Not sure if anyone is still reading this. Eh, might as well see.

The door opened then, making a grinding noise as it went, like rock against rock. Amelia watched with amazement as it slid to the side, revealing a large room full of velvet tapestries and silk blankets, hanging from the ceilings and draping across the walls and across the room. There was an infinite amount of designs, colors of every kind thrown along the blankets, images of warriors skewering each other stitched into the fabrics, as well as scenes of lovers lingering in gardens. Pillows were thrown all over the place, trimmed in a bright yellow and with tassels hanging from their corners. There were several velvet couches pushed against the walls, though they were so covered in finery that she would never have dared sit upon them.

In the center of all the blankets and drapery was a large, red velvet chair. Atop of this sat a copious woman, her hands drumming nonchalantly on the arms of the chair, her feet crossed elegantly in front of her. Her hair was a dark wheat color, falling in waves over her shoulders and brushed until it was shining regally under the lights. Her face was heart shaped and impatient, her eyes such a deep blue that they seemed purple, sharp either way and piercing into the Lostling and Amelia at that moment.

A dress of a thin white fabric was draped across her body, tied at her waist by a velvet gold belt, a slit in the skirt revealing two milky white legs tipped with gleaming black boots that seemed to possess not a single smudge or dull spot. And topping this formidable looking women was a gold helmet, its color pure and two white wings fanning out from the sides.

Amelia’s eyes impossibly wide and her heart thrumming manically in her chest, she stepped back and looked to the door she had just entered through. She nearly screamed when she saw the two robed men standing on either side of the entranceway, their awkward and stitched on limbs, heads bowed as if they were puppets who had been laid to rest for a moment.

She gasped audibly, her hands coming to her face. They were the creatures who had taken Talmon, who had taken her. She looked down to her arms to see the scratch marks still there, and she could still hear their guttural laughs in her head when she thought back to the struggle.

A sharp laugh came from the Baroness woman and Amelia whirled around, her hands clutched to her chest, the Lostling girl nowhere in sight. The Baroness looked her up and down, a smile tugging at the corners of her crimson lips, her head tilted slightly as she brought a finger to her chin.

“There’s no need to worry, my child. My puppets won’t hurt you. Aren’t they darling?” the Baroness said, her voice low and her eyes keen. She glanced at the robed men with quick adoration before turning back to Amelia. “Simply majestic beings they are, much better than the creatures they used to be. Ah, now, but I must get down to business with you. I am the Baroness Brynhilda, soveriegn over this lost city and Nibelhem area. What is your name, girl?”

Amelia just stared for a moment, the words somewhere out of reach and the Baroness seeming too sinister for her to be at ease in any way. With the puppet men standing behind her, she couldn’t muster up any trust for the woman.

She wanted to run, but just as this thought came into her head, the harsh sound of the large door grinding back into place filled the room. She glanced over her shoulder to see the robed men pushing it over the only exit she could see.

“Well?” the Baroness snapped, her purple eyes still on her and her finger tapping impatiently on her chin.

“Amelia Dahl.” Amelia squeaked out. She was trapped now and at the frightening woman’s mercy.

“Amelia, that’s a pretty name.” Baroness Brynhilda cooed, smiling and pausing a moment to think. “I can tell from your aura that you’re not a Lostling. You’ve come from the real world, haven’t you? From the Gaia?”

“Gaia?” she whispered, not knowing what she was referring to.

“Gaia. That is what we call the parallel real world here. The Gaia.” the Baroness explained. “Do you understand that? Despite your aura, you seem to be as feeble as a Lostling. But it doesn’t make sense, because you have a strong air about yourself, the complete opposite of a Lostling.” She brushed back a curl of dark wheat hair. “Almost like me, when I first arrived. But I certainly didn’t quiver like you are doing now.”

“I-” Amelia tried to find words. “I just got lost today. I mean, I think it was today. Not long ago, anyway. I just… I just woke up here. I just want to get back to my home. To, to the real world.”

“So you didn’t get lost on purpose?” the Baroness asked.

“No. I didn’t mean to… I don’t know how I did. I don’t know.”

