marlowemuses | If you were Dracula, I'd be letting you take that bite

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If you were Dracula, I'd be letting you take that bite

Lenore's immediately curious about their 'guest' in the dungeons from what Striga had to say: a swordswoman of exceptional skill, the most satisfying fight Striga had enjoyed in years and she only regretted that the woman was so tired out already before Striga got to her, if she'd been fresher in the fight and had vampiric advantages, she would have been a 'true opponent'.

The soldiers who had survived the battle spoke of it like something out of legend, to the point that Lenore almost had to roll her eyes at the way the story was already getting embroidered and exaggerated. (She thought it very unlikely that their captive was eight feet tall with eyes of flame.) There was little useful information from any of them--run down castle practically in ruins, aging retainers, decrepit king and queen, none of them even healthy enough to save for feeding purposes. Morana had plenty to say about that, the waste of losing forty-seven good soldiers for the gain of an ugly, crumbling castle in an ugly, barren land and if she'd known it was going to be this much bother they would have just gone around. Carmilla had already expressed her opinion in the original conversation, and the entirety of that opinion was a disgusted scoff.

Thus armed with as much information as she was going to get, Lenore dressed herself elegantly and went to the kitchens to collect a basket of freshly baked spice cakes, temptingly aromatic, before she descended to the dungeon.

Only one of the cells was filled at this time--none of the sisters were especially inclined toward taking prisoners unless they were of political value in some way, and their food captives were kept elsewhere under relatively minimal restraint.

"Well," Lenore comments, stopping in front of the dungeon cell and looking over the captive within with interest, chained on her knees. A heavy collar around her throat was chained to a ring in the floor in front of her, while her wrists were pulled out to either side and secured to more heavy iron rings and the cuffs on her ankles were attached to a ball and chain. "I don't think I've ever seen anyone in quite that many chains."

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This is all startlingly unexpected. Why anyone would bother attacking the crumbling little kingdom she'd been indentured to at birth is utterly beyond her. Like, why not take literally anywhere else? The place was little more than a mausoleum even before the vampires attacked, death having touched the place when she was barely a few weeks old and having lain waste to (almost) an entire generation. It had been a veritable extinction event. The invaders may as well have sat back on their haunches and waited for everyone to die out, it would have been a hell of a lot less hassle. Admittedly though, this would have forced Gideon to miss out on the most exciting day of her fucking life.

Even if it has ultimately culminated in failure, even if - in the end - she'd been felled at the last by some terrible brute who under different circumstances might have instilled in her a girlish sense of hero-worship, at least she had got to fight. After days and weeks and months and years that had stretched endlessly, dismally on in their insignificance, the very thing she had always been made for had - at last - had the audacity to find her. And man had she fought, adrenaline fizzing through her bones, caught up in the fierce bright animal joy of the fight for one's life. She'd shown them maybe, the fucking captors who'd only ever viewed her through a lens of bitter contempt, that she was worth something. Worth more than the daughter they had lost. Gideon – if she says so herself - is the best damned asset they'd ever had.

It's just a pity it had all ended like this. No doubt her new captors will slaughter her soon enough, once they discover she'll give them fuck all. But hey, at least she'd really had the chance to shine, to get her sword red and wet the way it had been made for. There's some honour to be found in that. Better to have been killed on the battlefield, but hey, beggars can hardly be choosers.

Gideon's chin snaps upwards when the scent of warm, fresh pastry fills the room, and she tries to ignore the sharp twist of hunger it arouses. Aureate eyes narrow down to cut-glass slivers as she beholds the woman approaching her now. Someone new, someone they haven't already tried on her, and she hopes this bitch is as ready to be disappointed as the ones who came before her. The smile she throws the woman's way is crooked and feral as sin.

"You could try taking them off. See what happens," she doesn't even try to conceal the promise of violence in her answer.

"What, and with you not even house-trained?" Lenore asks, lifting her brows, a queen gazing down at a slave. She's fully aware that Gideon hasn't been given much opportunity. Days of travel to get here and clearly no one wanted to get close enough to her to help pull her pants down and back up or to give her enough leeway to do that herself. Probably not fed, either. Feral dogs are absolutely most dangerous when they're hungry, Lenore knows. But she also knows that they're easiest to tame like that.

