Talla's Temple Ch. 04

Obviously not everyone was suited to the high tasks of engineering and construction. Someone had to cook. Someone had to clean. Talla wondered where she would end up.

She asked for a cold glass of water. It was handed to her with a knowing smile by the Initiate behind the counter. Someday soon she would get her first upgrade and trade her long skirt for a knee-length one. When she got her second upgrade, she would then be expected to wear the tiny skirt worn by the one who gave her that drink.

She'd have to wear underwear under that, right?

She sat down with Meena at one of the appropriate tables.

"Sure you don't want some food?" Meena asked.

She shook her head.

"So, uh, what happens now?" she asked.

"There will be a formal Orientation," Meena said. "Every Division and Discipline is a little different, so you have to learn the ins and outs. It's not very complicated. Then you get ready for your first upgrade."

"How does that work, exactly?"

"Um, well, you'll find out at Orientation," Meena was uncomfortable again. "It's really not for me to say."

Talla looked at Meena carefully.

Meena melted under her gaze. "Look. It's just better if you're told by someone else, with experience. It's not my place. Sorry."

Talla shrugged and gave up. She would have to wait.

"So what do I do for now?"

"You have the day off," Meena said. "Walk around, stay out of trouble. Rest if you want. Your Orientation will be this evening. Be back at your apartment by the seventh hour."

"Just the three of us?"

"Yep."

Meena hesitated a moment. "Um, I should really go back and check on Salee and Lara. You want to come?"

Talla thought about that. Meena obviously wasn't a good source of information.

"I'll stay here," she said. "Maybe have a bite. You go ahead."

"Alright", Meena replied a little too happily. Inquisitiveness wasn't overly valued in certain subject areas, obviously, and Meena seemed relieved to escape. With a twirl of her skirt, she darted off.

The water was making Talla feel much better. She finished the tall glass off, returned it to the kitchen and found a place to relieve herself. Biological needs attended to, it was time to explore.

What did she know so far? She didn't even know where she was except, presumably, that she was still in the Endowment triangle.

She decided to get her bearings.

She could see the long street which led back to her apartment. On one side of the cafeteria, alleys fanned out in different directions. The other side was a wall. The long lane that started at her apartment went straight through the cafeteria. It might be that this lane ran along the outside of the Temple, or maybe just Endowment's border with the rest of the Temple.

The best thing, she decided, would be to follow it that long lane.

She walked along the long row of apartments and offices and it quickly became clear that the tall wall must be Endowment's wall within the Temple itself. Its height was nowhere near as regular as Talla could remember the outer wall of the Temple being. Eventually it gave way to a plaza that Talla recognized.

Ah! Now she knew where she was. She saw the giant bronze gates through which she had entered her new home. The plaza itself was immense for a place that must value space above all else. The paving stones gave way to a grassy field with carefully placed trees. She hadn't noticed those the night before. Women, mostly oranges and a few high ranking yellows with their crossing sashes covering their breasts, were sitting under the trees conversing. Whites were waiting on them, bringing drinks and running other errands.

Walking along the paved path between the bronze gates and the Endowment Hall was a party of men and women. That surprised her. Men weren't allowed in the Temple often. She shadowed them through the trees. The escorts were four Keepers: yellow grass skirts and bikini tops. Two walked in front of the men and two behind. The men, four of them, were in beige-coloured work-ready clothes and were taking the opportunity to eye the women scattered throughout the compound.

The party entered the common room with Talla pretending to idly go in after them.

She was surprised by how different it was by day. It was cavernous and refreshingly cool instead of comfortably warm. The bronze plates on the wall were cold and metallic instead of flickering and alive with reflected firelight. Business was about. The tones of voices echoing off the walls were different; harsher. Efficiency was the game now, not relaxation.

The men were led to a table where two Officers and two Acolyte IIs in their tiny orange bikini bottoms, were leaning over a large table.

Gods, she thought, would she ever stop being jealous of larger breasted women? What effect would this have on the men?

