Constraints: This is set after the events of Disclaimer/Ocelots Avatar Slavebender, and I've taken certain liberties with the way I interpret the point in time Slavebender is set in, I've placed it at some point after Ruins Of The Earth Empire (which at some point I could find is completely wrong, all I have to set the point in time is air nomads are all rocking wingsuits which were in service before Season 4).
I've structured the story in such a way that if you haven't read Slavebender you won't know who Cumbucket is for a bit, if you have, well, there will be surprises, but that ain't one.
Slave To Diplomacy
"-so, party will definitely include President Zhu Li, Firelord Izumi, co-Chiefs Desna and Eska, King Wu, Chief Tonraq, and Tenzin, and they may well have some muscle with them, possibly Mako and Bolin, possibly the Avatar, so for fuck's sake keep cumbucket and any signs of her existence out of sight."
"Yes chief," chorused the administrative guard of Granitopolis.
The chief of the town, Pi Fahoun, normally had cumbucket around for dignatories to enjoy.
Normally made them more keen to agree to terms that favour Granitopolis, since cumbucket was an impressive person to have as a slave, and because cumbucket represented an entity the visiting dignitaries hated, so abusing cumbucket as they hammered out terms and conditions again allowed Pi to coax better deals out of them.
Not quite the same thing when the dignitaries were all about liberation and human dignity and the like. Pi was trying to hammer out a rare elements trading deal with Republic City and their allies and having cumbucket merely in view, let alone offered to them for entertainment would have an opposing effect.
…
Mostly, Desna and Eska have a reputation for being a bit weird, so, who knows with those two.
…
Renih saw this as an opportunity. Everyone had viewed him as a bit weak willed for his lack of team spirit, failing to correctly read that he was disgusted at the system he had grown up in, where slavery was acceptable, most middle earners had at least one domestic slave, some businesses were mostly slaves with lower management upwards being employees, that on its own in the abstract seemed pretty fucking wrong to Renih.
The situation with Cumbucket left him barely holding in his rage, which could get him fired and banished, or worse, enslaved himself if he were to express it.
A weird consequence is that some of the other guards ordered Cumbucket to dance up against him, and then suck him off, Cumbucket had gotten his fly down and a couple of fingers hooked over the waistband of his pants when he ran off to the laughter of the rest of them.
Again, they misread him as shy, not livid.
And this might work in his favour.
The guards dispersed to their duties, one of them led Cumbucket by the hair to the staff rec room, they would no doubt use Cumbucket there when off duty.
For Renih to succeed, a whole fuckton of things will have to go right.
He checked he had remembered the lump of chalk with the note tied to it was in his pocket and carried on with his assigned duty.
"Esteemed leaders, Welcome to Granitopolis," said Pi Fahoun, holding out his hand to Zhu, who shook his on the landing pad that filled out the mid roof level that Repdip 1 was moored to.
"Thank you," replied Zhu, "I hope in spite of our differences we can strike a mutually beneficial deal, although polling suggests if the issue of slavery isn't at least improved, I could be replaced with someone less minded to let that sort of thing slide, sorry to start our talks off on a contentious note."
The slimmed down group, no Tonraq, no Tenzin, caught Pis attention and he asked "aren't we missing a couple of leaders?"
"They're busy with other matters, an issue with Tenzins family," replied Korra, "I'm sure even around here people would do anything to help their family."
"Yeah, no that makes sense, I hope that gets resolved, I hope you would pass your wishes on," said Pi before leading them off to the meeting room.
Korra was looking around for signs of a trap or ambush. Even though it didn't seem attacking them would benefit Pi, he definitely stood to make his town filthy rich if a deal went through, still …
Something landed in the back of Korras belt and pushed itself a little bit down, causing Korra to grab it.
Folded paper tied by string around a portion of a stick of chalk.
Korra earthbent the chalk out of the bundle then removed the paper from the now really loose string, allowing her to conceal the actions all on one hand, the chalk was probably there so that an earthbender could hand this off to her.
