For two days of traveling, Nua encountered nothing. And for all that time, the twins didn’t talk, even to Freyjin. They simply sat with hollow, empty faces and stared at nothing. But Nua watched Freyjin. The elven woman did her best to feed them, and they would take food, or water, and eat. But they stayed as far from the male members of the band as they could. First clinging to one another alone during the long, slow trek back to Pas’en.

‘Alright, so Freyjin isn’t the shit mother I first assumed. She takes good care of those two little ones.’ Nua begrudgingly admitted on the evening of the second day when she sat them down and let them eat while she talked about the glories of the faith given to her by the Dark Savior. She ended the night by drawing out her knife, and again demanding to know if anyone wished to defy the stars. To her disappointment, nobody did.

On the third day, she reached a small village, the houses were stilt style homes like most of the rest, and it sat surrounded by a large open field of curious looking farmland. “Is that…” Nua pointed out to the long stretches of green divided by water in which many stooped bodies young and old were working their hands, “a rice paddy? I’ve never seen one up close.”

Sergeant Vargas laughed as he walked a few feet behind where she rode. “Yes, Captain Aiwenor. If you’ve had rice since your arrival, well, that’s where they make it. I’d wager a lot of the dung this place uses actually comes from Pas’en.”

“Ohhh, I see, when my bodyguard and I arrived, all the waste that the rains washed away…” Nua began, and Vargas nodded sharply.

“Yes, it floods the lower districts at first, stinks to the stars…” He chortled, “One of the sillier stories is that the stars sent us to ground because we made it stink in the heavens, having visited the lower districts during the wrong time, I could believe it. Anyway, yes, after the rain stops, the gong slaves go out in wheeled carts that are almost like boats and scoop the floating human waste, they then take it out to various fields to be used by the farmers. After that, the water is drained into the great river that flows to the west, and it starts all over with the next rain. The only real problem is other debris gets swept up and sometimes blocks the drains, and then someone has to go clean it. Iron collar slaves, usually the criminal sorts, are used for that… they tend not to live very long. They get very sick, and usually die within a few days.”

Nua wrinkled her nose, “Unpleasant.” She said succinctly. As she said that, she saw the villagers shouting and pointing, they’d been noticed, and it was only the lack of overt hostility that kept them from fleeing.

Nua raised her right hand up and waved it vigorously. “Pas’en! Pas’en!” She shouted, hoping they would gather her intent.

The frozen villagers, some of which had ‘frozen’ after diving down into the waters of the paddy in an attempt to hide themselves, kept looking out at her, but finally among their numbers, an elderly man who was deeply stooped, came forward slowly toward her.

He was gray haired and walked like he’d been born bent over, the water rippled around his feet as he came on, and eventually he made his way from out of the field and came close enough to speak.

His white beard and nearly bald head was matched by deeply tanned skin that was leathery from a lifetime of the same labor under the same sun, but he had a clear look about his eyes that Nua immediately favored.

“Yeah? Whatdja want?” He asked gruffly.

“To rest here for the night, and for my slaves to be able to buy and sell what they’ve gathered, at a guess, for them to mostly buy beer.” Nua said with a knowing smile and a look over her shoulder that was met with deeply longing and hopeful looks.

“You got coin?” He asked with a furrowed brow.

“We do, old man. I’m paying for them, but they also have some things to sell, we finished off a bunch of smugglers, even captured their leader, well… what’s left of him.” Nua boasted smugly to a round of proud enthusiastic whispers behind her.

The old man looked doubtful, furrowed his brow even more deeply than Nua thought possible, then looked over his shoulder, and back to her. “Prove you got money.”

Nua reached into her pouch and took out two gold coins of the Sorcerous Empire and handed them down to him from her horse.

“That should be enough for whatever they want in food and drink or… whatever.” She smirked as she left off the implications, and politely ignored the uncomfortable shifting behind her.

