“Yessir, perfectly clear, we’ll have it done tonight.”

“Very good, Dagstae. You don’t have much time, so I advise you to get started as soon as possible.”

“Of course, sir. Starting right now, sir.”

Tavarius watched through coolly narrowed eyes as the hulking form of “Dagstae” slunk away with heavy, thumping footsteps. His weight shifted between slipper clad feet, and he lifted his arms to his chest, crossing them over at each side and resting black fingers over the crooks of his elbows, tips digging into the rough, white velvet of his robe. Dagstae’s shape trudged out of sight and Tavarius turned away with a single liquid motion, feet spinning about against the slick ivory floors. He did not so much walk as glide across the floor, each step silent and languidly sliding over the mosaic of gold-black-white that furled up against the floor from his private chambers to the quiet balcony, overhanging the magnificent, black-olive garden beneath. Tavarius paused at the very edge of it, pressing his chest to the highest iron bar, and lifted his head to the skies.

The grey-purple haze of dusk shadowed the landscape, bathing it in a cool, pleasant darkness that made the ivory palace glow like mother-of-pearl in turn. The gardens themselves were nearly obsidian against the coming night, a wide, twisting labyrinth of ebony that stretched out as far as he could see, to the very edges of the horizon and beyond. And Tavarius knew that those twisting briers were home to such a myriad of grotesquely disfigured creatures as had never been seen before. A testament to their ruler’s painful eccentricity. He’d always blamed it on the need for protection, but Tavarius knew, knew that his confession was little more than a convenient lie.

The Prince didn’t need protection. Not from outside the castle. He had ten times as many enemies within, and he bothered with so little protection. What did he have? Those two brothers, Tor and Dagstae, the perfect epitome of the stupid henchman, who lounged about with little a care between them. And even then, neither had much of a desire to protect the Prince, neither of them had any love for him in their hearts. The Prince had his little servant as well, that pathetic excuse for a human being that crawled about his feet like a dog, simpering and begging for any semblance of attention The Prince was willing to give to him. That was a deranged sort of love. Cassius certainly would give his life for The Prince, but the sacrifice would be meaningless. He was a twig that even Tavarius could snap between his fingers. Cassius was no real protection.

“Sir?”

Tavarius whipped about, white velvet crackling with the movement.

Dagstae stood against the far doorway, a dour expression souring his face,” It’s done, sir.”

So soon? Tavarius cast his gaze toward the open sky. It had darkened considerably. Perhaps he’d been more caught up in his thoughts than he’d believed.

“Very well, Dagstae.”

The thick man nodded and slid out of sight, clunking heavily down the hall.

Tavarius turned again, slowly this time, and pressed his elbows against the balcony bar.

This was it then. His plan had begun.

“You know, I should really have you beheaded for your blatant display of disloyalty.”

Tavarius hung his head in cool resignation, the thick fall of his slick black hair muddling any attempt to seek out his expression. Beneath it, for Tavarius’ own conscience to know, and no one else’s, the man was frowning. A deep, even frown, that stretched his dusky face into an ugly, warped semblance of itself. His eyes were open but down cast, deep green rimmed with black lash and ginger skin, shadowed by the angle of his head.

The guards, Tor and Dagstae – how ironic that his allies should become his captors - gripped each of his arms with painful tightness. The metal of their gauntlets dug into his flesh, past the soft velvet and silk shirts. He could feel the little pinpricks of sharp, pointed angles digging past his skin, cutting with jerky abandon. It was shallow enough that little blood beaded up out of the wound, but it sting like nettles.

“Bu-ut,” the Prince’s lazy drawl continued,” As I like you much too much to actually go about executing you, I’m simply going to have to think of a better punishment, aren’t I?”

The question was rhetorical. Not a body breathed during the Prince’s pause.

He continued after a moment, quiet footsteps carrying him down from the podium of his throne. They pattered toward Tavarius, but still he didn’t bother lifting his head. The Prince’s hand snaked beneath the curtain of his hair, fingers smoothing the wrinkles of his frown with soft, languid touches. The hand retracted after a moment of silence.

“Cassius, what do you think?”

“You could torture him, my lord.”

“Oh, really, Cassius, don’t be grotesque. This is Tavarius. I can’t do something as trivial as that to him.”

“You could cut his hair, my lord.”

"Oh yes, perhaps.”

Tavarius winced. He had not expected that particular punishment for his…crime. The Prince was ever so very fond of long hair, and Tavarius had seen him wince and squirm each time his own was cut or trimmed.

