Iron Maidens: The Good, The Bad and The Grumpy

Rowan rubbed at her wrists, pouting in the warm light of the Warden's chambers. She expected to be treated harshly, but that didn't mean she couldn't moan and grumble about the cuts on her wrist from the lizard's boot pulling on the chain. The tiefling waited for a few moments after the initial lock of the door. Was the Warden stupid, or distracted?

No matter. Rowan didn't have time to think about that.

She easily slipped the iron shackles from her wrists for the second time and set them on her chair before moving behind the Warden's desk. There was plenty to look at, but what was the most important? Her lavender gaze first fell upon a stack of files in the middle of the desk. She thumbed through each one, the names all familiar to her. Rowan, Silph, and Reva. Rowan quickly scanned each one, noting that Reva's appeared to be less bulky, almost as if something had been removed. While Rowan's file was filled with derogatory judgements and crass letters, Reva's was simply... less than that. To the point. It wasn't something Rowan expected considering her alarmingly bipolar behavior. Silph's file was interesting. Her talk with the Warden was making a bit more sense. Perhaps the brute of a woman was innocent after all and they were plotting something. A cynical thought, but what was Rowan supposed to think? There were countless notes about Silph's skills, her supposed innocence, it almost looked as if she wasn't supposed to be in prison at all. Yet there she was. Strange.

Rowan began to pull open drawers at random. The first had a wine bottle in it, which she happily uncorked and took a long, necessary swig from. It was better than she had hoped. Even if the Warden noticed, what did she care? Rowan was already fucked.

One of the drawers was locked. Rowan skipped over it and began to comb through the bookshelf behind her. Some of the titles were familiar to her, bringing her back to her childhood studies. Others weren't as easy to recognize. There was nothing to be found and Rowan didn't have the time to leaf through any of them. She still didn't know when the Warden was supposed to return, or even just a guard.

So, she returned her search to the desk. There was a small stack of no importance, at least at first glance. One appeared to be a shipping list, which Rowan paused a few seconds to give a second read. It was coming soon. That could have been useful.

Rowan glanced up at the door. It had been too long. Far too long. She slipped back into her chair, and hunched forward.
 
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Pushing back into the room, Cassia’s eyes landed straight on Rowan; a smile spread across reptilian features when she saw the tiefling was still seated where it had been left. Reclaiming her own seat, the Warden usher silph back into there before opening one of the files on her desk and making a quick note.

“My apologies for leaving you for quite so long. Your companion here needed a little more explaining to them than I thought. I hope you were comfortable at least.”

If red lacertillian had been business like before her covert conversation with Silph, she was positively abrupt now. The folders in her desk were wordlessly and efficiently swept into a neat pile and placed in one of the desk draws. Silph and Rowan were treated to the sound of wood sliding over wood once again when the warden unlocked the draw the tiefling had found to be locked. The result was a sealed bottle of amber gold liquid landing on the desk.

“Take this with my thanks. Consider it a reward for clearing up my little mystery of the day. I don’t believe that help given should be its own reward and there is more where this came from. Also from what her former cell mates have said, Reva sleeps much more quietly with a little inside her, and when she sleeps better she tends to be less impulsive.”

Reaching over to the left side of their desk, the Warden pulled on a small ornate carving of a bear slightly. Almost immediately a muffled ringing filled the chamber.”

“A guard will be along in a moment…” Raising her voice over the bell, Cassia looked from prisoner to prisoner. “Was there anything else you wanted to add to this meeting… No? Capital. I shall bid you good day then.”

The warden was true to her words. Barely had she turned her attention to some of the other files on her desk than one of the better dressed guards appeared between Rowan and Silph, placing one hand on each prisoner’s shoulder.

The journey back to the cell involved large numbers of dark and awkward staircases; each one serving to illustrate just how high above the rest of the prison the warden’s office sat. When their destination came into view, it was immediately apparent that it was not unoccupied. Chained up by her ankles, Reva hung on the inside of the cell’s bars. When the strange pair were pushed through the door, they would see by dint of the red-head’s shirt having fallen towards the floor, that her stomach was covered in angry red welts that traversed the full width of her body.

