It was so dark. Sigyn was standing on a hard floor, shaking as the cold pierced through her with an amazing efficiency. But the cold didn't mask the smell, and that's how she knew where she was.
It was a terrible smell, one that she had become accustomed to not long after she had been experimented on and thrown inside a cell with hardly a second thought. It was the smell of several things combined. The first was human waste, festering and sitting for days without being removed. The other was the smell of a live body, unwashed for weeks.
Sigyn had spent months alone before anyone even thought of emptying the bucket they had so graciously given her to relieve herself. It didn't matter much to them that the bucket had been overflowed each time they came to retrieve it. But that had been years ago, at the beginning of her imprisonment. But, just because she had spent years smelling terrible and surrounded by other horrible rotting odors didn't make it any less putrid.
She listened, searching for sounds of a person in the cell if her assumptions were correct. It was almost complete silence. But she waited, knowing that there was going to have to be a sound to indicate something. She wasn't surprised at the scratch of nails that sounded outside the cell. She was familiar with the sound of rats and their behaviors.
She dismissed the sound and took several more moments to listen. There. It was almost silent, but there was someone in the cell with her, taking deep and even breaths. They didn't move as she waited, and she stayed still for fear of being attacked. She kept her breaths as even as she could, though her heart raced in her ears.
She didn't know the person who's cell she had invaded, and even if it was the man she met before she didn't know if he was friendly. There were so many things that could go wrong.
There was only the sound of the breather, her racing heart, and the rats outside the cell for such a long time that Sigyn started to relax by instinct. Her adrenaline had run its course and now she was left shivering in the frigid air. She could feel and hear her breath become more ragged as her body started to react to the cold to preserve heat.
"I can hear you breathing."
The sudden voice breaking the silence caused Sigyn's heart to jump and more adrenalin to pump through her bloodstream. She stumbled back automatically, her back hitting bars. She followed the bars to a wall, then the wall into a corner with two solid sides. It was closer to where she had heard the voice, but she felt more comfortable with two solid sides protecting her. She hunkered down, making her self as small as she could, both to conserve heat and to become a smaller target.
She recognized his voice as the same one from the cell she had been in before. It was distinctive, accented, and there was a snark behind every word the man said. The cube had brought her here, to the same cell that contained the same man as the last time.
Sigyn had no idea why this man, or this place, was so important, but there had to be a reason after two trips and over a month's preparation to get her here. But that didn't mean she didn't mentally curse the cube for sending her, leaving her in the dark with a man she couldn't trust.
But as she sat there, waiting for something to happen, for the man to speak, the darkness closed in on her, adding to her already unstable mental status. She hadn't been anything close to this cold in several years, her cells thankfully heated enough for her to survive. Sigyn couldn't remember ever being in such low temperatures as she was now. She had experienced many winters, somewhere she fended for herself on the streets with hardly anything more than a shirt and skirt.
Her shivering continued as the time passed, and eventually faint light started to shine through the bars of the cave. It wasn't the gray of dawn that she remembered from her past, but instead an almost blue light that drifted closer and closer.
There was a bang of a door, a shuffling of feet from far away, and Sigyn could hear the footsteps approach the cell. The burning torch was the first thing she saw as they came into view. She had to concentrate not to suck in a breath as she saw what was carrying it.
It was the same beast she had seen the last time she had been here. It laughed as it looked into the cell at the dark-haired man she could now see in the firelight. The thing tossed something that looked like a lump of food at the man saying "breakfast" in its terrible voice.
It laughed again as it lit another torch burning just outside the cell and then lumbered out of view once again.
Out of the corner of her eye, Sigyn watched as the dark-haired man retrieved the lump of food and went back to his pile of torn blankets. He politely ate the lump as if he were at some fine dinner in the presence of royalty.
She had to admire him for that. Even now, when her food was delivered to her, she usually scarfed it down as quickly as she could, not taking time to be polite about eating it. She only slowed down long enough to savor the taste. This man obviously had something to prove, to himself or her, though she wasn't sure what it was.
When he was done eating, he stood to stretch and Sigyn caught him looking at her with a calculating eye. She just curled herself into a tighter ball, wishing that the cube would take her back to her cell, where she was safer, and alone. She didn't care why the cube had brought her here, all she wanted was to go back to her cell and stay alone and unbothered until the day she died. But still she remained there, the man watching her as if he could see her very soul.
Eventually, he sat on his pile of blankets, still watching her but with less intensity than before. Instead, his eyes showed curiosity.
"I have studied illusions and magic for centuries longer than you have been alive. And yet you appear, in a place magic is impossible to wield. I have thought about how that could have been, how you had suddenly appeared in this cell while I was absent, only for you to explode into blue fire.
"I've spent the last months thinking of how that could be. And just as soon as I had decided it must have been a hallucination or a trick to get me to comply, you appear again, exactly in the same way you had disappeared.