“But I don’t want to watch that. What a foolish thing to suggest, Cassius!”

“Of course, my lord,” the little toad cooed. Tavarius could hear his slippery footsteps creeping across the floors with a gentle swish-swish of his own robe,” What do you want to do with him?”

The Prince did not reply and the room descended into silence. There was a tinkle of metal and a rustling of cloth as Tavarius shifted his weight, tugging his arms against Tor and Dagstae’s unshakable grips. Curiosity gripped him, and Tavarius lifted his head ever so slightly. The fall of his hair parted, brushing silkily against his cheeks and revealing his face, eased into a state of cool vacancy, to the rest of the room. The Prince was watching him with a smirk, a single finger tapping steadily against his lips. They locked eyes, and the finger curled against the Prince’s palm and fell to his side.

“I think,” said the Prince, his smirk widening,” That we’ll simply have to get rid of him until he’s learned is lesson.”

Tavarius’ gaze was unwavering during the Prince’s commandment, but once again the room went still and quiet, and he could not help but hang his head.

Finally, something he’d expected.

The heat enveloped the massive market square like a quilt, smothering the memory of cool air with its thick, iron stitches. It strangled the last remnants of what may have been rain clouds from the sky, replacing it instead with its own myriad of misshapen hues. The horizon was a pathetically pale shade of white, the sun faded hue wavering pathetically with the haze of heat, choking what may have been the only illusion of relief from the desert. The sand itself was a deep ocher red, blazing and hot, stretching outward past the crooked building to the empty expanse of desolate savanna, where the only movement was the slow lengthening of shadows as the promise of dusk lingered between the scant growth. But still, there was no release, and sunset was little more than a flimsy confirmation breathed from the lips of an unreliable acquaintance.

The air stank of sweat and blood, thick with the rotting odor of spilt gore. And there was no silence. The market was filled with cries of pain, of pleasure, and the steady bustling of market-goers who passed the crippled cages with little more than an assessing flick of their eyes. Seeing nothing but broken spirits and mangled bodies they passed on, looking for something better, something worth the money in their purses.

Tavarius wasn’t it. Too old, too foreign, too ugly, too weak, too smart. There were a million toos with him. He had been bred for wit and cunning, trained to emphasize the ability to advise. Not to attract the attention of masters and mistresses, potential buyers.There had been some debate as to whether or not his hair should be cut – without the prince’s supervision, of course, Tavarius had watched him visibly wince at the prospect – but the decision was to let it stay. They wanted him degraded, and to do so Tavarius needed some attractive trait. That impossibly long curtain of hair was it, if there ever was one, so it stayed. For which Tavarius was unbearably grateful. His hair had never once been cut before, and he had little desire to see such a thing done to it now.

Now that he was to be sold as a slave. From nobility to shackles. The thought made his lip curl in distaste.

Tavarius was no meek looking man, despite decades of serving the life of a royal adviser, with little need for physical labor. He was slender and tall, with a sharp, elegant face and narrow eyes that quivered and wavered with the color of deep pine, tinged with the exotic aura of rainy blue-green. His skin was of no common hue, but blended him perfectly with the desert heat. No white, wilting lily was he, but of a deep brown-grey tone, like ginger dusted lightly over cream. It kept him dark and safe from any harmful bombardment of heat the sun might subject him to. His hands were narrow, not broad, with fingers that reached an absurd length, gnarled and twisted like tree roots. Each one had nails clipped in an almost claw-like fashion, but were still the nails of men. Tavarius had no hidden abnormalities in his appearance.

The black shadow of his hair was not perfectly straight, but pleasantly so, with a subtle, natural wave that gave it a gossamer gleam. It was as black as pitch in color, and just as slick to the eye, and perhaps, if one was allowed to snake their hands across his platform, to the touch as well. But most extraordinary of all, and perhaps the savior of its unpleasant texture, was that it covered the entire length of his body, sprawling out from the roots of his skull to the ends of his ankles. It had not but a quiet mingling of silver to tell that this man wasn’t a mere kit of a lion shoved out of his house for playing too roughly. He had lived through a fair few winters during his time, and the crisp, hardened angles of his face were perhaps another testament to that.

“You know, I’ve never actually met someone who pissed off the Prince.”

Tavarius’ gaze was kept solely on the muddled sea of faces before him, watching with a dazed stare as the ocean of starched, diluted colors passed to and fro across his stand. He shifted uncomfortably, wrists twisting against the brittle rope that bound his hands against the pole behind his back. Little straw pieces dug against the raw flesh of his lower arms, further irritating the blunt, broken marks laid there by Tor and Dagstae’s armor.