The moment to examine Reva’s predicament was brief. Almost as soon as the cell door was slammed shut, the bottle of whiskey having been placed just inside, the woman tumbled to the floor as one of the shackles that had supported her weight was released. Almost immediately, Mismatched glowing eyes blearily opened.

“Did she talk to you?” Reva’s words were hoarse and quiet. “Did you find when it is coming?”​

 
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No immediate answer came to mind. Silph was not looking at the strange creature before as she was so much staring, intently and with obvious consternation. Her tongue flicked out over dry, chapped lips, and her throat cleared.

“Er. It is coming, I think...”

The more she saw and heard, the less she understood. Angry red welts stood out in stark relief against the aasimar's skin. She could not forget the fleeting image of the young woman hanging by her ankles; for how long, Silph could not guess, and her brows creased in obvious thought over the dilemma. Truly, she had not given much thought to Reva's question, nor had any been spared to her answer.

What injustice had been wrought on the girl in their absence? And why?

As the footsteps of the guards echoed away, the blonde woman reached for the bottle of whiskey, her fingers curling about the bottle. She said nothing as she walked first past Rowan, then Reva, settling at last on the bed set farthest away from the two. There was much to think about - and yet, rather decidedly, she realized she would much rather not think about it then and there. Escape, the warden's words, Reva's mistreatment: all of it hung like a dark cloak over mind, heavy and oppressive. For once, an easy distraction would have been nice.

Surely, then, a sip or two wouldn't hurt...

“A drink?” Silph offered the bottle to Reva and Rowan after taking a long swig herself. Her face was one of tired resignation.“Here. It might help with the pain.”
 

“I’m fine.”

The crack in her voice betrayed just how much of a lie her words were. The grimace of the aasimar’s face as she used the cell bars to pull herself to her feet did so too. Even if Reva had been able to better mask her pain, she was a poor liar; the words came out too fast, with too much force, to be the truth. Whether or not the flame haired woman cared if her cellmates believed her was much less apparent. Even as she tugged the ragged fabric that counted a shirt down over her marked chest and stomach, her eyes never left the bottle in Silphs hand.

When she was finally able to snatch the bottle that so held her attention for herself, she drank far deeper of its contents than the north woman had. When the bottle finally fell into the aasimar’s lap, it was far emptier than a bottle of whiskey passed between two people had any right to be.

“You were gone a long time. I thought she might have pushed you into the sky cells to teach you a lesson.”​

 



"No, not sky cells. Only her...office."

So her suspicion of the cells that hung outside the prison walls was right. She wondered if perhaps the Warden would have bid her to go inside one of the cells should she have refused the lizard's offer. It wouldn't have surprised her. Frowning, Silph glanced at Reva then away. The creature's battered appearance made something suspiciously like pity tug at her heartstrings. She had wanted perhaps a sip more of the Warden's fine liquor but ah, well - the poor girl needed it more. Let Rowan take the rest should she want it.

Besides. There was an important discussion to be had. The Warden had given her much to ponder, and she looked abruptly at the aasimar with keen interest.

"Reva. How long have you been here? And why?" She inquired, her brows furrowing. "I am...curious. The Warden mentioned you."

An understatement, if any. But the Diane dared not let anymore slip.
 

At Silphs question, the features of Reva’s face wrinkled with puzzlement.

“It’s been um…”

In the aasinmar’s lap the slightly crooked fingers of one of her hands started to unfold themselves. After a few moments Reva shifted so that the half-finished bottle was sequestered between her thighs and then the fingers of her other hand started to unfold one by one. A few moments more passed before Reva glanced at the efforts of her digits briefly.

“I think it has been nine moons.”

Eight fingers were extended on the woman’s hands.

“And I got in a fight. I was travelling with a trade caravan and these lizards stopped us on the road to demand money. The caravan master had paid me to be a guard so I did that. One of them got away and when we got to the next city the guards were waiting for us. Next thing I really remember is the wagon that brought me up the mountain.”

