Emma couldn't believe she was on a ship again taken against her will. When Regina teleported her to the ship, Regina pushed her towards the man-at-arms and he took her to the brig. She was carelessly thrown into the room surrounded by bars while he locked the door behind him. Looking down at the bracelet, she tried to tear it off her wrist again and it wouldn't budge. She stood up to look out the window towards land. Killian had seen her being taken by the evil Queen and she hoped he would have spotted her on the ship. Right now, Killian and Sir Gawain were her only hope of rescue.
Nighttime fell and Emma was shivering beneath the blankets. She heard footsteps coming down the stairs. It was Regina.
"I trust your accommodations are comfortable?" Regina smiled thinking she was funny for making a witty remark.
"Whatever it is you want just do it quick," Emma spat.
"Oh, it is not going to be quick," Regina answered. "It's going to be a nice, slow delicious torture for you. You will be miserable for the rest of your life, Emma. You'll never see your loved ones again."
"What are you planning?" Emma demanded. "Where are you taking me?"
"Oh you'll find out soon enough," Regina answered with a smug grin. "You'll be lost forever."
Regina turned and left with a monstrous laugh.
Emma fell back on her cot with fear paralyzing her. On a ship with no magic she could be taken anywhere. The feeling of hope receded from her chest and tears of despair slid down her cheeks. This was worse than being kidnapped by pirates because she had a chance of fighting back against pirates, but to be imprisoned by Regina with no magic, the situation seemed hopeless.
The days passed with alarming speed for Emma. She no longer received a visit from Regina. The only person who saw her was a servant that brought food and water to her, gave her bucket and washcloth to clean with and emptied her chamber pot. She tried talking to the servant, a dark-haired tall skinny man who started walking around bare chested when the weather got warmer, but the servant didn't speak Emma's language or any of the languages she knew. There had been only one bad storm that delayed the ship's progress for several days but that was it. They had stopped at different ports to restock on supplies but there was no one to hear her screams.
On one stop, the crew had brought in some men that were filed into the hold and chained to the wall. Were they slavers? For three days, she fell into a depression thinking of the chained men who most likely would be sold into slavery and most likely she would be sold with them. She had heard stories of women getting sold into harems transported to strange foreign lands far, far away from home never to be seen or heard from again. She realized that this is what Regina meant when she said Emma would be lost forever.
The ship docked at a port and Emma wondered if this was where she was going to be sold. She had her answer when she saw the slaves being led to the deck. The moans and clanking of chains had her rushing to bring a pillow to her head to cover her ears and stifle the sobs. Finally the servant came down and gestured for her to change into a white robe made of thin muslin.
"If you don't change willingly, I'll get a couple more men to forcibly strip you and you can come out nude," Regina yelled. "I'm going to get my money's worth out of you."
Emma decided it was best to obey and changed out of her gown into the thin white robe leaving her corset and pantaloons on underneath. When the servant came down and saw Emma still wearing her underthings, he gestured for her to take them off. Emma kept shaking her head no. He pointed up to the deck and made motions with his hands that she understood. Either she would cooperate or they would force her. She took off her corset and pantaloons and started shivering from fear. She felt so bare and exposed with just the thin white muslin robe on. The servant removed her clothing lest she should change her mind and put it back on. Raising her head and squaring her shoulders, she knew whatever indignities and atrocities she had to suffer, she would bear it with nobility and courage.
Killian lost sight of the ship Emma was sailing on several times, but somehow always got back on their trail until a storm hit them. Killian panicked after the storm. The only thing that calmed him down was the knowledge that the storm must have slowed them down too and they would need to sail to the nearest port to do repairs or restock supplies. He knew all the ports that the ship could possibly stop at. He knew all the customs officers and he tallied how much provisions they stocked to know which port they would stop next to reload. It was all a skillfully calculated guessing game and one that he played well having accurately guessed which dock they had just left after visiting it. Finally he had an idea which port the Evil Queen decided to make her destination. It was the city, Sonapur, where they sold slaves at auction. He had learned that the ship had taken on slaves that were prisoners of war or sailors whose ships were commandeered.
If Emma were sold at auction she could be taken goodness knows where in the world and she could quite possibly be lost. He couldn't let that happen to her. He set a course for Sonapur in hopes of getting there in time before she was sold to the highest bidder and disappeared forever.
He didn't get much sleep during his chase. Each time he closed his eyes to rest after spending most of his days sailing from one port to another looking out his spyglass for signs of Emma's ship, his mind would drift to a mass of tumbling blonde hair, crystal clear green eyes that glowed with light and lips that felt so incredibly soft beneath his. She was definitely a woman that would stand beside or walk along the side of a man of her choice, not charge ahead or lag behind. It chastened him sorely when images of her in another man's arms bombarded him. It made his gut roil. But he was determined to prove himself to her, that he was just as good as any poncey knight of the realm.
He docked his ship near land and lowered a small boat with two of his crewmen, Lloyd and Harry, to the nearest beach. From there, they made their way to a big house overlooking a bluff. Captain Jones rang the doorbell which was answered by a butler who asked what his business with the master of the house was.
"Tell your master, Captain Killian Jones is here to collect on a favor," Killian told him. The butler told him and his crew to sit in the drawing room.
The butler left to inform his employer of his presence. Lloyd started getting nervous when he heard footsteps coming to the door of the drawing room - step, drag, step, drag – until it stopped at the door. The door knob turned slowly and the door thrown open. What Lloyd and Harry saw raised the hairs on the back of their necks. A man covered in a black cloak and a black leather helm stood there.
