( Note: This is something taken from a story that I am currently writing. I've changed it slightly and kind of quickly summarized the last few chapters into a paragraph so that it makes more sense on it's own. If you like this, I have more that I can send from the same story.. This is actually from a section in the beginning and is a little more brutal than some of the later sections when Darii meets V'Reitaire, the other main character. Anyway, with that, here it is... )
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Darii awoke to find herself lying on her stomach, her left wrist shackled to the hard, straw covered floor. She felt the anger and shame well up inside of her. She thought the nightmare was over after the attack on her village as a child. Her entire village was destroyed by V'Reitaire's army. The children and the elderly were slaughtered, the strong and healthy were taken as slaves. She witnessed her mother's brutal rape and saw her father's head kicked in with a heavy boot heel. All but one of her siblings died that night. Ralis, her older brother, was taken away on a caged cart with the other soon-to-be slaves.
Narrowly escaping her own death, young Darii traveled by foot, trying to find her way to a neighboring village that her father used to trade with. She eventually collapsed, exhausted and starved, in the woods outside of the village. Fortunately for her, her father's friend Haroi came across her in the woods and took her in as his own. She warned him of what happened to her village and they relocated to a more discrete location, hoping to escape unnoticed by V'Reitaire's empire. She lived with Haroi and his family until her nineteenth year, when the horror happened to her again. This time she did not escape.
Shaken and afraid, it took her a few minutes to remember the events of the night before. She had almost escaped from the soldier, but unknowingly she had backed herself into a corner. She reached with her unchained hand to touch the tender spot on her cheek bone where he'd first hit her. He beat her ruthlessly that night, until she blacked out. Now her sore and bruised body lay here, on the wood bottom of the cart, traveling to one of V'Reitaire's many work camps.
The very idea of working to help the empire that destroyed her village, her family and her nice stable life, disgusted her. She feared for her future but her spirit was not broken. Twice her life had been uprooted and thrown into panic by this evil man's army and she did not plan on aiding him in his conquests.
Darii rolled to her side and lifted her heavy head. She winced as her body cried out in pain. She glanced around to see three other prisoners chained inside of the cart. She recognized the dirty blond hair of Fadore, Haroi's oldest son. He appeared to be unconscious. She was about to try to wake him when the cart began to slow. She heard the gruff voices of the soldiers as they approached. Auro, one V'Reitaire's lead men, opened the gate to their prison. He smirked at her and tossed in a loaf of stale bread. Darii's heart raced, this might be her chance!
"I have to piss," she informed him.
"That's nice," he laughed and slammed the gate. Darii scowled. Perhaps this won't be so easy.
"Asshole!" she yelled to him, as he moved to leave.
Auro swung around in anger. "What was that, bitch?" He swung the gate open again and grabbed a handful of her hair.
