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SLAVE SALE

1430 TODAY

VINE ST SLAVE MARKET

Many breeds and varieties to choose from.

Breeding stock at affordable prices.

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4.0

There were three left and it didn't look good.

He knew how this went, as it did for all slaves that were warned of it throughout their training. If he went back unsold it would be a shame on his master's house.

He was to be sold. If only to the meat men.

He knew of them. They brought the meat to the back of the slave quarters to sell to the master's cook. She would choose what looked cheap and filling, pay for it and then give it to their own meagre food preparers.

Like a dysfunctional family, the salves would take turns trying to provide for the clan. Cooking, cleaning, and healing. When you were well and strong you did your bit, when you were sick or beaten half to death you knew you would be cared for by the others once the guards had dumped your body back in the slave quarters. Hopefully before they had metered their own justice for whatever the master wanted to punish you for.

He had formed friendships and loose bonds to those he had grown up with, only to watch them disappear through time. Their worth diminished or the occasional rough play going too far. It didn't pay to become too attached as no-one was truly safe. Your life was not your own, it was in the palm of the master's hand.

He had never eaten the meat, knowing how it had been treated while alive. Some of his friends did and they were strong yet half crazed by it. By choosing carefully and only eating what he knew to be vegetables and fowl, he avoided the meat that was once perhaps a friend.

Although he was only two full cycles and half more, he knew he should have reached a handsome price. He was still unbroken. The bruises from the guard last night had lingered on his pale skin and the master's angry roars the next morning when he had seen the damage done to what could have been prime meat had caused him too loose control.

Peeing on the ornate marble floor as the guard who had marked him was punished with a slave whip, which he personally knew all too well, he wept. The loss of bladder control made him the second target for the whip before the master could control himself.

He may be unbroken but that didn't mean he was undamaged.

The market had been fuller than expected and his lot had been near the end of the day. Now he stood, naked and afraid with the other two off casts as they waited for the final bid.

From the meat man.

"I don't wanna be meat for my brothers" the young girl whispered to him and he felt a pull of remorse for her.

An ugly little hybrid. Half human, half Ferbriddi. Ugly to both races, she would never be appropriate as a service slave used in public view or as a sex slave either. She was doomed from her first breath. Oh, how her mother must have mourned when she first saw her baby.

He held her close and tried to comfort her, ignoring the ugly grey skin as she held her face against his chest. At least she had known love, if even just from her dam. He had known none.

He had been purchased at birth, raised by the other slaves when not being used as a plaything for the children of the master who had four more pets the same. He was not the funniest, cutest or most attentive pet so he had been the first to go when they had demanded another youngling, claiming him to be too old.

The doors slammed back as the delegation of men entered. The child shuddered in his arms, then showed her true blood lineage by standing proudly to await their doom.

"Him. I saw him earlier. Bit of a limp there!" said a man in a long flowing robe.

"Ah. Yes. He had that limb broken once by some rough play." Master frowned as he dared him to challenge the claim, "Two of my children fought over him. Dropped him."

"Oh. They must be fierce and strong!" the man smiled and Master puffed as the compliment.

The Kertollians were huge, long limbed creatures that resembled silver gorillas but with beaks. Strength is a thing of pride to them, unfortunately for human pets.

"But it healed?" the man asked and he looked at the man hard.

Human. Well dressed. Not a slave or pet? He spoke more as a master.

With his fear giving way to a small spark of hope, he limped into the light and tried to remember how to smile. The master hated teeth being displayed and he had never learned how to smile appropriately.

"He appears healthy, those bruises and whip marks are a shame."

"Yes" master bristled and frowned deeply, "the man who did that was punished. It was without merit. Yato is a very efficient pet. Quick to learn and eager to please. Just too old for my children who prefer the young offspring."

"Ah. I see." The man was thinking about something and he held his breath as he didn't dare to hope that it was for a positive choice that didn't involve the meat men.

"Daddy, I'm hungry" a small voice demanded as a beautiful little girl entered the room.

"Rose! You are not supposed to be in here" the man growled but she had seen the naked slave who blushed as he covered himself with his hands.

"You have no clothes!" she declared and he blushed more deeply.

"Rose, Mama said you … oh. Wow." The man who had entered stopped dead in his tracks as he followed his baby sister's line of sight. "Hello. What is your name?"

"Yato" the master boomed as he saw a quick sale in the offering. "He is a good boy and still unbroken."

Both men's heads whipped around at the claim and the older man stepped closer to the master. As he did, the younger man who appeared only half a cycle older than the slave in question, stepped up to the bars.

"Yato, is it?"

"Actually sir, it's Ianto. Master says it his own way" Ianto risked a peek through his lashes and found two searingly blue eyes boring into him.

"And you are unbroken?"

"Yes my lord. I have been trained and taught but not breached." Ianto tried not to blanch at the last part of the response.

"Dad, I want him!" the man swung to his father who held up a finger as he continued to negotiate. After a beat he turned and regarded his son.

"Jack! You've never had a pet in your life!" the man laughed softly, "He will make a pretty addition to my harem, perhaps even learn a few tricks. You have no interest in… really?"

"Dad!" he stepped closer, "I will pay for him. I want him for me. He will be my pet!"

"Your responsibility! You misuse or abandon him and he will be confiscated!" the man said solemnly.

"Yes. I want Ianto to be mine!" Jack declared with his shoulders thrown back defiantly, and Ianto felt his knees start to buckle as he realised he had done it.

He would not be slaughtered today.

Jack had saved him.