"An order from my mistress. One I'm overjoyed to obey. 'Go and write a journal' she said to me, and here I am, writing at a desk I can kind of call my own. It isn't much, but it's mine, as much as any slave ever owns anything. Where am I writing? Here in the estate of Mistress Aiwenor. I have a room here, a pretty decent size one really, it could have been larger but… well my Kaiji insisted on something closer to our owner. She's funny that way. Anyway it isn't bad, better than anything else I've ever had."
"I look around now, and I see a candle, a bar of soap on a dish, a simple white towel hanging up, and a bed shoved into the corner of the room. I wanted it to be in the center, like how lords and ladies set theirs up, to kind of rule the room where they sleep. But… you guessed it, Kaiji again. She wants the corner, where we can sleep together close, and one can hardly move without waking the other. It's the sweetest thing I'd ever heard, and I love her for it."
"It's a lot harder to journal than I thought, if anyone ever looks this over, well that's why there are several dark dots of ink right next to this sentence. You know, it is very strange to think about how I ended up here, now, in this place. My Kaiji is in the mistress's room now, she goes there while the mistress is gone, I think she's crying, but she says not, she says she only looks at the empty bed and kneels there, waiting. If I didn't know better, I'd think it was our mistress she loved. But it isn't like that. And… I do like a little privacy for moments like this, more than I thought."
"Barely three months ago, I was a nothing in life, I was dragged out of my master's house, over his bleeding body, and thrown into a wagon. Hiding under the bed it turns out is a terrible idea. The wagon carried me and a number of other women away. The children were in another wagon, and the captured men in yet another. Strangely enough, I was the only one who knew why. 'So that you won't run, since that would mean abandoning your families.' I told the others, and most of the women I was with, cried. I didn't, not because I'm strong, because I'm not. Or wasn't. Or am not. I don't know, but I definitely wasn't then. It's just that it didn't matter to me anymore. Why would it?"
"All I ever knew was one auction block or another, sell me here? Sell me there? Sell me everywhere? Who cares, the masters and mistresses change. But my life really didn't. Except its value, and what parts were more expensive. I saw no reason for that to ever change, everything was just an unhappy event that followed after another equally unhappy event. I just went where they told me, learned what they taught me, and tried not to get beaten again, or noticed when someone got horny. That all changed the day I saw that death worshipper. The night watch had just finished emptying a load of seed when the knock came. I saw her and felt nothing really. Beautiful, tall, radiant blonde hair, a vicious stare. And with her an even more beautiful maid, they were dressed more expensively than any Prince I'd ever seen. And when she stared down at me, I saw no hint of pity. But I think the mistress must have felt something, because she took me. She took me and had me brought to her room, she touched me without cruelty, stroking me like a pet or a child or a wounded bird, then gave me a name more beautiful than anything else about me."
"That was the same day I met the love of my life, my Kaiji, all of these three were miles beyond me in experience, knowledge, wisdom, beauty, power… I was less than a dog. But Kaiji taught me, Kaiji loved me. And our Mistress… the day I was taken away, the day I betrayed her to protect Kaiji, I knew then that something was different. I knew I just had to wait, and someone would come for me. As soon as Kaiji was, as I thought of it, safe, I was silent. No matter how much they beat me, no matter how many teeth they knocked out, I just spat blood and lies."
"I really thought I'd die, and that was just another in a long line of most unfortunate events, until I heard the voice of a goddess giving orders. The sound of shattering wood, the sound of steel and felt the warm glow of magic. My mistress had come for me, she had my beloved cut my bonds, and caught me when I fell. She carried me out over her shoulder, killed or captured those who took me, and made me safe. I still thought I would die as a traitor, or be sold yet again as untrustworthy, but I wasn't. Instead I was pair bonded by a law written by the very hand of my mistress, to my Kaiji."
"It was at that moment, that very second, that everything began to change for me, and even now, I know I can never be the same, because I learned a lesson by the willingness of both Kaiji and Mistress to fight, risk and shed blood and coin to save me from pain or death."
"I learned that I… Priceless, a no account nameless slave of no family, land, or possession, with no heritage or knowledge of where she comes from or what kind of people bore her…
Have value."
"It's a lesson I will never… ever forget."