Priorities

"I'm starving! Why is there never enough food?"

Katrina Vixton sighed at her younger sisters, Isme and Esebelle, as they moaned about the little food they'd been given. She bit her lip and glanced at her own plate. A piece of dry bread, so old it had developed a new classification of life, stared back at her daring her to cry. The three sisters had all been left the same meagre meal when they're parents had been summoned to the local lord's estate. They owed a great deal of money and the interest was piling up. They had left her in charge while they dealt with their family's current predicament. The twins had eaten their bread rapidly, not even complaining of the state of it as they normally would. Sighing once more, she drew a knife and halved the already small slice, giving a half to each twin.

"Don't you want it?" Questioned the more mature of the two.

"No, sweetie. I'm not hungry," she lied through the protest of her stomach, smiling at the concern of the thirteen year old.

It had not always been like this. Katrina remembered when her father had been an IT specialist paid enough to comfortably afford their house and some small luxuries. The world was not what it once was. People no longer cared about computers. Humanity now only lived to serve King Loki, who had conquered the planet five years prior, and his noble Asgardians. The world was now just a shadow of what it once was, but Katrina was determined to help her sisters have the life they should have had before the pitifully short war happened. She hated King Loki for destroying the vibrant planet; she hated him for controlling and enslaving the Earth's inhabitants; but more than anything she hated him for causing her beautiful sisters' suffering. They were thoughtful, kind, honest to a fault, funny, and unbelievably intelligent. They deserved so much better than to starve.

She was shaken from her thoughts as her parents charged through the front door, clearly upset. Her sisters ran to hug them, refusing to let go. Her father chuckled as he dragged the pair over to his eldest daughter before pulling her into a tight embrace. It seemed to her that he was reluctant to release her when the time came – something weighed heavily on her father's mind. She waited for him to take the twins into the next room before turning to her flustered mother.

"So… How did it go?"

Katrina's mother huffed and shot her a look. "We have one week to pay it all back or we will be punished as thieves."

Katrina flinched. This was not good. Not good at all. "So how are we going to find the money?"

"WE are going to do nothing. Your Dad and I are going to scrape together what we can and hope they'll let one of us go."

"They'll kill you!"

"I know."

Rage rose and blinded Katrina. Not content with ruining their lives, the Asgardians now wanted to take her parents. They would never listen to her being just a fifteen year old, but she wanted nothing more than to make this right so that her family could continue to go on. She would do anything for her sisters but she didn't know how to raise them. If only she could take her parents place. She would do it in a heartbeat. Yet there was no way they would accept her.

Then a thought dawned on her. Slavers always wanted healthy young humans to sell. They'd pay handsomely because they could make it all back and more at the markets. She did not doubt they would buy her. It would settle her parent's debts and provide for them for a few months. A grin split the girl's face. Even if her parents refused she'd find a way.

"Sell me to the slavers!" She blurted, barely believing her inner thoughts had displayed themselves so freely. She bit her lip (as she did in almost every situation, no matter her feelings) until she tasted a sweet metallic taste. She stopped before the blood could spill down her chin from the deepening cut.

Her mother snorted, thinking it was sarcasm. The plump woman was quickly stopped when she realised the urgency in her daughter's eyes. "No."

"I will be fed, I will be clothed, I will be protected. You and Dad will survive and the twins will be looked after."

It was days before Katrina convinced her parents to go through with it. She promised her sisters that this was not really goodbye. She looked at each of her precious family's faces in turn, committing every line to memory. Isme's long eyelashes and heart shaped lips, Esebelle's big brown eyes and pouting mouth that matched that of her father's, and every detail down to the last freckle. She vowed to herself that she would forget nothing.

The family of five had huddled together and sobbed before the slavers had handed over the money and dragged the sobbing teenager off. She had been sold that afternoon to an Asgardian lord to work on his land. She loved working the land and had done since she had helped her grandfather in his field as a small child. Katrina was content knowing that her family were safe even if she never did see them again.