The world had once been a beautiful song. For Lillia von Elvis, Princess of Ethelium, every dawn was a chorus of light filtering through the living, crystalline leaves of the Great Home-Trees ana Holy Divine World Tree, every breeze a whispered verse carrying the scent of moon-petal flowers divinity, and ancient earth. Her people, the Sun-Elves, did not build their livning places with the stone and dead cut trees; they sang to the world, and the world grew for them, weaving branches into elegant spires and roots into sturdy foundations called Tree Houses. Her life had been one of peaceful, happiness, and the gentle art of coaxing life from the soil with the druidic magic that flowed in her veins like a second soul.
Ethelium was a memory now, a fromer glourios kingdom burned to ash. The superpower that had descended upon them, the Veslgalian Empire, had brought their glourious holy and peaceful land into ruin. They came with siege engines that hurled alchemically-infused fire that could burn even living wood, and with mages whose cruel, ordered magic smothered the wild, vibrant songs of the earth. They were an ally of the distant Kalian Empire, a part of a much larger, more terrifying machine of conquest.
Lillia remembered the fall of her city. The screams of her people had been drowned out by the crackle of ancient trees immolating and the relentless, marching tramp of iron-shod boots. Her father, the High King, had fallen defending the World Tree shrine, his body pierced by a dozen black-fletched arrows. Her mother… her mother had sung one last song of sadness, a desperate plea that froze a hundred Aethelgardian soldiers solid before a human war-mage's ice needles perieces through her heart. Lillia had been running and running with the sacrifies of her parents wnd her people to survive and carry on the legacy of Elthelium Kingdom. However unfortunate luck strucked her. She was captured in a forest bordering between Kalain Empire and principality. She had learned the scent of human greed, the feel of chains, the hollowness of utter loss, even though they haven't done anything her ody to fetch a high price when selling at the autionhouse. Now, she found herself in this Principality of Leo, in a stinking, illegal auction house, awaiting her fate.
In the cage next to hers, her only companion who haven't gien up yet for her future even though slavers kick and tortured her, the name is Cilia, a wolf beast-kin. Where Lillia was tall and willowy, Cilia was compact and corded with muscle typical beast kins. Where Lillia's given up to her fate and was a silent, like frozen ocean, Cilia's was a raging fire.
Cilia's world had not been one of songs and crystalline trees, but of the hunt, the pack, and the deep, wild freedom of the Sea of Forests. As the daughter of her Black Wolf clan's leader, she had been raised to be a warrior, a huntress. She remembered the thrill of chasing moon-stags under the canopy, the warmth of the communal fire, the strength of her pack around her. Their only enemies were the monsters that sometimes strayed from the deeper woods, and the humans who encroached on their lands – the ones they called the 'metal-men.'
The slavers had come not with overwhelming force, but with cunning and poison. They had tainted a watering hole with a potent paralytic herb. Her patrol, strong warriors all, had grown sluggish, their limbs heavy. Then the nets had fallen. She remembered the shame more than the fear – the shame of being bound, of her claws and teeth being useless, of seeing the triumphant, greedy looks on the human faces as they dragged her and her kin away in iron cages. They were part of a 'forest harvest,' the lead slaver had called it, goods to be sold to the decadent nobles of some city she'd never heard of.
In the holding pens of this auction house, she had met the elf. Lillia. At first, Cilia had been wary. Elves were holy, ancient and proud beings, far removed from the earthy life of her clan. But in the shared misery of their cage, a strange friendship had been forged. Lillia never cried, never screamed her rage, and just go with a flow and accept her fate even though she was kicked and slapped by slavers, but Cilia could feel like a blade of unbreakable one – sharp, and utterly unbroken still wating for hope and revenge.
"They will pay for this," Cilia whispered, her voice a low growl, her yellow wolf-eyes fixed on the guards outside their cage who just kicked her who knows how many times. "When I get out of here, I will hunt them down, and my clan will feast on their bones."
Lillia, sitting straight back despite her bonds, did not look at her. Her gaze was fixed on nothing, seeing only the ghosts of her past. "There is no 'out of here,' young wolf," she replied, her voice soft but devoid of hope. "There is only one cage, and then another. A different master, a different gilded prison. This is the way of their world."
"Then I will break the cages," Cilia snarled, rattling the bars futilely. "All of them."
Their conversation was cut short as the heavy door to their holding area creaked open. The fat, dusgusting ugly sweating auctioneer entered, accompined by two fully equipped guards. He looked them over like a butcher inspecting prize cuts of meat, his eyes lingering on Lillia with a particularly foul expression.
"Excellent," he wheezed. "Pristine. The nobles will pay a king's ransom for this one." He gestured to Lillia. "Clean her up. Put her in the silk bindings. Make her presentable." To Cilia, he gave a dismissive glance. "The beast-kin can be sold as is. Her ferocity might appeal to a certain type of buyer."
Guards unlocked Lillia's cage, dragging her out. Cilia lunged, but was slammed back by a pole prodded through the bars, the impact jarring her teeth. "Behave, little wolf, or your sale will be a very short, very painful one," the auctioneer chuckled.
Lillia gave Cilia one last look as she was pulled away, a look that conveyed a universe of shared understanding and grim farewell. left Alone in her cage, she felt lonely, scared and cry silently. in her mind 'Father, Mother, I'm sorry'.
She listened to the muffled sounds of the auction beginning outside, the rise and fall of the auctioneer's voice, the murmur of the crowd. Every cheer, every round of applause, felt like a nail being hammered into her coffin. She pressed her face against the cold iron bars, the scent of sawdust, fear, and human avarice filling her senses, and for the first time since her capture, a single, hot tear of helpless rage traced a path through the fur on her cheek. (Continue…..)