Shade stared at the ceiling and groaned like a child being told to do the dishes as he thought about what he should do. He desperately wanted to just give Faylen a bag of money and send her on her way. But now he knew that contrary to what both she and he had thought, she actually did have some echos within her, and not just some, an outrageous amount. The amount though wasn’t as important in the moment, the mere fact he could feel any echos coming from her at all meant that there might be a way to cure her, but that would take time and effort. Time and effort he really didn’t want to put in. He wasn’t even sure where to exactly start. She had said that in the past she had been taken to a few curse breakers, priests and people like that, and none of them could find anything. He groaned again, even louder this time, as he thought about the fact he himself did once know a curse breaker. Probably the best curse breaker to have ever lived actually. They were once traveling companions for quite a while, completing various mercenary and guild missions with one another. But like everyone else now, she probably thought he was dead, and he was happy to keep it that way. Their time together didn’t exactly end the best, and he wasn’t sure how she would react if he just popped out of the grave and back into her life. Add in the fact that he didn’t actually know if what ailed Faylen was a curse or not, making the trek to her cabin was absolute last resort.

  “Is something wrong, master?” Faylen asked, baffled by Shades visible disgruntlement. She had thought he was playing games with her mind, and her freedom, but now she was collarless while he seemed to be lost in thought about something.

  “You really can’t use any echos?” He asked, snapping back to reality and looking directly at her.

  “No, I cannot, why?” She replied, confused by the question. Being a slave she knew how the collars worked, so she knew he could tell she had no echos. So why was he asking this?

  He opened his mouth, but then closed it. He didn’t want to tell her about all the echos he could feel, he didn’t want to give her hope in case there really was no cure for whatever was wrong with her. “No reason.” He lied. “I was just thinking again about how I’ve never seen anything like this before.” Which wasn’t a lie. Her echos were right there, he could feel them, clear as day. Yet apparently nobody else could feel them, as if they could, surely someone else at the auction would have boughten her.

  He looked to the ceiling once more and sighed. He hated to admit it, but he had some genuine curiosity about her situation. Combine that with the feeling of responsibility he felt for buying her, he decided to at least put in some effort in trying to cure her, even if it was halfhearted. He clicked his tongue a few times as he thought about what his first step should be. Since he had woken up in the field, it had only been the two of them the entire time. He had been going off of what she had told him had happened, and half put together drunken memories and theories. But he didn’t actually know the truth to all of it. He assumed that nobody else could feel her echos like he did, but he didn’t know that for sure. That meant the first thing he needed to test was just who could sense her. There was a human village not far from his cabin, it was one of the reasons he made himself look like a human nowadays. Humans were by far the weakest of the intelligent creatures on the planet, barely having any echos at all, and having a lifespan that passed in the blink of an eye. But even with as little echos as they had, they still had some, and were generally able to sense echos from others if the amount was as overwhelming as Faylens was. They could go there and see if anybody notices her power.

  He nodded to himself, happy with the plan. He then looked at her, and her cringey shirt again, and thought that maybe they could get her some clothes as well. He clapped his hands together like a teacher getting the classes attention. “Alright Faylen, you and I are going on a bit of a trip. First things first though, you and I will also both need to change.”

  A trip? To where? And why did she need to change? “Does this shirt not please you master?” She asked, knowing that the shirt didn't please him, but not being able to think of anything else to say while she thought about where he could be taking her. Then she figured it out. He was going to put her in a skimpy outfit, then parade her around some town. Some men got off on forcing women into embarrassing situations, and this Lucifer was probably just one of those men.

  “No, it certainly does not.” He replied. “You also look rather ridiculous. I thought it would look more like a dress on you, but what it really looks like is, well, a shirt meant for a dragon on a tiny Fairy.”

  “Then what do you wish for me to wear?” She asked, already knowing what he was going to say.

  He shrugged. “There should be human sized clothes in there as well, I mean, I usually look like a human most of the time nowadays. Just pick out a shirt and pair of pants, then throw them on. I’m sure they’ll also be rather big on you, but it would still look better than…. that.” He said, gesturing at her current outfit. “Also, grab me a random pair of both as well while you’re in there, I don’t really care about which ones, I’ll be wearing my robe over them anyway.” She nodded slowly, confused. He wasn't going to put her in a skimpy outfit? He just wanted her to put on normal clothes? She slowly turned and walked out of the living room, towards the bedroom, wondering to herself once again what this trip could possibly be.

  After she left, he tossed the slave collar onto to the couch, then went to grab his robe off the couch arm where he would always leave it, but immediately groaned again. He had left his black robe in the field when he flew back here with her. Would it still be there, or would a wolf or some other animal have gotten to it already? Or maybe it would have just blown away in the wind by now? “And also grab my black cloak from the closet as well!” He called after her. “It should be in there somewhere!” He much preferred his black robe to the black cloak, as while similar looking, the robe made him look dignified, like he was someone important, while the cloak made him look like a back-alley drug dealer. Though with him spending his time sleeping in back alleys, many times around drug dealers, maybe the cloak was more his speed anyway? Hopefully the human village would have a nice black robe he could buy, he thought to himself, as he began to push the coffee table to the edge of the room.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Faylen stood in the closet, staring at all the clothes. Closet was a rather loose term for what was essentially a mini room, the size of most peoples master bathrooms. It was also multi tiered, with clothes hanging close to the ground, and clothes hanging much higher up. The clothes higher up were the ones for when he was in dragon form, which made sense as he would be taller and able to reach them. When she had seen the shirt she was currently wearing hanging off the rack, she had to do some impromptu parkour in order to get it down. She had thought at the time that him telling her to put on a dragon sized shirt, only for it to be beyond her reach, was another mind game by him. Trying to show her how small she was compared to him, figuratively and literally. But once again now, she had this nagging feeling that that wasn’t the case. That maybe he was more or less just a drunk who had probably forgotten how high up those shirts were.

