Ye we were, was a fun exercise.

[hider=To Survive as Chattel]The diluted buzzing of bedlam reverberated through the air, as if its pulse traveled through an ocean between the sold stone walls which separated her from her freedom. A muffled and choked sound, of the scores of faceless people with indistinct voices, like mindless drones climbing over one another vying to be heard and noticed over the thousands of other souls. And they were bloodthirsty. They were hungry and ravenous things, always scrambling and demanding for more, as if the previous  meal they had only reminded them of the empty pain that wreaked acidic havoc on their innards, and in resonance with their static tempo was a single dolorous beat. It was distinctly unlike the beating of a heart; it thundered only once, and it thundered slowly. Like a giant mammoth taking slow, carefully measured steps, or like a battering ram crashing down upon the gates of the very fortress that held her. It was undoubtedly the monster of the week, the next thing held in store for her, the next challenge, and the potential cause of her death. They’ve been trying to kill a little girl for years—for many, many, agonizingly long years. The rattling of chains from her comradery barely awakened her from her mortality. They could not distract her. The leagues of human chattel within the bloodworks were like flies on the wall to her, outside of her notice until it was time to eat.

The thundering had stopped.

Far gentler steps came down an echoey corridor from the stairs, though the girl knew that there was nothing gentle about them nor what they had in store for her. A beastly looking man of stony pigment entered the bloodworks, large and barrel-chested, and his deep, grating, and blasphemous voice reached the cell before he did, “it’s your turn, Little B,” and it made the hair on her body stand on end.

“Did you hear me, Little B?” He’d repeat as he turned the corner. “I said your turn is coming up.”

The stony beast-man stared down at the young woman, barely an adult, hugging her knees in the corner of her cell. Her newly gifted quilted clothes clinging to her body didn’t make her look any cleaner or scrub the dirt and calluses from her skin, and she silently stared down her keeper from beyond the bars.

“Little Bitch,” he snarled this time as unlocked the cell and entered. He was covered in leather armor and had blades and a whip at his side, attached to his person. Dirty blood and grime were caked underneath his fingernails. He said again, “Stand up. Get ready for your turn.”

Reyna said nothing—she did nothing, remaining silent and motionless in quiet rebellion. She refused. She waited. She watched. She was testing, her eyes carefully focused on her keeper, alert to a sudden change in movement. As the two glowered at each other, the orc reached his hand down to his whip, his nails digging into the leather, and that was Reyna’s cue to stand. She did so, and the orc took the hand off his whip. This song and dance was one that they were all too familiar with, and one that had physically scarred her too many times. Still, she exercised her will when she could.

The other chattel of the bloodworks would be the ones to touch her, to fasten the buckles of her breastplate armor and her gauntlet, to fit her sandals and shin guards, and adjusting the toga underneath. There was another orc, her other keeper, who would stand on the other side of the gates holding her sword and her shield. They treated her like a wild animal with fangs and claws, letting the expendable human livestock handle her when they could. Their fingertips were like hot irons against her skin, the way it made her want to spin around and scratch their throats out, but the armed guard near her was quick, keen, and all too happy to punish her. Her armor glittered in the torchlight, its fire dancing in the reflection of her brass coating. It was an ugly thing that resembled the pretentious aesthetic of the Imperial people, something pretty on the surface under the glow of the sun, but a faux gold in reality, hiding the blood-stained steel beneath.

“You’re fitted. Go.”

Reyna was escorted up the ramp. The Basin of Renewal she walked past. It was allegedly an important ritual in the past, but now profaned by a pool of blood and pile of limbs. She thought nothing of it as the faint flicker of light approached at the end of the tunnel. It was that, if nothing else, that she lived for these days: the light of day, and as she approached it, the silhouette of her other keeper made itself distinct against the bars of the gate. Her two keepers nodded to each other, as they began to raise the gates, cuing the indistinct buzz and uproar of the crowd. The first of her keepers pushed her onto the hot sand, and the other stared her down wordlessly, tossing her shield and her sword into the center of the arena for her to retrieve. Reyna slowly walked after them, feeling the stares and spittle of the crowd on her back.

“And so here we have it,” shouted one iron-lunged Imperial on a platform that jutted into the arena by a few feet, but even with the power of his voice, it barely whelmed the chorus of drunken cheers and boos filling the seats. “I am pleased to announce that this next match will be viewed by our very own and beloved Emperor Thules! It is my greatest honor that I introduce to him our next contender! Hailing far from here in the Wrothgarian mountains, the young Reyna has carved a scarred impression upon our beloved arena! A feral girl, a child of blood and battle, she’s become more orc than human! But can she survive the strongest and ugliest of Malacath’s children?”

Reyna picked up the sword and shield embedded in the sand, dusting them off. She closed her eyes for a moment and aimed her face toward the sky to relish its warmth upon her skin. The announcer’s voice began to cause the blood to pump through her veins, drumming against the inside of her ears, its speed and intensity increasing every second.

