This was the until now unpublished introduction chapter I previously mentioned in chapter 8. More details about the plot of the story in the notes of that chapter. Tags: Drama, Hurt/Comfort, Yuri, Romance, Slavery.
Shyvana didn't remember much about her old life before the slavers had caught her almost two decades ago. Things like her mother's warmth or her father's gentle voice were entirely lost to her, blurry fragments crawling in the back of her mind muddied by the relentless flow of time. Shyvana had long since lost the count of the times she had tried recalling those faint and scarce memories while curled up on the floor of her small cell at the end of each passing day before reluctantly letting the sobs of her cellmates finally lull her to sleep.
It didn't really matter however, that part of Shyvana's life had already ended a long, long time ago, her childhood stripped away by the evil humans that had so cruelly snatched her away from her dear mother's warm loving arms. Still, the thought of someone genuinely caring for her was pleasant and comforting in some weird sort of way and since thinking was one of the few freedoms the dragoness was permitted inside her iron cell Shyvana would admittedly find herself daydreaming quite frequently.
The subjects of the caged grey dragoness' quiet daydreams varied and changed continuously, alternating almost each passing day, with the most common ones involving a plate of delicious food silently being placed on the ground in front of her, right before her malnourished and beaten body. The food would usually be offered to her by some kind merchant or considerate city guard that had just happened to be wandering in that part of the slave market. Some other pleasant and cherished fantasies involved the use of medicine, magical salves being applied on her sore bruised body after receiving a particularly harsh beating and the miraculous mending of her terrible wounds.
There were also some other daydreams of course. Images of her escaping, bittersweet thoughts of her past, her life's story pieced together by a hundred fuzzy visions dulled by anger and pain. And at some rare times when Shyvana wasn't in too much pain and the slavers hadn't been stingy with the portions of her food Shyvana would find herself wondering what might have become of her if the humans had actually failed to discover her parents' hut in the heart of the great green mountains.
But those relatively peaceful daydreams didn't usually last for too long however and they always seemed to be abruptly cut in the same exact way, with the dazed dragoness suddenly waking up startled by the screams of the newest arrivals being led to their various training rooms and their steel or iron cages.
Shyvana wasn't the only one that liked daydreaming of course. The other men and women in the cells also seemed fond of creating blissful visions for themselves and frequently found some solace in reminiscing of more pleasant times in their lives during the long sunless hours of nighttime.
The vast majority of the unsold slaves regularly tried daydreaming of their families saving them from this obscure piece of hell or the beautiful kind master that came to buy them off the slavers' cruel hands and chose to take them as grooms or as brides. Shyvana had always found those thoughts utterly ridiculous, but even so she refrained from saying that aloud to them. Anyone brave enough to dream in that cursed rotten place deserved a ray of hope in their tortured hearts after all, no matter how futile and unreachable that ray of light might actually be for even the luckiest slave.
The approaching sound of heavy footsteps suddenly disturbs her thoughts and much like the rest of her fellow slaves Shyvana instantly stiffens, golden draconic eyes briefly narrowing as they dart towards the other side of the room in nearly absolute darkness.
Were their cruel captors actually returning during the late hours of the night just to bring them more food and water? No, that was quite unlikely since the slavers had already tossed them a few breadcrumbs and filthy loafs of bread some time after the nightfall and past experience had unfortunately taught her that their captors wouldn't usually bother giving them anything more than those few loafs of bread for at least until the next daybreak.
The room's heavy oaken door suddenly bursts open, its hard wooden surface abruptly slamming into the grey stone wall with enough force for it to actually crack and even peel some dust off the door's filthy paint, the loud sound emitted by the mighty slam loud enough to have most of the other slaves wake up and jumping in fright, muffled sobs instantly escaping from their dry and cracked lips.
The rugged slaver ignores their startled gasps. His burly frame barely illuminated by the light of the simple torch in his hand, and the slaver's dark expression only shows disgust and contempt as the man then proceeds to scan the dimly lit room with his black beady eyes. The crook's intent gaze lazily moving across the pilled trembling bodies stuck in their tiny cells, dark greedy eyes obviously searching for potential prey before his black greedy glare finally stops as the slaver suddenly lays eyes upon her still sleeping cellmate. Fiora, the Demacian blueblood turned slave.
