There is no change in the life of a slave.

This, Taeyeon knows. Her days are spent washing her mistress's robes and preparing her meals. Her nights are spent sharing a straw mat with six or seven other girls, the cold hard ground beneath them. 

Her hands are raw with scabs and red from scrubbing clothes against boards and her body is covered in bruises, not from beatings, but from pure labor. The summers are awful, but the winters even worse.  The older girls take her blankets and the thin material of her robes does nothing to battle against the unbearable chill of the winter. 

But this is her life. Her routine. The pain is bearable, perhaps because it is so familiar now.

And today, just like any other day, begins the same way.

She wakes up as the sun rises. After quickly getting ready, she prepares breakfast for her mistress, master, and their children. After they begin eating, she gets to cleaning their rooms and taking their dirtied robes down to the creek to wash. 

As she scrubs down the robes silently, the other girls - also slaves - gossip about whatever new topic has been swarming around the village. Their village is a small one, populated by a few wealthy families, but mainly by poor commonmen. Rumors spread like wildfire and it is impossible to keep a secret once it's spread to one person.

"People are saying that the sacrifice for this year's ritual to the water god will be from here," Yeri, one of the younger girls, mentions while hanging up robes to dry. 

"Silly rumors," Sooyeon, another girl, remarks while shaking her head. "Why would they get a sacrifice from a small town like ours?" 

Silently, she agrees with Sooyeon. The ritual to the water god is one of the most sacred ceremonies in the entire nation, taking place directly at the royal palace with both the king and queen present. The girl chosen to be sacrificed is nearly always said to be a nobleman's daughter - of incredible beauty and skilled in the arts. 

If not chosen as a sacrifice, those girls would've undoubtedly been wed off to only the highest of men. But rather than being treated like an expensive trinket for the rest of their lives, Taeyeon believes, that perhaps they preferred death.

Perhaps they relished in being chosen as a sacrifice, if it meant that they could escape their damned fate as nothing but another man's possession. 

It is a privilege that she does not have, but somehow, she feels as though she can understand.

"Unni! Taeyeon-unni!" She snaps out of her thoughts, looking up as another servant girl, Seungwan, beckons at her. Straightening out her skirt, she quickly walks over to the girl, uneasy by her frantically nervous expression. She knows already that Sooyeon and Yeri stare at them curiously.

"What's wrong?" She says quietly, keeping her voice low so the others cannot hear.

Seungwan swallows. "The mistress is looking for you." 

She stares, perplexed.

"Why do you look so nervous? There is something more, isn't there?"

Seungwan shuts her eyes closed, as if it pains her to say her next words.

"There is a lady from the royal palace that wishes to see you."
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Without any sort of explanation, she is stripped down and scrutinized, and although she is accustomed to humiliation, this is beyond anything that she has experienced. 

She braves a face of stone and betrays no signs of embarrassment as they turn her around. From behind her mistress, is a woman that she does not recognize, but from her robes, can recognize to be from the royal palace.

Her stares leave imprints on her skin, and it makes bile rise up in without even knowing the reason why. The bruises on her body are plainly in sight and it aches in a way that has nothing to do with physical pain. 

There is nothing but silence in the room, before her mistress finally speaks.

"Is she the one that you are looking for?" Her tone is one of disdain and disbelief.

The lady sharply turns. "Indeed. She is untouched, yes?" 

"Yes," Her mistress responds. "But she is still a slave. Please keep that in mind." 

"Do you know of her birth origins?"

"None. She was left on our doorstep as an infant. Even her name is one that I gave to her."

The lady suddenly turns back to her. "You. Do you know why I am here?"

She shakes her head, answering formally. "I do not." 

"Although it is not completely confirmed yet, there is a high likelihood that you will be chosen as the sacrifice to the water god this year." 

Her heart pounds relentlessly in her chest, even as her face remains the same picture of calmness. There is a mixture of confusion and fear that blooms inside of her chest. 

She is a slave. Not a nobleman's daughter. Not the sacrifice that the water god would want. 

"It...would be an honor for me."

The lady stares at her for a moment, before clearing . "I would like to take her back to the royal palace. It is on the queen's orders." 

Her mistress rises from her seat, a displeased frown on her face. "As you said, the king will compensate me, correct?"

"If she ends up being the sacrifice, yes."

To her, the lady turns. "Get dressed promptly. We will be heading to the royal palace immediately." 

She bows, clenching her fingers into the skirt in her hands to hide the way they tremble.

There is no change in the life of a slave. 

Because for a slave, change is dangerous.
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At the royal palace, the maids take her by the arms to a bath, where they scrub away at her skin, peeling away layers and leaving her sore from the pressure against her bruises. She is not used to such treatment, treatment that is not befitting of a slave. 

She knows they stare at the scars and she can almost imagine their thoughts.

How ugly.

The royal palace is unfamiliar and strange. She should be lower than the maids here, the one to bathe them instead of the opposite. She knows the treatment she is receiving is for supposedly being the sacrifice to the water god, yet that seems ridiculous in itself. 

An oil that smells of jasmine is gently massaged into her scalp as they powder her cheeks and dab at her lips with red. They dress her in the softest cloth, colors of pink and yellow, that she has ever worn and her hair is neatly braided, an expensive ornament added at