The Auction

by **Arundel** on September 30th, 2013, 2:54 am

Arundel watched the proceedings, but didn't pay much attention. Until Aleixo and his sister were lead up in front of the crowd. She could hear the gears turning in the bidders' heads as the auctioneer made his offer for three. The female - who's name was Antia - looked on the verge of death. Her brother stood strong and proud, facing down the many eyes watching them. Judging their health and appearance. She couldn't imagine being up on that platform. Antia wept against the shirt of her brother, and the Drykas was surprised the young girl could still stand. She looked around at her father and brothers, who frowned at the pair ahead, obviously not wanting to make a move. They would be paying for the price of each together, and the girl didn't look like she'd survive another week, let alone a birthing. Was she really pregnant? Arundel was incredulous. She was so thin. The poor creature.

Her eyes trailed up Alexio, starting at his feet and lingering on his face before she looked at more people in the crowd around her. Several people looked like they weren't going to touch this offer with a ten foot pole. Others seemed to be thinking they'd take their chances. Her eyes locked back on Aleixo. He looked strong, but could use a good meal or two after traveling for who knew how long. Arundel would be lying through her teeth if she denied that he was handsome. Her gaze lingered on his chiseled features - the angle of his cheekbones and jaw, the slope of his broad shoulders, and the narrow width of his hips. Thinking back, she wouldn't be able to explain why she did it, but without really realizing, her hand rose above the crowd. The first hand to make an offer. "I'll pay sixty for the man!" she called loudly above the voices.

Her siblings and father looked at her sharply, some mouths hanging open, and all eyes rounded with surprise. She of all people was bidding - the one of them who'd been so reluctant to be here. Her own lips parted in surprise, and she gasped at her own actions. What did I just do? Arundel looked instinctively at her father. He was clearly astonished, but eyed her speculatively. Her own eyes asked a question - as she stood there with her hand still raised above the heads of Drykas waiting all around. And the sister? With an almost imperceptible shake of his head, he answered. No. She pursed her lips, and slowly pulled her hand back down. All eyes on the platform were on her. Arundel met their gaze, red faced and uncertain.

by **Praetorian** on September 30th, 2013, 3:34 am

"I'll pay sixty-"

Yes! For a second there I thought-

"-for the man!"

Petch. Rukairn deflated visibly as the woman spoke. The poor lass, Antia, had not traveled well, the pregnancy had taken a slow toll on what was once a healthy little figure. Eyes out on the crowd, the Drykas raised his hand and placed it upon Aleixo's, squeezing once. His free hand made errant motions for "strength", "dignity", and "family", likely picked up by much of the crowed, but who cared. Perhaps someone would take pity on the family and help keep them together. The dark-haired auctioneer had been watching the duo since they first arrived in the Raider's Camp, and had come to admire Aleixo for his strength, his bravery at facing such an ordeal for his sister.

No one else seemed interested in either. It was obvious why the man had come, so most women knew he would be trouble. Besides, so much baggage with him... they were not willing to risk their suppers on a woman liable to fall over at any moment. "This woman, do you not see the beauty in her cheeks? The grace in her form? Come now! A few good meals at your hearth and she will be right as rain..."

"What about the child?" Someone called out, Rukairn had to squint lightly to make out someone shaking their head. "It is not one of us."

"How is it any different from the other children brought forth today? If anything, it will be better off. It will know only life here, it will know life only as a Drykas!" That, luckily, shut up the naysayer. As well it should! There was no reason for them to shun this woman because she was pregnant with no man other than her brother at her side. If the brother was strength, the sister was tenacity. There were times, yes, when she broke down beneath the stress of her situation, but she never failed to get up. "Now, speak ye who will give this woman a home, will start a family with her!"

by **Arundel** on September 30th, 2013, 4:07 am

Silence. That was all she heard from the family around her. They watched the duo - or rather trio - up on the platform with rapt attention. Arundel didn't want to condemn the girl, but she couldn't afford to pay way for all of them into their new lives. Gods, she couldn't even believe she had bid on one of them. And no one else had offered a counter bid! Her stomach was in knots as Rukairn defended the case of Aleixo's sister and unborn niece. It was a good plea, but her funds just couldn't handle it. She looked away.

