8. Was your character well informed about their home city’s political state?

‘Well, now, tha’s a interesin’ one. When I were there, th’ orphanage tried t’ be sure we was taugh’… though I’d say livin’ in th’ streets give me a differen’ … perspective… on it all. I mighta been better informed ‘n even mos’ nobles, in some ways – jus’ not in ways they’d all ‘preciate.’

A shrug of her shoulder as she pondered. ’So, better’n mos’ commoners, an’ even better’n nobles wha’ din’ play in th’ politickin’, I reckons. I ain’ sure ‘ow well informed tha’ really were, even so. Not in th’ Reach. I reckons y’s either in th’ know, or y’ really ain’. An’ by tha’ measure, I weren’. So… take tha’ ‘ow y’ will.’

Cruella! Something you want to steal.

Breaking off from her quiet pacing at the question, Adri looked at her questioner curiously, then started tapping her cheek as she pondered. ’There be differen’ kinds o’ “want”, m’lady. Even in m’ younger days, when stealin’ just t’ eat an’ ‘ave rags t’ wear, I learnt there be… consequences. An’ sometimes, they be t’ poor an’ hons’ folks I don’ want t’ be ‘urtin’. Tha’ bein’ th’ case, I can’ think o’ anythin’ I truly wants t’ steal, ‘cause I don’ know nobody I wants t’ be deprivin’ o’ some’at I wants.’ She shrugs, with a slightly impish grin. ’Now, on “wants bu’ don’ really want”, like if’n I wouldn’ be ‘urtin’ nobody I’d care abou’, there be a awful lo’ of nice clothes an’ jewelry I’d sure like t’ ‘ave an’ can’ jus’ afford.’

4. What did your character want to be when they grew up?

The small blonde blinked, and thought back. ’I spen’ a lo’ of time wantin’ to be a carnie. An’ I s’pose I’s even done tha’, though I weren’ very good at it. I ain’ got th’ showmanship.’ She giggles, shaking her head. ’Other times, though, I wanted t’ be a Norn – I go’ tired o’ bein’ a runt – or a teachin’ priestess o’ Kormir.’

Myra turned a little, unsure as to whether or not she should approach the silvery-haired Adriwyn. After a brief moment of contemplation, Myra carefully clanked her way over, to settle at her side. Her eyes turned towards her as she asked, lips tugging into a faint smile. “We’ve never really spoken — it’s a little impolite of me to disregard you, as such.” Myra paused, and then offered forth easily, “…How are you? Ehm. I know it’s not the most interesting topic, but… a start?”

The waif watched a bit nervously as the Ministry Guard lieutenant approached. No matter that Myra was practically one of the Roses, someone who grew up as a gutter-snipe was just never going to be comfortable around anything to do with the Ministry. Besides, even with what appeared to be such a casual and non-threatening approach, that was someone in heavy armour approaching a tiny former street-rat. The mass difference alone was enough to keep her watchful.

When the lieutenant sat down by her, Adriwyn found herself both curious and a little more nervous. The manner of the other woman’s smile reduced her nervousness almost immediately, however, it vanished in a giggle when Myra finished making her conversational gambit.

With a warm smile belying the content of her words, the tow-headed waif replied, ‘I’s doin’ purty good f’ someone whose friends an’ swee’earts ‘as been turnin’ up dead or severely injured. An’ y’s righ’, it at leas’ be a start. So, ‘ow’s you?’

“We should do something together, Adri…” Cali whispers, stretching out a hand to hold the other woman’s hand. “I don’t know what… any ideas?”

harvestlife:

adriwynofkryta:

Adriwyn pondered, then giggled. ’Wha’ever it be, it oughta involve walkin’ indoors! A’ leas’ until I’s sure you’s doin’ better wi’ that.’ A shake of her shaggy hair to dismiss the mostly-teasing comment reminded her that she needed to cut it again. ’It ain’ th’ best part o’ th’ season f’ entertainments, ‘specially no’ outdoor ones – an’ too many o’ them is … well… visual. Walkin’ on th’ beach? Cuddlin’ on th’ beach, f’ tha’ matter. I jus’ likes y’ company, Calia. I don’ much care wha’ we does, even if’n it be nothin’ at all.’

