Minori pondered what awaited her at her destination as she feebly marched along with the other chained prisoners. It was taking all of her remaining strength just to keep up with Cassandra at front to avoid being tripped over by her chain once more and falling on her Gerudo sister, behind her.

In attempt to calm her fears, she thought about the others. Wondered what Kyo would have done at her place, or even Aya. They were both once part of the Desert Snakes and went through sticky situations like these almost every day - except Kyo would have never been caught like this and chained up*. What did her drawing and painting talents doing for her right now? They most certainly wouldn't save her neck at this moment.

Sighing feebly, Minori rose her head slightly upwards, attempting to peer over Cassandra and Derek's shoulders in order to see if they were approaching some sort of destination.

(Ooc: * Since no one here is in the Mystery thread, I felt obliged to point out the irony that at this very moment, Kyo has been imprisoned and sentence on death row haha. As you all were.)

Talon sneered at Kiara as she muttered to Darion. Had it not been for that little wench and her team of blathering bandits they would have had a relatively easy journey. tThe only thing that gave her any satisfaction was the fact that her alleged "Friends" had turned on her and handed her over with the slaves.

"He hauled your ass, so that we stayed alive to at least see if we can find a way out of this. if you had died from being dragged over the turf we'd all be corpses by now." she sniped under her breath, but keeping her eyes forward and once again marching. She ached all over and she worried for the wellbeing of her horse and her hawk. She wondered if she would ever see them again, if she would ever see her family again.

She looked for Minori and wondered how she was holding up, knowing the shy artist was probably not used to long periods of marching or being treated so poorly. it was then her stomach growled, loudly and mercilessly. sher shrugged it off and trudged on with the rest of the chained prisoners.

[[sorry. didnt know what to say ^^*]]]

If there was anything Topah learned from observing the Moblin race, it was that although they were predominantly a war-like people, they were also very, VERY stupid. The fort seemed to be a mess, in fact, from the outside, it looked like the only thing the fort intended to keep out was rain. The walls that were made out of wood, stones, and mud, looked like they were easy to scale; he didn't even know why he bought a grappling hook and rope. From the two, adjacent trees, he dashed to the left side of the fortress (in relation to the front gate) as soon as the bandits and the slave group disappeared inside. Pressing his body against the wall, he looked up and saw a moblin scanning out into the distance for any enemies. Thankfully, they never looked downwards.

Movement from below caught the guard's eye. A crow had flown by the walls. Then, from behind, a hand grabbed his mouth, and he felt pain in the back of his neck. Soon, the pain faded away, as did his vision, and the last thing he felt was the air flowing by his body. The corpse made a soft, thud noise when it reached the ground. It wasn't loud enough to attract any attention though. There was a small store room next to where the guard was standing, and there were two windows, one facing outside, and the other facing the courtyard, where the bandits and the captives were. Most of the crates in the room were empty. While listening to Moblin in charge, he found a large crate, large enough to fit his body, his cape, and the sword on his back, and placed it next to the window. He then used his knife to poke a hole for him to see what was going on down below.

“Me giffin 'ive tousand rupees fur tem,” she declared. “Ur, yu ell dies.”

Man, five thousand rupees!? I really need to get into human trafficking.

As of now, there was nothing smart for Topah to do. If he attacked now, a nice army of moblins would come after not only Topah, but also the captives. No, the best thing to do was to wait and tail the captives to the cells if it were possible.

Neera stood in the midst of a storm of clothing, scarves and undergarments that all belonged to Corn hanging from her horns, her three digited hands tossing out more things from the deep chest whose flopped over lid she stood in, the hefty build of the thing easily supporting her minuet weight. Seafoam eyes shone at the simple pleasure of rummaging through al of them, three colours of paint adorning her mouth, streaks of running down the side of her face and staining her hands, in turn making a blotch of red transfer to near everything she touched, the empty tube lay somewhere behind her, crushed so that the cosmetic inside had gushed through the opening.

With a bleat of triumph, she held up the gown plundered from a passing duchess, watching it sparkle for a moment before holding it close to a body that was immensely smaller than it, smearing violet, red and crimson across the crystals that emblazoned the entirety of it, the harsh edges drawing blood in faint streaks across her face. But she didn’t mind, she slipped her body inside of the gown, she held it close to herself and jumped to the floor, bursts of happy laughter escaping as she rushed over to the large mirror, grabbing one of the Princess’ spare tiaras as she went, hanging it around the base of one of her horn.

“Maih Gushness!! Iah muustest beetttyyyfouh leedy innalandah!!” she whispered to herself, twirling one in the mirror once, before an immensely strong hand gripping her thin arm and brought her to a stop. The bells on her wrist snapped free and fell the floor with what seemed like an ear shattering cascade.

Cornelia’s face was a mask of pure fury. With a simple motion, she swung the pink-furred ‘blin into the mirror, the glass merely cobwebbing with the insignificant impact of the Jester’s form against it. The Moblin swung her again, this time harder, the thick reflective surface refusing to shatter. With a snarl she hurled Neera like a toy across the room into the very chest she had gotten into, a sickening crack breaking the hush with the suddenness and brevity of a deku nut, the low moaning of one in pain following afterward. It continued for a mere few moments before receding like the temporary blindness after a flash from the aforementioned nut, a dark silence that bristled with tension filled the void, joined soon by the grizzly legato of huffing breathes that rose the moblin’s chest and drained the red from her face.

“Tissun ell mine, turpid enimal. Yu net gun meke me luuk turpid. YU LISSEN ME,” her scream broke the daze the miniblin was in and Neera rose unsteadily to her hooves amidst the content of the chest, her brilliant eyes filled with sadness, her left horn hung askew, neatly broken three fourths of the way down, hanging on only by a bit of the outer layer. Yet, Cornelia did not relent. “Yu gun cum wiffin me, and yu gun ‘uction tem uff, and yu gun meke Wizrubes ‘eppy.”

