Sassy Saturday: Liberating the Body, Mind and Soul

Sassy Saturday!  Every week will be an excerpt from one of my novels showcasing a kick-butt heroine. If you want read about the original blog hop the link is here.

The previous Sassy Saturday post can be read here: Brave the Orderly Reality Vice

The context for this post:  Preceding from the previous excerpt, Annala has arrived at a Latrot slave market.
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Inside was a dark and chilly place. Meza found the light switch and pale lanterns illuminated every corner of the room. Annala gasped at what she saw. She’d read of such places in her studies, and even walked through a virtual reality reconstruction, but the real thing left her speechless and outraged.

Row upon row and stack upon stack of birdcages, and each one containing an elf. They were identical in every way save gender: shaved heads, clipped ears, pale skin, black tunics, and gleaming Subjugation Collars on their necks. All of them were emaciated and so clean their skin was as sterile as a vacuum.

Annala bowed her head and clenched her fists. She marched to the nearest cage and grabbed its bars with both hands. Instantly, they melted. Security measures activated to repel her and she melted them too. Within twenty seconds, the cage was so much sludge.

“You’re leaving,” she said tightly. “Now.”

The slave looked up at her with blank eyes. “Leaving is unlawful,” she said in a dull voice. “I must await my duly designated handler. Leaving is unlawful. I must await my duly designated handler. Leaving is unlawful. I must await my duly designated handler.”

It was a broken voice and it moved Annala to compassion. Reaching into her dress pocket, she withdrew a silver-grey metal scrap. It carried the shape of an “L,” but when she inserted it into the keyhole of the slave girl’s collar, it molded to fit inside.

This was no ordinary lock pick. Her mother gave them a long name, but she herself decided on “Contagious Contradiction” lock pick. It was forged from a piece of the Subjugation Collar that used to be on her own neck. A quartet of contradictions shorted out its control matrix and left modified rule structures in its attempt to solve those contradictions. They were half-baked nonsense and thus utterly useless to ordercrafters, but they were a godsend to elves.

The collar possessed program madness, and with minor tweaks, it could be made contagious. Even now, the young girl’s collar was shorting out by mere contact. It gave up and depowered long before Annala figured out the tumblers. Now it was nothing more than cold metal. Annala shapeshifted stronger hands and ripped it off.

“I am your new duly designated handler.”

“The Law of Order requires me to request proof of such a claim.”

Annala presented the Subjugation Collar. “How could I remove your collar if I was not your new handler?”

“You could be chaotic kidnappers and forced it off.”

Annala waggled her finger and tsked. “Foolish slave. You know the Church of Chaos requires several hours in a cursed location and a profane ritual to force the removal of Subjugation Collars. Seeing as I did so without such tools, I cannot be a chaotic kidnapper.”

The slave girl hesitated.

“The only other alternative is that Order is not as almighty and powerful as he says he is, and Order does not abide lies, so it’s not really an alternative.”

“Uh...Umm...Yes, that is certainly the less likely explanation.” She bowed and said, “Handler, what are your orders?”

Shifting one of her fingers into a blade, Annala cut off a strand of her hair. She placed it into the younger elf’s hands and gave her a gentle smile.

“You must be hungry. This will make you feel better.”

A faint chaotic pulse traveled through the slave’s body. It reached deep to connect with her tightly repressed Seed of Chaos and awakened an ancient longing. A rumbling stomach concurred. She placed the hairs into her mouth and swallowed.

A perfect copy of Annala’s DNA entered her system and a fragment of Annala’s Twin Seeds leeched into her blood. A little color returned to her skin and a little awareness returned to her eyes. Her hair started re-growing and her ears resumed their natural shape.

“W-who are you?” she asked.

Annala crouched to be eye-level with her. “I’m Annala, and I want to be your friend. What is your name?”

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Transcending Limitations, and the rest of the Journey to Chaos series, is available for purchase at Amazon as an ebook. The series is also available in Kindle Unlimited. The paperback format is available at Amazon and also at Createspace.

To learn more about the heroines of Journey to Chaos, visit the Tvtropes character sheet.

Brian Wilkerson is a independent novelist, freelance book reviewer, and writing advice blogger. He studied at the University of Minnesota and came away with bachelor degrees in English Literature and History (Classical Mediterranean Period concentration).