She even saw some of the others stick their faces in it and came up dripping with water. Pieces of the stew they'd eaten falling down their faces into the trough. Yet, Charlie steeled her stomach. It was disgusting, yes, but she was at least confident that she could use her magic to purify any water she picked out with her hands so she wouldn't have to deal with any germs or diseases that might be growing in there.
However, at the moment she suddenly didn't feel as thirsty as she had a minute ago. Maybe she'd go over after she finished her stew, but just looking at it was enough to make her realize just how poorly they were thought of by these people.
So, Charlie sat back down and started eating her stew. It wasn't bad, but she'd definitely had better. Even the stew at her school cafeteria wasn't as bad as this. It was edible, but they either used a lot of salt or there was an ingredient that they used that gave it a very salty flavor.
She finished her stew in a few minutes and thought about licking the bowl clean, but when she saw the two children who she'd helped out earlier looking at her with pleading eyes, she sighed and handed them the bowl.
Although, rather than lick it clean, they both used their hands and fingers to scrape it clean and eat what they could. While Charlie wondered what they knew about table manners, she couldn't deny that this place probably didn't help with that sort of thing. Especially since they didn't even seem to get so much as a spoon.
Though, as Charlie was about to make her way over to the water trough, the young man called out, "Everyone who has finished their meal needs to return their bowl. Every bowl that isn't returned will result in ten lashes for each of you."
Charlie didn't see what use she'd get in trying to hold onto it, so she quickly took the bowls from Cithis and Haln. She handed them back through the bars without complaint and then turned to head towards the trough.
With the salty flavor of the stew still in her mouth, she felt like she needed water just to keep from having her mouth desiccated from the salt that was in the stew. While it was disgusting to have to drink out of that trough, she couldn't see a point in trying to argue against it. Especially with her voice still sealed.
Which was quickly becoming a preventative measure she was regretting the necessity of. She hoped it wouldn't last long, but she also wasn't optimistic that this whole ordeal would go by very quickly.
_
The next day she was sitting in her usual spot with Cithis and Haln next to her. The two didn't seem to find a problem with drinking the water out of the trough, which made her wonder if they'd been in this kind of situation all their lives. Or if maybe they'd been forced to live like this for the entire time they could remember.
She tried not to think about it, but with nothing else to do, she couldn't help but let her mind wander to topics like that. Part of her felt guilty for wanting to leave these two in this life when she saw her first chance to escape, but she tried consoling herself that it would be necessary.
This wasn't her world to begin with anyway. Whatever happened to these children didn't have anything to do with her or what she was responsible for. Yet at the same time, she found herself already growing attached to them. Almost like they depended on her for everything.
Then when they were given another hunk of bread at lunch, the confrontation started.
Cithis and Haln had sat down next to Charlie and were in the process of taking a bite of their bread when the same two people from the day before who had stolen their bread ripped the hunk out of their hands.
"Hey! That's ours!" Cithis protested.
"As I said before, you have to fight for it if you can," the girl said, using her foot to knock Cithis over as the girl tried to stand up.
Charlie stood up herself, glaring at the two in front of her. Neither paid Charlie any mind until Charlie snatched the stolen bread out of their hands and quickly handed it back to Cithis and Haln.
Even if she was going to abandon them sometime down the road, she didn't see why she had to let them get bullied like this. Especially with how they looked like they needed the food. She couldn't say if they got to the state they were in from being here, but having their food stolen, even if it was just for one meal each day, wasn't going to be helpful to them at all.
"What're you doing?" the blue-haired girl demanded.
Charlie glared at her but didn't respond. She wasn't going to let this stand if she was able to do anything about it.
"Don't bother," the purple-haired girl said. "She can't talk. Which means she can't do anything other than just look tough."
"I'm surprised we even have to deal with a twig like her," the blue-haired girl said.
Charlie was vaguely aware of a crowd forming, watching the confrontation with bated breath. It felt so much like when she was in school that she almost expected to be wearing clothing again. While she hadn't ever been in a fight, it wasn't uncommon to have one pop up every now and then. Especially among the boys, for whatever reason.
Still, she wasn't going to back down. Not when she recognized this would set the tone for the rest of her stay in this pen. She was going to do what she could so these two wouldn't try to take the food of their current two targets again.
Charlie took another bite of her own hunk of bread before handing it to Cithis. If nothing else, she'd like to have some more of it when she finished with these two. She probed their minds quickly and wasn't really surprised to see that they weren't accustomed to fighting. They primarily got what they wanted through intimidation and force.
