"No!" Ariadne screamed, her voice a harrowing echo off the glass around them, "Stop! Mudan! Stop, please! No - no!"
When Ariadne jolted awake she only had a second or two to gather her senses before vicious, searing pain exploded through her back.
She tensed against it, groaning, but it only made the pain worse.
Panicking, she tried to sit up - completely nude and trembling - and when she found that was impossible, tried to turn over onto her elbows.
Was she still on the windowsill? Where was the -
Her hand slipped in something wet and warm.
A pool of fresh blood underneath her.
Ariadne floundered, trying to scramble away from it, but her back - throbbing and wet, made her body convulse in painful spasms and stopped her in her tracks.
"Well, well - good morning, sleepyhead," the rumble of the human's voice vibrated in her head, and when she forced her eyes open, she saw it's big, oily face hovering very close to her.
There was a thick bandage around his head, covering up the entire left side of his face - and the nasty smell of infection coming from underneath it.
"Y...you..." Ariadne wheezed, "...bastard...ghhk..."
"Oh don't be dramatic, you won't die from having your wings removed. Usually I heal the wounds before you wake up - but I wanted you to experience it, you hateful little bitch."
Her wings...!
Angry, frightened tears welled in Ariadne's eyes.
She tried to pull herself away, smearing her way through her own blood, looking for something - anything - to use as a weapon.
The human reached out its giant hand; "Now, hold still," it said, pressing her flat against the table, before sinking a huge, sharp needle through her back - down, down all the way to her womb - and injecting something inside of her.
Ariadne screamed, but her voice was hoarse and broken.
The needle jolted her body as it pulled out of her, after which the human sprinkled a white powder over her that burned white-hot in her open wounds.
Her entire body convulsed so hard she couldn't breathe, she thought she might pass out again, but cruelly she remained awake, frozen in place, as the skin on her back bubbled and churned and knitted itself back together.
And when it was done, the human picked her up - heaving with breath - and wiped her body down with a cold, wet cloth that grated against her tender skin.
With little ceremony it tied her wrists with a coarse rope - dropping some kind of hot liquid into the knots, which made the rope adhere to her skin.
Then, it tipped her out of its hand and into a tall glass jug.
No dirt, no plants, just a thin layer of rough canvas on the bottom and two heavy weights attached to the other ends of her rope bindings.
"Now don't go anywhere," the human chuckled, "I'll bring your little boyfriend right over."
Ariadne's body still trembled in the aftershock of pain; around her the domed glass walls pressed, suffocating - it was maybe ten, fifteen paces wide.
The weak light of early evening flooded in through the nearby window, clouds on the horizon blocking any real hope of sun.
Like a decorative plant, she had been placed on the windowsill.
She pulled herself up and heaved a shoulder against one of the weights attached to her by rope, but even if she had been at full strength, there was no moving it alone.
And even if it could be moved, to what end?
The jug's exit towered above her, a hole just large enough to fit through - but unless the entire glass bottle were toppled onto its side there was no way to get up to it.
Ariadne tried to steady her racing heart, finding each frightened breath too quick and shallow to fill her lungs.
No way out...
The door of the room beyond her glass prison opened again.
No escape, no more chances...
Tears boiled down her cheeks, burning in the back of her throat.
The message she sent...it wouldn't arrive in time to -
"Now, here were are," the human said, his giant, gnarled hand stretching out over the opening of the bottle as he dropped a familiar body down into the fabric next to Ariadne.
She instinctively raised an arm to cover her breasts.
Mudan; he was also nude, his body riddled with scars - nail marks, long scratches, and the telltale circular marks from being pinned.
But his bad arm, the one that had been un-useable from iron poisoning - it was scarred over and pink, as if freshly healed.
He looked thinner than before, his eyes hollow and sunken.
For a few moments he didn't move, though his chest rose and fell and his eyes were open, staring blankly up into nothing.
"M...Mudan?" Ariadne breathed, then flinched as he sat bolt upright at her words.
He looked at her only briefly - but she saw it.
His face flushed deeply all the way to his ears, visible pinpricks ran down his arms, and - before he doubled over to hide it - something terrible and stiff between his thighs.
