She felt like she was going to be sick. Her eyes were unfocused and hazy, the world a discolored blur through her tears. This was so wrong she didn't know what to do. Her fingernails were stained a coppery red, having dug into the flesh of her palm long enough for the sluggishly bleeding scratches to start to clot over them. Her lips were bitten through, and her pretty, bruised little mouth-

Sophie couldn't help shuddering as another sharp wave of pain rocked through her body. This was so wrong. It felt like a nightmare, one of the ones where no matter how hard you tried, how much you cried, every time you opened your mouth to scream nothing came out. The monsters under your bed almost had you, your fingers were scrabbling to hold on to the edge while the rocks crumbled away to dust, the men were three steps behind you and you couldn't get out of that alley fast enough-

She sobbed as quietly as she could - not because she didn't want to attract their attention, but because the makeshift gag shoved between her lips wouldn't allow her to be too loud.

This was so wrong. There were things in places she'd hardly broken in herself, greedy eyes looking at parts of her she sometimes blushed to see in the mirror, and this was all so unfair!

She was the eldest of three. She was supposed to end up an old maid, some kind of crazy old cat lady living in a shack in the shadier part of town. She was supposed to try and build a house of sticks, or turn into some petty, selfish stepsister. She wasn't supposed to be-

Sophie cried out once more as one of the men groped too harshly at her breasts.

This isn't fair, this isn't fair, this isn't fair! Sophie wanted to scream. I'm not even that pretty!

They'd called her a mouse, of all things. Why would they want to do this to someone who they thought looked mousey? Not that she wanted them to pick someone pretty, of course. When it came to pretty girls, the first one she could picture was-

Lettie. And oh god, what was Lettie going to think? Sophie would have to go home (if they let her go home, she thought with a pathetic sort of shudder) and see her and then Lettie would know.

Everyone would know, Sophie realized with slow dawning horror, her eyes going wide even as her entire body seemed to numb itself. She lived in a small town. Word would spread faster than they would soon be saying she spread her legs.

There would be nowhere that she could go, nowhere she would be anonymous. The other girls that worked in the hat shop would all laugh at her, and Lettie would be too ashamed to be seen with her - not that Sophie would let herself spend any time with her sister, not when she knew what kind of damage that would do to Lettie's good, pure reputation.

She'd have to leave. She'd have to run away to the Wastes, or go to another town and start up a new life, or-

pain rippled between her legs as she felt something burn. Sophie felt herself jolted back to the moment, the feeling of slick, slick blood sliding down from between her legs making her want everything to be over, so she could just die already.

There would be no running away, not to some other town. How could she be so stupid! Like she could ever forget, like anyone could ever not notice! She was ruined. She was ugly, and mousey, and worthless, and she was never going to go anywhere, ever again, and it was all because of these stupid men!

Blinking the tears away from her eyes, Sophie took a deep a breath as she could, considering her current predicament, and turned her neck far enough to be able to see something other than. Well. The wall's bloody finger painting of her current situation. She hadn't wanted to have to watch any of it before, but now it burned so bad she had to look in truth, had to see if they'd done something different, done something to break her for real-

With a sick feeling in the hollow of her throat, Sophie realized that it wasn't just blood that was slicking down between her thighs.

The tinny laughter of the soldiers sounded far off. The ground seemed to be rushing up to meet her, even though she wasn't moving. The world blurred, and then refocused, blurred, then refocused.

There were thick, slimy trails of white stuff falling out of her.

Sophie choked down the bile rising in her throat. The last thing she needed was more disgusting tasting liquids flavoring the remains of her skirt-turned-gag.

She was disgusting and impure and unclean and oh god they weren't even done with her yet because the one had grabbed her face and made some indecent gesture and was taking off her gag and oh god not again.

She didn't know what she was supposed to do. She felt helpless, she was helpless. She was still a teenager, practically a little kid. She still got dolls from her mother on her birthday.

