So, at the tender age of Fourteen She began Her apprenticeship to August of The Miner’s Eyes, the Singing Man as he was known around Ballacreous. She was indentured as Miner’s aid, taken away from the other women of the Prison Camp and chained like Her Master and his fellows. She was made to shift rocks and carts under the whips of the Livies. They all expected Her to fail, fall and die within a week of this work but instead it made Her strong. After a month, the Overseers found Her to be as strong as any of the young men in the Mines and Her muscles and strength continued to grow, feed by the encouragement of August and the stolen food that Aegine provided for Her every few days. She did question why She had gotten stronger where all others had gotten weaker but all August would say is that ‘it was all within her blood’ and that ‘she was marked to be so from her Birth’.
She also grew strong from the secret training that August did give her in the style that he referred to as Pa’wrathe’sa -the Fighting Art of the Slaves. He spoke of it in reverence. Telling Her of how his Master and his Master’s Master, all the way back to the when the outlying tribes had been enslaved by the First Omperia Conquerors and forced to serve this Heartless wills. He spoke of how the tribes fought against the Omperium and against each other, for their tribal disputes had not been settled when they had been conquered and stilled simmered in the slavepits. He spoke the tale of the Four Noble Warriors, the Qua Maetres, who banded together and taught each other their different fighting arts, fusing them into the Art of Pa’wrathe’sa and seeding the art amongst the slaves so they could overthrow their Omperia Overlords and return to their native lands. Though such noble dreams were never to come to bloom, as the slaves began to use the Art against each other as well as the Overseers, thus leading to the oppression and gradual, systematic destruction of the Art. So it past into Darkness and came to be practised by only one tribe, those repressed by all and everyone throughout their troubled history. August also said how few outside that tribe knew the art and even fewer were it’s masters.
He had shown Her how to fight when your hands are chained no more than a shoulder’s width apart and use your feet in place of your fists. How to pin and choke your opponent with either your chains or their own. How to move within confined spaces and battle without drawing the attentions of the Warders and Overseers. How to become stronger and use that strength in and against all things. How to read what your opponent would do and how they would fight and react. How to train Her body so She would become unconquerable. These are what She was taught in every waking hour.
She had learnt Her lessons well. Listening to and doing everything that August did tell Her. No matter how hard it might have seemed to Her, She always complied and the years made Her stronger where all others had grown weak and died. Her lessons, Her will and Her friendship with Aegine and August helped her to survive those wretched years. She would always remember the words August had bespoken to Her, every day for four years.
‘Make your Body as strong as Rock, as mighty as Iron, as subtle Reed, as yielding as Cloth so none can conquer your Flesh.’
‘Make your Mind quick as Lightning, Fierce as Fire, flow as if Water, as empty as the Deepest Pit of Earth.’
‘Make Soul impervious to harm, keep it within yourself, show it to none that may use it against you, share it with those whom you trust and whom it bespeaks of.’
These were the three pillars of Her existence that propped Her up against all else. Her Island in a Sea of Woe. Along with the Three Virtues of Pa’wrathe’sa: Know Yourself, Know Your Enemy, Know the Universe. ‘Master all these and you shall never know defeat’ was the credo that August did preach and the Code with which She did live by and helped her survive.
She also had to contend with the other workers at Ballacreous, especially the Younger Miners, who always wished to prove themselves in combat and secure their reputation amongst the other slaves. When this occurred, more often than not, August would always say unto Her: “Become as Stone, wrap your Soul within yourself and let nothing touch you inside”. So, She learnt to close Herself off and not allow anything to touch Her Heart or Her Soul, besides those She kept closest to Her.
They were the internal secrets of Her Fighting Art and though one may mimic its external forms, few can master its internal complexities.

So that is what Catena wondered now as she saw Ulva sway in the same stance that she held: whether he merely mimicked her form and whether he actually knew the Internal Secrets of her art.
She would give him no chance to tell and pressed in against him to test his might and mettle. She knew she had to use the most difficult and advanced techniques that Pa’wrathe’sa had within it’s vast and impressive arsenal in order to best him. Attacking with both hands at once. Chokes and holds. Using her strong arms to help propel powerful legs faster than her opponent might.
