stay with me

While she did feel just a little bad for teasing him, the relief that washed over Indigo's face and the smile he had at the end had made it all worth it. Humor and joking wasn't something she had ever gotten to do, but the more she used it, the more Em found she liked it. She also found she liked the way her name sounded in his voice, both the short and long versions of it. It had been so, so long since anybody had called her by her name, and something about the way Indigo spoke it made it feel all the more special. He thanked her, though really she felt like she should be thanking him. He had given her a new lease on life, an opportunity to create whatever she wanted her days to be. That sort of freedom was a gift no one had ever given her before, and now no one else could ever give her again.

She shook her head when he promised to be more on guard for her. "I don't want you to change a single thing for me, Indy," she said. Her eyes held his with a firm resolution. She didn't want any of their lives to be changed for the worse because of her. "When they come for me... If they come for me, we'll handle things together. Until then, I just want a piece of what your normal life is like. That would be enough." It would be more than enough. To have a normal life, a normal daily routine, not having to worry about fighting someone or being killed on a daily basis, no more scrounging for food or begging for water. Gods, it sounded like heaven!

Indigo then asked the dreaded question, the one she knew she would have to answer eventually if they were all going to be living together. Her stomach churned and her ears flattened to her head, tail beating anxiously against the rug. Her eyes averted downward and a paw began to run shyly up and down her foreleg. She had already told this story to Segin, so surely she could tell it to Indigo too, right? "I... I destroyed my owner's business," she admitted, though the implications of that reached much farther than the simple statement alluded to. In order for Indigo to truly understand the depths of her pain, she would have to start at the beginning.

"Do you remember the story I told you back by the river? Of the marble city by the sea?" She paused, allowing him to recall the story she'd told him to distract him while Iolaire had stitched him up. "That was where I was born. It was called the Kalamata Empire. The wolves that lived there were powerful, wealthy, influential over the land. I was born second in my parents' second litter, a total of five of us, plus my older brother and older sister, just two from their first littler." Emersyn slowly got to her paws, stepping over to the window to glance outside at the late evening sky over the plains. She briefly wondered about her siblings and if any of them were still alive. "For the first six months of my life, I lived in a dream. Everything I ever wanted was given to me. I lived in a house more akin to a palace, I slept in plush beds, I walked the marble streets and swam in the sea, I never went hungry." A whimsical smile touched her lips, but then like a ghost, vanished as storm clouds gathered in her eyes. By her presence here today, this story did not have a happy ending.

"When I turned six months, my father rounded us up... all except my two older siblings. He said he was taking us somewhere special, then loaded us into a wagon, and took us out of the city. He ended up bringing us to a slave market." Emersyn sat back on her haunches and turned to look at Indigo over her shoulder, trying to keep her emotions in check, but the forlorn look in her eyes betrayed the hurt she still felt. "The Kalamata Empire has only one law regarding breeding: a family may only ever have one son and one daughter. Any other pups must be disposed of somehow. I didn't discover all of this until later in my life, but I learned that me and my siblings had been an unwanted pregnancy for my parents, and they had always intended to sell us for money, since my older siblings were the ones they chose. She was stunningly beautiful and he was destined to become a great warrior... We were just burdens and commodities..."

Em shook her head with disgust and looked out the window again. "My siblings and I were sold off one by one. Three were bought to be servants to wealthy families, one I believe was sold into the sex trade, and I was bought by a wolf named Matalar," she explained, trying not to flinch from the bitter taste his name left on her tongue. "Matalar owned a gladiator team made entirely of slaves. He would throw them into fights and tournaments to win riches, then pamper himself and repeat the cycle. He bought me because I was the biggest and feistiest of my siblings. He took me to his training camp, and for the next six months he trained me ragged. Every day he pushed me more and more. Harder, stronger, faster, meaner, better... Nothing was good enough. The other pit fighters were just as hardened to the world because of him, so here I was, this little puppy given up by her family, all alone in a world that only wanted me to bleed."

