Post
by Sethaelia Vhaire » December 22nd, 2018, 12:13 am
Part III (Parts I and II posted earlier - see above!)
She froze upon her stool when he entered the tavern and took a seat at the opposite end of the bar. Several days had passed since the spectacle that was her return to Fort Praesidium, and beyond a hastily scrawled note left for him in the orchard where first they sat together, Sethaelia Vhaire had not sought any answers from Samuel Blackwood.
She heard his voice, and then Gryhun Kren's voice, mingle together at the start of the argument before the former admitted that he cared little for the latter. It was then that her own heated words flew from her lips and sailed like barbed arrows towards their intended target. "Do you even care about anyone?!" she snapped.
In slow, agonizing detail, what passed for truth emerged: Thorn claimed that he knew naught of what had happened, and upon seeing her with Gryhun within the temple, assumed that Birdy had tossed the burgeoning romance aside in order to disappear with the Legionnaire. It would be funny if it wasn't so damned sad.
"You did the same as Marcus," she finally told him, voice dull and faraway. "You assumed the worst of me."
*
"He wanted us dead. Don't you remember?"
Her chin hit her chest, and then her head bobbed upright again. They worked in shifts, her tormentors, ensuring that her rest was never restful and that her body healed just enough for it to be damaged again. She could feel the needles even when they weren't there; she tried not to think about what had been put into her anatomy and the effects the injections would have upon her in the future.
"He's a broken man... surrounded by broken people."
*
"Thorn, I ain't a vengeful man but I was wronged in this. What's between you two is to be sorted out in private. However, as a man, I'm willin' to let things be square if you let me hit you once," Gryhun told Samuel.
She felt the heat rise in her face. "There's nothing between us," she angrily hissed. "Whatever was there... he killed it."
"Not here," cautioned Laszlo Gaspar while eyeing the growing crowd of people in the taproom.
The commotion moved towards the upstairs, and despite her initial declaration that she would not bear witness to the brutality of men, Birdy eventually followed. She wrestled with the decision whether or not to intervene on Thorn's behalf; surely Gryhun would heed her pleas if only she voiced them.
"Stop grandstandin' Jason and feck off."
"Ye claimed I was with them witch hunters."
For whatever reason, Jason Everett stood upon the roof as well, and he and Gryhun were involved in their own separate argument even as the Legionnaire readied himself to exact his vengeance. The archer - her archer, despite his idiocy - awaited his fate. "Gryhun!" she yelled when his foot left the ground and connected just below Thorn's belt, causing the man to curl into himself and thump against the floor with agony.
"It was Margaret an' the priest seein' Basil, you an' Durga over the body tha' made Marcus think you was with them."
Sethaelia wended her way between the bickering men and moved to kneel by Thorn's side. She wanted to reach out a hand to comfort him, but her hands ultimately remained in her lap. Just as he did not seek to embrace her after her ordeal had ended, so too would she deny him compassion in his moment of misery.
"Let this be the last time ye land me in a piece of shit," Jason warned Gryhun before turning aside. "There won't be a next."
The Legionnaire ignored the departing man and focused instead upon Samuel. "We're square now," Gryhun intoned before reaching down a helping hand.
*
She heard their muffled voices conspiring in the distance, and the way the sounds distorted and echoed caused her to shiver. The ever-present drip, drip, drip of the water practically screamed at her, and she felt an odd, fuzzy weariness creep over her dirty skin.
Twice per day, she received water.
Twice per day, she received some scrap of food that tasted harsh upon her tongue.
Twice per day, she was hauled from her chair and pushed around so that her muscles would not experience atrophy.
Twice per day, she was permitted a chamber pot.
Sometimes, she could hear metallic tinkering around a corner. At other times, all she heard was the obnoxious drip, drip, drip of water against stone. Her body sagged against the chair that confined her, and she fought to keep alert even when all she wanted to do was sleep.
She thought of him, and the way her head felt against his shoulder when they sat in the darkness of the orchard, and it was that fledgling memory that helped her endure the blind-folded darkness of her imprisonment.
*
"It will heal in time," Margaret Rigsby proclaimed once she finished examining Thorn at the clinic. His punishment at the hands of Gryhun had exacerbated a previous injury, and the saintly doctor did her best to provide succor. Birdy paced, arms crossed, up and down the hallway during the entirety of the examination, although she resumed her icy demeanor as soon as Thorn emerged from the treatment room.
"Find your happiness, Little Bird. I will not impede your path," he eventually told her after she tossed scalding words his way.
"I know... that would actually require effort on your part," she retorted with forced derision that she did not feel. Anger and pride and fear prevented her from believing him after he so cruelly thought the worst of her.
"I am here..." he told her just before she left the clinic in search of fresh air. "...for whatever that may be worth."
*
"What is your life worth, hmm? You've been such a good little patient... generated plenty of notes."
"Is it time?" asked a gruff voice from around a corner.
"Yes..." came the sighing response. "Do you have the... items?"
"Everything's ready. Ye need anything else?"
"No."
Abruptly, she felt herself be hauled to her feet, and she swayed in the aftermath of the sudden movement.
