They assume that we claim Dunland, and that inherent pride in our ancestral home gives shape to our hatred of Xavier Renett. While it’s easier to let them believe that, nothing could be further from the truth.
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The fact that the Renett household sources servants from our isle is well-known, and our orphanage particularly infamous within that network. But we weren’t aware then how aptly-named The Lion’s Den Home for Orphaned Boys truly was, as the house was nothing more than a pipeline to usher impressionable youths into lifelong servitude.
We were still in single digits when House Renett’s representative came, doling out contracts with the promise of a brighter future to await us across the perilous Strait of Edges. Nowadays our image of Dunland is more often informed by shanties and song attesting to her verdant hills and sun-soaked skies, but back then the dank interior and peeling walls of our orphanage were all we had off which to base our impression.
We didn’t know what we were giving up– we likely never will. And we blame him for it.
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Befreckled and auburn-haired, you’d have to be blind to mistake us for anything other than Duns; however, our alignment with the culture has always been lacking. We would grow up in Rogalia, ever-estranged from our homeland. Our fellow Dunnick servants helped to initially raise us, imparting the language, a healthy dose of superstition, and an even healthier appetite for hard liquor– but there’s only so much to be done to shape an impressionable youth during the few years we spent terrorizing Renett’s halls.
While our list of assigned chores was long, we always made time in the day to act a proper menace. We were decidedly taken off tending to changing the sheets when we once scattered fermented berries atop them and left the window strategically ajar. It was quite the hilarious find for our lord to happen upon a great flock of birds that had weaseled their way inside, by then having grown fat and drunk as they shed feathers and filth throughout Lord Renett’s bedchambers. We servants had to clean it up, of course, but it was worth it for the look on our lord’s face….
Nor can we forget the masquerades hosted in his honor. Feasts made for a time of great stress among the servants– it was the least we could do to share with our inner circle that we had taken tongs to secretly stuff the dining chair seats full of poison ivy leaves. Rogalians are a vainglorious lot, venturing to incredible lengths to maintain decorum– even as the itch of fresh hives flushed angrily across their backsides. The servants all took bets on which of those self-important peacocks would be the first to break, and could not have been more shocked to see how they mutually playacted through their agony until the bitter end (albeit with many a private moment reserved for violent itching). We supposed that maybe the masks helped to shield their discomfort. Just so, the evening did end early, leaving plenty of time for our lord to vent his fury thereafter.
We were taken off tea duty as well after we intercepted our lord’s negotiations with a brimming cup for his guest that was more lemon than leaf. We were gleeful to still be in the room when they took their first sip, our frame plastered dutifully to the wall as our lord’s guest spit the sour concoction across the table and utterly decimated our lord’s fine silk jabot. Arrogantly, our victim accused Lord Renett of meaning to deliberately slight him. Between honeyed words of apology our lord met our lingering gaze; the daggers in his eyes cut deep– sharp and savage in a way we’ve not beheld since.
We’re not sure what we cost him that day– nor did we care. It was enough to know what a thorn we were in his side, and to anticipate the hard-won smiles that our tale would bring to our circle’s lips. We couldn’t have known then that this was the final straw when, comparatively, we thought it only a minor transgression among many…/many/ more impressive examples.
By the terms of our contract we had expected to follow in the footsteps of the Dun servants before us, and to serve until death under Renett’s roof. But within a month of our last mischievous act (that we were caught for, anyhow), we were informed that our contract had been bought and sold. However patient and protective our community of redhead servants was, they couldn’t safeguard us from what was to come.
We don’t remember much from the moment that our contract was ceded to House Drake, nor of the transition to Torchgutter to follow. We expect that we blocked the worst of it out– but it was in short order that the intensity of isolation set in, as the friendly faces of our countrymen were supplanted by the loathsome sneers of our new overlords. The sting of sparks shorn from the pyre and the odor of festering bodies– some unlucky bastards still living– left staked in the sun to waste became an ever-present element that dominated our life, thick as the curtain of terror and hysteria that came to suffocate us in the night when all else had grown quiet.
He did this to us.
Animosity towards Xavier Renett clung to the spare corners of our mind and filled us with malice. Any sense of spirit or resistance slipped away under the mounting strain of the day-to-day horrors– every day more atrocities beyond imagination…more bodies to the pyre. At that time it was all we could do to survive– and to spite.
Dunland be damned– I’m no renegade or freedom fighter. If it weren’t for what he took from us…everything would be different.
