The Moonstone Key does not have a name; he is always referred to as 'The Moonstone Key'. His customers come to him at night, in secret, asking for the privilege of his company.
Moonstone is about five feet four (small, isn't he?) and kind of frail... built like Kamui from X, with very pale skin. He has a fluffly (yes, w/ the "l") crest of cream-colored hair, with a long tail in the back which he ties with a piece of rawhide leather. Also he has a small oval face with large, dark green eyes. Like pine green, or forest green. He often wears sandals, because he has very pretty little feet, and he doesn't wear much of anything else: just a pair of soft bracers on his arms and a loin guard, which is a metal device like a chastity belt for boys. Underneath this, of course, he wears a loincloth to prevent chafing. ^-^
The poor Moonstone is not very genki. In fact he's pretty sullen and doesn't say much, just glares a lot and hates to be touched. Unless you're a paying customer, in which case he's like a willing little pussycat, lots of body contact, all sly smiles and insinuating remarks. He's very handy with a spear, though, not to mention knives which he can pull apparently from nowhere (a couple of hidden sheaths in his bracers and the metal waistband of his guard), so there aren't many non-paying customers. At least...not for very long. ^_-
He's used to everything. He's been trained very well. The problem is that being aroused on his own makes him very angry. He can make himself respond to the advances of customers. But he hates wanting someone else, instead of being wanted.
He comes from a desert area of his world: much like the old Arabian society that was run by sheiks and sultans. Everyone has light eyes and hair, kind of like the Aiel in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time books. More than half the people in that society are warriors, women fighting alongside the men. The rest stay in settlements that have been carved into the sides of valleys, usually those that have an oasis, or spring, or some other source of fresh water. These settlements have a strange heirarchy: the deeper your home is dug into the mountain, the higher up you are in society. Almost everyone is dark-skinned...except the Moonstone Key.
The Moonstone Key was unusually pale from birth, but he has stayed pale-skinned because he has spent almost his entire life indoors. When he was five he was sold by his mother to a very rich brothel owner, who had him trained until he was one of the highest-priced prostitutes in that world. He's entertained foreign ministers, nobles, and royalty of lots of different countries. His virginity was bought by his own Sultan. (The Sultan then offered to buy him, as have lots of other people since, but his owner refused to sell and he refused to go.)
He's seen very little of the world, except the news that he gets from his customers. Apparently, though, his race is obsessed with two things: war and sex. Even women and children... and prostitutes like him, especially...are trained to fight. There have been a few armies that tried to break into the small inhabited valley where he lives, but none of them have ever been able to reach anywhere near the inner residential areas, so he's never really seen anyone that isn't a customer. He is, though, secretly curious about the world outside, so he usually manages to weasel all sorts of stories from his customers.
Part 1
"Stop! Thief!"
"I didn't take anything!" Although he knew that the pleas of innocence were near to hopeless, the young man rushed through the winding tunnels he'd found just below the surface of the sandstone walls. At first, he'd thought it was a cave that he'd slipped into, but he was soon to discover that instead of a simple cave, he'd found tunnels upon tunnels snaking deep within the rock.
It was blessedly cool inside, away from the desert's heat and the sun's glaring eye. He very much wanted to stop and rest for a moment, but for some reason, the town guards, or whatever he supposed they were called, had pointed at him and made chase, although exactly what for, he wasn't entirely sure. All he knew was that apparently something had gone missing, and there was a convenient gypsy to blame for it.
He'd long since given up on cursing his role in life, accepting the fact that if he hadn't had dark eyes, hair, and skin, he wouldn't be looked at twice; not even for the colorful loose clothing that kept him mostly comfortable. Everyone in this part of the world was dark-skinned from the sun, which was a blessed thing, but that was where any and all similarities ended. Where the gypsy tribes had sable-colored hair and eyes, the dwellers of the sparse valleys were pale in their almond-shaped eyes and hair, causing a lovely contrast, and a very noticeable difference.
"Where is he?"
"Look down that way! He couldn't have gotten far!"
"Filthy gypsies...worse than pests."
"Aye...at least sand fleas can be taken care of with ointment, eh?"
"Too bad you can't be," he whispered, skirting into a narrow hallway that led further into the mountain. Letting out a sigh of relief, the boy started forward cautiously, hoping for a quiet corner to curl up in, just for a few minutes, while he regained his wits and found a way out of the maze he'd lost himself in.
"Bastard...well, here's to another completed; more money to make you fat and lazy, my master," a voice hissed, followed by the audible sound of a purse of coins hitting first the wall, then falling to the floor. "If it weren't for the fact that I was so well taken care of, I swear I'd be outside this place, away from those filthy homjuns, and their disgusting appetites."
The boy blushed at the language the person was using, referring to someone as the very possibly dumbest rodents known to the area was quite harsh. He couldn't help himself when his curiosity got the best of him; it always did, so he carefully pushed at the curtains, looking for the source of such unhappy musings.
