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For any slave, being traded was one of the most terrifying periods of time possible.
It was a moment of utter vulnerability. No attachments to any master equalled the lack of any protection. And the trader would virtually do anything to sell you.
The trader would want to get rid of you as quickly as possible, for as high a price as possible. The buyer would want to get you as cheaply as possible. That mostly resulted either in haggling – if the buyer was already hooked – and having your potential new owner point out all your flaws aloud was never a good thing. Or the buyer would walk away if they considered you too expensive. Though depending on the potential buyer, that could be a good thing. Mostly, the main risk of not being sold immediately was an assortment of punishments, a lowered price, and finally a change of traders to someone who dealt in lesser-grade goods.
And then there were the auctions, of particular horror to any slave. Being paraded in front of an audience, often unable to see who was bidding, sometimes forced to perform on stage – those were things slaves’ nightmares were made of.
But Robert had been bought and sold so many times he considered himself above that fear. He had grown so accustomed to the situation that it didn't bother him much anymore.
Born and raised as a pedigree pet on a specialised breeding farm on Malicorn, he had been trained to become the perfect pet for a high-ranking noble or filthy rich commoner.
At his first auction, he had been sold as the evening's prime piece. His price had been astronomical. His first owner had treated him accordingly, locking him up, enjoying him privately and only showing him to his most esteemed guests.
Consequently, there had never been an opportunity for Robert to create any sort of personal attachment in his owner, those emotional ties which were so crucial in ensuring you would not be resold.
So, at some point, the novelty had worn off and Robert had been passed on as a precious gift. Not that it had mattered how precious he was by that point. Used goods were used goods and his best shot at a permanent owner had been wasted.
But he had been young and foolish and hopeful. Teenagers were like that.
Foolish had gone first.
Then young.
Finally hopeful.
He had been passed on, sold, resold, inherited, even stolen. Every possible way for a slave to change ownership had at some point happened to him, his price dropping a bit each time, eroding like a mountain worn down by the rain.
He had grown too old to be a cute pet, too old to be an experienced pet, then simply too old, finally ridiculously old. He clearly remembered that dreadful morning he had stood in front of a bathroom mirror and noticed the first lines around his eyes.
That had been years ago.
He was still handsome, but his youth was unquestionably gone. He was still sinewy and poised, his dark hair still in short, thick curls. But there were the first flashes of grey in his hair, a sprinkle of salt in the pepper of well-groomed goatee that he hoped would give him a bit more sophistication. He had to watch his diet not to gain weight, and more often than not, he had to struggle to keep up with his exercises.
Robert had been thirty-eight when his last owner – a man he had never even met, locked up in his serail with much younger boys – had died from poisoning.
The cute boys had passed into his owner's son's possession, while Robert had been sold once more. For a pittance, considering what he had been worth to start with.
But none of those countless changes of owner had prepared him for the latest turn of events. He simply hadn't been prepared for the utter humiliation of being picked out from a catalogue and ordered via mail. You bought a pack of field slaves or miners from a catalogue. But a pet? That was the definite low point of his career.
That the buyer had not bothered to show up in person, that buying him was so insignificant – it got to him much more than he would have expected.
Of course, he should have been happy to have been sold at all. He had spent nearly a year in this latest trader's stock and the trader had already joked that he would keep him as a lucky charm because everything else had been selling exceedingly well since he had picked up Robert.
As slave traders went, he had been pretty nice, making sure his stock was kept not just in good physical shape, but also providing enough mental exercise for his high-grade slaves so they didn't go insane from boredom. Reader pads were cheap on Floor and allowed the trader to improve his stock’s quality by making his slaves learn useful new skills. In Robert's case, that had meant newspapers and magazines from all over the empire to keep him up to speed on current gossip. After all, it was unlikely anyone in their right mind would buy a pet his age for mere physical entertainment.
And from one day to the next, he had been sold with no warning whatsoever. He hadn't been told whom he had been sold to. Just to pack his few personal belongings and get ready to move out of the tiny cell he had called home for much too long.
But while his owner hadn't deemed him sufficiently important to look at him personally, he had paid the exorbitant price for a single-person teleport from the planet Floor to wherever it was that his new master lived. At least the teleport spared him the dreadfully boring weeks an average freight ship needed to get from planet to planet.
The slave trader's mail order operation on Floor had been big enough to warrant its own porter circle, but on the other end, Robert arrived on a huge public platform. The sudden noise hit him like a physical punch to the gut. People talking and shouting, luggage and freight being moved by big and small vehicles, the roar of engines nearby. Everything one expected from a spaceport – if one expected to arrive at a spaceport. Robert had been through plenty of them in his life, probably more than most free people ever got to see, travelling with his various masters or in transit when being traded onwards. None of them had looked like this.
The porter platforms were circles painted on naked concrete on a narrow strip, only separated with a steel mesh fence from the landing field for small crafts right next to it. The landing field for larger spaceships further away was pockmarked with craters of various sizes. It would have looked badly maintained if the rest of the spaceport hadn’t been overflowing with workers doing repairs. On Robert's left, there was a giant crater with ragged edges that workers with heavy machinery were busy filling up. On the right, a new building was being raised – all sleek steel and glass – which would have fitted in nicely in one of Floor's posh trading quadrants. And in between all that, somehow the regular traffic of a planetary, main spaceport was squeezing through.
