Disclaimer: Openly not mine.
A/N: Originally written for Challenge #042 'chains' over at ygodrabble.
Let Freedom Ring
© Scribbler, July 2011.
Her name meant freedom in her own language.
She raised the rock above her head and brought it down on the heavy chain. Sparks flew, creating a brief flare in the night. She froze. Her ears strained to catch the tiniest sound, her eyes wide to see the tiniest movement, but when nobody appeared over the rocky rise she raised the rock again. Over and over, she slammed the chain. Over and over, it remained intact.
It wasn't well-made. It was a lumpy, misshapen collection of bits that should have broken apart under the first blow. The slavers weren't craftsmen and wouldn't recognise quality if it bit them on their flabby behinds. They usually preferred cheap rope to shackle their merchandise together, but she had escaped so many times they thought metal would keep her restrained, or at least slow her down.
"Come on," she whispered fiercely, tears clearing paths through the dirt on her cheeks. Her teeth gritted with effort, grains of sand crunching between her molars.
She hated sand. She hated deserts. She hated this whole stinking land and all its stinking people.
"Come on!" Her arms ached from raising the rock so many times. She felt dizzy and a bit sick. A poor diet and weeks of traipsing through the wilderness, preceded by a long journey across the ocean, didn't make for a strong body. Still, she kept going. She was so close to getting away this time, she could taste it! She just needed her legs unchained from each other so she could run. She raised the rock. "Please!"
A hand closed around her wrist from behind. The rock tumbled from her grasp, grazing her cheek on the way past. A trickle of blood leaked into the corner of her mouth, adding to the salt of her tears.
"No…" she whimpered.
"When will you learn?" the slaver hissed as he wrenched her to her feet. The chains, somewhat flattened but still whole, clanked with every step he forced her to take back to the encampment. "You keep trying, but you'll never get away."
She was too tired to reply. Her sobs said most of what she was feeling, but not everything. She would keep trying, no matter how many times they brought her back. Maybe someday they would get tired of her attempts, decide she wasn't worth the trouble and bury her body in this stinking desert. She didn't care. Slavery was slavery and freedom was freedom, whatever the form.
In her own language, her name meant freedom.
My name is Kisara and I will get home to my own land someday…
Fin.
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