"Get back here you bastard!" a short portly man spoke as he chased after a boy who couldn't be more than ten. Around him were a few other people also chasing the boy.

The boy, who was roughly five feet and two inches in height, still seemed significantly taller than these short folk. That served to his advantage as his stride brought him further faster. The ten year old's grin and childish laugh served only to annoy the angry halflings.

The kid continued to laugh as he ran. Eventually he decided to switch things up. He ran into an alleyway of the city and pulled some strings in his being. With a brief manipulation of magic the boy disappeared. As the halflings rounded the corner, expecting a trapped boy in a dead end alley, they observed with anger riddling their minds, that the boy had disappeared again.

The boy reappeared on the other side of the stone wall blocking the alley from the small clay shop on the other side. To his surprise, there was no surprised clay worker. Just a single, robed individual, with a wand in one gloved hand and his other gloved hand holding a book. The wand twinkled with magic and the boy felt a power set over him. An overwhelming and immense power.

With a flash of magic and an extremely complicated set of chants, the halfling wizard cast a spell that restricted the boy's movements and stopped him from performing his teleportation. "You're coming with me bud," the old mage spoke.

The mage flicked his wand as his book flipped and the cage floated up and began to follow the mage. The kid was dropped into a wrot iron cage with a plate of wood on the bottom. The spell ended as he was dropped inside. Though a small circular rune was painted onto the back of his hand. The rune glowed a dim purple.

The old mage sat there and watched the boy. Idly flicking around a five pound ball of steel with magic.

"You brought this on yourself," the halfling said.

A tongue being stuck out was his response.

"What is with you and breaking into people's houses?" he asked.

An angry look was his answer.

A sigh escaped the mages mouth, "If not for your refusal to follow our rules and pension for causing disturbance and disruption. I would have allowed you to stay in my tower. Your heritage is incredibly interesting." A twitching of one of the boy's ears signified the child's annoyance. Then the two fell into silence.

The next hour was silent. By the time anything happened the boy was so bored he had fallen asleep. The kid awoke when the movement suddenly stopped and he was shunted into the wrought iron cage. He screamed as the stuff touched his bare arms. A shrill and incredibly loud thing. One would guess that his soul was being burned by the touch of the metal.

As the kid separated himself from the metal he looked at his arms. Blackened lines as if his arms were hot dogs on a hot grill greeted him with an immense stinging sensation.

Some of the workers around the area looked up at the scene. The workers grumbled and got back to work on readying their convoy. 

As the child looked around, he found several other cages, most of them made of wood, but some made of iron like his. The iron cages held really big beasts. But his cage was iron for a much more spiteful reason. He had long known he was born with fey blood. Ever since he could remember. The blood of nature and whimsey flows through his body. This was his first time interacting with iron. Most of the buildings around the town were built out of wood and stone. Touching metal burns him, not just his body, but his soul. It will be weeks before he can perform any magic

The cage the boy was in got lifted into a cart and melded into the prepared convoy. He suspected that within the day, they would be heading out. He had a prank prepared for this thing. He idly thought about the amusement it would have brought him. He was going to weave an illusion around a cart to make it invisible. The owner would be freaking. And then a trigger on the cart would notice his approach and his exit, and the moment he left to tell someone about his missing cart, it would wear off. That wouldn't be happening anymore, he was a slave now, the mark on the back of his hand curses him to servitude. 

The mage spoke up, "You could have been interesting, but now your another's problem." and he turned his back on the fey. "Oh, and you're going to be traveling for a while, so be ready for a lot of harsh treatment before you're sold. You have made no friends here."

"I was under the impression people couldn't be sold." The first thing the boy said was spoken with nothing but spite. None of his playful intent.

"We don't consider faeries people."

With that cold reply, the shocked boy was left to stew. Later that day, as he was taken away, he saw a few hard glares from the villagers.

As the convoy moved, he heard the guards talk, "Did you hear what our fifth stop is?"

The second guard looked over at him, "Yeah, elven territory right?"

"Just the edges, no towns, but they will know we are there."

"That's worrying. I hope they don't pilfer any of our stock."

"I suspect they will, knowing the elves, they don't take kindly to cages, they seem to think that beasts are just as entitled to the right to freedom as people." the human spat on the ground.