened, and narrowed her eyes. "In fact, yes. I do. And such a thing should prove to you that your ways should change."
Tanzu gave a little shrug and heard down the hall as the Slave brought a protesting Uryi into the room. "Mother, I insist I was merely admiring the textures and color combinations."
"And well you should," Tanzu said before Amzhur could say anything, "because the workmanship of this mansion is superb. I have heard that you wish to enter my sons' profession - yet I hardly think that a woman who has done nothing but play with Steeds all her young life would be able to truly appreciate the work which did go into the home. It took us three years to craft this place. I even put up the fixtures in the dining hall and bedrooms."
To Amzhur it appeared that was a scandal waiting to be spread. To Uryi it was a slap in the face.
"Mother! I cannot tolerate this for one moment more. First those boys insult me at the school, and they talk behind my back constantly, and now this woman says-"
"So you admit that you were standing there listening to my sons in their private chambers?" Tanzu said, simply.
Uryi blinked, confused and angry.
"You'd best admit it, Uryi, you may as well. We are an open family, and you treat our opinion of your abrupt and highly egocentric decision to intrude upon their chosen field as something offensive?" Tanzu stood, moving her hand through her faintly green hair before continuing. "I find that the mere mention that you think you could compete with either of them in the field to be both amusing and pathetic."
"Tanzu!" Amzhur exclaimed suddenly. It was right about then that Zudhi and Dhanoo emerged from the hallway in silence. They could not help but hear their mother speaking harshly at Lazy Amzhur, but this was something different than she'd done in the past.
"Yes, sister?" Tanzu said, and all three of the younger folk in the room nearly lost their eyeballs in surprise. Tanzu spared her sons a brief glance and an apologetic smile. "Half sister, dears. Why else would I allow her to trespass into my home so often after insulting me?"
"I'd wondered," Dhanoo muttered.

"You know it's just not me," Dhanoo said, as he officially signed his divestiture papers. He'd long since sold his only Slave to his brother, prefering to work with Bayaran or just hire people instead. "I think this is for the best."
Zudhi wasn't so convinced, but then he had Ownership running in his blood. "I suppose, but you won't be able to Hold enough land to support your ideas."
"Of course I will," Dhanoo stated. "As a Membayar I won't worry about Slaves, but do remember that I can Hold as much land as you."
"And if that Land becomes more valuable? What happens when it's reZoned?"
"Then, brother of mine, I will simply peition to become an Animal Master and stick a herd of Steeds somewhere. They don't have to Own or Bond." Dhanoo grinned widely and the woman taking his paperwork gave a private smile. He was quite right, it was determined with the busy nature of Animal Masters around the world, they didn't have time for things like keeping track of their money. That was why they had other people do it for them. It was nice to have a Slave come to greet you at your homestead, but then again half the BeastLords in the world had been Raised from Slaves. Most of them didn't feel like a slap in the face every time they came home.
"Clever," Zudhi said, "you've thought this out."
They left the legal offices and the woman called out to Dhanoo, "don't forget, you will be getting a currier with your new Status package soon."
That package would include his new official identity markers - a distinct "circle around a circle", indicating the protective sway of the Membayar's influence on a Bayaran - whose symbol was that inner circle. It was just recently when those things had come back into use. Apparently generations ago, when the colonization had begun - perhaps before then, but the brothers didn't know - the symbol badges were in common use and actually required in certain places. That had all but been abandoned a few hundred years back, but they were now a fashion accessory.
"Have you heard about the fight over those Renegades in Wivir?" Zudhi made small talk as they rode back to the mansion in his carriage. "Their children have sued for their Raising."
"I hope they get it," Dhanoo muttered, looking out the window at the rolling hills and stormy skies of Ist. "They spent their whole childhood free, why not?"
"Well, you know it's complicated."
"That's why I divested, brother," Dhanoo said, his tone warm but he was also willing to continue discussing this matter.
"It's so long ago, why are they doing this now?" Dhanoo said after a moment and a sip of his celebratory wine.
"Well their parents had been on the site for what, eight or nine years. The children were all born there," Zhudi said, relating what he'd heard at a law-club meeting. "and they were first going to be placed in Slave status the way their parents had. But a couple of the smarter Renegades thought it would be more appropriate to put them into Bayaran. So, they did."
"Ah - but for how long, that's the question right?" Dhanoo said, nodding. "I can see where this is going. They've been Bayaran what... you were like, three? when this happened? I remember your mother talking about it a lot. Mine didn't seem to notice."
"She was a bit busy with you," Zudhi quipped and snorted a laugh as Dhanoo put on his 'you're so smart' smile.