Turning her head back toward the doorway, Lenore calls to some of the guards stationed at the mouth of the dungeons. "Bring a few buckets of water. She reeks."

She hears footsteps going off to do that. They're armor-booted, so not the quietest of steps, but the vampire tread softens them somewhat. All the guards and many of the servants inside the castle are vampires. Safer that way, and it helps keep the peace outside the castle by instilling a sense of hope and ambition in the peasants who obey their vampire queens.

While that fetching is being done, Lenore turns her attention back to their captive. A feral mess, with dirt-brown hair that glints auburn under the muck.

"I am Lenore, one of the four queens here. You may call me 'my queen', or 'Lenore'." She already knows that their captive will absolutely do no such thing. Not yet, anyway. "Is there something you'd like to be called other than 'rat' or 'slave'?"

She should feel humiliated. She should feel ashamed, degraded, and all-around fucking gross. Perhaps she does somewhere at the far reaches of herself, knows full-well how she must look, plastered in skeletonised blood and filth and excessively chained on her knees. But all the vampire's haughtiness only makes her grin spready wider, curved and ragged as a knife-wound. Because ultimately very little can touch her; when one has been cast down and despised one's entire life, it's hard to feel the sting of insults. Even in a situation like this.

Never mind that she wants to be fed, hunger twisting in her guts like a blade. Never mind that she wants to be clean and unchained and absolutely anywhere but here. But like fuck is she going to beg for it, or to so much as imply that she wants it. Like fuck is she going to give them anything at all.

Aside from a headache caused by a barrage of utter gaucherie.

"Oh fuck off with that bullshit. It's really fucking cliche, it's boring, it's altogether beneath you is what I'm saying. I'd sooner gouge out my own eyes - you know, if I could reach them - than call you that, you rancid fucking asswipe. You may as well just get on and fucking kill me, unless this is the kinda conversation that fills you with unbridled joy," they'd made a mistake, really, when they'd decided not to gag her. It's one she intends to make them regret if only because it's the only weapon currently left to her, "and if you have to call me anything, may I humbly suggest your worst fucking nightmare? It has a nice ring to it."

Lenore laughs.

It's probably not the reaction that anyone else in the castle would have to such a screed. Anyone else that Lenore knows would be enraged, disgusted, or perhaps just bored. Lenore, however, is delighted.

Their little captive--'little', at an estimated head and a half taller than Lenore if they were both standing--is clever and spirited, with a remarkable amount of creativity for someone who has spent days hungry, filthy, and uncomfortable. So Lenore's laughter is bright and unrestrained, as if their captive has just told her a very clever and only slightly dirty joke.

"It's a little long for a name," Lenore replies, eyes glittering with mirth. "Let's go with 'Nightie' for short, then, shall we?"

Two of the guards return, carrying two buckets of water each, so Lenore nods to them and indicates the cage. "Go ahead and toss them over her. Maybe it'll help."

And that's why there's a drain in the floor--one of the reasons, anyway. All four buckets of frigid mountain water can just drain away after they splash across the prisoner, one after another.

It's deeply, horribly unfair for the poison darts of her crassness to garner that reaction. The glittering mirth appears genuine, doesn't seem to be pasted on over the cracks of irritation or revulsion or anger, all of which would have been infinitely more rewarding. She stares up at her captor, dagger-eyed, rolls her neck within the confines of her chains until her joints crack with ominous - if impotent - promise.

The footsteps of the returning guards ring bright across the stones, momentarily cutting off any further choice words she might have spat at the vampire's feet. Gideon eyes them with the same cutting intensity she had levelled at their queen only moments before, but it does nothing to prevent them from approaching her.

Had she wished to be clean just now? Maybe, but not like this. The arctic chill of the water snatches at her breath as it's unceremoniously dumped over her, chest constricting hard around the abrupt drop in temperature. It's bitterly cold, and as soon as she's able to catch her breath around it she's yelling in incoherent shock. It's a yell that she manages - at the last - to shape into a further string of expletives-- a drawn-out tumult of the very worst words she can think of.

