The walls of Pas’en were a welcome sight, it felt like a lifetime, though it had not even been a season since last she’d seen them. Her previous return had been heralded by none, just a well armed woman with a band of well armed warrior slaves at her back.

It was not so on this occasion. She rocked back and forth as she walked, swaying slightly to sooth the anxious Number Four. When Nua drew closer to the gate. She reached back behind her head and touched the shock of black hair that had been secured, she ran her right hand over it, feeling its silky softness, and turned her eyes to the northwest. The distant horizon hid the far away city that held the broken and brutalized bones of Sobella of Pas’en, but it did not hide her memories.

Any reverie on the subject was broken however, when the woman who turned over the city seeking a single piece of stolen property, and ventured alone into the Tlalmok Empire, and brought down one of the three great smugglers, was recognized.

The guard wore a standard half plate armor for warm weather, and immediately spun on his heel and shouted up to his comrade at the top of the wall. Nua couldn’t tell what he shouted, but he was already running toward her at a shuffling jog while atop the wall, a horn blew that was echoed all the way back to the palace of the Prince.

The young man who greeted her was a pimply faced youth only just losing his boyhood to his manhood, and he was clearly nervous, staring at the exquisitely armored and clothed Duchessa. “Y-You are Duchessa Aiwenor, aren’t you?”

“I am.” Nua replied, looking down at him through icy eyes, “Is there a problem?”

“Th-The Prince wanted it known that you should come and see him as soon as you returned…” He stammered out in his half cracked voice.

Nua nodded, “I will, I have to… no, no send word to him, a swift messenger. Tell him I have much to share with him… but I need to see my home first. If he wishes me immediately, pass on my apology but ask him to come to my residence. Otherwise, I will join him as soon as… as I can.” Nua closed her eyes slowly, trying to suppress the memory of the sound of jaws closing over a beating red heart.

“I, yes, of course.” He stammered out, sensing the cloak of grief in which the Duchessa had wrapped herself.

“Thank you, soldier. Bring a horse to me, then send a swift rider also to my home, tell them I have come back and that I am not alone.” Nua replied, and as soon as a horse was rushed over to her, she mounted up and rode through the gate with Number Four sitting in front of her.

“What… is all this…” Number Four asked with wondering eyes at the buildings of stone and wood, the bright colored flowing clothing of those around her. The smell of baking bread was wafting through the air and the rich scent of garlic covered almost everything. Nua felt her mouth water.

‘Pasenians know how to eat!’ She thought at the sudden rumbling of her stomach.

“This is the city of Pas’en, one of the seven great cities of the eastern City States next to the Tlalmok Empire. Don’t ask, it will all make sense in time. This is simply where you’re going to be living now.” Nua answered with a note of pride in her voice, the way she spoke of the place catching her by surprise.

The cobblestone road echoed with the noise of her horse’s clip clop beat, while Number Four paid less mind to that and more to breathing in the rich smell as often and as fast as she could from within the oversized cloak that wrapped around her little body.

Her eyes ogled every single bright shade of clothing that she could, her ears all but wiggled toward every sound that was new to her, and so it went until Nua found herself riding through the gate of her great estate.

The guard had been true to his word, Nua recognized that immediately, for in front of her home, the enormous lawn had been turned into training grounds, and on those grounds was a formation of three thousand strong men and women in armor.

“Present…. Arms!” The shout came from the figure at the center, Nua knew him immediately, as she did those others nearby. ‘Sado. Priceless. Kaiji. Freyjin. Diana… Teacher.’

Nua rode the horse slowly forward to the sound of thousands of swords emerging from thousands of leather sheaths, then thousands of fists pounding against thousands of suits of armor as the sword was brought with the flat close to the face and the hilt brought level with the navel.

“First battalion, third battalion, Show her the horns!” Onimeus’s thunderous voice crashed over the formation, and the sound of thunder ceased to be his voice, and became the sound of marching feet. Thousands of pairs of feet stepped in perfect synchronization away from the line, booted foot after booted foot, the two battalions on the wings stepped forward shoulder to shoulder, until the last man in the corner was even with the first man on the end of each line in the center batallion.

“First and Third… Center… Face!” Onimeus bellowed, and in one body, two thousand men and women spun on the balls of their feet and brought their right feet forward to align with the left, and stamped hard enough on the soft earth to make it rumble beneath Nua’s horse.

She continued to walk her horse forward until she was dead center with her warriors.

