Capítulo 22: Food Matters

Soon Dela is scrubbed clean, scantily dressed, embellished with gold and precious jewels and stored like a precious porcelain doll within a large, decorated room, with servants to wait on her.

Bound hands and foot, this pretty doll house is her prison.

And there is no escape.

_______

Captured and kept prisoner within the Fortress of Tortures, Dela is sad and depressed.

They lost the battle. Her men died. All the generals and powerful warriors... all of them had been killed. And now her people, the good people of Angyura, were doomed to be destroyed at the hands of the evil conqueror.

She had failed them. She did not deserve to live. She wished to have died honourably along with those brave soldiers on the battlefield, fighting for her people.

But why?

Why had she instead reaped a fate worse than death?

To be held captive in chains, and kept in a room waiting for the moment the killer of her people and destroyer of her world, whom she so terribly detests, decides to lay his hands upon her.

She would rather die than let it happen!

The demon had left the Fortress after seeing to it that she was chained and kept prisoner in this lavish room.

For a whole day, he had been gone.

Only god knows what poor, defenseless and unsuspecting kingdoms he had gone to destroy.

Probably, Angyura and the rest of West World which had been left defenseless would already be in ruins by now.

Seething in hate and sorrow, Dela mourns the death of her armies, her people and kingdom. There is nothing more she can do.

____

The attendants stare on at Dela from a distance.

Attendant 1: Has she still not had any food?

Attendant 2: Not a bite.

Attendant 1: Well, that is bad. The master would be greatly displeased.

Attendant 2: She seems to be mourning.

Attendant 3: Or attempting to starve herself to death! It has been a day and a half.

Attendant 1: That cannot be allowed. We must try every possible means to get her to eat.

(To attendant 2) Bracia. Ask again if the new dishes are not to Her Grace's liking.

___

"Your Grace."

When she hears a voice, Dela looks up from her knees in her folded position where she lay, hugging her knees to her chest and crying miserably on the massive bed.

She sees it is a group of three attendants.

Attendant 1: "Your grace, are the dishes not to your liking? We can make whatever meals you desire, your grace."

"Leave me be."

Dela responds, her voice, terribly cracked from her long hours of weeping. Her face covered in tears, her eyes swollen, nose a bright pink.

*sniff*

The attendant tries again.

"But Your Grace, you are in dire need of nourishment. The master would be grossly displeased if he comes to find that you have starved yourself for this lon-"

"I said, leave me be!" Dela cuts her off, blowing her top.

"I do not care what your monstrous master thinks. Leave me be!"

She fiercely throws her pillow at the attendant, frustrated and pained by the whole situation. She had snapped.

The attendants are left shocked and scared witless as that came out of nowhere. Dela had been previously weeping weakly and hopelessly. They did not expect such a fierce outburst.

"A-As Your Grace pleases. I a-ap-pologise. I did not mean to offend Your Grace", the attendant responds, shaken. Bowing and shivering in fear from Dela's sudden angry outburst, before they quickly retreat.

As it seemed, the master's fated was dangerous, just like him. They were indeed meant for each other.

However, the master would not be happy when he returns. They had failed to feed her.

Just then, the dark skies were split with raging thunder and fearsome red lightning rained down all around the grounds of the Fortress.

The master was back!

_____

"Welcome back from your astounding conquests, Great One."

With a bow, the head guardian of Gorak's Fortress of Tortures welcomes him home, along with a vast, intimidating collection of guardians, attendants and servants left behind to keep the Fortress.

The head guardian served as the butler of a palace, or in this case, Gorak's dreary, dark castle of tortures, pain and bondage called the Fortress of Tortures.

"Nevermind that Oris. Tell me, how is the prisoner?"

Gorak is uninterested in flattery at the moment. He is, and had been all this while, more concerned about a certain prisoner.

"The prisoners are all adequately being tortured as we speak, as per your careful directions, Great One."

Oris replies, following sharply behind his master who wastes no time travelling into the Fortress, ignoring protocol.

Hearing Oris's response, Gorak unexpectedly stops short. Oris knew just what prisoner he was speaking of, yet he was being dodgy. Something was up.

Sharply turning to face Oris he asks pointedly;

"I said 'the' prisoner. My fated.

What has become of her?"

He narrows his eyes threateningly, his countenance growing darker by the second. Outside, the skies darken further with a loud rumbling and flashes of red lightning cut frighteningly across the sky once again.

His mortal, fragile fated better be faring excellently well, or he would have all her attendants eliminated for their incompetence.

"N-Nothing, Your R-Ruthlessness. Your fated fares well. S-She..."

Oris stammers out of fear, trying to explain the situation to Gorak.

The thundering and dangerous lightning outside die down gradually with the fierceness of his countenance on hearing that his fated is faring well.

Gorak is slightly relieved. But then, what is wrong? Why was Oris being dodgy?

Encouraged by the improvement in Gorak's mood, Oris keeps talking.

"...s-she only proves difficult, r-refusing her meals, Great One."

"Have you offered food to her taste?", asks Gorak, understanding the reasonfor Oris's initial dodgyness.

"We have offered a vast variety of foods and asked Her Grace's preferences time and again, yet she has more aggressively refused us each time.

As it seems, she mourns her people and is so downtrodden to the point of attempting a death by starvation."

Oris explains in detail to save his head.

*sigh*...

'She wouldn't eat?', thinks Gorak, concerned.

He couldn't blame his servants. His fated was indeed grossly difficult to deal with. But if she didn't eat for much longer as a mortal, she would die.

He didn't want that.

Knowing Dela, she was bold enough to defy everyone in the Fortress to her dying breath. Everyone but he himself.

His fated really needed to be tamed. But who could tame her other than himself?

"I'll do it myself!"

With that bold declaration, Gorak heads straight for the lavish prison room of his beloved prisoner.

If there was anyone who could scare this stubborn creature into compliance, it was him.

____