As the last of the water drains away, leaving her panting and shivering in the wake of it, she still manages to cough out - albeit with somewhat less gusto - "You had better kill me, because if I manage to get out of here, I'm gonna rip your fucking tits off."

A statement that might have sounded more threatening were it not forced from between chattering teeth.

"Oh, poor baby," Lenore said, mocking her with a pouty moue before glancing at one of the guards. "Bring me a chair."

Gazing down at her dripping captive, Lenore smirks with amused delight as Nightie's coloring becomes more obvious. "Oh, look at you with your red hair. We're practically sisters!"

Lenore doubts that her sister-queens would appreciate the comparison, but they're not here and Lenore is going to say what she likes. Whatever she thinks will get her eventually in the direction of her goals.

She waits calmly through whatever next string of insults will inevitably follow, but she's already glancing away as if bored when the guard comes back with her chair. She--most of the guards in their castle and soldiers in their army are female, though not all--sets it down for Lenore, facing the bars. Lenore takes a dainty seat, setting the basket on her lap. "We're not going to kill you." Well, not unless Lenore gives up, and that's not going to happen while she's so thoroughly amused. "Striga was too impressed. She said it would be wrong to kill anyone of your skill. Like destroying a masterpiece. These spice cakes aren't going to stay warm forever, you know. Would you like one?"

"Calling me a slave and a rat is one thing - if deeply lacking in imagination - but don't liken me to a creep like you. Like fuck would I ever be related to a pasty-ass, blood-sucking leech."

The insults, as predicted, continue to flow, despite the way Gideon's head is spinning from the shock of the cold water, from the extended period without food or even proper rest. Her body aches from the awkward way she's held within her retrains, the considerable muscles of her arms singing with pain. Could she make good on any of her threats if she did find a way to escape at this moment? Un-fucking-likely, and she's aware that Lenore must be aware of that too. That doesn't mean, however, that she is going to fold.

Even if there is a bright thrill of pride inside her at being called a masterpiece, at having someone so genuinely impressed by her that they refused to have her outright killed. This isn't precisely the kind of reward she'd so frequently dreamed of reaping for her skill and bravery though, and it stings more than a bit that the first time she's ever offered something that truly sounds like praise is from some bitch who just ordered her cronies to dump water all over her.

"Oh yeah, sure, let me just--" there's the heavy jangle of chains as she fakes reaching for one of the spice cakes that she sure as hell wishes she was eating, "oops, no, sorry. Can't. Because I'm in a fucking cage."

She says it with infinite derision despite the way her stomach positively aches, the way her mouth waters at the scent still wafting to her through the bars. When she swallows, she tries to make it as subtle as she can.

"And I'd hate to lean what you do with the trash if this is how you treat a masterpiece."

"Well, you did just make quite clear what you intend to do the moment you're not in a cage," Lenore points out, voice sympathetic and reasonable. "You can't be surprised by us keeping you in chains when you've been so very clear about the unpleasant things you'd do if we released you."

No spice cakes just yet, then, though Lenore doesn't intend to wait for long. Nightie is going to cooperate for her--to a certain degree, anyway. In a few minutes.

"I have a room picked out for you. It's next to mine. There's a large balcony and a view that looks out across the mountains. Huge bed, piled with pillows. Large fireplace, carved with dragons on either side. I feel like this conversation would be much more comfortable for both of us there, after a long hot bath for you--there's an adjacent bathroom, we have hot water running in pipes through the whole castle--but. Well. We can't really do that if you'd still prefer the killing and tit-ripping and so on." Lenore sighs. Such a pity that they've got to do this, with Nightie only the tiniest bit less rank after the cold shower. Unfortunately, buckets of soapy water probably wouldn't improve the situation.

