A Day In Satenis Life

"Your Lordship, here is Lady Eglantine's reply." The human was trembling. Not a good sign. Sateni looked around his forest clearing. The rotting tree trunk, just right for collecting delicious grubs. The parsley patch. Did he care to tarnish his memories of this place with this message? But the tree would rot to memory itself, as the one before it had, and the one before that.

Sateni opened the letter. It was perfumed with dead fish. Not a good sign. The ink was made from slug slime, iridescent in the light. He puzzled out the words, written in Kishtani which had been out of style for three thousand years. They read, "Lord Sateni, I have considered your proposal. I might consider accepting if you were the last male elf surviving in the world. Get busy killing all the others, and then we'll see."

He thought. Not a total rejection, then. Perhaps she was softening. He threw the letter into the air and lit it on fire with his mind. The human had had the presence of mind to bring a basket and caught the ashes as they fell. This one had promise and Sateni decided not to punish him.

It might be a few thousand more years before Eglantine came around. What to do in the meantime? It was always so messy if he chose some lesser elf. Each time she took up with a new male she'd send him to kill Sateni. The new male won big if he won. The female improved her status either way. Sateni got nothing out of it but a reputation for sexing and for killing his inferiors. Sometimes he was tempted to give up the status and just live free. The open air, the bracing winds. How long had it been since he was rained on? But his enemies would still try to hunt him down and kill him. Well, time to do something.

"Seneschal." He materialized elsewhere, in a stone room, behind his human seneschal who gave a little jump and squeak. The man was slow to adapt, or maybe he thought Sateni liked him to do that. "What is on my agenda today?"

"Your Lordship, there is the tea ceremony at noon, flower-sniffing at mid-afternoon, and at dusk a banquet with the delegation from Ansophos who wants you to join their snit against Chronam. A full day."

"Is there anything meaningful I can do?"

"You have twenty three humans collected, you could review them."

"Anything meaningful."

"Some of them have been waiting two fortnights or more, it would be a mercy to review them now."

"Very well. For lack of anything important."

He tapped the seneschal and brought him to Dungeon Intermediate. He looked around. There was a splotch on one of the pink walls. He tested the floor. It was starting to stiffen, it wasn't as soft as it should be. He strode over to the fountains. Some of the human women were bathing and scattered like geese. The perfume was completely missing from the water. He tasted it. No minerals at all, it tasted dead.

"Who is in charge of esthetics for this dungeon?"

The seneschal checked his memory. "No one, sir. Thomas the Rhymer was doing it, but then you let him go."

"Ah. Assign it to somebody who actually has an esthetic sense, then. You never know when we might need to confine somebody at this level. Um. Why did we come here again?"

"The human women, your Lordship. With your permission, I will explain to them."

The seneschal raised his voice and spoke in some barbarous human tongue. "Everybody line up here, facing us." He pointed. "Let's get this over with." The women hesitantly got in line. Most of them showed signs of human embarrassment.

Sateni touched the man's shoulder. "Why are they distressed?"

"Your lordship, it bothers them to stand naked before you."

"Ah. Next time, let them keep their jewelry. They should be allowed their status symbols. Continue."

"You were collected because you were found on the road. The Lord will choose one of you to keep for awhile, and will release the rest. You will each be given two silver coins for your inconvenience."

Sateni touched him again. "Give them each a gold coin, and two for the ones who have been here more than one fortnight."

"Yes, sir. Fairy gold?"

"No, use some of that dragon horde that's been kicking around. It will attract more of them next time."

Sateni inspected the first woman. Her teeth were badly worn, so he waved her aside. The second woman had adequate teeth, so he smelled her vulva. Not good. The seventh woman started to talk rather than cooperate. "You have no right to do this! You violate our human dignity!"

Sateni was surprised. "Humans think they have dignity?"

"Yes! And you are wrong to ignore it."

He considered this. Humans had such surprising random ideas. She was small and blonde, with blue eyes almost like an elf. "Imagine that I let you go with a gold coin. On the road you meet four ruffians. They take everything you carry including the coin. They take turns having sex with you whether you agree or not. When the fourth is done the first is ready again, and they continue for some hours. Later you walk to the nearest town, with nothing at all to show your status, and tell people what happened. When they hear that you talked to me, they detain you as a witch. The witch-hunters torture you and occasionally have sex with you, but lose interest when they find that you know no one there and you cannot give them names of other witches. They let you go because you are not worth their time."

The girl's skin had turned whiter than his. Her eyes were wide.

"A foolish young farmer wants to marry you, and you accept, having no better choice. You never respect him. You cook and clean and sew and mend. You wring the neck of the occasional chicken. He is unusually skilled at gelding hogs and he teaches you how to do that. Eventually you learn to deeply enjoy sex with him. You have children. You have seen human childbirth, no doubt. Was it dignified?"

"Are you telling my fortune?"

"No. If I did, do you expect your life would be larded with dignity?"

She blinked. "No."