"So they've been Bayaran for almost thirty five years? That is a while. Especially considering they didn't do anything to get there in the first place."
Zudhi nodded deeply. "And, there was someone just recently, a few years back, that Suzeraan's kid. He wasn't a Suzerain before, his Bond bore him that Slave of his, and everything got all mixed up. They've settled that suit too."
"Good, because I can't bear to think about it. Too many complicated things!" Dhanoo waved his glass. "I mean, it's one thing to be able to sit down with someone and tell them - 'look, you just broke someone's fence and their prize winning Steed got hit by a hovercar. They won't be able to breed him now and they won't be winning any race money from him. That's a pretty serious problem and you're to blame.' So in steps the Membayar to take care of the details, and payment levels. It's okay that way. I just don't want to deal with a Slave who's maybe going to try telling me that I owe them back pay because their new Status allows them to petition for it."
"Oh - so that's what this is about, that girl Ginali right?" Zudhi said. Dhanoo rolled his eyes and groaned. "It is her. She's a BeastLady now, why worry about it? She doesn't have time to worry about your money. She barely understands how to keep her own."
"That's not true," Dhanoo shot back, "She's viciously smart. And I think she's holding a grudge." He leaned back into the black leather seat, "how was I supposed to know she'd never been tested for Tunings by her former Lord? She was eighteen! You're supposed to be tested when you're like, twelve!"
Zudhi raised an orange eyebrow over his golden green eye. "I would think that you have more than a bit of professional interest in her, Dhanoo. You didn't want to Raise her because you wanted her to stay on."
"... I'll admit that to you," Dhanoo said quietly as the carriage rocked back and forth. "She ... she's a beautiful, strong willed woman, she's not any shorter than you, and she's fertile, and she is very smart. I don't want to sound like a complete idiot, but Zudhi, I miss her. And she hates me."
Zudhi pushed himself back into his own side of the seat, and looked straight ahead at the window and the sky beyond the driver. "She might not hate you as much as you think she does, Brother Dear."
They shared a silent look at one another, and then both gave a bit of a wry grin. "So that's why you were so quick to point out you could re-title to Animal Master," Zudhi said, and his brother smacked his shoulder. "It's true! You only get like this when you know I'm right!"
When they got back to the Ist mansion both were pleased to note that Nooni was home for once. Dhanoo asked her opinion about the matter, privately, and got that knowing smile she would give. She thought it would be best if he let the tempers die down, ask around to see if she spoke of such things to her friends, and then perhaps... work something out.
What he wound up doing was rather like that plan, and rather cleverly he had set things aside and made arrangements in addition to watching Ginali's career for two long years. She was an expert Steed trainer, an admirably healthy and attractive Slave-born woman. Her Tuning apparently allowed her to take a group of Steeds and teach them all at once, rather than one at a time, saving endless annoyances with one colt that wouldn't learn, or re-doing the same thing over and over. Once Ginali had settled on a method, apparently she enjoyed doing her work wherever there were Steed farms.
But she had nothing to call her own, really. A small stipend and her steady earnings allowed her to Hold a chunk of Land out in the newly Zoned city of Kua. That land, Dhanoo suspected, would be prime space sooner or later, and she'd be able to give her children some impressive Inheritances.
And he wanted to share in that. He'd bought her half on a whim, from an elderly Lord who apparently neglected too many of his duties and just wanted to retire. This was a little more than four years back, and it was quickly determined that she wanted to be presented to a Breeder. Not only did she test fertile, but those unusual markings on her back and legs seemed to be the smallest indications of her Tunings. She had a little tail, a tiny thing that she never showed her Lord but the Breeder told him all about it.
It made Dhanoo want her even more. But his responsibility was to Raise her, so he did. She'd been Held by him for only a year and a half, but she'd made quite an impression on the sunset-colored man. Her brilliant yellow skin dappled with dark brown spots, the way her hair was the shade of sunlight on water - mixed a beautiful deep blue-green and that sunlight flickering on the ends - and her eyes were entrancingly emerald.
So over the next two years Dhanoo examined Ginali's Holdings and looked at her needs. She didn't know this, of course, he made sure that even if he spoke directly with one of her friends, they kept secret. Even they knew that she did hold a grudge but it wasn't really against him particularly, just Owners in general. So when he'd divested it was halfway to please her. It was two years late, of course, but that didn't matter. She would see his new badge and realize the difference between he and the rest of the world.
It was at a race, when they finally met up again. Kua was a very busy place, and it had been difficult to arrange a time when both would be there without any other events to intervene. Zudhi made the arrangements of course, he was better at that. Dhanoo on the other hand, Zudhi had insisted that he leave all the financial and arrangement work to him, Dhanoo needed to concentrate on making the right lines on that blue paper.
