⛓ My beautiful caged songbird ⛓

Chapter 8: The Angel's doll

“When you judge me without knowing me, you do not define me, you define yourself. You think you know me? Think again!” —unknown.
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—Next morning, in a nameless town, Raven’s perspective—

After being unconscious for the last couple of days, Emerald finally awoke.

However, to Raven, it was clear something was wrong with him. She could tell from the way he looked at them as though everything was normal. What’s more, she could also tell the boy went through something. It was confusing as to why he kept his hair long like in the past, but Raven was sure he had some reason considering how well his hair was maintained. However, what bothered her was his appearance. When they found him that night, his skin looked sickly pale as the colour of his lips were fading. There were a questionable number of scars on his arms, like he’d been fighting constantly without a care for his body.

Her daughters treated the scars everyday with an effective ointment they made, healing the majority of the scar tissues. All except that damning slave mark on his shoulder…

That permanent scarring which will never leave even if the body died. 

“Emerald, do you know how you ended up floating in the lake?” Alicia asked, holding his hand.

The long haired blonde tilted his head in confusion. “I was in the lake?” He questioned, blinking his eyes in an innocent manner.

Ah.

This felt nostalgic.

There were a lot of times when Emerald gave Bambi eyes that made him so endearing, many people just wanted to have him and spoil him rotten. Even now, Raven could tell her her daughters were controlling their urges to jump at him and  hug him to death.

“I… no I don’t remember anything,” he said, sitting up properly. “The last thing I remember was that we were in a hectic situation because we all had to help decorate and plan for sister Yuki’s wedding, and—“

“Hold up,” Eve raised her hand to stop him. “Yuki’s wedding? Emerald… that was 6 years ago.”

“Eh?” He froze. “6 years ago?”

Raven’s breath hitched . “Emerald, do you know where you got that slave collar?”

“...My biological mother put it on me before selling me to the black market. I have had this on me since then.”

“...Emerald, how old are you?”

“15…?”

The old woman closed her eyes as she sighed heavily while her daughters stared at him with shock.

“It appears he lost his memory,” she said, turning her heel to walk to the door. “And some bastard made him a slave again.”

—later, Nikki and Puffy’s flower shop, Techno’s perspective—

What they uncovered last night was a secret only between Wilbur, Sam and Technoblade. For one thing, they were still doubtful if they were right about the painting because it didn't make sense that there was one Dream, on his knees and  wearing a dress, while there was another Dream behind him, being all freaky. Besides, the painting on Ranboo’s walls didn’t  help them one bit as to where Dream and Ranboo had gone. So they decided to keep this info, if it is helpful info at all, to themselves.

It was still unbelievable for Technoblade for the fact that Dream was a slave. Slaves aren’t common anymore, and the business of selling slaves was banned by a god 2 decades ago. What’s more, he always considered them to be a weak class, not because they had no assets and they lacked wealth, but because they couldn’t defend themselves and were dependent on their masters to protect them. If they were so weak willed, then they inevitably become helpless themselves.