bakerstreet | The Slave Auction Meme

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The Slave Auction Meme

* Leave a comment with the character's name, fandom, and whether your character will be playing the part of 'slave' or 'master', plus preferences for scenarios if you have any.
* Respond to others with one of the scenarios below or feel free to make up your own.
* Please remember to be respectful of others while you play

Warning: Be aware that this meme deals with dark subjects like slavery and may also contain non-consensual/dubiously consensual sex, violence, and kink.

SLAVES

1. The Newbie - This is your very first auction and you don't quite know what to expect. Hopefully you remember your training and don't disgrace yourself in front of your new master. Hopefully someone thinks you're worth buying at all.

2. The Oldtimer - You've been bought and sold and bought again so many times. You've seen it all before and don't think this time is going to be much different. In fact, the only real anxiety you've got is whether or not someone's going to pay for a more than slightly used slave.

3. The Pet - You're a pleasure slave. A bed warmer. A decorative piece of artwork. You're meant to look pretty and be pleasing and not much else.

4. The Guard - Your master hired you because of your ability to swing a sword or shoot a gun, not your looks.

5. The Escape Artist - Somehow you always manage to squirm out of your master's chains. Too bad you seem to get caught after a while. Maybe your next daring escape will be permanent. Then again, maybe your next master has special ways of keeping you locked up.

6. The Undercover - You aren't a slave at all, you're just pretending to be one. Why? Well that's up to you. Either way, your cover is blown if you don't act the part.

7. The Specialist - You have a skill that no one else has. Something rare and valuable. Something your master needs more than anything else.

MASTERS

1. The Customer - You've owned slaves before and this trip to the market is nothing new to you. Still, you're hoping to find something worth your while.

2. The Gift - Someone bought a pet for you, isn't that nice of them? Or maybe it isn't so nice. Did you even want a slave in the first place? Well you're stuck with one now.

3. The Giver - You're selecting a slave for someone else, and they need to be perfect. Perhaps you'd better test them out first to make sure you're getting your money's worth.

4. The Trainer - You specialize in taming unruly slaves and making them over into perfect, obedient, well-trained pets.

5. The Rebel - You hate the idea of slavery, but the system isn't going to go away any time soon, so the next best thing is to buy up any slave you can get your hands on and free them, right?

6. The Companion - You want someone to be with you always, someone you can talk to and depend on, someone who will never leave your side. It's a good thing that money can buy that these days.

7. The Undercover - You're not actually a Master. You're at the auction for an entirely different reason. Maybe it's special policework, maybe you're trying to hunt down a certain someone. Either way, your cover is blown unless you act the part.

As always, feel free to use a combination of scenarios or make up your own if you have other ideas.

Snagged from here.

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A large, furry head pushed its way between them, followed by a large, furry body. Teo batted his head against Varric's face, then more forcefully against his chest, knocking him to the ground and driving the wind out of him briefly. He put his paws on the dwarf's chest and licked his face, though less frantically than he had earlier.

Edited 2018-02-25 21:23 (UTC)

Varric almost wasn't aware of what was happening until he was on the ground with a dog on him. A tongue lapped at his face, paws went to his chest, then before he knew it Teo was laying on top of him, weight pressing down on him like a ten-ton bronto.

Yet, somehow, it wasn't bad. Varric's hands went to the dog's head where it lay on his chest, and found anchor there. Somehow it calmed him, and he was able to find breath again.

He couldn't have said how long they laid like that. Eventually Teo moved back a tiny bit, letting Varric sit up and hunch over him, with the dog's weight driving comfortingly into his lap. Oh, it was good. It was so, so, so good.

Hawke just...waited. She'd almost cried out when Varric's hand was pulled from hers, but it was Teo, and his instincts were good, whenever they didn't involve telling him it'd be great fun to go piss on that thing over there. It was Teo, and there was no one and nothing in the world she trusted more. The hand that had been holding Varric's clenched as though she could keep the warmth of it trapped there, evidence that this was all real, he was found, even if it was all balls-up and they were all so out of their depth they might as well be at the bottom of the Waking Sea.

She took her own advice and breathed. Just breathed, stayed still, didn't smother Varric with...anything, actually, Teo had him well in hand. She reached for her dog's back and stroked it lightly, and his tail wagged in response so she'd know she wasn't forgotten even if someone else had his attention temporarily. "Good boy," she whispered, and his tail wagged again, and after a few minutes Varric managed to get himself upright, still bent over her dog's head, stroking his ears.

