The Velvet Kitten
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Chloë wriggled her toes, lying back in the straw, watching a chicken scratch for corn. She finally had a few coins to her name, though she still only had the one outfit and a robe to go over it for the cold. “Well, if you will get yourself into these ridiculous situations” she chuckled to herself. A sleek dark shape raised it’s head and peered at her. “Talking to myself Tinks, go back to sleep.”
Thinking back she’d always known that this was going to be hard. As one of the foremost Companions in Cormyr she had owned an Estate of her own and two farms outside Suzail. Was constantly being wooed and in demand and command some of the highest fees of any Companion in the land. And here she was in the back end of nowhere, with a handful of coin to her name and surrounded by people who’s first response if she told them of her life would be to call her a whore. Still she’d heard worse and could laugh off insults with remarkable ease. For a start it was very inaccurate. A whore was paid to have sex with people, the pre-requisites where an ability to make the right noises, an ability to switch off your emotions for ten minutes at a time and the appropriate orifices. Anyone could do it, loiter in a brothel or on street corners. The only time a Companion visited such places was as part of her religious duty, tending to the physical and spiritual needs of the prostitutes, in Sharess’ name.
A Companion was much more. For a start they were mostly Nobly born, admittedly more often than not the wrong side of the sheets, but their blood was considered no less worthy to hold titles they could gain and keep than any other noble family member. Secondly they were trained for a full seven years in all the arts of diplomacy, conversation, massage and a hundred other skills alongside their training in love-making. A Companion was sometimes paid to simply Escort someone, to act as a woman on their arm at functions and such skills were paramount. More often than not more was expected and delivered, but where-as a whore was paid to have sex, to more or less let the man get on with it, a Companion was paid to make love. No severing of emotions for a Companion since the act itself was one of benediction of their Goddess.
And so, how did one of Suzail’s premiere Companions end up freezing her toes off in Narfell, penniless. That was easy, the strongest rivalry a Companion was permitted was with other Companions of similar station, and so the woman who had twice bedded kings (once a king wished a diversion from affairs of state, the second a gift from another rulers wife on his birthday), had ended up deep in conversation one night with six of her closest friends amongst the Companions, and had declaimed that fame was not the reason for her success, that reputation was built upon skill and ability, on total confidentiality and trust, and that her previous Clients simply added to a reputation she had built herself from scratch. Logical enough, but it had been a Holy day and wine and food had dulled their senses, and so they began to argue. The upshot of which was the bet.
A simple enough wager, leave everything behind, and build it again from scratch in a land that had never heard of her. She could quit and go back at any time, no-one but the Companions would ever know the result, and whenever she returned any wealth and coin she returned with would be matched five times over, once from each of her friends. She could have backed down next morning, and gone back to her business. But no, the idea had amused her enough to travel and see how she fared, and so she had informed the Church where she was a Lay Priestess that she was taking a sabbatical to travel, cancelled the two clients she had arranged for the following month with great apologies and one of them begging her to stay a little longer, and taken ship for a city called Peltarch. Where apparently Sharess’ reputation was low enough that the Temple cat who had chosen to accompany her wasn’t even allowed within it’s walls, a terrible state of affairs that she would have to address as soon as she found the right circles to move in. After all, a Companion was only as good as the quality of her Clientelle…
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Reviewed, XP pending
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Game login: MarkOfCaine
Character name: Chloe The Velvet Kitten
