Miscellaneous Tales/Oneshots

Ivan x Valerie - Fantasy AU

Valerie didn't mean to, honestly! They weren't even doing magic! They were just cooking dinner, they didn't mean to burn down the west side of the village! The judge wouldn't hear it and condemned them to the worst punishment imaginable; a life sentence in the Dragon's Cave. 

Valerie had only heard rumours about the affair, but apparently, years ago, a dragon-like monster would ravage the village for livestock and burn down houses and crops. In order to stop this, this village council made a decision; to send their prisoners into the dragon's cave for food, as to keep the monster from attacking the village. It had been working for nearly a century, and Valerie wasn't entirely convinced the monster was even still alive. Still, the prospect of being shoved into a cave with a bunch of criminals for life did not sound appealing to Valerie. But of course, there was no getting out of it. 

So there they were, among ten other criminals, standing in front of the entrance to the cave. None of them were given food, weapons, or any other material that could be used to survive in the cave other than the rags on their backs. The king guards wasted no time shoving pointy sticks at them to get into the cave, so get in they did. 

Valerie didn't know what the guards were going to do if they camped out at the entrance of the cave and escaped once they left, but that was quickly answered when the guards blocked the entrance with a huge boulder. Several of the prisoners tried moving it, banging on it, and yelling for the guards on the other side to remove it, to no avail. 

The reality of the situation started to hit Valerie hard; they were going to die in there. One way or another, be it starvation, at the hands of one of the other prisoners, or maybe there was a monster in here after all. They decided they weren't going to drag this punishment out and started to wander deeper into the cave.

"Where the hell you think you're going?" one of the prisoners asked. He was a known thief who had gotten caught trying to steal a local lord's prime breeding ram, Val only knew him as Yakob.

"Anywhere but here," Valerie huffed, trying to navigate in the barely lit cave. "You morons are giving me a headache."

"If you're so smart you figure a way out!" a female prisoner demanded. Val knew her, a girl named Natalie who got into hot water after it was found out she had been selling poisons to women to get rid of their crappy husbands. Valerie didn't disagree with the practice, but Natalie had no one but herself to blame for getting caught since she herself was bragging about it in the tavern last week.

"The only way out of here is dying, you might wanna try that."

~~~~~~~

The prisoners decided to make camp for the night, at least what they thought to be night. Valerie was able to start a campfire with some wood scraps they found and one of the prisoners managed to skewer some rats that were scurrying around. Valerie didn't feel like eating, even if rats weren't on the menu. They didn't see the point in eating if they were going to die soon anyway. They curled up in a corner of the cave, facing the stone wall, they wanted to give anyone who wanted to kill them an easy shot, also so that no one could see them crying. 

They couldn't believe they were going to die like this. They hadn't even done anything with their life; they didn't own any land, never married, and never had the family they dreamed of. Now they were going to die in a cave as a known criminal. 

They cried themself to sleep, cold, hungry and certain they wouldn't wake up the next morning.

~~~~~~~

Valerie was shocked when they did wake up the next morning, still cold and hungry, but alive. Still facing the same wall they fell asleep staring at, they noticed a distinct lack of sound; no crackling of the fire and no one talking or eating.