Neera merely whispered in disbelief, from the corner of her eyes seeing the horde of mini and bokoblins that the Princess had summoned with a clang of a bell as they scurried about the place, making it orderly and right once again, taking away the mirror, and even snipping the broken part of her horn from her head and putting a golden cap over where it had been and wiping her face clean of makeup. “Ishda no weey fouah Leedy gonact…. No weey fouah Leedy gonact… No weey… Fouah Leedy…”

--------

The ‘blin guards, upon reaching the auction site on the far side of the Fort turned the soon to be slaves over to a single pair of shaman. Their wicked smiles mirrored the feel the smell of charred wood created as it pervaded all of ones senses, spurring the sickening anticipation of what was to occur, in turn churning one’s stomach into a frothing frenzy, bile many a times having spilt forth from the orifices of past captives, but the two were adept at their ritual now, and such a thing would not happen. Their guttural incantations wove their way through each of the captives’ mind, the same way that the heavy incense that fumed from atop their staves filled their lungs, stealing away their breath and consciousness in a matter of seconds.

They were transported to the holding pin by a single Big Blin, the same fellow who an hour or so later, brought them to the small auctioning stadium one by one.


-------

The open-air ring was bereft on nearly everything that would normally typify something as a stadium. In reality, the four seats immediately in front of the ramshackle podium were all that existed, aside from the holding pin and the ring of logs that separated all of the three features.

Yet, Neera normally thought it to be the grandest thing in the world, not caring that her audience was composed of usually three or less individuals, one of which she lived with. Rather, the bemused murmurs of the Wizzrobes or the high shrieking laugh of the Labrynnan envoy or the occasional chuckle of a Gerudo warrior who rarely inhabited the final seat meant all the rupees in the Kingdom to her, even if they were nothing compared to her Castle Town crowd., to have such a varied and exclusive audience was intensely amusing to her.

“Hawdoo, Iah Leedy Neera!” Silence, so she jingled the two remaining bells on her ankles and smiled deviously. “Dees esh da gud beeshd, Iah seey. Ooseey da soe!”

With a flourish of her pitchfork, she motioned for the first captive to be brought in, and the bidding started.

It was a Hylian male from the last batch brought in, and the Envoy bought him easily without fight from the Moblin Princess or the Wizzrobe, he had been handsome enough, and if the Gerudo had been present, perhaps she hadn’t have gotten him for so cheap.

Most of the former batch went to the Envoy actually, and Neera found the lack of bidding to be rather unexciting. However, the introduction of the unique Zora changed the atmosphere quite a bit, as Cornelia and the Wizzrobe fought for the better of ten minuets, the woman’s price reaching upward of two thousand rupees. However, it was the Wizzrobe, with its much larger coffer, that won her.

The Wizzrobe also outbid the other two on the pair of Gerudo, fought hard to get the pink-haired girl (which the Envoy fancied for a handmaiden), and the entire rest of their shipment it also purchased. Cornelia was furious that she had not gotten to keep but two of the slaves from the previous batch on one hand, and on the other pleased that she had made well over fifteen thousand rupees from today’s auction alone, enough so that she had forgotten Neera’s transgression and sought her out after saying her farewells to the Envy and the Wizzrobe.

Yet, when she returned to her tent, she did not find the miniblin. Nor did she find her spare tiara, three tubes of lipstick, a favourite ring and her spectacles. Roaring with fury, she ran throughout the entirety of the fort, and sent out countless search parties, but the Jester was nowhere to be found.

--------------

The Wizzrobe stood looking at its sedated bounty, its beak parted in a grin and eyes glowing a pleased yellow. With a simple wave of its wand, the newly made slaves dissolved into a mere collection of sparkling motes that then vanished from existence, leaving the holding pin they had inhabited mere moments before to appear in the land where their fate resided, a land in which they would become monstrous parody of themselves.

With a lingering look of disdain at the ‘blin behind it, the Wizzrobe then too returned to the Stone Tower.

((Continued in: The Confined Life))

Just like that, in the blink of an eye, the people he started to grow close to were gone. It was as if the two Wizzrobes knew that someone was watching them and needed to get the hell out of there. The extent of anger expressed by him only went as far as a loosely clenched fist, which still was a lot for Topah. He needed to think about his next steps though. Should he pursue the Wizzrobes? How could he even find out where they went? They disappeared using magic, something Topah was not even close to familiar with.

However, an idea formed in his head as soon as he saw the large, feminine (for now, this was a very loosely defined term) moblin return to her tent, the largest one in the fort. By observing her, he figured that she was the one who had organized the slave auction. And she was also probably the one who invited the Wizzrobes over too. She had to know something about these guys. And at this point, Topah wasn't about to filter out any information regarding the Wizzrobes.

Right when he was about to open the box, he heard a grunt and then a snort. A voice called from outside, "Me t'inks di' bok be beg anuf to hide da widdle Neera!" A smack. "Ah, whadafor?"

"Shh! She may ear us!" said the other moblin in his best hushed down voice.

Topah sat in the box running through his options. But before he could decide on anything, he felt the box picking him up and then noticed a large, nasty claw poking through the hole that was originally intended to be his peeping hole. Wherever he was being taken, it wasn't gonna be good.

"Haha, we soo norra 'tupid! Princets Corn gun geev us alorra stuffs for dis one!"

Then again, Topah could make the best out of this situation. While he was being transported, he readied for the perfect strike ...

The two moblins carrying the big box barged into Princess Cornelia's tent, in the middle of her furious tantrum. They took a knee and bowed down to her before continuing.