WARNING

This story may contain torture, gore, and other unsavory topics.

It is not recommended for those faint of heart or stomach.

This story was not created out of the authors interests, but as a reminder that the atrocities committed in this story are far from fictional. Many such actions are taken against fellow humans every day. I think it's awful, and I heavily condemn it.


Ashe didn't know what it was about singing to the birds. She would sing, and then the birds would sing back. They always did, always for her voice. She would strive to emulate their beauty, she would try for hours on end. It was a process that could sometimes take hours, but many of the song birds seemed to have great patience with her, engaging for hours on end as she slowly got closer and closer to their perfect tones. But then she would have to rest, or they would have to leave to attend to their young or feed themselves or simply because another bird chased them off. She was getting better though. She had to be, this had been something that she had been working on since she was a young child, blabbering incoherent tunes from her uncoordinated mouth. Her fellow dryads said that she was beautiful beyond compare, a prodigy, the epitome of the perfect nymph.

She wasn't so sure. She knew she had a figure that was unusually… curvy compared to the lithe figure of the average nymph, and not many could sing as well as she, but so many others seemed to be able to perfect their craft, and enter into a mirth of social gatherings without any self doubt. She was not like that. She still was far off from the pure and precise tones of the birds that sang to her, and she had yet to sing back with such prowess. And so, she sat upon a crook in her ash trees expansive branches, and harmonized with the birds that rested on the bows adjacent to her. She would do this until she perfected her craft, like so many others, or until she two was chased away like the birds two which she sang.

It was the latter option that came to fruition first. She had just climbed into her tree when a Bolas flew from the adjacent tree.

She crashed to the forest floor below her tree, the roots of her own tree cracking her ribcage and driving the breath from her lungs. Hands in rough leather gloves shoveda wad of cloth into her agape mouth, then strapped a bandanna around her head to keep it in. She rolled backwards, and would have sighed in relief if it wasn't for the sight looming above her head. The grinning face of a telkhine loomed above her, filled with a victorious glee at his capture.

He looked up to the tree from where the Bolas had been thrown. "Great throw, she's ours now." His voice softened into a low growl as he turned his head back to face her. "It's time to come home, pretty bird. It's time to come home." And before she could think, a bag was secured around her head and her world plunged into darkness, and she was whisked away into the tartarean abyss of the slave trainer's lair.

Ashe wasn't sure what the trainers expected from her. They seemed to think that she would, upon receiving a poor attempt at a guilt trip, mild starvation, and some light beatings, that she would roll over, show her belly, and become a docile, obedient slave. How naive they were. She repeatedly voiced her thoughts with the other nymphs, and yet none of them seemed to fully value her ideas, to fully agree with them. They all came from forests and oceans and clouds like her, ripped from their home, bar the few that were born into slavery. They all wanted nothing more than to be free. Despite this, they shied away at any mention of rebellion against the slavers, responding with hushed agreement as they cautiously glanced over to the guards. Months passed, and they seemed to warm to her ideals. They even occasionally voiced their own. She was getting to them, she was sure of it. It was only a matter of time before they could join together and escape.

The next morning she was dragged from her cell, kicking and screaming as her skin scraped along the course dungeon stone. She was pulled along for hundreds of yards down winding passageways and up stairs by her dracanae guard, before finally, he stopped at a door, opened it, and threw her inside. The room she entered was a beautiful contrast to the dank, dark and dreary cells and torture rooms she was used to. Vast murals of masters and slaves, all content in their places, broad smiles plastered across their faces. It looked so natural, she couldn't help but to think that maybe such a thing could happen. No. Shaking her head, she dismissed the atrocious thoughts from her mind, and stood to observe the contents of the room before her. The floor was completely made of soil, a deep rich and healthy brown, with little bits of vegetable matter strewn throughout. High above her, a beautiful glass ceiling stretched from wall to wall, glowing sunlight shining down on the main attraction of the massive room. Planted in the middle of the room was her ash tree, her life source. They had moved the colossal tree to the prison with her.

"Amazing, isn't it?" A telkhine, a rather high ranking one by the looks of him, had stepped into the room without her noticing. He held a mug of tea that filled the room with the delectable aroma of cinnamon. "The tradditional methods of torture weren't working on you. Your previous trainer wanted to throw you out, as in the space of many many months he has yet to get you to even budge. However, your...figure, rare as it is among nymphs, is too valuable for us to simple slaughter you like we did with some of your previous cellmates."

His cold words reminded her of some of the other disobedient nymphs that had shared a cell with her. They had disappeared long ago. "What...What is this, slaver?"

"Do you know how cinnamon is made, Ashe? It is made stripping the bark of a very special tree." With a wave of his hand, all the nymphs of her cell walked through the door, each holding a long, sharp blade with with handles on each end. "I figured we'd perform a demonstration of sorts. Although we shall not procure cinnamon from your ash tree, I'm sure you shall yield something much, much better. Begin."