She struck at Ulva with both palms and he swayed out of the way, as she predicted he would. She then tried to follow through and seize him by his throat or shoulders, but he casually cast her aside with a deflection of the arms. Catena then span herself, planting both hands on the ground and throwing both her legs in a swift swinging kick at Ulva’s nobbled knees. As she expected, his body followed the motion of her attack and he cartwheeled over her legs, holding his hands close together in standard Pa’wrathe’sa form, as if they had been lashed to each other. Catena swiftly stood and aimed her head at his emaciated stomach but he countered yet again by bringing both his knees up towards her face. She twisted away from his attack and slipped her thick arm in around his tiny wait, hoping to throw him back to the ground. She contorted around with her momentum and held Ulva above her now, aiming to smash him into the Arena floor but he carried her momentum over and squirmed out of her grasp, flipping back as Catena continued to sail through the air. Ulva landed back in his Spider Stance whilst Catena cartwheeled and landed in her basic ready stance.
All to the awed silence of the crowd up above.
“Ne. . . Never in a. . . all mer. . . my years. . . have I every witnessed anything such as this,” the Arena Master stumbled, all former confidence stripped from his voice.
And through the silence that followed, Catena could hear the shrill titter of her Keeper, the Matriss Acheron. She looked up to see her laughing, flirting and taunting her constant rival and sometime love, the Prince Calablame, across the Arena. Her thick black locks, cut level around her neck, shaking about her shoulders with each projected jest and tease. The Matriss was a follower of Hedonia -Goddess of Earthly Excesses- and this showed through every aspect of her existence. Her clothing and adornments were gaudy and garish, the forest green of her outer robe clashing wildly with the peach of her revealed undershirt. Her eyes -dark green by nature- were lined with thick, layered greens and blues and eyebrows were bejewelled by emeralds and sapphires. It was impossible to tell her age, for she had a radiance of careless youth about her, and she indulged ever whim that she had. Catena was proof enough of that. She had not so much as rescued her from Ballacreous but purchased her to be slave and trophy.

Three years before, four years since Her condemnment to Ballacreous and near Her Eighteenth birthday, there was a cave-in at the end of a new Mineshaft, trapping August and the other seasoned slaves in one of the deepest pits of the Mine. She was lucky in the fact that she had been forced to take a cart to the pile when the cave in happened. As soon as She heard the rumble of stone and the murmuring of the Earth, she dashed back as fast as her bound flesh would allow. A solid wall of rock and dust meet her as she entered the passage in which they had been working. There was a deathly silence in the blocked tunnel, not a sound could be heard besides Her sharp and laboured breathing. As Her Heart and breath stilled, another sound, as soft as the quietest sigh, filtered through the stone.
A song.
August’s song!
With a fury and fever She believed not her own, She flew at the rock and began to tear at the loose wall with her bare hands, throwing earth and stone behind her as she dug forward, towards the flickering sound of song. She tried Her hardest to reach him but, by the time She had dug through the rock and stone with Her hands, August’s life had all but withered away. Her fingers were torn and the skin shredded well-nigh to the bone, though She had no care or concern for such things, as Her broken appendages traced Her Master’s shattered features. Loosing a wrenching cry from Her young, torn breast.
“Remember. . .” he wheezed, the blood spilling down his chin. “Remember all that I taught you. Be strong and be True. Will you do that?”
“Yes,” She sobbed. “I will do that.”
“Now, do me one last thing, Child,” he said, as he brushed his giant hand against her cheeks, stained with blood, dirt and tears.
“Anything, Master,” She sobbed.
“Sing for me,” he said. “Sing me my song. The Song of The Dead.”
At his words, She let loose unearthly sob, but held Herself and began to utter the Song that enveloped and given strength to Her life for the past four years. She sang it as he would have, as he did teach Her. Every note and every pitch. In the unyielding dark of that Deep Earth, Her song resounded and he felt his very last.
And with that promise kept, he smiled his last and let his hand slip from off Her face.
There was no burial or memorial for him or the other’s who lost their lives. The Overseers merely sealed the tunnel and marked the lost of production as the only price to pay with their passing.
And thus, She was alone in the World again.
The other workers all saw Her as the Heir to August and treated Her with the same cautious respected that they had given him but She would not be consoled by such things and threw Herself into the brutality of Her existence. She began to fight more often and more violently. Not even Aegine’s broken words could reach Her, but the Iron Woman’s body was now ravaged by ages and the burdens of Ballacreous, losing Aegine the prestige and glory that she once possessed. She fought so often that She gained the attention of some Overseers who saw profit in Her violence and placed Her to battle other workers and slaves in their own private Arena. Of course, She won ever match She was in and gained much notoriety about the Senatorial Lands, as the Arena’s reputation grew amongst those amongst the Elite who sought thrills of life. Nobles from over all the Senatory Realms would come to see the battle and She was a major attraction and cash crop. She had also come under the attentions of the Matriss Acheron, who desired Her for her own combative stable and the distinction of owning such a fighter.
