Date: Thu, 17 Mar 2011 00:42:21 -0400 From: Sean Williams Subject: Slave King of Kesselheim (Revised) The Slave King of Kesselheim Chapter 1 The Slave King walked up the steps of the dais to his throne; the emptiness of the throne hall echoed around him as he placed down first his jeweled sword, then his helmet. The king began to remove his armor, his back to the door, and then he heard the sound of the heavy bronze doors into the throne hall being pushed open behind him. The Slave King turned round. "Is that you, Decimus?" he asked. "Yes, milord," said a man's voice, a voice which grew louder as the man approached the dais. The man walked passed the bowing guards that had pushed open the door into the room and entered, his steel-toed boots making a loud clang against the hard stone floor. "The war is over, isn't it?" asked the Slave King. The king placed his breast plate and his steel shoulder pieces down beside the throne, close to where his helmet with white horsehair plume rested, and sat on the throne. He awaited his general's reply. The general, standing now only steps away from the dais, got down on one knee and bowed before his suzerain. "The war is over," the general repeated, echoing the words of the king, "and I hope this shall be the last, milord." The Slave King laughed and the general winced. Decimus glanced up at his king for only a moment and then looked down again. The king had a face that abounded with the markers of youth: a chiseled face with skin drawn tightly around high cheekbones, eyes that were large and dark and wide open, full and fair hair hanging down partially over his face; but the laugh was that of a battle-hardened warrior. It was the ringing laughter of someone that does not laugh often and that laughs at things that probably should not be laughed it. It was a laugh both amiable and cruel, full of misery and of joy, of success, failure, and thoughts of revenge. "The Queen is dead, finally," said the King, "but her allies rally around the frontier. It will be many years still before we are entirely done with them." "They only seek to show their strength," said the general, with a deep resonating voice. Decimus was a giant among men, with a face that was rigid and mean, and yet also obedient. He oozed the power of a warlord, a conquerer and enslaver of peoples, and his virility was legendary. It was hinted in Court that the general had sired more than three hundred children by his wives and concubines, without any mention of the dozens more that must have come from the prostitutes and courtesans littered across the thousand nations of the world. "They are weak, the Queen's allies," continued the general, "but they wish to display that they are strong. The kings, the associates of the late Queen of Kesselheim, hope to make peace, I am sure of it, but they wish to make it on equal terms." "I am not their equal," said the Slave King. "Your Majesty?" "I am strong, stronger than they," replied the king. "Why should I make equal terms with them? I shall dictate the terms to them when their faces are ground into the dust by my boot, if I let them live." "If I may speak frankly, milord?" "You may." "You are a king, milord, and no one doubts your virility, or dares challenge it out in the open, but one should not make war when war is unneccesary. Wars weaken everyone, even the victor. And there is something else. We have had nothing but war since you stood up to the queen ten years ago, one war after the next, and I believe there is something more than what you reveal, milord. Do you war in order to conquer? No. I do not believe that you do, milord." "I do not understand you, Decimus." "Do not doubt the value of your own life, milord." "What did you say?" "Do you seek an honorable way to die? I believe that you make war as a noble way to end your life. To die. Is that why you make war, so that you will not have to face who you are, who you were, what some may think of you?" The Slave King laughed. That was twice in scarcely ten minutes, noted the general from his spot on bended knee in the shadow of the high throne. The king made something like a shrug and peered out of one of the windows of the castle. He remembered something that someone had told him once, not long after he had first become a slave. "I determine who and what you are," a woman had told him. The Slave King could hear the bellowing and cutting voice in his ear and instantly recognized that it could have come from no one other than the queen, all those years ago when he was even younger than he was now. "You are mine," the queen would say later, as she brought her body down from atop his own and wiped the beads of passionate sweat from her brow. "You are mine alone and I shall tell you what you are: a slave!" The king closed his eyes and remembered the time before the wars, before the lust and intrigue. He remembered standing in the slave mart and watching as a golden barge floated by on the river, a boat on which was reclined a queen, surrounded by her bare-chested and lovely maidservants, several unclothed male slaves, rowing the barge slowly yet painfully down the river, and her armored generals. "Rather cooler today than I had anticipated," said the queen to one of her maids, indicating with a hand gesture that the girl should cease fanning her with the pole of ostrich