"This young one is firm with toned muscles. We start at 40."

"60!"

"I bid at 80!"

The more the numbers went up, the more Kathleen wanted to vomit.

"120!"

Although doing so may make her a target to be given to the mist.

"140 right here!"

Kathleen was up on a bare stage standing on a stone block, so that "she could be viewed by everyone". She felt exposed. Violated. She hated it. Being shown to a group of people that saw her for nothing more as than an object.

"I bid 180!"

Kathleen never felt like this in performances. Then again, she was never alone on that stage. She was with her classmates. They were dancing to pieces that they rehearsed for months. She would raise her arms and lift her legs, all while making sure she stayed poised and graceful. She would do anything to be performing alone in a theater right then. In her World. To be in a ridiculous costume and dance on pointe to the music she only listened to minutes prior.

Instead, she was on a stage with the same man who had held a knife to Eustace's neck, in front of people who probably wanted her to do things that were other than dancing. She might as well be food.

"Anymore bid?"

Mumbles went on after the man called out, who was the Auctioneer of the "market". No one's voice rose higher than the others. The Auctioneer put a wooden board around Kathleen's neck like a twisted necklace. "Sold," it said.

Kathleen's mouth had dropped open in horrification. The Auctioneer grabbed Kathleen by the side of her arms and pick her up and pushed her aside. A man she didn't recognize caught her and pulled her along to the side of a small table. Multiple books and pens were placed in the center of it, as well as a single box.

"Name." Said the name who was holding her. She couldn't bring herself to say anything. Chills were running down her back. "Name." He said in a firmer voice. Again, she couldn't force words out, not even when a pain shocked her face.

"Hey!" Barked a new voice. No, not new. She heard it before. A few moments ago in fact. "Don't bring scrapes to what is mine." It was the man from the crowd. The highest bidder. She became sick all over again.

"Sorry, sir." The one gripping her arms had said, but she knew he didn't really mean it. "I was just waiting on a name for the log." He squeezed her tighter. She clenched her teeth. "Name?"

Behind her, she could the people from the crowd call out numbers. It was Lucy's turn.

"I bid 80!"

"100 for the little lady!"

Kathleen gagged.

"I'll just call you," the buyer paused, "Duana. Yes," he said, holding her chin, "Duana will fit you just nice."

Kathleen turned her head away. She recognized this man from somewhere else. He was in the church as well. The one who was holding on to Edmund and Caspian as they were being taken away.

"160!"

Kathleen's breath was quickening. She wanted to cry, but she knew it would be wise to hold all emotions back.

"Alright," said the man with the iron grip, who Kathleen guessed was the bookkeeper. He shoved Kathleen to the man who raised the highest bid. The bidder put his right forearm around her chest and shoulders. His bicep was muscular and hairy with traces of black oil. Kathleen could smell the dirt and soot as he forcefully pressed against her back. She gasped as she tried to pull away with her chain-linked hands, but the arm wouldn't budge.

The bookkeeper went to the book and started to write down her new name and how much the bidder had paid. As she continued to try and pull down the man's arm, she saw Lucy being carried off the stone block just like she had. She had the same wooden board around her neck with the same four-letter word. This made Kathleen pull down harder, making the bidder's arm squeeze tighter.

"Well now," he said, not moving his arm, "I believe that Duana had some possessions that are now mine." As he said her new name, he roughly pulled her to the side of the bookkeeper's table, making her trip on the table's legs.

The bookkeeper didn't seem to notice or care. "Ah, yes. You found an interesting one." From the corner of her eye, she could see him pull out a sword from underneath the table. It was the one Caspian had lent her. The short sword. "A part of the most powerful set in Narnia's navy."

Kathleen was frozen in fear. Not only did she think she could not get away from this man, but in her line of sight was something she would like to have doubted if it wasn't right in front of her. Eustace standing on the box, and unlike Lucy and herself, no one was bidding.

"Come on now," The Auctioneer baited the crowd, "He may not look like much, but, uh" he paused to squeeze Eustace's bicep, "he's strong."

"Yeah, he's strong alright." A man said from the crowd. "Smells like the rear end of a Minotaur." Laughter erupted from the crowd but was cut off by Eustace's voice.

"That is an outrageous lie." Eustace moved slightly and looked right at the man who said so. Even with the chains around his wrists, he made himself stand tall. "I've won the school hygiene award two years running." He turned to Lucy and Kathleen, as if asking to confirm, but stood still when he saw Kathleen.

Kathleen tried to relax and give him a nod. That was easier said than done. She knew for a fact he had the certificates to prove it, just like she knew for a fact that the pressure in her chest was getting harder to breathe. But she also knew that Eustace's mouth could get him into real trouble. He wasn't the nicest kid at school. Some of the other children would call him a bully. His words and actions would get him in situations and Kathleen would want to justify them but would see no actual evidence to do so. His words would hurt others and get his cousins, mainly Edmund, annoyed. There were a lot of moments that Kathleen would just want to tell him that if he had nothing nice to say then don't say it all, or that if he could keep certain things to himself. This time was the latter. He would have to show himself up and Kathleen would be the one to tell him to do so... if it wasn't for the beast against her back.