"So tell me, how does a small, spineless girl end up in a place as terrible as this?"
Sigyn watched him from the corner of her eye as he talked. Regardless of her abilities to know what emotions were running through a person's mind, she had become very good at observing with just her eyes. Once, before she had been found out and taken because of her abilities, she had rejected her powers and could tell the emotions of a person with a single glance. This dark-haired man, while different and much more difficult to read, still showed outwards signs of what he was feeling inside.
She could tell his exterior was nothing more than a thin shell he had built around himself, protecting him from her, but more importantly, from those that wanted to hurt him. She didn't know what those creatures were, or what they wanted from him, but the dark-haired man hadn't shown as much fear the brief first time she had seen him. Something had changed. And that shell he had constructed around himself was close to breaking. She could see the cracks in it from the way his eyes shined with fear and sorrow behind the curiosity he was looking at her with.
He didn't show any outward signs of physical injury, but Sigyn could still tell there was evidence of torture. He favored his right arm only slightly. He was trying to hide it, or it had healed enough to be less noticeable, but there was an injury there. He seemed to be favoring almost every part of his body. He had to have been in no small amount of pain.
But her attention flicked back to his eyes where the emotional pain that had been hiding underneath glinted just for a moment. This man had known great sadness, was still trying to understand and cope with it even as he was tortured by the people who now kept him in this cell.
Sigyn realized that the two of them were the same, yet so very different. Had this man been telling the truth when he had last spoke, he had endured a lifespan longer than even what she had experienced. They had both known such sadness and loneliness, had been isolated from the people that they loved. And if he possessed magic like he had claimed, had studied it… Maybe she wasn't the only one of her kind, cursed to live centuries past what her family and loved ones did.
But, as much as she had in common with him, they were different. The man had let his sorrow consume him, let it determine how he reacted, the decisions he made. She could see the guilt in his eyes, much different than the guilt she felt herself. She hadn't let it take over her life. He was haunted by his past because of the things he did, for reasons he now found to be unacceptable. And she, while haunted by her past, didn't feel the same way.
Sigyn didn't know the man, had only spent a few hours in his presence, but she understood what he needed. After over a century of helping people with her power of emotions despite what she had experienced, she knew exactly what he needed.
She took a deep breath, slowly uncurling, her legs extending and arms pushing her up off the floor. She moved with slow movements not to startle the man, and so that she could watch him for any signs that he would attack her. Sigyn took small steps towards where the man was, unaware of the shivering of her body, only focused on helping someone in need.
When she was close to the man, Sigyn knelt, her knees complaining against the hard, cold ground. But she ignored it, reaching her hand out slowly toward him. Their eyes locked as her hand approached his own. She looked into his light blue eyes, and he into her own darker blue. Each was vulnerable for different reasons. But Sigyn still reached out and touched her fingertips gently to the back of his hand.
No bond snapped into place, but instead a slow warmth that spread from the contact of their hands. Both the man and Sigyn relaxed, their bodies sagging as if a large amount of pressure had been lifted from their bodies.
Sigyn moved, keeping her fingertips touching his hand, so her back was against the wall, almost as far as she could be from him while still keeping contact. Gently, after time had passed with the two sitting that way, Sigyn laid her hand completely atop his.
They both watched as faint light slowly filled the hallway outside the cell, watching as the fire flickered and danced, neither saying a word.
Sigyn, feeling comfortable around the man now that she knew he wasn't going to attack her, felt tired and closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the wall.
She dozed off not long after, her head lolling against the wall. But, her sleep was interrupted by the sound of a large door, then heavy footsteps from far away.
They were coming back, those things that Sigyn had no name for. Those monsters who laughed at the dark-haired man's pain, who threw his food on the dirty ground. She didn't know why they were coming, for she didn't think any cells around her, if there were any other than the one she was currently in, had occupants. They would only be walking down this way for one reason. The man.
She instinctively jerked away from him, scrambling back to her corner where she curled into the same small ball as before. The man didn't stand or give any outward sign of her quickly moving away from him, or the sounds of the feet that stomped through the hall, growing closer.
Two beasts appeared from the same direction as the last time, one unlocking the cell as the man stood from his pile of blankets.
"Time for another torture session is it?" The man moved forward, looking at Sigyn from the corner of his eye before moving his attention back to the beasts.
The things, Sigyn still couldn't decide what to call them, didn't laugh or say anything. From behind, Sigyn could see the man's shoulders drop slightly, though his head tilted a little higher.
"So, I am to be at your master's mercy again today. Very well, I do not have the energy to play with you two anyway."
His voice, while sounding as light and as unbothered as Sigyn had ever heard, held a small amount of tension. She abruptly feared for him as he stepped and followed to two guards The slammed the cell door shut and he didn't look back at her.
