She had been comfortable in her 'old' life, even if it wasn't exactly 'perfect'. Her father was a member of the local council, and her position was rather nice, compared to some others. There had been little trouble with her schooling, as she was an excellent student, if she said so herself. Living in a large and well built home was more than a lot of girls had gotten, and she had welcomed the opportunity. And her family was quite good, with her sisters having found welcome, and nice niches for themselves in the fabric of the local 'tapestry'.
That had all been taken away from them with a single attack. Armies had come in, and beaten what little defense her homeland could have put up. The smell of smoke still clung in her nostrils, and she was certain that her captors would never allow her the chance to mourn, even if they felt 'generous'.
Now she was marching along with her sisters, their hands chained together, and that chain was attached to one around her slim waist, and to the one of the person in front of her. It wasn't comfortable, but then their captors hadn't exactly asked them if they liked it or not. In fact, she would have rather not had deal with them at all.
"This situation does not bode well," she muttered to herself.
Her younger sister seemed to think that it called for an answer though. "Well, what did you expect this to come out as? A walk in the park?"
"Obviously not, Akane. I'm just doing some grumbling. It should be familiar to you. That's something that you do all the time."
"I do not!"
"Little sister, you spend a lot of time complaining about 'this', or 'that'. Sometimes I'd think that you'd need someone who'd bother you enough to focus all your anger on him."
"Unlike you, who's taking this way to easily."
"Try thinking about what's going on, would you?" Nabiki asked, sniffing mightily.
"I do...."
"Don't fight," Kasumi interjected softly. "Please?"
"You're right.... It's these guys who're our real enemy."
The middle Tendo daughter gave a reluctant nod. "That's true enough. Not that we can do much right now."
"Yeah, but we could."
"What are you talking about?"
"Can't you figure it out? The way that I see it, if we could get free, then we could take on these guys, and make it so that we could...."
"Don't do anything rash, Akane. It wouldn't do for you to cause trouble like that," the eldest of the sisters admonished, almost as if she were talking to a misbehaving toddler.
"She's right about that," Nabiki seconded, holding up a hand to forestall the youngest's arguments. "It's not that you're not brave, or that we don't want to have even a couple of them get pounded on. We just know that blind attacking won't work."
Akane frowned at her sisters. "What do you mean?"
"Think about it. They have an entire army, and we're just part of a group of normal people who don't even have a weapon between us. Are you saying that you're going to defeat them all before those of us who don't fight get beaten into the ground?"
"No...."
"Well, keep that in mind. And remember that they can, and will throw as many warm bodies into taking you out as they had to."
"I get your point. Then, are you saying that you've lost all hope yourself."
"I'd like to think that's not the case," Nabiki admitted. "I mean, there's always the possibility of us surprising them at a good moment, or some other group taking them out. Or we could just be rescued. I don't particularly care, especially since things could be really bad for us."
"Our homeland's been invaded and we're being dragged off to be slaves. How can things get any worse?"
"You've seen how some of the soldiers look at us. They may think of us as being possible 'sex slaves', or even could simply grab one of us, drag her into some bushes, and use her to enjoy themselves with."
"You can't mean...."
"We're a disposable commodity, Akane. They can, and probably expect to, lose some of their prisoners. And they'll likely have no problem leaving bodies out in the open, and in their path."
"Those bastards...."
"Exactly and...."
"Hey, you there! Don't talk so much!" a guard called out to them.
Sighing to herself, Nabiki hoped that she was being too pessimistic. However, as she saw another mercenary leer at her like he was measuring how well her breasts would fit into his hands, she knew that things could be very bad indeed. As it was, she wished that her homeland had been better run, since that would have given them a better chance to have stayed free.
Instead, she was shackled, and being marched along to a life where being a 'slave scribe' might be a fortunate thing for her, while:
(Posted Thu, 01 Mar 2007 06:08)
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