She was pushed against an alley wall, her eyes looking blankly past the two men who thought her mousey, past the blood and semen that was dripping down to form a puddle at her feet, past the angry looking face of what had to be the prettiest, and she hated it when girls used that word to refer to men because men were cruel, vicious, and handsome, not pretty, but looking at him with his pale hair and vibrant eyes and fucking delicate looking cheekbones-

There was a man. Sophie blinked rapidly, shedding the last of her tears and opening her eyes as wide as they'd get in order to make sure she wasn't hallucinating.

She wasn't.

There was a man standing in the alley, the most beautiful man she'd seen in her life - not that that meant much, seeing as she'd thought the first soldier wasn't too bad looking, and look what good that did her.

But he was still standing there. And even if he was a man, even if he was some hideously selfish one like the two she had quickly become very well acquainted with, if only in the biblical sense, he was still human, and he was still there.

Looking at her.

And he looked...

Angry.

Help me, Sophie tried to scream but couldn't, her lips moving and no sound coming out. She wanted to scream in frustration, dig her fingernails into elbow and then rip all the way down her forearm to her wrists. Here he was, here anyone was, and she was too fucking something to ask for help.

And then she didn't need to. Because that was him, his slightly blurry features sharpening as he stepped into the little alcove of the alley, and he looked even more heartrendingly beautiful from close up.

It was a good thing that, at this point, Sophie thought a bit hysterically, she was pretty sure she didn't have a heart left to break.

"Honey?" His voice was dangerously smooth, all raging forest fire covered in white hot ash. It was the first sound Sophie had heard clearly ever since that man had grabbed her arm. With the sound of it, the wall of silence she had built over her shattered, and she could suddenly hear the harsh breathing of the two soldiers and the occasional plip! of another drop of some type of bodily fluid hitting the ground.

She wasn't sure if she happier or not for being able to hear it.

"Sorry," By now, the two soldiers had noticed something was wrong. "for being so late." She couldn't see their faces, but by the way the furious look the man had upon his face had faded into something much more... something, she could guess that they had lost most of their bravado.

It wasn't like she didn't understand it. She almost sympathized with them. She was about ninety-nine percent sure it wasn't her he was angry at, and even she was resisting the urge to curl up under the covers and hope the world wouldn't see her.

But, well, she wanted to do that anyway, because of the two aforementioned shirking soldiers, so she wasn't giving them any quarter on her moral grounds.

"Honey?" The deceptively calm voice was back again as the beautiful man seemed to reign himself in. His face smoothed out, his eyes flickered back to a distant opaqueness, and even his hair seemed to straighten out.

Despite his softening, Sophie couldn't keep herself from flinching at his word choice. Honey was not how she wanted to be referred to by any greedy, selfish man. She had enough trouble when men called her mousey. She'd hate to see what they might be compelled to do if they thought she was sweet.

The blond man's eyes flickered from her to the two soldiers. "Would you mind?" He asked, almost pleasantly. For a brief, horror stricken moment, Sophie wondered if his aims weren't so different from her previous captors after all.

The soldiers seemed to have much the same idea. "Hey," the easy smiling one said, raising his hands up non-provocatively. "Find your own. My friend and the pretty lady here are busy-"

"It wasn't a question," the man retorted. And then, for what seemed like no reason at all, both soldiers abruptly stiffened, turned on their heels, and marched down the alley. Sophie, glancing down at their deserted garments, didn't know whether she should laugh or cry.

A dangerous sort of look played on the blond's face - some cross between a smirk and a scowl. For some inexplicable reason, Sophie was suddenly very glad that she wasn't one of those soldiers. Then he turned back to her, his eyes flickering to her tear-stained, bloodied face before glancing away. It took Sophie a moment to realize he was trying to preserve her modesty.

Ha. Too little, too late.

"If the lady would care to get dressed?" The man murmured, head still respectfully bowed away. Sophie was about to scoff, and ask in what, because her old dress certainly wasn't going to be of any use to anybody anytime soon.

Well, she'd like to think she'd scoff, but mostly she was about to collapse on the floor, wrap her arms around her legs, and cry. If any was the time to break down in hysterics, she supposed now would be that time.

