บท 84: The Boring Life of a Prisoner
---Katherine---
Aaron told me how he and Indigo were too far away to help when I collapsed and was carried off by two Evils. He told me how Jason was the only one to reach Ashley in time when she was overwhelmed by the Evils. He told me how he saw Jason's murderer emerge from the shadows but was too far away to do anything.
"It was a person in black. He threw a dagger shrouded with darkness towards Jason and Ashley," Aaron said quietly. "Jason shielded Ashley with his body and aimed water at the dagger to blast it away, but somehow his water powers failed to protect him. The dagger pierced Jason straight through the heart. By the time Indigo and I made it to them, it…it was already too late. He died in Ashley's arms."
Aaron, whom I have never seen cry, sounded a bit choked up. I dipped my head and focused my attention on the pieces of straw that I was braiding together.
"We built a funeral pyre for Jason." Aaron finally said after a few minutes. "After all he's been through, Jason deserves a hero's goodbye and a safe passage into the afterlife. No one was there to honor him and whatever, but to us, Jason deserved all the honors in the world."
I nodded solemnly. "I wish I was there to pay my respects," I said wistfully. "I didn't even get to say goodbye."
"It's okay. I'm sure Jason will understand, with you being captured and all." Aaron leaned his head back against the wall. "I miss him so much."
A guard arrived with our dinner. Aaron wrinkled his nose at the two bowls of gray slop on a tray. "This is what we get?" He asked me incredulously. "This looks like what my grandma feeds her pigs. Lord Victor is such a terrible person!"
I shrugged. "Well, he is the evil lord. What did you expect, a feast? We're prisoners, remember?"
Aaron sighed. "You're right. But I've lost all my appetite just by looking at it. I'm not eating that."
I looked at the slop, wrestling with the choice of whether to eat it or not. The guards have been bringing the same meal everyday, and I haven't touched a single bowl. "Lord Victor might poison us, but I feel like he's more of a torture-the-prisoners kind of guy."
Aaron inched over to the two bowls. He sniffed it. "It doesn't smell as bad as I thought it would. Have you tried it, Kath?"
I shook my head. "I haven't eaten anything the guards brought for the past several days. I'm really hungry though. You wouldn't happen to have food on you, do you?"
"No, the food I brought are in my satchel. I bet Lord Victor confiscated it." Aaron looked very regretful. "I don't know how you were able to not eat for several days. It's been less than half a day since I last ate, and I'm so hungry already."
"I'll eat it if you do." I scooted over to sit across from Aaron. The tray with the two bowls sat between us. "If there's poison in the food, we both die."
Aaron looked at me with amusement. "Okay, Kath. If you die, I die. But at least we'll die with half-full stomachs."
I picked up a bowl and raised it toward Aaron. "Cheers, Aaron."
"Cheers, Kath."
* * * * *
"Aight, so it's been several hours now and we're not dead. I guess that means the slop wasn't poisoned?" Aaron said to me. I stopped working on the long straw braid that I was making out of boredom.
"Or it could be a very slow-acting poison," I pointed out. "But I've got to admit, that slop wasn't too bad."
"Yeah. Way better than I expected. Now, if only they could throw in a pinch of salt and pepper, some mixed vegetables, maybe a piece of ham or two—"
I laughed. "Dream on, Aaron. Lord Victor is way too stingy to give us meat."
We chatted on and off for a while. The guards changed shifts. It must've been nighttime, but neither Aaron nor I were sleepy.
I remembered something crucial that I hadn't asked Aaron. "Aaron, how did you get caught?"
"Ashley and I came to rescue you. I followed her through the maze of passageways because she seemed to know where she was going. I thought that as a spellmaster, she would be able to sense where you are or something." Aaron twisted a piece of straw around his finger distractedly. "I guess I was wrong. She was leading me into a trap."
"You didn't notice that anything was wrong? I don't think Ashley would have felt entirely comfortable with leading you to your demise. She would have shown some suspicious signs."
Aaron tilted his head to one head in thought. "Now that I think about it, the deeper we came into the fortress, the sicker Ashley looked. I thought she was claustrophobic or something," he said. "She had to stop and rest at one of the last few passageways. I went first, and she followed behind me instead. I was so sure that we've arrived at the prison cells that I ran on ahead, assuming that she was right behind me. Did she even follow me?"
"I don't know," I admitted. "But the Ashley I know would feel really guilty about leading you into a trap. Maybe that's why she couldn't bear to watch you get captured. The guilt would overwhelm her."
"Maybe. I was so sure that we were close to you. Ashley pointed left so I went left, but it was a dead end. I turned around to ask her if we took a wrong turn, and she was gone." Aaron looked off into the distance, remembering the details. "I heard a sound behind me in the empty corridor, turned around, pulled my sword out, but didn't see anything. Then something or someone hit me from behind, knocking me flat to the ground and stabbed something in my neck." He rubbed the side of his neck, wincing at the memory.
"A sedative," I guessed. "Whoever attacked you injected it into your bloodstream while you were distracted."
"Yeah, most likely. Then I woke up and found you staring at me from five inches away." Aaron grinned at me. I blushed with embarrassment.
"I fell over while trying to get a good look at you," I said, flustered. "I wanted to make sure it was you."
"Or were you too overwhelmed by my handsomeness and swooned?" Aaron smirked teasingly. "Too bad no one was there to catch you."
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