Four walls and no way out. Well, three jagged cave walls and rusty metal bars, but who was keeping track?
"Isn't this just grand?!" Alice yelled, kicking a rock with all of her might across the sandy dirt floor and watching it bounce towards the darkness.
Her eyes were puffy and sodden from crying her heart out, face slightly damp and dirty from wiping her tears with sandy and slightly wounded hands. Alice had tried everything. Banging the chains on the cave walls had only cut her hands and caused metallic sparks from her unsteady and desperate aim. Pulling and pushing at the bars, even tugging at the chains, hoping they were old and rotten enough to come apart, made her tired and out of breath. Using rocks to hammer away at anything seemed useless.
Moving past the latrine bucket, she paced as far as the chains would let her before they became taunt, pulling her back to the entrance and only exit out of the cell. She sighed.
"UGH! You would think a girl who knows your life story, of spending most of it locked up, would think twice about leaving you behind in a cell. Who does she honestly think she is, caging me twice in one day, leaving me for dead over some stupid legacy and honor?!" Alice frustratingly cried, her qualms echoing in the chamber. She exhaled. "I can't believe I thought it'd be different this time," she solemnly reflected, remembering the betrayal of letting her heart trust a pretty sorceress.
Anyone would have steadily waited out their release, but to Alice, being trapped was a form of psychological torture. The door had swung close, not anymore locked than when the village mob leader had thrown them in due to Robin's trusty rock hammering to the lock, but she was still bloody trapped. Grown up, free of the moss covered tower, but caged all the same in another place. Sure, the magical barrier that once encased her tower window no longer existed, but in her mind, it played out again. Freedom within reach, but unable to go free. Everyone always able to leave as they wished while she stayed stuck, numbering out her days with supposing.
When she was a kid, it was "Suppose Papa does find a solution to the tower's magic, then what would I do first?" Alice planned her day out with activities, Killian trying his best to recreate the event inside the circular prison. After the witch's arrival, it turned to supposing her papa would return or some miracle happening to free her. Recently, her quest had turned from supposing where the cure for the poisoned heart was to wondering if there was a world where people would understand, help the Troll be safe and calm. A twinge of bittersweet welled in her heart as Alice supposed a future with Robin, the first person after her papa to be enamored rather than upset at her peculiarity. However, none of that mattered if there was no future with Alice in it. It was as if fate had decided, she'd be the Girl in the Tower forever, the mad loony needing to be caged rather than a girl deserving of companionship and worldly exploration.
Alice slumped on the ground, burying her face in her arms. The Troll, the last of her living friends, gentlest of giants, was going to be slain at the hands of the villagers or Robin's ignorant arrow. And there was nothing she could do about it, caged in a prison again.
"There has to be a way out of here," she murmured, barely clinging onto hope as she tried to convince herself with the spoken words.
Alice ran a hand through her locks unconsciously as a self soothing gesture. What should have been an easy pass through her tresses got impeded by something small. "Oh!" She gasped as she pulled out the small obstacle with her fingers. In her hand laid the key to her escape, the same kind of hairpin Robin had grabbed from her earlier with a sleight of hand and unassuming flirting.
"How could I have forgotten?" Alice asked, amazed, eyes widening as sparks of joy sent energy through her.
The gears in her brain clicked into place. She jammed the hairpin in multiple ways, losing a few in her attempts, before finally hearing the sweet relief of the chains unlatching as they fell to the ground. Sweat drenched her forehead from the concentration. If anything, Robin made it look easy. Alice ran out of the jail cell basement without a second glance, not wanting to stay there for another second. Although the empty tavern and moonlit night sky indicated that hours had passed since the afternoon, Alice sped towards the forest, certain in her bones where the Troll would be. The mob might have had a head start on the hunt, but Alice wasn't going to take any chances, not if she could do something to stop it.