"I also have no real dignity, but I like to pretend and so I punish those who fail to use honorifics."

She blinked again. "Huh?"

"Say, 'No, your Lordship.'"

Blink. Pause. "No, your Lordship."

He sighed and waved her aside.

The eleventh was perfect. Her hair was a dark blonde, almost brown, not elf-blond but close. She was the tallest of them but plumper than any elf. Her eyes were a sort of sea green, changeable, green or gray, not cold elf-blue but not human either. "This one. Release the others. Return all their accoutrements and give them gold. Have them followed by low elves until they reach relative safety, a human nest with at least fifty humans and at least twenty human females. The usual rules, for each team have one to kill anyone who bothers his human and two to report whether he did so."

He raised his voice. "Humans. You will be safer if you stay together."

He looked at the woman again. Yes, perfect. "You. Come with me."

The human did not move. "Why should I?"

"Are you a philosopher? Because I want you to." Interesting. Two in one day. Perhaps they had talked to each other.

"I don't want to. I want to go home."

He sighed. "So do I. But if I do they will kill me. So I must make do."

"I want to go home."

"Very well." He touched her shoulder. "Seneschal."

They showed up behind the seneschal, who squeaked.

"This human is inadequate. Show me the ones I have not inspected."

"Your Lordship, they have already been released."

"Hmm. You are efficient." He turned to the woman. "I must make do with you."

"What are you going to do to me?"

"When I wish to punish some elf in my domain in a particularly degrading way, I will require him to perform acts of beastiality with you until you become pregnant. I will release you and the child into the wild with sufficient resources to give you high status among the feral humans, and monitor your safety for a few years. Then our interaction will be complete."

"And why would I agree to that?"

"You are a human. Humans do not live long enough to develop free will."

"That's not true!"

Sateni thought about this. She was behaving almost as if she had independent thoughts. "I do not trust you. You are not predictable." He touched her shoulder. "Esplanade."

Bright sunlight. Low fruit trees, each with its shade. He walked among the elves, and she followed him. He thought she would have argued if he had told her to. Then she walked beside him and he made no objection. Which elf should he choose? Sinumal? Sinumal had plotted to kill him. But no, the offense was too slight. There was Malafrenz, plotting with some of his henchelves. No, Malafrenz would have to die, preferably killed by some low elf after insulting a female. Dimant? Oh. Cyballa was seducing Dimant at that very moment beside the grape arbor. That complicated matters.

The human spoke, "What are they doing?"

"This is a usual day among the high elves. They each attempt to increase their status against all the others." He looked around. Elves were watching performances by low elves, slowly eating fruit or pastries, approaching each other to talk. Watching each other intently. "They cannot be seen to actually do anything, because others would judge their performance. So each of them tries to make alliances. Their mutual admiration makes them stronger. When they denounce each other, the one who is agreed to have the best style wins status but also an enemy."

"It all looks so pointless."

He was startled. Of course, she was right. But to actually think it... to say it. How could a human come up with such insight?

"Why are they doing that in public?"

He looked. Cyballa and Dimant. "They both get status by choosing each other, but they risk big losses when they separate again. They want everybody to know. The fact they do it is more important than their technique."

"Aren't they ashamed to do that in front of other people? They're like animals!"

He looked again. They were doing the fourth variant of Movement Six from Scherner's Second Opus. Quite stylized, but perhaps there was a bit of animal enthusiasm too. He felt vaguely stirred. In a few thousand years he might do that with Eglantine.

He took her to the tea ceremony. She had no concept of what was going on, but she seemed to enjoy it and even to pick up the feelings. Without knowing the moves she still somehow sensed it on an intuitive level and aped some of the motions.

She said, "You are all so reverent while you do this, and then when it's over it's like it never happened."

He was amazed. How did she notice so precisely? Year after year, century after century, and nothing changed but relative status. The past might as well have never happened. Last century, last hour, all gone.

She enjoyed the flower-sniffing with such innocent enthusiasm! He found himself enjoying it too. He realized that he hadn't actually been paying attention to flower-sniffing; he'd used the time to plan. He watched her kneeling beside him. She stuck her nose too deeply into a hibiscus and got pollen on it. He couldn't remember ever seeing anybody do that, they were always too careful. She wasn't really human, and she wasn't elf either. He started to feel a strange attraction to her. Her over-large breasts and wide hips. Not elf, and not human. Something new.

"Are you still enjoying this?" She spoke without being spoken to.

"What?" He looked at her.

"Aren't you getting bored?"

"Bored?" He was always bored.

"Hasn't this gone on too long?"

Oh, the flower-sniffing. "This is how it is done."

"You do it when you don't like it?"

"IT ISN'T ABOUT LIKING IT! IT'S ABOUT...." He was shouting. Everybody was watching him. No one had ever affected him like this that he could remember. No, he could remember the feeling, a primal feeling, Gumal his old teacher had proved him wrong and he reacted this way. The human would have gained great status by this stunt, if she had any status to begin with. Everybody was watching. They were looking for ways to profit, but they were all too cautious to try anything rash. They didn't know what to think. He didn't know what to think. What was the flower-sniffing about, really? He touched her shoulder. "Bed."