And so She was freed from the prison of Ballacreous without any sense of release or redemption but with the subtle exchange of coins and hushed contracts. She rode for days, locked within a small steel cage, under the constant watch of a man wearing what She knew to be a Slavers’ Mask -fashioned in the shape of a bird to mark which guild he did belong to. She had seen many of them whenever She did venture out of the Mines. The Livies had expanded so much in their scopes and ambitions that they know required fresh workers and this meant a consistent flow of Slavers’ into Ballacreous peddling their wares. Though She did note that this Slaver was very much unlike the others She had seen, in the fact that the eyes of the mask were sealed with the same fixings as formed The Miners’ Eyes, hiding away his orbs from Her. He was also small and wiry, very much befitting the bird-like qualities of his mask. He spoke little to Her or the Warders -the Matriss’ own Soldiers- who crowded the edge of the wagon, or even to the Driver, who also wore the Bird Mask of The Slavers’ Guild, though he did tend fairly to Her. Ensuring that She was always with water or nourishment and could relieve Herself of their burden freely. He was always at Her side and this made Her feel most uncomfortable indeed.
The days under his ceaseless and hidden gaze seemed unending, until they reached the City of Acheron, which would become her new Prison, and into the House of the Matriss. She was commanded into the Matriss’ chamber, a luxurious apartment filled with all forms of extravagance and lined with a flowing watercourse. She had never seen such excess in all her life.
The Matriss herself lounge on a long single person couch in the centre of the room. She was casually inspecting a bunch of grapes as She was brought before her. She noted that the Matriss always seemed to have an expression of child-like wonderment whenever she inspected anything. Only the objects she examined existed in her World, until something of more interest filtered through her senses.
And, right now, She was of far more interest.
The Matriss cast the grapes over her shoulder as soon as she saw Her and flipped her legs over the edge of her couch, righting her body. She drew her Green Shawl, the outward symbol of her religion, tighter over her pale, supple shoulders and flicked a side of her ravened hair back with her thin fingers.
She then noticed that two striplings that were at her feet, who sat up when The Matriss moved to stand. A boy and girl of close appearance -definitely brother and sister and most likely twins as well. She had seen a few twin-born during Her captivity and easily recognised the similarities in their Frontier Sand coloured hair and eyes. They were dressed in identical green togas and had thick collars encasing their delicate, avian necks. Theses two were fashioned to be the same and interchangeable. Forever made to be androgynous children. Upon their thin faces they had the expression of lazy, insolent pets as they gazed upon Her, fawning over their Matriss’ dainty ankles. She despised them both immediately and hoped that their’s was not to be Her Fate.
She cared not for the appearance of the others in the room, for She knew none had Her Father’s eyes or Her Mother’s grace.
Again, she was alone.
“So, this is the Fighting Girl from Ballacreous?” The Matriss asked, as she stood with a swaying of thin her hips, brushing aside her Little Pets.
“Indeed, my Matriss,” the Slaver answered, in obsequious tones. “Just as you requested.”
“Thank you, Slaver,” The Matriss said, noticing the little man for the first time, she had the expression that she had found him attached to the bottom of her slippers. “You have done well in serving my will. Your reward awaits you by the gates. You may take your leave of me now.”
“Thank you, my Matriss,” he said, with a low bow, scraping his wide brim hat on the marble floor. “May the Gods of Trade keep fair watch over you.”
He made a little sign with his hand and The Matriss dismissed him with a sharp hiss and flick of her hand.
Then she turned her attentions back on Her and said: “Bring the girl hither!”
She was pushed closer towards The Matriss and then knocked to Her knees, so that She was kowtowed before her. She was forced to look up and acknowledge Her new position, though it felt very similar to the one she had left behind in Ballacreous. She noticed that The Matriss was surprisingly tall, for a woman. Her limbs were long and lithesome but She could feel, within Her Warrior’s Heart, that they were edged with might. Her skin was also white; a clean white that She had never seen before in her entire life. A pristine pale that could not exist in the Deserts of the Frontier Lands or the filthy mines of her former prison home. She also noted that The Matriss’ eyes were uncommonly large and a sparkling green -as if they were polished gems.
“What is your name, Child?” The Matriss asked, in a softly commanding voice.
She did not answer. She merely stared down at The Matriss’ Pets, as they crawled towards her, rattling their chains to hide their sniggering.
She was then struck on the back by the blunt end of a rod, contorting her thick flesh with its sudden brutality. This only made The Pets snigger even more, as they hide their jackal faces behind their Matriss’ thin legs.
“Answer your Matriss when She speaks to you, Purshuela!” growled a harsh and violent voice from Her side. He spat the ancient word for slave, ‘Purshuela’, from his lipless mouth as if it were the bitterest poison.