Fair one...although this is something she thinks silently to herself rather than vocalising, because fuck allowing her captor to know that anything she says might be fair. Instead she only scowls, lips pulled back from her teeth in a feral snarl, a look that says yes, she'd bite and rip and tear with her teeth if she has to. Even if laughter does threaten to bubble out of her the moment Lenore’s rosebud mouth forms the words tit-ripping. She holds it together, maintains her furious poise.

Until Lenore's words sink down past her anger, that is. Gideon remains uncharacteristically silent. Her eyes are narrowed and calculating, sure, but there's the touch of confusion around their outer edges, in the sudden parting of her lips. Because even back in her own Kingdom she'd never been offered anything quite so shockingly decadent; her room had been a mean little cell, windowless and chill even during the summer months, devoid of anything one would call comfort. The castle itself had been only one step up from a ruin, with crumbling catacombs and cold water pumped up from a mustily-scented well. Her own King and Queen had never once offered her softness - she had, in fact, once been whipped bloody for committing the crime of touching a corner of King Priamhark's robe as a child - and therefore this new tactic quietly blindsides her.

"And then what?" she says at length, her tone crisp with incredulity, "where's the catch? You already said you're not gonna kill me-- which I’m not dumb enough to buy into, by the way. So what happens when you move me up to your fancy-ass room and I still give you sweet fuck all?"

Impossible that there isn't some terrible fate lurking behind this...but the water has done little to slough of the worst of the filth, her skin itches, and now she's fucking freezing to boot.

"Well, you still give me sweet fuck entertainment," Lenore points out, amused. "You just do so while we're both more comfortable and you're not stinking and caked in filth."

Rising to her feet, she sets down the basket and takes a single one of the spice cakes out of it. "I'm going to bring you one of these cakes, and you're going to think about how much you'd like to bite me," she says, taking a key from her pocket--she collected it on the way in, no need to call a guard to bring it over the way she'd done for the water and the chair. "And you're also going to think about how if you try to bite me, I'm going to strike you hard across the face, and then you'll have the taste of blood in your mouth and the ache of hunger in your belly." She unlocks the cage door and then returns the key to her pocket, standing in the doorway for a moment as she continues her little speech. "And you're also, also going to think about how if you don't try to bite me, you'll get to eat this cake. It's very good."

By way of demonstrating that it is very good, and that it isn't drugged, and that there's risk of it being taken away, Lenore tears off a bite of it and places it in her mouth. Chews. Licks honeyed crumbs from her fingertips.

Then she steps forward, calm and confident, and holds out the cake for Gideon to take a bite. She calculates her positioning carefully, so that Gideon will have to strain forward in order to reach the cake, which will minimize her ability to try biting.

She wants to do it. Wants to wait until the last possible moment before she rips this bitch's finger off. It'd take some work, with Lenore poised as far from her as she's able to be whilst keeping the cake in reach, but could she do it? Maybe. At the very least she could take a bite of the pastry, chew it up and spit it right back in her captor's face. It might earn her a backhand to the mouth, another bright flare of pain to add to the myriad she's currently feeling, but would it be worth it just to see Lenore's composure crack apart, just a bit?

But having watched the slide of Lenore's tongue against her fingertips, having the scent of something warm and good held so close to her face after fuck only knows how long since she last ate-- the vicious twist of hunger slices through her insides again. It comes so hard and fierce that she has to bite back on a moan, uses all of her remaining self-restraint to prevent the sound from passing her lips. Fuck but she's hungry and hurting and tired. So tired she wants to fucking scream.

She doesn't, though. Keeps her gaze fixed hard on Lenore's eyes for another lengthy moment, carefully tests herself against the restraints she knows aren't going to give. She could take her brief moment of satisfaction, or she can play the long game. Give herself a real chance of slaying every last one of these fuckers and burning the place to the ground.

It’s not like she has a whole lot of dignity left to hold on to.

"Fuck you," she says, but this time it sounds like the husky whisper of defeat. She finally lets her gaze drop low as she takes a ravenous bite of the cake, hating herself all the while.

