Name: Slen Karda 54
Age: 17
Occupation: slave
Genre: fantasy
Rough description: pale skin, colorless eyes, hair with very little pigment, 5'4" standing up straight; hunched, scrawny and small

More:
Slen Karda 54 was born a slave in underground paradise of New Pallas, named and numbered according to master and location. She works for the smiths, rather than in the mines with her parents, but being as small as she is, her primary function is to gather and sort scraps of metal and other materials the smiths consider worthless. (She keeps a tiny cache of small pieces she thought too pretty to melt.) Her mother was born underground as well, but her father knew the surface and tells her tales from what little he remembers of his time above as a child. Unlike some of the slaves, she still has her tongue, but she's grown used to pretending she doesn't as a safeguard against someone removing it for her.

Sample:
Slenka, her parents called her, but so did everyone in the camp, since "slenka" was little more than shorthand for "slave of Slen Meritus of Karda precinct." She didn't think of the name they called her, softly, when no one was listening, lest the masters pluck it from her mind.

She wasn't certain they could actually do that, but her mother's fear was reason enough to be cautious.

Her ears perked at the sound of a curse and the metallic rattle of something striking the floor, and she uncoiled from her wary crouch in the darkest corner of the room to skitter across and snatch it up, freezing in place when the old smith's eye fell on her.

"The bin," he told her shortly. "Purity's gone."

She bobbed her head, weaving back into the shadows to the pile of discards. She paused, inspecting the twisted bit of metal in her hands.

It was pale silver, nearly white, except for the web of black lines scratched across the surface, and she lifted a finger to trace them with one finger. She had heard the smiths talk about blighted selphor and how it was becoming more common, but she had always found the slender patterns lovely.

"Slenka!" someone barked, and she threw the piece of metal on the pile as if it had scorched her.

The mastersmith gestured impatiently for her, and she scurried to his side, crouching there and looking up at him inquisitively. Rolling his eyes, he caught her by the arm and pulled her upright. She felt her joints creak as they straightened into the unfamiliar position, and a gasp burst from her when he patted her smartly on the back.

"Inspection coming," he said, straightening her ragged tunic and frowning at its state of disrepair. "Go stand by the pile and pretend to be respectable."

The ghost of a smile flitted across her lips, and he snorted.

"Do your best. If Slen Meritus can't be bothered to clothe his slaves better, there's not much you can do about it."

She bobbed her head and did as she was told, doing her best not to instinctively slip back into a crouch. The mastersmith was dismissively kind to her, and despite her parents' warnings, she found herself warming to him. Her heart quickened, though, as footsteps sounded in the hall. There may not be anything she could do about her tunic and trousers, but that would not stop the inspectors from having her beaten over it.

Or beating her themselves.

Three men strode into the room, each in finer uniform than the last, and the smiths stopped their work to stand beside their stations as they paced through the room. They made casual, muted conversation, one occasionally marking down notes on a piece of parchment, and seemed in large part to pretend the smiths didn't exist.

She found her gaze darting curiously to them, despite her efforts to keep it straight ahead and as blank as possible, and on one such occasion, she caught the mastersmith's eye. He scowled at her, and she went blank again, just in time to feel a blow knock the wind out of her and send her to the floor.

Her head cracked the floor, but not hard enough to do damage, and she went boneless just as the inspector caught her by the jaw in one gloved hand and turned her face toward him.

"Simple, is she?" he said, peering into her carefully unfocused gaze. "We can get you something better from the pens, smith."

He released her jaw, glancing over his shoulder at the mastersmith, who grunted, waving a dismissive hand.

"No need. She knows how sort scrap, and that's all we need her for."

"Mm." The inspector looked back at her, then shook his head and got to his feet. "Then that'll be all. Carry on."

The mastersmith waved them out, and she waited on the floor for the panic swelling in her chest to subside.

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