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“Slave!”
With a sharp kick to its middle, the slave woke, gasping. It looked up, and saw a bulky shadow hanging over it. It scrambled into a kneeling position, pressing its head to the floor, and huffed breath out through its throat in a low keen, the closest thing to plea for mercy it was able to make.
“Fucking useless.” Master spat, and it cowered, knowing it was true. It was a useless thing, lucky that its master was merciful enough to allow it a mat to sleep on. “We’ve a new guest, which you’d know if you weren’t lazier than the fucking pigs. You’ve been due in her room for nearly ten minutes now, and you’d better pray she’s too tired to beat you for it, because you won’t be getting any mercy from me.”
He hauled it up by its ear, causing it to yelp, and shoved it out of the kitchen, towards the stairs. It scrambled up them, hurrying to reach the inn’s single indoor room. Most travelers were too poor to afford more than the stable-yard and its communal cook-fire, but Master liked to make the room as luxurious as possible. It had a private bath, a small store of alcohol, the finest mattress the inn could afford, and, of course, the use of the inn’s slave for the entire night.
It hoped that Master had warned this new guest of its voice and its clumsiness. Sometimes guests thought that its inability to speak was blatant disobedience and punished it.
It knocked on the room’s door and knelt, trembling slightly as the door squeaked open.
“Oh, hello,” a soft voice said overhead. “Who are you?”
She didn’t sound angry. It dared to glance up, hooking a thumb under its collar. The dangling tag listed Master as its owner, and its designation as a personal service slave, as well as rental prices by the hour or the day. The woman’s shape is blurry, but it gets the impression of someone large and soft, with sloped shoulders. Her hair reflects silver in the firelight, so she’s probably a little older.
“Oh, right! Are you here to fill the tub, honey? Thank you! It has been such a long day, I’ve been looking forward to finally washing some of this grime off.”
It could fill the tub! It nodded eagerly and rushed to grab the bucket.
Hauling and heating the water was a long process that made its shoulders ache, but it liked the steady nature of the work, the warmth on its hands, and the way Master and the inn’s other guests could see it was working hard and let it go about the task in peace. When it tipped the final bucket in, the tub was steaming up the room, smelling of the sweet herbs that the woman had handed it to toss in.
“Oh, you’re such a dear,” the woman sighed, as it knelt by the tub. “Are you going to—oh. You’re staying?”
It trembled where it knelt. Did she not want it to stay? If it was turned out of her rooms, Master would beat it hard for disappointing a guest. It pressed itself harder into the floorboards, unable to help the low keening sound coming from its mouth.
“Oh, no, sweetie, don’t cry—right, you service the room, don’t you? Would you help me wash my hair?”
It looked up, nodding eagerly. It loved helping guests bathe and wash their hair. It loved the soft sounds of relief and contentment, the smell of the soaps and oils, the warm water on its hands. Guests were usually gentler with it, after, lazy and contented from the bath—unless it made a mistake that warranted getting its head stuck under the water, of course, but it would do its best not to make mistakes.
The woman did not want help as she undressed, but called it over once she was fully in the bath. She groaned softly as the slave crept up and laced its fingers into her loose hair. Encouraged, it took the little bath cup and began to carefully wet her hair. It was a delicate process, tipping the water so it wouldn’t run down into the honored guest’s eyes, getting every layer thoroughly wet before applying the shampoo. It was working the shampoo into a deep lather, enjoying the way the woman was melting into the feeling. When the first twinge made its hands spasm at their work, it ignored the feeling. Pain was normal, even good. Master always said that it helped it remember its place.
Eventually, the pain dissipated, lost in the warm water; but it found itself frowning, trying to focus its blurry vision enough to tell—
The soap lather was the wrong color. Instead of a warm whitish shade, it was a light, streaky pink. The sight was so horrifying that it stopped moving to stare—it was getting its filthy blood on a guest.
“Mm? What’s wrong, sweetheart?” The woman sounded half-asleep. Maybe, if it is very careful and very pleasing, she won’t notice. It picked up the bath cup in shaking hands, and began to rinse out her hair, diluting its blood into the bathwater. The woman makes another low, pleased sound, and it dared to hope that she wouldn’t notice the blood, wouldn’t punish it for the offense. It holds its breath as it runs another cup of water through her hair, and then another. It was just about to breathe again when the woman shifted in the water and let out a soft gasp. It yelped as her hand shot up to grip its wrist—not hard, not yet, but firm enough that she’s able to hold the shaking limb steady.
“Oh, honey, your poor hands,” she says, taking one of its battered fingers in her impossibly soft ones. “You’re bleeding—are these cuts?”
It cannot answer and it is not allowed to run, so when she lets go of its hands, it crumples to press itself harder into the floorboards. There is a heaving, splashing sound as the woman hauls herself out of the tub—it was supposed to help her! But it bled on her, and she’s angry now! It dares to glance up, and sees the wide, bare shape of her dripping across the floor to the dressing screen. It should have moved the screen closer for her, should have been there to hand her a towel—but it would have bled on the towel! It looks down at its ugly hands, at the cuts that re-opened in the hot water, and it wants to beat its hands into the hard floor, punish them again, force them to stop being so clumsy and dirty and getting it into so much trouble.
The woman comes out from behind the screen, dressed and with the towel wrapped tight around her head. There’s a little dark case in her hands, and it doesn’t dare to look up long enough to try and guess what it might be, pressing itself hard into the floor. It doesn’t look big enough to keep a whip in, even coiled up, but it’s sure that it will prove to be something that will hurt. It’s no less than he deserves, but it’s deeply afraid, all the same.
