"Most people who experienced carrying out their vengeance on others would tell you, that it's a hollow thing, and not even the satisfaction you'd have expected would come from it, a mere pointless exercise, even.
Yet others would not care for all these, as all they wanted was to just return the pain others had done unto them, often many times over. Some call these people not right in the head. I prefer to think of them as just being honest with their baser nature." - Angus Harscape, Graf von Bærengant, circa 5 FP.
The next afternoon, Elfriede was summoned by the Graf, and since Reinhardt happened to be on his way back from a briefing at the time, he decided to relay the message himself since he was headed there anyway.
When he asked where Elfriede was after he didn't see her in the barracks that served as his people's residence, Ursula pointed out that she had gone out towards the back with Erycea in tow, along with Salicia and Grünhildr.
The scene that greeted Reinhardt as he opened the door to the back area of the building, which was rather secluded, was his wife and her two friends only clad in their smallclothes as they washed themselves with damp pieces of rags.
Erycea was with them, looking better and no longer wincing with pain as she moved around, being cleaned by her mother in a wooden basin filled with water. She looked pretty much like a drowned kitten with her fur wet and matted to her body like that, so Reinhardt couldn't help but chuckle a bit at the sight.
"Oh. It's just you," said Salicia with a sigh as she turned to look. The tall, slender woman happened to be washing her hair at the time, exposing the large diagonal scar that crossed her entire back from shoulder to waist.
Grünhildr just grunted in acknowledgement as she stood up and dried herself roughly with a towel. The mixed-breed woman's body rippled with corded muscles, and riddled with scars all over. Much like some dwarves and orcs do, she kept many of the scars she obtained from past battles as a sort of remembrance.
His own wife had far fewer marks on her lithe form as she did not share that habit of her good friend's, though the wounds she recently took on her left arm had left some scars there.
"What it is? It's not like you to walk in on us girls bathing without a reason," said Elfriede without even turning around as she busied herself cleaning up Erycea's fur. "Besides, it's not like there's anything new for you to see here anyway."
"Uncle Angus asked me to pass on that he wants to see you, as soon as possible," he relayed without missing a beat. He noticed that Elfriede was almost done with Erycea so he grabbed a towel from the side and walked over to them. "You get dressed, I'll dry her up."
"Okay. Be gentle with her right side, it's still a bit tender," said Elfriede as she got up and dried herself thoroughly, before putting on some fresh clothes. Neither of her friends cared much for Reinhardt's presence there. It wasn't like that was the first time he saw them naked anyway.
"Did you have someone heal her up?" asked Reinhardt as he carefully patted Erycea's fur dry after she shook off most of the water in them. The speed at which her broken ribs recovered was not natural by any means.
"Loren did it as a freebie after he finished my treatment early," said Elfriede as she shrugged on a fresh pair of pants and tied it at her waist. Loren was a young water affinity healer, one of the three that returned with Second Company. "Said I was his last patient for the day anyway, and he got a little bit left. Any idea what old Harscape wants?"
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"No idea," replied Reinhardt as he carefully dried his little daughter before giving her a long tunic to put on. "And that's good then. Remind me to thank the boy next time I see him."
"Mm-hmm. Let's go see old Harscape then. Sal, can you look after Ery for me?" said Elfriede as she finished changing. Both of her friends were also nearly done with their baths.
"Sure, go ahead," replied Salicia as she wrapped her headband over her right eye as usual.
Reinhardt and Elfriede left Erycea behind with her "aunts" as they walked side by side towards the fort's mess hall, under which the dwarves had build their underground command complex.
They quickly found their way to the Graf's office in the warrens, with Reinhardt ducking to go through the low doors of the place. He had tagged along mostly because he was curious why the Graf had asked for his wife.
"Ah, there you are, lass," greeted the dwarven noble upon noticing her arrival. "Just wanted to tell you that you can have the wench, as promised."
"About time," said Elfriede with an eager tone to her voice and a slight smile on her face. "Did the cunt squeal?"
"Unfortunately not. She's rather tight-lipped. All she ever said when she opened her mouth was to curse us or praise their bloody godking," said the old dwarf with a sigh. "Our best interrogators concurred that she won't be giving us any info, and even if she did it wouldn't be reliable. So you can have her."
"Why, thanks," said Elfriede with a spreading cruel grin that got Reinhardt's fur stand on their ends. "Where can I find the bitch?"
"Other end of the hallway, last door to the left," replied the old dwarf as he pointed with one meaty finger. "I've informed the guard there that you're free to do whatever you want with the prisoner."
"Much appreciated," said Elfriede as she stood up and gave a polite bow to the dwarven noble. "If you'll excuse me, I have some work to do."
Reinhardt waited until Elfriede has left for a while, right up to the point when a muffled scream of pain was audible even in the Graf's office, before he looked the old dwarf in the eye and said his piece. "Uncle Angus," he said. "You are aware that under most laws this would make you an accomplice to murder, yes?"
"Yep! I owe Friede my ass anyway for her help back then, this is nothing," said the old dwarf perhaps a little too cheerfully considering the muffled screams that were loud enough to reach them. "And not like I got any sympathy for crazy wenches trying to put 'defenseless' women and children to the sword. She's the one that kicked little Ery, you know?"
"Oh. Good riddance then," he said in realization of just why his wife had been so eager just now. "Good thing we don't have too much time, otherwise she'd be taking her time with this. This place ain't got good enough sound insulation for that."
"Your wife can be quite… vindictive at times," admitted the old dwarf with a wide grin. "An admirable trait, honestly, especially when it's directed to people you don't like."
Reinhardt made some small talk with the Graf for the next half hour or so, before the screams and groans slowly came to an end. They walked out of the Graf's office to see Elfriede making her way out of the underground warrens, while dragging the limbless prisoner behind her by the hair.
The captured woman's mouth had nothing but bleeding gums left, without a single tooth in sight, while one of her eyes had been gouged out as well. Other than her face, most of the rest of her skin had been flayed cruelly.
Not long after Elfriede exited the warrens, the dwarven guard who had stood near the prisoner's room vomited the contents of his stomach in a nearby waste bucket with a decidedly very pale face.
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Nobody stopped Elfriede as she walked through the fort while dragging the flayed, limbless, half-conscious woman's body behind her. Most who saw her immediately gave her a wide berth instead.
Elfriede walked straight towards the corner where the fort's latrines were located. A clever construction by a rot and a mud mage from the a previous era, which cleanly decomposed whatever material was tossed there, thus preventing the waste from contaminating the fort's groundwater sources.
That clever construction did not help with the disgusting smell from the collected waste of thousands of people though, and even then several people were near the latrines as they dumped buckets of waste into the pit. All of them parted and made way for Elfriede.
"See that, bitch? That's going to be your resting place from now till forever onwards," Elfriede said to the captive woman after crudely twisting a point she knew had a bundle of nerves on. The pain jolted the woman awake, her one remaining eye greeted by the sight of a pit full of waste below her, even as the nauseating stench struck her like a squall.
The woman tried to say something, but all that came out were unintelligible mumbles as she was missing all of her teeth and her lips were quite demolished to boot. Elfriede held the woman's limbless body over the pit by the hair as she looked her in the eyes, her unseeing blank stare one that provoked a sense of dread in the captive woman.
"Eat shit, cunt," she said before she released her grip and allowed the woman's body to fall into the cess pit below.
Elfriede stayed for another minute or so and kept watch as the limbless woman futilely struggled to stay afloat in the pit of waste, only to slowly drown beneath instead, and only left once the woman surfaced no more.