“Ah, well, it is a bit of an endeavor to return to the real world. You must reach Astray, which is not close to here, and convince those ornery Overseers to help you. They have this lost, patchy dimension in the palm of their hands and relish that power a bit too much. Whenever anyone wishes help from them, they make such a trial out of it.” The Baroness sighed dramatically. “It is much easier to just stay in this world.”

“But I want to go home.” Amelia protested quietly, stepping forward pleadingly. “Please, Baroness, could you help me find my way home?”

“Help you?” the fierce woman scoffed, rolling her head back and fighting back a laugh. She grew serious then, biting her lip for a moment and tapping at the arm of her chair. “I could help you. I have no reason to though. Why should I?” She leaned forward, her eyes ablaze. “There’s still the real thing I want to get to, the real question. My henchmen, my dear puppets, found you with my Lostling, Talmon. You tried to protect him. Now, what kind of fool would protect a Lostling? And what were you doing with him anyway, hm?”

“Talmon.” Amelia breathed, remembering that she had to try and help him. “When I first found myself here, I saw him and asked him for help.”

“Help? From him?” The Baroness found this funny and laughed, waving her hand about as she did, as if to shoo away the foolishness.

“Where is he?” she asked in between the woman’s harsh laughs, clasping her hands and stepping forward. “Please, can you tell me what happened to Talmon?”

“Talmon is currently being punished for trying to run off.” the Baroness sighed, a smile touching her lips. “He is my servant and a Lostling. He is not allowed by the rules of this world to wander around on his own.”

“Punished?” Amelia whispered, shaking her head. “Please, don’t hurt him. He was just trying to help me. He may have tried to run off, but he was kind to me, please, can you just let him go?”

“Let him go?” the Baroness cried, looking down at Amelia with a sneer. “Little girl, I will forgive you of your ignorance for now. You are new to this world and do not understand the rules. So let me explain them to you so you can stop with these silly questions.” She sat back, her lips pursed as she regarded her with distaste. “Talmon is nothing but a lowly Lostling. Everything - everything - in this world was once a part of another world, mostly the world we call Gaia and you call Earth. Everything here in this world once existed in reality but now is caught here in the patchworks, lost from reality and reality lost to it. Everything except for the Lostlings.

“They haven’t come from any place real, any place where reality and genuine substance exists. Since they have come from this fragmented world, they are but fragmented creatures themselves and are merely vessels without any real human traits. They have no real hearts, they have no real minds, and therefore cannot function as well as everyone else who was once part of the intact and real dimensions.

“Due to this, the Overseers of all that is lost to reality declared long ago that these frail creatures are not allowed to be on their own and they must belong to owners who will make good use of their empty vessels.

“And that is what I am; I am the Baroness of this city and I own all of the Lostlings here, including Talmon. He is just a fractured, false soul without a heart. He is not like you or I.” Baroness Brynhilda stood up then, her dress twirling elegantly around her long legs, her hair falling down her back. She let her eyes rest heavily on Amelia. “So if I were you, Amelia Dahl, I would forget about Talmon. He never would have been able to help you because he’s almost altogether useless, except for what work I can give him. So leave him to me.”

Amelia shook her head, not finding it possible that the nervous young man she had met was heartless and deserving of any kind of oppression and punishment. He had promised to help her, so she wondered if she could seam together a plan where she had a way back home and could get him out of there.

“Please, Baroness. I don’t care about any of that stuff. Can’t you let him escort me to Astray? I need to find a way home and you can help me by letting him show me the way.”

“Talmon will be doing nothing of the sort! He needs to be punished. And he’s too mindless to find the place anyway, he couldn’t even navigate himself out of Nibelhem.”

“But if you told him the way I know he could help me. Just because he was born in this place doesn’t mean he’s as useless as you say he is. I don’t see how-”

“Be silent!” the Baroness commanded sharply, glaring down at Amelia. “You know nothing about things lost in this world. Stop commiserating with the deluge.”

A twisted smile came to her crimson lips then and she raised a hand to her face. “Oh, but my dear child, I try to make them better. Lostlings are such sad and pathetic creatures that I happened to come across an idea one day that I could change them. Make them better, make them more useful to me, better functioning creatures.” She walked forward several steps, holding her hand out in a flourish. “Behind you, Amelia, is the product. My beautiful henchmen, my lovely puppets.”

Amelia turned around to gaze at the two robed figures standing by the closed doorway, their heads bowed against their chests, their arms laying limp at their sides.

