[Flashback] Sold (solo)

[Hayii]

Timestamp: 67th of Autumn 500

A little girl lay sprawled on the floor of an unlit room. Though she was unconscious, her left hand was placed on the wound in the sea of dirt-coloured hair in a seemingly deliberate way; she'd probably been clutching it to stop the bleeding before passing out. Her efforts hadn't worked, though; the blood was slowly, but steadily seeping out to darken her hair, strand by strand.

There was something about that hand, though. The long healed brand mark on it was almost invisible in the room's darkness, but it was the most important part of the girl's body in this city, forever locking her status. Her hand bore the half black sun of a slave, and it was starting to move now, clenching the cut in her head. The little slave let out a groan as she woke up to the pain of a thousand knives stabbing her right above her left ear.

As the pitch black fluff slowly released its strangling grip of her mind, she remembered the man, and despair started to overtake the dark lint's place, almost drowning the pain in her head. He'd bought her. He'd bought her, and she'd never see her mother again. The woman was too rebellious to ever be allowed to leave the house, and now her daughter didn't live there anymore.

The hopelessness had now overtaken the girl's mind completely, and she curled up into a tiny ball to at least keep herself together. She felt as if crying would seal this nightmarish day, making it irreversible. So she kept her tears inside.

As she lay curled up, she saw the trip to the man's house on the inside of her eyelids as clearly as when it happened. She felt the fury boil inside her, conquering the shock bit by tiny bit until she couldn't hold her calm façade any longer. She knew her mother always said that showing your true emotions would only kill you gradually, and the girl didn't doubt it - she'd heard her mother's story - but she just couldn't keep it up any more. She was still trying to explain this to the little voice inside her when the flashback came to the part where the man and the girl reached the man's home.

She felt the pain when she remembered his punishment twice as hard because of the guilt. She deserved the heavy beating for showcasing her angry, dark heart to a stranger in front of others.

[Hayii]

The girl was flooded by the sea of despair for maybe half a bell. Then her mother appeared in the infinitely dark nothingness on the inside of her eyelids, as real as she'd been the previous night.

Though her mind was only taken a day back, it felt like a whole different universe. In this one, she had her mother. It had been one of the good nights, the girl remembered - her mother'd had a spare chime to put her daughter to bed. The woman had started to sing the song she always sung on those occasions.

"Like a morning when sun rises, glowingly bright..."

The song warmed the girl from the inside out, drying the black water out. This was the song of safety; this was the bird language of refuge. The smell of her mother appeared in the little slave's nostrils. It consisted mostly of dirt and sweat, but underneath was the assuring scent of the blue sky. The curled-up girl subconsciously loosened her posture.

The moment of perfection hadn't lasted long this time, either. Their master had called the grown woman's name, and the song abruptly stopped, fell, and shattered on the floor. Though the little one yearned desperately for the warm safety to last, she didn't beg her mother to stay. She knew it was an impossible wish.

"Goodnight, little bluejay," her mother had said as she arose from her sitting position next to the girl. "Take care of yourself." Then she'd closed the door behind her, leaving her daughter alone in the dark room.

[Hayii]

Take care of yourself... the voice inside her head repeated. Wake up from the dreams and take care of yourself! The girl resolutely opened her eyes for the first time in this room and sat up just as determinedly. Dwelling on her past wasn't going to help her in the present.

Then the pain in her head returned, and the girl almost fell back to a lying position. How could she not have felt this shearingly bright pain before? Her hand instinctively rose to the hole in her head, and her worst suspicions were confirmed when it felt a sticky wetness. What were you supposed to do when your head was bleeding? The girl tried to remember that time when Ilasiac had fallen with a knife in the hand and cut himself in the leg. What had Parnuune done?

Her mind flicked back to the bustling kitchen. She'd stood there, a shocked spectator, just looking at the frightened man with the blood streaming from his thigh because she didn't know what else to do, feeling the iron smell. Then Parnuune arrived on the scene, and the girl's tension ceased. The wounded man was in good hands now.

She'd watched as the amateur doctor found a clean cloth in her bag and pressed it onto the wound. She'd then taken another piece of faded but unsmudged fabric and tied it around the man's leg to do the pressing for her before getting the strongest spectator to carry him to the sleeping room, all the time small-talking with the wounded. The little girl had never understood why she did that last part, but it was probably important; Parnuune was very clever.

The girl snapped out of the memory. Now she knew what to do. But could she find a clean cloth? Her own dress certainly didn't fall into that category, but maybe the room contained something usable.

She stood up and looked around the room, for the first time studying it beyond merely reasoning she had to be somewhere. There was nobody to chit-chat with her as Parnuune had done to Ilasiac, so she talked to herself.

"Hi Hayii." Her voice sounded hoarse and croaking, and though she'd forced the words out with all her might, they were muted and unclear. "I'm in a dark room. It's not very black or anything. There just aren't any lit lamps.

There's a bed. I think the room is a bedroom. I was probably put away here when the world became black and prickly for me." She winced as she recalled the beating that had caused this, then quickly shooed away the thought. She had to focus on finding that cloth.

"The sheets from the bed would probably work, but I don't know whose bed it is. If it's the man's or someone from his family's, I'll get beaten again, and I'm not sure my body can stand one more punishment that fast. No, I have to find something else. Maybe if I turn around - "

The room swayed menacingly as she performed the motion, requiring her to grab the desk that was now in front of her to not fall over. "Th-this is a desk." Her voice was almost unintelligible now. "I can't... use that. But there is a- a handkerchief on it. Looks... clean. If I can get it..."

