Exactly what it says on the tin. Decades after the apocalypse. Bracken, a roleplay character, has appeared in several ficlets, here

Slaves, Bracken was finding, were not all that comfortable with being interviewed.

To be fair, she’d known that for quite a while. Even Marius, when she’d Kept him all those years ago, had snarled and growled his way through her initial interview. And all the Kept she’d had before and since then, they’d always had some level of that nervous, uncertain, “what’s the right answer” feel.

She wasn’t helping things any, she knew. But she couldn’t very well not ask, or she’d end up owning half of the fae currently in the slave markets – and that would stretch even her pretty well-off coffers.

“All right. I know it’s not the normal question, but I need to know. Can you tell your Keeper what to do?”

The girl in front of her blanched. “I wouldn’t… no… of course not.”

Bracken sighed. Just one more left at this place, and she really wanted to take this one home and cuddle her. “I’m sorry. I’ll see if I can send someone good your way.”

She gestured to the slave factor. They knew her well enough to indulge her a bit here; her trade was as good as anyone’s. “Last one.”

“You sure about this one?”

“Gotta check ’em all.”

“All right then.” He led out the girl and led in, a moment later, a slender person in a heavy wooden collar. Bracken thought probably male, but she couldn’t be sure.

Either way, the slave bowed before sitting where the slave factor had pointed them. Bracken waited until the factor had left the room and closed the door, taking the moment to look the slave up and down.

Thin, too thin. The collar had chafed; the chains at their wrists had chafed. They hadn’t been well-treated, and yet they responded to the look with a friendly raised eyebrow.

“I’m Bracken. You’re…”

“Remy.” The voice was a mid-alto; the answer punctuated with another little bow.

“I’ve got a few questions for you.” Bracken went through the base questions first: length of time under the collar (five years), age (claimed thirty-five, but they were a little unclear on time), association with Addergoole (never heard of it) and so on.

“Not my skills? Not how well I take orders? Not even my equipment?”

Bracken thought Remy looked amused. “The first is less important than some other things; the second one you’d probably lie about, and the third one is entirely irrelevant right now.”

“Well.” Now Remy definitely looked taken aback. “So what’re the other things?”

“Well, to start with, can you tell your Keeper what to do?”

“Can I…” Remy snorted. “Well, then. That’s a new one. Can I…”

They were definitely stalling. Bracken smiled and waited; stalling was better than any other answer she’d gotten so far.

“Well…” Remy tried again, “I mean, if that’s what my Keeper wanted, yeah… I mean, you said Keeper, didn’t you?” Remy leaned forward. “Not Owner. Man, for a Keeper, yeah, hell yeah. I can do it.”

“Good.” Bracken stood up and called. “I’m taking this one.”

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