swirlsofpurple

The buzzer sounds. The small light goes green. Neresse sits up, wiping the sleep from her eyes. She folds up her mat and blanket and puts them away in the chest. The customers don’t like the idea of her sleeping here. They like to think of it as a display case and not a cell. And Master always gives the customers what they want. She brushes her hair and climbs onto her stool, plastering on a smile. Neresse learned long ago that it’s best to do what Master wants.

The doors open slowly for a dramatic reveal, horns blaring- too loud even from where she is at the other end of the hall.

“Welcome,” Master bellows, “To the greatest creature collection in the galaxy!”

“How classless,” a man in Idrin robes says.

“It’s true. But don’t take my word for it, come see!”

*

Master leads the customers through the hall.

“Here we have the last surviving royal of Datra five.”

Said royal sits impassive.

Neresse watches closely, as always learning all she can. Not about her fellow slaves, she learned all there was to know about the older ones decades ago, and the newer ones she already knows what she needs to. She watches the customers, learns their ticks and nuances, their cultures and morals, their desires and disgusts. 

The Idrin man furrows his lip, a sign of excitement amongst those people. Another man, wearing a Cacturus necklace, presses his hands to the glass. Most wouldn’t be able to see the chain from where she is, but Neresse has better eyesight than most species’. A lady, has her hair done in an Acodoi style, but she clearly isn’t Acodoi from her discomfort with it.

Next is the Gorus. There’s a long stare at the enemy: the customers know, if the war fates had sung differently, it may be them in the box. Master guides them past and any introspection is quickly forgotten as they take in a rare survivor of the Estrin system.

Ignoring Master’s repetitive spiel, as they go from cell to cell, she focuses on every aspect of the customers’ body language, even the tiniest twitch.

Any small detail may help her later.

“And now, the jewel of my collection…” Master says as they approach her.

Neresse sits poised, smile perfect.

“…The last elf in existence.” 

*

“Impossible!”

“They’re surely extinct!”

“This must be a fake!”

Neresse says nothing. Master says nothing. They wait.

The customers all know, can clearly see for themselves. She’s the real deal.

Then come the gasps. The whispers. The astonishment. Nothing new.

“Can I touch her?” asks the Acodoi hair-styled woman.

“I’ll have to charge you extra.”

“Yes, yes, of course.”

The cage door opens. Normally Neresse would be concentrating on not flinching, now she’s too busy hiding her excitement. After all these years of learning, of preparation, this may be the day it all pays off.

The woman’s fidgeting has left two hair pins stuck in her blouse. Usually irrelevant, the locks on their cells can’t be picked with mere pins. Acodoi metals however, have different properties.

Neresse holds out her arm elegantly, ensuring she has all of their rapt attention, before sliding her other hand around, deft, silent. She has to bite her tongue to hold her reaction as her fingers pull the pins free.

*

She waits until nightfall before sliding the pin into the lock. The buzzer starts trilling, she’s ready for it though, rigs it with a mechanism from a watch she stole a year ago. With the help from a couple more of her pilfered keepsakes, she’s out.

Her younger self, freshly captured and unknowing of the way of things, may have run for the front door- to escape. But now she knows, there’s no escape from men like Master, except for one.

Neresse creeps through corridors and up the stairs.

A stair creaks. She freezes. She can see a guard. He can’t see her. Yet.

Her heart thuds. She wants to cry. She wants to scream.

He searches, but only briefly, before turning back.

Neresse keeps climbing, until she reaches Master’s bedroom.  

She takes a hunters knife off of the wall. The knife used to catch many of her fellow slaves. Though unlikely after all this time, she pretends it’s also the knife used to capture her.

Kismet.

She slits Master’s throat.