Cunningly Escaping Fortune

The day I was sold, I hadn't been chained.

I'd gone with a dozen other slaves to the market. A large room full of people, all buying and selling goods, exchanging currency, and looking at the latest in fashionable garments. There had been a lot of noise, but not many people paid much attention to the slaves, who were clustered together standing quietly in the corner.

I'd chatted with a few others, talking about our families, our jobs before we were captured, where we came from. At some point I looked away, and when I looked back everyone was gone.

A man I didn't know had me by the arm, telling me that he was my new master now. He said there was no reason for me to be afraid; I'd just be working for him now as his assistant. That sounded good to me - after all, I'd always wanted to help run things at my father's winery! This must have been the way it happened! Someone saw that I had an aptitude for management and offered me a job.

He took me out of the market hall and into a carriage waiting outside. The driver snapped his whip and we set off down the street. It wasn't long before we pulled up at a large house near the center of town. We went inside and spilled out into a cavernous foyer decorated with marble columns and statues of naked men and women both young and old.

"This is home," my captor announced proudly as if he lived there rather than having just bought it two days ago. "We'll go upstairs so you can get settled in." He led me up two flights of stairs and opened one of several doors off the hallway on the second floor. Inside were several chairs and a pile of blankets on the floor next to a large bucket of water that reeked of urine and feces.

"This is your room," he told me. "You can sleep here or in whichever room you'd like." He left without another word, closing the door behind him as he went back downstairs.

I stood there for a moment wondering what on earth was going on when my stomach rumbled loudly enough that even I could hear it through my thick woolen robe. Fetching one of the blankets from the floor, I laid it over the chair so that it looked more like a couch than a bed meant for animals or infants to sleep on. Then I lay down on it and put my head down on my arms as if sleeping while waiting for someone to bring supper to this unfamiliar place. At least this way nobody would see my face or my horns when they came into my room with food for me!

The next time someone entered my room - just after dark - it was not with food but with chains around their waist and feet as well as heavy metal shackles around their wrists and neck to keep them from running away from whoever owned them like I did when I got to freedom last time! One woman brought in some bread and cheese for me while another brought in a bucket full of water for me to wash myself with later that night after she left because wherever she comes from slaves are not allowed in their owners' homes without being chained up first! It was horrible!!

When they left again once they were done bringing in these things they took away all but one blanket so now I am cold instead of warm too! And then right before dawn they came again, opening my door and shouting something about how they want their breakfast cooked! Now even though if I tried hard enough I could cook bread over an open fire using nothing more than rocks heated red hot by lightning strikes which we use as weapons in war... these humans are too stupid to understand such simple concepts so instead they let other humans cook their food for them! Even worse, this cooking takes place indoors where beasts might catch fire from their cooking fires outside so now none of them can spend any time outdoors unless they want to die horribly! What kind of terrible world is this?!