As far as you were concerned, your days as a free Beoga are over. The only comforting thought is that you are not alone on this ship. Below the deck you are tied up with ten other Beogani brothers and sisters. Half of them are as pale as the moon, the other half are the hue of tanned leather. Where all the others are you couldn't tell, but it was reasonable to assume they were being held on separate ships bound elsewhere.
The last thing you remember before you were captured was the grand celebration for the beginning of Autumn. This year the Beoga crops had yielded a magnificent bounty. Such an immense surplus had not been had for over 400 years; a regular offering to the harvest goddess was not going to cut it this time. Thus it was, after a week and a day of preparations, that a sumptuous banquet was held in the sacred grove of Etya, the Beogani goddess of the hunt - to whom you and your people owe their delicious game and the very large feet needed to pursue the animals. Of course, your people had also intended to offer tribute to Oolomita, the goddess of agriculture, who made this harvest bountiful and this banquet possible, so the elders sent you to fetch Oolomita's statuette from her shrine. The fact you were entrusted with this task filled you with pride; by combining the two sacred places with this simple gesture, you would be the one to renew the bond between hunter and farmer, between nature and the cultivated realm of man.
That was when They arrived.
After you were assigned this simple yet important task, you ran as fast as your clompers could carry you to collect the statuette from Oolomita's shrine. But when you hurried back to Etya's grove with the statuette in hand, the sight of 6,000 Blue Elves gathered in the town's plaza stopped you in your tracks. They appeared to be led by a dour-faced woman with a turquoise complexion and hair like finely spun gold astride a huge deer with spiraling antlers: this was none other than Princess Nikali of Preotopia Prime leading the army and her mount was a giant eland from the fabled exotic hotlands, but you did not know this at the time.
Though you had never met a Blue Elf before or have any clue why such a large gathering of these elves had arrived on your doorstep, your gut told you that they were not here for the celebration - or that they came in peace. The fact these elves were armed certainly did not give the impression they were invited either. Without a word, the princess pointed her ebony sceptre at you with the same menacing look in her eyes. You had immediately taken the hint and dashed towards the grove.
A sharp pain hit your neck from behind, but it did nothing to slow your pace. After quickly brushing away whatever stung your neck, you focused all your thoughts on reaching the banquet grounds. You had to warn everybody of the invasion. Sure, they lacked weapons on account of the relative peace of the banquet, but at least they could take shelter in Etya's Burrow or the caves deep within the forest. After evading the Blue Elves for such time, perhaps your elders could then orchestrate a counterattack to drive the invaders out and back to their ships. It was unlikely that the Blue Elves would want to throw away lives any more than your fellow Beogas, so perhaps they would think twice before messing with a bunch of "bare-assed savages" again.
Further thoughts were interrupted by a sudden dizziness you had felt. Your speed lessened and you began to stumble; your vision became blurry and your breaths became as slow as your feet. No matter how hard you tried to focus on your immediate task, it was difficult to make out the path ahead of your on account of your increasingly blurry vision. The throbbing pain in your head did not make it any easier. Finally, after one last stagger, your body had decided show you mercy and let you drift into unconsciousness.
You don't remember anything else after that; you blacked out before you had even fell in the dirt face-first.
When you regained consciousness, you were aboard the very ship you are now on with ten other Beogas. You were all below deck, sitting on the floor with wrists tied and torsos restrained to strong wooden beams by equally strong ropes, and under the constant surveillance of one of two guards assigned to your group. They were also responsible for feeding all of you, giving you water, and if any of you had to relieve yourselves both guards had to present when they tended to you one at a time. If any of you so much as stepped out of line (which some of you did, including you), then the guards punished you or your comrades with an open-handed slap across the face, taking away your food and water for the rest of the day, or exploiting your biggest weakness - quite literally - by removing your footwear and tickling your bottoms of your feet.
This has been your life for about a week now. Sure, you will not be down here forever and life will change any day now but for you it will not necessarily be for the better. You understand the outside world well enough to know that slavery usually awaited those who were taken captive by a foreign invader. Being a free soul for your entire life, the very thought of someone else owning you frequently made you miserable. It would be as if you were no longer a person.
Fortunately, you have not been entirely despondent from loneliness. You could still talk to the others whenever the guards would "allow" it and this made you feel a little better. But the one Beoga that kept you from falling into despair and reminded you that you were still a person was the one sitting right next to you: a little boy named Deyja. He was a pale-skinned Beoga who appeared to be around 8 or 9 years of age with a short mop of red hair, eyes blue like the sky, and chubby cheeks with freckles (something you have always found endearing about him). For clothing he only wore a leather vest, dark green trousers, and the typical leather shoes worn by your average Beoga. Other Beoga children would begin losing their excess body fat at the seven year mark and gradually become more slender over time, but Deyja, still a chubby kid, seemed to be taking his time. While you had never spent a lot of time in his company, you never felt the need to make fun of him or mock his portly figure like the other children; on the contrary, you thought he was cuter than a puppy.
In any other situation similar to yours, it would supposedly be your duty to protect and watch out for somebody younger and weaker than yourself. However, that was not the case at all in this situation. Back home, Deyja was never much of a talker - at least not to your knowledge - but now he would always try to start a conversation with you. You two would share your favourite sights back home, what foods you liked, whatever dreams you had for the future, your best scores in a game of Palabo; the boy would talk about anything to pass the time and alleviate your melancholy for a while - at least until one of the two assigned guards told you both to be quiet. But in those moments when your mood was considerably low, such as the present moment, he would offer gentle words of comfort and encouragement, to let you know things would be alright, even though he had very little to be happy about himself as you do.
Often, as he is doing now, Deyja would stroke your leg with his little right foot (well, little in comparison to your feet and those of the other adults) using slow, gentle strokes with his bare pudgy toes to calm your troubled mind. It was a simple yet kind gesture on his part, despite the underlying wistfulness it carried within. But by far his most selfless act was on the second day in captivity when he demanded one of the two guards to leave your feet alone when you were about to be punished. Angered - and taken aback - by his uncharacteristically brazen attitude, the guard turned her attention away from you and towards Deyja. Your shoes and foot cloths still remain on your feet, but at the expense of your friend's footwear. The guard had given that brave lad's bare feet a thorough vellicating and ensured she had sent him up the wall, be it through scribbling her fingernails along his meaty soles or utilizing a feather to attack his plump toes. Though you begrudgingly admitted the boy's laughter and ticklishness was utterly adorable, you couldn't help but ponder the nature of your relationship once more. In these situations, you were supposed to be the one to comfort and protect the little guy, not the other way around! That boy must be the living incarnation of Milva, the goddess of kindness, bravery, and the heart, to act as he did on your behalf, so what did that say about you?
After that day, you had felt bad that Deyja sacrificed his shoes and foot cloths just for your benefit and wished that he had not said anything. Be that as it may, he said he did not regret sticking up for you and that he would do it again without hesitation. As he had said in his own words, "That's what friends do for each other. I know you would've done the same for me."
Although you agreed with the lad and you were grateful for his help, you still felt an ounce of regret for what had happened. Flash forward to the present and as you ponder that day's events, you consider your own standing compared to everyone else present. By now, every Beoga onboard has had their shoes and foot cloths confiscated by those two guards except for you, and it's very unlikely they will ever get them back. From time to time, those same guards would tickle everyone else's feet for their own amusement but they never made an attempt to remove your shoes after that incident. It makes you wonder if the guards like you best out of all the others.
Staring at a nearby bronze plate, you see the reflection staring back at you as a...
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