  She shook her head, how many times would she have to be fooled before she stopped allowing herself any sort of hope? She wouldn’t let him give her the hope she knew he wanted to rip away. But then what was this trip? And why was he allowing her to walk around without a collar? Did he think so little of her that she wasn’t even worth collaring? That was a depressing thought.

  She ended up grabbing 2 random shirts and 2 random pairs of pants. Her shirt was a sky-blue tunic, while her leather pants were a bright red. She wondered why he even had them. Did he go out dancing at night? Was that why he was always drunk? She let out a light giggle thinking about a huge lucifer dragon dancing while she quickly took off her oversized shirt, and put on the still oversized, but slightly less so clothes. The shirt being oversized wasn’t necessarily an issue, but the pants were. They wouldn’t stop falling down no matter how high she wore them. She needed a way to keep the pants belted up, but she didn’t see any belts in the closet. So she walked out of the closet and into the bedroom to see if she could find one in there.

  The bedroom was relatively empty, a bed, a dresser and a night stand were the only pieces of furniture in the room. The walls though weren’t empty, with weapons and various other battle equipment hanging all around. Directly above the bed was a pair of dual blades crossed into an X. The blades though were chained together by golden links. She nodded to herself; he seemed to want to put on this false persona of nonchalantness. This fake visage of not caring about what she did, or how she spoke. But could he keep that up if she used real golden chains as nothing more than a belt for a pair of pants? She climbed onto the bed, actually climbing as the bed was 4 feet off the ground since it was designed for a dragon, then reached above the headboard and unhooked the weapons from the wall. She was worried the chains would be welded to the blades, but was happy to see that wasn’t the case. There were hooks that hooked into slots that could be opened, and she opened them, then unhooked them. She then threw the blades to the floor like they were nothing, even though like the spears they were mithril, then began tying the golden chain around her pants.

  When she was finished, the waist of the pants was around her belly button, while the shirt went down slightly below her waist. She had managed to tie the excess material into a knot by her side, making the shirt now only slightly too big. Happy with her impromptu outfit, she grabbed the clothes she had picked out for him, walked back out of the bedroom, and into the living room. What she found was him pushing the coffee table back into place. She tilted her head in confusion, “Are you rearranging the furniture, master?”

  Shade looked up from the table and over to her. He looked her outfit over really quick, and nodded. “I like the outfit, its vibrant and colorful, also rather creative with how you made the shirt fit you better.” He then paused as he looked at the baggy pants. “Wait, how are the pants fitting you though, I don’t have any belts, I just transform to make the pants fit myself perfectly, so I’ve never needed one.”

  Here we go, she thought, let’s see what you think of this. She slowly raised her shirt up above her belly button to show off the golden chain belt. “I hope you don’t mind master; I took down the blades above your bed and used the chain as a belt. I hope that isn’t a problem.”

  She stood there waiting for his anger, disappointment, something. But nothing came. He just shrugged. “I don’t care, not like I was using them. Gotta admit as well, that’s also rather creative.” He then looked back to the table. “Anyway, no, I wasn’t moving the furniture for styling purposes, I had to get to the basement. It’s where I keep the even more valuable things I have, including my money.”

  She didn’t know what to think now. He didn’t care still? Was he just this good at keeping up an act? But then that thought immediately flew out of her mind as what he had just said registered. Her eyes went wide with fear and worry as she stared at him. “You have a basement? Are you going to make me clean that as well?”

  He snorted at the genuine fear in her eyes. “Damn, was cleaning the house really that bad? A slave whose probably been tortured for years showing genuine fear at cleaning my basement? I know I’ve been living rather unsavory lately, but I had no idea it was that bad.” He then shook his head. “No, you don’t have to clean it. Though someone at some point probably should, there are enough cobwebs down there to open a cobweb store, if that was a thing.” He then looked at clothes in her hand. “I assume those are mine, but where’s the cloak?”

  Her eyes had stayed wide at his response. Who was this joking and rather jovial person in front of her? Who spoke and treated a slave like this? But she didn’t have time to ponder that as her eyes still stayed wide when she realized she had forgotten the cloak. “I forgot it master; I apologize deeply.” She said in a bow. “I will go retrieve it immediately.”

  He waved her off. “Don’t worry about it, I can go grab it real quick.” He went to walk past her, but as he was looking her outfit over again, he noticed she wasn’t wearing any shoes. “You don’t have any shoes, do you?” She shook her head at the obvious rhetorical question. There really wasn’t a creative way to make his shoes fit her tiny feet. “I guess buying you shoes will be our first stop then. I think I have a few leather back packs in the closet as well, I’ll grab both of us one in case we make even more purchases.”

  He then disappeared out of the living room and into his bedroom. She stood there silently, baffled, stunned, and not sure what to do. He didn’t care about her belt, nor her acting without orders, and now he was going to buy her shoes? A master buying a slave clothes wasn’t that odd, but they were usually maid outfits or skimpy lingerie. She wasn’t sure, but it didn’t seem like that was what he was planning to buy. She slowly turned and stared out of the room towards the bedroom. What was this man playing at? He was like no slaver she had ever seen before. Was he telling the truth, was she his first slave? Had his offer back in the field been genuine? If she asked him for it, could she be....free?