However, they'd been getting by without any challenge so far, so they were clearly not in the mood to let Charlie go without doing something to her. Especially since Charlie could tell they thought she was stupid just because she couldn't speak.
As if intelligence had anything to do with if a person could speak or not. Especially with how these two were proving.
Charlie didn't even make a sound. She merely put her hands up with open palms, more to be ready for any attack she knew was coming. She didn't want to risk her using magic to be detected, so she quickly withdrew her probe into their minds and waited patiently.
The first strike was faster than Charlie had expected, but it was still rather clumsy. The blue-haired girl was the one who swung her fist at Charlie, and she seemed to rely more on brute strength than a precision strike. Charlie merely pushed the girl's strike out of the way with a simple block and then started to make her own attack when she had to dodge a punch from the purple-haired girl.
While the two weren't strong fighters on their own, fighting together certainly made it harder for Charlie. She wasn't sure if she had bitten off more than she could chew. At least with how fast they were able to move. She was at least confident in her ability to keep them from landing a strike.
Yet what turned the tide was when the two girls started to slow down after a minute. Since they hadn't done much fighting before, it was clear they weren't used to this strenuous activity and were already getting worn out. Which meant that their strikes were starting to come slower and slower.
Which worked well enough for Charlie. She hit the blue-haired girl in the stomach with her fist and then caught the right leg of the purple-haired girl with her left foot and pulled it out, forcing the girl to fall over.
Then before she could stand up, Charlie put her foot in the center of her chest, pushing her down until she was laying on her back, holding her down without much effort. Charlie then glared at the blue-haired girl, challenging the girl to continue on with this fight that they had already clearly lost.
As she heard the lock in the door to the pen turn, Charlie realized that nothing else was going to happen, and released the girl on the floor. If she continued on with this, she wouldn't be surprised if she'd gotten beaten herself by those who were keeping them in there or if they might have in mind to try and kill her.
When she heard the door open, she took her foot off the girl and backed up until she was standing next to Cithis and Haln. Both clutched their bread like they were afraid it would be taken, though either they were too nervous to eat or they'd temporarily forgotten their hunger.
The people who came in to the cell did not look happy and Charlie wasn't sure what to expect. Part of her thought that they were going to beat her with the two girls who had started this whole situation, while another part of her suspected that this was merely a show of force to try to prevent this from happening again.
"What's going on?" the woman from when Charlie had been trying to get some water demanded as she strode into the pen. "Who started this fight?"
Naturally the two girls pointed at Charlie. Charlie again cursed the need to have sealed her voice. She knew that she wouldn't be able to adequately defend herself, but it wasn't like she'd be able to do anything about that. She was just trapped by the circumstances surrounding her whole situation.
"They tried taking our bread," Cithis declared, pointing at the two girls that were blaming Charlie. "Mother was merely defending us."
Charlie blinked. Since when was she Cithis' mother? Was this their way of adopting in this world or something? She couldn't be sure if she was okay with this turning out this way herself, but she also couldn't say that she was opposed to it. Even the thought of them looking at her as a parent somehow made her feel more like protecting them. Like they were more important to her just because of that, rather than just two children she had felt like helping out because of how they clearly had needed assistance.
She wasn't sure how to really explain the change, just that she knew it was now going to be harder when she found her opportunity to escape. Provided at least that she wouldn't be able to take them with her. To help them escape as well.
The woman looked between those involved before turning to the young man who had been handing out the bread. "What did you see?"
The young man looked like he'd rather not get involved and Charlie completely understood. She'd rather not have been involved in this in the first place. She'd just rather have been able to eat in peace. Not deal with any of this at all.
"I didn't look," the young man said, looking down, after a few minutes of tense silence. Mostly because of the heated looks from the woman who seemed to be the one in charge.
The woman merely sighed. Then looked at Charlie. Then at the two that Charlie had been fighting.
"Alright. Move her out of here. She'll be tested to see if she can be an arena fighter. She at least has more potential than most we see," the woman said, indicating Charlie as the one to be moved.
Charlie didn't even have time to fully process what had been said before she felt one of the other women that had entered grabbing her shoulder and pulling her along.
Charlie resisted for a moment, though she wasn't really sure why, since she doubted it would turn out very favorably for her if they felt like she was refusing to do what they wanted her to do. Which, of course, would probably make it harder for her to escape if an opportunity presented itself at some point.
