Small One slowly came back to awareness, groggy and confused. She was lying on her side, with something chafing at her legs and wings and a smooth floor rubbing her scales. The ground was shaking slightly, and every now and then a jolt would send her into the air briefly. Trying to open her eyes resulted in a pounding headache that warded her off. She lay there, breathing shallowly, and simply listened to the low rumbling from the ground and what sounded like muffled calls from other beasts in the distance.
She wasn't sure how much time had passed before she finally worked up the nerve to open her eyes, but when she did her confusion only grew. She was inside some sort of boxy structure, formed of long bars of tough grey material. Scenery rushed past in a blur outside the bars, and looking at it made Small One's stomach lurch. She tried to stand up and investigate her surroundings some more, but something had caught her legs and tangled them painfully together. She glared back and saw a fibrous substance, like someone had dried the vines that hung from trees, wrapped in coils around her legs and tying them together. Pulling with one leg to try and free herself only resulted in a painful tugging on the other.
Growling, Small One reached back to try and chew her way through the brown vines, but found she couldn't open her jaws. Crossing her eyes to glare at her own snout, she saw a flat black thing winding its way around her snout, holding her mouth firmly shut. She scraped her head along the smooth, metallic floor, but the muzzle held in place. Her jaws shivered from the effort of trying to force her mouth open, until she finally gave up, partly out of fear she would burst something if she tried any harder. She growled and glowered at her bound limbs. If she had her claws, freeing her snout from the binding would be easy. But she needed her teeth to free her claws.
Unable to move and unable to get the restricting wrappings off, Small One was forced to lay stewing in indignation as her prison rumbled along. Trying to figure out where she was going made her head hurt all over again. The green of the forest was nowhere to be seen, and the blurred colours beyond the bars gave few hints as to where she was. Only the sky remained unmoving, bright blue with only a few small clouds drifting along.
After a while, the rushing scenery slowed, until Small One could make out a massive, shining tower, sunlight reflecting off of its pristine surface. Countless death-prey scurried about at its base, some with loose skin and some with hard shells. Low cries reverberated from within the tower, and to Small One's ears they sounded sad and empty. She was so focused on the tower that she didn't notice her prison had stopped moving until a wall swung outwards. A loose-skinned death-prey reached its forelimbs towards Small One, and though she tried to wriggle away, it wrapped its arms around her and hefted her into the air.
It brought her up to its face, making cooing sounds. Small One tried to encourage it to drop her with the iciest stare and lowest growl she could muster, but all it did was close its little eyes and make a strange barking noise. It cupped Small One in one flexible forelimb and used its free claw to scratch behind her ears, which felt surprisingly nice. Not that Small One would give her captor the satisfaction of purring for it. The death-prey swept its long mane back and strode towards the base of the tower, cradling Small One and garbling at other death-prey that approached.
The interior of the tower was like a maze, with long corridors branching off into rooms, bustling with death-prey of all shapes and sizes. The one carrying Small One traveled with purpose, as though it somehow knew every inch of this strange, unnatural territory. It carried her through hallways and down ramps, and steadily the herd of death-prey thinned until it was just Small One and her captor, the busy garbling of the death-prey a mere rumble in the background. Small One's ears perked as the low, grumbling moans of monsters reached her.
Small One found herself being set on the ground, and immediately got to work flailing and trying to get up. But just like in the moving prison, her bound legs meant the most she could do was flop about like a swimming prey. The death-prey who had carried her down cooed at her again, even as it fiddled with a barred wall that lead to a dark, dusty room that smelled like despair. The wall swung outwards, and Small One was picked up again and deposited onto a pile of dry grass in the corner. The death-prey plucked a circular object from the wall and crouched next to Small One, still making its cooing noises.
Small One twisted her head and thrashed as much as she could to try and discourage it from coming any closer, but her assailant was unfazed, and it slipped the rough, heavy thing around Small One's neck. Then, to Small One's surprise, it reached down and began to tug at Small One's leg bindings. As soon as they were free, she flexed her aching legs to stand up, but the death-prey pressed one hand on her back, pinning her to the floor. It used its free hand to reach into the folds of its skin and find a gleaming claw, which it brought to Small One's snout. Small One held herself as still as possible. Now was not the time for thrashing.
Rather than kill her like she was expecting, the death-prey used its claw to slice through the binding on her mouth. As soon as she could move her jaws, Small One lunged at the death-prey, but it pulled its hand back and out of snapping range. Still holding her down, it began to stand up, garbling at her again. Small One could feel the pressure of its arm lessening, and she tensed herself to leap. The death-prey pulled its arm back and Small One jumped at it with claws outstretched, only to be pulled painfully short, her throat momentarily being tugged at.
Small One twisted her head to see what had pulled her, while the death-prey, now outside of the dark room, closed the wall and fiddled with it again. A length of interlocking shiny rocks connected Small One's new neck binding to the wall, giving her just enough freedom of movement to reach the bedding pile and the long pool of water in the corner. Pulling at it to try and reach the moving wall just resulted in more pain to her throat, and clawing at it was like trying to cut at a rock. The death-prey made one last cooing noise at Small One before it turned to leave, its feet clacking on the smooth stone floor as it went, leaving Small One alone in the dark.
Does Small One free her mouth from the binding? (Strength = 5)
Small One rolls a 6 (required 15). Failure.
On the buzzer for posting this one (it's 11:30PM as it's going up), but I made it.
Also, I never said what time period this story took place in, did I? Welcome to the Ancient Civilisation.