'Seven lives to be saved; seven souls, to you, must belong; to save any one of ten, all seven must you accept'
I wake up with a start, those cryptic words repeating in my head along with the faces of seven people. While I have no idea what the last part meant, the first part was pretty specific. I have to get to the slave warehouses and now. I get up and ready.
"Daniel, Tosou, wake up and get ready to go, we have to leave immediately." I yell to the other two people who live in the house as I grab three apples for us to eat on the way. When I turn around I nearly run into Tosou, which isn't that hard to do since he's 6'3", moves like a ninja, and is as quiet as a mouse.
"Lady Éclair, where will we be going?" he asks as I give him his apple. He so rarely speaks that this maybe his only sentence all day.
"The slave warehouses, I have the feeling warehouse number 42." I answer, him giving me a look asking 'why?' as he puts his long black hair in a ponytail. "I had another vision we need to go there to save our future friends. And can you go drag Daniel out of bed." He was gone before I finished my sentence. A few minutes later I hear them making their way to meet me at the door and I also hear this, "Were you up early training again? ... Come on man, have you ever heard of sleeping in? …. You're hopeless, you know that, right?" When they round the corner I see Daniel is wearing a white button up shirt and dress pants, with his brown hair as plain as ever.
When they finally get to the door I am so tired of waiting I am literally shoving Daniel out the door. "Where are we going in such a rush?" Daniel asks as I give him an apple.
"No time to talk, already late. Tosou keep track of Daniel." I say as I start running at full speed toward the south district, easily losing the boys this time of day.
-O0o.o0O0o.o0O-
By the time I make to the 42nd slave warehouse I nearly collapse, but I keep going. I just know that time is of the essence, but the annoying clerk lady stops me and says "What can I get for you today? Maybe a protection slave?"
"No, I'm going to be buying seven slaves today and for now I would just like to browse." I say hoping, she will leave me alone. I secretly hated anyone who supported the slave trade, even myself as I'm about to give them my money, even if it is so I can get seven slaves out of this place. What's worse, I can't even treat my own slaves like human beings in public without risking their safety and my own.
"Ok, let me get you an escort." She says with an annoying smile.
"Thank you. … Oh wait, there should be two more men coming shortly, can you direct them to me, my name is Lady Éclair Derávon." As soon as I said that, everyone in the room gawked at me as I turned around and started walking. She would pass on my message because no one in their right mind would disobey a member of the royal family, even one as low down and out casted as me.
After about ten minutes of walking around we make it to a courtyard with what looked to be an execution platform in the middle. I stared at the platform for few minutes, ignoring the words of concern form my escort. Within a few minutes four guards came out with a slave to be executed, and my heart nearly stopped. That slave was the first slave in my vision this morning. He is a rather short slave, about the same height as me, with spiky blue hair. In truth, more than anything it was his eyes that got to me, he knew he was going to die and he was ok with it. He wasn't the same as in my vision, where he was so full of life, and it made me wonder if they will all be in as bad of shape as him, but even so, there was a kind of peace in his eye; an unnerving peace.
"Him, I'll buy him" I said to my escort urgently.
"I would not suggest it milady, there are plenty of other protection slaves here."
"I said I'll buy him" I said in a firm tone, by this point everyone in the courtyard could hear us. There was look of shock on the slave's face.
"But milady, that slave is being executed for killing his previous owner." The man said desperately.
With all the courage I could muster, I said, with an evil glint in my eye so the man would assume I meant to do some horrible things to him before I let him die. "I know, your point."
"Just be careful milady." he said before going and retrieving my new slave for me. The slave had a look of terror on his face that I could only assume was from his realizing that he was almost out of this hellhole of a life, just to get thrown right back in the middle of it.
As they took him away to a waiting room where the slaves will wait for their new masters to get done shopping, I can only think about how much he must fear me now, but at least I saved his life, just six more to go.