His sleeping area was dim, just enough light to see where things were. The pile of furs he slept in were just as he left them. "I will take a nap. You do whatever you want. If you meet any elves tell them I said they were not to interact with you. Try not to do anything too stupid." He lay down and snuggled into the furs.

As he slept he dreamed. He didn't block his telepathy in his sleep, but for the most part nobody on the grounds was thinking anything interesting. The human who managed his sleep area entered and spoke to the female. He wanted to have sex with her and she refused. Later his seneschal entered. "I have much power here. I can help you. Let me be your man." She told him she wouldn't sleep with him if he was the last man on the earth. Sateni smiled in his sleep. She was very like an elf woman. Just before he woke he overheard a stray thought from her, that he looked so peaceful and innocent in his sleep. A wistful, romantic feel to it.

By the time he was awake he had decided. "I will not mate you to some culprit. I will take you myself."

"No. I don't want you."

"I did not ask your opinion."

"Well, you ought to. Who died and made you king?"

"Ostheillo. He was before me. I did not understand the local politics, and was maneuvered into a dilemma where I would die unless I killed him. But that's all past and done with." He reached for her.

"No."

He carefully held her wrists and tripped her so that she would fall gently onto the furs. He went down with her. He carefully avoided her knees and feet. Quickly exchanging wrists he pulled her arms tight across her chest. He put his weight onto her chest and stomach.

"Stop that."

"I want you."

With his legs between hers, she couldn't kick hard. And she could take only very shallow breaths. She bucked and squirmed under him.

"Good, wiggle for me." She was exciting.

Her body was starting to respond. It didn't matter so much what she wanted, once she spent some time while it looked inevitable that sex would follow, her body would respond if only to prevent injury. She tried being still. She still couldn't breath much, and he started to maneuver his hips. She moved more, trying to stop him from entering her.

"Very nice motion, I like that." The harder she struggled, the less air she had.

After a rather long time she said in a small voice, "Please let me go."

"I promise I will, when you want me to." He moved his hips and positioned his penis upward, and then slid down and in. Yes, she was ready. He loosened his grip and let her breathe. He supported himself on his hands and started Kibadi's fifth exercise, for beginners. She obviously had never experienced it and did not know what to expect. Her naive excitement almost threw him off the rhythm. He began to pay attention to the feelings himself. How extraordinary! She wasn't going to criticize him in public if he got it wrong. She wouldn't know or care if he got it wrong! He varied the pattern to suit himself, and she didn't laugh at him! She gave when the exercise was about a quarter complete, and he gave a little with her. They could finish it later. She fell asleep while he held her.

He felt tenderness, unlike his response to any elf woman. She trusted him with her feelings. She called him to feel too. She wasn't plotting against him. She didn't seem to care or even imagine that he might use her feelings to manipulate her status. She had no status! He could do whatever he wanted to her, and no one would care except the two of them. He felt a giant wave of tenderness, of emotions that he had no name for. He was responsible for her and he resolved to care for her the best he could.

She woke up and screamed. He got a flash sense of her feelings -- unfamiliar smells, unfamiliar feeling of furs around her, she normally slept in pitch dark and woke before dawn. He spoke in the human tongue. "There is nothing wrong. Remember your status. You are safe with the elves." She looked at him with wide eyes and shook her head.

"What do you want from me?"

"I want you. I want to continue doing that with you. Do you wish to also?"

Her face darkened and she looked away. "Yes."

"Then your free will is not impinged."

"No, I guess not."

He began to touch her, to focus her interest, and when she was ready he continued Kibadi's fifth, with variations. She gave before the halfway mark and again fell asleep.

He considered. Elvish females were receptive only the few days of their fertile period, during their special time of the year, but would sometimes go through the motions at other times. She was not currently ovulating but she seemed fully receptive. A complete plan blossomed in his mind. If he declared her his Lady. Any male who killed him would have to sleep with her, and they would feel degraded to do beastiality. Assassination attempts would diminish sharply. Everyone would be confounded as they would not know how to plot with her. Most of their planning would be disrupted. He would enhance his useful reputation for unpredictability and insanity without actually having to do anything stupid. And all the people who wanted to marry their favorites to him would wait patiently since humans seldom lived more than a few hundred years in captivity. It was foolproof, unless she did something unpredictable. And she would, definitely, he just could not predict what. Life would get less boring.

She woke again, yawned and stretched.

He said, "I need a name for you besides 'Hey, you'. I will call you Serendapa, which means 'Unexpected dangerous treasure'."

"Don't you want to know the name I already have?"

"No. Why would I?"

"What's your name?"

"I am called Sateni. You can call me Lord Sateni if you want to."

"Your new name is Big Candy Penis. It means --"

"I know what it means."

Yes, life was already getting less boring.