#p02

Several times a day a jailer walks by her cell and checks she's behaving. At least they've had the courtesy to remove the heavy iron manacles from her wrists, which had started chafing the moment they'd clapped them on her. Cellmates have come and gone, none of them willing to make conversation before their relocation, and Orella has come to terms with her bleak, short future. Either Ul'dah will execute her, or Garlemald will come for her. Neither option suits her. The name she gave the guard was a false one, but the Empire does not exactly tolerate acts of terrorism. What’s more, her face is well known, and she does not think she will be able to resist yet more torture.

Her thoughts invariably drift back to Ingvald, alone in Limsa Lominsa, set to live out the rest of his days in Eorzea not knowing what happened to her. That makes her stomach clench horribly, over and over, until she makes herself sick with worry and retches into the pail they've given her to piss into. From the very beginning of her mentorship she’d pushed herself on his behalf, made herself a better swordswoman to better teach him, gotten so far with a great deal of his suggestions and good sense, and now she’s thrown it all away like it means little and less. Some knight she is. Some tutor.

That's when they bring him in. Another Mhigan, taller and broader than her, his cheeks hollow as though good meals are but a distant memory. She keeps her eyes on him as he's led in, even crouched over the pail as she is. He's manacled, as she was, though they undo his bindings quicker than they had hers. His must be a lesser crime. Resolutely, he ignores her, simply settles against the stone wall and rests his hands upon his knees like he's done this a thousand times. Orella retches again, stomach still clenched with nerves and regret even as her mind has moved on to other things.

It's a while before she stops heaving and spits one final time into the bucket. Wiping her mouth, she leans back against her own stretch of wall, ignores the bad taste in her mouth and does her best to get a good look at the stranger out of the corner of her eyes. It's hard without being obvious. He's dark hair cropped close to the skull and although lean, something in the way he holds himself strikes her as tense, ready to launch up and fight, to run, to do anything but sit still. Orella has borne that selfsame posture a great deal in the last few months.

The third day's end is heralded by the cell being dyed the colour of burning sand. The guard makes his final rounds as he ever does, checking to see that his charges have started no fights nor attempts to escape. If nothing else, the Empire at least taught Orella the dangers of routine. If she only had some way of unlocking the cell door, she'd be able to get herself out, surely. The Ul’dahns wouldn’t know to even look until morning broke.

When the steps fade away, Orella is doing her best not to think of the Empire and whether or not they’ve heard her description yet. She can only hope they haven’t, but hope will do her no favours here. "The wardens won't even look at you, sister. What did you do?" It's her cellmate, speaking the common, brusque dialect of East Abania. It’s crasser than what she is used to speaking and hearing: no cause was there in the Kingsguard for sounding like a commoner unless they all were in their cups. It's also blessedly familiar.

"Nothing," she says simply. The man nods like he understands. "What do they blame on you, then?" It's such a direct question that she finds herself staring at him openly, now. He doesn't shy away from her gaze, already watching her as bold as can be. Likely he's been watching her since he was first led in, trying to get the measure of her. There's nothing in his face that gives him away as trustworthy or working for the Empire. "They think I killed a Garlean," she admits. "Did you?" "Did you not hear me? I did nothing. Do I look so guilty?"

The question earns her the tiniest of roguish smiles. "Yes," her cellmate says, and what feels like dread displaces the worry still making its home in her stomach. Garlemald ripped her once-calm moue from her and made her smash it herself; if she cannot even lie to a criminal she'll have no hope in whatever farcical trial that might put her in. Too busy caught up with her thoughts, she forgets to watch the man, who still smiles. "A murderer knows his kind," he says calmly, pulling her back to the real world. Orella flinches when he moves - but only so his aching muscles do not suffer. "Well met, sister. Your name?"

"What does it matter?" she says. "They'll hang me soon enough. A name won't help me then." "Suit yourself," the man shrugs as though it is of little concern to him. Orella is ready for the conversation to be over, wants to bury her face in her hands. "Horrick," he continues, and jabs a large thumb into his own chest, startling her eyes into following the movement. "They put as many Mhigans in here as they've room for," he adds. "Worthless to everyone. How far we've fallen."