She stared up into to the cruel and carved face of a Matrissial Soldier, lined by many years and many battles. He was missing right eye, its absence was marked by a small square of cloth. On his golden wristbands were the markings of a Duxia -the chief of guards. He wore a pristine white toga and around his stout neck was a token that She despised above all others. It was a pair of golden hands, cupped together, clutching a golden sphere within their hollowed palms. It was the symbol of the Children of the Living God and it represented everything that she loathed and resented in all Existence. He was a Livie and forever Her enemy, no matter what transpired here and now, She vowed that She would always hate him and She would vex his very existence until the very End of Days.
“Speak, Dog!” he screamed , striking Her again.
She took his blow as August had taught Her to and then She gave this Cultist a look of all the purest malice that She could muster, but She did not give him the pleasure of a reply.
“Halt, Cerryis!” The Matriss ordered, in that soft, supply voice of her. “Has it occurred to your idle mind that maybe she does not have a name or even possess the powers of speech as we do? Hhmmm?”
The Livie, Cerryis, straightened himself in regimental fashion and made his flesh a statue.
“I thought not,” The Matriss said, with an impatient sigh.
Cerryis held his Soldiery stance and tried to give as little as himself away, but She could see that he, deep down, despised taking orders from The Matriss but was unwilling to incur what may be her considerable wrath.
“As for you,” The Matriss said, turning her attentions back to Her. “We shall find a name for you in due time, though for now: unbind her!”
Cerryis and another Matrissial Soldier moved to remove Her yoke and manacles, but She fought as best She could against such actions. Lashing out with Her bound wrists at anyone who would dare approach Her. Cerryis attempted to strike Her again with the butt of his rod, but She entangled its shaft within Her chains and wrested it from his thick hands. He raised his arm into the air, as if to knock Her about Her head, when The Matriss stepped in and struck him first. Slapping him hard across his carven features, raising little giggles from the mouths of her Little Pets.
“How dare you bring violence within these walls!” she shrieked, all harmony lost from her voice. “Her life is worth more than your’s at this moment of Existence and shall be worth far more hence. If you ever lay but a hand upon her, Cerryis, your mortality is forfeit and your ragged remains shall be cast before The Dogs and Beggars ere it become but Dust!”
Cerryis had a look of murder in his small, crystalline eye though he did check his temper and yield to The Matriss’ impressive will. He stepped back and took what appeared to be his ritual position by the wall, between The Matriss and the entrance.
“Cala! Craemyn!” she ordered, causing her Pets to cast aside their chains and stand.
They were both tiny, barely raising up to the height of The Matriss’ shoulders, and their limbs were so scrawny that She was sure that She could easily crush them, if She had to, with but two fingers. Though Her inner sense, honed by so many years of being binded by Darkness and Danger, warned Her against such action and to be wary of these two creatures -Cala and Craemyn- even though She did not know which was which or if it even matters so.
“Take her to the Balneumys,” The Matriss ordered, casually stroking the hair of the girl and caressing the shoulder of the boy. “I shall be along presently.”
And so, She was led through corridor after corridor by the Twins, Cala and Craemyn. Her blue eyes filled with a restrained awe as they looked upon sights that She never would dare dream into existence.
It was clean.
Everything was clean!
Cleanliness unlike any She had ever witnessed in her relatively short life.
And the colours!
Colours that She could not give a name to -so many shades and patterns- flittered past Her vision and filled Her with a new and strange sensation. Some would call it a ‘Sense of Wonder’, though She would not, for She did not have such words or luxuries within Her direct and pragmatical mind. Though still, She looked and bore witness to sights and extravagance the likes of which boggled Her much restrained Soul, until She was brought into a room which did loose a gasp from Her tight and stubborn throat.
A pool of water, so vast that it seemed to engulf the entirety of the room’s sunken floor and lapped wantonly at its pristine edges. She never knew so much water existed in the entire World, let alone in a single place. Not even when Aegine’s Sky Goddess did weep could it even match the sheer volume of this Pool. To Her, it was the purest forms of extravagance and excess combined within a single form. It was all symbolised by a vast column of water was cast into the air from out the upturned mouth of a creature that She could neither name nor fathom; it’s long scaled wrapped tightly around the white stone pillar raising from out the very centre of the Pool. It was scaled not unlike a snake but its shape was far from reptilian. It had a small fan attached underneath what She guessed was it’s head and She hazard to hypotheses that it would have another matching fan on its far side. Its eyes were round and bulging and gazed toward the distant domed ceiling but it appeared as though were focussed on a thing tangible yet Divine and distant.
