An orphan girl, Fleur (1)
When night was fell and fell, a boy went out from the pub's back door. He was rolling a big wooden cask/sake-barrel tilting deftly. The cask was empty and so light but it's too huge hard for the young boy to lift up. So he rolled it.
It's one of his jobs at here and which are chores except serving.
His clothes were poor, and his face and body were too dirty in every part. Moreover he had stinking odor. Why the pub's owner employs such dirty and unsanitary boy? But it"s normal in this world.
This is Sphold, the royal capital of the Kingdom of Lessensia. A festival celebrating the 400th anniversary of the founding of the country was being held in Sphold, and it was more crowded than usual.
People celebrate the anivversary and some of them make effort to take holidays for enjoying the festival. On the other hands, there're lots of people to work harder than usual at such time.
People waste their money lots during the festival and for other people who works at pubs and restaurants, dining bars, motels, hotels, theaters, gambling houses, etc, it's the best time to earn lots of money. Although, unfortunately, it's the best time for the robbers and pickpockets, too.
And the Kingdom's guards are also working to prevent crimes happened or to catch the crimers harder than usual. The Kingdom's guards have no time to enjoy the festival enough.
Furthermore, like the boy mentioned above, nontheless the festival, some people had to work as much as usual, or even more, in order to survive the day. In this world, there is huge numbers of the children to work since they were inflant.
Now, the boy rolled the cask to front of the cask storage where is outside the pub, the stand the tilted cask verticvally.
”Phew...”
He wiped the sweat from his forehead with the short sleeve of the shirt he was wearing. His sweat didn't just come from rolling cask. Even before he started working in the pub today, he was dingy, but not sweating. Because, he was moving around in the tavern before the cask-hauling, without taking a breather.
After he wiped his sweat, he moved his sight at somewhere towards his side where was a narrow backstreet.
The pub faces along the street where 2 adult could barely walk side by side. The cask strage place was between them. Usually few people walk the back alleys. Whether it was during a festival or not, it was the same.
However the gas lights along on the streetside which were turned off usually but were turned on at the night for the festival. For the reason, there were a few pedestrians appeared here and there on the backstreet, too.
So, there were people walking down that backstreet when the boy put down the barrel. Ahead of the boy's gaze, there were two heavy drunkers men walking in a good mood.They were walking shoulder to shoulder with each other saying "Let's go have another drink! Yay! "
”Aw Shit! Easy-going, they are!”
Saying that, the boy pursed his lips as he kicked the bottom of the barrel. He did it to lessen his frustration, but to little effect. He doesn't care because it was always the same he.
After he fixed the position of his patched beret so that it's comfortable, he got fired himself up with saying "OK! Alright!". Then he grabbed the ends of the barrel's hoop and lifted it up. To grab the hoop, he could lift it for a short time. It was hard for him to lift it up without do so.
He threw it up on top of a pile of empty cask. The cask the boy threw clattered with striking against the pub's wall and other empty barrels.After all, the barrel was neatly between empty barrels. For him, the control was very easy because he did many times.
He looked it and smiled with the satisfaction for a while. After that, he tightned his expression.
"Well...it's getting tough from now. Phew...”
Thinking about his next step, he sighed. The next step was to bring a cask of alcohol, whether it was beer or wine, he didn't know, to the pub.The places for the barrels were 2. One was for the empty cask and the other is for the new casks filled with alcohol. They were on either side of the pub's backdoor.
It was the same way he rolled the empty barrel, but the new cask was too heavy for him to roll easily. Because he was a poweless boy. But there was a much more serious problem than that.
For that, he was not "he" but "she". it means that in the fact, the child was a girl.
Her name is Fleur, just "Fleur". She don't have the last/family name. In this world, only partly people such as royal families, nobilityies, richers has the last name.
However, Fleur was orphan so she had no family name. Fortunately, she has the place to living and has the family though no blooded.
She is 10 years old now. Ten years ago, she was born in Gowen, one of brothels in Sphold. Her mother was a prostitute.