He designed a homestead for her. One which incorporated her needs, and what he saw as her desires. He asked frequently at parties about her, making sure that her friends got details right. He suspected there was at least one jealous Animal Lord, who either didn't want to share the potential relationship or didn't think Dhanoo's powers or appearance would fit well enough. So Dhanoo stopped going to that man's parties, and concentrated on the group of women she clung to. A Breeder, two other Animal Mistresses, a LandMistress and a Worker, all tagging along together. They assured Dhanoo that Ginali's interests were in two places: Steeds and men. She wasn't an 'upwardly mobile' sort, she was quite happy to work with Steeds for the rest of her life. She'd just wanted to do it under her own name and rank.
And Dhanoo couldn't blame her. His family history kept coming back to him, he knew well that their livelyhoods had been made or broken on Slaves or being Owned. Each generation of his history gave him something new. Of course he couldn't really know his deepest histories of Status and whim, but somehow he felt a connection to this woman.
When the party was announced Dhanoo knew it would be his best chance. She would be showing off a batch of Steeds that she'd trained to do flips in the air around one another, which was quite a show. That would be bringing in all manner of Steed fans for the event, and the after-party was to be stunning. She was the guest of honor, the Hold was her Breeder friend's. That Breeder suggested at one prior party that their genetics were very compatable. Colors notwithstanding, two shades in hair and skin on both sides? That would be pretty.
Dhanoo brought with him not only the actual blueprints, but a small scale model that he'd assembled. The land was crafted after photographs and scans he'd gotten from the Land Mistress, and the kinds of trees were identified by the Worker girl. Her two Animal Mistress friends supplied the information about how many Steeds were likely to live there at once, whether there would be need for Ground Steed facilities, a lab or such other Mastery things. He'd colored it according to the landscape and on the inside the decorations were mainly looked over by Nooni for aesthetic reasons. Dhanoo admitted that his mother did the best job in the world, in making the colors and layout work best.
Now... If only Ginali would appreciate the effort - and accept the offer to have this Homestead built on her Land, using his supplies at his expense. She would know immediately that this was a ply for her attentions. She was smart that way.
The party was in full swing when Breed Lady Xem swished by. In one blue-violet hand she held a wine glass with wine almost the same shade as her skin. In the other, she towed along Ginali away from an adoring batch of onlookers.
"I have a surprise for you," Xem said, "and I want you to promise me that you will think hard on this before saying anything."
Ginali groaned, "of course, I won't let you down..."
"You never have," Xem said, and gently brushed aside the foursome of partygoers who had gathered to look at the model on the big table in an atrium. "Here, you may recognize the creator of this beautiful model," Xem announced and nodded to Dhanoo. "His work is superb, of course. Like yours."
With reluctance at first, Ginali glanced at Dhanoo and then steeled herself for whatever it was on the table. But then her eyes focused on it, looked over the black-roofed building that blended into the smooth hill where she -
"That's my Hold!" She exclaimed. "That..." She peered into the model, looking at the way the doorways were open and the doors themselves all had beautiful cut-out windows of either clear or stained glass, how the Steed barns could fit the whole mess of them wings and all, and had a little walkway connecting it and the house decorated with simple but pretty woodworks.
"I'd like to build this for you, BeastMistress Ginali," Dhanoo said. "In exchange for one thing."
"... And what one thing would that be?"
"That you would give me the time to court you properly, and not refuse me outright?"
There was a party-induced cheer and subsequent silence, and that put both of them on the spot. Neither of them truly liked being the center of attention - Ginali wanted the Steeds to do that for her. She liked praise, but she didn't much care for ...
"... How much will it run?"
"I said, in exchange for one thing." Dhanoo repeated carefully. Some of the Membayar and High Holders in the party at that point started muttering about the cost of love, and such.
Ginali swept her head back up, after peering at the model again. "I should think about it, but I'm going to just say yes. It's lovely." She glanced at her friends all of whom were beaming. "And now I know why you kept asking what my favorite stupid color was," she said to the one Beast Lady.
"We can start right away," Dhanoo said, "I've been getting the supplies already."
"What if I'd said no?" Ginali said.
"Then I would build it while you're away, and surprise you with it."
Ginali's face showed a bit of apprehension and then a broad smile. She threw her arms around him, which took Dhanoo by surprise. She buried her face in his neck, and then winced when her nose found the metal of his Status pin. "I missed you, Master Dhanoo, I hadn't realized it until just now."