My partnership with Aranlaf, whilst lucrative, turned rather sour at the end. We had been getting on rather well over the months that we had been together; constantly laughing and joking, making more money than either of us knew what to do with and generally just enjoying one anothers company. Indeed, against my intital judgement, I had come to trust and care about him as one does with a brotherly figure.
He, however, had developed a different view on the nature of our relationship which he made all too plain to me one starlit evening. At first he just put his arm around my slender shoulders, which was not out of the ordinary. We often sat like that; outside of a village on a hill or beneath some trees, me cuddled up to him for warmth and he with his arm about me protectively. As our conversation wound on he put his other hand upon my thigh. I thought nothing of it to begin with, but when he softly began stroking my leg I became increasingly uncomfortable. If he sensed that then he made no show of it, simply continuing to talk as he had before. When he eventually tried to kiss me, I stood up swiftly and moved away. He looked confused and hurt by that and I found myself explaining to him that I did not think of him in such a way and besides, had he not often condemned those men who looked at me in that light as being base creatures deserving of the treatment they recieved at our hands?
We spoke at length about it all before deciding to bed down for the night. I should have suspected that something would come of it. I should have known that he would not take my rejection lightly. I still trusted him, though, and stupidly believed that the sudden awkwardness between us would pass soon enough. When I found him gone the next morning, I simply assumed that he had gone to get breakfast for us.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I suddenly found myself in the vice-like grip from a pair of large, calloused hands. I was dragged along with no word of explanation regardless of my demands to know what was going on, taken half-a-days ride to a small town and thrown into a tiny prison cell.
I instantly hated it. There was a fist-sized hole in the wall that was placed far too high for me to look out of and to call it a window would be generous in the extreme. The walls were covered in moss and dripping with moisture. The hard stone floor was slick with what I hoped was water and mud, and the thick oak door had only a small bar-filled opening from which the guards could look in on me. There was no cot upon which I could sit, no stool, no bucket for my toileting needs and the place reeked of sweat, despair and other, less pleasant, bodily fluids.
I was there for a week or two, I think. I lost track of time pretty quickly in truth. Nothing changed there, even the small amount of light from the joke of a window seemed to be a constant amount as if from a torch instead ot the sun. The guards would not answer my calls or tell me why I was there, instead just shoving a tin plate with a piece of weevil-filled bread through a small flap at the foot of the door when they decided that I should eat. It was done with such ferocity and disregard that the morsel of spoiled food would often fall off the plate and roll across the shudder-worthy floor long before I could scramble over to retrieve it.
After having grown up in complete freedom, able to wander at will and do as I pleased without care for reprimand or restriction, this place was like the blackest pit of Mandos to me. It was soul-destroyingly depressing, but I was nothing if not stubborn. I refused to let it break me, instead making a point of singing to keep my spirits up. The guards did not like it and, in the only occasions of communication they ever deigned to do with me, told me to shut up or face the consequences. I ignored them and carried on regardless of their vague threats. They never carried any of them out : they knew what faced me even if I did not and, perhaps through shame for having to inflict such upon a child, they eventuallly just left me to my singing without further complaint.
I was taken from there in chains one day. The bright sunlight hurt my eyes as I shuffled awkwardly along between two huge and grim-faced men. The chains themselves had been made for full-grown men - thick and heavy -and they made it exceptionally difficult for a girl of my size and build to walk, but I managed it slowly. I was sick from the conditions in which I had been kept, the food I had been forced to eat and my hair was matted, my skin and clothing almost black from dirt. I imagine I made a pitiful sight, but nevertheless I was dragged up onto a platform in the town square in front of a crowd of people and my crimes read out.
As the stern and snooty-looking official blabbered on, I stood there miserably. The two guards continued to flank me, although it was clear to anyone that I was in no condition to run. It was, to my mind at least, fortuitous that I felt as sick as I did for about half-way through the official's recitation I felt my gorge rise and was quite unable to prevent myself from vomiting. Out of a general sense of animosity and disgust for this stuck-up man daring to acccuse me of such awful things - only a few of which I was truly guilty of - I made a point of aiming for his perfectly tailored shoes. To my delight, I also ruined his garish blue and gold breeches, making them just that little bit more colouful.
I let my mind wander as he went on and on, only barely bothering to pick out a word or two from his diatribe. I considered all the things I would do when I got free of this - namely get clean, have a good meal and sleep in a good bed before finding out where this joker lived and ransacking the place. I was surprised, then, when I caught the word 'witness' and looked over to see a familar face making his way through the crowd.
From the glint in his eye when he looked at me, I knew that he was not there to help me. Indeed, as he stood there in front of the official telling him about all the things he had seen me do - and a lot of things he was apparantly making up on the spot - I put two and two together. I had been betrayed. All of this was his doing - my days or weeks in that rotten cell, the way I felt, the way I looked, everything! This was his way of punishing me for thinking of him as a brother instead of a lover. Bastard!
When the talking was done, I was dragged over to a post, the chains binding my hands pulled up and secured to a loop in the top of it and my filthy shirt roughly cut from my back. One of the guards looked at me with a regretful grimace, but I turned my eyes from him. My attention turned entirely onto the one who had caused me to be here.
I locked my green eyes onto his handsome face, watching him wince as the first of the strokes hit my bare back. I refused to cry out, I refused to shed a tear. I stood there biting my lip, my pale face growing ever more white as I saw the smile creep across his thin lips, growing that fraction wider with each strike.
I swore to myself then, as the lash bit deeply into my flesh again and again, that I would make Aranlaf pay for what he had done this day. I would make that man suffer even if it took me the rest of my life to achieve. Never again would I allow myself to be betrayed. Never again would I let someone play me for a fool. Never again would I let an accomplice become a friend. Tools, that is all they would be; pawns for my use. There would be no mercy, not for them and not for him. No mercy, no regret.