It looked like the cleanup after a war.
And as in every other spaceport, everyone was in a hurry. Robert had barely enough time to look around once before an attendant in a security uniform ushered him off the platform to make room for the next arrival. Robert was deeply grateful that the man didn't instantly abandon him to the chaos but instead took him by the elbow, leading him onwards. He was cargo, after all, not a passenger.
He let himself be led meekly, paying little mind to where they were going and very much attention to not losing his one piece of luggage, a large bag containing his meagre wardrobe, his extensive beauty case and the reading pad he had shamelessly packed – even though it, of course, belonged to the trader – hoping that his new master lived too far away for the trader to demand it back.
The security guy led him across the spaceport and stopped in front of a veritable N'Ptalini warrior, wearing hightech tribal armour and sporting several daggers strapped to his body and a heavy blaster in a holster on his hip. His skin was dark grey with dark blue striations while his quills were an amazing shade of electric blue streaked with white. Had he been sold to an N'Ptalini ganglord? But the way the N'Ptalini was leaning against the side of a sleek hoverglider limousine, parked smack in the middle of the surrounding spaceport chaos made him look more like the empire's weirdest chauffeur.
Robert’s contact with the N'Ptalini had been limited so far. One of his former mistresses had kept several N'Ptalini pets due to an irrational fear of getting pregnant. Humans and N'Ptalini could not reproduce, so that was one way of ensuring fun without remorse. Robert's job had been to teach the young non-humans how to please their mistress. But those had been trained slaves, too, and most probably not representative of their culture.
This one looked much more like the murderous, bloodthirsty N'Ptalini one saw in the movies, what with the many sharp teeth in what Robert hoped was meant as a welcoming grin.
No, definitely not his new owner. While his new owner had paid so much to have him expressly delivered, he hadn’t been bothered to come buy him in person, thus it was unlikely he would come pick him up personally. This had to be some sort of guard, sent to retrieve him.
Robert quickly lowered his gaze and abandoned the idea of asking where he was or who he belonged to now. Not that it was a pet's place to ask such questions at all, but with a servant, he might have dared. This N'Ptalini, however? Apparently his new master liked to keep dangerous company. It wasn't unusual for a master to share his pets with his guards. The thought of getting fucked by a creature such as this one was at the same time terrifying and exhilarating.
He didn't object when the warrior took his bag to put it in the trunk and meekly let himself be ushered into the backseat of the hoverglider.
The N'Ptalini slid into the driver’s seat and they took off.
At his speed, Robert imagined various other travellers diving out of the path of the starting glider, shouting and cursing, but they were up too quickly for him to spot any casualties. Instead, he used the new vantage point to try to figure out where he was. The city they were heading towards sprawled out from the foothills of low mountains and to squeeze against a coastline. Most of it was in the same phase between destruction and re-building as the spaceport. With the scale of the destruction, only one planet came to mind which had suffered such a large attack: Aylian.
That fit right in with the N'Ptalini. Aylian had one of the largest N'Ptalini populations of the Empire. It had been one of the planets they had conquered during the Urchin Wars, and even though that was almost two-thousand years ago, the animosity between humans and N'Ptalini was stronger here than anywhere else. Most N'Ptalini were considered lower-class citizens, living in poverty or in feral tribes in the abundant mountains. And that was about as far as his education regarding Aylian went.
Robert had pitifully little knowledge of the current situation on the planet. The reading material he had been provided with while he had been in stock had consisted mostly of social gossip, not political intricacies or recent military history. He only knew that there had been a demon invasion, that the initial wave had taken Aylian, and they had afterwards been soundly defeated when the Empire brought its full might to bear on them. After that, the demons had been quick to make peace. That was about half a year ago and Robert had no clue what had happened since.
So for all he knew his new master might be a demon. Maybe even one of these new demons with a soul of their own, those he had read about in his magazines. Apparently, they were considered 'just another non-human race' by the Emperor and even the Church was handing out certificates to them. But what would a demon want with an old pet like him?
With a sigh, Robert dropped his head back against the seat. Who was he kidding? He had no idea for what purpose his new owner had purchased him. He had never seen his listing in the catalogue he had been ordered from; it could have been accurate or completely fabricated. There was a significant chance that he would be returned as soon as the buyer had had a look at him in person.
There were moments when he hated being at the mercy of a slave trader, he thought with caustic amusement. He would probably have been better at making a convincing sales pitch for himself by now. He had witnessed enough of them to know what worked and what didn't.
“Hey, pet.”
Enjoying his misery as he had been, it took him a moment to realise the N'Ptalini guard was talking to him.
He was slipping in his manners.
“Yes, sir?” he tried to make up for it with extra polite subservience.
“Look out the window to your right if you want a look at your new home,” the warrior told him, entirely unmoved by Robert's grovelling tone of voice.
