TW: V0miting, illn3ss, d3ath, coarse language
The darkness was all encompassing. Roche couldn't tell where it ended and she began. Her head throbbed as she blinked. The sky was still dark. Stars still gleamed overhead. Her hands weren't bound, nor were her feet. She was sluggish, pain lancing through her head as she tried to move. She cried out before she could stop herself, and then there were hands gripping her.
"Sh, sh, sh," Eris shushed her, her slender, pale fingers painfully gripping Roche's jaw. Roche struggled, clarity coming to her in a burst.
"Auk-"
Eris wrenched her jaw open, tearing the incantation in half. Roche rallied her mind, but before she could even gather a single thought, Eris was pinning her leaden body down, pressing something cool to her lips. It was a glass vial, small and icy. Roche choked as a cool trickle of liquid dripped into her mouth. Eris yanked her neck back, pinching her nose and mouth shut until Roche was forced to swallow.
"Good girl," Eris whispered, pressing a hand to Roche's temple, "Goodbye, Roche. I'm sure your Ala and Tigris will miss you. Hyunid."
Darkness rushed up to meet her, and Roche couldn't fight it.
-------
Sunlight burned against her tender eyes, dragging her to consciousness. Roche groaned, her throat as dry as sandpaper and her ears as sensitive as a dog's. She winced, pain stabbing through her mind in sharp forks of lightning as she heard the birds chirping.
It was morning.
She'd slept through the entire night.
Her memories came back to her in rough, jagged pieces. Sneaking out into the forest. Tracking the assassin. Eris.
Roche curled to the side, moving to get to her feet. Agony shredded through her limbs, tearing up her back. Before she could stop herself, a scream rattled out of her, garbled by a rush of vomit that she barely managed to expel. Her stomach churned, her blood boiled. When the fit of nausea had stopped, she managed to lift her head slowly.
She was lying in a ditch of some kind. By the unnatural angle of her right knee, her leg had been dislocated in the fall. Her right arm dangled loosely. She was sure that her back was a smattering of bruises.
But that wasn't the worst of it. No, the worst of it was the constant gurgle and shuffle of her stomach, the painful twist of her muscles that made her whimper and clutch at the mulchy, foamy, vomit soaked ground desperately.
The world was hazy at the edges as her hand connected with something sharp, drawing a slice of ruby red blood from her palms. She drew her distracted gaze over to the side, finding shards of glass embedded in her skin.
A memory flashed through her mind.
A vial.
Poison.
Eris has poisoned her.
Her stomach rolled again, tightening so viciously that Roche couldn't move. She could only endure the waves of agony until unconsciousness seemed like bliss. She registered her limbs beginning to twitch and dance like a puppet on a string as her eyes rolled back into her head without prompting. She sank into unconsciousness with one thought in her mind.
Tigris.
-------
It could have been minutes. It could have been hours. Roche had lost track of when the torture had began. She was distantly aware of her body rolling to the side to expel the meagre contents of her stomach, something red and coppery mixed in.
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The Way We Fall
Fantasy(Inspired by the hit BBC show Merlin) One thousand years have passed since humanity fell. From its ashes, the Faultless Kingdom rose. For many centuries, it was prosperous. Then the king enacted a new law: inkblood is a crime punishable by death. Ro...
