Darkness,

For a time that was all he knew, he could not remember a time where he wasn't a captive of its cold and, it remained so that he knew nothing but the gloomy night, with no possibility of escape for without knowledge of it, the concept of light was beyond him.

Until he met her.

He suddenly found himself enveloped in warmth, and although he was not free of the darkness, he was no more alone, the once deafening silence now filled with the slow and steady thump of a beating heart, the occasional hum of a song and a beautiful and melodious voice.

There were moments where her heart sped up whether it was from fear or excitement, he was able to experience it all, and as time went by the sound of her heart became more apparent to him.

Then he heard another sound for the first time another heartbeat, but this time it was his own, and subconsciously he knew what this meant.

The Darkness would soon pass.

It was not long before he saw the light and air flowed into his lungs, welcoming him into this world, into this life.

And what a tragic life it was

He was born into a people, an enslaved people, bound to serve another race as slaves. His people as he had come to understand them were not merely oppressed into slavery by the exceedingly high might of their masters; they were bound to their masters with methods beyond his understanding, practices that ensured absolute loyalty for generations to come, in essence, producing a slave race.

There are few a fate that can compare to the bleakness of being born into slavery, a reality he would slowly comprehend over the following years of his life.

The cries of our young protagonist rang out in a run-down shack from his creaky wooden cradle that was lined with ratty animal fur. Two hands reached down into the crib pulling him up into a hug while gently rocking him up and down and placating him in hush tones.

"ssshhhhh, don't worry my sweet child mommy is here," she said to her child as his cries faded away, replaced with childish giggles, now warmed by the presence of his mother.

Jean could be considered a young mother by earth standards, having her first child at the age of seventeen but in the slave colonies where the strong ruled, a girl as attractive as she, would have had many children from multiple men or from any man that was strong enough to claim her.

But Jean was a smart girl and spent her days with a cloth over her face and baggy clothes that even concealed her gender much less her figure, her mother died in childbirth, and she was raised by her father who also died when she was seven.

Up until this point, it could be said that Jean has lived a tough life. Still, in the colonies, her experiences could be considered average at best, every slave had lost one relative to the hardship of living in the colonies, and everybody had a tragic story to tell if we went based of the amount of family they had lost to the hard labour and horrible living conditions forced upon them by the ever stringent demands of the masters but far be it from a slave ever to find fault with a master, no that would be blasphemous. However, their lives where still hellish loops of constant suffering and somebody had to take the blame and so the slaves turned on each other.

Stealing food from the hands of their fellows, ravaging and pillaging became the only way for these slaves to feed their children, the masters did not care what the slaves did to each other as long as they filled their quota and remained incapable of threatening them, they could do as they wished.

As to the circumstances that led to jean's pregnancy, it was not very complicated; she was careless, and a master discovered her real appearance having taken a liking to her, he took her to bed and got her pregnant it was a rare occurrence for a half breed to be born but not unheard of, in fact, if a family line has had enough children with slaves, it is possible to remove the ancestral slave imprint from their bodies essentially purifying their lineage.

Though her son was only one of, this particular master's few children, as the son of a master, he would be receiving certain privileges. One of which entails that he will not be living in the colonies any more he will be moving into the house of the master, his father.

While jean as his mother and the master's personal property recently bought and paid for, she will be joining him.

Things seem to be looking up.