“Let me see your hands, honey,” she says, and it lifts up its hands, palms raised. Sometimes Master pours things on its open cuts that make it writhe and scream, when he doesn’t want to tire his arm out with beating it. Sure enough, a little cool liquid is dribbled onto its hand, stinging where it touches raw or torn skin. It waits, cringing, for the pain to get worse—wishes that it could beg and plead and tell the woman how sorry it is—but instead of worsening, its hands start to go numb and a little cold, the pain receding entirely. And, that done, the woman starts wrapping them with something—when it dares to glance up, it sees that its cuts are being dressed in clean bandages. The woman’s hands are sure and skillful, and there’s a strange sensation there the bandages are protecting the cuts. It knows the cuts are still there, but the residual ache in its hands is gone. Though as she wraps its fingers, it can tell that the bandages will need to be cut off again. It won’t be any use with its fingers stiffer and clumsier than they already were. The thought fills it with a strange sense of despair, and it tries to wipe its tears away with a bandaged hand without sniffling too loudly. Snotting up like a mangy street brat is a punishable offense, too.
The woman reaches for its face and runs a thumb across its cheek instead of slapping it, though. Its vision is blurrier than usual with its tears, but she isn’t scowling at it. Just looking.
“Did the innkeeper cut your hands like that?” she asks, and it shakes its head. It had been told to help with peeling beets for stew, and the deep red juice had made it hard to see what it was doing, and it had needed to hurry, and so the knife had kept slipping. It was its own fault. Master had given it a beating after, for being so slow, but he hadn’t cut it.
“Hm,” the woman says. “He hurts you, though.”
It nods eagerly. Master always punishes it, is very good about correcting its mistakes and faults, the woman doesn’t need to trouble herself about it.
“I see,” she says, and then reaches to examine the tag hanging off of its collar. It lifts its chin, giving her better access, though it’s not sure what she’s looking for. It knows the tag has Master’s name on it, and its rental prices, but the woman already has it for the night. What else could she be looking for?
“Sweetie, I want you to curl up next to the fire for a bit and keep warm. Can you do that for me? I’ll be right back, I promise.”
That. Is a very strange order. It knows better than to disobey, but it does hesitate at the edge of the worn fur rug laid out in front of the fire. It’s cleaned the rug many times, and knows that it’s plush and soft, far too good for it to lay on.
“Go on, get comfortable,” she says, and it scrambles onto the rug, curling up like it was told. The fire is warm, immediately working to relax the tense muscles of its back.
“There you go, honey,” she says, and drops something on it—it startles, before realizing it’s a blanket off of the wide bed, and can’t help but look up at her, wondering what this is. It should be being punished right now, not spoiled. It thinks the woman just smiles back at it, though, which means that it is doing what she wants, at least for now. It lays its head down, pillowed on its arm, and feels the warmth seep into its bones. It hears the door open, but doesn’t hear it close again.
--
It wakes to shuffling, the sound of feet across the floor and blankets moving on the bed. The fire has burned down to red embers, the flames savoring a heavy log and putting off lazy, steady heat. It’s been asleep—it slept! While there was a guest! It shoves off the warm blankets, sitting up to see the woman halfway into bed already. She never woke it! She shouldn’t have needed to, but—it’s such a lazy bitch, just letting her do all of her own work. It gets up, stumbling towards her, and kneels at her feet, hoping that it can do—something. Perhaps she’ll want—it can’t give a massage with its hands like this, but some clients enjoy its mouth?
“Oh, hello, sweetie. You didn’t have to get up.”
It bows a little deeper, because it didn’t mean to be displeasing. She sounds tired, like it’s giving her more work instead of being a help, and that grates on its already-fearful nerves.
“But, now you are up, might as well,” she says, and bends down to feel at the collar around its neck. It goes slack, thinking she means to use the collar to guide it and wanting to go easily so as to avoid being choked with it. Instead of tugging, though, she seems to be feeling around the collar, and she finally stops to work at the latch on the back. It can’t help the immediate reaction—it grabs at her wrists, which it should not do, but she can’t—she can’t take the collar, the collar says it’s Master’s, the collar needs to stay on—it looks up, seeking any kind of answers in her face, which is difficult in the dark--
She doesn’t slap it for grabbing her, but she doesn’t move her hands, either.
“I went down to the innkeeper and paid him ten gold,” she says, steady and even. “He doesn’t own you anymore.”
It blinked. Master—was not master. Not anymore. The woman was Master, and it was grabbing her hands and looking disrespectfully into her face.
“Sh, no, you don’t have to be scared,” she says, as it keens out an apology and bows down in front of her. “Shh. Here, I’m just taking this off. Do you have a name, honey?”
The collar slithers off its neck, the leather worn by years of use slipping off of over-smooth, over-sensitive skin. It feels strange. It feels like its hands did, before the bandages, the slight ache and vulnerable fear of existing unbound, and it shivers, flinching at the clink of its metal tag being dropped on the bedside table. The woman runs her hands over its neck, the pads of her fingers drawing pleasant sparks of sensation on the over-sensitive skin. It shakes its head at the question. It thinks it had a name once. There are murky ideas in the back of its mind of a past, of a time where it could serve without crawling everywhere and getting kicked in the ribs, but it’s not sure if they’re memories or dreams. Mas—the innkeeper liked to grab it by the hair, slam its head into the wall or the floor or a convenient counter, and somewhere along the way, its vision had blurred, its hands had gone shaky, and it had become harder to think its thoughts out in neat, orderly lines. Its name is one of the things that had been taken away from it, that not even this kindness can give back.
“Alright, sweetheart,” the woman says, still petting its hair. “That’s alright. We can figure it out in the morning, yeah?”
It can feel tears streaming down its face. She wipes them away, and pulls it up to lie next to her in the bed—just lie there. Nothing else.
It falls asleep with its face buried in her neck.