This story contains murder, rape, slavery, death, prostitution and underage girls forced into situations they rather would not be in. If any of this disturbs you, please do not read the fic.
That being said, I am trying my hardest to be delicate around these themes, and I won't be going into any extreme detail about the rape of any female. There may be sexual themes later on in the fic I describe more, but they will be purely consensual.
Now that you know everything, I hope you enjoy reading.
The morning before they were being sold the men came in and few them bacon and gruel. It was hardy, full of protein and woke them up. Some of the girls tried to push it away but they were quickly yanked from their cages and slapped across the face, shoved to their knees and force fed.
The girl in the cage beside Elouise, a girl of about twelve with ebony hair and eyes as black as night looked as if she were going to try and stop them hurting the child in front of them all, but a sharp glance and a small shake of the head from herself was enough to stop the girl. She'd been there long enough to know that if you were outwardly and openly defiant then they would flog you. The girl was getting off quite easily since it was the morning of the trade and she was a pretty young thing. They'd make a lot of money on her if she stayed quiet and looked presentable. Elouise slowly bent down and touched her leg, feeling the deep crevice of the scar taint her skin and wrap slowly around, branding her.
She didn't dare breathe a word though as the cages were loaded onto a large cart and had a tarp thrown over them, hiding them from view as they moved on from the cave, travelling north from what she could tell. Once the men were seated up front, she looked at the shadowed faces of the other girls, and noticed that next to her was the girl who'd been tormented this morning.
She was crying, huddled up to the side of the cage furthest away from the others. There was nine of them in total, Elouise's cage in the centre while the other girls surrounded her. She could touch them all now, whisper to them, comfort them. The men wouldn't know as long as they were hushed.
She crawled forward and sat in the corner of her cage, reaching her arm through the bars to the girl. She was probably a year younger than her, looking scared and frightened, with big tear drops falling from her face. Her right cheek was red and around her eyes was blotchy.
"Come here," Elouise whispered, holding her hand out, and though the girl looked terrified of being caught she crawled forward and met Elouise where the bars came between them and she sat and let the fiery haired girl wipe the tears gently from her face, her brown eyes searching Elouise's own crystalline blue ones. Once the girl had stopped crying Elouise reached both her arms through the bars and pulled her gently into an awkward hug, the younger girls cheek pressing against hers, while her arms wrapped protectively around her slight form.
"It'll be okay," she whispered quietly, her eyes darting about while she comforted the girl to make sure nobody saw them other than the other girls. "My name's Elouise, but you can call me Ella."
"I'm Charlotte, b-but people call me Charlie," the girl replied, brushing her brown hair out of her face and sitting back down in her cage, looking about. "How do you know it'll be okay?"
At this, Ella grinned and looked about the cages, every pair of eyes on her while the other girls watched with baited breath.
"Because, I heard that King Sparrow is getting his army to find out people like these, and then we'll be rescued!" she grinned, and the other girls beamed back at her, all besides the one with the ebony hair.
"And who said this? We all come from Bloodstone, nobody cares about us. That's why they take us from there."
The girls stopped grinning, and Ella stuck her chin out, still smirking.
"You're a pessimist, you won't know how good it is until it happens," she retorted, her fingers brushing against the scar on her leg and imagining how good it will be when the King finds the man who did this to her and flogs him for it.
"I look at the reality... and the reality is that we're going to be made to have sex with strange, old, dirty men. And there's nothing anybody is going to do to help us."
With that she turned away and curled up in the corner of her cage, leaving the others to contemplate this. Ella felt herself deflating a little as she had to agree with this on some level. The hugest part of her wished her brothers would come charging in and rescue her, but Ben was only eleven so there wasn't much he could do, and these men had weapons, whereas her oldest brothers Jason, William and Quentin only had their fists. There was no way they could do much to help...
She would probably be made to do things she didn't want to, but then again, she'd accepted that long ago so this came as no surprise. It wasn't like her mind was innocent anyway, if you lived about Bloodstone there wasn't a lot you didn't see, and people having sex at the ends of streets or in shadowy ginnels was something she'd been exposed to at a very young age.
A small tap on her back made her start and she turned to see Charlotte staring at her with big brown eyes.
"Are we really going to be okay?" she whispered, sniffling again.
"'Course we are... ya know, eventually..." she muttered, and when she saw the girl's face drop she felt her heart clench. "Things will be bad at first, but we'll find a way out of it, won't we?"
"If you say so..." Charlotte muttered, and all Elouise could do was reach out and clasp her hand reassuringly.
"We will."
The girls had no concept of how much time had passed, only knowing that the little light they had under the tarp disappeared, and reappeared several times, so by rough estimation they could assume it had been a good few days. Every so often the cart would stop and the men who were transporting them would uncover them in the dead of night and get the girls out one by one, let them relieve themselves and then pack them back up. Scraps of food were thrown in to them, stale bread and dried salty meat mostly, and a canteen of water was passed in daily to make sure the girls didn't become too dehydrated. The cart rumbled to a halt eventually, and the tarp was pulled off the cart and the girls were exposed to bright, fresh daylight.
Surrounding the cart was a crowd of men, mercenaries mostly, but among them were men dressed in finer clothing, with smug, perverse smiled on their faces. The girls watched the crowd who jeered and called out for them, picking out their favourites from the selection of girls shown.
Their captors unloaded the cages and moved them inside a tent, opening them and watching as the girls walked out tentatively, not sure what to do. There was silence for a moment, while Ella watched a man enter. He was tall, very muscular, and had a thick cigar in his mouth. He only had a Mohawk running down the middle of his skull as hair, and a long thick scar crossed over his skull, showing he was a fighter. He wasn't wearing a shirt, just a torn vest with all it's buttons missing, and a pair of dark trousers too small for him, ripping at the seams apparently. His boots were made of thick, black leather, and were bloodstained.
