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Description
... or More Riches II : The Director's Cut (as suggested by BlueDisciple )

Story-Related Notes:

I'd written two very different backgrounds for the slave girl. Since I've decided to go with the European backstory (and appearance) for her it occurred to me that the villain's mistress could get the other backstory. In fact, it works really well for her. Her placeholder name is Zarana and she, too, was a slave.

Born to an impoverished family in Egypt, Zarana was sold at a very young age and wound up in India. By that time she'd all but forgotten her name (Tara, meaning "Star") but she blossomed into a remarkably beautiful woman and was given a new one by an adoring master. He called her Zarana. Unfortunately it turned out that he'd named her after a woman he desired, but couldn't have. When circumstances changed and he was able to be with the Zarana he wanted, Zarana the slave was discarded. Her next master was the ambitious son of a Persian prince. He gave her reason to believe that as long as she served him faithfully he would free and marry her when his plans succeeded. Of course, he had no intentions of freeing or marrying her. Her beauty and loyalty were excellent tools to have at his disposal, nothing more. His ambitions were nearly realized when Deshret al-Fazil entered the picture and it all went sideways...

In giving that alternate backstory to the villain's mistress, she becomes a "keeper," so I decided to come up with a shape for her and do some renders. Besides, I'd always liked how in The Phantom (the movie) the femme fatale had a change of heart and switched sides, joining the hero and the "good girl" instead of meeting some kind of bad end which is what usually happens.

Zarana's collar is the original piece. Allegedly it came from the New World, carried across the Atlantic in the 16th Century by a beautiful savage . Michelle 's is a replica. When the assassin, Deshret al-Fazil, came into possession of both slaves he planned to remove their jeweled golden collars, turn the collars into currency, and free the women who had been forced to wear them. Deshret's mother was a slave, he was raised by slaves, and the idea of personally owning another human being troubled him. But Zarana and Michelle both insisted that as long as they were in the Empire, they were safer with him than they would be if he freed them. So Deshret agreed to maintain the arrangement, promised to protect and never betray them, but he insisted on getting rid of the collars. Each was worth a small fortune and would finance their travels well beyond the reach of the Empire. He also insisted on teaching them various martial arts and disciplines, trying to unravel a lifetime of submissive conditioning.

Description
... or More Riches II : The Director's Cut (as suggested by BlueDisciple )

Story-Related Notes:

I'd written two very different backgrounds for the slave girl. Since I've decided to go with the European backstory (and appearance) for her it occurred to me that the villain's mistress could get the other backstory. In fact, it works really well for her. Her placeholder name is Zarana and she, too, was a slave.

Born to an impoverished family in Egypt, Zarana was sold at a very young age and wound up in India. By that time she'd all but forgotten her name (Tara, meaning "Star") but she blossomed into a remarkably beautiful woman and was given a new one by an adoring master. He called her Zarana. Unfortunately it turned out that he'd named her after a woman he desired, but couldn't have. When circumstances changed and he was able to be with the Zarana he wanted, Zarana the slave was discarded. Her next master was the ambitious son of a Persian prince. He gave her reason to believe that as long as she served him faithfully he would free and marry her when his plans succeeded. Of course, he had no intentions of freeing or marrying her. Her beauty and loyalty were excellent tools to have at his disposal, nothing more. His ambitions were nearly realized when Deshret al-Fazil entered the picture and it all went sideways...

In giving that alternate backstory to the villain's mistress, she becomes a "keeper," so I decided to come up with a shape for her and do some renders. Besides, I'd always liked how in The Phantom (the movie) the femme fatale had a change of heart and switched sides, joining the hero and the "good girl" instead of meeting some kind of bad end which is what usually happens.

Zarana's collar is the original piece. Allegedly it came from the New World, carried across the Atlantic in the 16th Century by a beautiful savage . Michelle 's is a replica. When the assassin, Deshret al-Fazil, came into possession of both slaves he planned to remove their jeweled golden collars, turn the collars into currency, and free the women who had been forced to wear them. Deshret's mother was a slave, he was raised by slaves, and the idea of personally owning another human being troubled him. But Zarana and Michelle both insisted that as long as they were in the Empire, they were safer with him than they would be if he freed them. So Deshret agreed to maintain the arrangement, promised to protect and never betray them, but he insisted on getting rid of the collars. Each was worth a small fortune and would finance their travels well beyond the reach of the Empire. He also insisted on teaching them various martial arts and disciplines, trying to unravel a lifetime of submissive conditioning.