She used her last strength to heave her arm sufficiently to get hold of the little piece of fabric and put it against the wound, so when this was done, she half stumbled, half fell onto the bed. The prickly darkness once again stole her consciousness.

[Hayii]

The girl called Hayii quickly came to herself again, and lying down she felt some strength return. Not much, but enough to hold the handkerchief against the wound hard enough for the pain to increase a bit. It was also enough for her to be able to mumble to herself again.

"I'm laying on the bed. I don't think I should try to stand up again. I'll just pass out once more. So now I lie here. My head hurts very much. The rest of my body hurts, too, but not now when I lie still. The pain in my head is a very sharp pain."

The stabbing, scalding feeling in her head increased its presence in her mind when she focused her attention on it. "I- I'm doing this wrong. Parnuune and Ilasiac didn't talk about the pain at all. Maybe it gets worse when you think about it, like scary sounds when it's night. Maybe... maybe they talked to make him think of something else!" The warm, sparkling feel of triumph spread in her mind, almost removing the pain for a short moment, proving her point.

"So I must talk about something else. But what? Maybe... No, I can't think of anything.

Okay, this room then. I lie on a bed. It's standing in a small room. To my right there is a desk standing against the wall, and to my left there is another wall with a window in it. The window is tiny and high up. I don't think I could look out of it even if I stood on the bed. The desk on my left looks very heavy. It's made from some dark wood, and there's a dark stain on the corner. There's nothing on it now when I've taken the handkerchief. The handkerchief feels rough on my hands, so it can't be very expensive. That's lucky for me. If it was, the man would probably... no, I'm not allowed to talk about stuff that hurts. I'll talk about the door instead. It's beside the desk, and it's the same dark colour. The handle is black and - "

The girl's ramblings came to an abrupt halt when the door opened.

[Hayii]

The man stepped in with a bowl in his hands, and the warm, creamy smell of tomato soup quickly reached the girl's nostrils. She couldn't see his face properly, but something about his stance and way of walking told her that he was angry. She made her face smooth and empty and tried to lie still. She wouldn't give him the slightest reason to direct that anger onto her.

"I thought it was a great deal - a little girl, already disciplined, to help my wife with the cooking, for only 75 gold Mizas! How wrong I was. You not only misbehaved in public, you're also happily whistling and thrilling away in there! Are yo-" The man's voice was abruptly cut off when he looked properly on his new slave.

"You- you're bleeding from your head!" The girl didn't understand why he felt the need to exclaim that. He'd done the deed himself less than a bell ago, hadn't he? The man hastily put the bowl on the desk, not caring about the spill, and hurried off. He didn't take the time to close the door, so the girl and her surroundings were now illuminated. Her hazel eyebrows furrowed as she thought about what had just happened - and why.

Why had he been so surprised about the result of his punishment? Surely he must have known that he wasn't doing this the soft way. Wait - did she really remember him wounding her head? Black, inflexible syrup oozed around in her mind and torched her above her left ear, making it difficult to think and even harder to remember. She couldn't find the wounding itself in her memory right now, but that didn't mean he hadn't done it. It could easily be hidden underneath the seeping darkness.

[Hayii]

The sound of hurrying footsteps reached the girl's ears. The noise was faint at first but it quickly grew louder as the source of it neared the room she was in. It sounded like there were two persons, and one of them was the man. Why has fetched someone to help him give me food? He can't think I'm dangerous. I'm clearly not, she thought. Well, here they come. Now I'll find out.

"She lay like that when I entered, and she was whistling!" the man said to his companion. She nodded slightly with a grave attitude on her face, causing a lock of hair to break out from her dark ponytail. Tucking it behind her ear with an annoyed gesture, she walked across the room and sat on the bed, near the girl's head.

"Hello? Can you hear me?" she asked. Hayii desperately wanted to answer clearly so she could avoid any further punishment, but the answer came out as a muffled "Yesh, maddem."

"Give me my bag," the woman ordered, looking at the man. He went away, but came back a short moment later with a stained linen bag and gave it to the woman. She rummaged through it and found a cloth and a bottle full of a colourless liquid. She poured the liquid onto the cloth - it didn't smell, so it was probably just water, Hayii decided with herself - and rubbed it softly against the wound after removing the girl's hand and the fabric in it. The pain grew even more intense as she did so, and the girl gave a faint gasp.

The woman took up a porcelain flask from her bag and dripped a bit of its content on the wound. The pain was intense, but Hayii stayed conscious.

Once more, the woman reached down into her bag, this time finding a pouch and another piece of fabric. She opened the pouch and took out a handful of light grey-brown dried moss, wrapped it in the cloth and pressed it onto the wound. She then pulled out a big bottle out. "Drink."

Hayii did as she was told; this woman seemed to know what she was doing. Her eyelids soon slid closed, and the pain ceased enough for her to realize how tired she was. The girl was almost asleep when the two persons began talking with low voices, and she was certainly too dozy to make any sense of the fragments she heard.

"...how do you think it happened? It wasn't..."
"...must've hit the table when I pushed her inside..."
"...sense. Look, there's even a..."

Hayii was soon sleeping dreamlessly on her new master's bed.

[Verilian]

Hayii +1 Medicine +1 Observation You Question My Logic? : Not a lot of xp I could give, but if you have questions feel free to PM me. Lores: Painful Memories, Chatting with... Yourself, Talking to Keep the Mind off the Pain, Who Hurt Hayii? Notes: An interesting little thread with an unexpected mystery at the end. Looking forward to reading more, good work!