Majiro lay stretched out on the bed, his silvery blue eyes squeezed tightly shut. It didn't help. Nothing seemed to erase the stark accusing whiteness of this room, his entire world. The complete lack of color meant only one thing: he was abandoned yet again.

He supposed he should be grateful. The last master had been cruel, even by Majiro's now exacting standards. Everyone was cruel to him, everyone since the First…

But the First had given him away to the others, so maybe he hadn't been kind so much as indifferent.

None of that was important. All that mattered was he was alone again and the whiteness was closing in on him like a living breathing thing. He ran his hands up the cool skin of his arms, fingers lightly tracing the fine network of scars that crisscrossed the pale flesh, ending with the twin lines that ran nearly from wrist to elbow. Much as the sensation of touch calmed him, it wasn't enough. It never was.

He hated captivity.

He needed his Master.

The alternating hatred and need played through his head in a mindless litany as he shifted against the sheets, silently reveling in the roughness against the sensitive bare skin of his back and thighs. Days of nothing but whiteness. No one to talk to him, to touch him, to feed the craving. Days and days of punishment.

Someone was watching him through the window.

Very slowly Majiro turned his head, his eyes opening to slits as they traced over the pristine white wall opposite the bed. There was a window. Even if he couldn't see it, he knew it was there.

Faster than thought, Majiro flung himself out of the bed and crashed at the wall. In a frenzy of movement he beat at the steel with his bare hands, praying for the crystalline sound and spray of crimson- colored blood that would accompany the breaking glass. They couldn't hide it forever.

There was a window!

The First glared with contempt as the man leapt back from the observation window, clipboard clutched tightly to his labcoat-clad chest. He didn't have time for these administrators, these men and women who waltzed through the project at odd intervals talking about money and paradigms and other endless nonsense. None of them understood. It wasn't the money that was important, although the stockholders would probably have a collective stroke at the simplistic truth of those words. No, it wasn't the money at all, however nice it might be.

It was the control. Physical control over the Keys, financial and sexual control over the Masters, it was all part of a unique beautiful whole. How anyone could fail to see was entirely beyond his imagining.

Regardless, blindness seemed to be a dominant hereditary trait and maybe he should be thankful.

The man finally managed to regain some of his composure, although his shocked gaze never veered from the spectacle of the beautiful if painfully thin young boy beating frantically at the shatter-proof glass. "Is he quite all right?"

The First waved a negligent hand and took the nameless administrator's arm. "He's fine, nothing to worry about. He's just emerging from the punishment phase before his switch to a new Master. A bit troublesome, maybe, but some people do pay highly for that kind of thing. Nothing at all to worry about."

The man's eyes all but lit up at the mention of money. "Oh? He's being resold, then?"

"Assuredly. His former Master filled out the transfer paperwork a month ago. Of course he can sell the Key for whatever price he sees fit, you understand. He was a gift for services rendered and that imposes government sanctions on our price schedule."

The administrator's face reddened, just as the First had known it would. Steering the conversation safely into the discussion of government strictures on private industry, he could be certain that the Ivory Key was gone from the man's thoughts.

Sometimes it was better that the business remain just an impressive set of numbers. Slavery made some people so squeamish.