As I rose from my sleep, the half orc stood over me protective, I glanced around and saw that the others gave us a berth and there was blood and what looked like an ear on the floor. I asked incredulous as I realized what had transpired, and my protector look down at me with a tender look in his one eye not swollen shut. He said to me in a voice with melody I would never expect from one with orcish blood, ‘Look, I’m nuts over you.’ Then he laughed and sat down hard, exhausted. His jest was soon forgotten though as two guards followed by a guard captain with another guard in tow, descended upon him and beat him mercilessly.

“She had better not be ruined for the auction, or you will be on the block to make up for it.” the captain growled at the guard I recognized as the one who had taken the bribe to put me in this cell instead of the proper one. That guard now sported a new gash over his eye indicating the strike the captain had angrily put there.

I was taken away, and overheard the shocked exclamations of the guards as we passed them in the halls. 'Was it shock I survived?' I thought, ‘do I look that bad?’ it had been a rough few days. I was bruised sure, but not scarred or broken that I could tell. My expression matched theirs when I passed by a reflective puddle and saw what could only have been my reflection. My skin was pale an nearly flawless, I was clean and my hair was longer and straight, carefully combed and cared for, as if it had been my dedication for years. I resembled nothing of the street rat that had been brought in, looking like a homeless young human boy. I did not blossom over night or anything like that, but dirt and lack of poise can hide a lot of development, but this reflection was of a woman striding confidently with stature as if a princess to her ball. Not at all as a condemned slave to the market.

I stood in line to be taken for bidding, the important bidders examining us before hand. A man looked at me and smiled, I felt no shame for nudity with nothing but locks of hair to cover my breasts, and stood proudly remembering the reflection. I was never taken to the bidding floor, I was taken and given a clean garment and then put aboard ship in a cabin, not the hold. I never asked, because it did not matter to where I was destined. A man came to see me when the ship docked, he fitted me with a gold limned slave collar and took me up to the deck. He pointed to the largest building in the city, and told me to go there, to see the man inside the main doors.

This is how I came to be a slave, a servant to the crown of Haven, seated in the city of Sharessia.