COMPLETED Remembrance of Self | Fantasy | LGBTQ

Chapter 22 - Part 2

Drip. Drip. Drip. A rusty knob from a slimy sink that was not properly turned off filled every nook and cranny with it's plinking. The dark bare brick room was damp and smelled of rotten flesh and mold. B'rs split the room into small cells, the width of which was just enough for someone to spread their arms, that is if they weren't shackled.

Rodents and small creatures of the dark and recluse skittered in every corner, waiting for a slob to fall out of the gelatinous mush that the guard brought in once per day for sustenance, if they were lucky.

Drip. Drip. Drip. Rambling whispers of the neighboring cellmates bounced on the naked walls, echoing throughout like eerie ghostly conversations with no one. One small window with three just as rusty bars hung high next to the ceiling. The red aura of the red sister shone through gently. It was the sole source of light Lwora had seen in weeks.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

"Turn off that fucking faucet!" She yelled from the top of her lungs, inhaling deeply the stale and disgusting air. The thick metal chain and shackles clanked as she tried to move her hands. Lwora was at the end of her wits. She lost track of how many days she had been in this cell, with no one for company but poor mindless thieves and miscreants that too were forgotten in this cold and dark room. Left for dead. She thought.

Drip. Drip. Drip. She gathered all her remaining strength and got to her feet.

Lwora pulled on the chains for the millionth time with all of her strength. They did not budge from the solid brick wall. The heavy shackles bruised her wrist, the weight and tightness of which left deep marks. She could not Wield. She was powerless. The once sister of the Disciplinary Order, while not being a powerful Wielder, she was knowledgeable and her intellect was always her stronger suit. She immediately recognized the stones inlaid in the shackles.

Ashen stones.

She thought back at her time with her Ashen partner twenty years ago as pain grasped at her heart, as if being in physical pain was not enough. Ellias was his name. He had been Lwora's partner for more than ten years and had saved her life countless and numerous times. Her meek powers were good only for parlor tricks, small traps, and used them mainly for support. He was the warrior, the fighter, the protector. Elias would lunge in battle with a fearless expression and unyielding courage. Together, the two of them had faced many perils at the behest of the Empire which they served, just like any Wielder out there. Lwora was in pursuit of becoming a Master herself, but the journey, unlike her friend Araya, had taken more than she ever thought possible. While every other Wielder was gaining their Mastership with ease, she stood in the back, watching, waiting, but progress was too little, too slow.

One small incursion in the Majhara plains would be the one who would put a stop to Lwora's mastership journey, an incursion of which they had done plenty of times with ease, thanks to Elias, of course. She had mulled every second, every moment, every bit of information over and over again in her head ever since it happened, even now after more than ten years, in a dark smelly cell, she wondered: what could I have done differently? How could I let that happen?

Everyone around her insisted that there was nothing, nothing could be done to save him. That it wasn't her fault. But she knew. Lwora knew it was all her fault Elias died. It was her foolish and baseless confidence and desire to prove herself that placed them in danger.

She ran full throttle into the middle of a battalion of armed peasants, she couldn't even call them soldiers or guards. They lacked any armor and real weapons, only armed with a few pitchforks, wood axes, and sticks.

Who would've thought that among those dirt peasants there was a wielder more powerful than Lwora. She had let her guard down, and because of her so did Elias.