The man shows a toothless grin, his rugged features twisting from lust, fat fingers already extending to grab the caged woman's hair. But Shyvana proves faster than him. The grey dragoness doesn't waste a single moment before she lands a kick in the slaver's outstretched hand, using her bruised chained foot to shove away his greedy appendage before pulling the slumbering woman closer to her and as far away from the slaver's reach as her small cell allows her. She then proceeds to wrap her grey malnourished arms around Fiora and growl somewhat protectively.
The chained noblewoman wakes up with a jolt and then shoots a hot scorching glare towards her loud and obnoxious cellmate, but the former duelist's angry curse instantly dies on her lips the moment Fiora suddenly notices the burly man clutching his pained appendage. The fallen duelist freezes like a trapped animal caught in a voidling's sight.
The slaver snarls, his black beady eyes practically overflowing with malice, the scent of cheap alcohol on his breath permeating the air of the damp shady dungeon. Shyvana stays still, calmly returning his enraged hateful glare, her fierce eyes of molten gold flaring in the relative darkness.
"Just walk away, Flint."
Her cold voice is an irritated growl and there is a hint of a beastly snarl hidden somewhere in its dangerous undertone, but the man stands his ground, too stupid or maybe too drunk for him to actually recognize a natural-born killer. His hand disappears inside his pockets as the slaver casually searches for the key to the dragon's cage.
"Walk away little man. Harold will no doubt have your head if you so much as damage the blueblood before the big auction tomorrow."
There is no trace of humanity left in her tone this time. Shyvana's voice is a thunderous roar, the challenging shout of the dragon twisting inside her guts, swelling inside her lungs only to emerge from her snarling mouth a few moments later carried upwards with a whiff of black smoke and small yellow embers dancing across the edges of her dry lips. Shyvana can already feel the enchantments of her slave collar vibrating slightly in the dark, the carved Shuriman runes suddenly springing to life reacting to the ashen slave's hostility. The drunk man also notices the ominous glow it seems since he pauses to smile at her mockingly.
"You are bluffing, you stupid bitch! You try raising your hand against me again and the slave collar will fry your empty reptilian brain."
The grey female dragon merely hums in response as golden eyes silently stare at him from the shadows of her cell, black whiffs of smoke now visibly escaping from the corners of Shyvana's closed mouth.
"Then try me. Unlock this door for me little man. Come and get a glimpse into the belly of the beast and let's see which of us is the fastest killer, my flames and claws or your untrustworthy little slave collar?"
Shyvana sees the fear in the man's eyes before its putrid odor even hits her nostrils and she calmly observes the mist of drunken stupor clearing in a moment's notice, suddenly cleansed by his primal urge to flee from her golden sight. Flint's cowardly heart abruptly clenches as he watches the unnerving sight of Shyvana's draconic heritage slowly fighting its way to the surface and listens to the ominous hum of the Shuriman runes gradually peaking and intensifying.
Flint's gaze is glued on the thin trails of smoke escaping from each side of her upturned cracked lips. The slaver takes a step back before he even notices it and Shyvana's smile widens as the runes carved into her slave collar suddenly dim dramatically before finally fading completely.
"That's what I thought, Flint."
The slaver scoffs while grudgingly returning the key back to his pocket, his anger completely forgotten as he tiredly sighs in defeat.
"Tsk, why the hell didn't we just leave you back in the Bilgewater? Damn, I should have known that fifty coins for a healthy female, even a freak like you was just too good of a deal for it not to be a trick somehow! You could be sold as a concubine, a mine worker, hells you could even become a part of some rich Zaunite pervert's creepy snake collection for all I care as long we got some coin out of it! But then again how in the nine hells was I supposed to know that you hadn't actually been trained!?"
"It's all like you said, Flint. You really should have seen it coming. My price was just too low for a healthy female slave and Barlan would have probably even paid you if that would mean you were going to get me out of his hair. And so you and I are now stuck in this hellhole and we keep making each other even angrier and more miserable."
"Not for long, girly. Not for long." The slaver abruptly chuckles, the sound closer to a dying man's quivering breath than a normal sound of joy and Flint's apparent confidence suddenly makes the dragoness' blood turn to ice.
"You see, girly, after your little stand in Zaun Harold and I realized you wouldn't just comply and let yourself be sold like a good slave. So dear old boss and I had to take some extra measures to make sure you would definitely be sold at the next town we arrived. And then we also stumbled on little blueblood Fiora over there and that got the two of us thinking. Just who exactly is going to pay the most for a young Demacian noblewoman and a hotheaded ferocious Half-Dragon?"
