When You Wish Upon a Star

Lance || Day Two: Worst than the First

I woke up being shaken by someone. "Wake up Lance," the person hissed. "Master won't be happy if you oversleep!" I groaned, who was this person, Keith? And why was he calling Allura Master? Then it hit me. I sat up quickly, hoping the nightmare had just been that, a nightmare. But it wasn't. There was a disgruntled Ryder, and I was sleeping on a bedmat in a small room.

My face must have been full of despair, because Ryder looked at me like he pitied me, but only for a second. "You'll get used to it," was all he said, before leaving the room the let me change.

After I had changed into my servant uniform, I found the servant master, who would give me today's chore. The onlygood thing about this place was I only had one thing to do each day. They had that many servants. Some of the servants were paid for their work, but many, like me, had been sold to Master Hallman through slave trade. It was sickening, really. At least everyone here was treated well enough, paid or not.

Today, I was assigned to weed some of the estate's massive gardens. It wasn't too hard of work, but it took me until late afternoon, and by then I was all sweaty and my back ached from bending over. But I was free to roam about as I pleased until curfew. I did, exploring some of the villa that I would be in more often. I tried to enter the women's quarters, but a couple of angry females sent me packing. I would have to wait till night to talk to Pidge.

I was just minding my own business, lurking around in some shadows, when I suddenly found myself surrounded. Three tough, muscled aliens had surrounded me. These aliens were like Galra, but blue, and shorter. That didn't stop them from being buffer and taller than me though. 

One of them cracked his knuckles. "So this is the infamous blue paladin then? It's pitiful to see what you've been reduced to. A common slave," he spat. 

Another one leered at me. "You see, boy, we like to welcome newcomers. It's sort of a tradition of ours." I had a feeling I wasn't going to like this welcome.

The third one just snarled at me. And then they attacked. No warning, nothing. Just a fist swinging into my stomach, causing me to double over in pain. Then another hit to my head, and my legs were swept out from under me. I had no time to react, and by the time they were done, and had walked away, laughing, I was half-conscious, bloody, and aching all over. At least they didn't break any bones, I thought. Then I realized they probably couldn't break any of my bones. They would probably get in trouble for disabling another servant.

Even so, I laid on the hard ground for over an hour before I managed to drag myself back to my room, and pull my bloody shirt off to treat all the bruises on my chest area. Seeing as my shirt was already bloody from my bleeding nose and mouth, I found a sharp edge to help me rip it to use as bandages to cover my cut arms, and ripped smaller pieces to clean up my face and staunch the bleeding.

Ryder came roughly half an hour later to find me still a bloody mess. His eyes widened, before he got to the point. He went to go find me a new shirt, and real bandages, and a washcloth. One hour later, my face was cleaned up, my torso and arms were bandaged, and I had a new shirt. I thanked him and then went out, as it was nighttime, and I had to find Pidge. Hopefully she wouldn't notice all the wrappings on my arms. I found her in a garden, staring at an ornate fountin. 

"Hey, Pidge," I called softly. She spun towards me. I could see the alarm in her eyes, but it quickly faded into relief. 

"Hey Lance. Join me, will you?" She sat down on the edge of the fountain, gesturing for me to sit beside her. I complied. She hugged me. I winced, and Pidge immediately backed up. "What's wrong?" She asked, voice so full of concern I almost felt guilty.

"Nothing. It's okay," I assured her.

"No, it's not, Lance, let me see." She grabbed the hem of my shirt and pulled up, revealing the white bandages clearly in the moonlight. She looked up at me, horrified. "What happened to you?" 

I smirked, trying to cover up the discomfort I still felt. "Nothing to worry about. The real question is-" I leaned closer to Pidge, so that my lips were nearly touching her ear. "Why did you want to see what was under my shirt so badly?"

A/N: To all my lovely readers! Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed the chapter, feel free to give it a vote or comment to tell me you liked it! This chapter is dedicated to @sparklebulldog, thanks so much for adding When You Wish Upon a Star to your reading list 'Plance'. It really encourages me to see people actually liking my writing! 😘

~Kitten out