A voice from directly behind her suddenly called out to their auctioneer, making her jump and half twist around. Her jaw dropped as she stared up into the determined face of her eldest brother, Ganden. He glanced at her and offered a small smile, then returned his gaze to the platform. "One hundred for the girl and the unborn," he stated without the slightest hesitation. A few more jaws dropped, and not just her family's. Arundel eagerly looked back up at the brother and sister on display, searching their faces.

by **Aleixo** on September 30th, 2013, 10:13 am

The words were all just so much garbled sound to Aleixo, as he listened to the auctioneer. But soon enough the man fell silent, looking out into the crowd with that expectant air. Aleixo didn’t have to understand to know, he was waiting for a bid. Family or slave, the denomination didn’t change the fact that money was being demanded of any who would take one of the captives away from the platform. He gazed out into the crowd assembled about them, looking, looking, this way and that, with little regard for himself, only for his sister. Which one of these strangers might lead her away? Which one of these men might lay claim to her, for a few coins? And would any down below feel the need to haul him along too? His gaze was intent, alert, yet still, when the call came out, he was floored.

There had been many looking at him – of course – as he and Antia were meant to be the focus of the next few moments. So he had not particularly noticed the tall woman giving him such a careful scrutiny. She was towards the front, but the whole area was packed with Drykas, drawn by a wish to augment their pavilions, or maybe just out of ordinary curiosity. When the clear voice rang out, his eyes immediately came about to look for, and latch onto, the woman. For woman it was – and this made his eyes pop a bit. This wasn’t what he expected. Yes, Antia was looking almost as if she would collapse right then and there. He knew she would not seem very desirable. But still, she was female, and of the perfect age to bear children, and would bring a new life with her as well, if she survived….

So although he knew there would be some bidding, he had somehow envisioned that it would be a man’s voice that would ring out. In so many ways, Aleixo was clueless as to what was going on, what needs the Drykas had. And though he’d heard from the other captive of the horse clans’ need for men, he had yet to put two and two together. In his more sexist way, the way he’d been raised, he could very well conceptualize a girl, or a woman, taking a fancy for a man, flirting with him, willingly giving herself to him or perhaps allowing him to “court” her, claim her, take her for his bride. But never had he heard of a woman staking out a claim to a man, (except for maybe with a knife in a bar fight with some other woman) - really “taking” him, without any say so on his part. For himself, he thought that his well muscled arms, and perhaps the auctioneer informing the crowd of potential “buyers” of his work as a smith, would garner some bids from men who’d be interested in his labor. All these preconceived notions were now a jumble in his head as he stared at the woman, giving her almost as close a scrutiny as she had given him a few moments before – not out of rudeness, but out of sheer confusion. He still didn’t know that she had expressly bid on him. He was just puzzled over why she was bidding at all. His gaze had come to her quickly enough to see that she looked to several men around her, and one in particular, but that enlightened him no further. Aleixo frowned, and even as Antia continued to weep, he held her close, his eyes now moving to the other focal point of the stage – the auctioneer.

This one’s hand were fluttering and jerking, like a wounded bird, and Aleixo was completely lost, having no idea what was being communicated to the crowd. The Drykas’ face though showed clear disappointment. Whatever the woman in the crowd had said, it wasn’t making the man happy. The Syliran’s eye darted back out to the crowd, as a silence gripped it, which he took was not a good sign. Once again the auctioneer began to speak, and Aleixo strained his ears to try to catch a word or two. The only thing he thought he heard was a word like “eat” but that was it. His nostrils flaring a bit in growing frustration, wishing so badly that he knew what was going on, Aleixo’s gaze flew to one in the crowd who spoke out. Had they made a bid? He couldn’t even be sure who had spoken, and there came an immediate reply from the auctioneer. What was going on? He’d caught a word he now fully understood. Drykas. It was what they called themselves. A word that had meant little to him for most of twenty-one years. A word that held such hope and such frustration for him now.