“Don’t you care what we do, dear one?” Calia muttered quietly, turning her head in the direction of Adri’s voice so the other woman could hear her clearly. “I know you want more than what you’ve gotten, don’t you?” An ashen hand stretched out, finding Adri’s arm and pressing her fingers into the fabric of her sleeve. “I didn’t know you were longing for me, of all things. I wish you would’ve told me sooner. I really, really do.”

‘Darlin’, tha’s like… ‘avin’ ‘oney f’ y’ tea. Wha’ matters be y’ company. O’ course I wouldn’ mind ‘avin’ more, too, but… tha’s th’ impor’an’ part.’

“Won’t you please just bury your friend and let her rest? Move on? Just move on, Adriwyn. If you try to snoop around me, I will push you away. Please, just move on.” Ifetayo said this, sitting with Adri quietly at the tavern again.

dyestainedhands:

adriwynofkryta:

dyestainedhands:

adriwynofkryta:

Sighing deeply, the diminutive tow-head mentally prepared herself for yet more heartache before answering. ’The questions wha’ was raised stands on their own – an they’s questions abou’ thin’ like “where’s you from?”. If’n you’s goin’ push me away over tha’, well, tha’ ain’ goin’ leave me much choice in thin’s I’s goin’ ‘ave t’ do.’

“Look, I told you, I’m from Ascalon. I lived there mostly. But I’ve also been wandering,” Ifetayo said, grumbling. “What things are you going to have to do? You don’t need to do anything. Really.”

“Please Adriwyn. Why do you need to know all that? I have yet to hurt you or anyone else. Why can’t we look forward, instead of backwards? I don’t want to talk about where I’m from because I’m not there anymore. Don’t you see?”

‘Tha’ ain’ wha’ y’ told me, be th’ thin’. You told Calia tha’, in my ‘earin’, yes. But y’ also changed wha’ y’ was sayin’ t’ ‘er from wha’ y’d been sayin’ t’ me. An’ a changin’ story wha’ be about some’at so basic as “where’s y’ from”… tha’ be worrisome. ‘Specially f’ someone charged wi’ protectin’ others. M’ duty be in serious conflict wi’ m’ feelin’s righ’ now.’

“Then what do you want from me? What do you want me to say?” Ifetayo was frustrated, and she held her head. “If I had wanted to hurt any one of you, I would have already, in a situation where you’re just resting with me, or holding me close.”

“I could have hurt Calialiel back when she first stumbled through the door, newly blinded!”

“Maybe why my story differs is because I just want to move on from my past. Is that so hard to understand? I want a fresh start. A clean slate. That’s all I want. Can’t you just give that to me, Adriwyn?”

‘Them reasons be why I started tha’ conv’sation with y’ in as private a way as I could, darlin’. An’ as to givin’ you a clean slate… can you, Ifetayo? Can even you give you tha’? Mos’ o’ us ‘as thin’s from our pasts wha’ ‘aunts us – an’ I’s seen tha’ you ain’ no ‘ception.’ Adri sighed heavily again.

’M’ duty, o’ course, be sayin’ I gotta watch y’ more’n some others.’ She smiled wryly. ‘It also be sayin’ I needs t’ watch Artemis an’ ‘Elleesa th’ mos’, o’ course – an’ I ‘spects them t’ watch me jus’ as close. An’ tha’s jus’ watchin’. It ain’ … ‘oundin’, I thinks be th’ word.’

She shrugged, then, biting her lower lip nervously for a moment before continuing. ’After all tha’, if’n y’ still cares, m’ ‘eart be sayin’ “yes”. I jus’ ain’ sure tha’s goin’ be ‘nough. I ‘opes it is.’