feathers. "Rather perfect weather for sailing on a barge, my queen," said the maid. The queen did not reply, but looked ahead along the course of the river, her eyes only able to make out the blue-green water through the legs and the arms of the slaves whose rowing carried the boat forward, gliding along the water. The queen sighed. She had been worried that the weather would be hotter than she liked, but found that it was in fact, much cooler and this made her want to pick up her whip of shredded leather straps and beat one of the slaves. Certainly, beating a slave would not change the weather but she was a queen, and she was used to being obeyed; if the weather would not obey her, then she would make someone or something obey. "Girl, bring me the whip," said the queen, glancing briefly over at the maid. The maid trembled and blanched; she made slow steps toward the couch where the queen reclined and bent down and fetched the queen's whip. "Not for you," said the queen. "Tell one of those slaves to come here." "You want them to stop rowing, Ma'am?" "Yes, bring one of the slaves over." "The Chancellor comes, Your Majesty," said another girl, skipping over toward the queen and bowing. She pointed toward another barge, whose prow was painted to resemble the face of an eagle as the queen's own barge was, a vessel whose course was directed almost towards collision with that of the queen. The maid put down the whip and she and the queen watched as the vessel came near. Only moments later, a vessel had pulled beside the royal barge and slaves used ropes tossed over the side to set the boat to rights and to allow the Chancellor to disembark. The first thing the queen heard was the sound of ringing laughter as the Chancellor stepped aboard the royal barge. The slaves aboard had ceased their rowing and they stood and bowed as the head of government came aboard. "Why are you so gleeful?" asked the queen, as the Chancellor bowed before her. Her reclining posture, with subtly arched back down on the couch, placed her full bosom with erect nipples under her dress in a protruding position. "Have you forgotten, Your Majesty?" the man replied, looking up and into the eyes of the queen. He knew better than to give in to temptation and stare at the queen's chest. The Chancellor was a large and powerful man, indeed the barge had sunk down a bit when he boarded. He wore the split tunic of the male courtiers of the queen, a garment designed to show off their forms and the Chancellor was the strongest of any of the men in the queen's household. The tunic revealed a deep and strong cleft down the center of his chest and a body of tanned skin, from long hours surveying the wide and scattered lands under the queen's dominion. The tan of the Chancellor's skin showed to advantage every ridge and curve of his arms, chest, and back. The queen was momentarily distracted watching the Chancellor after he boarded. She thought to herself, "This man is strong enough to kill a bear with his bare hands", but then she said: "What have I forgotten, Chancellor? You interrupted the beating of a slave." "The slave auction is to be held today, my queen." "Is it?" asked the queen, sitting up gracefully from her reclined position. Her bosom had a healthy and perky jiggle. "I had forgotten, you are right. How the time flies! Are they fine specimens, the slaves? Have you seen them?" "Only from afar, my queen," replied the Chancellor, "as they were being unloaded from the slave pens. I did not get a very good look, but they all appeared strong, the men. Strong and obedient men, tall and perfect for your household. And there were women among them as well. The same stock, my queen; tribal barbarians from the frontier." "Oh, I don't care about the women." The Chancellor smiled, but only for a brief moment. "Ah, so the queen's amorous desires are back to men, I see," thought the man. "But you said they are barbarians?" asked the queen. "I hope you do not mean that they are illiterate and wild? Certainly you do not intend to populate my palace with such inferior stock, Chancellor?" "I cannot say, my queen." "But certainly, you shall find out." "Yes, my queen." "And you shall purchase many slaves for my household, appropriate slaves, won't you Licinius?" "Yes, my lady." As Chancellor Licinius was speaking to his queen, the guards were finishing up unloading the slaves at the slave pens in the center of the Royal City. In front of the building was a large square where the slaves would be publically displayed for auction to the residents of the kingdom, many of whom will have come in from the countryside to bid on the slaves that the queen had captured and was offering for sale. The courtiers of the palace would have first pass to bid on the men, women, and children, but after they were done, the public auction would begin and these helpless people would be subjected to the whims of whoever would decide to purchase them, as they had already been subjected to the fickle whims of Fate. Life seemed angry, cruel, and meaningless, at least to one young man who found himself being shuffled down from one cage into another. The young man and others with him stepped down from the large communal cages in which they had been transported into the Royal City and into smaller cages where they would be individually inspected and examined