<em>"Liandra?"</em>Tialyn went to one knee, her voice low, soft -<em>"Liandra, it's me - Lady Tialyn."</em><br/><br/>The redhead's eyes went wide, and at first Tialyn didn't understand why the pale woman's skin seemed to go even whiter.  Her lips sealed tightly, lips gone a pale rose.  Her head shaking no ever so slightly.  Still Tialyn pushed on, not understanding the nude woman's reaction.<em> "...Do you know who you are? I've come...All this way  Do you know me, at least?" </em>Her palm rising to cup the cheek of the redhead who began trembling visibly.  The blonde woman asking softly with a furrowed brow<em>"Liandra?"</em><br/><br/>Finally the damn burst, tears spilling from the corner of the redhead's eyes.  She looked around, looked behind her where Ebony tended to the other slaves in turn.  Then back at Tialyn, her voice was so soft Tialyn could barely make it out as she whispered in a voice full of anguish,<strong>"Please, please mistress, please I beg of you!  Do not say that name!  I told you when I saw you last night, you <em>MUST</em> not call me by that name.  The magics that Master Sabin has, that Ebony commands, they can do much, but they can not remove my memory, my mind.  I of course remember everything that happened before I came to be here in Master Sabin's house.  But I am forbidden to speak of it, forbidden to use the name I carried before I was a slave.  Even though you have been left a sense of your freedom, you can claim to be a free woman.  I can not.  I have accepted my role, praying to..." </strong>She paused.  Tialyn got the sense that she'd almost said to the 'shining light' the goodly force that granted Tialyn her divine powers.  But instead she had stopped before saying it.  Instead shaking her head again and trembling.  When she finally had the strength to continue she said,<strong>"In my own head, they control that not of course.  I say my prayers every night that what they have promised will come true.  The master said that if you fulfill the role he brought you here for, we will both be free to leave, to return to the lands of our birth.  But I must stay alive long enough for you to do that, and the only way for me to do so was to accept my current fate."</strong><br/><br/>She looked  as if she were about to start bawling in tears as she said,<strong>"Please mistress, and understand that I can call you nothing but while you are a free woman.  Understand that I would never have chosen this collar, but it is survival and it is... tolerable, and even pleasing at times.  Especially..."</strong><br/><br/>She stopped speaking swallowing around a lump in her throat that caused her voice to sieze up.<br/><br/><em>"Especially what?" </em>Tialyn prompted.<br/><br/>The redhead swallowed hard and whispered,<strong>"Especially when the alternative is so horrifying." </strong>Tialyn had been subjected to mental and physical torture, but the way the redhead was acting it had been something different.  She finally continued after a few moments, watching Ebony leave the slave's quarters.  The sound of the door locking behind Ebony let Tialyn know that she'd been locked in for now.  But Liandra, or Ruby as she preferred to be called apparently, seemed to relax when the drow was gone.   Behind them the other pleasure slaves seemed to drift back through the rooms of the pleasure slaves quarters, casting glances towards Ruby and Tialyn, but staying far enough away so as not to be eavesdropping. "They hurt me mistress," she finally admitted, still staying in the same kneeling position, for she had not been told to move,<strong>"They hurt me very badly, broke me, broke my body in ways I could not imagine.  But just when the pain was enough where I thought I would die, Ebony was there.  She healed my wounds, took away the pain, and I would sleep.  Then it would start again the next day.  Always the pain, then healed back to perfect health, not a scratch to be shown.  I broke mistress, I could take no more.  When they offered me a chance to leave the dungeons and become a pleasure slave, I took it.  I thought that I could find a way to escape."</strong><br/><br/>She let out a sharp barking laugh.<strong> "But the first day that I was out of the dungeons they took me to the beggars square.  There I saw what happened to pleasure slaves who were disobedient to the point where their masters couldn't reform them.  There was one woman staked out in the sun, her neck and wrists bolted to the wooden platform with iron bands.  Her ankles chained to the same platform with just enough slack that any passerby could spread her legs and make use of her body.  The half used jar of pig lard next to her told me that offer had been taken up.  I don't think she was to be unchained until it was time to cremate her body.  But there were others too in beggars square.  Women who were once beautiful, cut and scarred horribly, maimed in horrific ways, hobbled, forced to sell their bodies for crusts of stale bread."</strong><br/><br/>Ruby was trembling now,<strong>"But here, inside Master Sabin's compound, I have food that is healthy and clean.  Water that is fresh and pure.  I am kept comfortably and only occasionally need to give away the only thing I own, my body, to my master or whoever he commands.  But it is not bad,"</strong>She touched the collar about her neck,<strong>"a single word and this activates and I want to do it.  I feel great joy, great arousal, I great desire to spread my thighs, or to take him in my mouth, or..." </strong>She shook her ruby locks.<strong>"He doesn't call on his harem as often as you might think.  Last night was the first night he called for me in over a week.  Until then I read, sew, exercise, try to stay ready.  But most of all.... most of all... I prayed silently... for you."</strong><br/><br/>She finally moved, shuffling closer and leaning forwards, pressing her forehead against Tialyn's thigh.<strong>"This life is not so terrible, and Ruby the pleasure slave is content.  But she hopes that Mistress Tialyn can make things better.  For Ruby can do no more than try to survive for now."</strong>