“Won’t you please just bury your friend and let her rest? Move on? Just move on, Adriwyn. If you try to snoop around me, I will push you away. Please, just move on.” Ifetayo said this, sitting with Adri quietly at the tavern again.

dyestainedhands:

adriwynofkryta:

Sighing deeply, the diminutive tow-head mentally prepared herself for yet more heartache before answering. ’The questions wha’ was raised stands on their own – an they’s questions abou’ thin’ like “where’s you from?”. If’n you’s goin’ push me away over tha’, well, tha’ ain’ goin’ leave me much choice in thin’s I’s goin’ ‘ave t’ do.’

“Look, I told you, I’m from Ascalon. I lived there mostly. But I’ve also been wandering,” Ifetayo said, grumbling. “What things are you going to have to do? You don’t need to do anything. Really.”

“Please Adriwyn. Why do you need to know all that? I have yet to hurt you or anyone else. Why can’t we look forward, instead of backwards? I don’t want to talk about where I’m from because I’m not there anymore. Don’t you see?”

‘Tha’ ain’ wha’ y’ told me, be th’ thin’. You told Calia tha’, in my ‘earin’, yes. But y’ also changed wha’ y’ was sayin’ t’ ‘er from wha’ y’d been sayin’ t’ me. An’ a changin’ story wha’ be about some’at so basic as “where’s y’ from”… tha’ be worrisome. ‘Specially f’ someone charged wi’ protectin’ others. M’ duty be in serious conflict wi’ m’ feelin’s righ’ now.’

“We should do something together, Adri…” Cali whispers, stretching out a hand to hold the other woman’s hand. “I don’t know what… any ideas?”

Adriwyn pondered, then giggled. ’Wha’ever it be, it oughta involve walkin’ indoors! A’ leas’ until I’s sure you’s doin’ better wi’ that.’ A shake of her shaggy hair to dismiss the mostly-teasing comment reminded her that she needed to cut it again. ’It ain’ th’ best part o’ th’ season f’ entertainments, ‘specially no’ outdoor ones – an’ too many o’ them is … well… visual. Walkin’ on th’ beach? Cuddlin’ on th’ beach, f’ tha’ matter. I jus’ likes y’ company, Calia. I don’ much care wha’ we does, even if’n it be nothin’ at all.’

“Won’t you please just bury your friend and let her rest? Move on? Just move on, Adriwyn. If you try to snoop around me, I will push you away. Please, just move on.” Ifetayo said this, sitting with Adri quietly at the tavern again.

Sighing deeply, the diminutive tow-head mentally prepared herself for yet more heartache before answering. ’The questions wha’ was raised stands on their own – an they’s questions abou’ thin’ like “where’s you from?”. If’n you’s goin’ push me away over tha’, well, tha’ ain’ goin’ leave me much choice in thin’s I’s goin’ ‘ave t’ do.’

A night of nightmares and memories

Pain. A shoulder jutting into her stomach as she was carried at a run, paralysed, unable even to open her eyes, the arrow in her arm scraping her bone with each bounce. The sudden stomach-churning twist of a waypoint, and the assault of warmer, humid, salt-tanged air, and more bouncing, through a door, down stairs, into darkness, each bouncing step making it clearer that the arrow in her arm was actually in the bone, at least partially broken.

More pain, and the shock of cold, dumped unceremoniously onto the inherently chill stone of a cave, clad only in wet shirt and panties, freezing as well as bleeding, knowing she was there to die. Dizzying wheeling then, as the scene reset itself, and played out again, looping in her mind, with the cold and pain in her arm still present. A small voice, her own, whispered to her. She suddenly realised it had been trying to get her attention all along. “No! That ain’t right! Fight it!”