“Reyna—”

She gripped her gladius tight in her hand, and her shield was raised, her eyes lowering down to just above its rim. The blood was growing ever louder.

“—prepare yourself!”

He and the crowd had gone silent in her ears.

“Open the gates!

The gates from across the other side of the arena exploded open as an enraged ogre charged into the clearing with blood caking its body. It wasn’t even armed with a club or weapon of any sort, just using its massive, boulder-like hands to fight and kill, and even one strike from them was surely enough to end her life on the spot. For a few muted seconds, Reyna charged forward to meet it.

It was silence in her ears. Only her breathing and the blood pounding in her ears mattered to her, and as she sprinted forward with explosive speed, she trailed her sword behind her in the sand and left a scar in her wake until she suddenly turned its flat side down and, sliding beneath a swipe of the ogre's boulder-like hand, shoveled a spray of sand into the creature's face and rolled between its legs. Its roar was quiet in her ears as she shouted and cried her own screams and grunts, swiping at the tendons behind the ogre’s knees as she landed on the other side. With a plume of dusting erupting outward as the ogre fell to one knee, Reyna swiveled around and, in one fluid motion, cut through the tissue behind its other knee, and dust erupted outward once again.

The gladiator moved to cut under the arm of the same side, but she couldn’t hear the ogre’s roar that foretold its massive hand reaching around its side to grab her, in response to which she instinctually pulled her shield up. The ogre grabbed it, and long with it her as it raised her high into the air as she hung down from its grip. The guttural snarls and its breath like death from its maw foretold an unceremonious oblivion, to which Reyna swiped wildly at its face to discourage it from taking a bite out of her. It triggered enough hesitation that it reached for her instead with its other hand, and afraid of having her limbs pulled apart, she swiped ferociously at its other hand, nicking its fingertips, and causing the creature to second-guess that option as well. In response, it much more suddenly swung its hand at her, threatening to crush her between its palms like a common fly. Reyna was forced to let go of her shield and fell, a thunderous boom coming from the clap just above her head.

Reyna hit the ground and tumbled forward and not wanting to spend any given moment mired in inaction, swiped ahead of her as soon as he felt solid ground beneath the soles of her feet again—straight into lumbering giant’s blubbery belly. The nicks and rolled edges of her imperfect weapon caught on its flesh at first, but with a shrill and agonizing roar, Reyna poured every ounce of her strength into ripping and tearing the monster’s stomach open. Suddenly she felt the give of its flesh, finally cutting through that last sinewy layer and gutting the creature wide open as the blade of her sword snapped away from its handle, and immediately sprayed and poured a deluge of blood all over her like water from a crumbling dam as Reyna's face hit the sand. Spitting out a mouthful of its viscera and grit, she looked up to see if it was still alive—barely, and in its death throes and impressive endurance, seemed to want to take her down with it.

She threw aside the useless handle and grabbed an armful of the guts that piled itself at her feet before climbing up the creature’s body, and using the folds of fat as footholds or the space between its ribs where the skin sloughed off of them, she leaped up and wrapped the ogre’s own guts around its neck. She had overshot her jump and was dangling behind the creature’s back even as the ogre choke. She dug her nails and fingers into meat of its guts, feeling the fibers tear under her weight, as she pushed her feet against the ogre’s back to tighten her hold on its neck overhead. The arms of the creature had grown too weak to resist, and eventually with one last bloodcurdling scream from Reyna, the monster had toppled over.  She had crashed to the ground beside it, her chest heaving for breath and choked out by the rich smell of blood and iron that coated her from head to toe.

She tried to open her eyes but was force to shut them again  beneath the radiance of the sun. What was once a merciful warmth was now a punishing heat that was beating her down harder than stones. As her pumping blood slowed, her sense of hearing seemed to as well. She tuned back into the world outside her own to clamoring crowds throwing flowers into the arena, some throwing old food. The announcer man was going ballistic over what he called an unexpected victory. She spat in the sand again at the ugliness of its sound–of course she won. She didn’t have a choice.

Reyna weakly staggered over to where the ogre dropped her shield and picked up again before heading toward the gate where she came from. Her two orc handlers were awaiting her there, standing with their arms crossed, looking proud and smug. She didn’t even have the energy to feel angry or hateful at them for it. They took her shield away and sent her down to be doffed of her armor and washed of the blood. That ogre didn’t land a single scratch on her. If it had, it would’ve killed her immediately. But this? She felt like utter and absolute shit. This was all from demanding too much of her body in a moment, probably straining something in her legs or back, and the shoulder she used to power through its stomach was screaming at her.

As the breastplate fell to the floor around her, she felt like falling with it but her legs refused to budge. No falling. Not today, not ever.

These fights just kept getting harder. Why did they keep getting harder?
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