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English
Series:
Part 1 of What You Do Matters
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Published:
2022-03-16
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2,106
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1/1
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44
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108
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Eating the Seed Corn

Summary:

Seed corn is what's left over at the end of a harvest to plant for next year. If you eat your seed corn out of desperation, you may survive this winter, but there will be nothing come planting time in spring, no further harvests, nothing for the future.

Serenoa finds himself and his friends debating whether or not to send the Rosellan refugees in his demesne back into slavery.

It should never have been a question in the first place.

Notes:

So I've been playing Triangle Strategy and I got to Chapter 11 and the truth of the Source and I knew it was coming and they still held nothing back, and then the question of whether or not to send the Roselle in Wolffort back into slavery wound up on the scales of conviction. My mind blanked out in righteous fury and I came to a few hours later in front of my computer with this fic. I hope you all enjoy?

Serenoa is very much primary morality secondary liberty aligned here.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

The Source was an enormous saltwater lake, so laden with the blessings of salt that Serenoa could literally dip his hands into the shallows and scoop up fistfuls of salt crystals, each one a spiky ball the size of his thumb. When he did so, his skin was slimy, the leather of his gloves cracked and ruined as they dried. The entire place stunk, something acrid and chemical that Serenoa could not place a name to. 

What took his breath away was not the overwhelming abundance of blessed salt, but the sheer scale of human misery in this place.  

Serenoa squeezed Frederica’s hand tight enough to hurt and forced himself to bear witness with her. He would not have her look upon the plight of her people alone! 

Because everywhere, everywhere Serenoa looked, there were the Roselle, mining salt. No, forced to mine salt as some sort of twisted atonement. When an old woman, her face weathered and cracked, her hair so faded as to be almost white, stumbled and spilled her casket of salt back into the shallows, one of the guards fell upon her and in mere moments whipped her bloody. She whimpered as salt bit those gashes; any screams of pain must have been burnt out of her years ago. A younger man took a half step forward to help her up, but under the glare of the guard swallowed and backed away. The old woman was left to pick up the casket herself and get back to work. 

Roland had to walk away; even from this distance Serenoa could see the look in his eye that meant he wanted nothing more than to run that bastard through and probably would if it wouldn’t get them all arrested or killed. 

Their labor only stopped for worship, which was really just Idore shouting abuse at them for several minutes. Some bullshit about how because of the crimes of their ancestors they were all evil and goddess demanded that they be worked to death for the chance at being reborn as somebody worthy of life. It was vile beyond words, and it took all Serenoa had to stay silent and not cause trouble. Beside him Frederica was shaking, her skin blazingly hot from her fire magic, forcibly leashed. Oh, how Serenoa wanted to take her away from this wretched place, shield her eyes and ears from those who wished her harm and saw her as less than human, less than animal! But alas, there was no way to leave without causing a scene. More importantly, Frederica would not leave. She’d vowed to see as much as she could for herself, and her will, now forged, was as iron as anything from Aesfrost’s forges. She would see this through. It was one of the things that Serenoa admired so fiercely about his betrothed.

So they stood there together and listened to divinely sanctioned hatred as the harsh desert sun beat down overhead. Sweat pooled in the creases of Serenoa’s clothes; his body’s salt dripped down to mix with that of the Source. Serenoa instinctively reached for his canteen to quench his thirst, then stopped when he saw that none of the Rosellans had any means to slake what at this point must have been desperate thirst. Out of the corner of his eye, Frederica slipped a young boy a few sips from her own canteen. 

Back in his demesne, while Jerrom helped fit Frederica for her wedding dress, Serenoa had watched another boy about the same age boil down amber sap into maple candy with his mother. They’d offered him a hunk. It was crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside, impossibly sweet as it melted on his tongue. 

And now they were arguing on whether or not to betray those who had found safety in Wolffort and send them back into slavery!

He tried not to be too angry at Geela. She’d grown up in Hyzante after all; that she’d managed to become Frederica’s tutor and friend spoke volumes. And she was terrified of crossing the Saintly Seven, the kind of quiet bone-deep fear that even now, months after his escape, left Corentin instinctively flinching and covering up his research whenever anybody passed by. 

“Remember what happened to Sorsley?” Geela cried out, and how could he forget the way a single divine blast had turned a living man into a charred and smoking ruin? “If we defy Hyzante, they’ll do the same to us, and the Roselle are done for either way!”

All of which was possible, but to meekly roll over and surrender to such naked cruelty? To surrender his own citizens to slow and brutal death? Serenoa narrowed his eyes and began reading from the ledger he found in the Source, the stray pages listing the Roselle as if they were livestock. He’d started reading back there, then had to stop to maintain his own composure. But he read now, his voice growing tighter and tighter as rage built in his chest with every word.

“No. 18581: Quota met

No. 18582: Quota met.

No. 18583: Failed to meet quota. Given 3 lashes as a warning.

No. 18729: Failed to even come close to meeting quota. Given 5 lashes as a warning.

No. 18730: Failed to meet quota for third day in a row. Given 10 lashes as punishment. Rations and water reduced by one-third.

No. 18814: Failed to meet quota 10 days in a row. Poor physical condition. Fever shows no sign of breaking. Suspending rations.

No. 18815: Deceased. Replaced by 9-year old boy. Failed to meet quota. Given 3 lashes as a warning.”

Serenoa looked up from the ledger, now crumpled and torn at the edges in his clenched fists. Erador, Geela, and Hughette were all green in the face, visibly nauseous. Anna had gouged a deep line in the table with her dagger. Frederica and Roland both looked as if they were about to march off to Hyzante and start burning it down, and frankly Serenoa didn't really want to stop them. 

