((I apologize in advance for the length of this post. Krys can't do much since she is in prison at the moment, so I decided I'd play with characterization and what goes on in her head.))((Also, a warning to the truly faint of heart. All of the nightmare imagery has a purpose but some of it might be a little disturbing. It's not too much worse than the aftermath of the massacre at Droth's.))
Where was she? What was going on?
Kryschenn fought to see through the thick, sticky white fog that enveloped her. What was happening? This goo...it pulled at her boots, grasped at her arms, it...it held living things that reached out and clawed at her, only to retreat, bare shadows, when she turned to look.
"I've got to get out of here!" she thought, trying to force her way through the tarry stuff that slowed her every move as skeletal hands clutched at her. What did these things want? Beginning to panic, she reached for her sword, her old 9mm Smith & Wesson, anything, but found she was weaponless.
A sound ahead of her caught her attention. It sounded like someone laboriously chopping wood. Was there someone else here? "Hello?" she called, her legs dragging through the gluey ooze. "What is this stuff?" she thought angrily, glancing down at her feet, and she froze in terror. She was standing shin-deep in a fast-flowing stream of scarlet.
"Wha-?" she gasped, clapping a hand over her mouth. Horrified, she looked up at the sound of the chopping, and could finally see the figure of a truly barbarian woman. She was of average height and a stocky build, her long brownish hair wild and braided in front. She wore a rough woolen loincloth and foot wrappings of leather, and the rest of her body was painted with blue woad and streaked with blood. The chopping sound came from her stone hand axe as she swung wildly at the shadowy figures in the thick white darkness surrounding her. "An ancient Celt," part of Kryschenn's mind realized. Every time the hand axe connected with an attacker, a great wave of gore would rush into the stream running around Kryschenn's feet, the current would grow stronger, and the level would creep a little higher up her boots. "I've got to get out of here! If I don't move it, I'll get swept away," Krys realized. She glanced down again at the stream, now practically a river, and she nearly retched. There were bodies floating around her. At first she didn't recognize any, but noticed they all bore clean sword wounds, not the rough chops of an axe. Then, she began to see familiar faces. Aumeric. The guards...
"This isn't right," she whispered, then suddenly realized, from nowhere, her missing sword was in her hand. She looked at it in horror. It was covered in gore. It had been used recently in the carnage she saw. And though she remembered the blade as being plain, now very clearly, etched along the length of the shining steel were two words:
"HARM NONE"
"I didn't mean to," she whimpered. Utter panic took hold of her and she screamed, "I DIDN'T DO THIS!" Terrified, she to flee through the crimson tide that dragged at her feet.
The other woman heard, turned, and saw her as Kryschenn struggled. This other woman had no problem moving in the gluey fog as she advanced. "Go away!" Kryschenn screamed, realizing her sword was gone again. She tried to run, but the substance of the fog she waded through, the shadowy hands pulling at her made her movements agonizingly slow. Something tripped her and she fell hard, face-first in the white morass.
Struggling to get up, she realized she had fallen at someone's feet. Looking up quickly, she saw standing above her a beautiful, shimmering woman clad in a long green dress and cloak, with tiny flowers decorating her long ringlets and a silver diadem with a crescent moon adorning her brow. Her emerald-green eyes gazed placidly at the fallen Highlander, but she spoke not a word. She seemed untouched by the living fog around them. Calmly, she held Kryschenn's sword, now clean but still with the glowing words etched on the blade. Sprawled on her stomach, Krys stared at the letters for a moment, then cried up at her, "I'm sorry! I didn't mean it!"
The beautiful woman considered silently, seeming to be waiting for something before she spoke. Just then, a hand fell on Kryschenn's shoulder. She whipped her head around to see that the woman with the axe had caught up to her.
Kryschenn woke screaming.
Her fists lashed out and she fought insanely at...at...at nothing. Where was she now? How did she get here? Where were those women?
"Willya keep it down over there? Some of us were enjoying the peace and quiet!"
"Shut up, Eric! She probably had a nightmare! You would too, if you were in her shoes!"
A nightmare. That was it. The voices were something to ground her, to bring her back to reality as she willed her heart rate to slow down again. "Sorry, guys," she gasped, taking in her surroundings and remembering at last where she was. "I haven't had a nightmare like that for a long time. Guilty conscience, I guess."
"About what?" It was Eric's voice from another cell. "Even if they did throw us in jail for some reason, they know we're innocent of murdering Lady Reskya. At least that's what they told me. And they said something silly about thinking you massacred nine armed men single-handedly."
"They were right in both cases," Kryschenn sighed tersely, getting up and stretching her too-tense muscles.
There was a silence for a moment.
"Lady, you sure know how to polish the Outworlder reputation, don't ya?" Eric finally commented.
"It was self-defense," Krys explained in clipped tones, clearly still not able to come to terms with it. "They attacked me." When she heard nothing but a tense silence, she changed the subject. "Okay, Eric, you're here, and I heard Diana's voice. Has anyone else been thrown in this lovely prison?"