Oh no, that's bad, that's really bad. Shyvana can already feel the usually unfazed noblewoman's iron grip on her clothes. The proud duelist's muted tears currently wetting her ashen neck, Fiora's almost mute sobs vibrating against the grey dragoness' malnourished and bruised body.
The young woman was a brave one, maintaining her arrogant attitude and sharp tongue even in captivity, lashing at slavers and slaves alike, mocking them all for their incompetence and inferiority with every noisy collected breath she inhaled. And now.. Now that same fearless Fiora is currently pressing herself against her chest and trembling like a scared toddler and Shyvana doesn't have to be a genius to realize that the two of them are in deep, deep trouble.
"Noxus"
Shyvana unfortunately knows that terrible word. She recognizes its crude sound, the distant looming threat, the hint of danger and violence hidden in those five bloodstained letters. The other slaves seem to almost fanatically utter that same word every single night when they gathered in the center of their tiny dark cells, their busted lips quivering in fright and their hands clenched on top of their scared hearts, eyes closed tightly, eyelids scrunched up as they all start chanting in unison.
"Noxus, please not in Noxus. Please anywhere but the black soulless city. Gods, oh gods please don't let me get sold there." The other captives usually pray as they slowly sink in despair and cry themselves to sleep and now that they all know what their next stop is going to be the foul scent of dread escaping from the slaves' pores is practically making Shyvana sick to her stomach.
The dragoness swallows, forcing the mixture of bile, flames and ash back in her belly, her talloned fingers moving soothingly across the tense Demacian's back trying to calm her down. Fiora isn't her friend after all, but that doesn't mean that the duelist deserves what awaits any Demacian noblewoman beyond the gates of the black soulless city. None of them really does.
Flint finally leaves and the door slams shut with a loud thud as the slaver's evil laughter echoes in the dark empty hallways until the great cacophony caused by the curses and sobs screamed by the people still locked in their cells soon overpowers and covers the maddening sound.
Fiora still sniffles against her chest and Shyvana is about to get up and distance herself from the crying blueblood now that the slaver has finally left them alone, but then she is suddenly being pinned against the cell's stone wall and hungry equally dry lips abruptly brush against her own.
Surprised golden eyes quickly rise in order to meet Fiora's still wet fierce blue ones and Shyvana carefully examines the duelist's forlorn and solemn, vulnerable expression for a mere second or two before the dragoness sharply nods her head and lowers her hands to cup Fiora's thighs.
The fallen duelist lowly sighs in relief. She wraps her arms around the dragoness' neck and softly kisses her cellmate once more, agitated blue orbs never quite leaving the dragoness' liquid golden gemstones.
The draconic slave growls and deepens the kiss in response and Fiora's soft throaty moans are soon joined by a variety of similar sounds emitted by some of the other occupied holding cells filling the filthy dark dungeon. The dragoness pauses for a second and Fiora shivers as a taloned grey hand carefully moves to stroke the duelist's breast under her rags.
"Are you really sure about this?"
The former duelist shivers again and Shyvana suddenly realizes that Fiora is actually trembling as the once proud and arrogant noblewoman now unceremoniously lets her lithe body collapse on top of the dragoness' lap and presses herself against her exotic cellmate.
"P-please." Fiora desperately begs in a low urgent whisper, her scratchy tone almost smothered by the moans of the slaves making love in the other cells and Shyvana quickly understands and so she complies and silently leans in to press a soft chaste kiss against the smooth dirty temple of the obviously nervous and fidgeting former Grand Duelist.
Shyvana can't really blame Fiora for desperately wanting to experience a pleasant, caring touch while she still can, especially if denying the blueblood's unspoken request would mean that the poor captured woman will have to pass through the cruel gates of the black city as an unloved virgin.
The caged grey half-beast carefully shifts after a couple of minutes or so until it is now Shyvana's own nude back that faces the cell's locked door instead of the former Grand Duelist's and her pale ashen body somewhat obscures the sight of the flustered and naked Fiora from their fellow slaves before she once again locks eyes with the currently furiously blushing noblewoman. Fiora gratefully nods her head and both pairs of eyes slowly close as their bodies collide once more, their lips part and their already uneven, ragged breaths quickly become more frantic and intermingled.
The End