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Old 05-09-2006, 09:20 PM   #4
JennyHallu
The Pearl, The Lily Maid
 
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Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: In my luxury Barrow, snuggled up in a pile of satin pillows, eating fresh fruit.
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When Sorn had leaned into her ear and told her, so calmly, of his plans for her, Linduial had gone white with terror. For the rest of the journey to Sorn's rough Hall, she had been completely silent, frozen, sitting like a statue, her body stiff as she tried to pull as far as she could from her kidnapper.

Then, roughly thrown into a dark, dirt-walled cellar roon, she had once again translated her fear into anger. What right had these men to treat her this way? She was the daughter of Lord Farlen of Dol Amroth, brother of Imrahil himself. Her cousin was the queen of this land, and all that she had seen in her short time here had spoken to the love the people of Rohan had for their King's foreign wife. What RIGHT had this man, to harm her for the sake of some petty grudge, nursed for fifteen years? She had done nothing...

Her body hurt. Lin was almost glad she had no way to clearly see her skin...she knew it would be horribly discolored, marked with cuts and scrapes and bruises. She considered with grim irony the effort she had put into the perfection of her skin, gritted her teeth through unfamiliar pain. She had to do something to distract herself. She was already filthy--

The guard stood only a few feet beyond the close-set cast-iron bars delineating her prison. She sat down on the dirt floor with a soft gasp of pain, clawing at the soil with fingernails already chipped from hammering on the wall of the wagon.

"Hey," she growled. No answer. "Hey! You!" She flung her ball of dirt through the cell walls, grinning viciously when she heard a quiet curse, confirming that it had hit.

"Do you feel brave? Manly? Guarding a pampered little girl? Making sure a little girl doesn't try to run away?" He turned deliberately away from her.

She determined stubbornly to keep it up as long as she had strength to talk. But, hoarse, hours later, when she heard footsteps on the stair, her earlier fear returned and she tried desperately to cling to her stubbornness in the face of it. When Sorn appeared, so infuriatingly calm and--amused?, she mustered her courage, spitting at his feet.

"What happened to the man I slashed?" she demanded tauntingly. "I hope he hurt. Are you proud of your little little scheme? Using a girl barely out of childhood to twist people into doing your will? Truly only a very brave man would dare to attack me." She crawled, not willing to rise to her feet, moving limply the few feet to kneel at the bars, inside the circle of the lamp Sorn had brought with him, forcing him--and more importantly his guard--to see her battered body, now that the bruises had begun to color. She caught her breath at the sight of a spreading yellow sore across her slim arm, then deliberately turned away, catching and holding the eye of the guard. Her instincts told her there was little hope in treating with Sorn. He was a dangerous man and barely sane. But if the guards could be moved to pity...
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