by the auctioneers and their delegates. As the young man stepped into his new cage, he saw that some of the staff watching this movement smiled, laughed, pointed, or jotted things down on pieces of paper. The young man had been the greatest warrior in his tribe and he wished that he had his pike in his hand so that he might slay them all. He was a warrior whose powerful appearance, his strong arms and chest, inspired the admiration of the people in his tribe; he should have many wives one day and sire children as virile as himself, but it seemed the Gods had another fate in store. This young man with a fatal muscularity understood that he and his people were barbarians, and he knew what that really meant, but they also did not kill indiscriminately: they only killed if there was a purpose. Enemies from foreign tribes that trespassed into their lands needed to be killed. Pirates sailing up from the coasts and along the rivers into the heartlands of his own tribe, they might also need to be slain in combat. But these fat royals living in their Royal City with robes and tunics of silver and gold, pomaded hair, and manicured fingers and toes: they also needed to be killed, for holding him, a great warrior, in bondage. He could imagine placing his strong hands around the head of one of these sycophantic courtiers and snapping the neck with a quick twist. "Are they all from the same place?" asked Chancellor Licinius, when he finally made his way to the auction sight. "No, my lord," said one of the auctioneers, walking towards him. "I am told that most come from the forests to the north, but some come from the deserts." "Are those the darker ones?" asked the chancellor, glancing from one cage to the next, at the huddled masses within. "No, milord," the auctioneer replied. "I am told some of the darker ones come from the forests as well." "They look very strong," said the chancellor. "Are they obedient?" "I am told 'yes', milord, and, as you can see, most are perfect physical specimens." Chancellor Licinius stopped in front of the cage of a certain young man and spent a few choice moments perusing the lad up and down, walking around the cage to get a view from every angle. "Open the cage," he told the auctioneer, finally. The auctioneers signalled to one of the helpers in the auction house, a man that wore armor and was also a slave, to open the cage and the auctioneer and the chancellor stepped in. "I believe this one is called..." "Do they have names?" asked the Chancellor, turning to the auctioneer with a proud sneer. The auctioneer shrugged. "I have a name," said the young man, the great warrior that had imagined snapping the necks of these royals. The Chancellor's eyes opened wide in surprise at the words of the young man, but only for the briefest of moments, as he resumed the face of stern resolve and command that had blanketed his visage when he had entered the place. This was the look that he took on when dealing with inferiors; it was a look rather different from the amiable and placating visage that he assumed when in the household of the queen, or among her servants. He did not achieve the rank of Chancellor through being an open book, easily read or understood by others. The byzantine machinations that comprised a day in the life at the royal court required a different sort of person and sometimes one needed to become what was desired, even if one hated all of it. "Subterfuge, subterfuge, subterfuge," said the Chancellor. "I am sorry, my lord?" said the auctioneer. "Nothing," said Chancellor Licinius. "So you speak our language?" he asked, turning to look again at the young man, peering into the boy's eyes with his own steely blues. The boy was every inch the barbarian, with curly blond hair, sharp features, but very dark eyes. In Kesselheim, the mark of the barbarian was to be fair of hair and dark of eye, and this was how the young man appeared. "Judge for yourself," said the young man, glaring deep into the eyes of the chancellor. There was something challenging in that look, but there was something else in it, as well, thought the auctioneer. The auctioneer was inclined to step out of the cage as he feared that the slave would strike one or both of them, but the power of the huge Chancellor standing beside him made him feel at ease, even if the slave was inclined to send him scurrying for the door. "Aren't the slaves supposed to be brought in unclothed?" asked the Chancellor. "Strip his clothes!" The young man calmly submitted to being stripped of his clothes by one of the guards in the auction house. The clothes, which were little more than rags after several weeks of travel to get to the Royal City, were tossed in a heap on the floor of the cage. The young man stood before Chancellor Licinius in the state in which he had been born. The Chancellor stepped forward and inspected every inch of the young man's body. He began first by opening the boy's mouth and peering in at his teeth. Then he peered into his ears to make sure that they were not impacted with wax and that his hearing would be up to standard. Then the Chancellor moved down the body: he passed his hand along the young man's projecting pectorals and down the muscular slab of his abdomen. These barbarians eat a diet high in hunted meat, and little else, thought the Chancellor. There was not