They seemed to take it in stride though. She thought this might be a product of maturity. She watched from a short distance away as the Officers outlined plans for a building that needed to be constructed. She couldn't see it clearly, but it was some kind of tower with an internal stairway.

One of the men pointed at a portion of the drawing and asked a question she couldn't hear. Another man shrugged and indicated some type of answer. Wise heads nodded.

It seemed she couldn't follow the conversation without being obvious. Instead she breezed past the table so she could get a good look at the drawing as she walked to the back of the common room. The thing they were working on was a tower, but she couldn't say for what. It was tall, narrow and it had a pointed roof covering an observation platform on its top. That was all that she could see.

They were busy enough that they hadn't noticed her. To remain inconspicuous, she had to continue her way to the back of the common room, past the women milling around there. There were two doorways at the back of the room, both of which had small red stars on the wall above them. Privacy from men, then, and perhaps nudity.

She picked the leftmost of the two doors, past which there was a dark hallway that took a quick jig to prevent men from seeing things in places they should not be looking.

Sunlight, then, and an open courtyard not even half the size of the one on the other side of Endowment Hall. The difference was that men were never allowed here and women were not required to be clothed.

Some hundred or so women were laid out on towels on the thick, dark grass, tanning themselves in the warm sunlight. Not a single one of them wore clothing. She saw breasts of all sizes, though no chests quite as flat as hers. She saw both well toned muscles and skinny legs. She saw thick, dark pussy and bald mounds like her own (a lot of the latter. This was Endowment after all). At least she didn't have to guess at rank. The women kept their clothing folded in neat little piles wherever they tanned.

It was a quiet, peaceful place. Most of the women were resting with their eyes closed. A few engaged in conversation with someone lying nearby. There was neither loud chatter nor any sounds of work. She almost wanted to undress and lie down just to take in the serenity of the place. She'd never been in a place that made her feel so at ease.

But no. She was far too curious to take a break now. If this was to be her home, she wanted to know it like the back of her hand.

The only way forward was a three metre high arched portal across the courtyard. There were no doors but it did have an outline of a red star over it, meaning that proper clothing was required.

As she passed through the portal, her eyes took a moment to adjust. The floor was no longer brown paving stones. It had become white marble. This place was important. She was standing at the centre of two concentric semi circles of dark, wooden desks. Each desk had a woman in orange clothing working behind it. None of them looked up at her entrance.

The area she was in was three storeys high. There were two stairways, one along each of the walls to her left and right, that led to the second floor. The balconies there were adorned with banners of green cloth and the symbols of the three Disciplines of Endowment. Somewhere up there were stairways to the third floor. All she could see of that floor from the ground were red banners.

No doubt, these were the offices of the Sorceresses and Queen of Endowment. She probably shouldn't be here.

"You are lost, young one?" a quiet voice asked.

A guard, fully armoured, had popped out of nowhere.

Well, not nowhere precisely, she had come from a large set of closed doors opposite the entrance, behind the rows of desks.

"Um, just looking around."

The guard gave her a once over, took in the length of her skirt and spoke mildly. "You'll learn soon enough. But if you don't have business here, it's best that you leave." The busy women hadn't looked up during this quiet exchange. Talla nodded her agreement and let herself out.

What were they so busy with in there? It seemed to be a lot of writing, not drawing. If Endowment women were engineers, what were they doing in these marble offices? Maybe she'd find out later. It gave her a creepy feeling to have the sunlit serenity of the tanning courtyard right next to these studious women who so steadfastly ignored her.

She breathed a sigh of relief and let the sunlight wash away her unease. There was a Temple to explore and she had a good six hours to find everything.

"How fare your charges, Meena?"

Meena bowed to her superior.

"Well, Mistress Kara," she replied. "Salee and Lara had lunch and are resting."

"You had three charges, did you not?"

"Yes, Mistress," Meena replied. Eight ranks up, you damn well put 'Mistress ' on the end of everything. "Talla preferred to explore by herself, Mistress."

Consternation from the Officer.

"You left her to wander around unescorted?"

Meena was getting uncomfortable, standing here while Kara sat behind the desk.

"She's a sister, isn't she, Mistress? I didn't see a problem."

