#askkelvingyard

Good question! The Kelvingyard Company isn't supposed to be operating outside Evangeline Kingdom, but the reality is, it's secretly operating a global underground slave ring.

They are only supposed to catch fae and gaians that "trespass" into Evangeline territory, but it's not uncommon for them to send teams of slavers into foreign lands to illegally nab people. This is what happened to Philippa, who was living in Yerim-Mor Kingdom at the time she was enslaved. They also snatched Ginger from Folkvaran territory. This is happening purely due to Kelvingyard's greed.

By Evangelite law, foreign citizens can't legally purchase slaves from Kelvingyard. But they can get around this by hiring an Evangelite citizen to purchase a slave for them, then have that slave trafficked across the border. The citizen who bought the slave reports them as "missing" or "stolen" and brushes their hands of the situation.

There are crooked mercenaries who work with Kelvingyard on these operations. The mercenaries who captured Linde are an example. They don't work for Kelvingyard directly, but they are contracted by them or their clients.

This is how the Uekoran royal family got most of their slaves, and I imagine it's how the Barhatian royal family got Skel too. Kelvingyard's operations are very shady and a lot farther-reaching than most people realize.

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Questions/Comments?

Lore Masterpost

Good question! First I will say that Rye gave birth to Skel in Kelvingyard, but this birth was not planned by anyone. It just kind of happened. This is a normal occurrence in the slaveyard, and these unplanned children meet one of two fates: 1 ) they are deemed "excess" or "unsalable" and culled. 2 ) they are deemed saleable and placed in the nursery, which I talked about more in this other post.

Rye was not a very desirable slave, so her offspring weren't considered very desirable either. But Skel wasn't deformed or sickly, and there wasn't an excess of goblins in Kelvingyard at the time, so he escaped culling and was chucked in the nursery. Rye was permitted to raise him there until she and/or her son were sold off. It was 5 years before someone bought Skel, so at this age he was taken away from Rye. Rye was bought not long after that, but by a different family.

Meanwhile, Philippa was being held as a slaveyard "brood mother". A brood mother is s female who is deemed especially valuable, and so her offspring are considered valuable as well. Brood mothers are cared for better than typical yard slaves and separated into their own area. They are treated like baby-factories, and because their offspring are more desirable, they typically sell quickly.

In Philippa's case, her rare gigantism made her and her offspring more desirable to buyers. Even if her children didn't appear to have her condition, there was a good chance they still carried the gene and could pass it on later.

Each of Philippa's children were sold before they were even born. They stayed with her only long enough to breastfeed, then they were shipped off to whoever had paid for them in advance.

Honestly I'm not sure whose situation is more tragic, Rye's or Philippa's...Whether Kelvingyard deems your life worthless or valuable, it doesn't matter. You lose either way.

TL;DR: Rye's kids sat in the bargain bin while Philippa's kids were getting pre-ordered.

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Questions/Comments?

Lore Masterpost

Yes, the nursery is where very young slaves are kept until someone purchases them, or until they're big enough to survive life in the regular slaveyard.

Conditions in Kelvingyard are so poor that young children are at risk of being cannibalized by starving adults. The nursery is a separate section where babies, toddlers, and prepubescent children are looked after by staff. After puberty, they actually stand a fighting chance in the yard, so that's when they are relocated.

Nursery conditions are bleak, but still much better than what the adult slaves face in the yard. The children are fed and bathed regularly, allowed to play with toys and exercise outside, and given basic medical care if they're deemed worth it, because failure to care for them results in weak, sickly adult slaves that won't survive the brutality of the yard. (Still, the environment is depressing and staff are often cruel, so this is not an acceptable upbringing for kids no matter how you slice it...at the end of the day, it's not a "real" nursery, it's a slave farm.)

Every fae and gaian life in this terrible place is viewed as an "investment". Kelvingyard does not want to invest time and money feeding a child for X years, only for them to die before they can be sold and turn a profit.

Kelvingyard is a "survival of the fittest" type of environment. Older, weaker, less valuable slaves get starved out by the young and strong, who bully them out of their food rations.

The staff intentionally underfeed adults to encourage such behavior, as it weeds out the less valuable slaves with no effort on their part. This concept was explored in the story "Unbreakable".

Zov was captured as a newborn and spent the next 7 years of his life being raised in Kelvingyard's nursery, until he was bought by a master. His mother was killed during the capture, so he never got to interact with her. Though he never got to experience the horrors of the adult yard, growing up in the nursery still left him psychologically disturbed, as he was never loved or treated with affection by anyone. Overworked staff just treated him like another annoying chore.

Skel's situation was similar, though he was actually born in the slaveyard and still had contact with his mother until the age of 5, when he was bought by Jasenia's family. If the mother is still present in the yard, Kelvingyard staff usually allows her to interact with her children in the nursery, as it drastically improves her health as well as the child's (not to mention it frees up staff...). Because of this, Skel came out of the situation a lot less damaged than Zov.

This shows that a child's experience in the Kelvingyard nursery can be very different, depending on their circumstances. Not every child raised here is doomed to be a trainwreck like Zov, but even under the best conditions, this place leaves lasting scars on every life it touches.

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Questions/Comments?

Lore Masterpost