an ounce of fat on him. The royal courtier's hands rummaged through a bush of blond pubic hair and came to the young man's penis and scrotum, which the Chancellor grabbed at the base and held on to tightly. He wanted to see how large the instrument would grow, but the young man's penis did not twitch or show any other sign of excitement. "How old?" asked the Chancellor, turning and directing this question back at the auctioneer. The auctioneer shrugged. "I am nineteen," said the young man, in a strong and decided voice. "But you reckon age differently than we do," the Chancellor remarked, letting go of the young man's genitals. "Life begins at year one, doesn't it? That means that in my reckoning of time that you are in fact eighteen." "Yes," said the young man. "Hmmmm," said the Chancellor. His hands traveled to the slave's back, travelling up and down his wide lats and finally down to his rear. The slave's rear end was composed of two thick meaty slabs of flesh and there was no fat detected when the Chancellor squeezed. Yet, a further inspection was needed. "Bend over and spread apart your ass cheeks," The Chancellor commanded. "What?" replied the slave, steeping back. "No! Never!" "Do as you are commanded!" shouted the auctioneer, reaching for his whip. "No," said the Chancellor, raising his hand to stay the hand of the auctioneer. "It is no bother. We don't want any marks on him, do we?" "Yes, milord," said the auctioneer, bowing to the Chancellor as the man turned and began to walk out of the cage. The auctioneer followed him out. As they left the cage, another auctioneer ran up to them and said, "There is a crowd of thousands in the square waiting to bid on the slaves. They have all been inspected. Has the Royal Household made its choices yet?" "No," the Chancellor replied. "But we are close. Ten minutes more and we shall be certain." It was not long before the young man found himself being unloaded from a cart and led toward the wide entrance to a palace. Large slaves had run up to the ox-drawn cart and picked up the young man, placing him down on the ground in front of the palace. As low as the young man was perceived by the residents of the Royal City, he knew that the ox-drawn cart that he had been carried in indicated that he had been purchased by the Royal Household. Only the queen and her courtiers were permitted to be carried in such carts, as they indicated royal rank and divine origin. The slave would soon learn that in Kesselheim, it was believed that the hereditary queens and kings were descended from the Gods themselves and were leagues and bounds above their subjects and all other men and women, especially the slaves. It was this divine origin that gave them the prerogative to act with impunity in ways that could only be described as extreme sexual deviancy. The young man, still nameless, at least in the eyes of those who now owned him, was led through the heavy bronze doors with the faces of bulls' heads cast into each door, over the threshold, and into the palace. He saw slaves and other servants scurrying over the steps that led into the main entrance hall, in and out of doors, dusting the floor on their hands and knees with short brooms, adjusting the tapestries on the walls. It seemed that there were hundreds of unfree people running about in this house of marble and gold, and the boy had never seen so many people in one place before. As he gazed up at the coffered wood ceiling with decoration of gold leaf, the young man perceived that someone walked towards him; it was not the light and timid tread of a slave that had long lived in his master's house, but the heavy and decided trot of the master himself. "There you are," said Licinius, glancing up and down at the young man that stood, chained and still nude, before him. The young man took a step back when he saw the Chancellor. The man did not wear the courtier's uniform that he had been wearing before, but now stood before him bare chested and wearing a loincloth, his body heavily greased with olive oil to enhance his strong powerful physique. The young man instantly thought that the Chancellor had the look of the gladiators that he had long heard about, in tales told by the elders in his tribe, and he hoped that he never had to engage in single combat with this man. Within moments, the Chancellor was standing only steps away from the young man. The slave noted that he was an inch or two shorter than the Chancellor. "A wise purchase," said another man who appeared beside the Chancellor, as the young man pondered. "So you approve, do you, Steward?" The young slave could tell from the steward's obsequeious and sycophantic stare that he was also a slave, a slave that had likely been raised in the master's house. This slave wore long flowing robes like a woman, of the finest blue silk, and his hair was also smooth and silken. "Is this how I shall appear in twenty years time?" the virile young man asked himself. "Is this the palace?" "He speaks!" cries the Steward. "Of course he speaks," said the Chancellor. "No subpar slaves in my palace." "Unless they are very handsome, milord." The Chancellor sighed. "Yes, this is the palace," he replied to the boy's original query. "My palace." "Your palace? Not the Queen's?" "No," said the Chancellor, shaking his head. "I purchased you for myself and you