It made sense, when she thought about it. A dog's affection was so much less complicated than a person's, much easier to accept without question or context.

Breathe, breathe, breathe. She counted the breaths in her head, his and hers, something to concentrate on, and waited, afraid to say or do anything. She'd faced ogres and dragons and demons without ever being this hesitant. It was so much easier when the problem was something you could stab.

It was simpler than affection. It was simpler than questions or context. For a good ten minutes, it was as simple as the heavy, warm pressure giving him an anchor, and the deep, regular breathing giving him a focus. Varric timed his breathing with Teo's, until he found a calm and peace that he hadn't known was possible. He bent over the great hound, wondering, internally, if all mabari were so sensitive. Wondering if this came from centuries of bonding with jumpy, battle-scarred warriors.

Wondering if that bump behing his ear was a tick or just a bump.

Simple. Easy.

Eventually, Teo looked up at him, amber eyes meeting gently. Varric bent low over the dog, their faces almost touching. In that animal, he found a courage he couldn't yet find with other people.

The courage to speak. He whispered to him, "Do you think you could come with me? I'd appreciate it."

Teo wagged his tail gently.

She heard, and she knew that was a good thing. Slaves didn't ask for things for themselves, that much she remembered from the early days with Orana. Not even little things.

Someone cleared their throat, and she turned her head to look. One of the servants stood there, looking intensely uncomfortable and apologetic. "Serah? The, ah, bath..." The kid's voice died away and he swallowed hard.

Hawke groaned inwardly, got to her feet, groaned a little less inwardly as her muscles protested. "Right. Thanks."

Teo pushed his head under Varric's arm, rather forcibly encouraging the dwarf to get to his feet. That managed, he looked at Hawke, silently asking permission, and she nodded. He kept looking, a silent, almost admonishing You're sure? Because I know you're upset and I know how you get in trouble without me, and she chuckled. "Go on, mutt. I'll be fine." Her eyes flickered to Varric's, and she tried a smile. It came out a little wobbly.

Varric took a deep breath, fingers wound into Teo's collar.

Then he met her eyes, feeling more steady. More secure.

"Hawke." Said as if he knew who she was, really knew. "I guess "thanks" doesn't really..."

To say it outright, without any sarcasm, would invite another flood of emotion. This was his first glimmer of the old way, of using sarcasm to keep visceral feelings at arm's length.

"Oh Maker, don't, we're shit at sentiment." Her smile wobbled a bit more. "You'll ruin your reputation if you try that. And if you don't go take a blighted bath."

This was all...too much. She needed a few minutes.

"Al- alright." He nodded. After so long with silence, even that little burst of loose, easy speech sapped and quieted him.

Teo led him up the stairs, following Riva and the servant. Riva began to explain how the tub worked, and the servant interrupted him and said I'm sure you know exactly how it works, to which Varric nodded. The servant once again cut across the well-meaning altus to tell him that the biggest difference was that being the one actually taking the bath meant he had to be careful not to slip. Riva went quiet after that, realizing he didn't know the first foggiest thing about Varric's perspective, and the dwarf was grateful for the servant's no-bullshit manner.

The servant had a mark on his cheek that Varric had seen before, on the faces of a certain magister's slaves. Before leaving the bathroom, the kid brought in clothing and food, and Varric thought he knew why- nobody could take it away if he ate it alone. The servant also left a key, pointing out significantly that the bathroom door had a lock, and that the heavy cabinet over there could be moved if he wanted. Shit, that servant needed a raise.

Once he was alone with Teo, Varric followed the servant's implications: he locked the door, pushed the cabinet in front of it, and dove into the food like a man possessed. Some part of him wondered how long the servant had been free for, and how he remembered the insecurity of the first free day. Once the food was gone Varric turned to the bath, adjusting the hot tap and trying not to remember attending to the Sullas when they bathed. This- this was nothing like that. He was alone here, behind a door both locked and barricaded, and nobody could get to him. A glance at Teo reassured him; if anybody even tried to get in here, they would see the might of the mabari in force.

Once he actually managed to get to it, the bath was a goddamn revelation. He reached for Teo more than once and Teo reached back, cold nose nudging at his hand whenever his breathing sped up or fingers clenched. Slowly, by degrees, he relaxed, and found a kind of peace he had never been allowed for even one moment.

