Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Unlikely Minstral ❯ At the start ( Chapter 1 )

The Children always seemed to ask what it was like before the Sayians arrived. Sophie never had the heart to tell them that she couldn't remember either. So she told them stories of Dragons, Princesses and goblins and watched with delight as their eyes shimmered brightly. The Sayians had reintroduced slavery to her planet, enslaving hundreds of thousands of humans into forced laborers, caregivers, and…pets. The humans that sold out to their barbaric captors were allowed to carry on with business as usual and even purchase other humans. This was Sophie's fate. She had belonged to Arthur Mortigus since the hour she was born, she had never known what freedom felt like. The man who owned her ran a bookstore, with drugs, numbers, and hookers on the side. With the arrival of the Sayians, who didn't read very much, people just didn't seem to have time to read. What they had time to do though, was gamble, get high, and fuck to relive the tension of everyday life. The idea that a Sayian could scoop you up and take you away to never bee seen again without repercussions, was enough to make the whole world antsy. But Sophie didn't have to worry, she never left the confines of the bookstore. Her day consisted of working from dawn to prepare both shops, the bookstore and to clean up the backroom. The one that always smelled of opium, blood and sex. It continued with running the bookstore all day with just enough time to scarf down whatever meager rations her master brought. At eight, the bookstore closed and the real fun began. Fun she was not privy to, nor did she want to be. From eight on, her master trusted her enough to do as she wished. What she wished was simple. She read. Slaves, according to Sayians weren't allowed to read, but her job required it, and Arthur, in one of his better moods, had filled out the paperwork and tattooed her himself. Arthur Mortigus was not an unkindly man, merely a frightened one. He constantly wiped the sweat from his bald head with a handkerchief made by his crazy wife who kept confusing Sophie with a dog. She accepted it, because his wife, while she stroked her `ears' fed her cookies. Arthur also used it to wipe his beady glasses in moments of most intense frustration. He was a small, fidgeting sort of man with a pudgy middle and stubby limbs stuffed into a green and white checkered shirt with suspenders and green pants and jacket.

Sophie didn't mind that her life was filled only with this store and a simple mat in a side room. It was better than the alternative, become a pet. That she wouldn't be able to bear. Anyway, she had the books, that was her only window to the outside world.

The children played outside the bookstore, down the little ally between the store and the sweet-smelling bakery. It was safe, that was the most important thing and just before they were called to dinner, they listened to the strange girl Sophie. But this perfect life was to be disturbed when the Sayians found it fashionable to line their rooms with books. It wasn't that Sayians read them, they merely used them as decoration. It was something exotic, and the more the Sayians traded with the other peoples, the more they found it appealing. Business was never better, however Sophie was no longer a child and the almost constant parade of Sayian men made her nervous. Sophie was a black haired, somewhat beauty with almond green eyes. She was pretty, under-nourished, but pretty. Most men passed her over because they assumed she was still a girl, but in fact, she had lived sixteen long years. Her breasts were only buds, with coral beestings for nipples and her period, when she got it, was light and pink, like the rest of her small body. Sometimes she dreamed she was a seductress from one of the books, the round-hipped honey-voiced woman who saved their country by sipping secrets from the enemy's lips. She sometimes wished that she was one of the whores in the back even. But that meant dealing with men, something she was not good at, at all. She dealt with them in a stand-offish way. Sophie was not as innocent as she appeared, it was always the quiet ones that had the….interesting, thoughts. The Sayian men bothered her, but once the shock was over, it was business as usual.

"Sophie! Sophie!" The children chanted up at 8:15 to the second, she sat on the curb beside the shop. She smiled and motioned the children to gather around.

"I want to hear about a beautiful princess! Just like me!" A little girl called out.

"No, no!" Cried a boy, "stupid stories about princesses in towers are for pansies!"

Sophie smiled and recalled a story she read the week before. She took a deep breath and folded her arms across her knees.

"The great fighting force of the Vikings had suffered a might defeat at the hands of their most hated enemies. The victor lined up his worthy, and brave opponents to be executed one by one by a swift chop to the throat!" The group gasped and Sophie grinned wickedly.

