When prompted with the question, the slave fell silent. Contemplating the question with difficulty. For Snow, the question seemed simple; who was he? All he desired was an answer. The man stared out blankly, like his soul had left him for a moment. Then he returned to the waking world, with the answer that Snow was wanting.<br/><br/>His name was Altair, and he was from Dusan.<i>Dusan, </i>Snow wondered.<i>That's an entire continent away. </i>He had heard of Dusan before, from the mouths of bards and sailors, the texts of scholars long past, and from the mouths of natives themselves. Hot with mountains of sand. Buildings that captured cool rather than drive it away. A land with rich culture and richer people. Passionate slaves with passionate masters, bound together for the rest of their lives in a manner akin to Weiss serfs and servants to their lords. It was almost like a folktale oasis, described so similarly like the land the Tmetians had came from long before they settled Weiss. But why was a slave of Dusan so close to Weiss? Dusan was a sea away. Soon his question was satiated as Altair's tale continued to form; he had been a traveler with his master, a merchant.<br/><br/>Though there were laws against slavemaking in Weiss, foreign policy was an area of incoherence. Occasionally, he had seen slaves come and go around the ports. But these were well-trained slaves, groomed finely with a grace matched only by the most beautiful of horses. He might've not recognized them as slaves entirely, except that he had heard the whispers of sailors - whispering about the type of people who were upon the ships that came to rest in the bay of the capital. They whispered of the Klomich ship that carried upon it cannibals, of ships from Printemps, a bloody place where many spices were grown, and of ships from slaver's lands. Only then did he discover the distinction between those who were merchants and those who were the stocks of merchants.<br/><br/>Altair continued on. He and his master had been traveling, when they had been happened upon by what he described to be pirates. Then he had confirmed his suspicions - he had been flogged. Suddenly, Snow no longer believed the man. Flogging. A harsh punishment reserved only to criminals. Lash marks were meant to show all that the person marked was a criminal, a permanent testament that whoever bore them was not to be trusted. They were not trusted to serve under others, not as sailors or cooks or guards. A whipped man was a liar, a thief, and a scoundrel.<br/><br/>The man certainly looked the part. He had a sweet face and light limbs, the appearance of a man unexposed to sunlight. Altair resembled a foreigner, and he could certainly be, but the fact that he had flogging wounds on his bodice brought upon him a stone of suspicion. Whatever reason did a pirate have to toss a slave overboard? Perhaps he wasn't able to be sold in Weiss, but there were other lands where slavery was rampant enough. Within a few day's voyage even, Printemps was reachable. Pirates could be religious, he knew, but most had a stronger motivation than even the wrath of Gods; gold, gold, and gold. He had his doubts that the flogging had been preceded by solely prayer. Something else happened, one that would motivate whoever had taken Altair to forsake their loot.<br/><br/>"I see," Snow said.<i>Are you lying to me? If so, why? </i>"You have been dealt a great misery. How... tragic. I may only wonder why such things happened to you." His tone was one of skepticism; truthfully, he was having a difficult time believing that what the man had said was true. Perhaps he were a slave, and perhaps he had been captured. Certainly his own body vouched for him. Pale skin? A laboring man couldn't have pale skin, not when he spent all of his days underneath the harsh sun. At the same time, Snow realized that he himself could not tan. Pale skin did not make one a non-laborer. There were also many ways one could draw a whip to their flesh. "You tell an intriguing tale."<br/><br/>Snow leaned forward in his chair. "You have introduced yourself, yet I have yet to introduce myself to you. I am Snow Siennought of Igna's End," he declared. With his hands he gestured to Diens behind him. "This is Diens. He is my most loyal man, and he has long served my family and I."<i>I wonder if you truly are lying to me. </i>"To ease your mind, we are bound for Igna's End. My homeland. When we disembark there, you may choose to leave then."<i>Shall I test you? </i>Some time ago he had been taught a Dusanian greeting, by a jolly Dusanian man who had came into Weiss via boat.<i>"Ahuareka ki te whakatau ia koe." </i>He had his doubts that he had said it right and with the correct inflection, but that was how he remembered the man saying it.<br/><br/><div class="bbCodeSpoiler">
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