Childhood Promise

By the time you reached your early teenage years, things had settled more for you. Talking and socializing still came difficult to you, but with tutoring and practice you'd learned how to politely hold conversations for hours at a time. You still longed to hide away in your room or stare at the pond. Yet, now you were able to pretend to be social.

You also started to have your first real crushes and adult thoughts. It was no surprise that Azaniel was your biggest. As he grew older, he became a tall, toned young man with dark eyes and a silent swagger. You knew that you could never marry him. Even if he were heir to his city, your father would never allow you to marry a slaver. Still, you couldn't help dreaming of him. Now, whenever he came over with his father, you followed him around like a crushing faun.

These visits were only getting more and more rare. His idiot of a father had made many enemies at court and offended women of power with his lascivious, misogynistic ways. Azaniel once expressed sadness that you hadn't seen each other in for so long. That he missed you. That admission had almost made you hum with joy.

From there the conversation took a stranger turn. He told you that some day in the future, his father would expect him to seek out his first highborn concubine. While he didn't have the choice of every girl, not being the heir, he still had a fine selection of noble girls who might accept his collar. Raised amongst a culture where such a thing was considered vile, you expressed disgust at that. Why not seek out a girl who loved him and wanted to be with him of her own free will? It sounded more to you like he was picking out a pair of shoes or some other precious object.

His answer shocked you to your core. He went silent, looked you up and down, and nodded. Then, in his usual flat affect, he said that you were filling out nicely as a woman. That when you were older, if you lived among his people, you would make a fine ****. You didn't have to worry about being seen as nothing more then a pair of shoes. If you had an owner, you would be the jewel of his collection.

Shocked, your learned speech practice failed you and you went silent. Everything about what he said clashed with every value you'd grown up with. You were a Princess of Telos. To even think of you as chattel ought to be a crime. Those feelings battled another, stronger feeling. That the boy you loved had called you beautiful...

"Someday, Princess, I will be a Prince. Like my father. When I am, I will come back here. When I return, it will be with you as my collared concubine. My highest prize. That is my vow."

You opened your mouth to speak but nothing came out. At the time, you could think of nothing at all. Later though, it would be the moment that you thought about most often.

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