“Fine, just one night and one day?” He asked further, and when Nua nodded, he turned around and waved to the people in the paddy. Then he belted out with such a big, loud yell that Nua thought he might have been a magically disguised giant.

“Hey you paddy humping slugs! Festival! Festival! Get back here!” His bellowing went on and was underpinned by copious swearing, but it got the village moving out of the fields and rushing toward them like soldiers eager for a fight.

When they started moving, the old man grinned toothlessly up at Nua, “Can’ah getcher name there, lady?”

“I’m Captain Nua Calen Aiwenor, and this is my mercenary company, the Breakers.” She replied formally and hopped down off her horse. She thrust her right hand out, and the old man grabbed and shook it with enthusiasm.

“Nice ta getta soldier lady out here what got some manners. Gettin down offa your horse to say hello is the neighborly thing to do. Welcome to tha village. We ain’t gotta lot, but we’ll sell what we can to yah. Course… yer accountable fer anything yer slaves do. They get drunk an hurt one of our girls… well this village ain’t got no slaves, cain’t afford’m. So we spect you to use the full rights a’your status to give us justice.”

“I’m not from these parts, old man. What’s the penalty here if a slave rapes a free woman or otherwise does damage or harm to them or their property?” Nua asked loud enough for those behind her to hear.

“This’s a village ma’am, we don’t have no prisons, you got two choices, whip em till they pass out, or kill em. Usually, we just have em kilt, bury their bodies in the paddy and let em help the rice grow.”

Nua looked over her shoulder, “Break discipline only if you think you can get away with offending me. I will not be dishonored. Understood?”

There were somber nods among the band.

Nua pointed sharply to Sergeant Vargas. “Sergeant Vargas, you’re in charge.”

The villagers had the festival ready in a shockingly short period of time, with food roasting, much of it donated by the Breakers themselves, peasants started buying up bits and pieces of captured armor and weapons on the cheap, leaving soldiers with coin to spend, and the village happy to help them do so.

Big beer barrels were brought out and a local fermented drink made from rice was poured into mug after mug as soon as the tents were erected.

At first, Nua felt some mild concern, there were relatively few women among her little band, and those seemed to quickly pair off, and not without some jealous looks. However it appeared that the industrious girls of the village were more than happy to take up the slack and relieve the weight of several ounces from those who had ounces to spend.

The fire crackled high into the dark, and her slaves ate, sang, and drank with the peasants, who seemed to care little for the status of the slaves as long as there was coin to spend.

“I’m surprised.” Solution expressed as she approached Nua.

“By what, Teacher?” Nua asked while they looked out on the dancing and revelry.

“The peasants should, I would think, look down more on the slaves, but that doesn’t seem to be the case, not as long as the slaves take no for an answer.” Solution explained, scratching her cheek as she thought it over.

“I’m not, a peasant in most places is just a slave without a collar. If they had say… a dozen slaves, what do you think they’d be doing daily?” Nua asked the probing question using the same tone her Teacher used with her.

“Working in the fields.” Solution answered reflexively and gestured out to the paddies as though she thought Nua had forgotten that they were there..

“Right, so they’d all be stooped over in the same muck. Hard to say you’ve got a higher status when you’re both walking barefoot in the same stink.” Nua shrugged the answer off, “Pardon me, Teacher, I want to check something.”

Solution waved her away and resumed digesting part of the unconscious Bracer’s leg.

Nua made a beeline for where Freyjin sat, well back from the festivities, the white haired little girls were now at least comfortable clinging to her as she sang to them.

Nua watched as she sat, distracted as the girls squeezed her, the ache on Freyjin’s face was palpable, and her hands went up and down their backs as soothingly as she could, and slowly they nodded off.

“Ahem.” Nua said pointedly, and Freyjin’s eyes turned up to Nua’s, wide with terror.

“Mistress, I… I didn’t see you I was, I was… please, please… please…” She begged, but it was obvious she didn’t know what to say. Her ears were twitching wildly as Nua stood in front of her with her arms folded across the black armored chest.

