A willing victim, Part 1

I had been waiting for months now for the treasure fleet, the ships carrying a single gift. I knew from the letter where I would find that gift. In the hold, in a cage. Locked. Locked like I was. Trapped in this great estate with nothing to comfort me. I had admitted to the Ubar that I loved Agrippa still, that I would always love Agrippa Pontus. Even while I hated him, even when I wished him dead.. even when I imagined killing him myself.. I loved him.

So when I was summoned to my father’s empty estate to meet with scribes.. I went and I went quickly. Perhaps Agrippa was giving me back my family home, my father’s legacy. Perhaps he had realized how cruel he had been to take it all away from me. Perhaps he saw that I deserved to be once more the heiress to a dynasty. Of course that’s what it was. I entered that house an Ubara, a princess of pride, the Queen of the largest military on all of Gor.
I would leave it barefoot, breathless and running for my life.

He was there, waiting for me in that house. His head shaved, his face in shadow but I know Agrippa, I know the feel of him in a room like I know the back of my own hand. Forever kid gloved, hidden, but with me. Agrippa is always with me. I did not, you might be surprised to hear, run to him. I shouted at him instead. He was foolish to come here! Dangerous.. The Ubar would see him hanged for more then his betrayal (Which really was not a betrayal) to Cos and.. for my love. The Ubar, like all men of power.. was a greedy selfish man. I may have only been an after thought to him but I was not allowed to have any other thoughts besides thoughts of him.

On the table between us Agrippa spread out the contract. The contract that made me his daughter, legally. Clever wording also made me his companion.. or his slave. It all depeneded on how you read it and which page you started with. In short.. Agrippa owned me. I have signed this contract first and it, techinically, made every contract I signed after it.. void.

No one besides the two of us understands this contract. In fact.. I do not even fully understand it. Only Agrippa does. He put it there, I think, to remind me what a farce my life was.

"I think you should get Sorp and a few of your favorite things and go down to see the Plenitude. Go read the love letter I left you in the cabin and just try not to make a spectacle of yourself. As difficult as that may be for you to do, I remind you the last time you made a spectacle of yourself you were in the hands of Nazarus malice for ahn."


"Oh!" I gasped, loud enough to be heard though my veils. That.. hurt. Because it brought back memories I did not want and.. the memory of making Agrippa cry. My hand pressed against my belly where Naz had marked me, the scar was gone now. I blinked once, trying to digest everything he was saying.. telling me to leave Cos? Could I leave Cos? Leave my pretty crown?!

"Agrippa..." I started to protest, I think? But then I stopped, I looked at those papers, I recalled the night I had signed them and my gloved hands curled into my skirts and I spoke in a very small voice. "Right now?"

"Yes right now, you don’t have to hurry but the plenitude is going to be leaving soon and I want you to read my love letter. Just be discrete about it and I am sure you will not have much trouble at all making your way down the street. "

"Yes.. Agrippa." I agreed quietly. I looked at him a moment longer and then I turned on a heel and.. left. While the men were searching the house and grounds.. I was quietly making my way back towards the estate. I hurried, nervous now after having spent so long as a caged, clipped bird. My hair was heavily curled and spilled down my back as I cut to the beach, the only way I could enter the Ubars home without being stopped.

Little did I know that what I left behind was Agrippa setting my ancestral home.. on fire. The Ubars guards knew I was at my Fathers house and when the fire broke out half the island would be there searching for me. They would find nothing, I assume.. but my boots, left behind. I would be believed dead. Cos would mourn me.

I ran down the beach towards the estate, barefoot, my hair a streaming mass of curls behind me and my heavy skirts curled into my hands so my delicate calves were exposed. I woke Sorp, quietly and instructed her in what to take with us. I was breathless and hurried, my veils were growing annoying, making it hard to catch my breath! I took all the things Lucien had given me, because I knew what they were worth. And I took very little clothing. ... I couldn't carry that much anyway, neither could sorp. I had an Ubaras wardrobe. We were quick and silent and.. after a moments pause.. I left no note, no explanation. The Ubar would just.. know. A half an hour later I was on the Plentitude. Just in time to see the fire begin. I.. shrieked! Sorp too, grasped my arm as we watched over the railing as Agrippa.. once again.. destroyed my whole world. I should have been so much more upset! I did not understand my own willingness to give up.. everything to please a man I could barely stand. I watched the fire, my gloved hands clasped over my mouth and my green eyes wide.

My life had just gone up in flames. I hated Agrippa. I loved Agrippa. I needed Agrippa.

To be cont. Waiting on a love letter!