Trials (An ErasermicXreader Medieval AU)

Chapter 1

Written: December 2020-Feb 2021

Total Word Count: 52.8 K

I've been hacking away at this since just after Christmas, it's basically a novel at this point and I'm immensely proud of it. Please enjoy! There are requests that are on the way, this longer piece took precedence.

This post includes: physical violence, mental health, traumatic experiences and the aftermath, use of pain-relieving medications, cursing, sexual content (not full smut, sorry kids), depictions of physical assault/ beatings and forced drowning, mild religious content, and a prominent polyamorous romantic relationship.

Polyamory: the practice of engaging in multiple sexual relationships with the consent of all the people involved.

Mental Health note: This piece touches on panic and anxiety born from trauma, some religious-based discrimination and trauma as well as physical captivity and assault.

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Mid Summer

            You leaned forward, tearing yourself away from the sun-baked iron bars that seared your bare back and slumped forward against the equally scalding irons bars in front of you.  You had long since lost the ability to hold your body upright, resigning yourself to the inevitability of the burns that peeled away at your skin. It had been two full days since you'd been left in the cage to wither away under the blaring heat of the midsummer's sun. Your shoulders and legs were blistering under the constant exposure to the sun, and your rear was scraped and bruised from the rough iron bottom of the hanging cage. Your lips were cracked, any saliva to moisten them had long since dried up. The only shred of hope you had was that a particularly large cloud might roll by and shield you from the sun for a while or that the sun would set maybe a few minutes earlier today. The hunger and thirst were the most bearable part, the painful emptiness in your gut was little more than a dull ache compared to the waves of burning pain and delirium you were tormented with. At this point, you would admit to what the townsfolk had attempted to charge you with, anything to make this end.

            End. You thought to yourself. The end had always been the most terrifying thing to you, where would you go, would it all just stop, would you have done enough? The end had once held no certainty and no solace for you, but now, in the face of the burning inferno in the sky and the flies that began to pick at your already decaying skin, you were sure that it had to have been better than this.

            You closed your eyes and leaned your head against the bars, the hot iron pressing into your forehead. You tried to take small focused breaths; the air somehow felt cooler if you puckered your lips a bit. You breathed in place of crying, your body had no more liquid to give. You breathed with your eyes closed until a cloud came, dense and absolute. The redness of the light through your eyelids dulled and for the first time since it had risen the sun's unshakeable scrutiny peeled away from your skin. Mercifully the cloud had been lasting for a while, nearly a minute now. You blinked your eyes open so you could look up at this cloud and appreciate it in all of its merciful glory.  However, when you looked up you were not met with a dense white puff of air far off in the sky, but a tall man dressed in all black and a face framed in a wild halo of dark curls.

            He regarded you silently, his dismal expression unwavering. The only indicator you had that he had even registered you looking up at him was the slight readjusting of his eyes as he made eye contact with you. You instinctively looked away, no one looked kindly on the people who found themselves stuck in these cages let alone an alleged witch. He was taunting you; you were sure of it. There would be no other reason to get so close. Unless...all black, grim expression. Perhaps the executioner had come a day early. Perhaps, your suffering was to come to an end early.