Hope.
Her first clear memory. She remembered staring at the blood glistening on the end of her knife and feeling that feeling as it sliced through her little body, sharp as the steel in her hand. She didn't even know the word for it. She just stared into the middle distance as it roared in her blood, louder than the cheering adults around her. A bright counterpoint to all the vague and incomprehensible terrors that had filled her days before it.
She'd looked from her knife to the varren cur's carcass, dumbfounded. Then up around her to all the shouting, laughing faces. Faces that had, not minutes before, jeered and howled for her blood. The rough hands that had thrown her in this tiny pit with the ravenous mongrel fell upon her, lifting her high. Later, she'd feel the blood streaming down her face from the flap of skin torn from her cheek, and the agony.
Panic pulled at her as she looked down from an untenable height, higher than she'd ever been. She saw money pass hands, heard the raucous mirth of the people whose expectations she'd confounded. She knew they'd wanted to see her pulled apart, like the other girls in her kennel that hadn't passed muster. Someone took the knife they'd given her as a joke away.
Something shifted, deep inside. Her fate, of which she had been just as sure as they, might not be so certain. And it had something to do with that feeling.
So, now, four years later, as she looked down at the blades in her hands, unblooded as yet, a trickle of it surged through her. Now she knew this feeling, though it still had no name that anyone would tell her. And it reminded her of that first memory every time.
"How do you know? Just where to cut them, I mean?" whispered 'Gan, his voice strange. It always turned odd-ish during the bouts. He crouched in her corner of this ramshackle box-turned-arena. The roar of the crowd, a crowd that got larger every time, kept anyone else from hearing, but the girl heard it well. She always listened when 'Gan spoke, whether he realized it or not.
She shrugged and eyed her opponent, a rangy vorcha scavenger someone had pulled off the street. Doubtless told that the path to freedom lay through her. She saw how the ribs stuck out, how it favored one leg, how fear had made it desperate. "Dunno. Jus' work it out, I guess."
How to describe something without the proper words? Up until she'd shown this curious talent and gotten the boss lady's attention, she hadn't even been allowed speech. None of the littles had.
Furthermore, she didn't understand it herself. How the weight and heft of the knives felt like extensions of her limbs. Nothing in their smooth and polished balance suggested otherwise. Swinging them felt as natural as breathing.
As did the shock of their edge slicing through the vorcha's belly, skin parting neatly from crotch to sternum. It screamed and thrashed about, trying to return the favor.
But the girl swayed from every swipe of gangrenous claw and used the pommel of her other knife to shatter the dagger-like teeth seeking her flesh. They rained down on her like glass. She felt their sting as they abraded her skin.
Very little blood sprayed her when she tore free of the vorcha's body cavity, her blade pulling a bit of intestine out in its wake. Her enemy's kind had a way of stopping themselves from bleeding out. This she'd learned from other battles. No matter. It clutched at its own entrails, trying to stuff them back in.
She watched with interest for a moment before swinging low and thrusting with all her strength into the side of one thorny knee. The one on the weak side. Tough hide resisted her child's might, but, with legs spread wide for leverage, she just managed to slide the knife hilt-deep into the joint. Fresh wails resounded in her ears, loud and piercing.
With a twisting, sawing motion, she rendered that knee worthless. The vorcha crumpled, clutching itself and writhing. She let go of the knife, left it stuck in that joint well and good. The scavenger tried to crawl away from her, but her bare foot on its throat stopped it. It could have heaved her off if not for the fear of her she saw in its eyes, so huge and terrified.
She looked away, avoiding looking into eyes that seemed to know things she did not. Unsafe to venture there and start wondering. She'd wait until it lay dead, as she'd waited before countless times. Dead and empty. She was comfortable with empty.
Instead, her gaze searched out the thin spot on the creature's skull. Every skull had one, a place where a sharp bit of steel could glide through, sweet and neat. Her core tightened as she raised her blade for the felling blow.
Down she stabbed, finding the center of that soft place. All noise from her enemy ceased. It went limp under her. She gave the knife a brain-scrambling wiggle to make sure, then stood, leaving her weapons imbedded in vorcha flesh. 'Gan never let her keep them anyway.
Every voice in the underground hall lifted in adulation of her brutality. She let it warm her, as well as the thought of her reward for having survived yet again.
"'Gan," she called, reaching out for him.
He came to her, a tall, angular shape, much like many of the others. A turian, he'd told her. That's his kind's name. 'Gan lifted her to a shoulder and again, she felt that odd vertigo at being so high. Always too high, or lower than everything else. It seemed the world only had extremes in perspectives to show her.
'Gan collected his winnings with many a hearty handshake and slap on the back. The girl clung to his cowl and fringe as the crowd jostled and crowed. She shook with exhaustion now that the heat and furor of her blood began to cool. A long day of fighting, a long day of killing those who would kill her given half a chance. But she did her level best to never give them even so much as an inch.
Nevertheless, some came close. Her body testified to that. Scars ran the length and breadth of her. She could name every single one, where it came from, how long it took to heal. Here a lucky stab from another slave, there a ring of puckered skin where a salarian had bit her in an attempt to make her let go of his prongs. She still remembered how she'd shattered his jaw with the points of her greaves in outrage.
'Gan's voice pulled her from her reverie. "Well, little sister, how do we fare?"
"Got splingers in m'hand from breakin' his teef."
"We better have Talq look at'em. Vorcha don't much mind eating nasty dead things. Like really dead. Even if they're ripe and runny."
"Ew," she stated, with little actual revulsion.
"Yeah, could catch something. Wouldn't like your hand to turn funny colors and fall off, would you?"
She made a noncommittal noise in her throat, knowing he didn't really expect her to hold up her half of the conversation. 'Gan just liked to talk. She didn't mind listening.
