[Orual]

An Easterling guard bellowed for Dôranna to hurry up with wrapping her arm. She shrugged her shoulders in reply, which sent a flash of fire down her wounded limb. She had landed poorly after a beating, and had sprained her wrist and badly cut her arm on a sharp rock. It bled freely for a long while, and she had not been allowed to bandage it until her work was done. Her dusty clothes were now red and stiff with her blood. She only hoped that it wouldn't get infected.

The guard screamed again for her to hurry, and this time she nodded her head. When a few more moments passed as Dôranna was tying the bandage with her left hand, the guard came in and grabbed her by her left arm. "I won't say it again," he hissed, his hot, foul breath on her cheek. She turned her head in disgust, but he twisted her head so that she had to look at him. "And I won't say it in any Elf-language. Come now!" He yanked her up. She cried out in pain, feeling like he had ripped her arm out of its socket, but she stumbled along after him as fast as her aching legs would carry her, which was still not fast enough for him.

Her long hair was sticking to her face when she was finally dragged into the hall. She had meant to pull it up again--it had fallen out of its bun after a hard day in the fields, and the beating--but had not been able to with only her left hand. It would make her stand out. She flinched both from the thought and from the guard shoving her into line, just as a harsh voice called out, "All slaves stand!"

She hurried to where her place in line would approximately be. She was fairly far up in the line, having been in captivity for a long while. It pained her to see so few before her; she often envied her fellow slaves their mortality, and though she tried to forget that she had been in Nurn for almost as long as most of the human slaves lived, she could not ignore the fact that there were few slaves who had been in Nurn longer than she had.

"In number order!"

She saw a few grimaces, but it didn't bother Dôranna too much that the Easterlings thought of her as a number. She thought of them as less than that. And she hated the sound of her name on their foul lips, the name that her parents had so lovingly given her. She was not the gift of their land, not their silver fruit. She was their slave only as Number 11547, not as Dôranna Celebyavë.

Briefly she tried to rub off some of the dried blood that stained her tunic, but a sharp reprimand from one of the guards stopped that activity. She supposed that it was part of the cruelty of the whole ritual; don't let them do anything or occupy their minds. Let them stew in their doubt, and walk like animals. Like the slaves they are.

A grin twitched on her face, but she quickly suppressed it. She would not be like an animal. With all the dignity she could muster, which was considerable, she threw her hair behind her shoulders (when she knew that no guards were looking), held her head high, and marched proudly to her fate. If she was chosen to die, she would die like her father would have wanted to her to: like a warrior, not like a slave.

[ April 02, 2003: Message edited by: Orual ]