Dungeons And Snow Leopards

Been down bad for this particular character for over ten years. It's that voice... Hope y'all are doing alright <3

...

The woman performing the ceremony is a withered and ancient rabbit, and she holds my hand during the entirety of it. I'm a little too numb to do much but hold on and squeeze her paw a bit as she sings a mournful version of the song I've heard performed in the village for marriage ceremonies. She squeezes back, and an untellable amount of time later, she stands.

"Your duties are to care for him to the best of your capabilities. Until... the remainder of his days."

Or mine.

I nod at the ground, and feel the warmth of her little body drift away as she trods out of the cell, footsteps echoing condemnation all around me.

One of the guards attending watches her go, and then turns and snorts down at me. "Hell of a lottery. There are countless bridges to throw yourself off of if you start to go mad."

The other one snickers. "Don't give her any ideas." He turns to address the hulking, kneeling mass on my other side. "Congrats, filth. Maybe we'll even give you conjugal as a treat. Be sweet to your new wife, hmm?"

The first one shoves the second and starts walking out. "You just said not to give her any ideas, she'll off herself before the day ends with you talking like that."

The laughter between the two of them hurts my ears, but I'm still just another brick making up the floor, so I sit as still as... him.

The guards swagger down the corridor, and the door seals shut behind them. I figured it'd slam with a final bang, but instead stone grinds against stone as it's pulled closed from the other side.

I stay kneeling for a long while, until my legs fall asleep under me and the adrenaline finally stops tensing my muscles at random. I slide my eyes from one side to the other, taking in the cell.

There's flowers cast around him in a wide circle, big white ones and smaller pink and yellow petals. He's unmoving... of course he's unmoving... with his head bowed and arms absolutely stretched probably past their limit underneath the wide shell on his back, long silver needles sticking out every which way. I hear the occasional draft from the stone floor far below the pillar we're on, and it makes the stones swinging from the end of his chains scrape against the walls.

I continue to sit.

When my legs can no longer take it, I shift as slowly as possible into a cross-legged position, and immediately understand that he's tuned into it. Nothing about him has changed; not a flick of the ear, a twitch of the eyelid. But he can tell.

And I understand then, that this creature has been put into an artificial state of locked-in syndrome. Over a decade down here, conscious, weight-bearing, and unable to scream.

They just married me to him.

...

There's not much interesting about my years there. I soon gained the ability to move around him, to summon the courage to ask if I could bring small things into the cell. I was almost struck for asking, but I did ask.

About twelve hours in and twelve hours out, and no one really knew what to do with me other than that. He did not eat, drink, or produce waste. He barely breathed. I thought at first that he couldn't at all, but soon was able to count his inhales and exhales. Maybe two or three a minute. I wondered a lot if he was able to sleep.

I was a companion, assigned to provide him the comfort of another living soul until my natural death. A last comfort from the masters who raised him. I wondered what went so wrong that a single creature was condemned to a fate worse than death, and learned, through the after-dinner musings of the guards, that it was the result of a single battle in a single day. After a long career as a renowned warrior, he fought someone he couldn't win against. And never should've raised a fist to, considering where he ended up.

When I was out, I kept to my small room, and sometimes made the trek to request to be let into the small courtyard on the top floor. It took about six hours for me to get there, partly because of the distance, and partly because I was stopped and searched by each of the gate guards along the bridge. All thirty-seven of them. They were gruff and brisk, and the one good thing I can say about them is that they only treated me like a bad omen.

I'd make my request, and a few weeks later I'd be notified that I could go on my off time. Six hours up, thirty minutes in the brisk air, surrounded by rock walls on all sides, but the sunlight, the moonlight.... It was worth it. Sometimes I'd get the night sky instead, but never dusk or dawn. Whatever schedule they had us on was irregular.

I'd always be running back down to make it to the cell on time on those days. Although I'm not sure they would've noticed if I didn't go at all. Those thirty-seven checkpoints made no time to pick up my one meal from the kitchen, so I would rush in breathless and spend the next eleven and a half hours with my stomach occasionally grumbling.

