This one’s a bit darker than the otherones. Probably because I came up with it myself. <.<)

“I’ll take that one.”

The red-haired woman strode into the shop where you were working and pointed right at you.

The foreman coughed, stuttered, and, rather than throwing her out, ran and got the boss.

You weren’t stupid. You kept working. This could be a test.

The woman stood there, not watching you, but watching the place. Her nostrils flared and she rolled her weight back onto her heels. You glanced at the exit, at the other workers in the shop, and back at the exit. If she decided to bring this place down on your heads, you thought you might be able to get out, but the littler kids on the other side would have trouble.

Maybe it wouldn’t come to that this time; this angry visitor could be different than the last one. Maybe the foreman had learned.

The boss hurried in. “Ah. I hear-“

“I want to buy this slave from you.” She was pointing at you again. Why did she keep pointing at you?”

The boss coughed. “Ah. We don’t sell the children-“

“-away from their mothers, of course you don’t, that would be wrong. I’ll buy the mother and any other children, too.”

You flinched. Your mother was one of the boss’s favorites right now. Would he…?

Of course he would. “Of course. She’s right over here.”

Brittanny had the same coloration as you, at least if you squinted. But she was not your mom, and her kid looked nothing like you.

The redheaded woman frowned. “No. No, and you wouldn’t be trying to separate a mother from her children, now would you?” Something about her posture suggested violence, although she had no visible weapons. You considered hiding under your workstation. You weren’t stupid, though. This could be a test. You kept working.

The boss took a moment to consider whether or not he was stupid. Or, at least, that’s what it looked like to you. “No. Of course not. One moment.”

It took many moments, during which you worked and the woman glared at the place as it if had personally offended her. You didn’t bother wondering why she wanted you. It still could be some sort of test.

It was only when they had finished bickering over the price, only when she had said the words to your mother, your sister, and you, only when you were in her wagon and on the road, that you thought this might be real.

Whoops, note. “said the words.” The kid doesn’t really know quite what’s going on there, but that’s the transference of Belonging of zir mother to the redheaded lady.

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