“They cannot be undone,” Jenna said, wondering if there was any advice to give the tortured girl. “You have only your future before you; your past is done and finished. It is yours to make of it what you will.”
“I tried to please them,” she continued, staring at Jenna through eyes that were blurry with tears. “I kept telling myself if I did one more thing, one more job, if I just let it happen one more time it would all end. They would let me go and make me better.”
“But it never happened,” Jenna finished for her, turning back to stare out the small bars on the door so that the girl would not see her face.
Unseen, Bailynn shook her head in agreement that it had never happened. “I could not deny them, and soon I wanted to die. I gave in to it and tried to let myself go. I tried to push myself so I would be killed. They stopped that too. I was a prisoner. I am a prisoner still.”
“And soon you’ll have a new Master,” Jenna said softly, thinking that surely Bekka had been stripped as thoroughly as they had been and the controlling ring would be found and eventually put to use.
“Bekka has it still,” Bailynn said dully.
“What? How?” Jenna asked, confused not at Bailynn knowing who possessed it so much as how Bekka could still be in possession of it.
Bailynn shrugged; she did not know.
Jenna smiled faintly. “That clever girl,” she muttered. “She must have hidden it. You say she still has it? Not something she left stuck in a box or a sack somewhere?”
Bailynn shook her head, “She is touching it, that much I know.”
Jenna chuckled. “She hid it well then.”
The elf turned to the waif and walked to stand in front of her. She stared down at her a minute and then sank down to her knees in front of her. “Bailynn, I need you to help me. If we are to escape and live, then we need to work together, okay?”
Bailynn looked at her, her expression one of pure helplessness. “Why? Let them come. Let them kill me. I seek death, it will release me.”
Jenna felt the urge to slap her or to grab and shake her. Anything to bring some sense to her and rouse her from her unending depression. Instead she just sat there and stared at her.
“You’re just like them,” Bailynn whispered. Fresh tears spilled from her eyes.
Jenna nearly stumbled backwards at the accusation. She felt as though she had been slapped across the face. “What? How can you say that?”
“You want to use me. You want me to help you so you can escape,” Bailynn accused.
Jenna shook her head. The pain in her head cleared as the impact of the girl’s words slammed into her, leaving a fresh pain in their wake. She reached out to the floor to steady herself and stared at Bailynn. Her own eyes glistened with moisture.
“Bailynn- I… I’m sorry,” Jenna said, blinking away the water. “I don’t want to use you so I can escape. I want us both to escape. I want us to work together. We share the risk and share the reward. That is what I want.”
“You don’t get it, do you?”
Jenna shook her head, confused.
“You’ll do anything you can to get away. Anything you can to run from them. Anything you can to prove you’re not like them,” Bailynn said, repositioning herself so that she was on her knees now and looking straight into Jenna’s eyes.
“You’ll justify anything, even behaving like them, so you can say you’re not one of them,” Bailynn said.
Jenna’s mouth opened but she had no words to utter. She stared at the ruined girl and her words ate away at her. Bailynn was right. She acted like an elf, even vowing her independence, but she still acted like them. She claimed her ends were different, but her means were the same. She shook her head to deny it reflexively, but found she had no voice to confirm her denial.
“Hit me,” Bailynn whispered, her voice almost seductive. “Lash out and beat me. Prove me wrong. Use your strength over me.”
Jenna shook her head again and this time had the words. “No,” she said, repeating it twice more before continuing. “I’ll not harm you. I’ll never hurt you,” she said.
“Pain is all I know,” she said so softly it took Jenna’s elven ears to hear her.
“No more,” Jenna vowed. “I cannot undo what was done to you, but that is behind you. You have only your past and your future. We cannot change what was, but we can change what will be. I will help you — all of us — will help you.”
Bailynn looked at her and, for the first time, almost dared to believe. The light in her eyes faded quickly, but the fact that it had shown for a moment was promise enough for Jenna. The elf rose to her feet and took Bailynn’s hands in her own, pulling her up with her. The girl remained shorter than she was, and in spite of Jodyne’s hearty cooking she was still thin as a sail turned sideways.
Jenna pulled the girl to her, pressing her flesh against hers, and held her tight against her sharing her warmth and comfort. She cradled Bailynn’s head to her breast, both drawing strength from the act and trying to convey it to her.
“Come, we need to escape this place so we can rescue our friends, recover our ship, and find our Captain,” Jenna said after a moment.
Jenna let go of the girl and turned back to the door. Bailynn stared at her for a long moment, missing the warmth of her embrace. Fresh moisture filled her eyes but she wiped it away before it had a chance to fall. So faint it could not be seen in the dim light coming in through the small opening in the doorway, she smiled.
Bekka’s first thoughts upon waking was to recall exactly what had happened to her. She had been struggling to keep the Voidhawk moving and in the process of doing so, ignored her immediate area. The traumatic impact of the gauntleted fist to her cheek had put an end to all of that, however. She remembered, faintly, grabbing the ring that controlled Bailynn and trying to hide it before the darkness claimed her.
Rubbing her cheek, she looked around the room and saw Jodyne laying on the floor nearby. They were in a small room with no windows other than the small one in the doorway that was protected via some iron bars. Jodyne was unconscious and she noticed after a moment, nud; dwarven women had more hair than just their beards that they seemed to be proud of.
Bekka glanced down at herself. She was naked as well. Unlike Jodyne, she was quite happy to be devoid of hair on her body, thanks to both her natural magic and aided by her razor edged dagger. Of course the argument of follicular superiority was meaningless at the moment, and would also do little to help them out of their predicament.
Bekka crawled over to Jodyne and gently nudged her. When the woman did not respond she shook her again a little more roughly. This time she came around, groaning before sitting up and raising her hand to the back of her neck. She licked her lips, tasting the blood from a split in them, and let her eyes focus on the half-elf.
Her eyes widened upon seeing the woman with no clothing on. She looked down at herself and cursed in Dwarven, her hands going quickly to cover herself. Bekka smiled disarmingly at her and shrugged.
“It is only the two of us,” she said softly. “The slavers captured us.”
Jodyne surged to her feet, turning to the door and looking for a handle to grab to wrench on. She balled her hands into fists at her side and ground her teeth in frustration.
“Jodyne, be patient, we can’t let them know we are awake until we know what it is we wish to do.”
“We wish to be free,” Jodyne snapped. “I’ll not be slaving for any; death would be better!” She paused and glared at the confines of their cell. “Where are the others?”
Bekka pushed past her surprise at the fiery nature of the woman. She knew she could be stubborn and obstinate, a woman would have to be to love Kragor as she did, but she was surprised by the power of her emotions.
“I think they have been put in rooms much like these. That or…”
Jodyne nodded, allowing Bekka to let the unthinkable go unsaid. Every one of them would fight while they had the strength in their limbs to do so, and it was often easier to kill than it was to incapacitate.
“Do you have any magic to get us out?” Jodyne asked after pushing against the door and discovering it to be unyielding.
Bekka shook her head. “I have nothing that would help us. We must wait for our captors to arrive and take