A gasp of helpless fright; a wild-eyed shifting stare, unseeing at first; a tensing of lean muscles ready to roll or spin away from the threat with the unexpected return of vision. After a moment, the white-blonde woman realised she was not still in that cavern, and that she was only cold because, in her dreams, she had thrashed free of her covers and away from the chimney, lying with her bare shoulder on the floor, and the hilt of her knife digging into her arm.

She sat up and scooted back into her ‘nest’ on the floor, wrapping the covers around her shoulders as she took some deep, measured breaths, waiting for her heart to stop hammering at her ribs. Sighing a little at herself, she decided to try once again to see what she could remember of her abduction. Maybe she’d finally uncover some useful detail – not that she really expected to, but it was better than letting it define her night with terrors.

It was a bright summer afternoon in the Reach. She wandered up the outside ramp of the southern portion the temple to Lyssa, hoping to find Lady Ambillina, or perhaps another of her crew and extended household. Instead, she stumbled upon a conversation between Calialiel and Panacaea, which seemed to be simultaneously about Cali’s need for healing, and to learn healing magic – and about her past with the Court. It didn’t seem to be going well, and neither Sylvari took notice of her even when she went out of her way to make some noise, so she withdrew to the ground level again, watching that elevated plaza a bit, wrapping herself in the shadows.

After Pan left, she made her way back up again. This time she found Cali soaking in the fountain, and approached. Brief discussion got her told, “I’m supposed to stay in here for an hour,” and established in her mind that Cali needed comforting. Considering the situation, and especially what an extended soaking would do to her leathers and to her weapons, she stripped out of everything that could be harmed, leaving her in just her double-layered shirt and the much-patched remains of her knickers.

Joining the Sylvari in the fountain, she held her and offered such comfort as she could. At one point, she was sure she’d heard something metallic up above, but when she looked, she couldn’t see anything against the bright sky. It seemed Cali hadn’t heard the noise – maybe it wasn’t what it had seemed.

Only a few minutes later, however, she heard the muffled twang of a bow and the hiss of an arrow in flight, with just enough warning to start to move – which caused the arrow to embed in the bone of her arm, and not just in the flesh. It burned like Balthazar’s hells, and she knew from that burning that it had been either poisoned or drugged, even before she lost the ability to move or to keep her eyes open. She fell into the water, her face half-submerged, and wondered how long it would take to drown that way – as she heard another arrow-shot and Cali also slumping down, with a thunk against the stone that didn’t sound healthy at all.

A sudden impact near her, more felt through the shadows that muffled it than even through the stone, and she was hauled up onto a shoulder. She tried to take in details despite the pain, noting the feel of leather against her skin, the height, the width of the shoulder, and even the length of stride. The few noises her captor made gave no additional clues, and the scent of the leathers overwhelmed anything else she could tell with her nose.

With a slightly indirect path, she was hauled up to the waypoint by the statue of Lyssa, something she could tell by the air on her skin, the angle of the sun, the pitch of the motion, and the sounds. She’d always had good ears, and eventually had learned that the shadows helped her hear. Still, for all her ability to track her motion in the Reach, once they had gone through the waypoint, her only clue was the change in the air: warmer, more humid, with the tang of salt water. She thought she heard gulls, but that sometimes happened even over marshes, so that didn’t really help. She heard no other people as she was hauled into a building and down stairs, then along stone in a place that echoed strangely, too open.

The feel of the air around her changed again – another doorway, which had been open already this time, and an enclosed space, and she was dumped on the stone floor of the cavern. The jostling of her arm and her difficulty in breathing with the water in her lungs, especially in her paralysed state, kept her from noticing at first just how quickly it was leeching the heat from her body through her wet and minimal clothing. In all, she estimated less than two minutes had actually passed, despite what pain and adrenaline were doing to her perception of time, and how it all seemed to stretch out.