Lenore restrains herself from commentary while Nightie bites and chews, not wanting to crack the already dangerously tentative ceasefire. She turns the cake to offer the next side of it so that her fingertips can still stay relatively safe, and then lets go on the third bite, letting her figure out how to get the whole remaining chunk into her mouth and chewed. "Good girl," Lenore murmurs, once her hands are safely out of the biting zone. She turns and goes back to the basket by the chair and takes out a wooden thermos, cleverly carved with a cap that screws off, the inside of it lined with copper.

Bringing back the open thermos, Lenore holds it for a moment so that the smell of it wafts out. Hot tea with a splash of lemon and a drizzle of honey, some brandy to add to the warmth and richness of it. It smells of herbs and spices, but it's brewed thin so that the honey and brandy can shine, and because the real purpose of this is to get their captive hydrated a bit but also to make it irresistible and luxurious, to teach her that nice things come with cooperation. "Open up."

Lenore holds the thermos out, keeping hold of the base of it so that her fingers remain out of reach while she tips it toward Nightie's mouth.

The taste of the cake is so pure and good that for one dreamy moment nothing else matters. The clinging dregs of her self-disgust are abruptly banished to the far margins of herself, because it feels like a fucking age since she last ate, and it was nothing as good as this. Maybe it's purely because she's hurt and half-starved that it seems as blissful as it does, more maybe it's the cheap, plain food she'd been given all her life up until now. It’s irrelevant; for a moment she just gives in to it, allows herself to be handfed like some fucking dog as her body pushes her to act on instinct and self-preservation alone. It's so good she could fucking cry (though she doesn't, a fact she'll be glad of later), and even Lenore's condescending good girl can't touch her at the moment.

It's good, but not enough-- just enough to dull the sharpest edges of her hunger. Enough that when she smells the tantalising contents of the flask that she knows she's going to do as she's told and drink it regardless of the consequences. If it's poisoned then fuck it all to hell; it's not the worst way one could go.

Her lips part as requested, and when the liquid within hits her tongue she could swear it's ambrosia of the Gods. It soothes the dry, thick feeling in her throat, and it's all she can do to prevent herself moaning in aching relief.

Lenore gives her new pet plenty of pauses to swallow and breathe, but she pours the whole of the thermos down her throat, making sure that she gets all the hydration, nutrition, and soothing that the tea has to offer.

"There you are," Lenore says with a smile, warm and approving. "Feeling a little less savage now?"

She returns to the door and locks it again, taking a seat once more in her chair on the far side and folding her hands in her lap. "I know you're still hungry, but since you haven't eaten in days you'll get sick if you eat too much at once. You can have more in a couple hours. I'll come back for that. For now, however, I'll answer your question about what the catch is. What it is that we want, why we're keeping you alive."

Pausing just a moment for effect and to be certain she's secured Nightie's attention, Lenore gestures with an elegant hand. "You're an asset. A masterpiece or whatever. So we want you to be our asset. Simple. Really, the only question is what you want in return."

She rests her elbow on the arm of the chair and props her cheek in that hand, languid and lovely, giving Nightie her full attention.

It galls her just a little to realise she does feel a little less savage. Sure, it's still there in her; the hot spark of her anger and her indignation, of her desire for revenge. It has softened though, it's edges now marginally dulled, even if all this really affords her is more space to perceive her multitude of aches and the nasty smell of her own skin. The hunger that continues to gnaw at her despite what she’s been given.

It also allows space for exhaustion to weigh heavy on her though, perhaps exacerbated by whatever had been in the tea; not poison, and not drugs, but something mildly soporific. Whether the sweetness or the brandy or her own body's long-awaited satiation, it's hard to say. Besides, Queen Bitch is talking again, and – reluctantly – she’s listening.

All throughout the short stretch of her life she's scrabbled and clawed and fought for scraps of recognition. For the meanest slivers of evidence that the kingdom to which she had been indentured could see that she was worth something. She'd hated that cold, near-derelict place right down to her very bones, but hammered just as deep was the desperate drive to be wanted, even if just a little bit. It instils mixed feelings in her now to finally receive those scraps-- but from some enemy territory. Her gold eyes flick upwards to alight on Lenore's face, and she's too close to the edge of herself to remember to be guarded. There's distrust in her expression, and anger, and a sparking kind of bitterness. But there's confusion too. Perhaps the barest flicker of interest.

