RP Between Sand and Stars

An auction house… to auction people. Klaire knew of people who owned slaves but she didn’t imagine she’d one day end up in the market, or even that there was such a market for it, and that it took place in Armadilla. Were those people noblemen and women, or were they the third party that bridged those two opposite worlds? She looked between each one of the guests, from ragged to poise, noting their features in case she ever had the opportunity to report it to base - a long shot, but she was still hopeful.

Someone caught her eye, a woman who unlike the rest, didn’t seem to appreciate the show. Her eyes were covered by a cloth, and Klaire found herself wondering if it was due to a vision impairment or so people wouldn’t be able to track her gaze.

Her thoughts were disturbed by a pull of her chain, placing her in the middle of the room and at the center of attention. From there, she could see Liatra and Ishaan, the latter clearly concerned about her well-being. She tried to calm him by slightly lifting the corner of her lips, letting him know it’d be alright.

Keep an eye on the sorts of people who are out there. Some of them will be worse than others.

Liatra’s advice rang in her mind as she turned her attention back to the bidders. Perhaps the woman with the cloth was one of the better ones, but she didn’t hadn’t placed a bid so far - perhaps she wasn’t interested in purchasing, or was looking for something very specific.

“Twenty-five!” The bid came from the man with a lion’s head, placing his first bid of the night. The smile in his snout disappeared when the woman by his side, Lady Dahlia raised her hand and upped the bid to thirty golden coins. She had already purchased two of the women who had been sold before Klaire made it to the stand. “Thirty-five!” He retorted.
 
"Thirty-five! Do I have forty?" Jarrick responded, small eyes peering down and flicking through the crowd, eager.
 
The bids were getting pretty high, Liatra noticed. Of course, they would - most fae didn't get taken as slaves, so of course the prices on the ones that did tended to go high. It was a bit of a risk, of course, just in case the slave in question happened to be someone's favorite offspring and an army showed up later - but that was why the dealing would happen in Armadilla and not anywhere else.

You really could get anything there, for a price.

Of course, what to do about it was harder. Liatra could get herself out of things pretty easily, but getting Klaire out was going to be a lot harder.

Actually, why was she even worried about that? Shouldn't she just go her own way and the hell with them? Her eyes moved, leaving the crowd for a moment, looking over to Ishaan and whatever he was making of these proceedings. What was it he'd said? It's not easy, for a fairy who can't fly. Something like that. None of that had anything to do with Klaire, other than that Ishaan obviously wanted to protect her, and Liatra...

...Well, she'd do what she could - because apparently, she was kind of a sucker sometimes.

He reminded her of her brother, she thought.
 
The price was getting rather high, wasn’t it? That drew Winter’s ear momentarily to the stage where she searched for — she wasn’t really sure what. She doubted there was some little thing she could hear that would answer the question of what they were looking to pay for. Perhaps she had been on the ship too long, and she was trying to answer the obvious ‘ah, but how did she look? before it was even asked. Though he wouldn’t ask that, he never wanted to be seen as desperate.

Winter turned her ear away, and again tapped the tip of her cane against the ground. Waiting for the sound of the next big spender to reveal themselves.
 
“Forty-five!”

“Fifty!”

“A HUNDRED!” The auctioneers went quiet, all staring at the man with the face of a lion who had put down the highest bid. The elfic woman by his side sighed and shook her head, accepting defeat.

Is he one of the better ones? Klaire wondered, but mostly: Would he stay in Armadilla or take her somewhere else? And what about Ishaan?

Her eyes searched for him while her chain was dragged towards her buyer. While he examined his new purchase, touching her arms and more disturbingly, her wings, she tried to come up with a plan to ensure he’d end up in the same hands as she found herself in.
 
"SOLD, for one hundred!"

The words echoed in Ishaan's head despite the hush that overcame the crowded room. Eyes wide, they followed the latest purchase as the chain around her neck was released and she found herself in the hands of the lion. He took a step forward, only realizing he'd made it by the sudden tug around his own neck. Utterly powerless, he could only watch and try to catch her gaze as she was moved to the side of the room, to where the rest of the purchased stood, guarded by those employed to each bidder.

