It had been a week since Thekla now had Ozraa as a personal slave. She did not for one second agree with the idea of slavery and yet she knew full well that expressing opposition publicly or even doing something as rash a attempting to free the slave would not only be pointless but would cause a fallout which could permanently affect relations between the Safavids (ooc: the ruling family in Tamora)and the Soters (ooc: the ruling family in Royal Seleucid). And she remembered full well what her brother,
King Heydar always said "that if he were to decide she would
marry a donkey breeder, she would do it and have a smile on her face". So she knew full well that she get no sympathy from Heydar in such a scenario.
So she conceded that she will treat Ozraa not as her slave or servant but as her only friend at the court. After all, it wasn't like she had any.
Ozraa did her best to explain how things functioned at the court, how she should act and what was expected of her. She found it so different than how things worked back home in Royal Seleucid. The Soter were also polygamists so she did find that strange yet she was used to terms like " sister wives" and a general feel of family and at least trying to get along. In Tamora it was completely different, the "First Wife", a term she often heard at court, was the only wife that enjoyed all the honors while all others were not much more than servants, including to the First wife. The latest wife was always lower in rank to the previous ones and was almost a servant to the others. To call them sister wives was an insult. Children were given equal status that is until one was named Crown Prince. When that happened he was seen as almost equal in respect to the emperor and his First wife, in this case her, was the second most important woman in the palace. And here Ozraa explained was the problem, most people at court resented Thekla for having that honor and being a foreigner who not only did not deserve it but also did not understand the privilege she has been given. Ozraa assured Thekla that in time people would be more accepting, Thekla was not so sure about that.
It did not take long until the matter of religion came up. She was expected to convert to Manism and she was to have no say in it. She knew this before arriving in Tamora so that came to no surprise. She was assigned an Imam that was supposed to teach her the faith. She did her best to learn the book of Mani and especially to not skip prayer service which was several times a day. She didn't have a good relation with her Imam and did not dare ask him questions regarding the faith, something that seemed to please him as he had never encouraged her to ask questions. She spent time memorizing entire paragraphs from the book without really understanding them and repeated them when she met her imam.
One day, early in the morning she got up and made her way to the prayer room. Her imam was nowhere to be seen, she did her best to prepare for prayer while waiting. Since he didn't arrive which happened quite often when it came for early morning prayers, she decided there was no point in trying to pray and decided to return to her room. A few hours later while she was talking with Alya as they sometimes did in the morning, she causally mentioned that she had skipped prayer and at that moment Alya become visibly upset and asked with a fury in her voice:
"Why did you do that?"
"Because the imam didn't show up. He often doesn't in the mornings and I saw no reason to stay there."
"Didn't I tell you to follow to the letter was he says?"
"Yes, but I didn't see the point if he wasn't there."
Thekla didn't get the chance to finish when Alya slapped her.
"If I tell you to do something you do it. Do you understand me? Where is that lowly creature that I gave to you?"
Ozraa knew Alya was referring to her so she stepped forward meekly knowing full well this would not end well.
"Didn’t I tell you that your task is to teach her our ways? I think you need to be reminded of your place and your duties. Wait for me near my chambers. "
Thekla was both shocked and too scared to react and still didn't understand what did she do to warrant such a radical reaction.
"I especially chose an Imam for you that is not very demanding. The fact that he doesn't show up to prayer and you do is a way for you to win favor by showing him you are following the rules more than he does. You shouldn't squander such opportunities. "
Thekla had no idea what Alya was talking about but didn't want to escalate things so she replied:
"I didn't realize this. I understand now."
Alya seemed to have calmed down somewhat:
"It's not your fault, it's the fault of that lazy slave girl but I will see that she will punished appropriately so that she will remember her duties in the future."
Thekla’s heart shrunk as he heard that. She had gotten the only person she could talk to into trouble and she was too scared to do something about it.