[ P ] a light in the dark

Dreams. They were her only escape from the mind numbing boredom, the damp coldness of hard stone pierced through to the bone and the desolation that came with the acceptance that she was truly on her own. Her only allies were the wolves trapped behind bars, but they could do nothing to help her. They were united in their suffering. Her dreams had been a reflection of her mental state. Tormenting her with memories she thought she'd put behind her. Kiel was a ghost she'd become reacquainted with. His presence in her dreams was certainly a sign that part of her wanted her big brother to save her.

The truth was no one was coming for them. Not her brother because he was in his grave and certainly not her father who'd prefer she didn't exist. This knowledge hardened her resolve to save herself. She had survived the tyranny of Elias Vanadium and she would survive this. They would not break her.

Distressed cries from the neighbouring cells were a constant reminder that she wasn't the only one who was left behind. Her crimson gaze lingered on a dark shape occupying the cell across from hers and Caspian's. His snores were an oddly comforting sound that reminded her that she wasn't alone.

"It's Nora, right?" Roisin asked, white and black muzzle forcing a tired smile. She'd heard her crying out for a Leo over the past few days and wanted to offer her some kindness in this hellish place. "I'm Roisin," she introduced herself, wishing for a fruitless moment that this meeting was under better circumstances.

@Nora

table ; bunny

NORA SEAFARER
still feels like i can't stop crying

The days dragged on and still, no Leo. She was beginning to lose hope that he'd ever show his face down here. Whether he was simply ignoring her or had perhaps died on the battlefield was unknown to the woman; and she didn't know which would be worse, honestly. Today she didn't have the strength to scream for him and perhaps that was a respite for the others she shared this dungeon with. She didn't care about most of them, but one in particular caught her attention. A soft voice from across the block greeted her and she lifted her head, tear-stained eyes straining in the darkness to peer at who had said her name.

Roisin...

"Yes, it's Nora." she said flatly. She wasn't sure she felt like talking to anyone but Leo but she figured in the moment it was better than crying herself to sleep for the 50th time.

She blinked away the tears and slowly sat up, her ears folded atop her head as she looked at the earthen woman. Her cellmate seemed to be asleep, or perhaps he was just lying there and listening. Nora couldn't tell from here. "I'd say it's nice to meet you Roisin, but..." she trailed off and glanced around. Nothing was particularly nice these days.

"Were you in the protests?" she asked as her gaze returned to her. She looked at the other woman curiously and wondered what such a dainty girl like herself was doing in here. Then again, looks could be deceiving. Just one look at Nora and you'd think you'd know it all but you'd be wrong. She was a fighter, a soldier for Jacob. She wasn't just some little doll to be played with a tossed aside when bored.

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A dry laugh followed Nora's sentiments about their current predicament. It really wasn't pleasant to meet someone like this, but Roisin didn't care about that. It was nice to hear another voice, a friendly one, even if they were strangers separated by iron bars. "Well Nora. It's not entirely unpleasant to meet you," she replied, tilting her head towards their surroundings. "But maybe next time we should choose somewhere a little less gloomy to hang out," Roisin suggested, trying to lighten Nora's mood with a little humour. She was hardly in the mood to make jokes. Still it was better than giving in to despair.

The subject of the protest came up and Roisin guessed it must mean that Nora was another participant. Whether it had been intentional on her part though remained unknown. Before she would have been careful not to make her allegiance to Prince Jacob so obvious, but she had stopped caring. She'd already admitted as much in front of a judge and it wasn't as if they could throw her in the dungeon. They'd already taken her freedom from her. "I did. I didn't expect it to get so chaotic, but I'm not afraid of Imperials. I'll always fight for what I believe in," she spoke in a low voice, but the fierce determination in her tone. The more passionate she got the more her soft mainlander accent was dominated by a harsh highlander drawl. "Were you there?" she asked, though she was pretty certain that she wouldn't have asked if she hadn't taken part.

@Nora

table ; bunny

NORA SEAFARER
still feels like i can't stop crying

"Yes, we should. I feel like the dungeon isn't the best place to meet others," she said, a small laugh breaking up her speech. It was nice to joke around despite their desperate predicament. She almost felt normal again, at least for now.

Roisin confirmed that she too had been in the protests and Nora sighed. "I did." she said a little shamefully. She'd gone with the full intention of causing trouble but she hadn't expected to be caught like this and thrown in jail. She'd expected to escape and run off into the sunset high on life and now? Well, she only had herself to blame, she guessed. "I'm not afraid of them either, and me too. We should be able to fight without being thrown in jail." she said huffily.