“I don’t understand you.” Nua said calmly. ‘Didn’t take long for her to bond to those two, probably misses her own.’ She mused the protective way the woman held the pair.

Confusion formed on Freyjin’s face. “Mistress… Captain… I don’t…” She struggled to ask, but clung to the two sleeping girls all the more tightly.

Nua gestured to the two girls who were, quite adorable as they nestled against the pillowy breasts of the elven slave they’d been given to. “You’d really let me just… kill those two if I wanted to?”

Freyjin lowered her face and her arms went a little tighter as Nua felt her temper start to rise and fought to keep it in check.

“For two days I’ve watched you, you’ve made sure they were bathed, asked for stopping time for them to rest on their walk, made sure they ate and drank, and let them sleep with you. I saw you sing to them last night and just now. You’re acting every inch as if you were their very mother. But…” Nua took out her knife and spun it slowly in her hand.

Nua’s voice was filled with dismay, anger, frustration as she glared at the woman sitting in front of her. “Because I’m your mistress… and because they’re ‘found property’ if I wanted their lives for any reason or none… you’d just… what? Cry and watch, or turn away and let me do it? No fight, no resistance, nothing?”

“I’d… I’d ask you to do it to me instead… if… if you would. I couldn’t do nothing but, it’s for us to endure what the stars demand. They made you to rule, and me to be ruled. That’s how it’s always been, it’s wrong to challenge the fates given by the stars.” Freyjin bit her lip, “When we try… well…”

“Well what slave?” Nua demanded as her heart ran wild in her breast. ‘How can she? How could she? How can anyone simply say that?!’ She thought of the slaves in Raymond’s house, the ones who had been torn from their mothers or fathers or families to be sold off. ‘Even those pathetic creatures had tried to fight! Their children knew from their parents' defiance at least… at least they were loved!’

“I- well, someone tried. Many years ago… a slave found a sword left in a mine, he believed he was destined to fight. Others believed him, they raised a rebellion… I remember it. So many died, all that happened was that our lives… the owners made our lives worse. It failed, the rebels were killed, and the tribute to the Tlalmok was much higher… to challenge fate… to suffer. I can’t do that… I can’t raise a hand to my owner and then just… make all that happen again.” She shook her head fearfully.

“I’ll obey you… I’ll beg you… I’ll prostrate myself and lick the muck beneath your boots to beg you… beg you not to hurt these little ones. I’ll throw my body to you like the wildest most well heeled whore, I’ll throw myself on your knife… they’re just little girls… the stars hurt them enough. But… fighting you is to invite disaster… ruin, worse things. No slave can ever truly hope for better than… than a good owner who isn’t cruel.” Freyjin said with shimmering pools in her eyes. “All I can hope for is… my daughter is as lucky as I am.”

Nua cocked her head, and put away her knife. “You think you’re lucky to get me, slave?” Nua asked thoughtfully and went to one knee so that she was eye level with Freyjin.

Freyjin nodded. “Very, Mistress.”

“I bought you like cattle, I beat you down into the muck, I take you out into a dangerous fight with no guarantee of your safety, and you’re ‘lucky’ to belong to me?” Nua stared at her through shining blue eyes that only barely held back pools of her own.

Freyjin made small rapid nods, “Very. You fed us well, you gave us better weapons and armor than we dreamed we’d ever hold. You hired instructors to help us, and trained with us, you lead us, you don’t just order us. You could have cut us for fun, threatened us to make us fight, you could do anything, but even with these… you take them and make sure I care for them. If you dropped them anywhere, they’d be… well there are few good outcomes for children who bear a collar. But you… I can’t imagine it. You do… terrifying things. I can’t even imagine what you want, truly. But I have faith in you, my Captain. I believe in you, you were the first into the fight, and you fought the most dangerous yourself to spare us. You want us to be strong. And… I have a hope that the stars will give me back my child, through you.”

Freyjin lost the little battle against her tears, and a few slipped down in the dark.

