Title: Haji Before Saya
Author: Wolfen Kahlon
Rating: PG
Words: ~1,900
Pairing: None
Spoilers: Spoilers for episode 22/23 stuff
Warnings: Some physical abuse and vague references to sexual abuse
Summary: Haji's life from just before he met Saya.
Disclaimer: I do not own Blood+ nor any characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.
Haji danced. His father played the flute. If they were lucky, passers by would throw a few coins on the ragged, threadbare carpet he danced on. If they were unlucky, well, times were hard. The strong did not need to dance for their coins. So even as he danced the best he could Haji kept lookout.
Which is how he first saw the westerner. Or rather saw how every threat in the market place swirled around him, attracted in equal measure by his obvious wealth and repulsed by the number of men with clubs that surrounded him.
Haji disliked him on sight. Worse than the soft, decadent rich men of the city who turned their noses up at everyone and acted like they owned the place, which they likely did. The westerner walked through the marketplace like it was beneath his interest or even his contempt.
His interest seemed to be in individuals, piercing blue eyes would fix on a traveller or a refugee, an order was barked to the man beside him, who he never otherwise acknowledged and never looked at, who repeated the order to the guards and the subject of the westerner's interest would be grabbed and dragged to him. They would protest and struggle until they were in the centre of the ring of guards but once there, under his gaze, they would soon give answers to his interrogation.
The westerner towered over everyone, even his own guards. His arms were thicker around than the legs of Haji's father. Wealthy and powerful in every sense of the word he could take anything he wanted. But all he seemed to want was to know where people came from, where their parents came from, and their parents, as far back as could be remembered.
Once he had taken every word of information he could from them they were simply cast aside in the way that the rich threw aside anything they no longer saw value in. One man from further east was simply brushed aside by the westerner, knocked from his feet, trampled by the guards and quickly set upon by thieves before he could get to his feet.
And then the man turned his gaze on Haji. Something about it wasn't the same way that he had looked at the others that caught his interest, it was the look that thieves gave the coins when they were considering whether they were worth the little effort and risk involved in knocking Haji down grabbing what they could and fleeing before his father could retaliate. That was the look that was being turned on him now.
"Father..."
"I see him. Gather the coins, we'll go back inside the tent." The tent was the only thing of value they owned beyond his father's flute. They would have sold even the carpet by now if anyone would have actually bought it. If they were retreating back there, then his father suspected the worst.
It had happened before, but the look men had given Haji those times was different. Underfed and dirty as he was, they seemed particularly interested by Haji. He had heard his parents say it must be for the way he looked, closer to his mother than his father. They sometimes said that he looked like his grandfather, who had come from far to the west of even where they had once lived, back when times were better. This far east his pale skin and green eyes made him look exotic, and his dancing earned them a few more coins than they would have otherwise.
Inside the tent, he could hear the westerner and his guards ploughing through the crowd above the worried whispers of his parents. This was likely the end he knew. His father would fight tooth and nail to avoid the final insult, fuelled by the same remnants of his pride that kept him from selling the tent. But there was nothing he could hope to do.
As the guards entered the tent Haji's father stepped forward, ready to face a blow that never came. The guards were halted by a barked order. The westerner entered, looking down on them from his towering height.
"You will give me the boy." It was not a request nor an order. It was stated as a man might say the sun will rise tomorrow.
"You will not take my son." His father, small and withered, dusty and ragged, gave the larger, more powerful man a defiant glare.
"So he is your son. But I did not say I would take him. I said you will give him to me." Even, white teeth showed in the man's smile. A smile that did not touch the eyes that bored into Haji with their gaze.
His father's retort was cut short as the man's servant entered the tent. Haji, his father, his mother, all three stared at what he held. A loaf of bread, so massive it was almost absurd, the fresh baked smell overwhelming to Haji's senses.
"No. Not even... not even for that." his father's voice sounded very far away right now, when had Haji last seen such a feast as this loaf represented?
"M'lord. May I have your permission to speak?" The servant asked.
"Hmm? What is it Foster? Speak then."