The image of a young girl fighting for Gyr Abania's long lost honour pops unbidden into Orella's mind. All at once, she's angry. "Shove your honour," she snaps. "What does it matter in here? Can you use honour to tunnel out? To eat? I want no part of your misconceptions, villain."

Silence falls upon the cell after her outburst, and Orella quickly turns from the man, who does not avert his gaze from her. It is impossible for her to tell what he is thinking, and she does not want to know. Her stomach grumbles - she'd eaten the bread the guards had brought her earlier, but had had nothing new given her after vomiting, and now she regrets getting so worked up.

The dark of night slowly paints the golden light of dusk away. Curled up though she is, Orella cannot sleep, and wants desperately to toss and turn. She wants no attention, though, and stays still - but even this is not enough to lose the man's scrutiny. "I'll be moved when the sun rises," he says conversationally, as though the jail isn't quiet with prisoners trying to sleep. "That would be the best time to escape." Giving up all pretense of feigning sleep, Orella snorts from where she lies. "You cannot be serious."

The continued silence suggests that he is. "... Truly? You think it would be so easy?" "Only if you've spilled blood afore," Horrick says. Orella finally rolls over to look at him, and he is calmly inspecting his fingernails as though he discusses something as banal as the weather. "But I suppose a false sentence would rest more comfortably about your neck, if your hands truly are unstained." He looks at her then, lying where she is, unarmed and unarmoured. The cloth sacking they'd given her to wear after taking her plate does nothing to make her feel safe. "Take the chance, sister. I've friends that can get us out of the city."

When she wakes from fitful sleep, Orella is cold. Her sack garb is less than adequate for an underground prison, no matter if they reside in the desert or not, and she was afforded no luxury as generous as a blanket. She lies still and silent, wondering what time it is.

She hears nothing more than the soft breath of the highlander that rests against the far wall. No steps belonging to a jailer, no jeers or calls from one cell to another. It must still be early, she decides, and pushes herself to sit, to flex her arms and legs and work the blood back into them.

Horrick is awake already, or perhaps he did not sleep, and it’s that which makes her freeze. Stiff with sleep and cold, she remains crouched where she is. He looks not at her, but out of the bars of their shared cell, and a single finger of his rises to press against his lips, cautioning her to be quiet.

Curious. She remains as she is and says nothing, rubs the sleep from her eyes as she waits to find out what has him so focused, and why. He stays as still as she does until she can take it no more. “What?” she hisses at him, and he waves a hand at her without tearing his eyes from beyond the bars. “Quiet,” he hisses back. “Even if you don’t want to leave, I will not waste my chance.”

That has her silent, shocked. He truly does have a plan to escape - or at least feels as though he does - and here she still sits, content to be melancholy and waste away until the hangman or the Empire comes for her?

Not so, she finds, and feels a familiar flicker of tension curl below her ribs. Her countryman is looking away from the bars now, looking more relaxed than he had done a moment prior, and his eyes find hers. “Last chance, sister,” he says lowly, and Orella can only curse herself for not being so forward-thinking as she once was. “Will you come, or will you stay?”

“What would you have me do?” Orella asks, mind made up. There is no sense in staying. If she is to die anyway, better she does so in action. Horrick nods, approving. “The jailer comes now. We wait until he opens the door. I’ll pull him in and keep him quiet. You’ll cut his throat and take his keys. Think you’re able to do that?” “Of course,” says Orella, to whom this feels a second nature now. Whatever good moral and upstanding she once had has long since fled her body. At another wave of his hand, she settles back against the wall, muscles tense, ready to spring again. Ul’dah has been nothing but misfortune thus far, but if she is able to escape here, she never need return.