The auctioneer seemed to be calling out once more, and Aleixo scanned the crowd. Maybe the woman who had originally spoken out was only asking a question. She said no more. His eyes darted back to her but she wasn’t even looking at the platform any more. His gaze moved on, but leapt back again, when, this time, a male voice did call out. The man stood directly behind the tall woman had spoken – not the one she’d been looking at before, but a younger version of that older one. The woman herself was looking back, her expression clearly denoting surprise. What was going on, Aleixo thought in mounting frustration. Their speech was too rapid, and though he thought he’d heard the word for girl, he couldn’t be sure. All he could do was to look at the man who had spoken, trying to gauge if he had made a bid – trying to ascertain if he was a good man, or bad, or what in the world his intentions were. But with only the man’s looks to go on, he was at a loss to know…anything.

Then the tall woman’s in front of the man was turning back to the stage, with a look of great expectancy, and she seemed…pleased? In that moment, Aleixo’s eyes locked with hers and she gave him an appraising look, one which he could not read with certainty, but which held something of a keen interest, or so it seemed to him. But for what purpose her interest in him lay, Aleixo was at a loss to say. All he could do was to return her look with a steadiness and strength that was quickly giving way to anger – not at her, but with the situation as whole, and being in the center of an event which would determine his future and Antia’s, yet not able to comprehend hardly any of it.

With an internal shrug of vexation, he made some attempt to concentrate harder, in hopes of ascertaining what was to happen next. More as a distraction than in any real hopes that it would help, he gave Antia a gentle squeeze and whispered, “Hang in there. Try to be strong, love.”

by **Karliah Firestride** on September 30th, 2013, 5:07 pm

Karliah had been watching curiously throughout the proceedings, her adoptive father Zavin had sent her down to purchase someone to help out with the Striders in their care. Zavin was getting older and couldn't lift like he used to, Karliah was still in that gangly stage and not yet strong or skilled enough to take his place.

She tucked a stray cinnamon colored lock of hair behind her ear, her grey eyes narrowed as she observed the couple on stage. The man looked strong, but Zavin had told her not to spend too much, not to mention that the two were already being bid on over her price range.

Listening to all the people speaking, she snorted in disgust when someone mentioned the child not being 'one of us'. Everyone here was of the Drykas, even if they didn't accept it yet, silly man that should know better.

Scuffing the ground with a bare foot, Karliah waited.

by **Tani** on October 5th, 2013, 8:10 am

Tani sat and watched the auction, but all she saw were the shadows of the departed. From her perch atop one of the tents opposite the make-shift platform the feline Kelvic traced the arrivals and departures, both of Drykas and stranger, faces passing in a haze of inattention. She recognised few of the Drykas among the crowd, and only a handful of the captives. She made no move to greet them, her usual wry smile absent. Tani had not come to the auction to socialise. Men moved across the square, herding captives to and from the stage like stray Striders. Captive? What sort of word was that? If the Drykas hunted them they were prey, but what sort of hunter captured her prey rather then eating it?

The crowd rumbled beneath her when the man and his sister took the stage. A hand shot up in the crowd, a brief exchange between Rukairn and the purchaser. Distance made it difficult for her to pick out details of the would-be buyer, hidden in the crowd, but they were easily close enough for their words to reach Tani ears. The buyer was female, that in itself was not surprising, and it barely earned a blink of recognition from the cat atop of the tent. The woman sounded vaguely familiar, though Tani could not quite place her in the crowd.

"How is it any different from the other children bought forth today?" Tani bristled at the words, ears inching back. These intruders were not Drykas. They were pale imitations, a mockery of the people they thought to replace. Their journey here, each and every one, had been paid for with the blood of Drykas. Tani knew they were necessary, if not the exact reason why, but she loathed that it was so. She would have returned each and every one of them to the Grasslands if it could somehow have bought back the people they had lost. She considered leaving there and then. Her clothes waited somewhere in the tent below her, tucked in a rucksack and stowed just beyond the entrance. It would be a simple matter to drop from the roof and change, to leave the false-Drykas to their purchasers.