"On my first birthday, he put me in my first real fight. I was scared, unprepared, but somehow I won. I fought for my very life, and I killed someone else in the process... The crowd loved it, and Matalar loved that I made him money. He rewarded me with a special dinner that night, and told me I would get more rewards if I did better. So I did. I trained nonstop and fought every chance I could so I could have fresher meat, a blanket to go with my bed, my own cell... They were pittance rewards, but they kept me alive. I kept getting better and better and winning more and more. Matalar called me 'his best investment'." She shuddered with disgust again as she recalled how he had smiled at her and caressed her cheek when he said those words. "I got very good at combat, I was able to detach myself and stop feeling anything. Killing became as normal as breathing because it was all I had. The other fighters, they became envious of me and resented me for the rewards I got, saying I was favored because I was the only woman fighter. I didn't care. I didn't need to be their friend."

"But what caused everything to fall apart was when Matalar entered us into a tournament with a huge prize. A team of six of us were signed up, and he promised whoever fought the best would receive anything their heart desired. My teammates, they must have decided they didn't want me getting anything else, because the night before our first fight, they plotted to cut me down to size so I could fail." This was it. This was the pivotal moment. Emersyn took a deep breath, her body trembling as she released it in a shaky sigh. "In the middle of the night, they attacked me..." She flinched, squeezing her eyes shut. Say it properly. Out loud. "They... They raped me... All five of them, over and over, taking turns while the others held me down and bit and beat me. I tried to fight back, I threatened, I begged, I cried, I screamed, but they just laughed and told me it's what I deserved for being master's little whore, and that my place as a woman was always to be beneath a man."

"I don't know how long they were at it for, it felt like hours. I just lay there afterwards, disgusted and horrified while they slept like they'd had the best fucking night of their lives. I couldn't sleep, I just wanted to tear off my skin and die." The pain and revolt on her face gave way to anger and shame. Indigo didn't need to worry about getting revenge on those wolves. Emersyn had already done so. "When we were led into the arena the next morning, I was broken. I couldn't think, I couldn't focus, I couldn't even hear the crowd. I was so disgusted and ashamed and betrayed. All I could think about what was the wolves standing next to me had done and said... Hell, I still fucking smelled like them... Something in me snapped, and before the fight began, I turned and started tearing into those bastards, one after the other, ripping them apart in front of everyone. I saw their looks of shock and horror, I listened to them scream as I eviscerated them until they ere barely recognizable as wolves."

Emersyn was trembling visibly now, her claws scratching at the stone floor while her tail jerked anxiously behind her. Her skin crawled every time she recounted that story and she could feel her stomach churning as she felt the phantom bodies still on top of her whenever she lay down. "Matalar was furious with me. I had killed his five best fighters, cost him what he bought them for, and lost him that prize money. He said I 'destroyed his entire business with my stupidity', and that I should've just taken what they'd done to me and forget it." The fucking prick... If she ever saw him again, she'd feed him his own entrails. "I told him I didn't care, that all I wanted to do was run away and die. Unfortunately for me, Matalar is a cruel and vindictive man, because he gave me exactly what I asked for. Late one night, he opened my cell and told the other fighters that whichever one hunted me down and killed me would get their freedom. Then he smiled at me and told me to run away and die, just like I wanted."

With her story told, Em hung her head and took a few deep breaths to steady herself. She had to really focus on the quiet of the castle to remind herself that she was safe here, there was no danger here. Duo-toned eyes eventually opened to look back up at Indigo, already anticipating the look of horror or contempt on his face for her. She expected it; it was what she felt for herself, so why wouldn't he feel it too? "That was a season ago now. I've been running since then. Part of me thinks I'll be running for the rest of my life. Matalar holds a grudge like no one else, and he won't rest until he's gotten his payback and I'm dead."

"Emersyn"