As she felt small hands grab ahold of her own hands, Charlie stopped resisting. She wasn't sure if she had wanted Cithis and Haln to go with her, but she couldn't say that they'd be better off if she wasn't there, since no one else seemed inclined to protect them.
Though, when she reached the door holding the hands of the two children, shew as stopped. "Should we bring those two as well? They won't be useable as fighters," the woman who had been 'escorting' Charlie asked.
The woman in charge, the one that Charlie had a feeling didn't like her for whatever reason, sighed. "Might as well. If nothing else, we can use them as incentive to keep her fighting in the arena. Besides, they didn't sell at the last auction, so if they go with her when she gets sold, we'll at least have that taken care of."
Charlie wanted to give the woman a piece of her mind, but could only curse the need that had led to her not being able to speak. Not that she thought it would have helped anyway. If nothing else, she was certain that she'd only have made things more difficult for herself if she could speak at that moment.
Cithis and Haln not only kept hold of her hands as they were ushered past other pens of people, or what Charlie had to assume were other slaves, but the children seemed to find comfort in being close to Charlie as they almost seemed to press into her while they walked along.
Charlie had half a mind to try and pick them up, even though she was pretty sure she didn't have the strength to do that. Maybe she could have if she tried when they'd first arrived in this world, but with the month of inactivity when she was in that pen being quarantined because of the plague, she wasn't as confident in how strong she was at that moment.
It didn't take long before Charlie was shoved into an empty pen. This one was maybe a tenth of the size of the one she'd been taken out of, but it looked like it had its own water trough and some straw on the floor in a pile. Likely for a mattress for her to use.
"When's the next fighter tests?" one of the women outside Charlie's pen asked.
"I think there's one tomorrow. Which means this happened at a perfect time. Otherwise we'd have to leave her there for another week," another woman replied, sounding like having moved Charlie into the pen was hassle she wasn't happy with having to have dealt with.
Charlie pushed their conversation out of their mind and led Cithis and Haln over to the straw, where she sat down, not sure if this move was a good thing or not. She hoped it would be, but couldn't be certain that it wouldn't be more of a problem overall.
Cithis handed Charlie her hunk of bread back before sitting down next to Charlie on her left, leaning against her with Haln doing the same on Charlie's other side. Even though she wasn't sure about anything that was really going on with the two children, she decided to just not worry about it.
She just started eating her bread, at least happy that she wouldn't be around those two bullies again. Or at least she hoped she wouldn't. She couldn't say what might happen down the line, just that being able to relax like this was almost more than she could have hoped for. Especially with all that had been happening since she first woke up in that caged wagon with no idea how she had ended up there in the first place.
_
The lock to the door of her pen turning woke Charlie up. Cithis and Haln here sleeping peacefully, both using her chest as a pillow, which while Charlie didn't like the sensation, didn't have the heart to refuse. Not with how they had a pleading look in their eyes when they looked at her.
Still, she wasn't sure if the door being unlocked was a good thing or not right then. She sat up carefully, so as not to disturb the two children while at the same time wishing the straw wasn't poking her so much. It at least was softer than the stone floor, but it still left a lot to be desired.
Cithis and Haln didn't seem to wake up as Charlie changed her position. They merely kept sleeping. Charlie looked at the two people opening the door and felt a little surprise. The didn't look like they were the kind of people Charlie had gotten used to seeing around the pens. For one thing, they had bladed weapons on them rather than just whips and clubs and were much more muscular than Charlie had ever seen women in real life. Outside of bodybuilders, that was.
"Stand up," one of the women said as she entered Charlie's pen. She had lilac hair, tanned skin, and emerald eyes. She also looked like she might be getting close to her forties, if not in her forties already.
Charlie didn't jump to it, instead she carefully removed Cithis and Haln off of her, doing her best not to wake them up.
However while she was setting Haln down, she felt something slap her shoulder. She wasn't sure what it was, just that it wasn't a whip, but more like a ruler. Something that really hurt but didn't leave a lasting mark.
"I told you to stand up. What do I care about those two?" the woman snapped.
Charlie didn't allow the woman to rush her. She just merely looked at her when she was done and then stood up. She wasn't sure what else to expect from this woman, but she wasn't going to give in easily. Especially when she was already making it clear that she wasn't Charlie's friend.
The other woman with the first didn't say anything. She merely stood at the door, a kind of tattoo on her neck or either a kind of arrow or spear. She wasn't sure, but suspected that it might mean something to some people. Not that Charlie knew what it was. She also had Lilac hair, a very dark tan, and pink eyes. Charlie estimated her to be around twenty.