He looked fairly young, but incredibly fearsome.
"Saker, you get firs' pick," one of the captors said, and the man's dark eyes examined all the girls there. His eyes crossed over Elouise's face, and she jutted her jaw out, looking back coldly. She had staring competitions like these with her brothers, trying to look the most intimidating and the least intimidated by the other. She had an amazing poker face and though inside she felt as if she were trembling like a leaf she stood stock still.
His eyes passed over her and looked to the girl with ebony hair who was standing proud and tall, but her eyes didn't meet Saker's, and he smirked.
"I want those two striped down," he ordered, and the captors pulled Elouise and the other girl out of line and ordered them to strip down to the nude. The ebony haired girl shuddered but complied, her hands shaking as she started to pull at the buttons of her dirty blouse. Ella stood there though, staring up at Saker who watched her with a mix of mild amusement and curiosity.
"I don't want to," she said slowly, glaring at the captor with the whip, who raised it threateningly. "This is wrong."
"What's your point, child?" Saker asked, his lip curling into a smirk. The other girl watched on, too shocked by Ella's actions to continue undressing.
"That is the point," Elouise spat, crossing her arms above her chest and pouting.
"It's not a good one. Now strip down so I can see you or I'll make you do it."
"Make me then!" she cried, and in a flash she'd darted forward and hit him square in his privates, watching him drop to the floor with a satisfied smirk on her face. Her glory was short lived however, as she heard the crack of that whip before she felt it, and something burned her upper left arm, and she screamed in shock.
Hands came at her from all sides and her clothes were ripped from her frame, and she was left kicking and screaming as the men backed off and she was left panting on the floor, her fiery hair a mess about her thin face, her blue eyes clouded with hate and fury.
Saker was stood above her, looking down with a scowl on his face.
"What're your names?" he asked through gritted teeth.
"Mavis," said the ebony haired girl, while Ella grit her teeth and hissed back; "Bite me."
"Her name's Elouise," Mavis blurted, and flinched slightly as if expecting to be stuck by one of the men.
Saker looked over Mavis, smiling perversely, and when he turned to Elouise his smile dropped ever so slightly. He was staring at the scars along her leg, and the fresh welt in her arm from the whip they'd used upon her moments ago. She stared back, trying to convey as much hatred and animosity for the man as she could.
"I want that one," he said, nodding to Mavis, who let out a frightened squeak. Two of Saker's men grabbed the girl and hauled her away while she cried out and wept for some help, but the only reply was long, tormenting laughter from the crowds of people watching as she was taken outside and to Saker's den.
"I suggest you get the rest of those ready to go outside," he growled, shooting Elouise a last loathing look before dropping a bag full of gold into the captor's hands and walking away.
The rest of the girls were stripped, and a long thing rope bound their hands behind their backs in a long chain. They were paraded outside to the cheers of the men, and Ella watched as the richer folk nearer the front sat up and looked them over with longing in their eyes. It made her feel physically sick.
"Our first pretty young lady for the day!" the auctioneer called out, to the roar of the crowds, "will start at a thousand gold! Do we have any takers?"
A girl with wispy strawberry blond hair was untied and marched out to the front, and as she trembled she watched as the last of her freedom was sold away to the highest bidder for a whopping five thousand gold.
Elouise looked out of the corner of her eye and saw Charlotte trembling like a leaf, tears streaming down her face. She wanted to reach out and hug her to make her feel better, but she couldn't move her arms. Most of the girls went for between five and ten thousand gold, which made her wonder how people came about this kind of money for such a sick cause.
"And now for the fiery haired mistress, we'll start the bidding at... oh, Avo, a hundred. Look at those scars."
Jeers started up from the crowd, and people laughed at her. She was naked and vulnerable, and like the child she was she wanted to run and hide and cry. But pride swelled within her, something only a Finn could have, and she held her chin high and stared coldly out to the masses, and soon their jeers silenced, and every perverted man there was quite, watching her as if expecting something from her, and with her face composed and strong, she turned to the auctioneer.
"I'm a package deal with Charlotte. I'm not going anywhere without her."
She was ever so quiet, and ever so commanding. The auctioneer scratched his lice ridden hair and looked at the last girl in the line, the small child trembling, and he smiled slightly.
"Bring her over then," he instructed Elouise, and she did so, and they stood side by side, hands clasped, with Elouise standing strong and Charlotte looking rather meek in comparison but her courage seemed to perk slightly when she saw how brash her new-found friend was being.
"Turns out gents that these two come as one! The price is now two hundred gold, do we have any bidders?"
The shouts started up then, and the price sky rocketed, until there were only two of the richer men battling it out. The price settled on eighteen thousand two hundred and fifty gold, and Elouise looked over to the man who'd won her and Charlotte.
Surprisingly, he looked rather young, and the clothing he wore indicated that he was nothing more than a servant. His hair was a dark brown, his cheeks flecked with freckles, and he wore a lopsided grin as he came up to pay the auctioneer and collect his 'prize'. He was ugly as sin, and Elouise frowned, wondering if the servants' terrible looks reflected back to his master.
He looked at the two girls and asked for something to be brought to cover them.
"I think you two will like your new home, and you're exactly what Master Finch was looking for, you'll be just the treat for him."
Sharing uneasy looks, the pulled the plain cotton gowns over their heads, glad they were given some of their modesty back, and though the urge to run was building in her stomach, Ella noticed the pistol holstered on the man's hip and decided against it. Instead she pushed Charlotte carefully into the carriage they were provided with, and she climbed in herself, letting the younger girl rest her head on her lap to go to sleep while she watched her life flash away through the window.