"Thank you sir. I believe the man fears you want his son for your own purposes and that you will..." A pause here as if the smaller man, who Haji only now realised was another westerner, had tasted something unpleasant "dishonour him with your intentions for the boy." The servant turned to Haji's father. "Sir, my master's interest in your son is that his cousin requires a servant for his daughter, and he believes your son would be suitable."
It seemed inevitable after that. Haji's parents argued and pleaded but between the master's crushing authority, the servant's honeyed words, and the inescapable smell of the fresh baked bread, the exchange was made.
He only half heard his parents hushed conversation as they discussed the possibilities of a better life for him, away from here. They were sending him away.
The last Haji ever saw of his parents, was a brief glance of his shoulder as he was dragged from the tent by the servant. They stood there, looking lost, holding the loaf of bread between them. His father not meeting his gaze, and something in his mother's eyes that he couldn't quite read.
Hours later, after he had been nearly drowned in a copper bath and scrubbed until his skin was red while the servant advised him his clothes were being burnt and new ones bought, Haji found himself suddenly left standing alone in a large room of the lodgings being used by the westerner that he had been told was Lord Amschel Goldsmith. Who he should address as 'sir' on pain of a beating. Alone that is other than the man himself, who was seated behind a large desk, writing.
"What is your name, boy?" Goldsmith did not even look up.
"Haji." They could beat him all the wanted.
"'...named Haji, who I believe you will find fit for your purposes regarding Saya.'" There was something deliberate about how he stated that part aloud but he did not elaborate, merely waived Haji closer. And closer. Eventually gesturing for him to come around the side of the desk.
Haji might have defied the order, but there was something hypnotic about the sight of the pen laying down looping black lines of glossy ink on the crisp white paper, a thing he had never before seen.
After writing his signature at the bottom of the letter, Goldsmith put the pen away, and, as soon as it had left his hand, he slammed his fist into Haji's chest.
"You will address me as 'sir'." It was said evenly, as if he had not just struck Haji hard enough to leave him gasping for air, collapsed on hands and knees. "You belong to Saya now. We'll call you a servant, Joel and Saya may call you something else, but make no mistake. You are a slave." He reached down and grabbed Haji by the chin, pulling him to his feet and turning his face from side to side, studying Haji's best attempt at a glare in his dazed state. "You'll hate Saya, and she will hate you. That is no matter. I don't even care if you fail to fulfil the function Joel requires of you. But you will not fail in your task to remain by her side. I have done all I wish to do with this expedition. I do not intend to leave my home again to find a replacement for you. If Saya rejects you and drives you away I will do worse than kill you. Do you understand me, boy?"
"Yes..." As he felt Goldsmith's hand withdraw to ready another blow he tacked on a "Sir." and hated himself for it. But it stopped the blow.
"Leave me now."
He was eager to leave the presence of the man, and yet something niggled at him, making him pause at the door. He suspected a beating would come eventually anyway so he asked his question.
"Why did you buy me... sir?" At first it seemed like Goldsmith wouldn't respond to him at all, but eventually he looked up. As if assessing Haji anew.
"Why do you ask?"
"You have servants, sir. They are not slaves. Why can this... 'Saya' not be given one of them?" Goldsmith looked at him for a long time before he gave that smile that never touched his eyes.
"Joel requires that you serve Saya in all ways... including her more... base desires."
"There awaits your fate." Goldsmith said nothing else, nor made any move to proceed toward the house in the distance. Haji glanced at him but he was looking ahead with an unreadable expression. Were those two people before the fountain? Haji took a few steps forward but Goldsmith did not follow, when he turned his head again the man was gone.
Haji considered escape even as he wondered how such a big man could vanish without a sound, but he had seen the wall and the guards on the gate. Besides, Goldsmith was probably waiting in the shadows to give him another beating if he tried to flee now.
Haji walked the walk of the condemned man along the paved road leading to the house, fenced in by green hedges and leered down at by statues of savage animals. Goldsmith's words repeated in his mind. He was to be slave was he? A plaything of this Saya that lived here? To remain by her side forever? He did not care what they threatened. He would defy Goldsmith and he would defy Saya and he would not remain with her for a minute longer than he had to. Or at least that's what he promised himself as he met her questioning gaze with a defiant glare.