Nua thought about that for a moment as resolve crystalized within her heart that she had not expected to form at all. “I want to show you something. If you ever speak of this… to anyone. You will curse the day we met until you die, which you’ll wish was much, much sooner than I will make it. Am I understood, slave?”

Freyjin bit her lip, but nodded.

“Come with me.” Nua stood up, and motioned for Freyjin to follow her.

With as much care as she could, Freyjin laid the girls down side by side, and followed her mistress away from the flames, when they were completely alone, well away from the village, standing in the paddy water, Nua stopped and spoke harshly through gritted teeth. “Stay there, behind me, slave.”

Nua took a deep breath, and peeled her armor off her torso, and then unlaced her shirt, and took it off as well. She stood there with her back exposed.

“I’ve only shown this to two others before, but I know of no other way to get through to you.” Nua spoke harshly, “What do you see?” Nua asked calmly.

“Scars… in a design, an emblem like what we have seen you wear…” Freyjin said, taking a hesitant step closer.

“Look closer.” Nua said, “Come closer if you must.”

When Freyjin fell to her knees in horror, creating a splash and ripples in the water of the fields, Nua was sure of what she’d seen.

“Those… lines beneath?” She asked.

“Touch them, they are what you think.” Nua said softly.

“But how…?” Freyjin began to ask, covering her mouth to stop the question.

“The night of my screams, my bodyguard ‘removed’ what are now only faint white lines, you’ve seen it, how a healed over scar is part of the body, so a low tier healing spell or cheap potion doesn’t get rid of it. I hated what was back there, it was ugly, I was ugly. She… helped me, even if it did hurt more than getting them.” Nua said dryly while looking over her shoulder at the elf on her knees.

“But those… from fighting?” She asked, then shook her head. “No, not from fighting.”

“I was a slave. Like you. In a country far, far away from here. The Dark Savior’s actions led to war between an alliance of nations, against her divine father. I was given a chance to challenge fate. I did. And I won, we won. In that part of the world not even fifteen years ago, free elves were increasingly rare, we were being enslaved, more every day. But when the chance came, and we rebelled, joining the Dark Savior’s armies in the tens of thousands… we helped crush our oppressors, we took back our lives. Fate isn’t something decided for you, slave.” Nua said harshly, flinching as a trembling hand began to touch the faint lines illuminated only by the light of the distant moon, and the reflecting waters of the barely rippling paddy in which they now stood.

“Fate… is just what you accept and refuse to change or challenge. Yes… you can lose, you can die, you can suffer. But that is not less true if you do nothing. That’s why you infuriate me so. When I gave you a chance, and you failed, I heard you plea for forgiveness that your daughter couldn’t hear you ask for. But you’re not willing to take a chance unless it is handed to you. Damn the fates and damn the stars and damn anyone who would add to my scars.” Nua said softly, looking down at her face in the reflecting waters.

“If you love her… love her more than the fates or the stars or the gods, because she needs you… those two girls back there, need you. No fates need you, no gods or stars need you. Your loved ones do, if there’s anything worth fighting for other than my god… it’s those we love. If that isn’t worth risking everything for… what the hell is?” Nua demanded.

Freyjin had no answer, she knelt in silence, tracing over every trace scar on Nua’s back, until her owner gestured to her discarded shirt. “Now, put that back on me, along with my armor, and let’s go back.”

Freyjin never said a word, she went through the motions mechanically, until her owner was dressed and they returned to the village proper.

She sat between the curled up girls, caressing their white hair and singing a lullaby to them despite the fact that they were already snoring, but she kept her eyes on Nua’s back as her captain walked away.

An hour later, Nua’s rage hadn’t dissipated, not even slightly. Her left hand clenched and unclenched and Yersin kept pestering her to kill a villager, any kind of pain sounded appealing in that moment, and she almost prayed for a breach of discipline, but none were forthcoming.