"Well obviously I'm a fucking asset," her voice comes worn and weary now, but hasn't quite lost its bite, "but why would I wanna be your asset when you just fucked up my people?"

"I know," Lenore says, brow furrowing a tiny bit in empathy. "I'm sorry." She shrugs a little, apologetic but also acknowledging that what's done is done. "I won't bother with excuses. My sisters decided that the place was strategically valuable. We tried negotiation, it was declined." And quite rudely declined. Lenore can see where her pet learned manners.

"So we're here now, you and I. You're hurting, body and heart and pride. And I know it's hard to try and imagine anything else, any other life. I know it must seem easy to die, and Striga denied you that. Continues to deny you that. You'd be dead by now if it were up to Carmilla or Morana."

Rising to her feet, Lenore picks up her basket and hooks it over her arm. "Think about it. What you want. What kind of life you'd like to bargain for. I'll be back in a few hours and we can talk further."

That tiny shred of empathy, the simple words I'm sorry, make something go twang hard and deep in her chest. Maybe its entirely feigned for the benefit of manipulation, but there's something in that sentiment that nonetheless hits Gideon hard. Not that it makes her feel any better; instead she feels dirty and fractionally ashamed. This woman is partly responsible for the eradication of her kingdom, apologising in the aftermath does nothing to change that. It makes all the King and Queen's intimations of her faithlessness ring true; that she'll take validation wherever she can get it, that she does not deserve to be the one who had lived when their perfect little daughter had died.

Priamhark and Pelleamena would never have negotiated; theirs was a dark and bleak and ancient lineage that was to be kept pure no matter the cost, even when that cost had been their slow extinction following the plague. Or their swift one, following the invasion. Perhaps the Queendom's intervention could even be considered a mercy-- but it doesn't stop Gideon from quietly hating herself for her fleeting moment of weakness, for wanting to be comforted, even if it is from one of the harbingers of her Kingdom's doom.

"Yeah, yeah. Get the fuck out of here and leave me alone," she manages, with perfectly feigned - if weary - indifference. Bites down on the desperate plea she can feel rising in the back of her throat for Lenore not to leave her like this, still bound and aching and cold and sodden in her cell. Instead, she'll close her eyes and turn her face away to the extent that she's able; pretend she's in any position to enact a dismissal.

Lenore leaves her for only a couple of hours, during which time she does a little more research, asking more questions about what the invading soldiers saw, who they killed, who they captured. She's genuinely surprised to find that they brought no captives back to the castle. The conquered castle was full of old and withered people, bearing scars from an old plague. Those who had fought had died. A few farmers and servants had been left to their farms, but there were few enough of those.

When she returns, it's with a pair of guards carrying things for her. They set down their burdens just outside the cell, scurrying away skittishly from the bars, but Lenore opens the cell door without fear and carries the items inside, then locks the cell again from the inside, key returning to her pocket.

To one side of the prisoner, Lenore sets down two buckets of water, both steaming, a cloth rag, and a cake of soap--sweet-smelling and studded with rose petals. On the other side she sets down a tray with a bowl of rich stew of meat and vegetables and herbs, a tall mug of water, and a tall mug of cider. Next to the tray, a little bundle of clean clothing. In front of Gideon's left hand, she sets down three keys, to unlock her hands and feet but without any key that unlocks the collar. She then picks up one of those keys and tries it to the lock on her wrist. It doesn't work, so she puts it down and tries the next one.

The lock clicks open, and Lenore gently removes the metal cuff, wondering whether Gideon will immediately try to seize or strike her.

As soon as footsteps approach, Gideon's eyes flicker open from what - at best - can be described as fitful drifting at the borders of consciousness. Every muscle in her body seems to ache inordinately, strain pulled tight around her shoulders, but she still manages to bear her teeth at the skittish guards as they swiftly back away from her. An impotent threat, but she'll seize her small satisfactions where she can find them.