She tried to pull away again.

Was this really it? All this time wishing to go to Narnia, a magical place where her dreams could become reality; were they just that? Dreams? Maybe this was all that it was. Maybe she fell asleep in the underground and is still on the train. It would make much more sense. But, would she be happy if it was?

The easy answer was no. But right now, Kathleen wasn't a hundred percent sure when this was her fate. Here she was in a slave-trading market with her student on a platform, raised before all to see. She knew that Lucy was watching Eustace, getting ready to jump the second her cousin needed her to. Edmund and his King friend were somewhere on the island, maybe being tortured. She traveled to the island on a ship that had a crew of men, dwarves, Minotaur's, and a talking mouse. All considered impossible if it wasn't a dream. But feeling the pressure on her chest, the stale air, the dryness in her mouth; meant it was real.

Caspian said that if they didn't return by dawn, his crew would send a search party. It is now an hour or more past the time, as no one has come for them. She closed her eyes tight. If this was real, Kathleen begged for a miracle.

She stopped struggling against her owner as he examined the sword in his free hand. She dropped her arms and let her eyes begin to water.

"I'll take him off your hand."

Kathleen turned her eyes to the crowd once more.

"In fact. I'll take them all off your hands." Kathleen could hear the voice but saw that no one's mouth was moving. She raised her eyebrow until one of the men threw off his blue hood. It was Drinian. And Reepicheep! And more of the crewmen, who were all throwing off similar hoods.

"For Narnia!" The voice said. Reepicheep yelled from Drinian's shoulder.

How did Kathleen not notice the hoods? They were all the same color. That had to be a giveaway. But none of the men on the island noticed either. Maybe it really was a miracle.

The men in disguised dropped their capes, yelled the same words as Reepicheep did, pulled out their swords, and began to fight. Kathleen would have been in awe if the bidder hadn't been trying to drag her away."It's time to go!" He grunted as each pull was getting rougher as they had been getting farther and farther away from the fight.

Kathleen had asked for a miracle, and this was it. The Narnians had devised an ambush on their own. They had little time to plan, yet here they were. Each in their own fight. Just like Kathleen. She was on her own, just like in the church.

And like the fight from the inside of the church, she would get herself free... even if it didn't work completely well the first time.

Just like the boys had taught her, as well as her rehearsals, she planted her feet to the ground and kept them rooted there. The man had moved his arm from her chest to her bicep.

"I said, let's go!" He yanked harder, She barely budged. He pulled again, she made herself pivot so that her back was facing the buyer again. She didn't have her sword, and luckily, neither did he. As soon as Drinian and the rest of the crewmen revealed themselves, the man had dropped the weapon and desperately tried to get far away from the fight as possible, and for the first time in Kathleen's life, she wanted to be in it.

Instead of a sword, Kathleen had something even deadlier. Her elbows.

In any sport, the elbows are the most dangerous thing to have. The elbows have the ability to knock out someone's front teeth, give a black eye, or in Kathleen's case, jab someone in the kidney.

The man let go of Kathleen immediately to hold on to his pain. The second Kathleen felt free, she turned out from his grip and kicked him in between the legs. He doubled down in pain and Kathleen ran to where the center of the fight was happening.

Kathleen had run straight to the table where the bookkeeper once was. Lucy was there too, but she was getting deeper and deeper into the chaos. The older girl was sure that the man would have a pair of keys around, but the more she searched, the more she realized that he must have run off with the keys on his person. She groaned and slammed one of her hands on the table.

"Kathleen!" A voice called her from far away, but she couldn't tell where it was from. She was able to see a man from the church running towards her. Her eyes widen as she scrambled to look for something to defend herself with. She saw a stack of wooden boards with the word "Sold" on them. She grabbed them tightly and swung as hard as she could to the man charging in front of her. He managed to hit the side of his head, but it didn't do much, so she swung again. Nothing. Her hand was now holding broken boards and ribbon. She dropped them and looked at the man.

Before she could get away, the man grabbed onto her chains that connected her wrist. "You're coming with me." Kathleen didn't know who this man was, and she didn't care. She couldn't use her arms, so she did the first thing that came to her head. She spat in his eye.

The man yelled and tried to wipe it off with his left hand. Kathleen didn't miss a second. She lifted her foot and stomped on the top of the man's foot as hard as she can. He released Kathleen's chain to hold his foot. As he bent down, Kathleen took her last shot. She rolled her wrist outward and then connected her arms. Then, thinking about how her instructor would react to her horrible form, she swung her arms to the side of the man's head, hitting him with her iron cuffs.