Meanwhile, the next figure was tugged forward, onto the raised platform. Arobynn stared up at her, a slight quirk in his lip. After all, he'd just made one hundred gold and the satisfaction of seeing his mutinous crew getting what she deserved. What had she mouthed to him before? Next time? If Bernie bought her, there wouldn't be a next time.

"008939. 5'6. 63kg. Athletic build. Fairy. Sharp-shooter. Bidding will start with 10 gold marks."
 
How much gold was enough to be worth stealing was a bit of an open question, but one hundred gold seemed enough of an answer. Winter rose to her feet, and tucked her cane into the crook of her arm. She slid neatly into the crowd, pausing only to tap her heel against the floor so she wouldn’t be caught unaware by a sudden shift of the crowd. An ear for her target, and an ear open for an opportunity. And, there certainly was one in a voice grumbled just under the breath in the moment of shocked stillness.

What Winter had wasn’t a complicated plan, but what bar fight was? They didn’t need complications, they needed booze and grievance, and there was plenty of booze. The grievance? Well the one who had bid… fifty? Thirty-five?… seemed like he just needed a little push.

Or, as the case might be, a solid shove of her shoulder to send one unfortunate bidder crashing into the other who had quite wanted that particular slave. With neither the desire or ability to see the outcome, though it was a rather lovely startled cry, Winter ducked back into the crowd, and hurried on towards her target.
 
Now, what was the point of paying a hundred when the last bid had been fifty? Sixty or seventy would have been enough for a statement. That was just financially irresponsible.

Liatra supposed that the sorts of people who were here weren't all that likely to need to worry about their money, but it still seemed a bit silly, just from a mathematical standpoint. Maybe there was more to it - she'd never bought people before. She wondered if she would, if she had enough money, and what she would do with them if she did. Have them stand around looking decorative? It seemed like there were better things to do with time and money. Maybe she'd hire a circus troupe or something instead.

A tug pulled her forward, interrupting a bored yawn. Liatra caught Arobynn's eye for a moment, giving him an impish wink. She'd probably move on soon enough, and then someone would be mad at him about the money. It was kind of a shame she wouldn't be around to see it, but lingering when unwanted just caused problems. She'd tried that, once, with the navy, before she'd been... discouraged.

Maybe she'd follow along with Ishaan and Klaire and see what they were up to. She'd just have to get them out of here, first. That was going to be a little bit of a challenge, wasn't it?
 
Having a fairy in his battle pit was always a lucrative attraction, but the issue was, they tended to die too quickly. For that one to earn him back his coin she’d need to survive at least five fights, but Doug Roarington believed she would, if what the auctioneer read on her file was true. If not, he knew whose throat he’d need to slit to get his money back.

In the back, one of his men carried a small wooden casket filled with the amount he was supposed to pay Arobynn for Doug’s purchase. The lion man turned his attention to the next fairy on the roster, considering if her skill with a rifle could be turned into as much of a spectacle as fists and axes could. Probably not.

“Hey!” He grunted as another man's shoulder bumped into his, shoving him aggressively in response and sending his much smaller body over one of the tables and it's drinks.

Klaire watched from her corner the woman with a cane pass by unnoticed by those involved in the altercation, and while the man holding the chain attached to her neck got distracted she put her foot forward, so the one carrying the casket in Arobynn's direction would trip and fall face down, causing it to open and spread a few of the hundred coins all over the floor.
 
A handful of gold coins spilled onto the floor, their clatter quiet compared to the sound of glasses shattering against wood. Arobynn peered over his shoulder at the man who'd fallen, his annoyance clear. Fortunately, it was not his problem - not yet. Until those one hundred gold coins were in his hands, they belonged to Roarington. And Klaire, to him.

In fact, the young fae stood very close to the disturbance, the leash around her neck tight, though not tight enough. He rose, stepping alongside the man who'd fallen and now scrambled on his hands and knees to collect the lost gold. His eyes briefly flickered across the room, locking with those of his crew, who sat or stood, scattered. A moment later, he was beside Klaire, gloved hands clasped behind his back, looking towards the line of chained figures at the front. The man on the other side, the one who held her chain, bristled, tightening his grip.