Lenore shows no such signs of fear as she steps into her cell, as she goes so far to lock it again behind her. Gideon arches a brow quite pointedly, but says nothing aloud of the vampire's quiet confidence. For now she stays silent - hard as it is for her to fight back the urge to run her mouth - and watches as Lenore places the various items before her with an obvious deliberateness. Curls of steam rise up from the buckets and let her know there'll be no frigid shock this time, and the smell of the stew has her insides twisting hard in continued, desperate need. It's clear enough what's being said without words here; refrain from violence and she'll be given more of what she so furiously requires.

She does think about it. Considers reaching for the pale and slender stem of Lenore's throat, tries to calculate the likelihood that she'll be swift enough to squeeze, whether she has the strength in her to snap it. Maybe it'd be worth it even if she can only get one good, clean hit in-- but ultimately decides against it. Better to give this a little more time, wait until she has a stronger advantage. So instead, once the cuff is removed she very slowly lowers her arm, rolls her shoulder in its socket. Battles hard to keep her face steely and indifferent even as pain shoots hard through muscles forced into one position for far too long. She just about manages it, aside from a slight tension around the mouth, a brightening of her eyes. Then she fixes her gaze on Lenore's face and waits to see what she'll do next.

Lenore's fingertips brush very briefly over her captive's wrist, noting the raw skin from the unpadded metal cuffs. "I'll bring a salve for that when I come back," she promises, rising to her feet and leaving the other keys where they are, so that Nightie can do her own figuring out which of her chains it unlocks, now that she has one hand free to do so. Lenore doesn't want to be in the cage with all Nightie's limbs free until after she's partaken of the current round of gifts, skin clean and belly full from the (still modest, for now, still enough to leave her hungry) portion of stew, to take down that savagery another notch. "For now, I'll give you some privacy to clean up. Take your time. I'll be back in another few hours."

Letting herself back out through the cage door, Lenore leaves her alone with the hot water and stew. She's aware that two buckets will end up being scant provisions for washing away that level of filth, but it should certainly be enough to deal with the worst of it.

It's a wise move, Gideon has to give her that. Entirely free of her restraints there's no telling whether her temper will hold, whether all she's been subjected to would rip through her and bring them to a bloody end. As it is, Lenore says little this time, pushes no mental buttons, and once she's retreated from Gideon's enclosed space she's swift to set about freeing herself.

Or partially freeing herself, as it transpires. Just three keys for four locks, and when not a one works on the collar chained about her throat she's angry yet unsurprised. It's an abortive kind of anger though, one that swiftly sputters and dies as she focuses instead on the stew, and the water, consuming both with ravenous intensity because fuck it, there's no one watching her now, and her whole body still screams for sustenance. It isn't enough, but it’s also verging on too much; her rate of consumption leaves her nauseous, abruptly wishing she'd taken at least a little more time over it. There's a full ten minutes where she does nothing but sit and breath in big, deep lungfuls of air, trying to settle the sick, reeling feeling.

It passes though, leaves her with enough strength to strip off the filthy rags that were once her clothes and scrub herself as close to clean with the only slightly cooled water as she is able to get. Does she feel good after this? Fuck, no. But she does smell more human than corpse, the scented soap a small delight never before encountered, and she can appreciate that her skin no longer feels itchy and vile with unspeakable grime. The keenest edge of her pain is subtly blunted by the fact she can now stretch her limbs, though her body is still hotly aching from the abuse it has recently endured, and the battle that had come before it. Her wrists and ankles sting where the flesh has been rubbed raw, but now only partially restrained and better fed the worst of her fury turns from a raging fire to subtly glowing coals.

A small amount of the water she saves to slough across the dirty floor, and once freshly clothed, with the cider consumed, she feels something closer to human. Closer to human, but more exhausted than she’s ever been in her entire, short life. Weak and starved as she'd been, injured as she is, these simple acts have taken more out of her than they have any right to. She tries to fight off the riptide drag of it at first, but it's too strong to resist forever; Gideon ends up foetal on the floor, dropping hard into a deep, black sleep.