I could swear on those days it was like bringing him a bit of the sun. I thought I heard him breathe more, and would sit maybe a foot closer than usual so he could get a bit of the outside air off of my fur and clothes. I hoped it wasn't just tormenting him with what he couldn't have. I wasn't sure.

As the months blurred I became a bit more bold in the guard's disinterest, smuggling in needlework to pass the time.

One day, indistinguishable from the others, one of the checkpoint guards confronts me with a mid-size box as I'm coming out of the cell, and I'm sure I'm about to be found out. I'd brought in charcoal and paper, stolen from one of the tables in the mess hall as I'd been passing through to get my meal.

"You'll start keeping him well-groomed. Something from the crazies at his temple."

I accept the box, and the guard just stares at me.

"Now?"

He doesn't say a word. He doesn't have to; I back away, back towards the door. It's reopened, and I step back in and feel the air settle again.

I kneel in front of the box and unlatch it; there are several small, simple items and I can only guess the use of some of them. There's an obvious brush, a miswak stick, a large shallow bowl, and some other small, delicate tools. For his claws?

I pick up the brush; it's more of a rake on one side, with boar bristles on the underside. I remember deshedding my dogs this way.

I look at him, stone still and quiet as always. And I sit beside the tools.

After some time I've worked up the nerve to approach with the brush in hand. There was that initial change to the air, that attentiveness, when I rose and drew nearer. I'm closer to him than I've ever been, and I'm frightened. But this is the one thing I'm here to do, the only variable in my day. And these people in the temple must care for him still. I can honor that.

"I'm... hi. I'm going to just brush today, I think it will take a while. Let me know if it hurts. Or... just rather I'll make sure to be gentle."

My voice was creaky, quiet. And spouting nonsense to a hulking furry prisoner in a magical coma.

I want to start with his neck, like I would with a dog, but I'm still scared he'll suddenly wake up and tear my body in two convenient halves. I make a few passes at a forearm the width of both of mine, ending in a giant clenched fist, but my urge to do things right leads me to push past the matter of living. He hasn't moved for a while. He probably won't move now. Probably.

The fur is coming off in spades as soon as I touch the rake to the high spot just behind his ear. No twitch, no recognition of it. But I resolve to make it enjoyable, even with no feedback. I brush away the tufts as I work my way down, then gather them up to store against my chest, worrying that the mess will gather on the floor with no means to clean it.

His skin flinches when I reach the crook of his neck and shoulder. "Sorry," I whisper automatically, snatching the comb away. Then I step back. That was a movement. He moved.

For reasons I don't understand, I'm still standing there, soon enough returning to my task. I'm ignoring my racing heart as best I can, and soon I'm lulled almost into a state of security by the repetitive, intimate chore. His fur lies smooth and flat after a thorough raking through of the undercoat, and I imagine that it will gleam after I run the brush over it.

I'm calculating in my head how to get to his back when I hear the door begin to creak open, and completely snap out of my trance. I rush to gather the rest of the basket and hurry down the stone path, panting lightly a couple of times and becoming neutral at the dull face of the guard.

"Don't get that mess all over the floors."

I nod, figuring he's referencing the bundle of white fur peeking out of my shirt. He lets me pass, and that's the end of it.

Over the next weeks I become as thorough as possible. It's a task and a half to get a bucket of water into the cell room, and the lifted eyebrows of the guards I pass mean there will be countless jokes at my expense when I hustle through the cafeteria, but I soon gain courage to put what I can reach in order. Hospital rules, an impartial, gentle touch.

For everything.

The only spot I can't reach is the majority of his back, covered as it is by the impossibly large shell and riddled with long, gleaming needles. I leave it be and work around it, occasionally peeking beneath to see if something can be done.

But soon enough, the rest of him is shining, on a strict routine of one whole body cleaning every two weeks, and brushing as needed. A handsome prisoner.

A handsome... I stop being shocked or surprised at my thoughts, and instead judge them based on their truth. He is handsome, strong. Probably. I'll probably never see him mobile, and will most likely die before he does. Down here. Cold, a foreign kind of lonely.