"There will be if she doesn't show up on time for Orientation."

"I told her when it is, Mistress," Meena said, adding somewhat defiantly. "I assume she can make an appointment."

It seemed unfair to berate her for this. Her charges were adults according to Temple Law. Why should she be punished - well, scolded, hopefully not punished - for treating them like adults?

Kara thought about this for a moment. She glanced aside, twisted her lips and took a deep breath.

"Yes, well. Not your fault, Meena," she eased back in her chair. "Go about your business then."

Meena bowed lightly and left her Mistress's office.

What on earth had that been about? What precisely was 'not your fault'? She tried to imagine Kara reading out some charge against her. What on earth would it say on the decree? "Virgin Meena D'jin. Failed to spoon feed an adult like a babe in diapers. Three common lashes. By Order of Kara T'lai."

That seemed unlikely.

She wasn't stupid, though it often paid for a junior to pretend to be stupid in a wide variety of situations.

The salient point in that conversation was Talla. She hadn't missed that. Someone was especially concerned about Talla. A virgin still in her long skirt was important enough that an Officer, a woman with nearly sixty upgrades to her name, was nervous and irrational about keeping an eye on her.

If there were people who cared enough about Talla's disposition to make an Officer nervous, then there were people who could be absolutely ruinous to a Virgin like her.

She set out to find Talla, intending that, by the gods, Talla would be well early to her Orientation and Meena D'jin could go back to safe anonymity.

By sixth bell Talla was tired. She had a good map of Endowment's portion of the Temple in her head though she didn't know what was done in many of the buildings. The apartments for some four thousand women covered the entire wall that faced the rest of the Temple. Periodically, there were cafeterias along the street that ran through these apartments. Talla's apartment was located as far to the back of the Temple as the apartments went. She imagined that she could throw a ball from her front door over the wall into Sweetness's triangle.

The plaza through which she had entered Endowment's triangle was in the middle of that wall of apartments. The place they called Endowment Hall backed on to the tanning courtyard which backed on to the mysterious marble offices with the busy women. Whatever was inside that building was large and had no other entrances. She had trekked all the way around it and found nothing but more workstations, offices and cafeterias.

She'd found an area in the back with large construction equipment being raised and tested. There was another place where young women in yellow were receiving instruction from oranges. They sat at small desks and took notes while the oranges dictated to them and posed questions. It reminded her a little of how her dorm mother had taught her charges how to read and write and do arithmetic. This seemed more formal.

After several hours of exploring, she was getting hungry. She looped back around the complex behind Endowment Hall and came to the plaza once again. It was getting dark. Initiates in tiny skirts were scurrying around lighting torches. Their superiors were calling it a day and heading in for dinner.

Talla watched the chaos unfold. She had seen the like outside the Temple as the men came in from fields and factories to their evening meals. The difference was density. There were just so many more women packed in to a smaller space, each with her own destination. The throbbing mob was daunting. The only oddity was the young girl in a knee-length white skirt standing in the middle of it all.

Talla looked more closely. It was Meena and she was busily scanning the mob teaming past her in all directions.

Was Meena looking for her? That was thoughtful. It would require a great deal of effort to find one person among the thousands of women that inhabited the Endowment triangle. Talla slid carefully in to foot traffic so as not be trampled.

Meena's eyes lit on her and there was obvious relief in her expression.

"Talla!" she shouted jubilantly.

She seemed a little too excited. Had the time of the Orientation changed?

"What's up?"

"Nothin'," Meena was playing non chalant now. "Just checking on ya."

"Oh, okay. Thanks."

"Wanna get some food? It's past sixth bell."

"Sure."

Meena was hiding something. Talla was determined of that fact. She was playing it casual now; the responsible guardian checking on her charge. But there had been something else in her expression when she had first seen Talla. There had been something calculating back behind those eyes.

Something was wrong and Meena wasn't saying.

There was a wait to get a table at the nearest cafeteria so they continued up the street back towards Talla's apartment.

"Where do you sleep?" Talla asked casually.

"Just across the street from you and down a bit."