Lenore leaves her to privacy, and it's true that Lenore isn't watching, though the guard station near the door still has a view into the cell. They glance over occasionally, but it's clear that they're disinterested, only checking for suspicious behavior. So Lenore has some reports that she receives, and she delays her return a little longer when she hears that her pet is seemingly deep asleep. She waits until the last quarter of the night--the first course had been brought just after sunset and the second just a couple of hours later, so Lenore gives her a few more hours to sleep now.

When she returns again, the guards bring another pair of buckets of hot water and Lenore carries another tray of food. That part of the routine repeats, where the guards move away, Lenore unlocks the door and brings the buckets inside, setting them just within her pet's now extended reach. She goes back for the tray and brings that as well, setting it down on the floor. This time, the tray contains a little more food, more substantial. Sausages and mashed potatoes, leafy greens, with a whole pear set beside it. Another mug of water and a smaller mug of hot mulled wine. And, as promised, a little pot of a healing salve for her wrists, herbal but pleasant. "How are you feeling?" Lenore asks, remaining on one knee near the edge of her captive's reach, ready to leap back but still choosing to be within grabbing range.

She's up and sat cross-legged by the time Lenore makes her presence known. Both her face and her posture are composed, trying to convey the chilly dignity of someone who isn't collared and chained in a shitty little cell. The chilly dignity that the Kingdom of Drearburh always so highly prized, and she has therefore had a lifetime to learn how to mimic. It's only slightly marred by the hot glint of her eyes, by something fierce yet sullen lurking around the angles of her jaw. Her gaze flicks between Lenore to her offerings and then back again, restraining herself from snatching the food-- it's not going anywhere. She’s fairly sure of this.

"Who, me?" her tone is sardonic, but no longer completely furious, "Oh yeah, I'm good. Great actually. Not at all like slightly warmed up shit. Seriously, what kind of answer are you expecting from me?"

So she hasn't dropped the attitude...but she makes no sudden or violent move toward her captor either. She could reach her, now. Perhaps she could do some damage before a guard was alerted and they piled in here to beat her raw. Instead, she waits a moment before slowly extending an arm, clearly telegraphic her intent to draw the tray and it’s heavenly-scented contents closer to her.

Lenore gives a shrug, accepting the sharp tone without offense. It's an understandable response. "Better. Clearly." But, yeah, she didn't really expect thanks, she'd mostly been checking in to see if there was any other crucial need that she hadn't thought of yet.

The floor is too gross for Lenore to sit with her pretty gown, so she rises and moves back to the door instead, leaning back against it, posture casual. Not to move out of Nightie's reach, but simply to have a more comfortable conversational stance. "If you need a break from the collar, we can swap back to wrist chains, but for now it will have to be one or the other. I can't trust you enough yet to remove the chains entirely."

She shrugs again, since this is just bare practicality. Lenore may have a few tricks up her sleeve that work in a pinch, but she's no combatant, certainly not one to compare with Striga. Even though she's making fast progress, they still have a lot of groundwork of trust that needs laying. "Have you made any decisions yet about what you'd want in exchange for working for us?"

It doesn't escape her notice; Lenore stands, languid and loose, but Gideon can extrapolate that she'd rather not wallow in filth the way that she has been debased to. Fair one, but in the very same breath it's also a hard fuck you. Her gaze cuts sharply toward her captor's face, but then drops back down to the tray again. She starts eating - more slowly this time, and without her earlier animality. In part to avoid a repeat of the nausea, and in part because this time she's aware she has an audience. An audience with a fancy dress, and a body unlike any she'd ever beheld back in Drearburh. Facts that are beginning to insinuate themselves into her consciousness now the peak of her fury has abated. Fuck her luck, that the first time she ever encounters the kind of woman she's only ever fantasised about, and she's some blood-sucker scum whose family have just lain waste to the closest thing she has to a home.

She keeps her focus on the food, on taking small sips of water, but she is listening. Though it's only when Lenore asks her question that she gives any indication that she's heard her. With a dry snort that might pass for a mirthless laugh, she looks up at her captor again, pausing in her slow, methodical refuelling.

"Good one. Since when were the spoils of war offered anything in return for their servitude?"

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