“So,” he spat to his friends and family, “With what number would you replace Frederica’s name? How many lashes would you punish her with for not meeting her quota?”

There wasn’t really any good counter to that. Geela leaned forward on the table, buried her head in her hands, and let out a terrified laugh. “Never thought I’d tell the Saintly Seven to go fuck themselves…so this is how I die.”

Benedict’s eyes were closed. He let out a long, low sigh. “That is…the most vile thing I have ever heard.” He opened his eyes. “But House Wolffort must still survive, regardless of the decisions we must make to do so.”

That…Benedict was only thinking about the survival of the house. And he was always, on some level, pragmatic to the point of being callous. But this…it shouldn’t have hurt, it shouldn’t have felt like a knife to the back, as much as it did. Before Serenoa even realized it he had stood up, his chair scraping against the stone as he stalked over to Benedict. “So you would have me condemn a portion of our citizens to slow torture and death? Is that what you want House Wolffort to stand for?”

Benedict sighed, unmoved by his passions. “My Lord, we have the other citizens of our demesne to consider. If we are all branded as heretics and slain in battle, what good would it do them?”

“So we are to keep lopping off our limbs to survive until the next day?” Serenoa fought to keep his voice level; it would not do for him to become overly emotional. “Would you have us become the next House Telliore, known only for opportunism and self-interest? What would you have us stand for? How could our people possibly trust us if we would so easily sacrifice a portion of them?” He was starting to shout, he knew, how could one not show emotion? A lord needed to be logical and dispassionate, but what were they if they did not care? “You bid us sacrifice our prince to survive to the next day, regardless of the implications of such betrayal. We then burnt down much of Hawksroost to survive the assault. And that was—it was necessary, I understand. But now you wish us to betray our people, as well as my father’s wishes?” He balled his hands into fists and took another step forward. “Benedict, you would have us devour our seed corn! Pray tell, even if we do survive, how would you have us regain our trust with what remains of the Wolffort demesne? How would we assure them that they would not be next?”

“They are not Roselle, they have nothing to worry about—”

“But they do. They will.” And that wasn't even the point, but he had to make a different argument here. Serenoa went still, actively restrained himself from speaking faster and faster as the full implications made themselves horribly clear. “Benedict, Frederica is my betrothed. When we are wed, the next Lady Wolffort will be half-Roselle. Our children, the next rulers of House Wolffort, will be quarter-Rosellan. The moment we were betrothed, our house became a Rosellan one. The Holy State of Hyzante decrees that all Roselle are sinners whose purpose is to be slaves. Benedict, how would they see our house? How would they see the next heir to Wolffort?!”

It brought Serenoa no satisfaction to see Benedict blanch, because the implications melted like lead through his own guts and made him want to vomit.

The vote to protect the Roselle was unanimous.

It should never have been up for vote in the first place.

Nightmares plagued Serenoa’s rest, until he woke up shaking with his fist in his mouth to stifle his sobs.

He dreamt of salt, of himself standing before the statue of the Goddess with a whip instead of a sword. Of Frederica, dressed in rags and at his knees, her hands cracked and slimy with the cursed waters of the Source instead of smelling faintly of ink and sweet ash. Of their children, with his aquiline face and her pink hair, dragged away from their arms, bound in chains and picking up salt crystals in their tiny hands. And of him, cruelly watching their torment with a whip in his hand.

It wasn’t real, only a nightmare. It would never happen. Serenoa told himself these things over and over as he tried to will his heart to slow, his breath to calm, the terror-sweat on his back to dry away. But sleep was futile after nightmares like that, and so he put on his robes and stepped out to the hallway leading to the balcony. Perhaps some fresh air would do him good. 

He should not have been surprised to see Frederica standing just outside the door to her room. She was still shaking slightly, all the rage at what she saw too much for a mortal body to contain. Her eyes glimmered, but within them blazed distant bonfires. She looked up at him. “Serenoa…”

Serenoa wasn’t quite sure who initiated, but within moments he’d found himself pressing her against the wall, as they fiercely kissed again and again. He laced his hands through her hair and wound the soft rose strands around his fingers; she dug into the meat of his back and pulled him closer, her breath sounding like sobs. Frederica was bright sunlight, the forge-fire of creation, the shield against darkness and beasts of night. He loved her. Serenoa loved Frederica’s kindness, her beauty, her compassion. Her conviction to her people and preserving life, her inner fire. This was a future for House Wolffort, this is what they would stand for. 

“My people in your lands are free,” she said as she kissed him in return. “We will never go back there.” 

“We will, but only once,” he said, and kissed her again. Frederica tasted not of salt, but of her. “As soon as we are able, I will go with you, and we will free your people, and they will never be slaves on the whims of a goddess again.” Her hair shimmered in the moonlight, and where his was coarse and curly hers was so soft and sleek, like the flowers in springtime. This was what House Wolffort stood for! Not mere animal survival, not in supplication to a nation literally built on suffering, but for what was right! “You are to be my wife, Frederica. Where you go, I go. Your people are my people. And I will protect them.”

Notes:

Ok so I'm at chapter thirteen and I know there's multiple endings and if the ending I'm on doesn't end in slave revolt and liberation and burning Hyzante to the ground I swear to fucking God--

By the way, the report in italics? That's straight up copied text from the game.

Hyzante. Must. Burn.

Also, please tell me someone brings up that Frederica and Serenoa's children will be part-Rosellan which kind of makes the question of allying with Hyzante moot.

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