L. Roses
L. Roses was smaller than the other Pureblood children in the Iron Works, and they never let him forget it. Ugly, weak, a poor excuse for a Pureblood: the insults came daily, and they carved channels in Roses that cruelty would later fill. He started young, threatening the family's Iron slave nanny, bossing around anyone who lacked the standing to push back. By adulthood, the pattern had solidified into a career.
Roses built a business in the Iron Works slave trade, specializing in what he called premium stock: Irons and the newer Strain known as the Unstable. He took visible pleasure in the process of breaking people into submission, in reducing individuals to assets graded by obedience and durability. The work made him wealthy. More importantly, it made him powerful in the one arena where his size and appearance could not be held against him. No one laughed at the man holding the whip.
The Uprising ended it on a slave transport ship. Roses was slaughtered during the raid. The Irons he had been transporting were freed. In the Mortis Amaranthine, Roses blamed everyone and everything for his situation: the Uprising, his childhood bullies, the circumstances of his birth. Personal responsibility was the one commodity he had never traded in, and death did not change the inventory.
Roses built a business in the Iron Works slave trade, specializing in what he called premium stock: Irons and the newer Strain known as the Unstable. He took visible pleasure in the process of breaking people into submission, in reducing individuals to assets graded by obedience and durability. The work made him wealthy. More importantly, it made him powerful in the one arena where his size and appearance could not be held against him. No one laughed at the man holding the whip.
The Uprising ended it on a slave transport ship. Roses was slaughtered during the raid. The Irons he had been transporting were freed. In the Mortis Amaranthine, Roses blamed everyone and everything for his situation: the Uprising, his childhood bullies, the circumstances of his birth. Personal responsibility was the one commodity he had never traded in, and death did not change the inventory.
Children
