THE PRICE OF WAR [Taka x Reader]

XXXVI. A Ray Of Hope

The days already made no sense to you. You had completely lost not only the notion of time, but also the appetite and strength to get up. You were trying to stay as sane as possible, but it had been a while since you made sense of anything. You felt dead. Your world had been reduced to a dark stone room. The light streaming through the tiny window was, ironically, a ray of hope. But every day that hope diminished more and more. The door was scratched, from all the times you had tried to transform and knock down the door to no avail. Nor was it any use transforming into a smaller animal to flee through the window or under the door. Dryon's soldiers watched over you relentlessly and did not hesitate to beat you until you lost your strength and the urge to escape.

"It's over. I give up"

But that was not the worst. There was something worse than losing hope or feeling your death was near. And it was going through it all alone. The silence in that room was deafening, save for a murmur from the soldiers on the other side of the door. Sometimes you wished that Dryon would open the door only to be able to see another human being, even if his intention was to torture you as he used to do every few days or kill you even kill you. Those tortures had rendered you completely useless. You did not have the strength to even stand up or swallow something of the insipid food they used to keep you alive. But for what? What was the point to stay alive if you could barely stand up?

"Because I love Taka"

And so the days passed. The weeks. The months, perhaps? What difference did it make now? There was only silence and a thin ray of light on the wall. Silence and light. Until one day the silence was gone. A murmur. A murmur that didn't come from behind the door. A murmur that was growing little by little, even though at first it seemed almost inaudible. A murmur that was becoming more noticeable. You got up from your bunk. It sounded like people, like the noise of a busy street or like a market day in Hayltel. But there were other noises besides that. Noises of metal, of shields, of spears. Noises of strange creatures. Animals?

"A troop"

Only that troop was not a troop as such, but an army. An army of millions of soldiers advancing towards the high glass walls of Emmeldris. And they were not alone. Some were even mounted on wild beasts and herds of all kinds of animals advanced with them. They stopped a few kilometers from the main entrance to the city, ready to attack in no time. Meanwhile, Dryon watched the scene from his balcony with a smile on his face and his vassals prepared to fight back while you, still locked in your room, the heart began to beat with the same force as always while you contemplated the light that sneaked through your window.