Freedom's Challenge. 
By Ebonhawk

I remember the day that I first met Trina. She was one of a dozen personal protection furs. The room was white and sterile and there wasn't a throng of stinky old men in dusty country attire. There was no top-hat toting auctioneer but instead a single salesmen in a three piece suit. It was a slave auction all the same though.  I guess at the time I was a lot less smart about these things. I try to tell myself that I really believed that any creature that was part human and part anything else was not human enough to have a soul. And if they don't have a soul then they should be dealt with as if they were property. That was what they taught me. It was what they taught them. And it was convenient that I believed it all. Looking back at it now, I have to laugh at the stupidity of my strongly held beliefs.  

But, I came to Revelations to get a bodyguard that I would never have to worry about turning on me. A bodyguard that wouldn't tell my every indiscretion to the media. A creature that would stay with me no matter how bad the certain groups hated me. I don't know why I picked Trina. I know now that I must have liked really her. She was a young phoenix then. Her Psi-powers weren't very strong and her body was almost laughably weak. There was something about her eyes and her feather plume that I found so beautiful. I knew that I need to have her, though I would have never have guessed why.  I looked in her eyes and she met my gaze with a burning hatred. She never had a doubt that she was a slave, created by science to serve the whims of mankind. I guess I should have known what I was getting into when the salesmen asked me five times if I knew what I was doing.  I told him to get the paperwork done. In less then ten minutes, I was walking out the door with the bird fur at my side. 

I didn't really look at her until I got home. With a book of bird fur biology in one hand and an electronic leash on my ring finger, I examined her like one would a new computer.  I read what was supposed to be here and then checked her to see that it was there. I think I got to her tail feathers before she finally made a sound. 

I looked at her sharply and then she cringed. I saw where she was looking and then realized that she thought I was going to slap her. I pulled away and she immediately looked down. It was as if she was resigning herself to some demonic fate. I don't know why, but I was certain that I was the demon. I took her by the hand and sat her down. I talked to her for almost ten minutes before she finally said anything to me.   It was a simple question and it changed my world: "Why was I born with wings if all I can be is a slave?"

I gave her some stupid answer about her needing them so that she could fly. I didn't understand. I was so stupid and naïve. We both were I guess. But the next day she did as she was trained. Where ever I went she was nearby. She never had to save my life but she kept me safe from more threats then I care to think about. I was grateful of course. I treated her to the best that I could afford. She ate with me. I gave her an allowance of a half a million credits a year.  I let her choose at least one vacation spot a year for us to travel to. And from time to time, I let her go places without me.  She wanted for nothing. And she was happy.

One day, I saw her on the roof she was looking at the sun and crying. I nearly broke my neck climbing up to her but when I reached her, she turned to me and started to smile. I don't know why but it bothered me. I asked her what was wrong. She said nothing but as I looked into her eyes, I knew that she was lying.  I don’t know why but I remembered the first thing she had ever said to me. 

I pointed at the sky and a big fluffy cloud.  I asked if she could take me up to touch a cloud. She took me in her arms and then with a flap of her wings, we were aloft. It was the most exhilarating experience of my life. The wind rushing by me as the earth dropped away at our feet. She looked at me and smiled. I guess I had never thought about  flying like this. It was great. It only took a couple of minutes before I was at the bottom of what looked like an airborne fogbank. I reached out and touched it. Then she said, "What now, Master." 

She may as well have dropped me. She wanted to be free. I wanted to keep her at my side. I told myself that she was valuable property. I tried to tell me that she was not human and therefore she had no more a right to be free then a turkey sandwich. That didn't account for the feeling that I had for her. I looked in her eyes and I could see that she had a soul - a human soul.  A soul that I had enslaved. By holding her to me with electronic chains, I had lost any hope of having her as anything more then a slave.  She deserved the right to have her freedom and a chance to find happiness. Even if I couldn't be a part of it. 

I knew what I had to do. Once we had landed, I put her control ring on her finger and told her to take what she could carry and go. She looked at me as if I was trying to test her. When I walked away, I could feel her eyes fixed on me.  It took her almost a minute longer to realize what had just happened. She never entered the house, instead she cried out "Free" and then flew away.  

I wanted to say something else to her. That I loved her , but I realized that they were hollow words. For three years I held her as a slave. All I really wanted was to go flying with that phoenix fur and instead I enslaved her.  I had shown the world that I could consider another sentient being could be denied freedom. That was going to change. 

I started the Furrior Freedom Movement (FFM) that same day. In the last ten years, I have had the pleasure of being attacked by many groups- The military industrial complex, NSA, CIA and of course, Revelations Inc itself. My career is gone now.  They have destroyed my contacts and devastated my fortune.  Eventually, I had to even surrender my FFM to others. 

I could care less. 

I should have known better.  When Alpha came to me and offered me a chance to make a difference I jumped at it. I gave up my humanity (as I was born) and was reborn as one of the first pack of airwolves - winged wolves. I travel the globe organizing safe houses for escaped furriors. I have organized many boycotts against Revelation. I have spent hours teaching humans and furs about each other and how we can all get along.  Escaped and free Furriors and their friends think that it is so selfless and noble that I am doing this but it is neither.  All I really want to do is to find her and apologize. Maybe then she will forgive me and we can start over - as free beings.