A Rogue and A Royal

The Escaping Truth

Goth was chained up inside of a cell in a dungeon. Her arms and legs were chained to the wall. Only her breasts and crotch area were [barely] covered by cloth. She looks at the chains and sees how strong and tough they looked, then looked at herself. Only now is when she realized how strong she's actually become, with some muscle on her arms and legs from all the training and the slightest hint of abs. She smiles a little since she was proud of her progress so far. After all, she only did this, so she could always escape when her mother locked her in the basement, the cursed, cold, horrible, terrifying, disgusting, thingy she calls the basement, and even worse? It was always so dark and cold. Exactly like this, damned dungeon. She was only a kid at the time, but either way, she knew what her mother was doing was wrong. Father was never there to help, and she was the main priestess of the clan, so her word was literally like the goddess's will. She remembered the pain of feeling trapped and helpless, how no one was ever going to be there to help her until it happened, that faithful day she's been waiting for finally happened. 

October 21st. Her mother was giving a speech in the eastern region about the goddess. Right after looked at the sky, she was shot in the head with an arrow. She was dead before she hit the ground. And even though her mother died, she was happy. She finally felt free. She saw the person who shot her mother with a bow and arrow, and she remembers guards running after her. The girl with the bow and arrow was about 9, the same age as Goth at the time. And she remembers her pale skin, so pale that some veins were showing through, the long silky white hair and the blood-red eyes. And then, she disappeared before the guards could even touch her. Goth always remembered that. She would never forget what that girl did for her. 

Ever since that day, Goth never had to spend a day in that dark, cold basement again. There was no need to anymore. But, there was only one thing she missed about it. And that thing was how she used to play with the shadow creatures and ghosts in there. She fondly remembers escaping to the woods with them and playing with any other woodland critter or forest spirit she could find. She also remembers their shocked faces when they learned that she could easily see them. She never understood that, though, seeing ghosts and spirits was very easy for her, unlike most spirit mediums. It came as naturally as breathing. She never needed to focus like the other mediums needed to. She saw them clearly and perfectly, just as if they were human. But, since she can't consciously decide to see them, she also can't stop it. For the rest of her life, she is stuck with the ability to see the spirit world, but to her, it isn't a problem, it's a gift. She loves this part of herself. She loves to see the dead and the living. She would never want this power to be gone, which means never being able to see her shadow friends ever again. She would hate that. 

Goth finally snaps out of it, then has an idea. She can create a shadow friend again to help her, just like when she escaped from the basement. It's worth a shot. But the room wasn't dark enough to make this being. There has to be at least one pitch-black shadow in the room to create a shadow being, it has to be big enough for a regular mortal to stand on, and it has to be on a solid, flat surface. Sadly there was nothing there that fit these criteria, so Goth sighed, knowing that she was on her own.

Goth looks at the chains and roughly pulls on them, breaking them way too easily. Since she didn't expect that to work, she fell right onto the cold, stone ground. She stands and dusts herself off, then looks out at the cell door. She knew that there was no way in the goddess's name that the steel bars would break that easy for her, just like the chains. 

Goth grabs the longest chain and mumbles a spell, making it much stronger, and spawning a round spiked ball at the end of it, so that the chain was now a makeshift flail. Goth smiles a little, proud of how far her magical capabilities have come, then whacks the flail against the metal cell door. The cell door broke, and if Goth could manage to escape, she would be free. She realized this and smiles.