"Seventy four seconds," he murmured quietly, gaze landing on Ishaan, despite the shuffle not far from their feet. Seventy four seconds without oxygen. "That's your record. Do you think he'll last higher or lower? Place your bet."
 
Coins, on the floor. Liatra knew the sound of them, and didn't look. It was more important to see who got distracted by them than it was to be one of the people watching the coins. It wasn't like they were hers, anyway. Liatra supposed they could have been, if she were quick enough, but there were too many eyes here, and it wasn't worth the trouble it would cause.

Arobynn had pulled Klaire over by him again, which she was definitely watching. Someone had paid - or was planning to pay - a hundred gold coins, and that was... there was potential there, wasn't there.

"Don't want to give her up, do you, Captain?" Liatra didn't say it loudly, but she had a feeling that everyone here was listening pretty closely. She kept an eye on the man who'd bought the contract, wanting to see how he'd react to it.
 
Winter slid back into the crowd, and ear open to hear if the rich man and the man he had tossed across the table were going to find themselves in a brawl or not. Either way, it didn’t sound as explosive as she needed from it, so she made her way along with a second thought in mind. It wasn’t too terribly different from the first, a touch of violence, and perhaps a chance to pick up a few extra pairs of hands to carry that rather heavy sounding chest of riches.

Winter stung one man as she passed behind him, a quick shank to the back of his knee with the tip of her cane as she stepped past. He cried out, and Winter was already half a dozen paces away, driving the head of her cane into the soft meat of another man’s side. This one was quicker to react, he tried to snag her arm before she could get away, wheezing something rather rude as he did so. Winter avoided his grasp by giving his hand a solid crack with her cane, before taking hold of the back of the drunk man’s neck and shoving him hard into some patrons sitting around a table. Where in that he landed, Winter didn’t really know. But she did hear glass crunching, which seemed to her to be a positive sign.

She squeezed past a couple before the man could recover, ignoring someone who had called for her to stop, and made her way through to the sound of chains, a little further down than when she had been near the rich man but close enough to the loot. For the next part, she turned her head, listening for the sound of a key.
 
Klaire wasn’t sure if Arobynn had seen her take part in the confusion, but she was sure that was a threat. She breathed in as if she was about to take a dive, glaring at the same person he was staring at.

“What else do you want?” She asked through her gritted teeth.

***

Roarington heard cries and groans from the men nearby, as confused as he was about who was attacking them. While the men got entangled amongst themselves, and other rats got to their knees to try and catch lost coins that his useless subordinate had dropped, he took notice of the woman with the cane.

“It’s her! Someone grab her!” His fat finger pointed at Winter as he started strutting towards her, kicking a kneeled man’s jaw before he could pick up one of Arobynn’s golden coins.
 
Sounded like the jig was up which was a shame, she was just starting to have a bit of fun. Winter ducked out of the crowd, backing into the empty space between the rowdy tables and the line of slaves. The tip of her cane found the ground with three quick taps, and Winter turned her head towards the rather irate rich man. Was the crowd listening to him, or more taken in by the spilled gold?

“Pray tell.” Winter said, addressing one of the slaves with an incline of her head. “Which of these fine slavers has the key to your chains?”
 
Oh, finally, no one was watching her. Liatra had been waiting for this moment for quite a while. She'd have to find that lady with the cane and thank her at some point. Ideally, without telling her what she was thanking her for, because that would require too many awkward explanations, and Liatra did not want to get into that.

It was odd being up on stage, but the thing about being in the middle of it was that no one really expected her to do anything, so they were content to look other places while she, presumably, continued standing there and being nervous or whatever it was slave-candidates were supposed to do. Liatra wasn't nervous. She'd been through it before, she could get through it again if she had to.

Fortunately, she didn't have to. When the attention waned, she did... sort of a flip on the inside, was how it felt, twisting herself down and in and sort of in a little spiral until she was just - for a moment - a tiny child that could easily slip out of the collar and chains, and then as soon as that was done, she was herself again, reaching out a hand to catch the chain before it hit the ground and someone noticed things before she found a way to shoot her way out of the rest of this disaster.

Oh, and get Klaire and Ishaan. That was going to be the hard part.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top