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intheheartTitle: The Child
Rating: PG-13
Summary: The child wept silently.
Warnings: slavery, parent selling their child.
Notes: It was not unknown for Roman parents to sell their children into slavery in order to ensure they could eat regularly. Of course, this is Yvonne.
The child wept in silence. It was the most unnerving thing Aulus had ever seen.
He looked her up and down, critically. Apart from those eerie, silent tears, she was promising. Quite pretty, curly brown hair and doe brown eyes, a tendency to plumpness, and intelligent, if what the mother said was true. She'd do for any number of masters, any number of purposes; children were so flexible and so easily trained. Still...
He looked back at the mother, who stared at him impatiently. "Well? How much?"
"Are you sure..." he began, uneasy. "Are you sure you want to do this?"
The mother flicked a hand, as if waving off a fly. "Gods know I've no more use for her."
He named a price then, ridiculously low, and she named another, foolishly high; together they bargained to an acceptable amount, while the child cried between them, her hands trembling at her sides. The mother took the money and left without a backwards glance, counting the coins as she went.
Aulus sighed, and looked down at the child, now his. It was true she'd fetch a nice price for him, and if the mother had told the truth, she went to a better life than her starving parents could offer her, but... he'd never been easy with a child's tears.
Well. Better not to think of things he couldn't change.
"Come along, child," he said. "Time you learned your new station."
Rating: PG-13
Summary: The child wept silently.
Warnings: slavery, parent selling their child.
Notes: It was not unknown for Roman parents to sell their children into slavery in order to ensure they could eat regularly. Of course, this is Yvonne.
The child wept in silence. It was the most unnerving thing Aulus had ever seen.
He looked her up and down, critically. Apart from those eerie, silent tears, she was promising. Quite pretty, curly brown hair and doe brown eyes, a tendency to plumpness, and intelligent, if what the mother said was true. She'd do for any number of masters, any number of purposes; children were so flexible and so easily trained. Still...
He looked back at the mother, who stared at him impatiently. "Well? How much?"
"Are you sure..." he began, uneasy. "Are you sure you want to do this?"
The mother flicked a hand, as if waving off a fly. "Gods know I've no more use for her."
He named a price then, ridiculously low, and she named another, foolishly high; together they bargained to an acceptable amount, while the child cried between them, her hands trembling at her sides. The mother took the money and left without a backwards glance, counting the coins as she went.
Aulus sighed, and looked down at the child, now his. It was true she'd fetch a nice price for him, and if the mother had told the truth, she went to a better life than her starving parents could offer her, but... he'd never been easy with a child's tears.
Well. Better not to think of things he couldn't change.
"Come along, child," he said. "Time you learned your new station."
