Sigrid knew a few things for certain. First, that her prison was underground. Second, her captor, a man named Hart. Was insane. She sat cross-legged on the stone floor of her cell, her back pressed into the corner of the room, as far from the door as she could get. The ceiling was 7 feet above the floor, and the walls were just a little too close together to be comfortable. The entire space was hewn roughly from the cave rock. It was, as these things went, about what she would expect from a Cult of Mages. Perhaps the most glaring aspect of her imprisonment however, was the fact her cell door was open.
Sigrid watched the open rectangle of space, her slit-pupiled eyes tracing its edges in rapid jerks of movement, over and over. As if it were a predator lying in wait. It wasn’t. She already knew what would happen if she got up and walked through it. Nothing. She’d been here three weeks as best she could tell, and her Captors hadn’t bothered her at all. If you didn’t count, refusing to let her leave the greater facility.
Hart insisted there was no point anyway. She was very far away from Dangole, though he wouldn’t tell her how far. The other fact she’d managed to glean, very grudgingly, was that her friends were alive. The Demons had been defeated and Erin had left the northern valley, headed south toward Academy City, where Hart was certain she’d be enrolled into the Academy. Where she’d make new friends, and be absorbed into the totalitarian culture of the Mageocracy that sought to rule over all of Jetriser. She’d forget all about Sigrid, and even if she didn’t. There was no way Erin was going to be able to find her. At least, according to Hart. Sigrid didn’t believe Erin would forget. She didn’t believe it for a moment. Hart had seemed to think that Sigrid would perceive this trip to Academy City as a betrayal, but Sigrid had known it would happen. That realistically no other course of action was possible. The city had sent Mages to scour the snow, looking for people who’d been lost on their way to this life.
The dull thud of footsteps on stone drew her from her reverie, and Sigrid straightened her back, her hands resting atop her knees as her eyes turned up to face the door. She could feel the crinkle of scales around her eyes now as she glared. A new addition to her face, courtesy of her Dragonsblood ability. The entire reason it was her sitting in this cell at all, and she still had no idea why. The footsteps didn’t pause as they made their way past her cell, and she slumped back down, her head falling forward. Nothing horrible had happened to her so far, but in her old life. She’d had the misfortune of being a prisoner of war before. It had been a stay of only a short duration before her allies had seized the prison where she was being kept, but she’d believed she’d carry those scars forever.
She hadn’t though, good or bad, there was not a single reminder of her life before this. New skin, new bones, entirely new body. She knew her thoughts were wandering. Knew she needed to focus, and make a plan. Find a way out, and she knew to do that, she would need to get up off this floor, take advantage of her captors generosity in allowing her to roam their weird dungeon headquarters and explore the space. But she couldn’t shake the bone-deep fear. She was a prisoner. That memento of her old life was alive and well in her breast. She was terrified of what could happen. Of what they could do to her, if they chose. The animal part of her sat in a dark corner, hoping to be forgotten. She sat quietly, unobtrusively and hoped she would fade from the mind man who led this bunch of bald headed, blue-eyed crazies. It was, as survival strategies went, not a good one.
She flexed her fingers where they set on her knees, curling them into fists and then loosening them. She repeated the motion again, and again, until her hands began to ache, until the muscles in her forearms began to burn with the exertion. Then, with a sigh and a shake of her head, she pushed herself to her feet. He knee’s had grown stiff and she felt them loosen as she rose. A pleasurable sort of pain as her joints stretched. She took a hesitant step toward the exit, and then another. Before she knew it, she was out in the hall. The same pale gray stone as her cell, and smelling vaguely of moisture, alongside the bitter tang of whatever the torches used as fuel. Small circles of flickering orange that didn’t quite overlap were the only light, but she didn’t need them.
When she’d first arrived on Jetriser, much had been different about her but not her vision. As far as she’d been able to tell, her senses were much the same as before, but now. Those dragon eyes, that ever-shifted their color pierced the dark with ease. She could feel the slit pupil expand wider, taking in more light, until the dingy, torchlight hallway underground might as well have been sitting directly under a noon-day sun, at the height of summer. In the far distance she could see the silhouette of a dark robed man, headed away from her. The one who’d passed her cell earlier. She turned, and headed in the direction he’d come from, her booted feed making the same dull thud but at a more rapid pace as she walked briskly.
There were many other hallways, leading off this one and she passed many doorways. Most of which opened onto empty rooms. Cells like hers, with the bare essentials for a person to live in and no more. A single, narrow bed with a straw mattress, and a stone basin set into the floor into which a constant stream of water flowed. Beyond that each room had 4 stone walls, a stone floor, a ceiling, and a heavy door. She walked faster, eventually making a turn. It was the fifth right leading hallway she’d come to, and she made a note of it, doing her best to create a mental map of the underground labyrinth-like base.