Manacles were clamped onto her wrists, and … words failed her for how to describe the sensation. It wasn’t burning, it wasn’t tingling, it wasn’t even itching, though it was something of all of those – and it wasn’t physical. She felt nearly deaf, and realised she could no longer reach into the shadows. She fought against her paralysis, trying to open her eyes, still to no avail. She cursed her small size, knowing that she’d been affected more by that drug than someone larger would have been – and wailed inwardly when she was summarily blindfolded, in what was almost a hood, and not some amateur’s attempt that could be dislodged easily. Additional manacles were placed on her ankles, and chains then attached.

Her captor then rolled her over and starting pushing on her back, the pain of her bound arms and injuries underneath her overwhelming her awareness with a wash of red across her vision and the pumping of her blood in her ears, but the treatment did clear most of the water from her lungs. She was left alone there for a time, so far as she could tell, with the door locked after her captor’s retreat. As the drug finally wore off, she found herself both gasping and shivering. The tropical air filtering down into the cavern wasn’t enough to compensate for being wet and effectively naked on raw stone. The chains didn’t give her enough range of motion to fully explore her cell, which frustrated her further, since she thought she smelled straw close by, so she huddled up in a ball for warmth as best she could, despite the pain.

By the time her abductor returned, she was only semi-conscious, with no idea how much time had passed. Something got said about how she’d better hope her friends would pay her ransom, and her heart sank. So far as she knew, nobody who would know she was missing would be both willing and able to pay any ransom. It was clearly someone trying to disguise their voice, and without the help of the shadows, she couldn’t tell how. It might have been a man trying to seem a woman, or the other way around, and it wasn’t familiar enough in cadence or wording to give her any hints as to identity.

A pause, in which Adri shivered and tried not to show how much pain she was in. “Can’t have that. You’re worth more alive than dead.” Her captor rummaged around a bit, some of that happening outside her cell, then knelt down next to her. The air currents on her from that and the sounds indicated a similar-sized individual to the original abductor. Her sleeve was torn and cut away from her wound, the arrow removed, and her arm bandaged, all without further words. The other person stood then, moving around a bit more. Straw then landed atop her, and her captor left again, locking her cell. She managed to wriggle around and scoop enough to get straw under her to insulate her some from the stone, shivering again to warm up.

When someone next returned, it was the same disguised voice, and demanded that she stand. This required some struggling on her part, getting to where the chains were anchored in the floor so that she could get enough length from them.

“That girl you were with in the fountain – the Sylvari – who was she? Who was she with? And none of your damned street-scut talk! Speak New Krytan!”

Biting back on her anger, trying not to respond in a way to aggravate her interrogator, Adri stood there, thinking to herself, “That’s just trying to goad me – New Krytan ain’t even a language! That’s just the writing system! The language be just Krytan….”

“Well? Can you speak New Krytan?” The demand was renewed, brooking no further delay.

Still smarting with anger, Adri couldn’t help her reply. “I does. Seems you don’.” Unsure of the handedness of her interrogator, Adri didn’t even dare move to avoid the expected blow – which wasn’t as hard as she was expecting. Her face was then grabbed and help up for examination, being turned a little to the left and right.

“Good thing for you I don’t want to mess up your pretty face.” The gloves on the fingers along her cheek made it hard to be sure, but the width of the fingers versus their length made Adri nearly certain now that her interrogator was a woman. Her face was released quickly, and the questioning resumed. “Now, who was she?”

Adri had no idea how to answer that. Her mind was supplying too many interpretations of the possible nuances of the questions she’d been asked. “She be Cali.”

“Oh come on!” Even with the effort to disguise the voice, the irritation was obvious – and of a sort that in Adri’s experience usually presaged even more violence than she’d already provoked. In her current injured and bound condition, where a fall might finish breaking her arm all the way through, she was being brought to focus through fear. “That’s not enough of a name! Give me a full name!”

“Cal-i-al-i-el.” She drew out the syllables, having trouble getting her tongue to work. “I thinks tha’ be ‘er full name.”