She found she couldn't. Tani forced herself to relax. She retracted her claws from the holes they had forced in the thin blue fabric of the tent and tried not to feel guilty. It was not the first home she had damaged in such a manner, and it was unlikely to be the last. The auction and its captives, had been a product of Kyron's work and, even in death, it still carried something of her bondmate, one of the precious few things that did. Walking away from it would have been a betrayal of the last goal they had shared. No, she would stay and watch, as much as it hurt to do so. She twisted atop the roof and returned her attention to the stage.

by **Isedan Autumnrun** on October 7th, 2013, 2:54 pm

Despondent.

The call of the auctioneer and bustling strangers, the soft chink of chain on those who might still struggle, the smell of hay and the earth and the horses. She simply couldn't care. The short-haired woman sat among the others, grey-gold eyes downcast and her hands folded in her lap, the garb they had put her in after finding her long gone and now only a simple pair of breeches and womens tunic worn. She did not even twitch when a fly landed on the knuckle of her thumb, bit at a bit of dead skin, and then flew lazily away.

The woman was not displeasing of eye but she was nearly catatonic still, sparing only the most wan of looks when that man, Alexio, and his sister. She had pity for the poor woman, belly thick with child, but could not afford the heart to spare beyond that. Her mind remained on that night, the last look of pain and horror in Lukyc's eyes; the agonizing snap as the Bond broke the deadness she felt. She wanted to sleep but these foreigners, these strangers, would not permit it this time. Issy had spent her time, as all of them had, in the "reformatting" camp, as the woman had come to know it as where they re-trained them to ready them for life with the horse clans.

Issy had already caught the eye of one, a man from Emerald clan who had stopped by before the auction began, murmuring quietly in wonder at the faces. Something about finding a wife that could give him the child he'd lost...She didn't care. The Syliran just sat and stared at the ground beneath her feet, ignoring it all for the most part until even he had left and the auctioning began. She didn't know that he would buy her, of course; Issy was simply adrift.

But as she sat there cheerlessly, something caught her attention, the soft pad of feet on canvas, a sound she had often enjoyed when lounging with her Lukyc. It brought the womans eyes upwards, searching for the soft sound that others might not pick up but she could, her stronger sense of hearing by serval blood applicable. She spotted the cat, small really, just sitting there upon one of the tents nearby, a dark silouhette against white and cream canvas. Issy could almost swear the look in those eyes was one of rejection and anger at those who Issy sat among, but then, she couldn't be certain. Perhaps she was seeing her own emotions in the green eyes of the cat (Tani). Or, more likely, it was just her imagination.

Down fell the womans eyes again, silent once more, and waiting for...whatever may come.

by **Zynya** on October 9th, 2013, 4:54 am

Zynya sat with the captives near the auction stage. Her hands weren't bound but up until two days prior there had been shackles on her ankles. She had lost precious weight over the last few days, more from stress than from hunger. She had been slim before, and now if she were to remove her shirt you could see the edges of her ribcage. She had enough muscle that the effect was very slight, but still noticeable.

Her hair was in it's customary braid from the night she'd been captured, she always wore it that way when she went free running. Her washed out blue eyes glanced around from under dark lashes, her face pointed to her hands in her lap.

She briefly glanced up as people were sold and sent off to their new families. The words around her were total gibberish, but she could see a correlation between hand signs and words. No speaking hands were still, it must be a large portion of the Drykas vocabulary. She tried to catch on to words, but without having ever learned a second language, she was still lost. Zynya sat, appearing demure and for the most part defeated, waiting to be led to the platform.

by **Praetorian** on October 10th, 2013, 3:45 am

Rukairn sagged visibly for a tick as someone finally placed a bid upon the woman and her child. Better yet, the man who placed the bid appeared to be either related or well acquainted with the woman who had placed a bit upon the man. For a handful of ticks, had waited, eyes scanning the crowd to make sure that no one else would step forward. Eyes shifted away, hands were still. "It is done," he decreed, lips rising in a smile. He motioned for the two new Drykas and their new family members to move off to the side together where wiry Trekin was waiting.