"Do you have to share a room?"

"Yeah. You usually share a bedroom four ways until you go yellow. But the rooms get bigger when you go up in rank. When you go yellow, you only have to share with one other woman. I'm not sure when you get your own place, though."

They found a cafeteria, a little ways off the apartment street, that had a few empty tables where whites could sit. They took a couple of plates of pasta off the buffet station and sat down with a couple of Initiates.

"Hey, long skirt," one of them addressed her. "How long 'til your upgrade?"

Talla raised her eyebrows but didn't know how to respond.

"Tomorrow night," Meena filled in for her. "She just got here last night."

That was news to Talla. One night of Orientation and her first upgrade was the next day?

"Exciting," the other Initiate said. The two then starting gabbing about some personal subject and ignored the two Virgins.

"So you had some time to explore?"

"Yeah," Talla said. She couldn't help herself. She was bubbling over with the things she had discovered: the architecture; the artwork; the curious relationships the women had with each other. Meena stopped her when she mentioned the men coming in to Endowment Hall.

"That's very rare," Meena observed. "Usually men only come this far in to the Temple if the one of the High Officers is Serving them."

'Serving' meant sex? Talla assumed so.

"I thought we were supposed to Serve in the town? That's how I've always seen it done." She remembered once again seeing the finely dressed Temple women wandering through the town at night. Now she knew what they'd been doing.

"Well, High Officers can't leave the Temple, can they?"

"They can't?"

"No. So the men have to come to them."

More rules and regulations. She hoped that these were written down somewhere. She'd like to read the whole damn book and be done with it. Getting it all piecemeal like this was annoying.

So she told Meena about the courtyard where all the women had been sunning themselves.

"The place behind Endowment Hall?"

"Yeah."

"It's called the Tranquil Square. Sometimes they call it Tranquility."

So she'd gone through the Tranquil Square to the building beyond it.

"And you got your butt kicked right back out."

"Uh, yeah."

Meena's intellect suddenly turned back on. The vacant look with which she usually covered her face had disappeared again as she leaned forward.

"Yeah, they're insanely busy in there. Those are the hardest jobs in this place, as far as I know."

It occurred to Talla that she suddenly believed that 'as far as I know' actually went quite a way for Meena.

"All these complicated tables: balancing out Service in the city; taking orders from Central; passing them on to the women; making sure the orders are carried out. It's really complicated, but it's the only route to power."

That was a lot for Meena to know. Talla looked at her piercingly and Meena realized she'd given a lot away.

"That's what I heard anyhow," Meena added, trying to cover herself with ignorance again.

Talla was not fooled, nor would she ever be fooled by Meena's pretence again. The only question was why she did it.

"Well, you're right. A guard kicked me out pretty quickly. I only had time to see the banners on the upper floors. Are those the offices of the Sorceresses - "

"And the Queen of Endowment, yes," Meena cut in, "but it's also their living quarters."

"Must be huge."

"I've only ever been in Abundance's office and it was only once," Meena said. "Yeah, it's huge. There are more people working inside, along with really, really beautiful living space. It's only fair, I suppose, as she can't leave the Temple like we can."

Talla had noticed the shorthand for the High Officers. 'Abundance' meant the Sorceress of Abundance. 'Endowment' referred to the Queen of the entire Division. There was no shorthand for the Goddess of the entire Temple, not that she had heard at any rate.

The two of them chatted over the rest of Talla's discoveries that day as the sky darkened overhead. The less clearly she could see Meena, the less Meena stopped pretending to be stupid. She had a keen insight and Talla couldn't figure why she hid it.

"Let's head back," she said. "Salee and Lara should be waiting."

Yes, Talla thought, and why aren't you hunting them down with such concern as you searched for me?

They left their trays at the buffet station and trod their way to the apartment street. A right turn put them back on track. The streets were empty again.

"Where is everybody?" Talla asked.

"It's Friday," Meena said. "Most''ll be down at the hall getting their orders for the night."

"But not you?"

"No. Quotas are lower for Virgins and Initiates. We don't go out as often. Besides, I'm in charge of you three for the night."