Lament of the Slave

Chapter 68: Liberated

Sitting in the library with Mr. Sandoval back then, I learned that all was not lost, that the system was not so straightforward as to force me to have a collar around my neck and a master holding a chain to it if I ever wanted to get stronger. There was a way around it, and I just had to find it. It was a hope, something I wished was true.

Then came my first level up. It happened when freedom was taken from me again. After I killed a slaver, basically doing Rutledge's bidding. So it wasn't strange that I lost that hope in that moment and felt like the only thing I could do was just to put my head down and say. "Yes, master."

What happened here in the clearing scorched by Aspen proved me otherwise. I didn't need a slave collar to level up and managed to do it without it around my neck. Deckard's story confirmed what the librarian and I had theorized. Other people could replace the role of my master without me being their slave. All I had to do was accept them as my superiors, see them as someone I had to obey.

It was a way, one that didn't sit well with me, though.

That's why I was surprised that it was Deckard, who had spent much of his life serving in the army, who was able to explain to me the other way around my problem. It still wasn't what I was hoping for. In a sense, I still had to obey someone's commands, but it was someone whose orders I believed were worth listening to. I could accept that.

One thought nagged at me more and more, though. If it mattered how I thought of others to be able to grow in strength, Couldn't I have thought that of myself?

"Couldn't I be my own master?" I said my thoughts aloud and caught Deckard off guard. "Be what?" he asked.

I cleared my throat, unsure if it was a stupid question. "Being my own master, not having to follow the orders of others. Isn't that possible?"

"Well... that's certainly an interesting thought," he said, thinking about my crazy-sounding question, which could have been the key to my masterless future. "I don't know, girl. What I told you is some experience I had with [Slaves]. I could tell you about my visits to brothels, but I guess you don't want to hear about that, or am I wrong?"

When I shook my head, trying not to picture him in those establishments with these...ehm ladies, he continued reminiscing a bit. "I started out as a [fighter], nothing amazing, nothing special. At its core, my class is still a fighter. Anyway, when I was young... let's say it took me a long time to realize that my class isn't just about punching and kicking.

"I've seen [Fighters] gain levels after defeating sicknesses that made them bedridden or one after she's won an argument over her partner. These two fought a lot. So I say why not. Why shouldn't it be possible?"

Was it? Could I be my own master?

"But that is something you'll have to figure out on your own," Deckard said before adding a suggestion. "Or ask another [Slave]."

Yeah, I could. Unfortunately, the only slave I knew was Zoe from Broken Heart, a nice girl, just not someone I could imagine wanting to be her own master. Her interests were elsewhere. So I'll either start looking for other people like me, or I'll try to think about it myself.

But where to start? Was it enough to think about the order, necessary to say it out loud, or did I have to write it down on paper? When I thought about it more, and given what I've been through here, it probably wasn't as much about the order itself but the way I was thinking of myself after all.

But that alone might be harder than it seemed. Right now I saw myself more as someone who had been wronged, someone who didn't belong on Eleaden, longing to go home to my family, to be a florist again. I didn't want to be a slave, I hated it, but that's how the others saw me at first glance. It was hard to think of myself differently then, and even harder to see myself as my own master. Not impossible, I wasn't giving up at the first sign of doubt, just too damn hard.