(A little side note - just in case this isn't already clear: this is a novel kind of/type of thing. The first version was about 130,000 words, the second version (unfinished) was 40,000 before I started this one. So just so you know.)
After an hour or two, the new ‘guard’ finally ceased hitting her and demanding the information he desired. He threw the sword down onto the stone floor and waved a disappointed hand at the other three guards in the room. Two of them unstrapped Yoedine, and the third, scarred one escorted her back to the dungeon.
Even though her bones were aching, her mouth was stinging from the potion that had eventually been used as a weapon - to no avail - and she longed to escape, she took away with her a small sense of victory. The expression on the drage's face when he realised that she knew who he was was priceless. He clearly thought too highly of himself, she thought satisfactorily, if he expected to flit around unnoticed and unrecognised.
As she settled back down into her usual spot near the centre of the room, a hatch opened in the ceiling and a stream of small bread rolls cascaded to the wet floor. Instantly, everybody in the dungeon launched themselves towards the food. Yoedine was close, so she grabbed a roll and scampered quickly away, dodging forked tails, reptilian heads and several pairs of nine-fingered hands.
She nibbled on the stale but moist bread absentmindedly. It felt as if she were waking from a dream. The brutal interrogation with him – she should be honoured that he had graced her with his attention, she thought wryly – seemed to have jolted her back to awareness. Old thoughts and memories popped unbidden and randomly into her head, speaking of a distant yet familiar place and even more familiar people. She was about halfway through her bread roll when her clearest memory yet flashed before her eyes; for a second she saw only the vivid green landscape of her home. The dark green forest stretched almost as far as the eye could see, and massive peaks of mountains pierced the line of clouds. A second later, it was gone and all she could see was the dungeon.
But Yoedine could see clearly now. Had her eyesight improved, or was it lighter in the dungeon now? Either were possible, except the portions of light creeping under and around the door seemed to be the same size. So she had to be the source of the change.
The room itself was as unremarkable as she had pictured it: dark grey stone walls, dripping with moisture and covered in black algae; the floor was paved with the same stone as the walls, and small puddles had formed on most of the slabs. It was a far cry from the luxurious castle above, with its smooth, polished wood floors, intricate statues and paintings two stories tall.
That thought angered her, and she stopped chewing mid-mouthful; for a moment she was too incensed to eat.
She blinked, and the mysterious anger was gone as quickly as it had come. With every minute that passed, she became more and more aware as she recovered who she had been all those weeks ago. She saw the man sitting closest to her, and recoiled when she saw him having a muted argument with his other head; both of his expressions were furious. The person on her other side was a girl, not much older than Yoedine it seemed, and her animalistic features were also twisted into a snarl. Smoke issued from her snake-like nostrils and her clawed hands flexed in her lap, although her eyes were unfocused and unseeing.
Another memory was raising its head, but this one was not nearly as pleasant as the image of Yoedine’s home. All of a sudden she could remember the fear and tension she had felt when the soldiers had come for her, and then a face burst into her head. That was right, she thought to herself, smiling at the person behind her closed eyelids. She could remember him, but not his name just yet. He was there when she was taken from her home and he was in most of the hazy memories she had of her journey to this place.
D, his name began with a D...
She remembered what the interrogator had said what felt like hours ago: “...a certain report from Soldier Tournstel...”
That was the moment when everything fell into place.
Of course she remembered him! His name was Dramonill Tournstel, he was nineteen years old and his hair was a rich, earthy brown and long for a soldier. His eyes were dark brown and twinkled when he was in the sunlight, when he grinned or whenever he was in a particularly good mood. She had not known him for very long and yet he was clearer than all the members of her family combined.
In fact, she could not quite remember how many siblings she had – was it two, or three? Her mother and her father were there in her memory, but they were nameless. All she could remember of them was that she had been furious with her mother over something incredibly important just before she left – no, before she was taken.
However, she could not dwell on her revelations for very long. Their few minutes for eating were up, and the door that led to the room where they were force-fed the potions was opening and a guard was coming in. It was the one who wore a short-sleeved jacket that showed off his muscled, hairy arms. He looked down at a piece of parchment he held in one hand and scanned whatever was on it, aided by the torch he held in his other hand. Yoedine wondered why she had never noticed this before; again, the answer was that she had been like the others – completely unaware of anything and everything.