“And what organization is she with? What resources might she get to ransom you?”

Ah, now the previous “who was she with” made sense. But it wasn’t like the Roses kept a lot of cash on hand, at leas so far as Adri knew – and she didn’t think any of them who might care enough to ransom her would have the resources. Her other associations were more likely, she thought. Perhaps her nominal employer would pay for her release, if the price wasn’t too high. “Y’ could try ‘Ouse Valenwrigh’, Lady Ambillina migh’ pay….” She was snorted at, and felt the breeze of a dismissive gesture. “Cali be with th’ Rurikton Roses.”

“The Roses… I think I’ve heard they’re organized out of Lion’s Arch, now?”

“So far as I knows, anyways.”

“All right then. You’d better hope your friends pay up soon.” The interrogator withdrew, locking the cell again.

Adri fumbled her way back into her nest of straw, trying to ease the pains, especially in her arm, which she could tell was still slowly bleeding into the bandage. As time passed, the effects of the pain, the previous exposure, and the sheer helplessness of her situation caused her to drift into unconsciousness.

“Rise and shine!”

The same captor had returned. Adri struggled to stand again, turning to face the voice. The door opened, and her nearly detached sleeve was yanked away from the rest of her shirt, and then either torn or cut free – she wasn’t sure which.

“Out of that shirt. And don’t worry! No funny business – I’m not that kind.”

Unsure whether to be glad of that attempted reassurance, she started pulling her shirt up, her right arm dragging down as a useless dead weight now, only her left working, the magic nullifying manacles the only reason both arms moved together at all. After a bit of struggle against the pain, she managed to get her top down to her wrists. During her efforts, her captor had been rustling about outside her cage, and then come back in. This time, she was sure it was cutting that happened to her shirt as it was freed from the manacles.

“How do you sleep? Front, back, side?” Further motion around her, as the interrogator slid some things around.

“I… I ain’ real sure. Side, I thinks, mos’ly.”

The sound of something fairly large sliding across the stone, and a change in the air currents behind her that matched. “Sit down.”

Confused even more, having no idea where this was going, she sat.

“Gonna need some blood. Front or back?”

‘Ehh… front.“ Adri started to sort of sit back on the bale of straw, thinking that exposing her front more would be sufficient cooperation to ease the pain.

"Sit back up!” Irritation was evident despite the effort to disguise the voice.

She complied, confused, trying to sit up as straight as she could, instead. The quick, sudden pressure and push of a fairly expert stab hit her abdomen, and then the knife was withdrawn without any of the usual twisting or sideways cutting.

“Here. Take this. Sop up that bleeding.”

Fumbling toward the sound of cloth being shaken at her, she caught hold and put it to her injury, balling it up. As she got it all pressed up against her wound, she realised it was the torn-off sleeve from her shirt.

While she held her wadded-up sleeve to her stomach, there was more motion and rummaging in front of her. Again, part of it came from outside the cell, then her captor returned, and something was dropped down beside the straw bale. It landed softly, and made more noise, as though it were a loose bundle that came apart. “Bedroll for you, beautiful, so you don’t freeze on me.”

How could this person call her beautiful, with her too-small breasts and hated scars on full display? She flushed at the perceived mockery. Whether that was more with embarrassment or anger, she couldn’t tell.

“I’m getting the same offers for you from the centaurs and the Inquest, so you get to choose. Which one?”

She brought her head up in shocked surprise, and tried to think fast. At least this explained why she wasn’t dead yet, despite the lack of ransom. The Inquest would undoubtedly have similar manacles to the ones already blocking her magic, and were more accustomed to dangerous prisoners. The centaurs mostly took farmers for slaves, and probably wouldn’t have such bindings of their own. If the price didn’t include them, even in her weakened and injured state, she might actually have a chance of escape… “Centaurs, then.”