Such a foreign and fantastic sight stirred something long dormant within Her and ushered the sound, the breath of word, “Amazing!” from the depth of Her very being. The first noise She had utter since the death of her Master, August, some months previous.
“So,” came the soft voice of The Matriss from behind her. “You do have a tongue within that pretty head of your’s. It shall be interesting to hear it speak your life and existence to me later.”
She did not reply. She merely hung Her head, as She was taught to avoid an Overseers gaze. The Matriss observed this, though she made no comment upon it. She merely took Her avoidance as submission and smiled upon Her. Wicked thoughts and schemes playing their way behind her eyes.
“Strip,” The Matriss ordered.
She gave The Matriss a questioning look and expected to be beaten for it, for She testing Her limits with this strange and seemingly powerful, woman. Though She was not struck for such insolence. The Matriss merely smiled at Her and, with a raised eyebrow, said: “You are to be cleansed of the filth of your former home, Ballacreous, and made fit for living within my Palace. To do so, you must first shed your habiliment and wash your flesh within these waters.”
In commandment, She dropped Her head and unbound the thick robes in which She was encased since She was dragged out of the Mines and thrown upon the prison-cart which brought Her to The City of Acheron and this wondrous water-filled room. The dust of long miles fell from Her flesh as she untethered the robe’s thick cords, forming repugnant clouds within the air before dissipating as if they were banished ghosts. The Twins both made the same disgusted expression but The Matriss merely stared at Her as if She was the most fascinating creature in all of existence. Her giant green eyes seemed to lull over the solid curve and cut of Her neck and shoulders as She peeled the stick cloth from Her muscled flesh. The Matriss’ assembled guards, and even the Twin, Cala and Craemyn, gave a communal gasp as She fully disrobed and revealed Her toned and taut body. She stood there in the Balneumys as if She were one of the statues on the walls had come to life. She appeared to those who stared at Her naked and filthy flesh as she had been carved from stone and not born of skin. She was still relatively slender though every curve and corner of Her body was clustered with corded muscle, forged and formed from so many years of slavish labours in conditions designed to break you -mind, body, Soul.
She had never been conscious or even self-conscious of Her body. To Her, such muscles were and had always been normal and nakedness was nothing to be ashamed of, having been forced to bathe communally for so many years. She knew that She was more muscular than many of the other Miners at Ballacreous and no woman She had ever known could match Her size or definition, but She had no clue as to how different She truly was when compared with the pampered and lazy people of the Inner Territories and especially within the Senatorial Houses. She was even larger, in terms of pure muscle and strength, than Cerryis, whom appeared to be the largest of The Matrissial Guards. She could feel all of their gazes, stained with awe and wonderment if not some lust and desire, and, despite Her own pride and conviction, raised Her manacled arms to cover Her shame. She was simply glad that Her back and its scornful markings were shown only to the Column Statue behind and that no others, especially the Livie Guard, Cerryis, could see them.
At this odd and marked behaviour, The Matriss gave an opprobrious laugh and scoffed the words: “Still so innocent?! What amusement you doth bring.”
The Matriss’ giant eyes slowly dallied over ever ridge and rise of Her flesh, until they fall upon Her yoke collar and the binds upon her wrists.
“Remove them,” she ordered, as she raised her head with a flickering of her ravened hair.
She did not comply, She merely drew her chains closer to her bare flesh, wrapping them around her thick forearms and drawing it hard against her taut and ridged belly. She knew this was the purest act of defiance She could make in such a situation, but there was no way She would allow Herself to become part of this decadent world and be stripped of the last things She knew here truly Her’s.
Her bonds -physical and metaphysical- to Her anechoic Master, August, and the lessons that She had been taught deep under Earth.
The Matriss stared down into Her azure eyes and it was at this moment She realised how tall and powerful The Matriss truly was. She could feel the will of this woman blasting through Her Soul as if it were Fires of the Earth itself welling up within the Mines of Ballacreous. She forced Herself to resist this power with all Her essence, even though it did feel as if Her very spirit was in torment. She held Herself fast against The Matriss and, in the end, it was The Matriss who did first look away and say: “Have it your way, Child. Forever remained bound if you so privatied.”
The Twins laugh at this and the girl-twin said: “Forever bound!”, with her brother mocking the words: “Forever innocent!”, both they both echoed: “Forever Innocent! Forever Bound!”.
At the baying of her Pets, The Matriss smiled and muttered: “And that is what she shall be”.
She wondered what The Matriss had meant by this enigmatic quip, but before She could ponder it further, The Matriss clapped her hands together and called: “Handmaidens! Attend me!”.