Slave Auction
Far away, on Emporia, a man was silently watching the royal group disembark from the cruise ship Candace 001.
The visual feed was coming from his own world's intelligence unit, discretely spying from space. It had alerted him of something important happening on Marakaran—so important that all the Princes of Erenveil were congregated there at the same time.
He watched with mild curiosity as he saw the Erenveil brothers and the blonde woman named Candace with whom he had met the day he rescued her from the band of pirate thugs that had surrounded her on Emporia.
She seemed healthy and cheerful and he was happy for her.
His interest and attention increased dramatically however when he saw Poppy emerge from the space port structure and run towards them.
He smiled with tenderness. His beautiful Poppy, the red haired Princess from Erenveil.
She was in her usual black warrior outfit, her deep red hair flowing in waves that caressed her shoulders and billowed out behind her. She walked with the natural lithe bounce of a powerful female fighter, with barely suppressed energy and strength.
She was his pride and joy.
Poppy was barely sixteen when he first laid eyes on her, a frail battered flower that had been stripped of everything including her dignity.
She was a certified virgin, something that was highly sought after, especially a beauty such as her, with red hair and heavens knew what color eyes.
She came from an upper class family. It showed in her stance, her bearing, her gentle rearing. Her skin was unmarred and her hands were fragile and unscarred from heavy work.
How she came to be separated from her family was a mystery.
All under-aged children and youths who made it to this slave trading place were either runaways who had gotten snared by the slave traders, sold by their family, or stolen from their home worlds and brought into pirate space.
It didn't matter any more. From this point forward, she would belong to the highest bidder.
She was standing on the platform in all her naked beauty wearing nothing but her long red hair. Her skin was pale alabaster and her aureoles the color of pink pearls. Her eyes were downcast so he could not see what color they were.
But it wouldn't have mattered if they were red or green or blue. She was so beautiful, his heart had been lost at that moment.
Encircling her thin regal neck was a circlet of platinum from which a dainty platinum chain was attached. The chain was bound to the pink marble column behind her, looking as if it was holding her in place.
It was just a formality of course, an indicator that she was a slave. She could have just yanked on the chain and it would have broken easily, but what was the point? Where else could she run to?
She was on a slave ship in the middle of deep pirate space.
The girl's starting bid price was high. So high that most of the bidders at the auditorium gave a sigh and sat back to watch the high rollers play their game.
Mattheus Cordera had attended this slave market to search for a male attendant to take care of his gopher duties, but all that flew out of his mind when he saw her.
Along with all the other bidders, Mattheus did not come that day with the kind of funds to purchase such a high quality slave as the red haired girl.
There were only two other bidders who could even approach the start price. They were gutless grizzled men he knew well.
One of them dealt in drugs. The other was a high-level visiting dignitary who lived on the right side of space but often came to pirate space to find luscious treasures such as she.
The bidding began in earnest as the two men locked horns. The price for the girl began to rise meteorically.
After five minutes of bidding, the visiting dignitary was starting to falter. Even he was not willing to part with that much wealth just for a single girl.
As the auctioneer began to wind down the bid war, it looked as if the drug lord would take home the girl. It was then that Mattheus could no longer sit still.
He called out in a strong voice his bid, slightly higher than the drug lord's bid price.
A gasp rang out all over the auditorium. This was a young upstart. Where would he get the money to pay for a bid this high???
The drug lord shrugged and made another bid.
Mattheus gritted his teeth and bid higher by a slight amount.
This went on three more times until the drug lord threw up his hands and gave up.
He didn't need the girl that badly. He had several dozen wives at home he hadn't seen in months. There were a few that he hadn't spoken to in over a year.
After the auction had ended, Mattheus had gone to the back office to finalize the deal.
Without hesitation, he had hocked his beloved warship over to the dealer for the amount of currency he needed to transfer over to the auctioneer.
The moment he did that, he was essentially homeless, but Mattheus didn't care. Fortunes came and went but there was only one red haired girl with the fragile face and body.
Mattheus would never forget the moment when she was led into the room to meet her new owner. They had given her a short white shift to wear, but they might as well not have bothered.
It was so thin that it was mostly see-through and provided little to no warmth at all. She was standing there in front of him, barefoot and shivering, staring at the floor.
"What is your name?" He had asked her with as much gentleness as he could muster.
"Poppy." She had responded listlessly, still staring at her feet.
Mattheus' heart nearly broke at that moment. He had not known who she was. He just saw a shattered girl that he felt the urgent need to protect.
"Come. Let's get out of this rat-infested hole." He reached out his hand.
As he led her away, she had followed him without protest.
Where else could she go? She was in deep pirate space with no clothes, no papers, no money. There was no escape other than death.