She opened and read the paper, again managing to do that in one hand, this happening over the course of the three minutes it took them to get into the meeting room, it was a fast read, and she pocketed the paper and the other materials that came with it and prompted "President?" before leaning in to whisper into Zhu Lis ear "Someone handed me a note telling me to play along when given a package I supposedly ordered, and that the sender requests asylum in Republic City."
"Any idea who?" Zhu whispered back.
"Other than an earthbender, no idea," said Korra, "I'm recommending we grant the request, but I'll check the package before allowing it too close to our ride."
"Okay, do the thing," whispered Zhu back. She then turned her attention back to Pi saying "Sorry about that, where were we?"
The meeting carried on with food being served by guards who seemed to struggle with the roles, almost as if that wasn't who usually served guests at these meetings.
'Wonder why the staff were temporarilly changed out?' thought Korra as the meeting went on.
Even in her more chill current day mindset, Korra would still be horrific at this, she felt a newfound admiration for Zhu Lis scary ability to keep her shit together as Pi kept offering up the nonsensicallest excuses for continuing to use slave labour in his regime, and Zhu kept haggling down the phase out time of slave labour, Korra amused herself with a fantasy of bending the air out of Pis lungs until he agreed to immediately release all slaves and pay them for a lifetime of stolen wages even if it put this sorry town mantle deep in debt.
And it's allies.
Granitopolis was part of an alliance of states that broke away from the earth kingdom because Wu was opposed to slavery, and these towns under Hou Ting had been allowed to develop their systems of slavery, and they had evolved a common system with three classes of resident, which was citizen, slave, and punitive example slave.
A citizen could be enslaved for certain crimes, usually with priority access to the promotion schemes after a minimum amount of time. Otherwise they have the equivalent rights to control possessions they legally obtain, bodily autonomy, to vote, to withdraw labour, the whole thing.
Slaves, had some rights, sufficient clothing to maintain decency (covering tits and genitals), foot protection, and a ban on unearned punishment, basically work animals with clothing. They had to have a tattoo on their face declaring their slave status and their slave registration index through which their owner can be traced. They could become citizens if they pass a series of exams only offered to them if they were deemed to be of good enough character to the inspectors that toured workplaces randomly to pick out one to enter into the exams. This incentivised good behaviour as any of the slaves could be the one that gets a chance to become citizens.
These opportunities of course were way too few and far between to do anything more than incentivise good behaviour. The vast majority of slaves will never get an opportunity to benefit from this, never mind benefit.
Punitive Example Slaves were different, marked with a tattoo with their slave status and registration number and offence on their face, the only protection they had was the right to remain alive and the right to remain intact.
So as long as your foot remains attached to your hip via your leg for example, there's no limit on the number of fractures that could be inflicted between the two.
And plenty of other epically grim shit was implied. The clue's in the name. They're SUPPOSED to be cruelly treated.
These were people who are considered exceptionally aggressive against the states government, defence and enforcement services, and also crimes considered sufficiently objectionable if committed against citizens (so child rape for example but only if the child is a citizen, a slave child and depending on debilitating injuries, that's just criminal damage).
It was possible for a citizen to apply for a punitive example slave to become an ordinary slave, but a punitive example slave would have no means of initiating the application themself.
If these materials weren't needed in such a hurry … … But they were, so with these fuckers, do a deal, Zhu must.
The deal they eventually reached was that the materials would be restricted to public service applications only, defence, health, law enforcement, but would be expanded to general consumer goods if the supply chain could be completely cleansed of slave labour.
It felt gross.
Zhu did most the fronting, Wu looked positive but wasn't very energised, he was in the process of democratising his kingdom, off his own initiative, so he definitely feels as gross about this deal as Korra did, Izumi was impassive, she and her immediate predecessor Zuku were all about peace and talking shit out, a massive departure from Ozai and his predecessors (and Azula if you count her five minutes in office), and Desna and Eska were bored as fuck. They might come back and do their own deal later.
They started to make their way back to the airship, Zhu continuing to butter Pi up, Pi continuing to try to haggle with Zhu about at least letting trading partners run their workforces however they see fit.
Then there was guard with a pallet truck with a 1m by 1m by 0.5m box with rope carry handles and a document, he approached Korra and said "Your package is here."