Curious, Robert peered outside and watched as they descended towards the sprawling fortress that dominated the top of a hill at the centre of the city. The Ducal Palace, Robert guessed. Repairs here were almost completed already. The N'Ptalini guided the glider down to one of the courtyards, setting down among several others.
So apparently, his new master lived at the palace. So who would it be? A high-ranking member of the castellan's office? Or some courtier? Maybe an officer of the ducal guard?
“It's the duke,” the warrior said, deadpan.
Was he reading his mind? Robert hadn't known N'Ptalini could be psions.
“Well, if you think that loudly, it's hard not to pick it up. And yes, some of us are psychic, though it's rarer than in humans. It's a special talent of mine that the Duke finds very useful.”
Finally, the first words of the N'Ptalini penetrated his mind.
The Duke was his new owner.
Robert had been owned by nobles before, but never by any of such high rank. He raked his memory for any details about his new master. Vaguely, he remembered reading that the old duke had been killed during the demon invasion of Aylian and that his youngest son now held the title. Oh, that was dreadfully little information to go by.
Why in all the empire would a young duke buy a pet like him?
The N'Ptalini got out of the glider and opened the door for Robert with a slight smirk. “I hope you don't need much sleep. The Duke's quite a handful.”
Now, what was that supposed to mean? Sadly, this time the warrior did not reply to his thoughts, but instead grabbed Robert's bag from the trunk, and led the way inside the palace. Though, this was more of a fortress, Robert had to admit. Most nobles preferred a more airy, representative style for their homes, while this was definitely built to withstand invasions, with its thick walls and narrow windows. Maybe the fortress hadn't been so damaged in the first place and that was why repairs looked all but finished here.
On their way through the fortress, it became clear that the place had been breached and looted, however. There were scorch marks on naked stone walls and very little furniture or decorations in sight. The maze of corridors was confusing, but Robert didn't worry about it too much. After all, it was unlikely a pet like him would ever have to find his way on his own.
Much too soon, they reached what had to be the ducal suite. Robert was still trying to prepare himself for meeting his new master and trying to figure out how best to make a good impression.
Outside the suite, another N'Ptalini waited, guarding the door.
“Ah, so he's home?” Robert's guard asked.
“Yeah,” the other warrior answered, grinning, “and waiting for you. He can't wait to see his new toy.”
The N'Ptalini who had picked Robert up pushed open the door without knocking and headed inside, so Robert had no choice but to follow. The suite was furnished, but the style was eclectic to say the least. The floors were covered by thick, slightly mismatched rugs, the walls were bare stone, the furniture itself looked as though it had been scavenged from a dozen different rooms to fill the space, which probably it had been. It didn't look like anything Robert would have associated with ducal or noble pride. It looked ... comfortable.
“Thomar?” the guard called, surprising Robert yet again by apparently being on a first name terms with the Duke. “I'm back!”
A young man entered from where Robert guessed the bedroom to be, and he quickly dropped to his knees and lowered his eyes. He only caught a short glimpse, but whatever the bad side of this new master would turn out to be, it certainly wasn't his looks.
“I've brought your pet,” the N'Ptalini explained unnecessarily.
“Thank you, T'lark,” the Duke sounded youthful and pleased, “Please leave us.”
The warrior departed, closing the door behind him and Robert's heart rate picked up. Was he really nervous about suddenly being alone with his new master? He had thought himself over such feelings. Granted, there were about a million horrible things that might happen to him now, but he had reconciled himself with that years ago. There was nothing he could do anyway. He was a pet.
A pair of heavy combat boots came into view and circled around him.
“So you are Robert, yes?”
“Yes, Master.” Why had the duke bought him? Had he somehow been deceived? Or was he pleased with his purchase?
“Your listing said that you've had a ton of owners already and that you're very experienced at being a pet?”
So at least that had been accurate. “Yes, Master.”
The circling boots stopped in front of him. “Look at me, please.”
Now taking a proper look at the young duke, he couldn't help but think that the boy looked cute enough to make a wonderful pet himself. Lean and trim, but also a bit lanky, still growing. Chestnut brown hair that was just long enough to fall into his eyes in a floppy wave, bright brown eyes, a face that would one day be angularly noble, but at the moment retained a touch of boyish roundness.
Shush. This is your new master, not a boy. Your Master. And definitely not ever anyone he should dare to think of as a pet.
The Duke had been studying Robert himself and grinned. “I think they cheated with your holos in that catalogue. You looked much younger in them.” Why did he sound so pleased at that?
“I ... uh ... I'm sorry, my lord...?” His stammered excuse was immediately waved silent.
“No, it's good. Even better than I hoped.”
His master made no sense at all to Robert. This was not what he had expected. Not that he had expected anything in particular, but this certainly wouldn't have been it.
“Wow, this is so great! You are exactly what I wanted!” The young duke was practically bouncing with excitement. “I hope you're not too tired from the journey?”
“No, my lord?” Robert replied hesitantly.
“Awesome!” Before he knew what was happening, Robert was already being hauled to his feet by his wrist and dragged towards the open bedroom door. “Let's take you for a test drive!”