"You think I want to be a thief? You think I chose to creep around like a common thug? I can't even get a damned job because my old owner has his fingers in half the city!" Velvet really did not like where this was going. She had spoken out of turn and it looked like she was going to be paid back for it. The man may not have been more than a spindly little wisp of a person, but she was still intimidated by his height and aggressiveness.
Furiously, he advanced towards Velvet, "I try to do you a good turn," another step, "and you have," another step, "the nerve," another step, "to act insulted!?" he shoved at her shoulders. "Fine, then! Caetszo!" With every step, the slave had grown more skittish and taken a smaller step back, but when he shoved her, Velvet had to struggle to stay aright as her feet slid in the mud of the street. She regained her balance just as she saw him make a very obscene gesture towards her. Against the slave's better judgement, Velvet opened her mouth to issue a scalding insult when suddenly the man's entire demeanor changed. His shoulders slumped as he used his hand--the same one that had recently insulted her--to slap himself in the face.
He no longer seemed angry, and looked much more weary than before. Velvet did not think she had ever seen someone change composure so quickly. "You know what, just go away... Sorry for trying to show some shred of decency. I should've known it doesn't exist here." he sneered. Despite his tone, Velvet could tell that he was no longer angry or hateful, "When you're beaten to death, that's not on my head." Immediately, he turned around and began walking away from her.
Though she knew that she ought to let him go, the slave also knew that she was in the wrong. Suddenly, she felt like a little girl who had been caught misbehaving in public. This was much worse than the humiliation she endured as a slave; it was something she brought on herself, something she fully deserved. Velvet felt less like a human being and more like a filthy slave now than when she had been beaten and spit on. Why had she lost her temper like that? "Wait, I'm sorry!" She said emphatically, taking his arm and trying to stop his retreat from her, "You're right... I was wrong. I had no right to speak to you like that."
Velvet found it a strange that she was apologizing to the man who had so recently been robbing her, but she knew she had to do it or she would have to accept that she really was the filth that free men thought slaves like her were. "My master is Sevris Lazarin..And I'm Velvet." She told him, hesitant about letting him know her name. The name her previous master gave her still seemed sour on her tongue, but she had forced herself to adopt it nonetheless. It would do no good to suddenly tell her master that she was really named something else; besides, she had promised herself that when she was free, she would return to using her full name, the name of a free woman.
"What's yours?" |
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