A/N: All dialogue in italics is in Arabic.
Merlyn's mistake is to house them in adjacent cells.
The walls are rough stone and far too thick to provide any access, but sound echoes and carries in the hallway. The dungeons were designed that way, so that one prisoner's screams of pain and moans of hopelessness would work to demoralize and torture the rest.
Sara does not scream in pain, though. She screams in rage and snarls in frustration, rattles her chains and lashes out.
Like an animal. Like an animal.
Because she is not Sara, but some soulless husk with her Beloved's form, a cruel mockery of the vibrant moan she loves. All because Laurel didn't listen, couldn't listen, wouldn't listen, to her warnings.
She cannot chastise the elder Lance sister too hard. They were a family who love so passionately it often overrules any rational thought. And if Nyssa herself hadn't been so weak, she'd have destroyed the Pit before they had any opportunity to raise her departed Yellow Bird.
She had held out a sick hope, though, that maybe the Pit would work better than she feared, maybe it would restore Sara body and soul. And she had even, briefly, dared to believe it had. There had been something in Sara's eyes in that flash where she paused and looked at Nyssa. But then she turned, like the monster Sara had tried so hard not to become, and attacked without restraint.
So Nyssa is equally to blame for the atrocity committed against her love, the desecration of Sara's chance to finally rest in peace.
And her punishment for that is to allow herself to be locked in a cell in a fortress hers by rights, listening to the love of her life howl into the night, like the ghost that's haunted Nyssa for a year.
She is weak even in taking her punishment, though. An hour of the screams and snarls, wrenching brackets and rattling chains is her limit, coward that she is, and she finally shouts in Arabic:
"Habibti, enough!"
The noise from the other cell abruptly ceases, much to Nyssa's surprise. All is silence, and she holds her breath.
"Habibti?" the voice in the other cell rasps out, rough and barely human, not Sara and yet, at least a piece of her.
"It is me, habibti," Nyssa tries, going to the bars of the cell. "Do you know who I am?"
Another agonizingly long pause and then:
"Mine," not-quite-Sara croaks.
Nyssa's knees go weak, and she leans against the freezing metal bars with her flushed forehead.
"Yes, Sara. Yours."
"Mine." The rattling begins again as Sara growls it. "Mine."
"Stop," Nyssa commands. "Stop."
Abruptly, Sara stills.
"You will hurt yourself if you continue to struggle. You need to rest. I will get us out of here, habibti. Rest as best you can. Do you understand?"
"Mine," the almost-Sara responds, almost gentle. And then. "Rest."
"Exactly."
She is standing in Sara's cell within another hour. This is her fortress. She knows its secrets; a number of its assassins are still loyal to her, and the rest at least hesitate before disobeying her, and hesitation is all she needs.
Not-Sara is crazed, excited, by the guard that Nyssa has to kill to gain final entry, his blood spilling onto the floor.
Nyssa quickly learns that this shell does not respond to suggestion and request. Command is all she understand.
"Be still," Nyssa says firmly, and with a final thrash, shell-Sara obeys.
Nyssa pulls down the chains that connect her Beloved to the walls and floor, but, with difficulty, leaves the shackles at her wrists and ankles, unsure of how long this obedience will last. Not-Sara doesn't like that; she snarls again, but before she can move, Nyssa takes her face in her hands, meeting her wild eyes.
"Enough."
Almost-Sara leans her cheek into Nyssa's left hand, even closing her eyes.
"Mine."
Nyssa gasps before steeling herself.
"We must get your sister," Nyssa says in English, and though Sara still looks at her with something familiar, she shows no recognition of what Nyssa has said.
Nyssa dares to remove her hands and takes one of Sara's raw wrists in her hand. Shell-Sara hisses and recoils, but Nyssa murmurs an apology and takes her hand instead.
"Come with me," she commands.
Laurel's door bursts open, and before she can react, two League assassins are tossed in. Sara leaps after them, tearing them apart, even in shackles. Then her sister turns her gaze to her, wild and soulless.
"Sara, no," Laurel cries as Sara begins to stalk towards her.
Nyssa and Thea come running into the room, and Nyssa barks something authoritatively in Arabic.
Sara freezes.
Laurel gapes as seconds pass, and Sara keeps her attention fully on Nyssa.
"You can control her!"
"We will discuss it later," Nyssa says, turning to Thea. It's a mistake; Sara's eyes follow Nyssa's every movement, and when she sees Thea, she leaps again. Nyssa catches her chains and spins her around, yelling in Arabic, but it isn't enough.
"I am sorry, habibti," Nyssa says in anguish as she jabs Sara with the needle in her hand.
Sara slumps into Nyssa's arms, and Nyssa gingerly, tenderly, scoops her up like a sleepy child.
"Grab a sword and make yourself useful," Nyssa says, not unkindly, to Laurel and Thea. "We are leaving."
tbc