The one thing I'm unable to work myself up to is his teeth. I turn to him many times with the miswak stick in hand, but whenever I reach for his mouth, my hands grow weak. As do my knees. Everything, in fact, doesn't want me to put my hand into the mouth of the dormant equivalent of Death.

So I don't. He doesn't eat, doesn't drink. I'm not sure how it works, and I don't want to. I keep him dusted, brushed, sleek, like a living statue, and his teeth aren't on display, so....

The days continue to pass. Some days the need to escape is stifling, and I don't even want to cross the bridge to that flat, dark stone ground. The guards seem annoyed when I ask to go up to the surface a bit more often, and I do have limits. It takes energy that I don't have to climb up there, energy that's only replenished by one meal a day of mostly grains.

One day, I don't make it back down to the ground floor for an absurd amount of time. The guards on the last nine levels get agitated when I stop to rest after getting checked, and I'm stumbling by the time I get down to the gate to the cell. The guard there pauses for a long time, staring at me.

"He might be a widower soon, huh?"

"....May I go back to my room for today?"

He looks as if he considers it for a moment, then replies wryly. "We all have our orders. You'll sleep more soundly next to your beloved."

I walk numbly over the bridge, the door grating shut behind me. I settle down, and immediately begin to shiver. That's not good.

The hours pass torturously slow, and with little to no thought I curl up as close to him as I can get without my heart spilling out of my chest. And I sleep.

I'm prodded awake, sharply. I grunt, eyes creaking open, and two guards stand a distance away, the blunt handle of a spear in one's hand digging into my side.

"You wanna move your bed in here? It can be arranged."

I struggle to stand, and walking between the two, I resign myself to not making any more trips up to the courtyard until I recover some strength.

I bring in a small bowl of water and brush his teeth a few days after that. And I continue to do it as regularly as I bathe him. I find a balance between my sanity and my need to eat regularly, and request to go upstairs every two weeks. Or what I measure to be every two weeks. And every time I do, I come back and rest in his shadow. My own ritualistic routine after a while, when I become accustomed to the drudgery and obsessed with anything I can do to pass my time.

I never dare to think of where I came from. Because then, I really would die.

...

The shrieking is a lot louder than I thought it'd be. Although it doesn't bother me as much as the dull thud of bodies hitting the ground.

I dreamed he'd eventually get out somehow. I didn't know if I was going to make it out of here alive, but I harbored a mild hope that he would. The solemn sound of boulder-laden chains snapping free of his wrists and rattling to the ground spelled doom for almost everyone in this holding facility. Hopefully not for me. He's no longer bound by a tortuous gravity, free to seek revenge on whoever put him there, deserving or not, and I hope I don't cross his mind at all.

"Wife."

I freeze over my bundle of rations and supplies, still out of breath from my rushed sprint to the kitchen and back. But I didn't hear even the faintest sound of approach from the creature at my door frame who was... is... causing the panicked screams I'm hearing outside.

I shift only my eyes, somewhat aware of the possibility of danger, but honestly curious to see him standing for the first time.

Golden eyes, harsh and equally curious. "Going out the back way?" he asks, the amusement in his tone obvious. His voice is smooth and rolling, no sign of disuse.

And how did he know about the back way? How did he know I knew? I only discovered the air vents a year ago, by accident. The only one I've seen that's passable is at the thirtieth gate.

I stand there silently, flinching when I hear two more guards hit the cobblestone. Maybe he took out one of the bridges or something.

He examines the contents of my bag from where he stands, and I fight the urge to pull it closed. He tsks.

"Warmer clothes than that."

I look down at what I'd pilfered from some of the smaller guards' rooms, wondering if I should take heed of anything he says. A distant crash and rumble makes me look back up, and when I see the empty doorway I know he's the cause of the renewed commotion.

How does he know what I'd need for the weather? He's been comatose in a mountain cavern for at least twenty years. He wouldn't know what season it is. I appear to have a good coat of fur anyway. All valid doubts.

Ten minutes later I tug a wool-lined coat over the one I'm already wearing, the pack on my bag now slightly straining with the additional "warmer" contents. I couldn't find a larger one, and I think I'm running out of time to search any more rooms. And running out of time to escape unscathed.