The guard looked up, met her gaze and frowned at her before continuing his search of the room. Yoedine breathed a silent sigh of relief that he had not come for her. However, he would at some point. He came for each of them, once every single day. Yoedine flinched away from the unexpected pain of watching the girl she had noticed minutes previously was led, stumbling, out of the dungeon. For now, it would be easier for her to zone out again. Being aware was more painful than she had anticipated...
Yoedine was tired. Her legs and body were not fatigued from the exertion, as she would have expected, given that she had been walking for a couple of hours, maybe even more. No, she was used to walking for extended periods of time, and this was downhill – her favourite kind of walking. The sun had been setting over the huge expanse of forest for some time now, the beautiful lilac and rose hues melting together, gradually becoming darker and bluer, until the classic greyish-blue darkness of twilight set in, and a few stars began to twinkle in the sky.
She had felt extremely uncomfortable to be chained to someone else as she walked; the harsh metal clasp rubbed against the soft skin of her wrist, turning it red and raw. She had felt even more uncomfortable as night truly set in, and the truth of her situation began to dawn on her. A few tears had escaped, despite her efforts, and trickled down her cold cheek.
The soldier she was chained to was not much older than she was, but the lines of his face were hard, strong and angular. Yoedine recognised the classic signs of a soldier, but somehow he seemed out of place in his navy blue uniform, the golden fastenings shimmering dully in the weak light. The two soldiers who walked behind them, however, seemed completely at ease. Early on, Yoedine had turned her head a few times, trying to absorb as many images of Nahl Gate and her beloved mountains as she could before they were gone forever. The third time she did this, one of the soldiers had clipped the side of her head so hard she felt it smart painfully for several minutes.
She kept her head facing forwards after that.
About two hours later – just as Yoedine thought that her legs were about to fall off – she heard one of the soldiers behind barking out an order, and his colleague took to the front, leading the way into the forest. Yoedine looked frantically up at the soldier she was chained to. He must have sensed her gaze, as he looked down and smiled a hard smile and nodded in encouragement. Yoedine was barely comforted.
She began to get worried that this was all a ruse, when went further and further into the dark, shadowy forest. What if they were just leading her into the middle of the forest so that she could be mauled by some of the bears she knew lurked in there? Thankfully, before she could being to panic, a small wooden shack appeared out of the gloom. Yoedine sighed in relief, although her frantic heartbeat continued at its breakneck speed. She thought she heard the soldier next to her chuckle under his breath, but she couldn’t be sure, since at that moment she tripped over a fallen tree and almost pulled him down with her.
“Remember to watch where you put your feet,” he murmured as he roughly pulled her upright. “I find it helps me when I’m walking.” He snickered, and Yoedine glowered at her feet, too embarrassed to look up.
“Hey! Tournstel!” yelled the soldier from the front, somehow already a considerable way ahead, as he looked back over his shoulder with a deep frown on his face. Somehow it didn’t seem to fit his kind-looking face, but Yoedine had been known to judge people wrongly by their faces in the past. “Get a move on, boy!”
“I’m coming!” called Tournstel darkly. He shook his head and clenched his fist. Yoedine glanced up at him nervously. He looked down at her properly for the first time, and Yoedine couldn’t stop herself noticing how his dark brown eyes were bright and how his nose was straight and perfectly in proportion to the rest of his face and how his cheekbones were subtly hinted at underneath his smooth, tanned skin. He grinned suddenly, and Yoedine felt herself flush self-consciously. Stupid, stupid, stupid! she told herself.
She surfaced from her semi-dream with a small smile on her face. Yes, she had been extremely nervous then. ‘Nervous’ could only just cover the awful emotions that had plagued her so strongly for those first few hours. She had seen a few people taken away from her town, and it was never a pleasant scene. All the crying relatives, pleading with the soldiers, the soldiers themselves, almost always grim-faced; and the expression on the victim’s face that screamed desolation and despair so deep they would clearly rather die than go with them.
For now, however, she was 'safe' in the dungeon. As bad as it was, it was still better than what waited for her in the only other room she had been in for weeks.
She was about to settle down again, ready to start delving into the memories that had been lost to her before today when she realised somebody was staring at her. Somebody who had clear, focused eyes – eyes that were focused on her.