There're some kinds of brothels in this world, in Lessensia.
Most special brothels are only for royals and nextly only for nobilities.There're more one. Only for richer and bigger merchants, only for knights and guraders. only for the national civil servants of those who engage in special work for the country or territory.
Of course, there are brothels for the general public but they were distinguished with the people's living level, it means for common and for poors.
Not only the brothels, but also the prostitutes who worked there were differentiated by customer base, and employment patterns varied.
There are ordinary people and slaves. Some people live and work in brothels, while others work commuting. There are those who take customers by standing on the streets.There are prostitutes who are treated politely by the owner and customers of the brothel, and there are prostitutes who are forced to work for free for the rest of their lives. It was different for each person.
Fleur's mother was a slave prostitute at the brothels for the nobilities. Fleur's mother was a slave prostitute at the brothels for the nobilities.
Depending on the brothels and the locations, Gowen doesn't brand burns the prostitutes. Because Gowen is for the nobility, and prostitutes were commodities for the nobility. Gowen's prostitutes are treated politely and gently, unless they escape. Fleur's mother did, too.
Instead, they are expected to hone their facial and bodily beauty, and to provide the best possible hospitality to their guests.After they got some results as getting fixed customers or well-selling, they can go outside freely through advance apply to their owner.
Fleur's mother, the prostitute, died shortly after giving birth to Fleur. So Fleur has hardly known what his mother looked like and her upbringing. She knows only within a little to extent prostitutes taught her. For the reason, Fleur has never known even one of her relatives.
Fleur was raised as a boy by Gowen's prostitutes.If she had been found to be female at her birth among the owner and her servants, or male workers, they would have raised Fleur, but would have made her a prostitute at even she was still a child.The prostitutes feared that.
Usually, when a prostitute gives birth to a baby, if the prostitute does not want to raise her own child, the child is left to the owner of the brothel to deal with. It was a tacit understanding. In the case that the baby was a girl, she would be made a prostitute at the brotel.
On the other hands, in the case that the baby was a boy,the owner's options expand.The child is either given up for adoption by an aristocrat or a wealthy merchant, etc., abandoned in front of an orphanage or elsewhere, sold to a slave trader, or, like present Fuller, used as an apprentice in a brothel.There was of being turned into a male prostitute on rare occasions, but the number of male prostitutes and the brothels in this world were very few, and this option was rarely selected.
In Fleur's case, it may have been because her mother had a good personality when she was alive, the prostitutes of Wogen have grown up Fleur as a boy and to be a apprentice at there.
Of course, Fleur was unable to work while she was a baby or inflant, so until she grew up to a certain extent, she had been looked after by prostitutes and the men who worked there. Even so, it seemed that Fleur was a baby that didn't require much care, and was mostly left alone.
Luckily, Fleur didn't cry much, it wasn't too much of a hassle. So the men only came to look at her face between jobs. They hated to chane her diapers and to give her a bath. Because it was bother and very dirty for them. For the result, it has never found out that Fleur was a girl until now.
Some men were reluctant or uninterested in babies and children when she was born.However, as Fleur grew up and began to talk and walk little by little, they also developed a certain affection for Fleur.
She could nothing for several years the several years. Because she was a baby and she was a little child.When She could speak and walk smoothly, she started to work little by little what she could. The prostitutes have taught Fleur what she should do for her living there.
Younger she collected the bedding and the clothes of the prostitutes in the vacant room where was after affairs and she gave them to the men at the laundry.Or she polished the silverware arranged for the aristocrats, or threw the garbage outdoors.
Fuller's hair was always cut short by prostitutes, and her clothes were given by the men who worked there handed down their children's hand-me-downs or got them outside the brothels to her.
Fleur's world closed only within the Gowen.She eats dishes same as the prostitutes and men eat, with them. She works at the same place where they works, with them. She sleeps at the same place where prostitutes sleeps.She has repeated the lifestyle, it was her whole world.
However, her world has rapidly expanded as her growth.
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20th April. 2025 11:17 re-post