Armor and weapons gleamed in the sun, and in front of the center battalion stood a unit in the finest of fine armor. The core, the founders, the first of Nua’s slave warriors, they formed a small wing formation of their own around Nua’s most trusted party. Solution wore her customary unusual maid outfit, almost as if she wished to mock the formality of it all, with her metallic high boots and flowing frills… along with her arrogant, cocksure smile.

Freyjin, to Nua’s surprise, was dressed in her military equipment rather than the more formal house wear. Kaiji and Priceless wore expensive dresses of purple and red that crossed at the center of the breast to wrap at the waist and split at the thigh.

Sado, unsurprisingly, wore expensive, distinctive armor that matched the core unit. ‘Given his proximity to Solution, that seems like her doing.’ Nua rolled her eyes, ‘She likes tormenting him I suppose. Well, that is Teacher for you.’

Nua put her hand on the top of Number Four’s ocean blue hair, “Wait here, Number Four.”

She dismounted the horse when the little girl nodded, her boot squelching lightly as she walked over the soft grass to where her party stood. Onimeus rendered a crisp salute in the manner of her faith’s military tradition, and Nua snapped her own out in return from a few feet away.

She then shouted for all to hear, “I have returned!”

And from thousands of throats, a deafening roar answered her, “Aiwenor! Aiwenor! Aiwenor!”

Tir stood waiting her turn at the end of the line as the bidding went on. Her body was soft and clean, her camisk fresh from the location, and made of silk rather than the cheap wool of Shog’nai. She took a small step forward as a master smith was shuffled over to his owner.

She glanced out of the corner of her eye, and counted those whose desirous looks went her way. Part of her knew she should feel dread, part of her wondered if some intended that. ‘But this is Pas’en… where even possessions have some rights, thanks to Sobella… my Sobella… our Sobella… what would she say, if she knew Rasgen had… had let it come to this? Did he even get my letter? If he did and can’t find me, it’s my own fault.’

She cut off that train of thought as it made her shift on her feet, and focused only on what she’d always lived for, ‘the moment’. Every breath she took was the moment she lived to experience, and she focused on it now. Looking up at the subjects of the auction.

“Seven silver!”

“Ten silver!”

“One gold!”

The line grew shorter and shorter, and as the line grew shorter, eyes focused on her more and more.

Her heart began to race as she waited her turn. The anxiety she knew she should have felt, began to rise. ‘You chose this. You chose your name, that bastard may have sentenced you to it, but you forced his hand to your will even when you had no power at all, you can do the same again…’ Tir told herself and began to ascend the steps as her turn finally came.

Tir placed one bare foot upon the platform, ‘The view is very different from up here.’ She thought as her emotions ran wild.

At her back left the dark elf auctioneer shouted, “This one can read, write, and do mathematics. She also has skill with the mandolin, is a trained dancer, and is certified by the Lur’gin company as descended from nobility! She however… does not come cheap.” The auctioneer paused to let that sink in.

“A special reserve price must be met, or… she stays with us tonight.” He took on a sly, conspiratorial look as he leaned toward the crowd, “You wouldn’t want us to go out of business losing money on these sales now, would you?” He winked, and the crowd gave a good natured chuckle.

Recognizing her cue, Tir brought her arms overhead and crossed her wrists as if they were bound together above her, and began a slow rotation showing herself from front to back within her scant camisk.

When the auctioneer announced the minimum starting bid, there were gasps of astonishment and mutters wondering what the ‘reserve price’ might be before Tir came to a halt facing them again and with a playful smile said, “What do you expect for the daughter of a prince and a concubine?”

The reticence evaporated. ‘There, I’ve kept my promise to that bastard. Let them speculate.’

The bidding was slow, which to someone experienced in watching these sales, was no surprise to Tir. “Remove your camisk.” The auctioneer ordered.

“Yes, sir.” She said in a throaty voice that reignited the bidding, and unbinding the sides at her hips, she peeled it off overhead and cast it shamelessly aside.

It kept the bidding going… but eventually it slowed down, and petered out just shy of what she knew to be her ‘reserve’ price.

When the bidding ended and the auctioneer said with loud disappointment, “Better luck next time… bring your coin purses next time, because she will be up for bid again tomorrow, at the very end of the day!” Tir turned around and bent over to pick up her Camisk, which she then put back before their eyes.

‘That’ll get them back here in force tomorrow, whoever I end up with, all I can do is hope that they’re equal parts rich, ambitious, and utterly ruthless.’ Tir kept a smile on her face and walked with a jaunty step that set her chains to rattling as if she’d made a joke, which she had as she said to herself, “That of course… describes the better part of this city.”