Once upon a time in a kingdom far, far away...
You may have heard stories about this glorious city by the oasis. Its palace, towering above the other buildings, stood in all its glories; its walls were marbles, its glasses tinted, its domes were wide and decorated with artisan mosaics. Below them, the walls were carved with geometry, its library was packed with books, its harem with women.
Down the hill where the palace was the residential and outside them, the farm. On the border was the market, a buzzing, living place packed with people from all over the peninsula. There beneath yhe colourful tents gathered the gold and silverware merchants, the antiques swindlers and of course, the slave traders.
A woman slave was asleep sitting down on the floor, her light brown hair fell on her face as she hid behind her hand perching atop her knees. She couldn't care less about the market's humdrum and noises. All that she knew was the gnawing hunger and her hurting wrists. Next to her several other women were tied up together with her, their feet shaking with cold.
Woken up from the heat and the smell of horse dung on the street, she raised up her head and saw a man, a young man who was a little too beautiful to be a man, with his hair pulled to the back. Its colour was red like fire and she swore his eyes were shining gold. Their eyes met and he turned to the merchant. She could hear what he said,
"This afternoon, a man with blue turban and a sapphire ring will come and bought her with the best price. Give her clothes and food, and treat her good until the said man come, her future is something no one can ever dreamed off."
He left and the girl followed him with her eyes. "Must be one of the crazy men," she thought.
Apparently the merchant thought the same. He looked at the girl and shrugged his shoulder non-chalantly.
The sun began to set when a man with blue turban, waxed beard, and sapphire ring came into that particular slave trader's tent. Both the girl and the merchant was dumbfounded. Was he the man the lunatic was talking about earlier? He fitted the description, but it was too absurd, too magical to be real. He paid no heed to their stare, for he was used to it, and instead began go see the 'goods' provided. He scanned them from head to toe, one by one, and as he saw the girl he nodded towards her.
"A hundred gold coin for her," he ordered, "I would pay for more but she wasn't all that ready to be presented to her new master."
Shaking, the merchant bowed and pulled the girl to stand next to him as he wrote off some notes and counted the money. The patron's servant stepped forward and handed her a simple robe before taking her by the rope tying her hand together.
They left and the girl followed, dragged, perhaps. She walked and walked until she felt like her legs were about to give up. She was thinking of a way to run but she was too hungry to think. Still she pushed forward. Still there was determination in her.
They entered the city and went on uphill until they reached the palace gate. Upon their arrival at the stone gate, she couldn't believe her eyes. She thought she was going to a farm, or a mine, or wherever, but the palace! She was never been there. The gate was so tall and polished, and the garden was green, greener than anything she had ever seen.
The servants pulled her towards the harem and told her she could not, and should never leave the palace. She was to serve the shahzade, the crown prince, as one of his servants and as one of the women in the harem. She was not allowed to say no to anything he wanted. She has no will on her own as she was but a mere property to the shahzade. Failure to comply means she would not earn her food.
The girl bathed and clothed in a simple gown and robe, simply so that she won't taint the palace's beauty.
She was then brought to the shahzade.