The scrape of the key in the lock is louder than it ought be. The blood is rushing through Orella’s veins as though she’s sprinted a hundred hundred yalms without rest. Something is going to go wrong. The jailer is going to sense that they are ready to spring free and call for aid and draw his sword, and the noose will sit comfortably around her neck before the day is out, and Ingvald will never know what happened--

But Horrick stands as he is bidden, puts his arms out patiently as though happy to be manacled once more, and when the midlander reaches forward he pulls the hapless man in. “Wha-” the jailer tries to say, but Horrick pushes him against the stone wall of the cell and clapped a big hand over his mouth before he has a chance to draw more breath and yell. Orella, shaking but confident she will be able to do at least this, rises and draws the jailer’s blade. She sees his eyes widen, hears his ragged intake of breath as he starts trying to struggle, and finds his armour to be only leather when she pushes the blade in. It catches on something and she pushes harder, until the crossguard rests flush against his chest, until her hands are wet with his blood.

“Take the keys, sister,” Horrick says in that same low, urgent voice, and waits until Orella has taken the iron ring from his belt to sling the dying man’s body against the far side of the wall. At a glance, he looks as though he lies there sleeping, but the longer she stares the more she sees him struggle with the effort of keeping his blood within him. She feels nothing for his pain. “Where do we now go?” she asks Horrick instead, turning from the guard. “I know not how the cells are lain.” “We go east,” her conspirator says as though this is a simple thing to determine. Judging by the way he pokes his head out of the cell and looks around for more guardsmen, it is. Perhaps he has done this before. “Follow, and stay quiet. Keep the keys from jangling. The next patrol won’t be by for minutes yet.”

Their trudging through the prison is slow and steady. Through some miracle, the two cells next to theirs are empty, their inhabitants already moved to trial or the chopping block. Orella shadows Horrick as close as she can without stepping into him, casting frequent, terrified glances behind them. She has seen nothing, heard no voices telling them to halt, but-

She walks into Horrick’s back as he stops dead in front of her. Barely, her tongue holds onto the grunt that wishes to escape, and she takes two large steps back, presses herself against the wall. Horrick shadows her steps, now, his massive bulk somehow finding it easier to melt in against the stone and the shadows. One glance his way has him shakes his head - an almost imperceptable movement - and then Orella hears the voices.

“Truly? The blade was in her hands? Then there’s no need for a trial,” someone is saying. “Why have you deliberated for so long?” “She’s adamant of her innocence, m’lud,” another voice chips in. “And the one whose nose she broke wants her to answer to the Empire. Garlean,” they add, and the company of guardsmen round the corner. Orella holds her breath and stays as still as she can as she offers prayers to the Twelve. Please, she thinks fervently, I know I do not deserve your blessing, but please, please. Let me return to Ingvald. Keep me from Garlemald’s clutches once more.

Whether the Twelve hear her cries or not, the guards somehow fail to see the two escapees against the wall. One, a Lala, has his attention occupied with sheafs of vellum, is focused only on making sure his little feet march without tripping as his mind is elsewhere. The Roe that follows a pace behind stares down at his compatriot, and keeps talking. “You think the Empire has enough say-so to take her from us? A murder’s a murder, m’lud, and t’was blood spilled on our soil. We ought to be the ones to hang her.” “You don’t know the Empire very well,” the little one says, and sounds as weary as anyone can. They keep walking, Orella’s eyes tracking their every movement. “If they want her, they’ll take her, and damn anyone that tries to get in their way. You want to be the one to stand before them? Be my guest. I’ll hold off signing that one off until I know for sure what they want with her.”

The company round the corner, still talking about the likelihood of Garlemald’s forces being brought down on their heads, and Orella lets loose a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. She dares not even swear, though her tongue desperately wants to release its stress somehow, and looks toward Horrick, who nods.

No going back, Orella, she tells herself, Do or do not, but you cannot quit now. Move on, forward, and do not look back.

The first yell echoes through the stone corridor, and she knows not to waste time staring behind her. The guardsman’s keys jingle as she looses her grip on them and breaks into a run, and a pace behind her, she hears Horrick mirror her movement.