To Imagine...

Chacda (2)

It is ironic to find yourself in a position that you inflict upon others, but it is another thing entirely when that position involves chains and tempered shaivon. My head hung low, a wry smile curling around my lips. This was greatly unpleasant. My hair hung in unkempt sections, crusted with dried blood. I tugged on my arms and jumped at the immediate pain, like a brand against my wrists. I struggled for many moments to stop moving, cursing religiously in the smallest voice I could manage. My heart beat fast now, and I regarded my surroundings more carefully.

Tetherel stood across the shaivon, towering over the men accompanying her with arms crossed over her chest. I hissed out a breath as I saw the look on her face, casting my glance to the side. Immediate guilt and regret set in until I sweat and a trembling in my arms began. My breath immediately came harder and my head hung again, grimacing as the trembling brought fire to my wrists. The chains held my arms to opposite walls, suspended, but the shackles did not touch my skin. Instead, a tumultuous white light sparked in between my arms and the shackles. I sat on my legs, slumped forwards, shackles bolted into the floor constricting my ankles uncomfortably. I squeezed my eyes shut. What have I done.

Typically I did not have the privilege of pondering that question, for there was no need. This time, I had made a mistake. I choked out a curse and made an effort to breathe evenly.

"Good to see you're awake." I glanced up to see Tetherel regarding me, not entirely unkindly, though her face was stone cold. The men beside her held dark expressions. I made a small laugh.

"Good to see you, too." It was the small smile that caught me to look again.

"I thought we were on speaking terms. Was I incorrect?" I made another sharp exhalation in place of a laugh.

"I believe that I do not have a choice on the matter."

"And yet you choose to regardless," she retorted immediately. I took a moment of silence from that and dug desperately through my latest memories.

"What day is it?"

"You made an attempt on my life last night."

I raised my brow at that one. "Ah, usually I see those through."

"Thankful for me, I keep an impeccable guard." Of course.

The three tribes, the alliance. What are they calling it now? I recalled briefly the arguments and trivialities of the meeting, the dozens of leaders from lesser-known tribes arriving and departing, pledging to the alliance. There was to be a great feast to those who stayed, though I planned to have been gone long before then. My stomach flipped and my head hung again lowly, sucking in breath through grinding teeth. My head was pounding horribly, and as I looked back up to her I saw the three of them in double vision.

"I... Applaud you for that." I huffed, looking to the ground again.

"You would not be the first to attack me while my back was turned." I turned my head to the side with a small sound. If only it had been that way. I gave no response.

"...You seem to be troubled by something."

"Why have you left me alive?" I raised my head only enough for an eye to find her through my tangles of hair and I saw her bristle visibly. We sat in a moment of silence as she pierced me with the first malicious stare I had seen from her since we first met. The silence got uncomfortable enough that I resigned my stare to the ground again, unable to keep her eyes.

I had just made a dangerous enemy of the most revered, despised, and notorious figure in real time. A target would be on my back for... no, I don't have a life here anymore. The sharp pang made me choke and I began coughing, suppressing it at first, but then heaving and choking. My arms burned like fire, barely taking in air, coughing so deeply I felt as if I was being strangled. My attempts to stable myself failed--something was wrong; blood splattered from my lips and I heard commotion in the background, urgent voices, shouting and the overwhelming pain in my lungs. My eyes were squeezed shut against the pain. The fire on my skin had no contest against the fire in my lungs. I was screaming before I realized I was no longer suffocating myself.