"You did well today. Had that pack of terran canines chasing their own tails. That krogan kid was more bark than bite. I bet ol' Pascal's hurting for the loss to his stable of contenders. I really thought that vorcha would be harder. Seeing as how you're just a little; five and all." 'Gan laughed at that, for he'd been doctoring her paperwork for years, keeping her younger than reality. And the bosses didn't much care, as long as the cash kept flowing.
Talq met them at the door, the batarian medic having snuck out for a smoke. He sneered at the sight of them, but gestured them to go on in before him. "Always you bring the beast here. Why can't you take her to the lower wards' sawbones where she won't stink up my clinic?"
"Because you made a deal with the Corbies to service whoever we bring you, slave or not." 'Gan's voice turned sharpish, a warning the man should heed. Bad things always happened to those who didn't, in the girl's experience. She'd always been careful never to be the target of that tone.
"At least clean that blood off her before she contaminates the whole building."
With perfunctory aloofness, 'Gan stripped off the slave's tattered armor and set her in a long basin with a hose. The water, cold and smelling of chemical sanitizers, rushed over her skin. She shivered as she watched the different colors of blood streak and swirl into the drain. The water burned in her cuts.
'Gan tugged on her hair. "Getting a bit long. Going to have to take my knife to it again soon."
She nodded, though she didn't much care either way. As long as it stayed out of her eyes. She had to see. A threat could come from anywhere. A policy that saved her from the meat grinder on many an occasion.
"Up on the table, little sister." 'Gan helped her with one gloved hand.
Talq hissed in outrage. "You should not show such regard for a slave. It'll give her ideas-"
"How 'bout I do as I please, and you do as I say?"
The batarian grumbled, but subsided, pulling out his long tweezers to yank loose the bits of tooth from the girl's bloody hand. A mite rough, but he got the job done quick enough, if only to get her and 'Gan out of there. She bit her lip to keep from crying out.
As the medic wrapped her hand in gauze, she looked up at her handler, pleading with him with her eyes. He knew what boon she wanted, no, needed.
A strange emotion she couldn't name ghosted over his face before he turned to Talq. "Pack up some full-spectrum antibiotics and immuno-boosters, too."
As he always did, Talq snorted and asked, "Why?"
"Because I have money," snapped the turian, mantling in fury. Talq raised both hands in surrender and turned to do as 'Gan asked. The girl nearly smiled at his cowardice. Only a warning look from her handler stopped her from chiming in with a cutting barb.
She clutched the small box as 'Gan carried her away from the clinic. At the kennels, he set her on her feet with a grumbled, "Not always going to spend my winnings on you and your fool ends."
"I's know." Her feet held her fascination. He was good to her, to give her this much. Guilt at even asking for it to begin with plagued her. She risked a glance up at him.
"Hide it or risk having it taken away by Mogul or one of the other guards," he admonished, mandibles coming together at the tip in consternation. "If you were smart, you'd cut her loose. Slaves ain't got no family."
She'd no sooner do that than fly away from here on wings made of cobwebs. But she could never tell him that. He wouldn't understand it even if she had the words to explain it. Or maybe he would and she'd see that awful pity in his eyes that drew blood every time she saw it.
He turned on his heel to leave, then paused. Without turning back, he said, "Big op pulled through today. All the boys came back this morning."
The girl nodded though he couldn't see it. With that, he left.
She thought on his words as she headed deeper into the compound. They'd meant, Successful mercs are a rowdy, 'fun' seeking bunch. Hide until it runs its course.
She knew this well, for it was in one of these episodes that twenty girl brats had been thrown into the varren runs. Of which, she'd been the last. The only survivor of that brood of culls. Other litters had come and gone, but she'd been the only one to rise out of those runs alive and killing.
So, she ventured into the area most hidden from casual inspection and hunkered down to wait it out. Occasional shouting and screaming punctuated long, tense silences. Dozens of booted feet trooped past her sanctuary, accompanied by the rough language of soldiers.
Finally sated, they left. The girl took up her box again and crept out into the yards, past the red lights that marked the entrance to the body-slave enclosures. A lot of muffled crying told the slave that the soldiers had once again left their mark on the women who resided here.
She slid into a room she knew well and closed the door behind her. The woman in the bed, naked and sweaty, lifted herself up a fraction. She smiled as their eyes met and gestured her closer. The girl drifted that way, the box held before her like an offering.
The woman opened and closed her mouth on silent words. Silent because her vocal cords had been removed. She touched the girl on the head, running her fingers through short, spiky hair.
The girl sat on the edge of the rumpled bed and whispered, "I brought med'cines. I knows y'been sick. Ant-bot-icks and imm-immuno-" She gave up, frustrated by her clumsy tongue.
The woman took it from her and set it aside. She took the girl's hands and squeezed them in her frail palms. The younger took in the pallor of those hands, the spots and bumps that had started to arise on her skin. A sick fear rolled through her and she trembled. She looked up into the woman's eyes and breathed, "Mama."
Her mother's mouth framed a word she could not hear. How she wanted to hear it. Ask all the questions that hounded her and get some answers.
When the woman held out her shaky arms, the girl didn't hesitate flinging herself into them, burying her face into the side of a fevered neck. Wetness rolled down her cheek and for a moment, she thought she was weeping. Then she realized they streamed from her mama's eyes. The girl shivered, at thoughts that had no name, no true shape because no one had ever taught her what they could mean.
She only knew that her victories meant better food, better care for she and her mother. She fought hard, killed whoever they sent against her, to carve herself a little leeway. 'Gan called her prideful. She did not deny it. For she had survived and in every death that bought her and her mama a little more life, lay a pebble of defiance.
And someday, that pile of pebbles might buy her something.