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“Stretching your legs?” The voice was smooth, and dangerous. Like a length of silk cloth, wound tightly and used to strangle you from behind. Sigrid whipped around, black runes rushing across her skin as she reached for her water jet spell on reflex. Hart’s smiled at her, standing there in the middle of the hallway, his hands folded casually in front of him. “Now, now.” He said, making a small but deliberate gesture with his hand, a clear command for her to stop. “No need for all that.” he said. What he didn’t say, was how it would do her no good. Hart was massively powerful compared to anyone she’d ever met. Faster, stronger, and capable of magic that Sigrid had no names for.
“You startled me,” she said, letting the runes fade from her skin, and he smiled almost paternally, an expression that looked odd on his young mans face, but Sigrid was getting used to that. She hadn’t seen very many Mages who looked old. The lifespans of Tier 2s was considerably longer than Tier 1s.
“And for that, you have my apologies.” He said, making a slight bow at the waist, his glowing blue eyes never leaving her face. “I see your transformation is coming along.” On reflex, Sigrid reached up to touch the scales that had begun to appear around her eyes and forehead. They were small, and smooth and they numbered in the thousands, if it wasn’t for the fact they shifted color constantly they might have been hard to see for what they were.
He continued to smile at her, and she let her hand drop away from her face. He made her uneasy, she would even admit he scared her, but she forced herself to relax. Making a concious effort to open her body language, to mask her tension. “You left the door open,” she said, holding his eye contact. “I thought that meant-”
“Of course,” He said, interrupting her and bowing once more at the waist. “Of course,” He repeated. “You are welcome to walk anywhere you’d like. I had planned for Serra to give you the tour, but your friends killed her.” Sigrid smirked, despite herself. She’d halfways forgotten about that. She saw the flicker of irritation cross Hart’s face, and she smoothed out her own expression. Not wanting to antagonize him further.
“Lionel, you could think of him as her peer within the organization. Lionel would not make a very good tour guide. He’s a disagreeable sort of person. Even more so since Serra was killed. I always thought they hated each other, but you know I kind of think he misses her,” He said this last part thoughtfully, as if he wasn’t really speaking to her and Sigrid said nothing. She stood there in that hallway, hands down by her side, doing her best to keep her breathing even, and steady. When he didn’t continue, she eventually said, “Guess I’ll just have to make my own way.”
“Nonsense.” he said, dismissing this suggestion with a wave of his hand. “You must be starving. Come, let me show you the kitchens.” and without even a chance to move away or retreat, his pale hand was on her arm, clammy and cold. He didn’t pull on her, or try to lead her anywhere, but she knew that wasn’t necessary. In a blur of color the hallway was gone, and she was standing in the middle of a kitchen, occupied by many bald, pale, figures in dark robes. They might have all been duplicates of Hart himself, if not for the ornamentation of his own wardrobe that set him apart. Silver trim and a pendant that dangled from his neck, like a chaotic pretzel.
“You know, I’ve been thinking it would be good to get you out of your room.” He said, gesturing for her to follow. He tapped a large man on the shoulder as he passed, and whispered something to him that Sigrid didn’t catch. The man turned glowing blue eyes on Sigrid. It was a brief glance only, focused on her face before he returned to his work, but Sigrid couldn’t help but feel a little awkward to be seen. It had been weeks since she’d had access to a bath and her dark hair was in chaos. She pushed the inane, vane thought aside as quickly as it had sprung up and followed Hart. He led her to a small table, almost like the booth of a diner, carved right out of the stone wall.
“Egg will bring you something to eat, and then he’s going to put you to work. He’ll provide you a schedule for kitchen duties. I think you’ll find that a better use of your time than hiding out in your room.” Hart said all of this in fatherly tones, like an old man, chiding his grandaughter for being a bit lazy. “I have some work to get back to myself. You enjoy your meal.” Before Sigrid could even think of an objection to raise, let alone voice it. He was gone, and a moment later the big man moved up to the table’s edge, and laid a plate in front of her heaped high with the familiar yellow and white of scrambled eggs. She looked up at him, and he handed her a five pronged fork, made from a kind of thin, strong metal they didn’t have in her old world, she took it carefully, frowning.
“Egg?” She asked, and he gave her a smile, but didn’t answer. Turning back to the bustle of the kitchen and going back to work. Sigrids stomach rumbled meaningfully, as the smell of food reached her nose. She wasn’t worried they’d done something to the eggs, if they wanted to kill her. Hart could conjure up his magic sword and behead her before she ever saw him coming. That was the kind of enemies she had now. She ignored it, a well honed reflex. She’d been a freedom fighter in her old life. In the early days, the monarchy against which she’d struggled had felt implacable. Invincible even. If they didn’t have any magic powers, they had felt no less unassailable for that lack. So here she was again, surrounded, outnumbered, outmatched. She shrugged, took a firm grip on her fork and ate her eggs.