The Pit
I rode along in the carriage, my arms and legs bound tightly as I stared at Mill. She still had the look of anger in her eyes, but she was shaking a lot more now. In the comfort of the carriage the prince seemed to have been emboldened, and the hand he had wrapped around her chest to hold her still was positioned in a very uncomfortable way. I chewed at the gag in my mouth, trying to find some purchase in the cloth to let me tear it enough to talk to Mill, but it was a new rag, and a high quality one at that. I mumbled around it anyway, but my words came out as grunts and moans, and sounded so pathetic that I stopped so Mill wouldn't worry. The Prince hadn't said much since my capture, just looked on with that same, smug bastard look on his smug bastard face. If I hadn't known he was the prince, I still would have hated him from first sight.
I wiggled, trying to get the ropes looser, but the more I pulled, the tighter they got, squeezing my skin and making my worms squirm. The smug look grew, and I wrinkled my nose at him and wiggled my head in a way that I hoped came across as insulting. Breaking the silence, he spoke, his voice sounding much older than he looked
"I think you'll find I'm quite adept at tying knots, I've never had one of my pets break free yet, and trust me, some have tried quite hard. Do you have the resolve to break both your wrists? To dislocate your shoulders and legs? Even if you did, I doubt you'd have the strength to break free."
He moved the knife off of the front of Mill's neck and put it on the thick vein on the side instead, drawing a trickle of blood as the tip broke skin once more.
"Of course, even if you did break free, it's just a slight twitch of my finger and your little urchin friend is bleeding out on my nice seats."
Mill coughed slightly, and I realized she had barely been able to breathe for fear of her throat being punctured further
"Tha's Sister Millicent t' you, fop" She croaked out
He raised an eyebrow mockingly
"Oh? is it now? Well, I didn't realize I was dealing with a member of the clergy! Well, If you really are a sister, then you'll have..."
At this, he moved his arm to still hook around her far arm, but slid his hand down the front of her habit. Her eyes widened, and her body went stiff, another drop of blood sliding out of her most recent wound. My stomach churned as he lingered, pretending to fish around for what he was looking for. After entirely too long, he pulled out her holy symbol and whistled at it
"...one of these, very nice! Very pretty, and so young too, your parents must be so proud of you! Oh... Hm, well, I'm sure they would have been at least."
He let the necklace swing back down to hit her ribcage and tightened his grip again.
"Well, I won't forget again 'Sister Millicent'. In fact, I now decree that you must wear that beautiful necklace out in the open so no one will ever doubt that you're a sister again, how about that?"
Mill blushed and gritted her teeth. I felt my heart go out to her, and I leaned forward as much as I could to try and comfort her. The prince laughed and kicked me back in the seat roughly.
"Now now missy, stay on your side! We can introduce ourselves later, I'm sure we'll get to know each other quite well soon enough."
I started crying at that, my mind racing at all the unknowns of what could be about to happen. Mill was the prettier one by far, even with her missing teeth, so it would make more sense for him to- I clamped my mind shut at that, horrified at that line of thought, shutting out that possibility from my mind altogether. Whatever was waiting for us, we would need to face it together, hoping she would shield me was selfish and wrong of me. My tears soaked into the rag in my mouth, the salty taste grounding me for the rest of the trip.
~
When we got to the prince's manor, I was roughly hauled out of the carriage by my ropes by a guard. I hissed and the ropes cut more and the knots pulled my arms into painful positions. I was lead into the front door, and I looked up in in awe at the size and beauty of the entrance. The tall ceiling, the carved stone pillars, the thick red and gold rug covering the whole floor, it took my breath away. Then it was gone. I was toted through it quickly, and taken to a small wooden door at the foot of some stairs some way into the building. The door was opened by a thick key, and I was taken down even more stairs. I couldn't imagine what I could be being led to, aside from a dungeon, but what reason could I have for being thrown in a dungeon?
As we passed through a fully stocked pantry with rows of jars of preserved things, I began to worry I was to be eaten. This fear grew, when in the next room I saw a large brass and iron machine with most of a person poking out the top, legs first, and a mess of meat and what was presumably the contents of their brain on the floor below the mouth of the machine. I gagged at the smell, but there was no room to vomit with the gag on my mouth, so I closed my throat and tried to fight it off.
The final room we entered was the worst yet, a third of the room was unlit, and seemed to be a dungeon cell with no bed or straw, but the rest of the room looked like some sort of horrible doctor's office. There were diagrams on the wall of every inch of the human body, a row of tools on the far wall that filled the whole surface, a large furnace, an iron vat of water, and most concerning, a doctor's table, shaped like a person with the arms and legs out from the body slightly, with straps hanging off almost every inch of it. Everything in the room stank of blood, and there were splatters of the stuff on every surface.
The guard that had been caring me tossed me into the cell and locked the door. I tried to yell at him to untie me if he was going to lock me up, but he ignored my muffled cries and went up the stairs quickly, like he wanted to be out of the room as soon as possible. I rocked myself up onto my knees, and looked around the cell. It was very dark due to it being in an alcove shorter than the rest of the room, and under the lamps that lit the space, but I could still make out sets of manacles hanging from the wall and ceiling, and a hole in the ground with a faint rushing water sound and cold breeze coming out of it.