He's not going to kill me, not right now, but any remaining guards to come across me might detain me, at the very least. And they barely tolerated my presence when I had a use.

The bodies, some groaning, some not, aren't as plentiful as I'd assumed. I imagine them as boulders in my path and skirt around them, feeling some eyes tracking me but not stopped as I crack open and slip through the yawning door at the thirtieth gate.

I can't see anything in the pitch-black, breezy air vent I stumble out through, and while I'm cursing the lack of light at first, I realize after something furry skitters away from beneath my outstretched hand that I probably wouldn't be making such good progress if I could. The tunnel is too big for cobwebs to stretch across it, but I somehow get them across my face all the same. I don't know how long it takes for me to start feeling air from the outside, but my somewhat leisurely escape becomes a hustle when I feel warmth coming from behind me.

It turns into a blind run when I hear a crackle of explosions, when red glowing flashes start lighting up the ragged stone walls stretching before me. Even when they stop, and the only sign of the impending danger is subtle but growing heat against my back, I run whenever my wheezing breath and heavy limbs allow.

I cough at the narrow entrance, surrounded by smoke and unable to see if I'm about to fall to my death or drop into underbrush. The fire's moderately far behind me, roaring and growing with the rich supply of air coming in, but it's less concerning than the burning of my eyes and the smoke in my lungs that I can no longer clear. I pray, and then I pray again, clinging to the stony edge of the tunnel. And I let go.

...

"Ffffffuck," I rasp, stunned and resting alongside the pack that took the brunt of the fall. Along with an instantly tender body, a brief throbbing sensation turns into sharp stinging all along my side and back.

Nothing's broken. At least, not bad enough that I can't attempt to scramble down the path before me. I rise, flinching at the telltale wet, harsh air on my skin. Broken bones, no, but rather a friction rash that's going to be a literal pain in my ass for however long it takes to heal.

I thought this slope would be more unforgiving. This mountain is a prison, after all. I stumble along, grabbing hold of branches that grab me right back, tearing at my hands and sleeves. Well, somebody had to get up here to make the air vents. And maybe they thought the one thousand guards, full body pressure point paralysis, and inescapable dungeon were enough.

I don't know if it's morning or night; it's just gray. Smoke is trailing from the vent entrance behind me, but the fire stops at the edge with nothing but stone for fuel. I hope the things that were dwelling in there before I crashed through also got out.

What about the guards? How far did the fire spread, did it start up top? How many did he kill?

I start taking breaks a lot sooner than I would've four and a half years ago. If my tally marks on the bottom of my bed accounting for my "shifts" had any accuracy to them, at least. Limited access to daily exercise and sufficient food has got me wheezing on this hike, and even after the burning in my lungs from the smoke calms down, I'm faltering down the mountain path.

It is night after all, and after it's too dark to see I yank a thick blanket out of my pack and wrap up my tired body, climbing onto and nestling against a low-slung branch for the night. It's almost touching the ground, and isn't really offering any sort of protection. I'm fairly certain I'll be okay - all that mess probably scared away anything big enough to worry about - and I know there had to be a village nearby that was close enough for the prison to get resources from. I'll see it from here, if it's on this side of the mountain, and head out in the morning.

And if I don't see one, well... gonna hunt and gather my ass across this land until I do.

Mostly because there's no other choice.

...

I wake up slightly chilled and struggle against fabric until I birth myself out of the cocoon I made, almost falling out of the tree. I hiss as the injury along my back moves with me, and further inspection confirms that a long, wide, half-skinned patch is causing the issue. I'm relieved that nothing else, aside from a smoke-raw throat and a run-and-fall-sore body, is seriously wrong.

If directions work the same way as they do back home, then I'm traveling east towards the rising sun. Surprise comes when the morning glare recedes from my eyes and I discover that there are a few locations I could head towards. A few small huts dotted along the landscape and a bigger grouping further in the distance, much like the place I came-to in when I first got here.

That can't be the village I came from, right? When I was chosen we traveled for several days to get here by cart, and I'm pretty sure this place would only take me a couple days' travel by foot. Hopefully they're just as nice as the first one. Well... the first one before the lottery began.