"Welcome, Captain Jones," the man in black said. "My butler tells me you're here to collect."
"Yes, Lord Le Bossu," Killian answered. "I need your help to rescue a damsel in distress."
The men who were bound in chains were shuffled off the ship to another part of the city to be sold at a more public auction. Waves of terror threatened to flood Emma but she willed herself to keep her cool so Regina wouldn't see that her impending situation got to her.
Emma's hands were bound and she was led into a small room with five other women who seemed to have nothing better to do but lounge around. They cut her bonds and showed her to her pallet. It seemed like they wanted her to experience another dimension of torture, the fear and anxiety of waiting. Being cooped up on board a ship made her desperate to stretch her legs and finally being on land made the desperation more acute but she couldn't go anywhere. She was stuck in the room that she shared with five women albeit a clean one but still confined to her pallet on the floor.
Observing the other women, three of them looked bored like they had done this before. One of them was chained to the wall most likely because she reeked of hostility and looked like she would strike the nearest person to her. The other girl was very much conscious of her looks and preened in front of the mirror, brushing her hair, applying some color from crushed berries and putting heavy kohl on her eyes. She must hope to entice a buyer through her looks. In fact, they all had different brands of beauty. She surmised most likely they would be concubines to some rich powerful man and most likely she would be too.
The slave traders kept her there for the whole day and night. Finally the time came. They were ushered into another room waiting their turn to be sold on the block. And it was a block, a small square platform facing the court where a small crowd could gather and examine the merchandise on display. Emma shuddered at the thought of what would happen when she was bought, the person that would buy her and what would be expected of her. She tried to tamp down the food that was threatening to come from her stomach.
The first woman came onto the platform, escorted on either side by two men and the auctioneer was speaking in a foreign tongue that Emma could not understand. She tried to see what kind of crowd would come to buy females and she saw they were mostly men of all ages and finely dressed no more than twenty of them.
The bidding commenced as the auctioneer started speaking holding up her hair to show how long and soft it is, using his finger to tilt her chin up to show how pretty she was, lifting her arms to show off her figure, then what shocked and terrified Emma, he took off her robe, stripping her bare to show her nude body. Emma felt the urge to run so acutely but when she turned, she was met with two large bodies of the slavers that held her in place. It was so degrading, so utterly humiliating, so barbaric.
One of the men gripped Emma's arm hard to force her to stop fighting. She didn't care how much it hurt or how the bruise would be visible in a few hours, she continued to wriggle out of his grasp. The auction for the first woman ended and she was taken back to the room so the man that bought her could settle payment.
As the second woman was led to the block, Emma heard the sounds of a horse drawn carriage approach. A team of four black horses pulled a black carriage into the court yard. The auctioneer stopped the auction of the second woman. All eyes turned to the occupant in the carriage. The driver got out and opened the door to reveal a man covered in black from the top of his head down to the floor descend the carriage. He reached back to retrieve his cane and slowly made his way towards the block. Emma noticed one of his legs dragged on the floor as he slowly walked towards them.
Another man in charge of the auction came to meet him. They spoke for a moment then the man made a motion to the other slavers. They escorted Emma and the other women back into the room they came out of. They were lined up when the man covered in black came through the door. As soon as he entered, the whole room grew hush and watched carefully as the man in black looked over the women. He was a rather fearsome, imposing shape whose foreboding presence seemed to fill the room. The women that had looked bored now looked fearful at the nightmarish form of the man.
Even though the slaver in charge spoke in a language that was foreign to her, she could tell he was expounding the appeal of the woman they were examining first. Two men came behind the woman and took her robes off, stripping her for the gaze of the man in black. Emma started to struggle again and was being held tightly by two men. Unfortunately her actions brought the attention of the man in black who decided to bypass the other women and went straight to her. Emma's mind froze; she was so scared and unnerved as he came closer. She reluctantly raised her gaze to find a man whose face was completely covered by a black helm with two slitted holes cut out for his eyes, two tiny ones for his nostrils and a series of squares for his mouth. She couldn't even see the color of his eyes, it was so shadowed. He had a black coat on that covered him entirely and black gloves. His shoulders seemed thick and broad and uneven as if he were hunched over.
When she felt the men begin to disrobe her she fought and kept her eyes closed shut but it was of no avail she was stripped bare and she could have sworn she heard the man in black make a quick intake of breath at the sight of her. He turned to the slaver and said some words that she couldn't understand but it seemed like he pointed to her as if he had made his selection.
The two men who had stripped her now quickly put her robe back on and she was ushered into another room most likely to wait as he made his payment for her. She then was escorted to his black carriage. As she came closer, her mind rebelled that she was just sold to this monstrosity of a man that she started fighting against her captors. She was lifted up bodily and tossed into the carriage. She shrunk back as the man in black followed her into the carriage sitting opposite of her. He tapped the ceiling of the carriage with his silver cane to signal the driver to start the journey.
In a rush her words to Killian Jones came back to her, "I'd sooner be with a hunchback, scarred ogre than be with you." Oh how she wished she could take back her words said in anger and jealousy. It was almost as if saying those words somehow made them come true.
The masked man turned his attention to Emma and spoke in a deep, gravelly voice, "I must beg your pardon for my appearance but I met with an unfortunate incident and now must wear a mask lest this face shocks you and sets you to flight."
"I already want to flee," Emma said with a shaky voice.
The man in black made a deep, guttural laugh, "I appreciate your candor, my lady. Allow me to introduce myself, people call me Lord Lebossu." He said with a bow of his head.