Tale of Trys

The Tale of Trys is a 'Tale of Loyal Virtue' folktale in the Scarlet Empire, known widely among Dynastic slave-owners and their slaves.

The story has many variations, but at its core it tells of a slave to a fire-aspected Dragonblooded master who had sunk into depression and ennui.

In the common account among masters, readily taught to their slaves, the slave is loyal and virtuous, bringing her master out of their despair even though she knows doing so will result in her death consumed by their fiery anima. Though literacy among slaves is discouraged, a version of this story told entirely through textless woodblock images exists, crafted by Dynastic artist Cynis Shungado, which masters will sometimes use to train their slaves in the story.

Slaves quietly whisper their own versions of the tale, which in addition to lessons on surviving the attentons of sadistic masters, have resulted in the term 'the Kiss of Trys' emerging as a euphemism for such attentions, and the scarring many slaves subjected to them recieve from the flaring animas of their masters.