As the nymphs began to walk towards the tree, she called out. "Wait! What are you doing? You all have blades, you can defeat this filthy telkhine and we can be free!"

One of the nymphs turned to her, a murderous glare on her eyes. "Do you know what your disobedient preachings in the middle of the night have brought upon us? DO YOU? We were beat for that. For your inane ideas that we should rebel. We do this, and the slavers favor is ours. That's something worth way more than any petty thoughts of rebellion."

Ashe's face fell. "Someone told on us...some betrayed us... One of you is a traitor..."

The telkhine chuckled, reminding Ashe of his presence. "One of them? You're funny, pretty bird. They all did. One by one they all spilled the beans. Not that it matters now."

Ashe turned to her fellow nymphs, her jaw dropped in shock, before it closed into a grimace of resolute fury. She had just started to rush forward to attack her cell mates when the first strip of bark was cut from her tree. She stopped, pain flaring through her. Then another strip, and another, until she collapsed on the ground, screaming as it felt like her very skin was peeled off.

Hours later, she had hardly noticed that the nymphs had finally finished peeling all the bark from her once gorgeous tree, leaving the strips discarded on the floor. She didn't even notice the nymphs oiling the tree, then leaving. The telkhine leaning over to speak to her finally broke hey from her pain induced stupor. "Ready to behave, pretty bird?"

In response, she spit a wad of sap in his face. "Very well." He withdrew a Zippo from his pocket, held it to the nearest branch, and lit it. Within seconds the entire tree was engulfed in flames.

Ashe wasn't sure at what point her vocal cords snapped. All she knew was her agonized cries turned to erratic breaths as she writhed on the floor. The flames bloomed upward, staining the glass with soot. After what seemed like an eternity, the glass panes shattered under the heat, leaving glass and rain to come cascading into the room. It took an hour for the showers to put out the fire.

One thing was for sure. There would be no magnificent Phoenix rising from this Ashe. For once, the beautiful bird had not escaped his immolation, and all that was left was a scraggly, beaten down Raven.

She was healed, and brought back to her cell, every step sending bolts of pain through her body. She wished they had just left her to die. The vicious beating laid upon her by the other nymphs was worse than anything the slavers had ever given her. Whether it actually was, or it was her now overly sensitive skin that caused it to be so, she didn't know. Or care.

On the third day, she crawled to the guards. "I'll do it...I...I'll sing for you." Their faces split into grins, and before she knew it, she was brought before the telkhine that burnt her tree. She stood, shivering, and gathered herself. She brushed back her hair, smoothed her dress and began.

She rasped out a single line, and stopped. Again, she tried, only for her singing voice to instead come out as a painful, hoarse whisper. She tried, again and again. No… she couldn't sing… no… The telkhine frowned, stood, and with no regard for the pain it caused her, threw her over his shoulder and took her, fighting all the way, and brought her back to one of the original torture rooms. He strapped her down tightly to the lightly padded table, and picked a hook from a tray while grinning. "Yes indeed, tweety bird, you will sing for me."

And with that, he held open her mouth and stuck the hook deep within her throat, scraping along the tender, mucus covered flesh. And sing she did, for the hour it took for him to be satisfied. Finally, he poured a potion down her throat, and for the first time in what felt like forever she breathed without green blood bubbling from her mouth.

Her saving grace came one day in the form of an oceanid named Palírroia. Ashe had just been transferred into her group, and it didn't take long for the ocean nymph's true value to come to light. It was during cleaning the mess hall that she once again rebelled. She needed to, they couldn't make her be the only one to suffer. Grabbing a can of salt from the cupboard, she poured it into the broth bubbling on the stove. It was only hours later that the chief chef burst through the door to their cell, and was marching towards Ashe when Palírroia stepped in his way. "It was me sir. I did it."

Ashe wasn't sure if the fact that they dragged a willing Palírroia to a beating for something Ashe did, or if it was the fact that they knew very well Palírroia didn't do it that caused the most disgust in her. She supposed they formed disgust of two types for that experience, for herself and for the trainers. Regardless, she started feeling disgust very often after that. Palírroia's selflessness made sure of that.

It seemed fitting that her saviour would come with her to the island where they would serve their new master. Palírroia seemed dedicated to serve her master, and adamantly hoped for a kindred lord. Ashe felt no such longings. She would serve, she would clean, but their master would not be nice. In the months she had spent under Palírroia's wing, her voice had come back. She vowed that her master would never hear her singing. That was a beauty she reserved for the birds alone. As she grew acquainted with the island, she found her life source, her Ash tree located in the forest. Slowly, she trekked to it, and climbed up. Every brush with the forest and eventualy her barkless tree, scarred from its torture, sent jolts of pain through her body. Finally, she reached the normal crook upon which she used to rest. At least once before her master came, she would secure a song between her and the songbirds she saw all across the island. She filled the air with her enchanting words and pulchritudinous melodies.

For the first time in her life, no birds came to sing.