He coughed blood over the stone masonry he had laid on for the past seven hours. As he regained consciousness the memories of the reason of his current state started to rush as a flowing river. Another chance to escape had slipped through his hands; he had lost count of how many times he was on the brink of leaving behind that dreadful land just to meet failure and a painful punishment. He didn't fear pain, he had learned to come along with it as a way to survive but mostly as a way to rebel, the thing he feared and prevented him several timed from fleeing was the imprisonment that often followed a session of torture, most of his masters would lock him up and chain him in a dark dungeon for a long time, the longest he remembered had spent In darkness and deprived of the outside world or any communication were about 2 months or at least he thought that since he wasn't allowed even the slightest sunshine to measure time.
He looked through the bars of his cell window and internally thanked he could have that, even if he didn't reach to see the soothing deep blue sky of what it seemed a calm and fresh summer night he was grateful to knew it was night time. Just about that time but yesterday he was running on the open grassland heading to a mountain range to hide for some days until he'd figure out a new plan. The hit on the stone wall resonated dull; his hand hardly pressed on it as he shut his eyes and blamed himself for being caught. He would have may succeeded if he hadn't rush it and waited for the precise moment, but he panicked, panicked when heard his new master would arrive any second then, the idea of being touched for another old creepy bastard disgusted him to the point of wanting to be deformed and be found repulsive to all of them.
His eyelids finally were beginning to fall after a night of aching memories and regrets but the subtle light of a teal morning started to fill the row of gloomy cells and with it the sound of movement of a busy morning. He looked terrible, beaten, pale and dehydrated, the guards thought as they saw him. The hedgehog opened his eyes in a sudden when heard the sound the lock being undone. He struggled as they grabbed his arms to lift him and unlock his shackles.
"Be a good boy, hedgehog; I don't want to ruin that pretty face" A guard said as he pointed a knife near his cheek.
The azure one only looked at him defiantly and spitted in his face "You little slut!" The dog screamed as he slapped the hedgehog with the back of his hand making him fall to the floor.
"Are you nuts? His master is one of the most powerful Lords of the city!" Exclaimed the other guard .
"Don't you think I know? I saw him yesterday looking at him; he had no interest in this whore" He said pointing at the young hedgehog still lying on the floor and then laughed.
"I bet nobody wants you in their beds anymore, that body of yours must have passed around hundreds of dicks already and they found you disgusting"
The hedgehog tried to support on an arm, looked at him and smiled "Were you fucked thousands of times? 'Cause you're quite disgusting already"
He was roughly kicked on the stomach after finishing the sentence "Enough! Even if the Lord doesn't want him if we deliver the slaves in deplorable condition will give this establishment a bad reputation!"
"Fine! Then just help me tie and gag him, it's too fucking early for this" After half an hour they finally held him down and tied his hands behind his back and forcefully shoved the gag inside his mouth. He had to be cleaned and groomed for his new master.
The black hedgehog pressed his hand onto his forehead trying to suppress the throbbing headache; he slowly looked at his sides unknowing the surroundings till his crimson eyes met a familiar woman lying next to him on the bed. He shocked at this as he tried to remember how he had end up in the bed of one of his childhood acquaintance. Many times in long boring balls she would ask him to dance with her but she always found rejection, the last time she spoke to him was in their early adolescence when other boys started to show interest in her. Still he wondered how he had end up in a situation like that; both were naked and tangled in the silk sheet. He stopped trying to remember and carefully removed the sheet over his body and picked up his clothes all scattered on the floor.
'It's still early' He thought as he walked under the shades of the trees, he was heading his old home at last. To the eyes of the few peasants who saw him walking he was a mysterious traveler from foreign lands that had never set foot there. Mostly because of his current aspect none would think of him as a Lord, the owner of the land he was stepping on and several hectares beyond. He still was wearing the same clothes he had when he was exiled from the last land he visited and lived for two years in, a white long sleeve white shirt a little torn and tainted a bit with blood at the right upper arm, a black waist coat unbuttoned, pants of the same color and boots equal, he would wear a long coat too but the weather prevented him to do so and instead he carried it over his back holding it with one hand.
When he finally reached home he was stopped at the front garden entrance by two guards. One of them wielded his sword "Stop right there! What business do you have here, you filthy…?" "Wait! He is the son of Lord Black Doom!" Screamed the other guard when recognized the black hedgehog since he had been working there for the past 20 years.
The younger guard started to shake in fear and dropped his sword "I… I am sorry… please… forgive…." "Just get off my way" "Y..yes…" He stepped aside in haste letting the onyx hedgehog into the property. As soon as he entered the mansion he was received by all his servants ready to take orders from their new boss.
After taking a bath and change clothes he went directly to the study to start his work as the current Baron. The night almost fell at the time he was nearly over signing land tenures, on his desk still there were many papers that hadn't been revised, he had ordered to bring them for their verification but he already found that task exhausting and understood why those issues were carried out by administrators. Nevertheless he didn't trust anyone at the moment, he wanted to scrutinize everything before anyone else to avoid blackmailing. The next issue would be the documents of the slaves; it was a huge stack of papers that contained the ownership papers of all them and proved they were property of his. Already fed up with the reading he stood up, but he reached to notice a beige velvet folder among the pile that was eye-catching for the color and the material when most of the documents were just a crumpled sheet of paper. He grabbed it and as he started to read it realized its meaning, he closed it, rushed to the door and called a servant "Sir, what can I do for…?" "Where is the blue hedgehog?"