They were Lostlings, just like Talmon, she realized. But the Baroness had distorted them, done something to them to turn them into monsters. She gaped at their clawed hands, elongated limbs and stitched-up bodies.

“They are so wondrous.” Baroness Brynhilda said adoringly, clapping her hands together in delight. “They do everything I tell them to and they are quick, efficient and they do not protest or hesitate like the Lostlings do.” She pursed her lips. “Come, my puppets, show our little guest your faces. Let’s give her a show.”

The robed figures snapped into life, their arms moving mechanically to the hoods over their faces. Slowly they drew them back, revealing the countenances of two young men, brown-haired and dark-eyed.

But their faces were perverse beyond that, covered in scars and with blank eyes watching Amelia without any thought or emotion. She gasped, stepping away from them as she saw the stitches around their mouths and their eyes, making them into human dolls.

The Baroness had taken young men such as Talmon and turned them into beasts, ruining them as if they were nothing but toys. And that woman thought she had made them better! Amelia shrunk away from the monsters, afraid of their stare, of the emptiness in it.

“Marvelous! I don’t just choose any Lostling to become such a thing.” The Baroness had started walking, circling Amelia and stopping when she reached her chair again, her hands on her hips. “I choose able-bodied ones, ones that are not too weak, that look as if they could be capable of some sort of might and whose minds aren’t completely vacant things.” When she stopped walking she tilted her head and looked back at Amelia. “I decided to make Talmon one. It’s why he ran away, because he didn’t want it. He fled the glory I was offering him.” She shrugged. “It does not matter. He is to be punished for his insolence and made into a puppet anyway. I have made my decision and it stands.”

“No, no.” Amelia whispered, whirling around to face Baroness Brynhilda and finding yells escape her in her fright. “You can’t do that to him! You’ve created monsters! Don’t turn him into one too, please! He doesn’t deserve it, he was good to me.”

“You’re being a fool, girl.” the Baroness murmured in response, sitting down in her seat and giving Amelia an icy look. “I’m going to make him better. He’ll actually be doing something of use in his lifetime. It’s none of your concern anyway. Yelling at me is a regrettable thing to do, considering you want my help.”

“I do want to know the way to get out of here, but…” Amelia felt the sickness and sorrow at seeing the twisted creatures’ faces. Even though she did not know Talmon at all, she knew she didn’t want him to be altered into that. And though she wanted to find her way home, she doubted the Baroness was going to help her much anyway. “But you can’t do this to people. Please, just leave him be!”

The Baroness made a scoffing sound, shrugging her shoulders and smiling blissfully to herself. “You are very unfortunate to have run into one of my Lostlings upon your first arrival to this world. Because I’m not going to give you any sort of aid. But I must do something with you. You are in my domain.” She laughed delightfully, clapping her hands together. “I think I just might have to put you to work! Maybe you can work off your spewing of ludicrous ideas here and someday I might lead you to Astray. But for now, since you seem to like Lostlings so much, I will stick you with them. You can work alongside them until I determine what else I want to do with you.”

“I’m not one of your servants, you can’t make me stay here.” Amelia breathed, backing away only to remember that the puppets were behind her and the door was closed. “I’m not one of these people. If I can’t receive help from you, then I’ll leave and find someone else.”

“I’m afraid that you have a lot to learn about this world.” the Baroness sneered, flicking her hand toward her puppets and ushering for them to come forward. “There is no one to protect you; you are completely on your own. So I can do whatever I wish with you. My puppets, grab her and take her to the servants quarters. Have the girl in charge there appoint a job to her. Don’t let her flee.”

“No!” Amelia shouted, leaping out of the reach of the puppet’s claws as they lunged at her, their arms closing around nothing as she fled toward the door. She pounded her fists against it hopelessly, knowing there was no way she could get through it. But she tried anyway, shouting out for help as the puppets grabbed her, their claws digging into her arms as they threw her over their shoulders.

“You can’t do this to me!” she screamed at the Baroness as the puppets took her away, sliding the door aside and heading off down the hallway. “I just need to get home! I don’t belong here! You can’t do this!”

The Baroness only watched and smiled, until the door was closed again over her chamber and Amelia was left to scream all she wanted as she was taken away.