shall do as I bid you, just as if you had been purchased for the Queen's own house. Lead him to the back, Steward," and Chancellor Licinius took several steadfast steps away from the entrance hall into a room behind. A few hours later, after he had been scrubbed and scented by the most beautiful raven-haired maidens of the Chancellor's palace, the young slave, he who would one day be a king in his own right, found himself reclining on a long and comfortable ottoman. In this beautiful place, and with his eyes closed, the boy was able to recollect what the better days of his life had been like, days long since passed. He knew the good days of his life were all behind him. The young man remembered when he was twelve and the chief of his tribe had led all of the young children, boys and girls, down to the beach south of their tribal lands to engage in the annual pligrimage to honor their war god. His people believed that the War God lived in the sea and emerged from beneath the waves to aid his people in times of need. There were no other tribes with legends like theirs, the chief told the children, and their gods were greater and more powerful than the other gods, as befitting an important and honorable people. The children danced naked among the sand, happily splashing in the water to celebrate that they were so fortunate to have such a great god, as their chief looked on benevolently. Not long after, the chief and the elders led the children back to camp, where life quickly returned to its usual fashion: laboring on the land to eke out what little produce the gods deemed the people deserved, surviving from one day to the next with small benefices of fortune, but always contented and proud. It was a simple memory, almost a meaningless one, of the children playing on the beach, and the young man did not understand why his mind turned to it just then. At nineteen, he was a man. What need did he have of a child's memories? "Still disappointed that you are not in the Queen's house?" asked a voice suddenly. The young slave leapt up to a sitting position. He was embarassed that he had not heard the Chancellor enter. "Why should I care?" asked the young man, defiantly. "One house is as good as the next. The gods shall toss down this palace just the same as hers." The Chancellor laughed, a true, hearty laugh this time. He would enjoy breaking this one in. "Do you know why you are here?" the Chancellor asked the young man. "I am here to serve you," said the young man, sitting up very straight on the backless ottoman. "I'm here to do your work for you as you must be very lazy." "You should be contented," said the Chancellor. "You do not understand what it is which I have done for you. I have saved you from her, from the Queen. You are mine, and mine alone and you shall not suffer because of it. You shall see. The Queen would have broken you and... you shall bend to me, but not in the same fashion. In my house, you shall be the greatest of slaves, as long as you are willing to service me. I do not believe that I ask too much. "I was not too different from you, once. Don't you see that I am strong and powerful? Even more powerful than you, though you are a barbarian. I was a fighter once. I came to this city a slave, just like you and I fought in the arena of the Queen. You must have passed it when you came in. That's how I came to be so strong. After years of labor there, in the Queen's arena, she gave me my freedom as no other slave could defeat me and the people had grown tired of my endless victories. But... she did not choose for me the great honor, the honor which I coveted. But she freed me. I went on to win many battles for her, battles which would certainly have been lost in the hands of any other man, but I won these battles and I rose to be chancellor. You see, the lot of a slave can be... complex." "I do not understand you," said the young man. "I am no man's slave. In here," and the young man placed a hand on the center of his chest, "I am free and that you cannot take away." "You are spirited," said the Chancellor, sitting down beside the slave on the ottoman. "It is better that you are mine and not the Queen's." The young man did not reply and avoided looking into the chancellor's eyes. "Your hair," began the Chancellor, "it must have been longer before. Did they cut it?" "No," replied the slave. "I cut my hair before I was captured, as part of my manhood ceremony. I am nineteen and just turned a man." The Chancellor began to remove his loincloth, unfastening the straps. "I shall ask you about your story another time," he said, in his voice of deep command. "Lay flat." The young man glanced briefly at the Chancellor and, without knowing why, laid with his chest down flat on the ottoman. The slave closed his eyes for a second. "What's happening?" he thought to himself. "This is not how a man behaves." Before he could change his mind, the slave felt a strong calloused hand on his back. It was the hand of a man as strong as himself. No, stronger; it was a hand that would not take "No" for an answer; a hand that commanded in lieu of a clenched fist and which expected to be obeyed. Loincloth removed, the chancellor lowered his body down on top of the young man's. His muscular chest rested against the young man's back and his thighs atop the young man's; he said: "We