Enslaved

Chapter 21

Kaida watched, horrified, as the slavers dragged a woman to the center of the clearing by her short yellow hair, shackles clanking, her screams echoing off the mountainside.

"Kaida!" The woman screamed, her Draconic echoing through the otherwise silent clearing. "Kaida, I love you! You must stay strong, you cannot give up! Keep living, my little dragon, keep living. I love you so much."

Kaida had tears streaming down her face, her chest shuddering with the power of her sobs. She didn't understand why these humans were so mean, why they had hurt her and her Momma every day. One of the humans threw her mother to the ground, slamming her into the Earth with such force that she crumpled and cried out.

"Shut up, bitch."

The slaver who had thrown her to the ground drew his sword, lazily tracing the place next to her shoulder blades where her wings attached to her back, drawing thin slices of blood.

"For your crimes against the Emperor's mining colony, we sentence you to de-winging." A slaver who was walking towards the two in the center called out in the human's guttural language, reading off a dirty and ripped scroll. "For your crimes against the Empire, the Emperor sentences you to death by decapitation."

The slaver rolled up the scroll and Kaida let out a sob that rattled her own chains as she stared at the woman who had protected her for her entire life.

"Momma!" Her voice tore out of her, her Draconic grating against her throat. "Momma, no!"

The woman looked to her, tears falling from her own eyes as the slaver pulled her wings back so they stretched out as high as they could before he raised his blade.

"Be strong, Kaida." The woman's mismatched eyes met Kaida's matching set, glittering with tears. "I love you, my little dragon. Never forget that."

The slaver brought the blade down where her wings joined her back and blood sprayed across the clearing, staining the dirt vibrant green.

***

Kaida jerked awake, her face wet with tears and her heart thundering loudly in her ears, her breaths rasping out of her loudly in the now-dark room.

"Kaida?" She jumped and her head whipped towards the voice. "Kaida, what happened? Are you okay?"

She blinked a few times before her eyes recognized Ryuu standing a foot in front of the bed with the dresser behind him, his hands half outstretched in her direction. She looked around the room before she remembered how she had gotten into this room and looked back to him, her tears slowly drying as she got her breathing under control. She cautiously moved to the edge of the bed towards him, pulling her wings behind her and sitting so her legs were off the bed and he was barely a foot away. He tilted his head slightly, his dark green eyes staring into her mismatched ones. The scales that twined along his cheekbones looked like vines, curling into half spirals at the ends and around his temples elegantly.

"Did something happen while I wasn't here?" He asked again, his voice laced with concern and tearing her out of her thoughts. "Are you okay?"

Her thoughts filled with her dream-memory again and she felt her eyes swell with tears again as she looked at this male who gazed at her with such concern. She shook her head as tears spilled down her face, not caring that she barely knew him.

"No." She whispered, not being able to stop the words. "And I do not think that I will ever be."

Ryuu's hands shook for a moment but he moved them from where they were slightly outstretched towards her back to his sides, his eyes filling with sorrow.