"Oh good," replied Korra as she accompanied him to it. As soon as they had sufficient separation from others Korra whispered "I need to see inside the box."
"We don't have time," he whispered back.
"We have multiple heads of state about to board the airship, and I have to consider an ideologically committed assailant that would be perfectly happy to accompany their bomb or other mass casualty device onto-"
"Fine," he whispered back, "be quick, it's a slave, this is her only chance at freedom."
The lid was hinged, with a padlock hasp on the other side, he unlocked it, and Korra lifted the lid enough to peer inside.
It was full of strips of paper.
Korra reached in whispering "don't be alarmed, I'm verifying the contents."
She touched-
Korra jolted a bit at the realisation. "Holy fucking shit," she whispered as she absorbed the information, "how in the … this … " the revelation of the identity of the occupant was such a surprise Korra was struggling to return to task alongside struggling to string together a coherent sentence.
"Korra?" prompted the man.
"Yeah, okay, let's get moving," whispered Korra, "Locking it again for the sake of appearences, sorry," she whispered as she lowered the lid, closed the hasp and snapped the lock closed. The man moved the palette truck and Korra waved Mako over from his post near the airship saying "need your help, I need to get this box to my room, could you open any doors in our way please?"
"Sure, what's going on though?" asked Mako.
"Explain onboard," replied Korra.
"Okay," said Mako as he led off, Korra and the man lifting the box by its rope carry handles between them and carrying it up the ramp.
Once they were on the airship Mako asked "Okay, so talk to me, what's all this about?"
"These two have requested asylum, and we need to be out of here by the time Pis goons realise they're no longer there."
"That's a person in there?" asked Mako, pointing at the box as he continued to open any doors on the way to Korras room.
"Yes, and I'm afraid I'm going to have to continue to be a bit cryptic for now, I apologise for that, I need you to tell the pilots to start take off, and tell Zhu that, … Republic City needs her back five minutes ago or something, just get everyone back onboard fast."
"Okay," said Mako as he opened the door to Korras room, and Korra and the man placed it on the floor at the foot of Korras bed.
Korra unlocked the padlock and opened the lid again saying "We're safe. How were they controlling you? Anything we need to know?" considering the possibility the slaves parents were being threatened, this was common among people trafficking schemes, "let every customer we send to your room fuck you or your kid sibling looses a finger or a toe or a testicle/ovary," although that seemed implausible with this slave.
A hand poked out of the shredded paper and Korra saw the metal band on the wrist, externally it just looked like a rough metal band that had been bent onto her wrist, and the occupant said "there's inward facing spikes, it stops me bending. Another set on my shoulders."
Korra gently took the hand and leaned in to examine what she could see of the inside of the band. "How long's that been there?"
"Since I was captured. Weeks ago. Not sure how many. I fucked up Korra. Badly."
Korra sighed saying "I'm not going to challenge your self assessment because I don't have any information to base a challenge on, you didn't install these devices," Korra followed the arm to the shoulder and uncovered the band on the back, examining again whatever she could see of the interior surface, as she continued "and you didn't put yourself in the hole you're in, were they after information?" The airships engines started to spool up, Mako should be on his way to get the leaders and other passengers back on board.
"No," replied the occupant, "it was for fun. All of it. Even the ones that captured me, priced in a significant discount to have their fill. … They got a lot of pent up rage apparently."
Korra exhaled a silent chuckle at the callback.
Korra eventually said "Okay," as she released the hand and she then asked the man "I didn't catch your name."
"Renih," replied the man.
"Okay, I want her to control the release of information about her situation, I mean, by necessity things will have to happen faster than she might be comfortable with, but the others need to know to get a surgical team ready to receive us at republic hospital, there's no safe way to metalbend those cuffs off of her, the flesh has probably gripped the spikes too solidly, so bending them off of her would rip ragged great chunks out of her. I'll stay with her until she's ready to emerge."
"On it," replied Renih as he exited the room.
Korra eventually said "really there is no comfortable way, the only way is through."
She heard the occupant sniff back tears and Korra sat on the floor against the opposite wall as she listened to the slow sobs.