shall have to find a name for you. Now, you are nameless. After this, I shall come up with a name." "I shall be the one to name him," said a voice suddenly from the far side of the room, by the door. "My Queen!" said the Chancellor, leaping up to his feet and covering his loins with his hands. He had difficulty covering himself completely as he was aroused to full length. "How selfish of you to keep this one for yourself," said the Queen, her voice growing louder by degrees as she approached the muscular men on the ottoman. "You left me with the dregs of the auction, and, as the Queen, I found it entirely unacceptable. We have known one another for so long, and I was disappointed. I came here to ask "why", Chancellor, but now I understand." "No need to explain yourself, my lady," said the Chancellor. "Why do you cover yourself up Chancellor? I have seen it all before." "Only a servants modesty, my lady." "How dare you retain the best for yourself!" cried the Queen, soon standing squarely in front of the chancellor and the yougn slave who still reclined ass up on the ottoman. "Do you really want to hear the answer?" asked the Chancellor. "Will you spare my life if I tell?" "Perhaps," said the Queen. "I make no promise." "I was afraid of what you would do to him," Chancellor Licinius began. "I know that, in your hands, this young man would not have long to live. I knew that you were likely to choose him as the next Slave King, as you have already begun the search for this year's replacement, and something in him... I did not want that fate for him." "The Slave King?" asked the young man, turning over. Now sitting up, the young man gave the queen a full view of his naked body. He had been scrubbed clean by the slaves of the Chancellor's house and the Queen would soon cherish the scent that had been rubbed into his body, when she forcefully made love to him later. From this view, the young man was able to obtain a full view of the ruler of Kesselheim. She was every inch the woman, with a curvy form easily discernible under her flowing robes. Her dress had a low bust line so her large breasts were easily visible and her large areolas peaked above the bust line. In spite of his better judgment, the young man found himself aroused. A moment's glance into the queen's golden eyes revealed something he did not understand. The red-haired woman was clearly a creature full of lust, but there was something else behind those eyes, something demonic and unholy. "How very selfish of you," said the Queen to the Chancellor, with a sigh, and she began to tell the young man about the mythical yet vividly real Slave Kings of Kesselheim. Until recently, the Slave King was not actually a man, but a horse. It was the greatest horse in all the fourteen lands and it was sent to the Queen of Kesselheim to be wedded to her before being sacrificed eight weeks later. The Queen and the horse engaged in a barbarous and obscene ritual that was a closely-guarded secret amogn the servants and courtiers of the Queen's Household. Court ceremony around this King Horse had carried on in that fashion for more than two centuries, until the present Queen, Queen Maxima, brought back the original and sinister custom that most of the residents of the kingdom believed was only a legend, but in fact had once been the practice. Before the King Horse there had been the Slave King, a young man of perfect physical proportions and appearance who was chosen to wed the Queen in hopes of impregnating her. He had eight weeks to do so and if he did not, he would die. This practice went on year after year, and each year, a new Slave King was chosen to lay with the Queen. It was rare that any of these Slave Kings was able to impregnate the Queen and the young man would soon learn why. The Queen did not allow the denigrated slave to penetrate her vaginally but, instead, she placed a large device over her loins, which she used to forcefully penetrate into the prostrate Slave King himself. As the divinely-descended ruler, it was the Queen that must be in the position of control, and so she would thrust her enormous strap-on device into the beautiful and muscular Slave King, night after night. How could the Queen become impregnated if she penetrated the king and not the other way around? Thus it was that the Slave Kings were never able to sire offspring with the Queen and were always sacrificed after eight weeks. This was the fate from which the Chancellor had hoped to spare the young man, to no avail. "I did not want him for your Slave King," said the Chancellor. "I am not a slave king," said the boy. "You are all mad! I have a name!" The queen placed a long, soft fingered hand on one of the young man's shoulders and then passed it up and down his body, sensuously. "You have no name," she said, "but that which I choose to give you. I determine who and what you are." The young man, mesmerized by the woman's appearance, did not reply. "You may leave," said the Queen, shooing the Chancellor away with a wave of her hand. "This one is mine for the night." TO BE CONTINUED [Usual Disclaimer: Do not read this if you are underage or reading spicy material is against the law in your locale. You can e-mail me at the address above or visit my blog at: http://robotsinmasquerade.blogspot.com. I respond to all emails. Thanks for reading!]