The days events had made him a mite more haggard than when they began so, despite the lingering warmth in his eyes, he wasted no time with pleasantries. His voice spouted off quick Pavi, hands jerking to display his haste. "Teach them our ways; make them one of us. You must bind them, and the babe when it comes, to the Web. Do not tell them of its secrets until you are sure that you can trust them with our greatest gift. Do not remove them from the bounds of the web or you will be prosecuted for crimes against the Drykas. This is for the good of all of us, and it brings me great amounts of pride to see you stepping up to the challenge that will come with this." He sighed, collecting himself for an instant.

On stage, a young, well-muscled man was walking up onto the stage with a perceptible strut. His once-dark hair had been lightened slightly by his time in the sun among the Drykas, and he had a pleasant golden tan. His eyes may not have had a gem-like quality, resembling smooth sandstone instead, but the thick lashes that framed them gave him a decidedly alluring air. Just wait until the women learned that his handsome visage was shattered the moment he opened his mouth. Amusement touched the dark-haired Drykas's features at the sight of him. "This, dear ladies, is Allan." Already, he could tell that this one would garner fair attention. "He sought out our camp in search of a new life. He's becoming a fine hand in the kitchen, and obviously is built to work." He avoided mentioning how soft the young man's hands were. Grinning out at the nearly salivating women, Rukairn slapped a hand on the tall man's shoulder, letting the sound of solid muscle ripple out through the crowd. "Now, who would like to give him... a home?"

Back on the side of the stage, Trekkin was finishing up his speech, detailing that marriage was not a requirement, but children were. He finished with a smile and an open palm, expectant of Mizas. Once that was complete, the new quartet would be waved away as he prepared to document the next purchase.

Allan :

Post NotesArun and Aleixo, post next in whatever order you like. Then, Karliah. Tani, you can post whenever you like. Issy and Zyn, you can post this turn or wait until the next one. Issy will be called up once Karliah's transaction is complete.

by **Aleixo** on October 10th, 2013, 7:03 pm

The auctioneer, or whatever he was, seemed almost relieved when the man in the crowd had called out, apparently placing a bid for Antia. Aleixo wasn’t even sure if his sister really realized that someone had bid on her, for she had her eyes closed and her face to his chest almost, clinging to him and trembling like a leaf in a high wind. He was afraid she might just faint altogether, and his grip about her tightened the more. His eyes darted between the auctioneer and the woman and man who had called out their offers. The auctioneer was quite obviously looking to see if anyone else was foolish enough to take a chance on the wan, scared looking girl, and, wisely, he closed the bidding quickly when it seemed there were none. Then it was all movement again, with the man on the platform motioning to Aleixo, who halfway carried Antia from the stage, and down to the grass. Meanwhile, the ones who had “purchased” them came forward, and once again came a flood of Pavi that Alexio did not understand, accompanied by the equally baffling hand gestures. Almost faster than he could blink, the deal was done and coins were being dropped into the speaker’s outstretched hand.

It was at that moment that Antia literally sagged against her brother and his face turned to her with anxious concern. But now, as if to really mark the shifting of their world here, the Drykas male who had made the bid stepped closer, close enough to scoop Antia up in his strong arms, as if she weighed no more than a feather. Aleixo made just the very barest of protests, but was stayed by a hand, and wise words, of the one who spoke Common. The older Drykas explained in a patient but firm tone that the other Drykas now had a legal claim to his sister, and that he only meant to see to her, to help. Antia made no struggle – she was barely conscious – and the older Drykas added that this Ganden was a good man and that Antia was fortunate that she was going to a good home, where she’d have the best chance to recover and regain her health – and that it was something of a miracle that anyone was willing to take this risk. He added as a final thought that Aleixo should count himself fortunate too, that he was going to the same pavilion, and that he’d not have to be separated from his sister. All this swirled in the Syliran’s head, and was reflected in his glare, but he really had no choice. As always, he knew, dead or exiled, he’d be of no help to Antia whatsoever, and of even less use to himself. So though it galled a fair bit, he made no more protest. Soon enough, the party was ready to move off, and Aleixo walked along with them, doing his best to keep his eyes on his sister, and occasionally shooting a glance at the woman who stalked in front of all the rest of them – the one who had apparently bid on him.