Miles To Go Before I Sleep

Alone Together

Alone Together

...

Jack groaned as consciousness slowly returned to him. He had no idea what had happened, but his head was throbbing almost as bad as that time he'd crashed into a tree (several times) and the air around him was uncomfortably stuffy and warm. But perhaps most concerning was that the world remained black even after he opened his eyes.

"You with us, Frosty?" a feminine voice asked

Ah. That would explain the temperature. "Lleu?"

"The one and only. How are you feeling?"

"Like I've been hit by a truck." Also something that had happened more than once.

Lleu chuckled, the sound irritating his headache like a hammer to the skull. "Yeah, a club to the… well, everything, will do that to you."

"Huh?" and then an earlier comment registered in his aching brain. "Wait. Us?"

"Unfortunately," said a feminine voice that could only belong to May Queen.

"My sentiments exactly," and there was Ceres.

"Um, I have a couple of questions," Jack said.

"Fire away." How Lleu could sound like she was enjoying herself was beyond Jack.

"First of all, assuming I haven't gone blind, why is everything so dark?"

"We're in a pit – some form of oubliette, I would presume," May replied quietly.

"Right… that leads me to my second question."

"Let me guess," Ceres interrupted, and Jack could practically feel the eye roll he was no doubt receiving. "Why are we in a pit?"

"Actually, I was gonna ask 'what happened' but that works too."

Lleu laughed again. "To answer both questions, we were captured by a Cyclops, who presumably dumped us down here until he feels like eating us."

"What?!" and if anyone ever accused his voice of squeaking, Jack would vehemently deny it. "Well, that explains the pain, I suppose." Jack reached around in the dark, groping for his staff, his eyes widening when he was unable to locate it. "My… my staff! Do any of you know where my staff is?"

"Calm down," Ceres ground out irritably. "It's outside; the Cyclops was, amazingly, smart enough to realise what it was for and left it top-side before throwing you on top of us."

"Oh."

They lapsed into silence.

"So… anyone got any ideas on how to get out of here?" Jack asked after a while.

"We could serve you to our jailer."

"Ceres," May said in warning.

"What?" the autumn spirit snapped defensively. "Oh, don't pretend it would bother you at all if the living ice cube was removed. We'd still be stuck here in the dark but at least the temperature would be tolerable."