When alone, it is his words and his face that she sees. It is his hand and pain that she feels. His voice, either a dreadful whisper against her ear or a roaring command that cannot go unheard. Mostly, though, it would be the pain that she felt, still very real.
There was a constant anxiety. It was an anxiety that urged her mind in the wildest of ways to escape from the home of Blince—to make a break and return to him before things would be worse than they already were. Every second of every day, she was disobeying his orders, and she would pay for it should he see her again. But after two weeks of being forced to push past the pain to just take more, her body had taken on the heave of damage, rendering her barely able to walk.
Deep in her mind, she knew that she had changed. Harlyn acted a new kind of gentle, and Zurich had no mind to guess what about herself caused such an attitude from her. Perhaps it was how she looked now—in passing reflections, she saw her face riddled with scars, cheeks caved in, a dead look in her eye. Her entire body felt like a burn, and she knew it to be from him having dragged her behind his horse for the distance he had. Whip lashes scoured her frame. Dagger wounds, bruises, welts…
It all merged together into a swirling ball of pain. But she would show as little pain as possible, something she had to quickly adapt to in order to appease him. More punishment came when she showed the pain he dealt; her missing teeth served as proof. Pain was a factor of life that she had truly begun to believe would be constant, until he uttered what he had…
It’s time to take you home.
Now, there was fear. She wanted the company of Blince and Harlyn, so desperately, but yet there was the screaming, urgent reminder that he had forbidden such of her, and he would inflict his punishment when she should return to Bree. Toiling, unadulterated fear. She should just return to him now, take whatever harsh punishment he chose, and keep to him…It would be so much better than living in fear.
But she could not leave. Blince would not let her, she knew, until he was certain that she would not run to him as soon as she left. There was a horrid sinking feeling that even her return to Bree would only be with him at her side.
Zurich rocked back, sitting up upon the bed that was the guest room in Blince’s home. Energy had been slowly returned, with the supply of food and drink on daily basis, but it was hardly enough to do much but sit in swirling anxiety when she grew restless of sleeping. Many times, she had stood and walked towards the door, but her reaching hand stopped each time when she knew that there was no horse to ride her to Bree. She could have stolen Blince’s, yes, but even then she knew she’d be unable to climb upon the large steed by herself.
She felt shame whenever his hand touched her. A shoulder pat, a short embrace, or even his tending to her wounds…It was the same shame that she felt when Dee was her biggest worry. This shame was worse, somehow, two weeks of brutal torture compared to a near lifetime of control; the horror fresh in mind. She wanted comfort, she wanted distance. She wanted to dig up her silver mask and hood, hide the scars crossing her features, to never open her mouth and reveal the missing teeth. She wanted to take a dagger and scratch the humiliating words etched upon her hand, and then even hide the diminishing scars with gloves.
Shame, shame, shame…As consuming as fear.
