2019-07-24: Jail Time
- Cutscene: Jail Time
- Cast: Mariel
- Where: Kilika
- Date: July 24th, 2019
- Summary: Mariel gets a chance to reflect while in jail.
As old as she was, Mariel had never been in a cell before.
It had come close. She'd been put under quarantine more than once during a plague, and she'd been under house arrest one time while an investigation occured (she hadn't done anything, and she was eventually let go with apologies). But an actual cell?
Never.
Having been caught by the Guard near Kilika Temple, Mariel had gone with them without resisting; she knew she couldn't get away from them on her own. They'd taken her bag, her gloves, her coins - anything she might have been hiding something in, or been able to send a message with. She considered it a minor plus that they'd let her keep her robe - though even then they'd made her pull back her sleeves to show that she had no Symbological markings.
It wasn't even really a dungeon they'd put her in, because the Guard didn't have one here; this wasn't Pentagulia or Meribia or one of the other Althenian cities she'd never been to. It was just a room in the building the Guard were using as a barracks, and she was pretty sure it had started life as a storage closet, though the shelves had been knocked out. It certainly wasn't any bigger than that; she guessed it was about five by five, barely long enough for even someone her height to lie down. She'd been told it was temporary while they decided what to do with her.
She hated it. It was cramped, and dark; the only light came through the cracks in the wooden door, and not much of that. Even the air was stuffy and still. Mariel had never really been claustrophobic, but she was starting to feel penned in. Once they'd tried to feed her, but she hadn't been able to force herself to eat; the Guard's idea of prisoner's food apparently involved a cheap meat stew, and Mariel was the next thing to vegetarian. It smelled vile to her. She'd spent most of the time sitting in the corner with her legs tucked up and trying not to breathe too deeply until it cooled off enough to lose its odor. They'd taken it away without comment the next time someone checked on her.
Without being able to see the sun, Mariel wasn't sure precisely how long she'd been in there - more than one day, less than two - before the door opened, revealing the hard-eyed monk who'd thrown her in in the first place. "Up," she said - and when Mariel was a little slow at following directions, the monk grabbed her by the arm and painfully yanked her the rest of the way.
"What - "
"No talking," said the monk, with a look that Mariel knew meant that she had better not. She fell quiet as she was marched out of the 'barracks', and through the city proper.
The sight of the sun was the nicest thing she'd seen since her capture, but it was short-lived. Mariel was escorted - marched, really - through a series of streets, quick enough that she could barely look around to see if there was anyone she knew. Her only hope was that someone would see her, and recognize her on her way to...
...Kilika's modest jail. Every city had one. Mariel didn't end up in them except in her professional capacity, once in a while, when a prisoner took sick. She'd never been brought in quite like this, and she slowed, a sinking feeling in her chest.
"In," the monk said, prodding Mariel. "We have some questions for you." Mariel looked around hastily, trying to catch the eye of a villager before she was practically shoved into the jail, the monk following her a moment later.
The door slammed behind them with a rather ominous boom.