Which, it occurred to her, made it a perfect time to visit Bracer. A few pleasant words and some silvers made a peasant’s home into a temporary prison, where a still moaning Bracer sat, missing his right arm and left leg, with the two remainder chained together diagonally behind his back. He saw Nua stepping in, and tried to swear at her, only for her blade out to cause him to go silent.

She approached in the dark, and sat down across from him. “What do you want, bitch?” He spat.

“Just some answers.” Nua said calmly.

“Fuck your questions.” He spat in a sudden fit of anger as she sat so casually cross legged in front of him.

Nua put the edge of her knife on his thigh, and started to scrape the skin off like it was an apple.

He howled, and she stopped. “Oh, does that hurt?” She cocked her head to one side, and withdrew her knife.

He started gasping and heaving from the pain, his body spasming enough that he fell over.

“Well, if you want something to do the fucking… let’s be honest, you’re useless to a woman now whether she wanted you or not. The only one able to do any penetrating in this little hut, is me.” She played with her knife casually, digging some dirt from her nails, she waited until he’d gotten control over himself.

“What do you want?” He groaned out with spittle dripping from his lips.

“During our fight, you said you came all the way from the west to get away from us. I’d like to know what you mean by that.” Nua said it conversationally, and laid the knife on his thigh again, sliding it’s edge into the area she’d already opened up until it was ready to start cutting again.

Fear warred in his eyes between one terror and another, but no answer came. ‘Yersin, can you dominate the mind of someone I touch you to?’ Nua asked the gem.

‘Not quickly, but if you need it, I can weaken his resolve. If the touch lingers, I could make his body mine. But that one isn’t in the best shape.’ Yersin answered.

Nua slapped her left hand painfully down on the part of his thigh she’d cut. He looked down and watched the faint pulsing glow that passed through the gaps in her fingers, and his fearful and angry face slowly seemed to relax.

He began to answer, haltingly, and in pain, but he spoke. “B-Before I got here, I was an adventurer in the far west.” He gritted his teeth and gasped out in pain. “I lived in the Draconic Kingdom. I was known as ‘Cerebrate’ back then.”

He moaned as another spasm of pain ripped through him. “Y-Your god ruined my life. Fixed the problem of the Beastmen.” He threw his head back hard enough to bang the wall of the hut, “Lost my hero status. The Queen, she got r-rid of me.”

“T-Took on another name and w-went west… hurts, so much…” He spat violently and vomited up the small meal that he had, but Nua only squeezed the stump harder.

“B-Bandit group, I had a bandit group then, got by. Ran off by myself though, when… when I heard that the one you call ‘The Dark Savior’ was closing in. B-Back when cannibalism started and the food ran out.”

“Please, stop… it hurts!” He moaned, but when it didn’t stop, he continued, “C-came out here, thinking to escape from y-you people. Thought… a couple empires between us, and I’d be fine.” He hung his head and looked at her through hateful, fearful eyes, “Guess I was wrong, huh?” He asked as spittle dripped from his lips and dribbled down to his chest.

Nua removed her left hand from his stump, ‘Thank you, Yersin, that was plenty.’

‘My pleasure.’ Yersin said excitedly. ‘Will you be there when he dies?’

‘Most likely.’ Nua answered offhandedly, and cut off her communication to deal with Bracer.

“Yes, you were very wrong. Well, that was… easier than I’d hoped. Honestly I thought you’d put up more of a fight, you’re the most dangerous one I’ve fought so far, without my hand, you probably would have beaten me. But… now that you’ve told me, I guess I can’t justify hurting you anymore. However…” Nua stood up and headed for the exit, but turned to look at him once more.

“I’ll be reporting this back home, if you’re wanted there, after your punishment here, live or die, expect to be extradited back home for trial and a second punishment. And just so you know… to my god… ‘death’ is a mercy. Don’t expect that you’ll be afforded it anytime soon, not after what I have to tell them.” Nua said with a savage smile as she hopped down the stairs like a happy child. As she left, she heard him start to thrash and sob and curse, and that left her feeling good all the way to the tent she’d share with Solution.