Silence reigned in the cell briefly before Reva’s curiosity, peaked by Silph, got the better of her.

“Why are you here? Same to you demon.”​

 
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Rowan glanced to the bottle between the fiery woman's thighs. Suddenly, she wasn't all that interested in a drink. Not if she had to pluck it from between her legs. She had punched her after all. That still stung.

"Keep calling me demon and I'll give you a reason not to stop." Rowan cooed, annoyed at her new nickname. She put both hands on her hips and winced when she felt her bloodied wrists. A gift from the Warden. It hardly mattered where she went, the prejudice was the same. She was a fool to expect it would be any better among criminals.

But her, explain a thing? What did she owe the crazy woman?

"Why am I here, why do you think?" Rowan sneered at the Aasimar. She wanted a reason, she could at least give her one, whether or not it was the truth was up for her to decide. "I have two horns and a cheery disposition. So some guards picked me up off the street and dragged me here, just in case a child somewhere decided to cry that they'd had a horrible nightmare; I'd stolen their sweets."

She remained on the far side of the room and crossed her arms before leaning up against the wall of the cell. That was as much as she was going to say until she learned more about the other two women.

Rowan huffed. Well. There was a bit more to say. "Trade is supposed to come soon." She grumbled. "Few days, large shipment. Could be a good time to--" Rowan walked two of her fingers in the open air before crossing her arms once more.
 
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And so it was that uneasy peace made itself at home within the cell. As the sun and moons continued their unending pursuit of each other, a plan was thrashed out between the trio.

The first day after Silph and Rowan’s trip to the Warden’s office, the cell door remained locked; food, water and a bottle of foul smelling spirit were pushed through the iron bars once in the morning and once again as the sun was setting. For near all the hours between the mismatched companions were left alone in their own company. After that, the cell door was unlocked at sunrise and, apart from meal times and exercise, the trio, as with all the prisoners were free to wander certain sections of the prison as they wished.

Reva memory, shaky and spotty as it was, was able to provide answers to most of Silph and Rowan’s basic questions. The aasimar also provided the pair with a tour of what parts of the prison they could access. The conversations with her unseen friend also continued, mostly when the red-head was stressed or did not know the answer to a question. At least for Rowan and Silph’s sake, the night time sobbing and screaming had lessened.

On the morning of the escape, the tiefling and north woman awoke to find their cell mate pacing anxiously back and forth. Fingers kept lifting and sinking in front of her face, as if she was adding to and removing things from a list; her lips were moving the whole time until she noticed eyes on her.

“It is today?”

Glowing gaze shifted from Silph to Rowan and back.

“I still don’t understand what we are going to do. How do we make this happen?”​

 



Silph's eyes were bright. A bit too bright for the norm, and her abnormally fiery disposition could only be chalked up to one thing.

Excitement.

"I have some ideas. But none so sure as this one."

Silph crossed her legs atop her cot, glancing between Rowan and Reva. In the short time she'd been there, somehow the strange duo had morphed into begrudging allies of hers. Not friends, no - she would never make friends with outsiders - but a sort of pact had been formed. A mutual understanding. And for this, she would see to their escape. For just the three of them. To hell with the rest of the prison's cursed lot.

And to escape required a feasible plan. Much forethought and intellect was required - something she was lucky to have in spades.

"By the Warden's own admission, the territory outside the prison is unsuited for long distance travel on foot. I see no trickery in her words in that regard. You two would fade away like flames in the wind. Quickly, I might add," She asserted bluntly. Her hand waved loosely. "The North is treacherous, yah? A snowstorm can catch even the most prepared traveler. But I gather we travel far and well aboard this cargo cart coming today. But how to get to it is tricky, yah? So - "

Abruptly, she stood. The black of the cold, darkened passageway greeted her from outside the cell bars. Silph curled one hand about the bar, her eyes intent. She knew what she could do. Still - there was a satisfied glint to her eyes as, with a slight force, the bar bent in towards her palm. The woman bent it back, finally turning her head to her two companions.

