"Precious, if we are going to share the same female, then yes, we should all agree on whom we are bringing in," a male's voice floated down the hallway, "Someone we can love too, and someone who will love us in return. Don't you all agree?"
A few males hummed their agreement.
My ears perked up at the new sound outside the cells, a bit too eagerly, as potential buyers came to check the females.
Love? It looked like they required some sort of skill, something I didn't have.
Even though I already knew better, my heart still did that little hopeful flutter.
I stood outside of the cells obediently until my legs started to ache. I didn't want to dirty the floor by sitting on it. The females had just cleaned the dungeon.
The rags I was wearing were hanging in tatters, and weren't washed for... I didn't know.
I shouldn't be touching the floor outside my cell, where the males walked, more than I already did. My dirtiness could seep in.
"What's wrong with this one?" the female seethed at her males from around the corner, "Alive and breathing should be good enough."
'Alive and breathing? That's me...' Whatever requirements the female was looking for, I matched them. My shoulders dropped. '..but also every female inside the cells.'
"That's too low," the same voice said again, a little more playful this time, "Your standards need to be higher than alive and breathing. A little higher, just a little."
"Higher?" she paused with a bit of a sneer, "If my standards were just a little bit higher, you wouldn't be sleeping in the same bed as me, and have your c─"
"Alright, alright," he interrupted, "Precious, we are in public. Can you at least pretend to have some respect for your head male in public...please?"
It was quiet for a moment, probably as she decided to spare his feelings.
"Yes," she answered finally, "I will pretend."
"Ouch," he cried out as laughter filled the air. It was the sound of several males laughing with them.
The word "precious" sounded so strange coming from a male. I had only heard that word used by a female when referring to her male offspring.
In a world where females outnumbered the males twenty to one, the idea that these males were sharing one female between them, instead of each taking twenty as their own, was odd.
Unheard of, really.
Unless the female was of unparalleled beauty, then... no, I still didn't get it.
What was even stranger was that this female seemed to be even more feared than all nine of her mates, combined.
My hopes that these new visitors would buy me were already gone, so the less of a burden I could be to the traders' staff, the better. Less trouble for them meant less trouble for me.
The problem was that I was standing in the middle of the hallway where the traders had left me before rushing to greet the new clients. They had to be very important people for the staff to leave them unattended.
Usually, the traders would never leave any male visitors on their own, especially in the female's cell area. Not because the clients could do anything bad to us, but because we had nothing to offer a male, and they might feel offended by being surrounded by a bunch of worthless females.
It was usually other females who needed extra help in a household or extra hands in the fields who would visit, looking for another pair of hands that wouldn't devalue their own worth.
Ugly but not too ugly, useful but not too useful to replace them. Females like the ones in the cells around me.
And then, there were females like me, the opposite of what everyone wanted. Too eye-catching to blend with the surroundings, too fragile to work long hours, too ugly to even think about selling as pleasure mates.
So why was I here?
I was here to make the rest look more appealing, look better in contrast to me. At least that was what I said to persuade them to shelter me under this roof for a while longer. It was only a matter of time before they'd cast me aside again to fend for myself.
After all, I was just a black sheep, a bad omen.
A female not worthy of a name.