Even coming out, shocked and shivering in the cold air, was its own kind of nice: to be bare of his own free will, to be moving about without worry, to be taking care of himself. He took his sweet-ass time getting dry and dressed, but couldn't work the necklace and didn't know what to do with his hair. It was washed and brushed, he'd learned that much about hair, and while he knew how to tend long hair he couldn't help himself to anything else in the bathroom.

So eventually he pushed that heavy cabinet out of the way, unlocked the door, and wandered downstairs, Teo still at his side, hair looking clean but scraggly.

Hawke was waiting in a downstairs room, a library, unoccupied except for her. There was a fire burning, and a table with a couple of chairs at it, and a stack of books by various authors, in various languages. She was resting her arm on one in particular, a large, thick tome, and drinking a glass of wine, staring into the fire as though she might find instructions in there for what in the hell she should do next. There was an open bottle and another goblet on the table, and pitcher of water.

Teo led Varric straight to her, of course, bounding ahead to place his head in her lap and demand cuddles (which he got). She'd had a bath or something too, evidently; her hair was still wet and she was dressed different. No armor, no weapons. Well, no obviously visible weapons.

She looked up as Varric walked in and a faintly ironic smile flickered across her face. "Have a seat?" she asked. "I'm wishing I could get smashed and aware I don't really have the luxury just now, which is always something best done in company."

Varric had to take a moment to just look at her. Maker’s breath, he hadn’t seen her in three damned years, and while he hadn’t had the ability to miss her, the return of some memory let him miss her retroactively. It wasn’t even fair, how beautiful she really was.

After a moment, he realized he should... say something. Answer her. Have a seat, at least, which he did a little awkwardly. Nobody ever asked slaves to take a seat just because. He’d have to get used to that.

Her question prodded something in him; a familiar, a safe. An urge to speak that he had to remind himself to not fight. “Getting smashed sounds like either a great idea or a really, really bad one.”

He looked faintly surprised at himself for saying so much. He almost entirely suppressed his near-wince at having said something impertinent.

"It's a really, really bad idea," she confirmed ruefully, rubbing her forehead. "Which doesn't make it any less tempting. Here--"

She poured him a glass of wine and handed it over, then pushed the water pitcher over too. He probably would want to dilute his. Chances were he hadn't had any alcohol in years, or nothing good. "Your alcohol tolerance levels are probably shot all to hell by now." A grin flickered across her face. "And much as I'd like to take advantage of the chance to drink you under the table for once, I have too much integrity for that. Maybe another night."

Varric nodded his agreement and took the wine. Still, something about the way she joked about his drinking gave him pause.

“I wasn’t some embarrassing lush, was I?”

Rather than drink immediately, he swirled the wine in its glass, his body remembering the motions easily.

"Yes, you were absolutely dreadful. We once caught you wearing a sparkling dress and singing 'Andraste's Mabari' as an ode to Teo. Brought down the house."

If the deadpan voice didn't give away that it was sarcasm, the expression on her face did. If she'd thought about it she wouldn't have teased someone with amnesia (or whatever they'd call this), but it was so automatic.

Still, she offered an apologetic smile afterwards. "No, dwarves just have more ability to hold their liquor than humans. It made you particularly deadly when we were playing cards."

Okay, that actually made him snort. A real laugh not caused by a dog.

"Should've stuck with the dress story. Couldn't be more scandalous than this shirt."

He had, in fact, noticed how low it was opened. Varric had gotten some details back about himself, but there were certain seemingly-basic things that had yet to return- like any tiny scrap of his ego, his comfort with showing off his body, or memory of his ridiculous fashion choices.

He took a sip. It- it was good. Maker, it was really good.

Her smile grew when he snorted and offered a comeback sally, and she chuckled. "You had a thing about showing off your chest hair. I used to wonder who you got to make your clothes, and if you convinced them to knock a third off the price because they were only making two-thirds of a shirt." She tilted her head, watching his body language. "We've got other ones, if you'd rather have one of them to start with. There's got to be one somewhere that's remotely decent."

It actually was very good wine. She'd asked Riva for something strong for herself, but he'd quietly overruled her and bought something so good she couldn't waste it by knocking it back in a hurry, just in case. Riva had a number of blind spots but in some ways he could be very astute.