"I noticed some things from before. From our visit to the Warden. Firstly, the path to her was, eh...purposely tricky. Complex. Intended to mislead us, but...I noticed still that in spite of their mindless pacings and roundabouts, the guards led us up and we- er, left, yah? By where we first entered. It is near the path where we are led for our outdoor exercises. I remember."

Perhaps she was no scholar or seasoned strategist. But Silph had traveled enough roads, forged through enough fogs and blinding snowstorms to retain an acute sense of direction. In her bid to escape, the Diane woman had experienced a heightened sense of awareness. Yes, it may have taken a few days, but the murky depths of the prison halls and rooms were beginning to find a congruency. The impossible maze had grown seemingly possible. And the guards were lazy; nary did they take alternate routes when leading them to and fro one place to another, and a pattern had formed in that time.

Silph gave the bars a rough smack, and the whine of metal was heard. The sole flame in their lantern flickered; in the light it cast, Silph's work could be made out: a sizable impression in the bars, forcing the metal to curve outwards. Her fingers pointed at the damage as she spoke again.

"These bars, these chains...I can break them. Any of them. I can and I will show you, when the time comes. And I believe our three strengths combined can overwhelm the guard. These lizardmen are scum...merely brutes for hire. They owe no loyalty to their master, and a good clout or two ought to swing their minds to self-preservation. They will tell us what we need to know. Then we take their armor, their weapons. Leave them here in the cell to rot." Silph's lip curled contemptuously. "From there we follow the path to the outside part for prisoners, and from there towards the Warden's. Up, you see. I remember. The carriage bearing trade goods will come within the front arena of the prison. They will have to stop and unload - much like us, when we were unloaded. There we will wait in shadows before taking the place of the loaded goods in the back. If not -"

Apparently, the Diane woman stopped, peering at the other two. It was the most talking she'd ever done in one sitting, and she wondered if she'd courted hubris by going on in such a fashion.

"Rowan? Reva? How does this sound?"

 
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“I think… they think it might work.”

Reva’s face was a picture of concentration. As the human had spoken, glowing eyes had been scrunched closed as she had tried to form the words into a picture in her mind. It had been a muddled, confused mess that made little sense. Fortunately, they must have been listening and agreed Silph’s plan might work. Reva had no reason to doubt them; their words had always been true before so why not now. There was, however, one small hole in Silph’s plan that seemed obvious to the Aasimar.

“It will have to be you that surprises the guards. Me and that one,”

Green eyes flashed at Rowan’s uncharacteristically quiet form for a second.

“they will watch us, maybe chain us. You, they will think you are weak. It was the same for me at first, until I beat one so hard he had to be carried away on a stretcher. They think humans are beneath them; that you are frail compared to them. I will be able to help, but you must be the one to start.”

There was a long silence in the cell and Reva looked awkwardly at her feet for a few moments, chewing over what she knew she needed to say next.

“I errrr need you to take this.”

Reaching under the rags that masqueraded as clothes, the Aasimar started to slowly unwind the straps of cloth that bound her chest until with a high-pitched plink a small coin landed on the floor. Picking it up, Reva placed it in Silph’s palm. The face of the coin was covered in strange geometric patterns that matched no currency either Rowan or Silph had ever seen.

“If things do not go well and I am left behind or killed, could you find who this symbol belongs to. I have dreams of it, and I once saw men with robes that were the same once, but they died before they told me anything.”

For a moment, Reva looked like she was about to say something else but whatever else was on her mind was left unsaid as she returned to her customary corner and slumped to the floor.

“I hope this works. They have never trusted anyone like they trust you.



The morning passed by so slowly it felt like an eternity had passed before the weak sun was even a quarter of the way across the sky. Eventually, though the now familiar cadence of lizard footsteps and the jangling of chains rang along the corridor. As the cell door flew open, Reva flashed Silph a look to remind her of their earlier conversation.

“ALL RIGHT! ALL OF YOU UP AND AGAINST THE WALL!”

The snarl of the guard reverberated around the room and slowly, like a broken animal, Reva complied with the order.​

 
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