For a split second, Anna found herself wishing that the gates of Hell would open up beneath her feet and drag her down to eternal damnation. At least that would spare her whatever unfortunate method of death Bloody Mary had in mind for her.
"So, goin' by the way yer jaw dropped to the ground, I'm gonna take a gamble that you have heard of me?" She let out a spontaneous laugh which almost sounded demonic. "Does that maybe explain the pee-pee stains on yer pants?"
Anna could feel herself shrinking away into nothing. Her new acquaintance had wasted no time in addressing what she had prayed no one in the prison would. Maybe she would've been wise to have found a way to hang herself in her cell that morning.
Still, even now, words inexplicably found a way to escape from Anna's jaws.
"Yeah, I pissed myself." God, what was going on? For all she knew, the term "piss" might be deeply offensive to Merida. "Hard to get to a toilet when your hands are chained to the bars on your door."
"Got a bit 'friendly' with a guard?" Merida was licking smothered apple from her lips, revealing unevenly red gums.
"More like he wanted to teach me a lesson early on." Anna wasn't even thinking about what she was saying at this point. She felt like a mouse facing a cat desperately trying to talk her way out of being eaten alive. "You see, I made a threat against the warden. I dared her to kill me."
"Ye what?" Merida's widening smile indicated that she had gone from amused to fascinated by this conversation. "That's pretty bold for a new fish in the pond. Does she have a grudge against ye or something?"
"Doesn't she have a grudge against everyone here?" She was dead! She was so, so dead! She was bound to screw this up eventually and find her neck under Merida's foot. "I mean, you saw what she did to that poor soul who tried to escape, right?"
"Ah, yes. The dead lass in the block of ice." She nodded fondly. "I laughed out loud when she showed her to me."
It took every ounce of Anna's control over her body to avoid releasing an incredibly ill-timed fart.
"Yeah, well, death's no stranger to me." Anna picked what was left of Merida's soggy apple from the ground and rubbed it against the sole of her unchained foot in an absentminded attempt to clean some dirt off it. "I mean, my parents died not that long ago, and..."
"Is that who ye killed?"
"Wait, what?"
"Yer mum and dad. Is that who ye sent into the ground?"
"Um...no." Anna dropped the apple core back to its resting place, feeling her anxiety banging on the door threatening to take over (along with her increasing need to pass gas). "No offense, but matricide isn't really my style."
"I suppose it's an art not everyone can fully appreciate." Merida practically beamed, snatching up the apple core and using it on her own foot, squishing a bug that was crawling around on her ankle in the process. "Who did ye snuff out then?"
"I never said I did..."
"Oh, don't play daft with me!" Anna couldn't tell if Merida was being playful or threatening her. "Someone as, to word it in a delicate manner, 'diverted' by the girls on the chain as ye were a moment ago doesn't end up in prison fer snatching wallets from a few pockets."
"So you think I ended someone's life so I could watch a bunch of unhappy women hack away at rocks all day?"
"No, I'm saying ye did it because ye like watching them hack away at rocks all day. Yer like me. Ya didn't take someone out in a 'do or die' situation. Nah, I'd wager ye killed someone in the interests of self-satisfaction. Ya wanted to do it."
"What makes you so certain I wasn't framed?"
"Like I haven't heard that nonsense enough around here. 'Oh, my boyfriend made me do drugs!' 'My boyfriend broke into the house, not me!' 'I shot me husband because he was beating the living daylights out of me!' I feel insulted every time one of those dumb wenches tries to pull that crap with me. This ain't some low budget softcore porno flick in which the innocent virgin gets gang-banged in the shower!"
Anna watched as Merida moved the apple core to her other foot and began scrubbing it with a bit too much vigor between her toes, her mind whirling around like a tornado as she tried to figure out where she was going with any of this. Was she trying to scare the living shit out of Anna or taking a stab at making fast friends with her?
"So...I'll ask again...what are ya in fer?"
"Is that a request or an order?"
Crap. There went Anna's dumb-as-dirt mouth again. Stupid Anna's mouth! But Merida continued to smile, throwing the core back to the ground where it would probably be left to rot away in the heat for days. Her smile remained as she reached into her pocket and pulled out a...
Anna's heartbeat suddenly went up a few octaves. Merida was holding a weapon!
"Wh...where did you get that?"
"Oh, this? This here used to be a fork. Ya can get 'em pretty easily from Dinglehopper. She's a bit of a quiet one, she is, but she likes to collect 'em or something. And when a girl is in her cell for a long time and hidden under her blanket, it's amazing what she can turn something like this into. It's crude, I know, but when you remove the weak edges of the fork and then sharpen the rest of it, ya do wind up with a fairly effective blade."
She swiftly placed it against Anna's throat, so close to her flesh that she was terrified of even swallowing as that might be enough to get her cut. Though made of fairly thin plastic, Merida had managed through her handiwork to make it dangerous, and if she were to push it into her with enough force, it could easily drive itself into her neck. Words failed her. Her eyes searched around, everywhere they could manage to dart, looking for anyone who might come to her aid, but all she saw from a distance were two bulky guards, standing vigilantly on opposite ends of Elsa.
Elsa?!