N.B. This chapter takes place prior to the events of Chapter 15.

The glum recrudescence of incarceration reverted my mind back to times long forgotten. The companionship of two bodies confined in misery. Not living but surviving, each day at the mercy of our captors. Mercy! Too kind a word for the situation we found ourselves in. They had machinations! Pawns to be kept alive, until put into place for grander schemes. Bodies to serve their wicked designs.

You can learn a lot about a person in three days: especially while their mind is still emerging from the delirium of a strong sedative. The tongue will tattle tales they thought they’d hidden deep away. Sickle had put Owen through a horrific ordeal. The kind of tortures that would break most men. It didn’t seem that there was any sense behind it, just that Sickle thought Owen had value to Roddy. Turns out he didn’t and now we’re captives.

Their relationship goes back to the wars. They were compatriots and Owen seemed to have been hoping that it still meant something. I don’t think that’s the way it works with people in power. Just trying to exert themselves over their charges. The stories Owen had babbled through while he lay sweating on the cell cot made my spine shudder. Jackals – a fitting term for creatures who scavenge the detritus of war.
I’d tended him over the last days. There wasn’t enough food for both of us. I gave him mine, and my water. He needed it more than I.

He reminded me of that courageous soldier. The man who took me out of that boat when all the other boys were dead or lay dying. I didn’t have much hope either, but I was prepared to do things the others weren’t to stay alive. He was large and silent. Threatening, but with fatherly compassion. Most would have put me down like a rabid dog, no hope for the dying, but he took me aboard their barge. Strapped me down and kept me alive. Eventually, he managed to get me the help I needed. Reversed the derangement and healed the mutilations I had endured.

He brought me home, but my parents couldn’t look at me in the same way. My mother’s eyes filled with guilt when she watched me shuffle athwart the upstairs corridors of our home, while my father reviled in disgust and would shut himself away from me.

My parents had shunned me, unable to deal with the changes I had been through since my kidnapping. The kind soldier’s visits were the only thing I looked forward to. My parents’ relief was clearly visible when he suggested taking me away and getting me boarding in an orphanage. He suggested it be just for a short time, but I knew no one would be in a hurry to get me back.

The orphanage was my second incarceration. Self-imposed but I had no way of breaking out of the shell I’d been trapped in. I kept to myself and observed the other children. Only coming out of my shell when my gallant redeemer would visit.
️

I’m used to the small space between four walls, now. They lock you up for petty crimes in Vereign. Sometimes I would do them just to get away from worse things on the streets, or to get out of the blistering rain, or the stench of sleeping in the sewers.

The parents and the orphanage were places I returned to time and time again, until I eventually swapped those cages for another. Military life didn’t suit me. It gave me a home, but I never got that sense of belonging. Following the illogical orders of men trying to exert themselves over their charges. It didn’t suit me, and I’d end up in their cages.

Now I was caught up again, but this time I had a compadre in misery. Someone who had also been broken by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
I’d keep him going. He needed me.

“There, there, my brave soldier. Don’t try to move. I’ll get you whatever you need.” (edited)