With the caravan moving at a leisurely slow pace, Koa had a lot of time to wonder if that message she’d managed to plonk together had reached someone. She didn’t gauge her chances as being very high… but she was proud of herself for at least having been able to sneak some paper when they’d made her write some stuff down to have her prove that she really could write, and then she had kicked a discarded empty bottle along until she’d found a chance to stuff the message in and leave it behind.
Goddamnit. She felt like some sort of Sherlock Holmes kidnapping victim that had left really obscure clues to catch the protagonist detective’s attention where everyone else would miss them. At least in these circumstances they didn’t want to kill her, although auctioning her off didn’t seem like a very nice fate either.
On the plus side, she’d gotten a bit of leniency. Apparently fishpeople were worth a fair amount just for their race, so they gave her the special treatment, what with keeping her hydrated, allowing her slightly looser restraints on her arms and not hitting her just to vent their frustrations when they lost a game of cards or whatever. Well, that and she avoided sticking out as a troublemaker, and had readily admitted to being able to read and write, so they had no reason to tie her down to a cart or something. Not that she had free reign either, though: pretty much every second she did not spend inside her cage, she had at least one pair of eyes on her, and she was certain that if she’d gone to make a run for it they’d have caught her in three seconds.
This morning, after being given a ‘shower’ by having some cold riverwater literally tossed at her out of a bucket, she was put on the back of a caravan along with a couple of the other slaves she’d made the acquaintance of those last few days. Not-Ralof, whose name she now knew was actually Eric of Loskar, was on another cart. They’d separated them by genders again, for some reason. Opposite of her sat one Kariya of Loskar also, a tanuki if Koa wasn’t mistaken. She hadn’t directly asked her, but the thick brown tail with stripes gave her away. Her focus, however, was on the town that had been showing on the horizon for a while now, and on the cloudy sky. That looked like storm clouds to be sure. On the other hand, the town, rustic as though it was being all made of stone and wood, looked like it had solid roofs. Hopefully that’d keep the water back.
Why did she worry about the water, actually? She was literally a fish now! Well unless all this was a dream and… ugh. Probably wasn’t, but she could still hope. And if she really WAS a fish… well, old habits die hard.
[...]
As they passed under the little archway saying ‘TENMA TOWN’, a corpulent man with a handlebar mustache to make Bismarck jealous and wearing an attire that screamed ‘wannabe aristocrat’ approached the frontmost carriage. Koa was sitting on the second in line, so she overheard their conversation.
“Ah, Mister Rythlar and co. Welcome! The stage is waiting for you!” the fat man said.
“Good. We’re not here to stay though. Just gonna do a one-day sale and stock up, then we’re moving on.” So the guy up front was named Rythlar, huh? Probably the boss of this caravan thing.
“Only one day? Surely you’d prefer to rest your horses for a while and drum up a little publicity first.”
“We’ve got our orders, we’re on our way to Arcadia on the double, so no.”
“Very well”, said the other man. “I’ll have everything readied immediately.”
As he walked off, Mister Rythlar stood up in his saddle and faced the rest of the caravan. “Get these slaves out of the carts. Move it!”
“Uh, wait… why are we stopping?” asked Koa.
“Why do you think? End of the line...” murmured Kariya and snorted. “Well, let’s go. Shouldn’t keep the buyers waiting for us, eh.”
… seriously? ANOTHER line, and this time she had played a part in it too?! Without even realizing it until it was already over?!!
Well at least it wasn’t a godsdamned execution block they were headed to. An auction block though, hah. Just one word off. Seriously, either she was high as a kite, or this was the most elaborate prank in the universe… or something was going on.
As they climbed off the cart, the slavers stood there with lists in their hands, but rather than calling names they made little check marks, and nobody ran away only to get shot in the back by an archer. Koa was also not asked to step forward and given an opportunity to change her appearance, hah. Actually that was a pity, she would have liked to freak out the slavers by changing her race, gender and fifty aspects of her appearance back and forth for half an hour. But no, she was just ticked off the list and walked behind Kariya as they crossed a stone-paved street and stepped into a large barn sort of room.
“We’ll need to wait out the rain”, one of the slavers mumbled to another as they checked that the big barn door was closed. They pretty much corralled them all into this cramped space, it seemed.
“All the more time for that fat slob to drum up some publicity, yeah?”
“You should probably watch your tongue. The ‘fat slob’ is the only innkeeper of Tenma Town.”
“So what?”
“So if there’s anyone in this backwater shithole who you want to not piss off, it’s him. Else he can just tell you to sleep in the stables. Or outside.”
The one spoken to grumbled at that, but quieted down. Koa sat on the ground after checking that it was clean. Hopefully they’d pass out a bit of lunch soon, or something.
“Oi, fishface! Up on your fuckin’ feet, chop chop!”
Agh… she recognized that voice. Dana was standing before her, waving her hand around. She had pulled out the cuffs, and when Koa presented her already-bound hands, Dana slapped the cuff on one wrist, then put the other end around her own to link them together again.
“You’re getting to shower again, lucky you”, she said as she dragged her outside into the open just as the first raindrops began to fall. Koa blinked but didn’t ask, she was certain that Dana would make things quite clear soon enough. And indeed, they walked around the barn-like building past a half-set-up thing that looked a bit like some gallows without the noose, to a small backyard with a well. And to the railing that formed an arch that the well’s bucket was attached to, Dana leashed Koa to by locking the cuff from her hand around it.
“There we go. Boss’s orders, you get to enjoy some time in the rain. Gotta make sure your skin’s all shiny for the auction”, she explained as she sat underneath the nearby overhanging roof and watched as the rain began to pour.
“Hey! What if I get a cold?!” Koa exclaimed. “This rain is
COLD!”
“Not my circus, fishface. I got my orders to let you soak, so you’re gettin’ soaked. Now try and do… whatever it is you fishfaces do to make sure you absorb that water. Bit of luck and we’ll have you sold today.”
Koa kind of doubted that, since this was a real backwater place and she didn’t think that anyone was rich enough to afford expensive slaves. Right? But maybe the company just wanted to show her off… ugh. Come to think of it, there’d been insinuations those past few days that she was especially valuable wares because of her race. But there had been mentions of auctioning her in ‘Arcadia’, which as far as she understood was some bigger city of sorts, to fetch a better purchase price.
But Dana’s smile as she eyed her from the safety of her shelter, getting drenched by the now pouring rain, was unsettling. The slaver was normally grumpy and annoyed, she didn’t smile. The fact that she did now was worrying her.
Setting the scene a bit for you two! @Kohaku @Vitan Armerstrannie
Tenma Town is currently having heavy rainfall, which will likely delay the slave auction for a while, possibly even to the following morning. A good time to come rescue the sushi in distress
I'm imagining the town to look a little bit like so, but that's just me!