She looked him over, noticing the lack of the necklace, to say nothing of his hair. It was very attractive flowing loose like that, but that was one of the last things she'd mention. "Did we forget to find a hair tie?" she asked. "Or do you like it that way now?"

Varric looked down while she talked and examined the shirt; upon further inspection, he found that behind the gold embroidery there were actually approximately seven thousand tiny gold fasteners; they went all the way down, but the ones up higher looked shiny and tight from disuse. He did his shirt up a ways higher, but, after some thought, did leave it open enough at the top to show a little chest hair.

Hm. Better.

At her question a hand went to his hair self-consciously. It was still wet and he looked a bit like a wet dog. "I- actually, I just wanted to... do something with it," he admitted. "I, um...." Okay, this part was getting more difficult. The joke had been easy; it was a little like slipping into Party Mode, and poking fun at himself wasn't a dangerous topic. That was fine. Asking for something, though? Presuming to ask to use an altus's belongings? It made him nervous. "I know what to do with long hair. But I didn't... want to... help myself."

It may have been the only time in Hawke's life that he had ever expressed that feeling. Ever.

"Hm." She fumbled around in her pockets unsuccessfully for a minute before finally pulling out a bit of leather. "Here, this should work. At least, enough for the moment, surely we can find something better. Want a hand?"

Knowing what to do with long hair wasn't the same as being able to do your own, she remembered. At least, not neatly. And his had gotten very long.

"Uh- sure," he answered, and covered up the uncertainty of the moment with a deeper drink of wine. "It's still wet, and not very..."

He trailed off. His hair was a goddamn mess, and although slaves weren't allowed the luxury of vanity, it still didn't sit well.

"Hm." Hawke fumbled in a different pocket and produced a comb. "It's a long time since I did anyone's hair, but--"

She left it off at that. The last time she'd done anyone's hair, it was Anders', and before that Bethany. Not the most auspicious people to follow, and not people she wanted to talk about just yet. Bethany, maybe. Anders...not for a while. The amount of context needed would be impressive. And Andraste's pyre, he'd only been back a few hours.

First things first. She walked around behind him and carefully started combing the hair. It wasn't in great shape, though he'd clearly done his best with the brush upstairs. None of the oils, though. Probably just as well, for now. But it was...'scraggly' was perhaps the kindest word. Still, she carefully undid knots, taking pains to be gentle about it.

It was...astonishingly intimate. She'd forgotten how intimate doing someone's hair was. It almost felt invasive in the circumstances, enough that she nearly regretted offering. Though at the same time any invitation to touch him, to actually feel that he was real and here and not lying dead in a gutter somewhere, even if he wasn't who he was...

She forced back all those thoughts, forced herself to do this more clinically, and braided his hair in one long plait with nimble fingers. She was a little surprised they remembered how to do it. "There." Her voice sounded a little strange to her ears, after that. "If you want something more intricate you'll have to do it yourself, though. This is about my limit when it comes to fancy hairstyles."

Since her own hair, while longer than he would remember/not remember, was still not much past chin length, that was obvious.

Nobody had ever done his hair before. As a slave he was generally expected to keep himself groomed, especially before a party, but it was always his job, his problem to deal with. If the guest list included someone who had a liking for him, his mistress may have thrown a bottle of scented oil at him so he could smell as pleasing as he was meant to act.

It would have been easy to react badly to being touched. He certainly didn't like his long hair; Aurelia had often touched it, or pulled on his braid, or talked about how convenient it was that he had a handle. A lot of people liked to manhandle his hair.

This felt different. This was Hawke. He didn't have much of her, but he knew he could trust her, and he remembered that he loved her. It was, still, one of the first gentle touches he'd ever known in his life. It didn't matter how clinically or not she worked; his eyes slipped shut, his breathing slowed, and he let himself enjoy it.

Eventually she was done, and making some crack about fancy hairstyles. He opened his eyes and felt the braid. It didn't feel any different than when he did it for the Sullas, but somehow everything was different.

Varric looked at her, somewhat at a loss. He had never been taken care of before. "Thank..." He swallowed. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." She hesitated, looking at the back of his head. "You can get it cut, if you'd rather. And I can find you a razor for your face, since you weren't comfortable using Riva's. Which makes sense. I could get you one of your own, or--"

She broke off, hesitating more, then groaned and walked back to her own chair, more or less flinging herself into it. "Shit, Varric, I have no idea how to do this. I hope you can be patient with me while I--" She waved a hand. "While I flail around trying to figure out how to make this...better, I guess, since it can't possibly be fixed. If I could just solve it all by finding the people who hurt you and killing them it'd be so much easier. And I'd be a lot better at it. Though I'll do that too, if I can."