“All right. Now, give me that thing.” Adri held out the blood-soaked former sleeve, and it was taken from her. “Now, get your hands up out of the way. On top of your head.”

She had to duck her head down to get it under the manacles and lift with her back and neck in order to meet that demand. Bandaging was wrapped around her, with what felt like a muslin pad pressed against her wound, held inside the wrapping.

“Now, don’t go anywhere!” The cell door slammed shut and was locked again. “I’m off to get a finger off a dead chick. You’d better hope your friends pay up soon, or I’ll be back to chop off a hand.”

Her captor skipped off into the distance in the cavern as she snapped her head up again. That phrasing and intonation – that was so familiar! Not only was that a very graphic and deadly threat to someone who depended so much on having two hands as she did, but the circumstances of that earlier threat…. She’d been discussing her feelings toward Lady Aubrey with Ayofemi and Artemis, when the latter had told her, “If you hurt her, I’ll chop off your hands.” That had seemed so out of the blue at the time, since her understanding of the track of the conversation up to then had been leading to Aubrey hurting her.

She pulled the bedroll up and over her as she curled up atop the straw bale, trying to think it through, largely as a way of trying to fend off the gibbering horror lurking at the edges of her misery if she should think too much about losing a hand. Everything she’d sensed so far was consistent with a single kidnapper, and one right about the Ascalonian’s size. And yet, Artemis had been there at Fort Salma, had been the one who discovered the death of the rented dolyak – and surely she’d been within earshot of Lady Luxelen’s wailing over the lost deposit? She had to know that the Roses didn’t have money – didn’t she? Clearly, there had to be some connection to the Roses on the part of her kidnapper, though – why else ask after them and not even care about trying to get money from House Valenwright?

Perhaps… perhaps it was someone who had some connection to Art, and not the woman herself? That almost made sense to her, and with that near-conclusion, fitful unconsciousness claimed her again.

The unlocking and rattling of her cage door awoke her, and she sat up slowly, having even more difficulty now, weaker and in even more pain. Two soft plops next to her greeted her rousing.

“I brought you a shirt and trews. Too big, of course, but they might do you. Get dressed.”

Based on the sounds of the impacts, she managed to pick out the shirt on her first try. Unable to do anything better than wear it like a cloak because of her bound arms, it wasn’t a practical choice, but she didn’t care. It covered her scars, and mostly even her shoulders. She then started to pull up the trousers, and was interrupted.

“I changed my mind. Strip from the bottom up.”

Biting her lip in tearful frustration, she let the hopeless breeches drop and wriggled out of the shirt again, this time unable to keep from whimpering some with the pain of moving her injured arm.

“Time to fit you for a noose. Give me no trouble, and I’ll drug you up and you’ll be out of here.”

That was a very odd combination, but being drugged argued for actually getting out alive, despite the noose. Otherwise, killing her before carrying her out of her prison would make more sense. She held still for the noose, and then was jostled by being dressed in something else, hissing and whimpering in pain.

“Yeah, sorry, beautiful.” The rope was attached to what she then realised was a harness, and pulled taught. It caught on that harness first, and her captor gave a grunt of satisfaction. “Hold still if you know what’s good for you.” She heard the sounds of an injection being prepared, and kept suitably still, not wanting to risk her captor’s wrath at this juncture.

After the injection, the new shirt dropped down the rope onto her head. “Get that on again.” At least it was already in position – she wasn’t sure she could have wriggled back into it again otherwise. She sat there, with no further instructions, until the drug took hold, and awareness ceased.

Rousing herself from her recollections, Adri sighed heavily and shook her head. “Nothing new in that. Nothing I can take to the Roses, and sure there be nothing I can talk to Art herself about. Nothing useful for Lady Billi nor Rho, neither. Just more dwelling on things that bleeding mirror be like to turn into more nightmares.” Disgusted with herself, she curled back up to try sleeping again, and tried to remember some of her better fights with centaurs instead, hoping against hope for better dreams.