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Fehan. It rolls so easily off your tongue now, my warrior prince... fehan, cruel, the nickname I found for you too long ago. I am grateful today for your company; this new capture is quite a pretty little bit of fluff and in all honesty, she needs a taste of your sharp tongue to carve her down to size.

Some days when I find myself sitting at the auction hall it is as if I've woke from a dream, looking about at the sweaty, shouting, disgusting mass of humanity and wondering why the hell I am in the middle of them. Even the private seats my rank entitles me to are not enough to really protect me from unwashed and uneducated canines, pigs with beady little eyes and hands quick to count out the change they get after paying for a drudge stamped out of the same cookie-cutter lineup that most slaves, it seems, have been pulled from. Days like this I rarely stay longer than a round or two of bids; leaving quickly, light silk scarf draped with precise care 'cross my mouth and nose, only the twin glittering copper-and-green orbs revealing the depths of my displeasure.

Some days.

Others, rare indeed, find me stumbling back to the carriage, some new treasure on my arm or following behind or crawling in the lamplit, dusty circling path as we wait for our transportation to return. These infrequent days usually provide me with prizes to break for other peoples' pleasure... pretty little toys who I know would look excellent in the collar of a friend, or bright, clever-looking creatures that I suspect I can re-sell at a good profit, even after you add in the cost of the time it takes me train them. I enjoy them for the brief time they reside in my dungeons; more often than not by the time I'm done educating them I am quite glad to see the last of them. I have very little patience, as every pet who has passed through my hands will attest to.

...and once, just once, I came back from an auction having purchased a dark-haired Felinis, his animalistic traits showing clearly in his slitted blue eyes, his strong, sharp claws, and the light dusting of what could have been mistaken for body hair at first glance but, when touched, revealed itself to be fur as soft and delicate as spiders' webs.

I'd paid too much for him. I was certain of that, seeing how slowly he moved when he was led off the block. Not weak, exactly, but the spark I thought I'd glimpsed when he stepped into the circle of light and up onto the display platform had disappeared. Perhaps I'd only imagined it. My second view of him, his face peering up wearily from the far corner of the communual pen they'd shoved him in, gave me no better opinion. For a moment I wondered if I'd made a complete mistake, if I should just sell him back at half-cost and get it over with... then he looked away and in the split second it took for his eyes to become hidden by his long hair and the shadows around him, I caught what I would have sworn was actual rage pouring from him.

Beautiful. Tempting. If he could hold that much anger, and hide it that well, then this would indeed be a prize worth breaking and one that would easily net me ten times over what I'd paid for him. If. With this one, it was so hard to be sure.