For the better part of a century the Leonindrian wars had blazed across the Imperium's borders. They had brought with them their culture, roads, law and the all important act of Slavery. Not a single race, be they the enchanted fay of Elusteer, the pragmatic feline touched masses of the Subrian jungles or even the enigmatic Sirens of the Parreth coast were excluded from the auction blocks. Citizenship required at least 3 generations of service of the Throne of a Thousand Suns. The jaded eyes of the Imperium's nobility and the vastly wealthy trade barons of the upper middle class pursued these creatures like so much chaff. Indeed it was considered a mark of distinction to hear and see the vast cultures of the Imperium's domain in servitude, a fashionable rage shared by merchant princes and Nobles alike.

The blocks were fit to bursting today, campaigns against the Elven Autocracy of the Shimmerwood had brought in fresh stock newly sailed in. The lesser fey and their allies had been putting up a spirited contest and their enchantments had caused no end of irritation for the residing Imperial commanders. Once proud, the beautiful sylvans, dryads and fairies were held in a variety of ways to display themselves. The proud elves were wrapped in pale, translucent silks that cleaved to their lithe frames, hiding little but still causing the eye to want more. The younger dryads had their trees dug from the earth, transported in great carts pulled by teams of massive oxen, roots still burrowed in the ground the soil of their homeland. Their luminous skin and leafy hair displayed with little concern for modesty as they sought to protect their wooden souls. The fairies were placed in small glass domes, flittering too and fro on butterflies wings of a thousand colors that left a trail of light in their wake, the tiny forms unable to do anything to escape.

The Prince of Vallia looked at many in turn, eyes less cruel than jaded at the experience. The title prince may have been misleading in some cultures. The Imperium considered it a higher form of nobility but not one directly tied to royal succession but bound in some way by blood to the Imperial family. Valence was a hard man, aged into his middle years after having spent years commanding troops of the Empire on campaign's against pale northern barbarian's who dressed in fur and woad paint with their thrice damned horned witches who had in them the blood of demons . They danced fluidly through combat with blade and spell. He missed those days. At least then he'd felt more alive.

He had dark brown hair, the first signs of grey pepping across its length, mixing in with a beard kept trimmed neatly to the broadness of his jaw. Eyes were as grey as steel, never flinching hard in a way that expected more of a person than what he saw, ever questing for that inner fire. He had come to choose among those here to service the needs of his household. Some to tend the gardens, some the pools that ran linked within them, a few to mind parts of the estates and a select few to warm the sheets of his bed as indolent creatures of sexual revelry. What would catch his eye, what would spark him to desire something to truly capture his eye. There was only one way to tell.