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The brim of the elevated ground above was collecting a number of guards. Some men were towing Salas up to join the others. They handled him roughly, despite him giving no hint of a struggle, and their senseless shouting continued.
The young girl was also taken up, guided gently by the hand of an armed man who helped her to her feet and began to lead her away, back to the castle entry ways.
Salas caught the word 'princess,' and felt as his stomach dropped with dread. Was she in relation to King Jareth? Would he receive reprimand for being so rude to her? For accidentally tripping her?
He would receive far worse for running, he knew that. Despite having a great reason to run. He'd been in danger, after all. Still, he doubted these people would care much for his reasons.
Because he was learning that this country was not one for speech, or at least, his speech, he stayed silent on the way back to the castle, gritting his teeth against the pain of the grips that led him. It went against his nature not to speak, not to persuade, yet the gravity of the consequences that went with his actions was beginning to sink in as he was directed further into the palace, down towards the dungeon. But the path took an unexpected turn. He was not led down to the iron door in which the other birds were being kept, but to a different door. It was cast of iron bars, and with the heavy locks securing it, constructed with the same incarcerating intentions.
However, when the door was opened, it revealed only empty space. An empty cell, he realized. He was being isolated from the rest of the birds. No sunlight. No comforts, such as a bed or a chamber pot. Just hard, cold stone.
He was pushed inside with so much force that he instantly stumbled. The door slammed and locked behind him, as one would behind a dog that would not behave and stay in place. The ominous clicks of the door mechanism confirmed that he would be going nowhere.
Then he was alone.
Where was he? How long did he have to stay here in isolation? How did the other birds fare?
He had not been killed in Suscon only to face...this.
Perhaps it had been the intentions of the Diagorians from the start. Perhaps they were a nation who hated...whores, and they had plans to keep the birds in the Diagorian dungeons until they became mad, died of starvation, and wasted away.
“No,” he hissed to himself, unwilling to believe the sickly truth. “It doesn’t make any sense.” He spoke with confidence, even as his eyes began to prickle with heavy tears at the thought that the end was soon.
Time drew by. With no light source, disturbingly, he couldn’t measure it.
When he needed to relieve himself, he went to the corner of the cell, embarrassed and upset that he was now being kept in his own filth.
And still time went.The haze of nothingness will return.
He paced. He sang jingles to himself that always turned into murmured weeps.
Then, eventually, he slept.
He was awoken by the clinking sound of a key turning within the cell-door lock. He’d been sleeping on the ground, his hands folded under his head, the few jewelry pieces he’d worn gathered into a pile next to him. He began to sit up, rubbing his eyes as someone tall—of course, tall—made to enter.
The person carried a torch in one hand and a burlap sack in the other. It was the guard, Salas realized. The one he had propositioned; the same one who’d humiliated him.
The man placed the torch into a torch holder on the wall and turned to him, speaking in Diagorian.
Salas, of course, didn’t understand it. He stood up and stepped away apprehensively, watching the guard warily. Guards meant rough treatment, he was learning. Or perhaps the truth was the same with all folk of the nation.
The guard was watching him with a sly smile, his eyes glinting with the life of the fire. It cast horrible shadows about his face, turning him ghoulish as he stepped closer into the cell.
The door shut behind the man.
They were alone in the cell.
“You give,” the man said in Susconian, using exaggerated hand gestures, first towards Salas, and then to himself. “I give.”
You give, I give?
Was the man here to bargain?
“You will set me free?” Salas gasped hopefully, using gestures as well to point towards the door and make his meaning clear.
The guard chuckled and shook his head. He held up the sack in his grip, shaking it like it held a secret that he was excited to share. He dropped it unceremoniously in front of Salas.
Frowning, Salas hesitated before scooping up the bag and peering inside. It was a quarter loaf of bread.