“In fact, I’ve never met anyone who lived in the prince’s court before,” the man at his side continued, a barrel chested fellow with a flat face and a handsome brow, well toned and easily taller than Tavarius himself. His right ear was pierced once with the mark of a slave master, a little iron hoop carrying on it a single red bead. Iron for the chains his subjects bore, and red for the blood they shed in return for disobedience. A fitting mark, if there ever was one.

And he was Tavarius’ new “driver” until he managed to get himself sold.

“Perhaps that’ll help me fetch a pretty price for you. There’ people dying to know what goes on inside his ‘Ivory Manor’.”

Deep, well guarded secrets that no one was permitted to utter on pain of…not death, things worse than death. Worse than physical torment and pain. The Prince was a creative master of torture, Tavarius knew, he’d born witness to his morbid genius more times than one. He’d watch the Prince shatter every finger, every bone that would not cause death, to mere fragments of pieces, all the while cooing to his victim what else would come of him if he uttered any cry of discomfort or pain.

”For every whimper I hear, your children will be ravaged. For every moan or cry we’ll severe one of their heads,” a little utterance of laughter would follow his lightly bleated threats,” And now I’m going to hurt you, but I’m not going to kill you. That would be terribly unsatisfying.”

For a ruler who bathed his subjects with love and adoration, the Prince was a frighteningly violent young man.

Tavarius had no desire at all to mention the secrets of the manor to anyone who purchased him. Although death wouldn’t serve his purposes here, it would be duly welcome over whatever The Prince was willing to provide.

“Yeah,” the man continued, unraveling the whip at his side and striking the hard planks beneath his feet. The crack resounded, catching the ears of those nearest to them, but only for a moment. Their gazes raked over Tavarius with disinterest and they carried on without a word.

“We’ll get a pretty penny for you yet, old boy. We’ve just got to advertise you right,” the man whipped about, jerking something from his belt. A flash of light reflected off it, carrying with it a beam of sizzling heat.

Tavarius winced away from the light, gritting his teeth against it with a sibilant hiss, sucked between the crooked crevices of his mouth. He cracked his eyes open against the light, jerking his head upward, finally, to shoot the man a glassy stare, slender brows furrowed and mouth gaping at the corners with the silent remnants of his hiss.

The slave master brandished a plain silver knife, edging across the platform toward Tavarius. He reached out a hand, gripping his upper arm tightly and tugging it away from the thick wooden pyre it was wrangled against. Tavarius tried to wrench the grip away, his brow shooting toward his hairline at the glimmering sight of the blade.

What good would bleeding him do?

But the man had no intention of cutting him. The knife dug into the soft, silky cloth of his robes, tearing through lace and fabric until Tavarius could feel the first kiss of metal and seethed against it. The blade was drawn back a fraction of an inch and continued down the width of his sleeve. A two foot long section was detached and slid down the length of his arm to pool beside his feet, a wave of ruined velvet. Tavarius watched it glimmer against the desert heat through narrowed eyes.

“There,” the man grunted, grinning toothily as he wiped off his blade – clean though it was – and shoved it back against his thigh,” Now if you just turn a little to the side…”

Tavarius did, craning his neck to glance down at the exposed expanse of dusty skin. There, weaved about his upper arm, was the slender, curling shape of a pale, white snake. Unflawed by Tavarius’ own natural skin tones, and brighter even than his glimmering robes. The eyes of the python, for that’s what it was, as thick and muscular at the serpent appeared, were a deep blue-black in hue, with little pupils of perfect wild berry red.

A tattoo. A mark. A claim.

This is mine, said the snake. This is the property of The Prince.

And already the insignia was attracting a little crowd, a few casual buyers that caught side of its brilliant perfection, curiosity blooming in their minds as they crept nearer to inspect.

“He’s going for fifty gold pieces!” the slave master shouted around his toothy grin,” Do I hear fifty?”

“Fifty!” shouted a well dressed man, pale skin and pale hair drawing him out of the crowd.

“Sixty-five!” shouted another, a graying woman with a thick purse at her side.

The slave driver shot Tavarius a smirk as he stepped nearer to the edge of the platform,” Didn’t I tell ya, old boy? You'll fetch a pretty price for me yet!”

Tavarius hung his head and stared on, ears pricked and sensitive to the obnoxious shouts and whispers of money, tossing themselves desperately at his mark.

Indeed he had.