She noticed Roisin's accent seemed to change slightly and she flicked an ear curiously. "A bheil thu a’ toirt taic don phrionnsa Jacob?" she almost whispered. The Mainlander guards likely wouldn't understand her, but perhaps this woman would.

**Do you support Prince Jacob?**

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A genuine smile found its way on to her weary, dirt covered features. It had been awhile since the former maid had taken the time to enjoy a conversation. Of all the places to find a friend, Roisin hadn't expected to be sharing laughs deep within a dungeon. It made her feel lighter and breathed new life into her battered spirit. It was hard to stay strong when she let her thoughts spiral. They intended to keep her here until summer and losing her freedom all over again hurt her. Living as a maid had been a prison of its own and her jailers, Elias and Thea. She shoved the brief image of their cold blue eyes away with a grimace and focused on Nora. She had blue eyes too, but they were kind eyes.

"Ah, but it makes for an interesting story, doesn't it?" Roisin pointed out as her smile formed into a playful grin. "If you want to spice it up a little I won't tell. Say you met a big fearsome brute that chews on the bones of mainlanders," she laughed, amused by the idea of her being a great beast that gnawed on the remains of her enemies. "Who should I say I met?" she asked, hoping Nora would indulge her little game. There wasn't much else to do.

"I did," Roisin's ears twitched at what she thought was shame in Nora's tone. Regret that she had fought or gotten captured? "You're brave, Nora," she remarked, pleased that her fellow prisoner was just as spirited as she was. "They can't take that away from you," she assured her, and it was something that she had to remind herself more than once.

She pressed the side of her cheek against the bars, uninjured ear working hard to decipher the whispered gaelic. She bit the inside of her cheek and offered Nora an apologetic look. She only understood half of what she said and hoped it was enough. "I- Tha.. Prionnsa Jacob, gaisgeach," she awkwardly spoke the words, touching her chest with a paw so that Nora knew she meant herself. "Sorry. My Gaelic is poor," she admitted, turning her face away, ashamed that for all her highlander spirit, she lacked a large piece of her cultural identity.

**Yes, Prince Jacob, warrior.

@Nora

table ; bunny

NORA SEAFARER
still feels like i can't stop crying

Nora was grateful for the distraction of a game, if only for a little while. She giggled a bit at Roisin's comment, finding the such a scene frightening but entertaining. "Maybe his brother, the one who makes wears their pelts like fur." she said. A dynamic duo, if she'd have anything to say about it. "Waste not, want not and all that." she added with a small smile.

A moment passed and Roisin called her brave, saying they couldn't take that away from her. They could sure take her freedom, but not who she was... not if she didn't let them, anyway. Nora nodded her head a little solemnly. "Thank you,"

As the broken gaelic reached her ears, Nora could decipher enough to know that she was talking to a fellow comrade. She smiled warmly at the other woman who now looked away in shame. "It's okay. Maybe when we get out of here, I can teach you more." It was a good way to talk without the guard getting to suspicious.

Nora's gaze then shifted to the sleeping body in the darkness near Roisin. "Whose that?" she asked, not quite able to make out that it was her own brother, Caspian. She'd seen him in the court but hadn't seen him since. She assumed he was down here somewhere with her but didn't know he was right under her nose.

She wondered how Black and Cory were faring without them. Black was probably worried, but fine but Cory? She just didn't want her other sister to get into more trouble coming to look for them.

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It was fun making up characters with Nora. She almost felt like a pup, sitting beside the campfires during samhain telling spooky stories. Kiel would try to cover her ears during the scarier parts, but she'd huff and grumble to be allowed to join the bigger pups in listening. He’d never say I told you so even when she snuck into his nest at night, insisting she was cold, not scared when she trembled. ”Oooh. Scary,” she laughed along with Nora, delighted by her addition to their story. ”Probably wouldn’t smell good. Mainlanders love their smelly perfumes,” she said, curling her lips in distaste. What was wrong with natural scents? Roisin didn’t have enough paws to count the amount of times she’d been left with watery eyes and a burning nose when moving through Rionna.

It pleased her to see Nora’s mood brightening. It felt good to lift up her fellow dungeon dweller spirits. All they had were each other down here and Roisin knew it wasn’t going to get any easier. Lack of sleep and poor nutrition would bring them to their breaking points.

