Ysstvelt

From RocksfallWiki

Ysstvelt is a specialised type of entertainment slave known as a belldancer. She is owned by Leonien Kizer.


What is a belldancer and what do they do?

Belldancers are entertainment slaves and status symbols for their owners. They are costly to purchase and can be costly to maintain. There is a fair bit of mystique associated with the belldancers because of the sheer amount of training and discipline involved in their art.

Slaves must be exceptionally attractive or striking before they are even considered for belldance training. They should have a certain degree of natural grace. Many of the young slaves selected never learn to move properly and never become belldancers so there’s a great deal of time, money and effort expended to produce even a single fully-fledged belldancer. In order to recoup costs from failed belldance trainees, all belldance candidates are also trained in sexual pleasuring so that they can still be sold as somewhat less valuable entertainment slaves should they fail to become belldancers. Sometimes they are trained in other arts as well.

There are bells implanted subcutaneously throughout a belldancer’s body; the point being to move so smoothly so as not to ring any of them. This takes years of practice and discipline to master. Even in regular day-to-day activities, they strive for silence from the bells, so a belldancer moves with a preternatural and somewhat eerie smoothness.

In public they wear a shroud which exposes only tantalizing glimpses of them, except when they are performing, at which time, their bodies are visible to all the guests fortunate enough to attend a party where belldancers are part of the entertainment. The belldancers are trained to be pleasant company at parties after their dances are done, and do not assume the shroud again until the event is over or until their owner, or the person renting them from their owner, commands it. There are plenty of opportunities for guests to engage in sexual play with a belldancer at a party. Of course, owners of belldancers can also take advantage of their slaves whenever they like and command them to carry out many other functions (such as translation services, book-keeping, keeping an honoured guest company, or training/breeding more valuable slaves) in addition to the primary one of entertainment, but it’s usually considered bad form to relegate such a valuable and highly skilled slave to very mundane or tedious tasks. Indeed, telling a belldancer to wash the dishes or sweep the floors is very insulting to the slave and may therefore only be used as a form of mild discipline. Basically, owning a belldancer shows you’re rich enough that you can afford to have slaves sit around and do nothing, if you like, and grants a great deal of status to the owner. Because of their rarity and mystique, guests generally view it as a great treat to be able to observe and have access to a belldancer.

It is acceptable for an owner to rent a belldancer out to someone else who is not fortunate enough to be able to afford their own belldancer, but the very best families may choose not to do this because it gives the appearance that they can’t *really* afford to keep a belldancer and must therefore farm him or her out to help pay for his or her capital cost and subsequent maintenance.

A belldancer performance generally includes at least one high-energy dance where the point is to make all their bells jingle to produce a pleasing music and to prove that they are, in fact, belldancers. This also sets the stage for showcasing their skill and artistry when they proceed to dance without making a sound at all.

“Making the bells ring” is a practice enjoyed mainly by young bravos and/or bravas, perhaps encountering a belldancer for the first time, who are keen to discover what they have to do in order to make a belldancer’s bells ring. It can take many forms but nearly always has a sexual connotation.

It’s more than rumour that a belldancer’s bells are made of pure gold or platinum, so there have been cases of certain individuals or groups kidnapping or killing a belldancer in order to cut out their bells for some fast cash. If the perpetrators are caught, the belldancer owner’s wrath is generally not pretty.

Vital Statistics

Gender: Female

Age: 18

Height: 5'3"

Weight: 118 lbs

Eyes: Hazel

Hair: Black

Skin: Pale porcelain

Description

For those few who have seen her unshrouded, Ysstvelt is small in stature and her body is toned from years of dancing. Pure human, she is an exceptionally attractive specimen with delicate and pretty features. Her hair is long, falling past her buttocks, and silky smooth with a deep wave. She usually wears it down, in a long ponytail or braid, perhaps loose or with a few intricate coils near the top, or all braided into tiny braids, because its fluidity adds to her dancing performances. She wears a platinum torc around her neck with the mark of Leonien Kizer on it to denote his ownership of her. Her torc is similar in shape to the one in the link, but is welded at the hinge and fastener so that it can't be taken off without cutting through it.

There are bells implanted subcutaneously in evenly spaced, alternating lines down the outside of her arms, hips and legs, across her shoulders, and at the top of her breasts and buttocks. Each one is visible as a small, rounded protuberance. Decorative scarification has turned each into a flower nestled among intricate, leafy, twining vines etched into her skin. Shimmering, pale tattoos echo and extend the vines to smooth sections of her skin. Here and there, tattoos depict small animals such as birds, spiders and lizards. On her back, two cranes dance. Her face is also tattooed with the same shimmering, pearlescent pigment, lending her the appearance of wearing a half-mask over her eyes without obscuring her features.

When unshrouded and performing/entertaining, Yssvelt wears colourful silk gauze outfits which accentuate the beauty of her body in motion. In the sanctity of her master's home, she may go unshrouded at times, if he allows it, but the rest of the time, she must be shrouded. The shroud is a billowing, medium grey raw silk garment with slits sewn into it in strategic locations. Generally, only her heavily kohled eyes are visible, but the slits may afford tantalizing glimpses of her body to the observant eye, depending on the whims of the air currents around her, or on her own movements.