Richard bumped along in his tiny cage, lit only by the faint glow that emanated from the cloth that covered the wagon. Much like his time on the elven warship, he spent his days clinging to the bars to keep from being rocked around the much smaller prison.

It felt like weeks since he had been plucked from the masses for some unknown purpose. His savior, the violet eyed goddess with jet black hair, only made appearances to load and unload cargo and see to her own meals. He would usually be fed at the same time, he didn’t miss the old cage with its filth and odor, but he did miss the social contact, limited as it was. He had tried shouting up at his new owner in the common tongue a few times, but she ignored him each time. He had debated trying Elven… but he didn’t want to give away his understanding of their language just yet.

So his imprisonment continued. Every day, food and water would come in, and the elf would take his cage out from close to the front of the wagon to dump some water through it for cleanliness. It was a feeble existence, but Richard could only count his blessings, for once in his life, he had been the lucky one. His thoughts would frequently flick back to the fate that befell those he was captured with; in the solitude of the wagon, he prayed that he wouldn’t meet the same fate.

Finally, his isolation came to an abrupt end as the elf lowered a single, massive cage into the other end of the wagon. The cage had multiple floors, and it was absolutely packed with naked humans. It was far larger than the cages the military used, and each of its multiple floors had hundreds of small pale forms, packed tightly in the cramped interior.

The wagon moved. Considering how packed it was, there was far less shouting and screaming from the cage than he expected. He couldn’t make out anything about its occupants, but the voices sounded feminine, primarily. The seething, almost flowing motion of their bodies melted together from the distance, and he found the cage to look more like a colony of ants than humans.

Perhaps that’s how the elves viewed humans? Is that how they justified their crimes? Richard had never been an elf hater, far from it, he admired their civilization’s advances from a scholar’s point of view. But to fry human beings alive… just for a meal. He couldn’t wrap his mind around that. It had to have been some military decision, right? An aberration, too many prisoners too quickly; he was convinced of this, there was no other reasonable explanation.

The wagon came to a stop again, and it seemed to be their final stop as the elf began to remove everything from the wagon; he heard the voice of another as she approached.

“Galea! How was the trip? Find anything interesting?” The approaching elf sounded young, very chipper and warm.

“Fine, Maya, just fine, and actually.” Richard could almost hear her grin from her tone alone, “I did find something interesting, I’ll show you in a second. First, help me unload all this feed and the new females.”

“Okay! I’m on it!”

True to her word, the elf girl known as Maya suddenly appeared over the cage full of women. Her shoulder-length silver hair nearly touching the cage as she bent down to haul it out of the wagon. Those trapped inside let out a few shouts that likely sounded like the squeaks of mice to Maya, and lifted them away without another word.

Both of the elves continued to unload the wagon until they finally reached the front, the small raven haired elf, the one evidently named Galea, gently took hold of his cage and lifted it up.

With his view finally unobstructed, he saw that they were in some kind of elven settlement, a city, it was much quieter and much cleaner than any human city he had ever seen.

“So? What do you think? Interesting catch, don’t you think? Galea suggested while holding the cage out for Maya to see.

“More than just interesting! I’ve never seen a human with blue hair before!” Maya was absolutely floored. “What are you gonna do with him? Where did you get him?” Her face took up half the view from his cage, her brilliant golden eyes shining in the sun as her words nearly deafened him.

Richard felt Galea’s shrug through the cage.

“Bought him off one of my contacts at the front, fresh caught.” She replied coolly, “as to your other question, I figure we’ll just get him started breeding and find out if it is genetic. Separate from the general population, of course, wouldn’t want to waste this one if it is genetic.”

What? Richard thought, did he hear that right? Breeding? Elves were breeding humans? Maya was saying something back, but he couldn’t focus on it. He felt… disgusted and revolted, his eyes darted around, his mental confusion transmitting to his body for the briefest of moments, and he stumbled a tiny bit. He thought he saw Galea looking at him and he did a double take, but her gaze had already fallen elsewhere.

His cage began to move, their conversation over, Galea was taking him into the building she and her accomplice had taken the other cages and supplies. Before he knew it, he was through the doors of the building and into a small front area that was being used for storage. Mountains of crates and sacks lined the walls, and at the far end, another door.

Galea didn’t pause for a moment in the front room, instead she strode directly to the door on the opposing wall and walked straight through. On the other side was something Richard could never have imagined.

It was a massive room, seemingly thrice as long as it was wide, there was a hearth at either end and a gargantuan work desk in front of the hearth closest to the door. From Richard’s scale, the room could have easily housed an entire city. It had four rows of shelves running down the length of the room, and all along the shelves and walls, stacked nearly fifteen to column, were cages.

The elven goddess placed his cage down upon the desk, and from his new, closer vantage point he gawked at the megastructures.

Atop each colum was a hopper filled with food. A system of aqueducts crisscrossed the room and supplied each column with two sources of fresh water. Some cages were massive… hundreds of human beings seemed to mill about within them. Others were smaller, seeming to hold a few dozen at most.

There was motion in the cages. He squinted and could just barely make out individuals amongst the throngs of people. With a sick sense of horror, he saw some of those individuals paired off and doing…

Breeding, That’s the word Galea had used earlier. The realization nearly brought Richard down to his knees. It all made sense. For the past few weeks, he had been trying to rationalize the murder of all those captured with him. Cooked alive to be an ingredient in some elven dish. Surely it had been a military necessity during wartime, a strange anomaly that had resulted from too many prisoners too quickly.

But something had bothered him upon reaching that conclusion, the military chef said that elven cities had human restaurants. That didn’t make any sense, given their current diminutive size, there weren’t enough humans in the world to satisfy the demands of an elven city with human restaurants. They were only an inch tall! You would need dozens, if not hundreds of humans per serving! There was just no way, he thought it must have been some strange elven humor that he didn’t yet understand.

But upon seeing this… he realized that the elves could reach sustainable numbers of humans, there had to be thousands of people imprisoned here, like animals on a farm…

The elf known as Galea turned and took a seat at the desk, her face lowered until she was staring at him, like how she had done at the elven kitchen.

She smiled.