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One tusk was silver.
It cost a lot.
Eightykills fingered the tip of the tusk with his yellow fingernail. It jutted up from his lower lip, guarding his cheekbone. He remembered how much it had hurt when he had gotten a cavity in that tooth. He remembered that every change in the wind would shove him into a stagger from the pain of the air’s caress across the exposed nerve.
Human dentists made fortunes off ogres like Eightykills. In today’s cities, life expectancy had risen for all races. Usually, up in the natural habitats of the hills, ogres were dead before their twentieth kill. Either neighbouring trolls vying for supremacy or just the treacherous rocks of the upslopes carried most Ogres to their death as young, virile creatures.
Now, in the city built by humans, beings lived longer lives with the help of new medicine.
All it cost the races that moved there was their traditions.
For instance, Eightykills' name meant just that. He had killed eighty intelligent beings in the course of his life. He'd had the name for over two of the human’s years now. His powerful employer paid him well but attempts on his boss’s life were rare. His boss ran the guild. If anything, Eightykills was there as a terrifying, two-ton, green, scarecrow.
Eightykills was embarassed that his name hadn't changed in so long. It made him feel old, useless, or like some sort of ghost.
Eightykills’ traveling cousin had come to town last week. His cousin’s name was Ninetysixkills. Eightykills had ridiculed his cousin as a child, back when his cousin had just been named Twelvekills. His cousin’s travels around the countryside had kept him poor but his name was a proud one to have now.
Eightykills, rich and well-polished, had to show deference to his cousin. Intoning his cousin’s record and flickering his thick fingers in the quick mathsigns for his name, he bared his own throat with a whine as a greeting of lesser status.
His cousin had surprised him. “Please don’t refer to me as Ninetysixkills anymore, cousin. My English name is Harold,” he had said. “It’s embarrassing and it scares the humans. We need to be more like them to succeed.”
Eightykills had been disgusted with his cousin and left in a huff. Later on, though, over a cup of fermented horse blood, he’d thought of his own slippery slope into becoming a pet for the humans.
He hadn’t killed in two years. He was dressed in silk. And here, just at the edge of his vision, was the ornate silver tusk that he’d gotten after the root canal on the old one.
The story of the ogre’s race was carved in a spiral up the silver tusk to the sharpened tip. It was beautiful and traditional.
And utterly hypocritical. It might as well have been a tombstone for the values of his race rather than a celebration of it.
He pawed over fantasies of killing his boss and as many underlings as he could before they took him down, taking a recorded name of over a hundred kills to the Great Ogre-Cave above the clouds.
He knew they were fantasies. He was as bought as the furniture in his master’s boudoir.
He went home to brood and sleep.
tags
It cost a lot.
Eightykills fingered the tip of the tusk with his yellow fingernail. It jutted up from his lower lip, guarding his cheekbone. He remembered how much it had hurt when he had gotten a cavity in that tooth. He remembered that every change in the wind would shove him into a stagger from the pain of the air’s caress across the exposed nerve.
Human dentists made fortunes off ogres like Eightykills. In today’s cities, life expectancy had risen for all races. Usually, up in the natural habitats of the hills, ogres were dead before their twentieth kill. Either neighbouring trolls vying for supremacy or just the treacherous rocks of the upslopes carried most Ogres to their death as young, virile creatures.
Now, in the city built by humans, beings lived longer lives with the help of new medicine.
All it cost the races that moved there was their traditions.
For instance, Eightykills' name meant just that. He had killed eighty intelligent beings in the course of his life. He'd had the name for over two of the human’s years now. His powerful employer paid him well but attempts on his boss’s life were rare. His boss ran the guild. If anything, Eightykills was there as a terrifying, two-ton, green, scarecrow.
Eightykills was embarassed that his name hadn't changed in so long. It made him feel old, useless, or like some sort of ghost.
Eightykills’ traveling cousin had come to town last week. His cousin’s name was Ninetysixkills. Eightykills had ridiculed his cousin as a child, back when his cousin had just been named Twelvekills. His cousin’s travels around the countryside had kept him poor but his name was a proud one to have now.
Eightykills, rich and well-polished, had to show deference to his cousin. Intoning his cousin’s record and flickering his thick fingers in the quick mathsigns for his name, he bared his own throat with a whine as a greeting of lesser status.
His cousin had surprised him. “Please don’t refer to me as Ninetysixkills anymore, cousin. My English name is Harold,” he had said. “It’s embarrassing and it scares the humans. We need to be more like them to succeed.”
Eightykills had been disgusted with his cousin and left in a huff. Later on, though, over a cup of fermented horse blood, he’d thought of his own slippery slope into becoming a pet for the humans.
He hadn’t killed in two years. He was dressed in silk. And here, just at the edge of his vision, was the ornate silver tusk that he’d gotten after the root canal on the old one.
The story of the ogre’s race was carved in a spiral up the silver tusk to the sharpened tip. It was beautiful and traditional.
And utterly hypocritical. It might as well have been a tombstone for the values of his race rather than a celebration of it.
He pawed over fantasies of killing his boss and as many underlings as he could before they took him down, taking a recorded name of over a hundred kills to the Great Ogre-Cave above the clouds.
He knew they were fantasies. He was as bought as the furniture in his master’s boudoir.
He went home to brood and sleep.
tags