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for ~amaidsment
Jul. 4th, 2020 04:24 pmAmalie isn't sure what's worse, what's going to happen to her or the waiting.
It's probably a rather easy answer, all things considered. It's going to be much worse when it happens. But it doesn't mean that waiting for it isn't driving her crazy.
The past day has upended her life. She'd been living in a quiet, sleepy farming village, a girl starting to blossom, starting to flirt with the boys as she helped her mother mend clothing. Then wood from burning bundles had choked the village as armed soldiers marched in, soldiers of a country she's never heard of. Her people were peaceful, so there had been no resistance.
The heralds had demanded tribute in three forms: Food, conscripts, and women. The food was easy enough, as it was harvest time. A dozen of the strapping young men had been told they were now part of the army. And she, along with three other women, all older than her, had been chosen to comfort the troops.
She can still hear her mother's desperate wails as the soldiers had led her away.
She's not educated like girls in the big city, but she knew enough to know what was going to happen to her. But something strange had happened. A man, in fancier armor than the rest, had stopped the four women as they were led, sobbing, into the camp. He'd chosen her. And she'd been separated from the others, and hasn't seen them since.
Other women had bathed her. They'd cleaned her up, they'd thrown away her comfortable old clothes, and not given her anything else. Instead, they'd led her into a tent, nude, and left.
It doesn't seem like much of a prison. There are no iron bars to hold her, just a simple tent flap. It's not a large tent, either, containing a single central pole, a table with some oil lamps - she can see that it's dark outside, by now - and a single bedroll.
Of course, she can't leave, because affixed to the pole are heavy iron chains, which attach to a thick collar around her throat that they'd locked shut. She has enough room to move a little (though not as far as the desk and the lamps, lest she think of starting a fire), and can move to the bedroll, but anything else is beyond her. And if she tries to pull on it, it chokes her.
Further complicating the story is that her wrists are shackled together by more heavy iron, no more than two or three links of chain between them. She can move her fingers, but that's all.
So she sits here, collared and shackled, naked but for her restraints, and waits for whatever hell is to come.
It's probably a rather easy answer, all things considered. It's going to be much worse when it happens. But it doesn't mean that waiting for it isn't driving her crazy.
The past day has upended her life. She'd been living in a quiet, sleepy farming village, a girl starting to blossom, starting to flirt with the boys as she helped her mother mend clothing. Then wood from burning bundles had choked the village as armed soldiers marched in, soldiers of a country she's never heard of. Her people were peaceful, so there had been no resistance.
The heralds had demanded tribute in three forms: Food, conscripts, and women. The food was easy enough, as it was harvest time. A dozen of the strapping young men had been told they were now part of the army. And she, along with three other women, all older than her, had been chosen to comfort the troops.
She can still hear her mother's desperate wails as the soldiers had led her away.
She's not educated like girls in the big city, but she knew enough to know what was going to happen to her. But something strange had happened. A man, in fancier armor than the rest, had stopped the four women as they were led, sobbing, into the camp. He'd chosen her. And she'd been separated from the others, and hasn't seen them since.
Other women had bathed her. They'd cleaned her up, they'd thrown away her comfortable old clothes, and not given her anything else. Instead, they'd led her into a tent, nude, and left.
It doesn't seem like much of a prison. There are no iron bars to hold her, just a simple tent flap. It's not a large tent, either, containing a single central pole, a table with some oil lamps - she can see that it's dark outside, by now - and a single bedroll.
Of course, she can't leave, because affixed to the pole are heavy iron chains, which attach to a thick collar around her throat that they'd locked shut. She has enough room to move a little (though not as far as the desk and the lamps, lest she think of starting a fire), and can move to the bedroll, but anything else is beyond her. And if she tries to pull on it, it chokes her.
Further complicating the story is that her wrists are shackled together by more heavy iron, no more than two or three links of chain between them. She can move her fingers, but that's all.
So she sits here, collared and shackled, naked but for her restraints, and waits for whatever hell is to come.