I leaned back against the wall and tried to think, but my mind was whirring with fears. My eyes kept going over to the wall of tools, knives, drills, hammers, pointed things, grabber things with handles like shears. I didn't know what they were all used for, but I knew I'd find out soon. I was quickly realizing that I was going to be on that table sooner or later. The one good thing was that it didn't look like Mill was going to have to be down here in this scary place, so thank the gods for that.
As that thought passed over my mind, the door opened again, and the prince stepped in, holding Mill hanging limply in his arm. I yelled at her, but either she was too unconscious to hear me, or she was pretending to be. The prince swung open the door to my cell and swung her in behind him. She was worse off than I had last seen, her habit was torn open halfway down, and her cheeks looked bruised. He hung her up off of two manacles in the center of the cell, and she hung there limply, her knees almost touching the ground. He flashed me a smile, one of his horrible smug ones and I cringed
"Well now, let's get you unwrapped, ok? 'Sister Millicent' here will be a little gift from me to you! She's still alive and well, maybe in a bit of pain, but she's mostly unharmed, so I want her to stay right here where you can see, ok?"
He went on, cutting the ropes with his knife as he did
"In fact, she'll stay mostly unharmed as long as you don't try and do anything, ok? I know you understand, you're smart, I'm sure. You have smart eyes after all. Tell me, what's your name?... Ah, the gag, right. Ah well, I don't think it matters anyway. I don't usually need names, I just thought I'd be polite because, well, you should be here a bit longer than my usual guests, I hope!"
He stood up and slapped his leg
"Well, let's get you into those irons! No sense in letting you crawl around and get all dirty in here, or try and free 'Sister Millicent' of course, I still don't know what you're capable of!"
He hauled me up against the wall and locked my arms in irons. I was sitting, and they were fairly tight, but I could move my arms enough to stretch them. I leaned my head to the side as far as I could, but I couldn't get a grip on the gag with my fingers, i was just a bit too far. I mumbled, hoping he'd remember to take it off, but he had stood up and was walking away, still chattering
"-tomorrow, I'm much too busy today, but don't worry, I'll be here bright and early! You'll need your rest, I think, I'm not sure how you work, but I am assuming you do, anyway, do whatever it is you do at night and I'll see you soon!"
The door slammed behind him, and the lights dimmed to almost nothing, the glow of the furnace providing a dim glow to see by. A few seconds later, Mill lifted her head and looked at me
"Ye ok? Ye been hurt yet?"
I shook my head and mumbled a response. She grimaced, and stood up, using her chains to lift herself. She lifted one foot and hopped closer to me.
"Head down."
I obeyed, and leaned forward. A second later, I felt her foot on the back of my head, kicking at the knot holding the gag. She grabbed it in her toes (along with a good bit of hair) and pulled back. I grunted at the pain of having my hair yanked on, but after a few seconds, the gag fell off and I spit it to the ground.
"Th-thanks..." I choked, coughing
"S' did ye get hurt yet?"
"No, n-not really, I just got hauled down here to this scary place... I think he said he'll do it tomorrow though..."
"Any idea wha' e's gonna do?"
"No... But I think it has something to do with the table and tools behind you..."
She craned her neck around to see
"'s too dark, an' I was fakin' bein' out earlier, wha' kinda stuff e's got?"
"Knives, drills, things to poke and pull and clamp, I don't even know..."
She whistled lowly and shook her head
"Well, ye got sommin' ta look forward to at least... I'm sorry ta hear 'bout all that..."
I sat quietly for a while, looking at the glint of her pendant, still out of her habit. I looked up at her face, bruised and worn.
"W-why were you pretending to be unconscious earlier? Weren't you scared that he'd do something to you while you were 'out'?"
She didn't say anything for a while, then said in a dark tone
"Listen, ifn e' tries anythin' wi' ye, go limp. E' don't like limp I think, e'll loose interest, ye'll be safer that way, 'aight?"
I shuddered and nodded at her. She leaned back and I heard her back popping and she yawned.
"Guess I'm gonna haveta learn to sleep standin', huh?"
I looked around the room and shook my head
"M-maybe you'll get moved to a wall too, next to me so we can even hold hands? Then you won't have to hang on the chains?..."
She looked at me for a few seconds then grinned her rare, jagged grin
"Aye, mebby so. That'd be nice."
She swung her foot out again and propped it up on my shoulder and I yelped
"Guess this'll haveta be good 'nough, eh?"
I giggled a bit at that and her grin widened
"There ya are, it's alll gonna be ok, now let's practice goin' limp for a bit, I'm wore out an' I need ta git some rest, 'k?"
"Ok, yeah. Let's do that..."
She swung her foot down and crouched down as low as she could on her toes, her arms still over her head, and leaned forward, letting the chains hold her and said what she did every night
"G'night, sleep well, ifn ye find a rat in yer bed, bite it's 'ead off and we'll eat good fer brekfast!"
"Goodnight Milly... Thank you..." I whispered to her
I couldn't tell if she'd heard me, but a few minutes later her soft snores let me know she was asleep either way. I lay there in the dark for some time, thinking about tomorrow. I'm not sure when or if I ever fell asleep, but after a while, I was started to awareness by the door to the room bursting open.