"Now there were three Vikings that had bonded over the language of war. And they sat together, contemplating fate. The braves sat staunchly cursing out their enemy, the eldest and wisest of the three sat downcast and the youngest and frailest claimed that he did not care if he died! He defied Odin the great warrior in the sky to take him now, for it did not matter if he died. The old man scoffed and said to this foolish one, `would you throw away your life so easily? And leave your poor parents alone for the harvest?' The young man quieted and waited for his turn. The bravest shook his head and laughed, `my wife and children will be fine without me! I die with glory by the enemy's blade! They will understand. ` The swing of the blade, thunk of the head falling to the ground." Sophie riased her hand to show the head falling,

"Yes! Yes!" The children cried, always up for a spot of violence.

"One head, another head, a third head fell to the bloodied ground and it came around to the three men. The brave man raised his arms and cried, `when my head is cut off, I shall sing the praises of my King!' The other warriors cheered and waited with hopeful ears as the brave warrior waited for the deadly blow. The sword came down and hacked his head off, the brave warrior, but no words sprung from his lips. The young man growled and pushed his way to the front. `I shall not close my eyes at the moment of death!' He ran to the executioner with a smile on his face, but just at the moment of death his eyes faded shut in surrender. The old man shook his head in desperation as the young man approached the sword, `wait.' He called before the blade swung, much to the young Viking's shame. `I would not want to nent your sword with my hair.' The men laughed and noticed, for one of his men held his long silky blond locks," Sophie winked at the girls. "One of the men held his hair as another prepared the blade but as it whistled through the air, the young man tossed his head back and the blade sliced the guard's hand clean off! The Vikings roared with victory and laughed with joy unheard ever before. Their rival also smiled, amused and ordered the Vikings released. Thus the moral is, that it is better to be cunning, than strong and brave."

The children clapped and rose upon hearing their parents call them in for dinner. Sophie smiled and promised a story about a princesses and goblins tomorrow. She left the happy space where the children sat to return to her mat and the Book of Ballads. If she had noticed the tailed warrior that had been contently eavesdropping, she would have stuck to silly stories about princesses stuck in towers.

Sophie leaned back on her elbows as she shelved the bottom row of fiction, shuffling the books around to fit in a rather large novel. A Sayian was at the check out, buying three boxes of books, to line his barrack He refused to let the rich have all the sophistication and decided to bring some class to his housing.

"That'll be $242.65 Please," Arthur asked, his voice hitching and he wiped his bald head dry with his handkerchief. The Sayian grunted and handed him some crumpled up bills.

"How much for the girl?"

"T-th-the girl?"

"Yeah," the Sayian gestured towards Sophie, "the girl."

"What?" Arthur tried to lie nervously. "Just because you are going to line yourselves with books doesn't mean you need a caregiver for them."

"I will line your shelves with your brains if you don't tell me how much," The Sayian growled. Sophie's throat closed over and she had to hold onto the bookshelf. She gulped and watched with wide eyes as Arthur wrote a discreet price on a scrap paper. The Sayian nodded and gave him more crumpled bills. Sophie shook her head and backed away from the all-too-real scene. She found herself crying on her knees, praying to any god that would hear her plea. The Sayian looked towards her and Arthur's eyes followed nervously, shaking with fear at the sight of the newly-sold slave already displeasing her master. Sophie spotted them, and crouched in fear, her position returning to one she had learned as a safety precaution. She flung her upper body down, her head resting on outstretched hands while her lower body was still painfully bent on her knees. It was a position of absolute submission and penance, it was a wordless surrender. Sophie breathed in stinging, ragged breaths, waiting patiently for whatever befell her. She made a startled whimpering noise as a large rough hand wormed its way into her jet locks.

"Come here girl," He gave a short tug and guided her to her feet. Sophie stood ridged before him, her eyes downcast as a sign of respect, but she still trembled.

"What's your name?" Sophie's eyes looked quickly to Arthur, but he closed his eyes and turned from her, a sign that he had indeed given up full control of her.

"Sophie." The Sayian was large, but then again, they were all large, from what she saw, he looked no different from any other. Black spandex covering corded, hard muscles, topped off in that hard blue and yellow ribbed armor, she wasn't allowed to look at his face, but she was sure his eyes were black to match his spiky hair. He might even have a few scars to add to his young rough voice.

"Sophie," he rolled it over his teeth, "Sophie, you belong to me to me now."