Except. What. Was. That.

There was a dress hanging off of the man's outstretched arm.

Well, that's convenient, Sophie thought, her mind numb from shock. She reached out to snatch the soft fabric away from him anyway. Contrary to what would most likely soon become popular belief, she wasn't a fan of public indecency.

The dress fit, Sophie noted in a daze. Surprisingly well, actually. And it was much closer to her style than most of the dresses in fashion were. She turned around to look back at the man only to find that-

Her dress was gone. Not the one she was wearing, thankfuckinggod, but the one that was, well. No longer much of a dress.

Her hands shaking, Sophie looked down at what she realized was an eerily familiar skirt. If not for the fact that this dress, being mostly sleeveless and slightly less long, contained less material-

"Sorry," the man had apparently realized she was done dressing and had turned to look at her. "I couldn't save all of the fabric."

Right then. Sophie wiped her bloody palms on her skirt. "That's alright," she forced herself to say, mouth dry. She could see it, now, a bloody looking ball of material shoved against the alley wall. She looked back down at her dress. Her dress. Looking newer and better than ever.

Sophie finally convinced herself to look back at what she now suspected to be some sort of magical being, a wizard, most likely. She supposed he could be a demon, but, well.

She didn't think a demon would save her, make her a dress, and then stand awkwardly, shifting from foot to foot, as he waited to see what she said of it. Maybe if he was demanding she give her heart or something in payment, but glance nervously from his shoes to her and then back to his shoes?

She kind of figured a demon would be more impressive.

Sophie waited in an awkward, uneasy sort of silence until it finally hit her that he was waiting for her to say something. Great. "Are you a wizard?" She finally blurted out, hoping he'd stay on the relatively safe topic.

He looked up from his shoes, alarmed. Sophie held back a snort. What did he think she was going to do, call the police on him? The last thing she wanted to do was have to answer some uniform wearing man's questions about why she was all torn up.

Like she ever wanted to tell anyone any of that.

"What makes you say that?" The wizard asked, fingers fidgeting with each other. If Sohpie could have felt like doing anything at that point, right then she would have felt like rolling her eyes. She glanced pointedly at her current apparel and then at the soiled pile of shredded fabric that was all that remained of her former dress. "Oh! Yes... That." He rubbed at his arm nervously. "I can explain!"

Sophie gave him a doubting look. "I know you're not the Witch of the Waste," she said, watching him start at the name. "Although, judging by those clothes..."

"What's that supposed to mean?" The wizard said rather sharply before seemingly remembering something. "Oh. Not that there's anything wrong with what you said!" Sophie looked at him oddly, quirking one slim eyebrow.

"I understand that you-" Suddenly, the man cut off what he was saying to glance down the alleyway. Something he saw apparently startled him, because he quickly stepped away before glancing back at her. "I'm sorry," he said, his voice suddenly very serious. "But I'm being followed."

Sophie looked at him, a faint feeling of alarm managing to fight its way through her numb stupor. What was he saying? He couldn't just leave her here! What if the soldiers came back? What if whatever was following him decided it could take a detour to bother some bleeding girl in an alleyway? "You can't just leave me here!"

His mouth set into a firm, hard line, and Sophie half wondered if he was going to argue with her. "Fine then," he quickly moved towards her, reaching for her hand. When she flinched back, his voice softened. "If you're coming with me, we've got to go. Now."

Fear and worry and anger filled her chest like so much thick blood pudding. She let him grab a hold of her hand and pull her down the street anyway. "It looks like you're involved," the wizard remarked almost pensively.

What on earth was he talking about? "We're headed down a dead end!" The wizard's face softened when he heard the fear her voice, which was great and all, because he was starting to look sort of frightening, but Sophie would much rather he do something about the wall blocking their escape than try to play at be comforting.

Present problems aside, he wasn't very good at it.

"Don't worry," he said as he gripped her hand tighter than before. "Just straighten your legs and keep walking!"