Timeweaver

En Garde

Tabitha couldn't sleep. She had to get out of Gwendolyn's basement as soon as possible. The air was thick and musty, and the walls were lined with ropes and chains. Gwendolyn didn't have any torture weapons on display, which only made Tabitha more concerned. Tabitha shivered just thinking about what the cruel woman did to her prisoners in this room.

Tabitha had a familiar feeling about something down here. However, instead of feeling like her surroundings looked familiar, which is what she had been experiencing since coming to Magdilus, something in the room smelled familiar to Tabitha.

Tabitha was still trying to place the scent when the basement door opened. Gwendolyn stood in the doorway, and - coincidentally or not, Tabitha wasn't sure - a flash of lightning illuminated the woman's features and a clap of thunder shook the house. Gwendolyn let out an evil cackle and traipsed down the stairs, her long skirt swishing around her bare feet.

"Tabitha, darling, tell me, how is my dear sister?"

Sister? "I'm not sure I know what you're talking about," Tabitha said, and, unlike usual prisoners, she meant it.

"Why, of course you do. Lyssandra, how is she?"

Tabitha couldn't believe it. This creature was related to Lyssandra? "She's - she's fine," Tabitha told her, although Lyss probably wasn't at this moment. She had, after all, revealed to her son that she had killed the father he idolized.

"And the boy? What was his name... Griffith?"

"Griffin. He's okay, I guess."

"Aw, what happened? Little Miss Princess got her heart broken?"

"What? No, I barely knew him." Tabitha tried to sound defiant, but she came out sounding a little dazed. She had been pondering how this woman just called her what Griffin had called after destroying Lyssandra's garden. Little Miss Princess. Did these people know something she didn't?

A sharp pain in her arm brought Tabitha back to the present. She looked down to see a needle stuck in her arm, a small attached vial slowly filling with blood. "Hey!" With a strong kick, she pushed Gwendolyn away, ripped out the needle, and threw the glass vial on the floor, where it shattered, littering the filthy floor with its contents.

"You foolish girl!" Gwendolyn snapped, slapping Tabitha hard across the face. She had never suffered so many injuries above the neck in her life, hardly suffered any injuries at all. "You think it's bad now? Just you wait. If you don't cooperate, I will make your death most slow and painful." Gwendolyn seemed to think over her words and laughed. "Even if you do cooperate, your death still will not be pleasant. But I'll try and make it a little quicker." Then, leaving behind the blood and broken glass, the witch climbed up the stone steps. At the top, she turned back to Tabitha and said, "Consider yourself warned."

Tabitha only scoffed and used her feet to scoot the needle and a few pieces of glass closer to her. Maneuvering her hands to one side, she picked up the blood-tipped needle and threaded it into the waistband of her pants and tucked the red-rimmed glass into her belt, careful to keep the sharpest sides pointed away from her skin.

Gwendolyn wanted to play around with her, then a game is what she would get.