RESTRAINT

El'Ubris in Overdrive

The last tormented wails echoed against the dank, dark walls of the Apothecarion of Undercity, replaced by a plaintive, pained hissing and the occasional clink of metal upon metal as pallid flesh strained against inhumane restraints. Deep within the stone bastion of the Banshee Queen, a lone golden eye rolled in the sunken hollow of its socket, and the husk of Miriah El’Ubris slumped against the harsh grey wall of her prison, her breath rattling in her thin chest. The black robes that had identified her for months, once swamping her slight form but recently replaced with a tailored duplicate, hung in ragged, torn disarray around her, the pale blue embroidery plucked at by bony fingers until, filthy, it barely stood out at all from the sullied skirts. Thick, semi-coagulated blood seeped from a deep wound in her back; already her black and gold tabard was sodden with it, and the slimy granite bore streaks of the rusty red as far as the manacles clamping her thin wrists would allow.

Pain wracked her sickly body, pain and hunger that ravaged her innards. Her last meal, semi-digested, congealed on the cold floor nearby, leaving her empty and ravenous. Desperately, mindlessly, she tugged again at her chains, blood oozing over the crude manacles and trickling down the links. She could hear them as they stirred beyond the charmed door that contained her. Apothecaries, tinkering with their oils, plagues and potions, the slosh and bubble of liquid occasionally pausing from one of the four – as she was certain there were four now: their shapes shifted and squabbled in her mind’s eye as precious sources of nutrition – as he stopped to listen to her own anguished struggles. The fact that they were Forsaken, the same race as she, was lost on the priestess. Names, races and identities trickled together and blended into muddy colours and indefinite forms within her mind, each and every one observed through the eyes of blind instinct alone.

Right now, the prevailing instinct was hunger, and she wrestled with her bonds until the fire of torn flesh and bared bone reduced her to tossing on the ground, splattering herself with dirt and blood. Lying on her back, she shifted in a futile attempt at reducing the weight on her raw wrists, and scowled in blank, bestial irritation at being denied the taste of her prey. Spread out and vulnerable, colour and loud, wordless sound flowed over her in the form of memory. She winced at its presence, curling up and releasing a guttural growl from the back of her throat as the nagging feeling of missing something began to unfurl around her once again.

She cried, briefly. While she was too stunted and dumb to understand what she had lost, the sheer magnitude of having it wrenched from her submerged all else, drowning her in ailing sobs that shook her fragile ribcage until, lacking words to record the feeling, she felt it slowly drain away.

Sitting on her haunches, she lapped up her tears. She was hungry again.