"I didn't want it to be like this..." he mumbled, slurring the words, "I tried to tell you...no escape..."
"M - Mudan, try - try to focus," Ariadne tried, shying away from him, "Percy and Briar - are they...?"
"Don't know." Mudan shook his head sharply, as if trying to shake the thought right out of it, "Gone. Hiding, somewhere. You - you were right - if - if I'd listened to you - nngh!"
He doubled over further as something shuddered through him.
"How - how long has it been? Do you know?" Ariadne asked, slowly, carefully collecting the slack in her rope bindings - the only weapon she had.
Mudan's heaving breaths were punctuated by coarse groans.
"Ariadne..." Mudan managed, turning back towards her.
His glassy amber eyes were blank through the tangled curtain of his hair; those eyes flickered over her body, drinking in her figure like a man dying of thirst.
A chill of dread washed over her as Ariadne slowly stood up.
If it was her strength against his...
"You don't have to do this, Mudan..." Ariadne said, gathering the rope up in front of her, "You - you're stronger than this, I know you can -"
She was interrupted as the entire world around her shook, the fabric slipped around under her feet, and a booming echo of knocks on the glass rang through her head.
"Come on now, kids," the human said, giving a couple more raps against the glass with his knuckle, "there'll be plenty of time to catch up later."
Ariadne opened her mouth to shout at him - but in the same moment Mudan was on top of her.
All of his weight fell onto her as they both toppled to the ground, knocking the breath out of Ariadne, and letting Mudan get a solid grip on her wrists.
"No! No -!" Ariadne thrashed under him, trying to kick, or twist, or pull - a fighting battle that she was losing.
"Ariadne...you're...so beautiful..." Mudan mumbled, though she could barely hear him over the sound of her own screaming.
"Let go! Mudan! Don't do this -!"
"It hurts...Ariadne..." Mudan said, crushing her wrists as he looked down at her mouth, her neck, her breasts.
"Please - Please! I - I saved your brother's life!" She cried.
That, for a moment, seemed to break through to him.
He faltered for just a moment, and in that moment Ariadne tore out of his grip and landed a solid kick to his chest. Her legs were weak, she couldn't pull herself to her feet, but scrambled away on her hands and knees.
She tried to gather the length of rope again - if it came to it, she would strangle him to death with it.
But she was too slow.
Mudan was on her again, his weight crashing down on her back and pinning her to the ground.
He grabbed hold of her wrists again, forcing her front end down, and shoving a fold of fabric up under her stomach to lift the rest of her up.
Her struggles grew weaker and weaker, as if all at once her strength had betrayed her and dissolved away into nothing.
His breath was heavy on the small of her back.
Something burned against her thigh, a red-hot iron rod.
"No!" Ariadne screamed, her voice a harrowing echo off the glass around them, "Stop! Mudan! Stop, please! No - no!"
But he was gone, Mudan was gone.
Only a man was left.
The man forced her knees open further, and let out a guttural cry of pleasure as he sank the burning hot iron deep inside her.
Ariadne screamed again, as a lightning strike of agony tore up through her womb.
Her body jolted with each thrust, scraping against the rough fabric.
There was only pain, such thorough pain that everything else faded away even as Ariadne screwed her eyes shut against it.
She gritted her teeth, sure that they would sink into her gums from the pressure.
Words left her, thought left her.
The only thing left in the world was the searing hot pain that pulsed deep inside her, and her own anguished screams.
It must have lasted an eternity.
And then it was done.
And the heat retreated away from her, leaving only its remnants behind, and the thumping her of heart in her ears as she sobbed.
She couldn't bear to move, couldn't bear to even open her eyes but for the fear that finally bade her to protect herself.
A fresh shiver of pain ran through her as she managed to roll onto her side.
Ariadne pulled at the fabric around her with bruised, weak hands, curling her knees up against her chest and burying her head in her arm.
Maybe it wasn't real.
Maybe she would wake up soon.
Somewhere far away, footsteps retreated, a door opened and closed.
And outside the nearby window, rain began to fall.
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