[center][h3][b][color=c5f6ee]Liana Kasmussen[/color][/b][/h3]
[sub][color=c5f6ee]Future bride of Dorian Fimbulvetr [@Saltwater Thief], sister-bride of Atallia Faeron [@NarcissisticPotato] and Aubree Lamay [@Ellion][/color][/sub][/center]

They wouldn’t have been late if it hadn’t been for Liana’s acting out.

Though, to be fair, Liana would not have acted out had that Drakken not put his hands on her. One of her escorts, a nasty minor warlord, had gotten a little too close and said a few too many offensive things… so she had broken his nose and bruised his ribs.

The girl gritted her teeth at the rattling of her chains as she subconsciously clenched her fists. After it had happened they’d stopped in the nearest town, to find a doctor for the injured guard, a couple more reinforcements, and a blacksmith to fit her with shackles. The slave trade was prohibited in Gemminia, of course, but many smiths along the southern border knew how to make shackles and even kept a few sets on hand, lest a Drakken soldier bringing prizes from the southern war need them. The smith had wanted to argue, fitting a Gemminite girl, but the warlord had threatened to take his daughter as well, and so he had hastily complied.

The next night, the same guard had been taunting Liana, jangling the keys just out of reach. She might not have had use of her hands, them being shackled to six inches of chain at her front, nor of her feet which were hobbled on a foot. But she did still have her teeth, and so she’d lunged up from her resting place and bitten him, tearing a sizeable piece out of his cheek.

At the next town, they’d acquired two more roving guards and had her fitted with a slave collar, a strange metal-and-leather contraption that also had straps to buckle around her head, mostly immobilizing it facing forwards as well as locking a hardened bit of rawhide inside her mouth. Again, the smith the drakken had gone to hadn’t wanted to do it, but at threat to his own family he agreed.

And so it was that Liana was marched through Shadow Worth with far, far too many guards and far, far too many chains. They led her to a bathing room and stripped her, tearing her clothes when they couldn’t remove them from her chains fast enough. They dunked her in the ice-cold bathing water, more a formality than anything, and one of them yanked a comb roughly through her tangled, two-toned hair until it hung silky-smooth down her back. Liana struggled immensely, trying to call on the sparks within her, but only succeeded in mildly warming the air, though it was enough to get her mismatched curls to perk up again.

The guards rummaged through her bags, producing her finest- well, her only proper dress. it had been made as her wedding dress, and was the only true “dress” she owned (For normal day-to-day wear, she favored tunics over leggings… sure, it drew raised eyebrows, but it was so much harder to run, much less fight, in even a short dress.

The gown was made of iridescent silk, shifting in hue from orange to blue. It was quite fitted, and sleeveless, and would show off her lithe, athletic form. And a good amount of her oddly-pigmented skin.

The guard with the keys approached her- she forced herself to appear docile and tame. He quickly unlocked her shackles, the other guards grabbing her extremities with iron grips. They left the collar and head device on her, and further restrained her by that, and forced her into her gown. It was either go along with it or get a limb broken… so she went along with it.

The moment her dress was on they forced her into uncomfortably-small dress slippers that were hopelessly flimsy- entirely impossible to run in. And the moment those were laced on the shackles went back on, wrists together, ankles together, and wrists to ankles so that the only way she could move her hands was a few inches side to side at her waist and her feet only in shuffling, six-inch steps. The girl was only able to give a muffled groan of indignation (which resulted in her being firmly cuffed upside the head, causing stars to explode in her vision.)

The guardsman who held the keys descended the stairs with her, standing behind her and holding the fingers of one hand looped through the back of her (hopefully temporary) collar, the keys to her shackles in the other. It was clear she had not been claimed as his bride, that he was just a guardsman. As she glanced over the crowd the guard tightened his grip, and she internally cursed her mismatched eyes for being so expressive of her fury and hate.

She surveyed the gathered lords and brides as thoroughly as she was able, with that stupid immobilizing collar thing blocking her. This was the second day, so the pools of both lords and girls were considerably smaller. Most of the brides left were the ones who weren’t classically beautiful, the ones deemed too small or too meek or too violent or… anything else that could be wrong with them. A couple of the other brides were similarly chained, and bearing their own bruises and red slap-prints. Most of the others had a dejected air about them, but a few were glancing around almost desperately.

To be completely honest, Liana couldn’t exactly blame them. She had heard whispers of what happened to the gems not chosen- they weren’t pleasant, any of them. Some said they were given to their escort guards for their trouble, some said they were sold off to whorehouses, some said they were turned out on the streets and left for dead, some said they were quietly killed, some said they were quietly killed – after being tortured, mostly for fun, by the king’s personal guards. In any case, not a happy fate to live out.

For a moment, Lia’s eyes dulled, but then their blazing fire and ice came back with a vengeance as she blankly looked towards the assembled lords. There had to be some who’d stayed back waiting for the second day. The cruel ones, the bloodthirsty ones, the violent ones, the lesser ones with something to prove maybe, but they had to have remained, and they had to be hungry for someone who could give them a run for their money.

Behind the gag Lia offered a tiny, self-satisfied smirk. She’d show any lord who dared touch her.