Her clumsy, childish gaelic didn’t appear to have offended Nora and Roisin was taken aback by her easy acceptance. It was a reaction she hadn’t anticipated, especially the offer of a lesson. ”You don’t find it…. weird?” she asked, red eyes and soft frown betraying her concern. Her father’s disgust and fellow soldiers sneering had taught her that it was something she should be ashamed of.

Nora reminded her of the other wolf sharing her cell and Roisin looked over at the sleeping lump. Without hesitating she said. "That’s Eejit. He says he’s the best sailor in Aberdeen,” she said, although she was obviously sceptical of his claims. She could have given his proper name, but Eejit suited him so well and it amused her to think others might call him that too. It was a harmless prank. Little did she know she was speaking to his sister.

@Nora

table ; bunny

NORA SEAFARER
still feels like i can't stop crying

Nora nodded, the smile still on her face at Roisin's comment on Mainlanders and their smelly perfumes. "It might smell better, actually." she said. The stench of the pelt might actually be better than some of the scents she'd smelled on a few other wolves.

She looked at Roisin curiously as she asked if she found her lack of language weird. "No. Why would I?" Maybe Roisin had not grown up around it like Nora had, or perhaps her family hadn't bothered teaching her and there was nothing wrong with that... it's not like it was Roisin's fault unless she shunned the language itself and even then who was she to say that was right or wrong?

Nora's ears flicked back at the name she called the sleeping wolf in her cell-- but it wasn't that that caught her attention but rather the fact that he claimed himself the best sailor in Aberdeen. That sounded a lot like "Caspian?!" she breathed. She had seen him in the court room but to be so close to him now brought her a comfort she could not explain. At least she wasn't entirely alone down here, and then there was Roisin, of course. "My brother says that all the time..." she whispered, her gaze shifting slowly back to Roisin.

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"It might smell better, actually," The former maid couldn't help clicking her tongue at what she considered to be a very controversial opinion. Roisin couldn't believe her ears. Nora actually liked their fruity flowery perfumes. Madness. She might have understood if Nora had lived among pigs for her entire life, but to prefer them over natural scents was something she couldn't wrap her head around. "You won't be saying that when you've spent a day surrounded by a fog of their stink. Why would anyone want to smell like a bouquet drenched in fruit juice?" she asked, sounding exasperated. "Unless… you like that sort of thing? I guess the bees might like you more, but my nose is very sensitive so if you insist on wearing some next time I'm keeping my distance," she teased her, more amused than annoyed by the idea of a perfumed Nora. It was a little hypocritical of her, she who liked to dust her pelt with rose scent, to fault Nora for her preferences. It was a mainlander habit she couldn't quite shake.

Roisin was left speechless by Nora's question. She was the first highlander wolf who had accepted her without question. "You're the first one who doesn't," she admitted, looking away sheepishly. The warmth of Nora's acceptance wrapped around her like a warm blanket and she lifted her head and smiled at her. "Thank you."

She was expecting amused disbelief at the eejit's claims yet instead her ears were pricking up in recognition of his actual name. He knew Nora? Her mind tried to connect the dots. The eejit was a charismatic wolf, even if he said stupid things sometimes. It was possible that Nora was… She tried to pretend that discomfort in her belly was merely indigestion and definitely not jealousy. "Huh… B-Brother?" she spluttered, ignoring her quick recovery from her indigestion and latched onto the shock she felt at their connection. "But he's…" an eejit "and you're…" not.

@Nora

table ; bunny

NORA SEAFARER
still feels like i can't stop crying

Nora had not expected Roisin to go off on a tangent about Mainlander's but now she could see that the girl did not care for them that much (which seemed an understatement, actually). "I meant the stinky pelt would smell better," she said with a little laugh at the way her words had been mistaken. It was no big deal, and Roisin had not been rude, just passionate. There was nothing wrong with that.

Her ears perked as Roisin told her she was the first who hadn't criticized her for not being able to speak their language and then thanked her. She shrugged. "It's probably not your fault. Nobody took the time to teach you?"

It was to both their surprise that Capsian was the sleeping fellow in her cell it seemed she was more surprised by that fact than Nora was. "Well, he's in for a hell of a surprise when he wakes up..." she said weakly. Swallowing, she looked to Roisin and then off into the dark. Nobody here besides that stupid guard knew her secret and she wasn't sure she wanted the whole block to know but eventually, they would, when they heard the screams.


"I don't know if you overheard me and that other guard the other day but ... he's going to be an uncle soon." she said while attempting to smile. It was both good news and horrible news, given her circumstance and the fact that the father still wasn't talking to her, it seemed.

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