Armana's Gift

VERA Mon' Avium

     They had captured her when she'd gone to pay her father's debts.

     She had the money and he had begged for help only two days prior. He was a good man, her father, but Vera had practically cut ties with him a century before when she took up the Priesthood.

     He was terrible with money and she now had it from her work. Not a lot but enough to help him. He had tried to start a business with the ruling House of Comoran Territory and it had crumbled down on him, leaving him in debt and abject poverty except for her mother's money. It happened to people, she knew that, but she wished it wasn't her father. She wished her bleeding her heart didn't want to help him.

     " Vera, I love you and if you could just do this one thing for me, I'll leave the southern territories and never bother you again," he'd begged. "Please, once last thing to do for your father."

     "Father, why don't you just work down the payment or pay it off with Mother's inheritance? She left us both a sizable amount."

     "He mumbled something then that made her angry. He'd used it all. Every penny his wife had left him was gone and now he wanted her to spend her gold to fix this for him.

     "You spent her entire fortune? Everything she left you?"

     "She left more for you," her father grumbled, looking away.

    "Well yes, she passed away before I could join Armana's service and wanted to make sure I could have or get everything I needed. It wasn't even that much more then your portion, Father!"

     "Please do this and you will never see me again. One last favor to your father."

     So she left her temple home in Skuat Territory, just north of Comoran and went, leaving her father at the temple so that a priest could help him find living arrangements.

     She walked to the docks and asked for the man who financed her father's failed enterprise.

     "This way, pretty," a sailor grinned at her. She followed the gruff seagull winged sailor and he lead her down the docks to a tavern.

    "Where are we going?" She demanded, her voice shaking from a bit of fear. She wasn't supposed to meet a man of business, from a bank or noble House. She shuffled her red and blue parrot wings. Those of Armana's lineage were often the pretty parrots of foreign lands.

    Her wings were that of the female eclectus parrot and she had been proud of their rich colors her entire life.

     "To the male your father borrowed the money from! We were told to be on the lookout for him or a young female that looked like she was from the Priesthood. And well..." The sailor grinned at her. "You scream 'Priestess', pretty."

     She stayed silent at that. Her father had already told them she would bring payment? That ass. He relied on her to fix this long before it ever happened.

     "Here we are," the sailor mentioned to the front door of the tavern. "I'll be taking you up to a meeting room they set up, so you won't be diving in alone!"

     She nodded and they entered, listening to sailors tell drunk stories. Calls for her services rang out but the sailor escorting her said that she was hear for other things then the service to her goddess. Once, she might have told him that she always did service to her goddess, no matter the function but these sailors put her on edge and she was thankful to the male escorting her.

     As a Priestess of Armana, Vera spent years learning the ways of fertility, passion, love, and the one thing that tied all of those together. Sex. Depending on what temple one lived in, males and females could come and ask for Armana's forgiveness, her penance, her relief and the a Priest of Priestess would... handle those duties. Vera was well trained in those art but using them in service to the goddess was different then having a lover, she knew that. When she helped someone who came to the temple for any reason, it was sacred. It was an art, to help a soul who needed the peace of a lover that was trained to make them feel their goddess' love.

     Meaning Vera was very good at having sex, and any male or female in their country knew by her red robes that she was. So, the drunk sailors couldn't pass up the opportunity to try and she knew that.

     Up a flight of stairs and down a dark hallway, the sailor stopped at the last door.

     "This is you, pretty," he smiled. Vera didn't like the smile at that moment. Not at all but she had business to attend to. He opened the door for her and she stepped in.

     Around the room were several rough looking males and a well dressed business man, who turned to her and smiled.

     "Ah, so your father made his choice, didn't he? He said you were pretty." The words were a stale cold and the smile on the wealthy males face was colder. It didn't reach his eyes.

     They had grabbed her, holding her so she couldn't run and the wealthy male stepped closer.

     "He had two options to recoup the loss he'd caused me. Get me all the gold. Something neither you nor him could do, let me assure you. Or get me half the gold and something that could balance out the remaining half on the market." He snatched the bank letter from her and rad it over quickly. "He has sent half the gold and you. Therefore, you must be the second half of the payment."

     "Excuse me?" she whispered in shock. "How am I half the payment?"

     "Simple, I sell you for the price he still owes me."

     "Slavery!" She whimpered. "That's... that's illegal in Mon' Avium!"

     "But it's not completely illegal in Krilos and I do have to regain from my losses thanks to your father. Have a drink, this will be easier." His smile was awful, everything about this albatross winged man was awful. She felt no guilt from him, nothing. Absolutely nothing from him. "I promise, this will all be much easier if you have a drink." He poured her a glass of wine and held it out. She took it and stared at it for a long moment.

     "It's drugged isn't it?"

     "Yes. You will sleep and wake up in a new home, your scoundrel father far away from you." He stepped very close to her and placed a hand under her chin and pulled her face to look him in the eyes. "If you don't willingly drink, we'll find another way to make a pretty thing like you go to sleep. But... if you drink, no one shall touch you for you were a good little girl who did as she was asked."

     She drank, knowing in her bones what he threatened. Rape was blasphemy in the eyes of Armana, was a crime in the eyes of Juneta, her sister and ruler of the Avium's gods. She drank the entire goblet, every drop and gasped weakly as the drug pumped through her veins. She had an empty stomach since she wouldn't eat before this meeting.

     Arms caught her before she hit the floor. Her father sold her to slavery for his debts. Everything she ever had, including what remained of her mother's fortune, was now his. He definitely made out with the better deal.