His breath caught in his throat. He'd never seen such splendor before in all his nineteen years. The room was carved out of the rock, just like the tunnels were, and, so he assumed, the other dwellings. The beads on the door, upon closer inspection were made of multi-shaded blue glass, blown into various shapes and sizes, giving the distinct clicks varied tones as they met. There was a similar curtain on the far end of the room, the same thin layers of ultra-pale aquamarine silk between them. The brilliant carpeting and pillows that adorned the floor were of thick pile and stuffing, once again, blue being the more primary of the colors. There wasn't much to be said for light, especially after being out in the bright sun for so long, but when his eyes adjusted better, the boy stared wide-eyed at all the treasures in the room, found in various nooks and crannies, also carved into the pale earth. Small jars and bottles, filled with all sorts of things he couldn't identify; things he wasn't so sure he wanted to understand what their purposes were. Then, as he turned his head to one side, he discovered something he hadn't seen before. The point of a very sharp, very real spear, and it was aimed right at him.
"Who are you?" The speaker was unlike anyone in the settlement, as far as the gypsy could tell. In place of the usual dark epidermis, the rather small spear-wielder had the coloring of some fantastic pale creature. His skin was the color of ivory, the small oval face holding a pair of the darkest green eyes the boy had ever seen. A crest of hair, only slightly darker than the other's skin fell back into a long tail, apparently held back by a thong of leather. The scarce clothing consisted on bracers and a loin guard, which hung slightly askew, as if it hadn't been set back onto the small frame properly.
"Most call me Dmitri, when I'm not being called 'thief' or boy'," he replied, trying to shy away from the point of the spear. "I just want to leave and get back to my caravan, before they leave without me. You see, I was outside looking at a selection of water skins, since I needed a new one...and then the next thing I knew, I was being chased around by these goons that think I stole something!"
"Did you?"
"What?"
"Steal something?" the pale-haired one asked. "It's punishable by death here, you know."
"No, I didn't!" Dmitri insisted. "Look, I told the caravan leader this was the wrong place to stop...anything goes wrong and we're the targets. But his sister was in need of water; she's with child, so we can't push the travelling too hard."
"What do you mean 'we'? What are you?"
"Oh, come on, don't give me that," Dmitri snapped. "Everyone knows who the gypsies are...we're the world's scapegoats. What the hell are you?" He was about at his wit's end for being insulted for the afternoon, so he made no move to hide his distaste with the young man.
"I'm the Moonstone Key," he answered flatly. "And this is my burrow. Leave before I take your throat out."
"All I ask of you is a way out of here," Dmitri replied calmly, never taking his eyes off the other boy's.
"And what have you to pay me with?" he questioned. "Where I am concerned, nothing is for free. Especially not me."
"I'm not asking for you," the gypsy spat. "I want to leave. I have no wish to continue a discussion of payment for leaving with an overpriced whore."
The Moonstone Key bristled for a moment. "What did you call me?" he hissed.
"Please," Dmitri drawled, slouching back. "If you're really the infamous Moonstone Key, you'd know that I'd have heard of you. I've been nearly everywhere on this continent, and I have heard stories of a slave that sells his body for unreasonable prices and many are willing to pay for his services. Some say that his own Sultan bought his virginity for a chest of gold."
"It was less than that, I assure you," The Moonstone Key informed him. "My Master was rather amused with the price he offered for me, however. But not even the Sultan could pay what my Master has made from me in the time I have been here. What else have you heard?"
"How do I get out?"
The two young men stared at each other, neither willing to back away from the issued challenge of wills. "You won't get out of here without my help," The Moonstone Key hissed, his dark eyes narrowing for a moment before a small, cold smirk set on his lips. "At least, not alive, anyway. All it would take is one shout to bring them here...I am rather important here, but I think you already know that, don't you?"
Dmitri smirked back. So that was the type of game he wanted to play, was it? "And if I'm dead," he yawned, acting on a hunch and praying to the Goddess he was right, "You won't get so much as another word out of me, and that's what you want, isn't it? You want me to tell you what I've heard, but I don't think you're interested in what I've heard of you, do you?" He kept himself from smiling in triumph when he saw the other boy's eyes flicker with some unidentifiable emotion...yes, the Key did have a weakness, then. How fascinating.
"If I showed you how to leave," the pale-haired boy began slowly. "What guarantee would I have that you would come back, anyway? If it is true what is said for your ilk, you would not hesitate to trick me into getting what you wanted."
Dmitri raised an eyebrow. "And you, evidently, know more than you let on," he pointed out. "Now who's deceiving whom?"
"No one has made any claims of my scruples, Dmitri, was it?" The Moonstone Key moved around to seat himself on a nearby comfortable pillow. He now understood that the gypsy would go nowhere without some idea of his surroundings; his "guest" was there at his whim. It seemed to be a rather nice change in things. "Therefore, I don't see how you could accurately pass judgment on me."
"That doesn't matter to the rest of you in the world," Dmitri spat bitterly. "At least you're revered as some dark sort of carnal god; people wouldn't dare insult you. You even just said you're important here...whereas a gypsy, just on sight has been considered to have stolen something, robbed someone, gotten some man's daughter pregnant, destroyed a marriage by charming a woman's husband away on a whim...I think I have just as much right to judge as anyone else, and damn the truth as well!"
The Moonstone Key regarded the dark boy for a long moment in silence. "Ah, so that's how it is. I see." A languid stretch and a somewhat disinterested yawn later, he sprawled back against the cushions on the floor. "A bitter child blaming everyone in sight for what he is. How amusing, and yet rather disappointing."
To Be Continued...
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