It had to have been hours as she waited there. The guards didn't come back, she didn't even hear the scurry of a rat as she sat shivering once again. Yet exhaustion took over. She had only sat in this cell for hours on end, but yet she could feel her energy draining away, as if something was siphoning it out of her.
But there was nothing she could do now, no use in trying to stay awake. The guards either didn't care that she was there, hadn't seen her because they were so focused on the man, or maybe they couldn't see her in the first place. Whatever it was didn't matter. She would wake if she heard the door opening and the footsteps of those beasts.
She rested her head against the wall, pressing her cheek against it despite the warmth it stole from her, and fell asleep. The cold didn't keep the memories disguised as dreams away.
She healed quickly, that much she could remember from being in the hospital. She had been told not to worry about a thing, that her siblings were being taken care of as she recovered. But her pain had stopped only days after she had been shot by her father. There was only a small red scar that was already fading.
She knew it baffled the doctors. They had to remove the bullet that was embedded in her shoulder, though it hadn't hit bone or any major arteries. They told her that she was very lucky, that she would only walk away with limited use of her arm. But when she had started to heal quickly the doctors were amazed, not able to explain what was happening.
When word got out to the other doctors and nurses they started to call it a miracle. Several nurses and doctors had told her that she deserved the miracle after the misfortune that had befallen her family. Several pastors and ministers had stopped by to pay her a visit, and she could tell they wanted to see the living miracle and hope that being near her would bless them.
After the doctors finally released her she returned home, finding her siblings and a neighbor sitting in the parlor waiting for her. They greeted her with shouts of joy, hugging her as she clung to them as tightly as she could.
She knew she had to be the responsible one now, had to make sure that her brother and sister were raised and went to school and had a great life. The girl knew there were hard decisions to be made, things she would have to think about, but at that moment she was just happy to hold her siblings close.
The next weeks passed and the girl finally decided what she needed to do to keep her brother and sister safe, to give them a good future.
They were so angry at her when she told them that she was selling the house. They wouldn't listen to her as she tried to explain that they couldn't afford to keep it without any income, especially the large amount that her father had brought in each month. So while her siblings were at school she looked at smaller, less expensive houses on the market in the same general area.
She found a house on her second day of looking, buying it from a family that was selling it because they needed something larger. Within the next two weeks, the girl and her siblings had packed everything that was most important to them as well as half of their belongings and moved it to the new house.
The girl's brother and sister didn't talk to her for weeks after they moved, but she knew it was the right thing to do.
As time went on, it became obvious that the family couldn't live off of the money they had inherited or the money they had received from selling the house. The girl knew she had to find a job.
She applied for everything she could think of, as a maid, as a cook, working in the market, but nothing was available or she was turned down for the job because she was "too well-bred" or "too pretty" for that kind of work.
But she was becoming desperate. Three months after she had moved her family to the new home, she answered a newspaper ad, looking for "a beautiful woman otherwise unskilled."
She wasn't sure what to expect when she went to the designated meeting place in the evening. What she encountered though, was something she never would have picked for herself. But there were no other options, and they told her she would be perfect for it, that she could receive her desired amount of money in a single week instead of a month, but only if she played her cards right.
So she accepted the offer.
That was the first night she sold her body to the highest bidder.
Sigyn woke to tears running down her face, the warmth of them startling against the frosty air. She could see her breath as it came out in gasps. Then she heard the footsteps, realizing that there had been a bang of a door that had brought her out of the dream.
She brought her appendages closer to her again, wrapping her arms around her knees as the footsteps grew closer and closer.
The three of them appeared, one of the guards opening the door and the other shoving the man inside, just as they had the first time she had been here. Only this time, the man landed hard on his hands and knees. He stayed there as the bars were slammed shut again, and the guard-beast-things lumbered down the hallway.
Sigyn approached the man cautiously, being sure not to make sudden sounds or movements incase he was startled. As she drew closer she could see the sweat that glistened on his face despite the freezing temperature. He was panting, his breath also coming out in white puffs, and he was shaking.
She couldn't help it. Despite her years with limited human contact she couldn't let another person suffer while she was there and able to help in some way. She kneeled next to him once more, reaching out her hand in a way that she made sure he could see, before gently touching his forehead.
The warmth swept through them both again, calming the worse of each of their anxieties. They stayed like that for some time, until the man's knees and hands grew sore and they moved to sit back against the wall.
She took his hand in hers this time, holding it between her own, letting him know that she was here, that he wasn't alone. She needed the comfort just as much as he did, the knowledge that there was someone else there, that she wasn't by herself in that cell of hers.
But it couldn't last, that much Sigyn knew, she just didn't know exactly how long she had. It wasn't a surprise when she started to feel a build of energy, and she knew her time here was up.
Sigyn let go of the man's hand, standing and backing away from him.
Their eyes met again, his filled with fear and desperation as he said "Don't go."
But she didn't have a choice. She couldn't have predicted the tear that dripped down her face and off of her chin right before blue light filled her vision.