My Giraffe Call is Open here!

Those with royal blood in Tir na Cali generally are slight, pale-skinned, and grey-eyed.

There was nothing wrong with Leopold’s pedigree, but there was something wrong with his genes.

His bloodlines were the purest a slave could hope for: clearly, there had been a couple American ancestors in there somewhere, but his father, his grandfathers, and most of his great-grandfathers had been Californian royalty. He was short, androgynously handsome, grey-eyed, red-haired, and pale skinned. He aged slowly and sunburned on the cloudiest day. But he had not the slightest spark of magic. And every bit of training to be a companion, a personal body-slave, had done only so much good against that major flaw.

At the age of thirty-five, Leopold found himself waiting, once again, in a sales cage, posing as perfectly, waiting as patiently as he could manage. He knew he was going for a bargain price. He tried not to let it sting his pride.

Harder to swallow were the dozens of common women, affluent, well-dressed common women, who would look him over, smile, read his dossier, frown, and hurry away. They wanted pretty grey-eyed babies with powers, not a pretty grey-eyed butler who would give them human babies. Not an over-trained sport.

Days went by. They always did. Someone would buy him, wanting someone to raise their children, wanting someone to train their blooded but ill-mannered slaves. A temp position, more or less, but it was work. It was a position.

But the royal ladies and their house-managers bypassed him this time, too. He wasn’t showing his age yet, was he? And there wasn’t anything negative from his last owners in his dossier… just that there were so many of them. A sport was bad luck, but not many people believed that, in this modern era.

When the next woman to walk up Leopold’s cage was tall and black-haired, Leopold’s heart sank. He put the token effort into the proper pose and the proper words, but this one wasn’t going to be any more interested than the last twenty.

“Actually.” Her voice was amused as it cut across his ‘ma’am,’ “it’s ‘your Ladyship. But would you like it to be ‘my Lady?'”

“Ma… your Ladyship?” He risked another glance at her eyes. Blue. Blue, although you might say they were a very grey blue, they were still not grey.

And she was laughing at him, smiling, at least. “A perfect specimen with no power and a black-haired Baroness with blue eyes. We’ll make a lovely couple, won’t we?”

“Oh.” Oh! “Yes… yes, my Lady.”

more Sport: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/577200.html

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To clare_dragonfly‘s prompt

“You can’t just do this to people!” Charles was struggling against… Well, against everything, but at the moment, the cuffs holding his wrists to his ankles, the collar chained to the wall behind him, and the general concept of slavery, not to mention the woman standing in front of him, looking far too amused and far too obnoxiously hot.

“As a matter of fact, we can.” Svetlana sat down in a comfortable chair that seemed to be placed in this otherwise-bare room for the sole purpose of gloating at him.

“This is bullshit. Just because you have a couple tricks…” He’d seen their “tricks” already, and if he weren’t so pissed, he’d have to admit they were impressive… “doesn’t give you control over other people’s lives. You guys have some sort of god complex or something.”

The woman laughed. “As a matter of fact…”

“Oh, hells no, don’t tell me you people think you’re gods or some such fucked up shit.”

She smirked at him. “Don’t say it like that to anyone else around here. But, as a matter of fact, my people – grey eyes, red hair, long names? – call themselves the Tuatha Dé Danann. The Children of Danu. So yes, we do think we’re gods, or descended from them.”

“Seriously?” He stopped struggling against the chains and looked at her in shock.

“Seriously. The story goes, in the days before history, Danu kissed her Consort…”

“…kissed?”

“It started with a kiss, at least.” She could not be fazed by lewd comments. He’d already tried that anyway. “And from she and her Consort came the people of Eire, our people.”

“So you seriously believe you’re gods?”

“Me? I believe I have power, wealth, and a royal title. That suits me better than godhead.” She leaned forward in her chair and tapped his shoulder. “And I have you, which is a pleasant perk.”

He studied the crazy woman in front of him, and tugged ruefully once again at his chains. “Gods.”

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For clare_dragonfly‘s Prompt.

Thanks for @KissofJudas for picking the season and @shutsumon for the names, and kc_obrien for the title.

“So what do I do?” He couldn’t help but betray his common roots, she knew, or his American upbringing, but here and now, it rankled.

“Stand there, and hold my hand.” Mairi gestured shortly at the space next to her. It was clear Sean was nervous; she was nervous, too, but the big, bluff angry slave getting twitching and shoulders-hunched was so foreign as to be both amusing and unnerving. When she’d first bought him, it had just been fun.

“This isn’t anything like the summer festival.” He glanced at the six-month swell of Mairi’s belly. “Or the spring festival.”

“Of course not.” The spring festal had freaked him out quite a bit, but she’d owned him for all of three weeks then. “The spring festival is for planting, the summer for celebrating life.”

“And this one?” His hand enveloped hers tightly.

“Blessing the harvests, of course. All the harvests. When the priestess comes, Sean, try not to offend her. This is important.”

“I’m not sure I like my daughter being a harvest.” He scooted closer to her protectively. “Or anyone else touching you, or her.”

“Your possessiveness is more endearing in the bedroom than it is in public.” She kept her voice as low as his was, and her tone mild, but it was enough to make him, just for a moment, glower.

“Yes, ma’am, sorry, ma’am.” Sean was the only man she knew who could make a whisper sound that angry.

“Sean.” She, on the other hand, was getting very good at pleading while keeping on a public smile. If it hadn’t been for the Spring tradition… “This is important.”

“A fully belly at Autumn Equinox is a blessing indeed.” The priestess was suddenly in front of them. “And such a strong father, such a noble mother.” Polite way of putting it, Mairi thought. Only Sean’s name and his black curly hair were Irish, the rest of him common as dirt. She set her ancient hands over Mairi’s belly.

“Bless our child, Lady of the Lady?” A baby with a common father would need all the help she could get. “See her route clear for us?”

“Aaah.” It was a moan, an exultation, a song in and of itself, the old woman’s eyes going milky and white with the sight. “There are other powers than the Power. Other strengths than the Strength. Other blessings than Her hand. This child will hold power, and strength. This child will be blessed. But her road will never be clear.” Her eyes were royal grey again as she looked up at Mairi. And at Sean. “You carved this route, but the Goddess gave set your feet to walking it. Remember that, both of you.” She bent down to kiss the curve of Mairi’s stomach. “You will need that, and Her, where you’re going.”

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