Master and Slave
an excerpt

A small black mouse scurried across the floor, but the temple guards paid it no mind. They had more important business to tend to. The young woman who had refused to take part in her own coming of age ritual had run away. The priests were quite upset at not having their gods given right to usher her into the next stage of her life. Most young women looked forward to this ritual. Very few refused this time honored tradition. Those who did were branded unclean, for a demon must have gotten to her before the priests had a chance to…help her…through this strange and troubling part of her life, and was sent to death. Though the people of Quasi-Khan did not believe in killing those poor young girls, they were exiled and considered dead by law. It was, therefore, not illegal to kill an exile.
Me’ Lynn had escaped after she had been branded. She had hoped to escape beforehand but hadn’t been able to. Through luck and her father’s good protection she was able to avoid the fate of the other young girls who had not yet gone through the ritual of womanhood. Many men in Quasi-Khan had decided that the priests shouldn’t have the pleasure of being the first to…pleasure all the young girls. And since women were not highly respected or even cared for any more than a man’s horse, many girls allowed the men to do as they please in exchange for not beating them. Most were beat anyway. Me’ Lynn’s father was a great exception. He had traveled to many places when he was young, his father being a merchant, and did not hold the same views of the other men in Quasi-Khan. He had seen many different cultures, but the one that had impressed him the most was completely opposite of his own. Women were respected and protected as highly precious. He had asked one of the men why he treated his women this way and the man’s answer had struck him deep in his soul. He still held the traditions of his own people in high regard, but treated women more respectfully.
There was another land which had impressed itself upon him, but in a much different way. The women in this land were not only thought of as lowly creatures, but as useless. All the young girls who managed to survive childhood (most were killed at birth) were cautioned by their mothers, find a strong man to be your master, even if he is cruel, he will protect you from the cruelty of others. At the beginning of their womanhood, they were sent from their homes and left with nothing. They begged on the streets, sold themselves for food, few survived, and those who did, only managed to survive as slaves in a man’s household.
One such young woman had pleaded with the merchant’s son to take her with him, to allow her to be his slave. She would do anything he asked, if only he would take her with him. Moved by the woman’s plight and exotic beauty, he agreed. He soon married her and took her back to his home in Quasi-Khan. Their first and only child had been a girl, and the woman hid the child from her husband for fear of her daughter’s life. But when she saw her husband weeping at the news that the girl child had died at birth she brought out the baby. She feared that he would be angry at her deception, but he was overjoyed that his child lived and taking his wife around her waist, the babe in one arm, he danced around the house.
Me’ Lynn had avoided the men of Quasi-Khan and fought the priests. She would have a better chance making it to the boarders alive if she slipped out quietly instead of allowing herself to be paraded out in public exile. Many men in Quasi-Khan and many other lands as well, hunted down these exiles for sport. Other countries didn’t care what happened to anyone except their own citizens. There was one land however, where all women were safe and protected. The land that her father had told her of many times, Salima. That was where she was headed, but it was a long and dangerous journey, being quite literally on the other side of the continent. One of the places she would have to pass through would be the other place her father had told her of, her mother’s homeland; Abda.
It was a long run to the city gates, even if you weren’t a mouse. But she dared not transform back into human. Almost no one in Quasi-Khan believed in were-creatures, even if they had heard of them, and very few had. She had inherited her ability to change form from her mother. Very few children inherit the ability to change, most were-creatures were victims of other were-creatures that survived the attack. But somehow mice were different. Maybe because they were one of the few were-creatures that were not predators.
Me’ Lynn ran for as long as she could before collapsing in an alley. She dragged her small body to hide in the wall of a nearby building, in case a cat came by. It took all night, and most of the next morning for her to reach the gates. Finally the walls of the city began to inch farther and farther away. The shadows of the trees of Malus Forest stretched out before her. Once in the safety of their dark cover, she shifted back to her human form and slept.