The last bit came out a little dark and frustrated. What Hawke wanted to do and what the Inquisition wanted to do regarding the Sullas were a little at odds.

Varric did not look entirely displeased with the thought of killing the Sullas; he made a kind of 'welp' face and sipped his wine thoughtfully. It comforted him somewhat to know that he wasn't the only person adrift without an anchor. Slavery was a terrible fucking anchor but it was something; without it he was miserable and purposeless rather than miserable and pointedly distracted.

Of course, if he really did have this big damn life waiting for him back in Kirkwall, then he wouldn't be purposeless for long.

Patient. Flailing. Fixed. Words tumbled around his head, falling with a clatter into the quiet that had long since taken hold there. His once-vibrant, constantly churning mind had stilled, moving like a cautious deer trying to avoid the oncoming car of reality.

He didn't know what she wanted him to say. He knew she wanted more from him: vibrance, life, personality. She felt a failure for not knowing how to draw them out of him, as if an hour's love and worry could undo the work of years. As if one woman's concern could heal the corruption of the Tevinter Imperium.

The correct response here would be something hopeful. Encouraging. Something to soothe her worries and build her confidence.

He couldn't lie. They taught him not to.

"I'm sorry." Quietly. "I... don't- know how to do this, either."

"Well, how could you?" She didn't look noticeably disconcerted by his reply. She snorted and gave him a rueful grin. "How could I, come to that. It's not like either of us has done this before. We have a friend who has, somewhat ironically, but he couldn't be here." She made a face. "All right, more accurately it would have been a spectacularly bad idea to bring him here, though he would have had great fun destroying the slave markets with his bare hands."

She looked wistful for a moment, imagining such bloody mayhem, then shook it off. "Anyway. I know this--" Another vague handwave for this." --is going to take a lot of time, and that's no problem. I just don't know how to begin, that's all." She gave him another rueful grin. "Is there anything you want to know? Particularly, I mean."

Varric took a minute to think about it before, at long last, asking her about Kirkwall. There were other things he wanted to ask more, but he suspected that memory would return those more eloquently than some clumsy conversation. Hawke told him about Kirkwall, said it was a shithole but his shithole, and talked a little about their friends. There was something odd in that topic, as if she were deliberately talking around something. Varric's keen bullshit detector could sense a hole in her information shaped like... a person, or some terrible event, or some awful truth that she didn't want to say.

Strange.

Still, talking about them- about Aveline, whose name came to him almost immediately when discussing Kirkwall (without her, the city would fall into the sea-), and about Merrill, and someone his mangled brain could only disdainfully call Choir Boy, and talking about him as if he was some spymaster or master manipulator, a fat spider at the center of a web. That particular aspect made him squirm a little; it reminded him unpleasantly of the machinations of magisters and altuses.

Eventually he found it in him to ask something real.

"Do I have family?" The very question made his head spark with pain. "I- um." His voice often failed him when he didn't feel comfortable cursing in front of somebody. "Just thinking about it makes my head want to explode- so that must mean it's important. I can't... remember anything. For years now, I've gone through life not knowing who my parents are, or what my childhood was like, or anything about myself. It's... unsettling."

There was more vulnerability in it than he realized.

She gave him a setting, then started placing characters. Aveline, Merrill, Isabela, Fenris, a little bit about Sebastian, a little bit about Bethany. If there was a hole in her descriptions, she tried to gloss over it. They could go into the more difficult things later, the more difficult people.

But then he asked about family, and she grimaced. All right, some of the difficult people and things now, in that case. "You did, but they're all dead." She said slowly. "Except maybe for some secondary cousins and the like in the Merchant's Guild, I think. Your father died when you were too young to remember much, and your mother years ago, before I met you. I don't know very much about them." She hestitated, then went on. "You had a brother. Bartrand."

There wasn't any spite in how she said the name. It came out remarkably neutral; whatever anger she'd carried towards Bartrand had been overwritten by the horror of what he'd become, what had happened to him. It wasn't that she'd forgiven him, but she'd always been more concerned with Varric's feelings towards Bartrand, instead of her own. Now more than ever.

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...seven thousand??? even allowing for exagerration, oh god, the poor tailor

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