CCM #6, CNC #18, FR #14 - one's own thoughts can fill one's head with ceaseless white noise.
Author: Thai
Challenge: Chocolate Chip Mint #6 - lazy, Cookies N Cream #18 - slip, Fudge Ripple #14 - urgency
Rating: PG-13
Story: blood princess
Timeline: Motherhood arc
Word Count: 654
They'd left the ropes just a little loose.
Asma knew this because she'd been left leaning against a tree for the past five hours, and when one has one's hands tied behind one's back for five hours and no one to amuse or free them, one tends to seek entertainment in other ways. Such as breaking out of one's bonds, for instance.
The people who'd kidnapped her - Black Glass still rang in her mind - had carried her for quite a long way without worry, the ragged gag still between her jaws. Apparently they knew who she was; not only that she was the princess, but that they had no need to fear her change.
A knot of shame twisted in her stomach; she was the only one left, and she couldn't -
They'd left her propped up on this tree, ankles and wrists tied, black cloth wrapped around her eyes. Her feet, still in the stiff dance shoes, hurt from the rope digging into them, and she could feel her dancing dress ripple in the slight breeze.
She waited until she could only hear their soothing sleep-breaths and laughed to herself; they hadn't even bothered to leave a guard.
Fools.
Asma shifted slightly. Wherever she lay was neither stone nor sand - a bumpy, painful surface that dug into her skin. The trunk was not a smooth palm such as those she was used to; it was rough against her back, and when she moved it scraped on her shoulderblades. Ouch.
Her ankles were tied tightly; whoever had done that had done a good job. She couldn't shift her legs even slightly against each other, and when she tugged at the ropes, precisely nothing happened. The cord at her wrists was a different story - while at one point it had been tied tightly enough to chafe, it had loosened over their journey, and apparently no one had bothered to check it.
For such a well-planned attack-
She pushed that thought away - shoved it away, really, so forcibly that were it a physical object it might have been broken. No. Not now.
She curled her fingers carefully, twisting her hands to feel the knot. Asma's breath huffed out of her in an incredulous snort; one that was, for better or worse, masked by the gag. No one awoke, at least, so she supposed she was thankful for that - but this knot was just so -
She could break it. Well, no, not break it, but if she slid her hands just the right way she was sure it would loosen, and then she could get to work on the rope on her ankles -
-- what rope on her ankles?
Asma froze, sitting bolt-upright. She heard nothing except the slow, calm heartbeats and breathing of sleeping humans. But she knew there had been a cord there, it had been digging into her skin and she could still feel it resting on her legs -
Her arms fell abruptly forward, the rope around her wrists severed by something unseen and unheard. Slightly panicked now, Asma yanked the cloth from her eyes, whipping her head around -
- to stare into a pair of troubled blue eyes she had thought (hoped?) were dead.
"Don't speak," he said almost soundlessly, before she could tear out the cloth and do just that, at extreme volume. "Just come with me. We need to leave before they realize their guard is dead and their captured princess is gone."
A dozen questions swirled in her mind as she pulled the gag out of her mouth - how did you find me? how are you alive? where were you hiding? why didn't you get me sooner? - but as he tugged her to her feet and into the dark of the woods, the one that pressed most insistently to her tongue was Why did you come after me?
Challenge: Chocolate Chip Mint #6 - lazy, Cookies N Cream #18 - slip, Fudge Ripple #14 - urgency
Rating: PG-13
Story: blood princess
Timeline: Motherhood arc
Word Count: 654
They'd left the ropes just a little loose.
Asma knew this because she'd been left leaning against a tree for the past five hours, and when one has one's hands tied behind one's back for five hours and no one to amuse or free them, one tends to seek entertainment in other ways. Such as breaking out of one's bonds, for instance.
The people who'd kidnapped her - Black Glass still rang in her mind - had carried her for quite a long way without worry, the ragged gag still between her jaws. Apparently they knew who she was; not only that she was the princess, but that they had no need to fear her change.
A knot of shame twisted in her stomach; she was the only one left, and she couldn't -
They'd left her propped up on this tree, ankles and wrists tied, black cloth wrapped around her eyes. Her feet, still in the stiff dance shoes, hurt from the rope digging into them, and she could feel her dancing dress ripple in the slight breeze.
She waited until she could only hear their soothing sleep-breaths and laughed to herself; they hadn't even bothered to leave a guard.
Fools.
Asma shifted slightly. Wherever she lay was neither stone nor sand - a bumpy, painful surface that dug into her skin. The trunk was not a smooth palm such as those she was used to; it was rough against her back, and when she moved it scraped on her shoulderblades. Ouch.
Her ankles were tied tightly; whoever had done that had done a good job. She couldn't shift her legs even slightly against each other, and when she tugged at the ropes, precisely nothing happened. The cord at her wrists was a different story - while at one point it had been tied tightly enough to chafe, it had loosened over their journey, and apparently no one had bothered to check it.
For such a well-planned attack-
She pushed that thought away - shoved it away, really, so forcibly that were it a physical object it might have been broken. No. Not now.
She curled her fingers carefully, twisting her hands to feel the knot. Asma's breath huffed out of her in an incredulous snort; one that was, for better or worse, masked by the gag. No one awoke, at least, so she supposed she was thankful for that - but this knot was just so -
She could break it. Well, no, not break it, but if she slid her hands just the right way she was sure it would loosen, and then she could get to work on the rope on her ankles -
-- what rope on her ankles?
Asma froze, sitting bolt-upright. She heard nothing except the slow, calm heartbeats and breathing of sleeping humans. But she knew there had been a cord there, it had been digging into her skin and she could still feel it resting on her legs -
Her arms fell abruptly forward, the rope around her wrists severed by something unseen and unheard. Slightly panicked now, Asma yanked the cloth from her eyes, whipping her head around -
- to stare into a pair of troubled blue eyes she had thought (hoped?) were dead.
"Don't speak," he said almost soundlessly, before she could tear out the cloth and do just that, at extreme volume. "Just come with me. We need to leave before they realize their guard is dead and their captured princess is gone."
A dozen questions swirled in her mind as she pulled the gag out of her mouth - how did you find me? how are you alive? where were you hiding? why didn't you get me sooner? - but as he tugged her to her feet and into the dark of the woods, the one that pressed most insistently to her tongue was Why did you come after me?