Survival

When I woke, I was in an unfamiliar room. Panic instantly flooded my body as I remembered what had happened before I had been knocked out. It could only mean one thing: I was a prisoner of the humans now. I was as good as dead. My hand reached to my hip, instinctively searching for my dagger, but of course it wasn’t there. The movement was hindered by a silver chain that was attached to my other hand, and it kept my wrists together. How peculiar… I slowly looked around the small room and only saw an object that was similar to a toilet, and a small door with a tiny handle. Just to be certain, I stood and tried to shift the handle, but nothing happened no matter what movement I tried to do. With a sigh, I turned and went back to my spot on the floor, awkwardly sitting and keeping my wings spread. This was where I was going to die.

I glanced over at my wing, my stomach sinking with fear as I started to comprehend exactly what was going to happen to my lovely wings. As far as I knew, there was only one reason why I was still alive, and that was so the humans could attempt to obtain some information from me. They were going to ruthlessly pluck my feathers from my wings and continue to torture me until I gave up and told them what they needed to know. But as a warrior, I could never do that. I’d die for my race. My mouth would stay shut, and I’d die. I would never see Tobias or Brienne ever again. And to make matters worse, the last contact I had had with Tobias was him being grouchy at me, and trying to keep me safe by making me stay at the back of the group. I guess he’d be kicking himself right now, angry at how badly his plan had failed. If he was even still alive… What if they had killed him, or caught him too? And what about the other fighters? Was everyone all right?

Everything was starting to overwhelm me, and I could feel my eyes becoming overly watery. There was a scratching noise coming from the door and it scared away my tears. I eagerly watched it, and shortly afterwards it opened and a human became visible in the low light. I could tell by the sharp and hairy facial features that it was a male. He turned and said something, and then another appeared behind him. I hesitated, wondering what was about to happen. They both looked so serious as they frowned down upon me. The door behind them was still open, but I knew there would be no way I could escape, especially without a weapon. I stayed put and glared between the two men.

“We are not good speakers of your… language, but you can understand?” the second male that walked in asked. His voice was rather velvety, despite the small mispronunciations he was making in my language.

“Yes, I understand you,” I replied simply. I didn’t realise there would be conversations involved in torturing, aside from threats and demands for the information.

“You know you are… prisoner by humans. You do what we want. You answer our questions and we kill you quick. You do not answer, we kill you slow. You can understand?” he continued. Oh great… I did my best to not show any fear or weakness.

“Yes, I know,” I grumbled.

“This here, Tim. Tim removes feathers,” the male continued with a gesture to his muscular friend. I gulped. From previous experience, I knew that if someone or something snagged your feather and pulled it out, it was a painful sting. Some of the larger feathers really hurt a lot, and could even ache for days. And now I was going to have all of mine torn out… I noticed my breathing had become quicker as Tim took a few steps towards me, but I stayed where I was and continued to stare at the other human. They briefly conversed in their human language, and I wished I had learned some of it when we had first landed and came into contact with the humans. I hadn’t bothered, but now I desperately wanted to have some idea of what they were saying. “This here, Tim. You…?”

“Marion.”

“We have questions, Marion. You answer, yes?” he asked, but I didn’t reply. I didn’t know if I would answer yet. Tim suddenly grabbed the silver metal that was holding my hands together and pulled it to the ground. He placed a foot on the link and I was stuck there. I shifted my wings, trying to pull them in closer to me so he wouldn’t be able to get to them. It was a useless attempt. I was far too big and bulky with my wings. There was nowhere to hide. “You female, yes?”

“Yes,” I replied. That was simple. I hoped the questions would stay this easy. Maybe I could keep the humans happy and not be tortured too much.

“Why female no fight? You first we kill or… prisoner,” the male stammered, clearly unable to find the right words. But I understood. They had only ever encountered male Kasiens during a fight, and never a female.

“Females just don’t fight,” I said while looking up at Tim. He seemed content, so I assumed I wasn’t in any immediate danger yet.

“Why?”

“Many reasons,” I answered after a pause. I didn’t want to try and go into detail because they clearly wouldn’t be able to understand me properly. Tim glanced at his partner and the translator gave a small nod. Suddenly there was a hand on my left wing and Tim ripped out a handful of feathers from the middle of it. I screamed loudly as my wing jerked away from the human. Unfortunately I couldn’t move my hands to try and comfort the stinging pain, so I just caved forwards and bit back tears. It was one of the most intense pains I had ever experienced, including the bullets that had recently hit me. There was no way I could fly now either. My left wing would be unstable, and throw off my ability to fly. Even if I could escape, I wouldn’t be able to hastily fly away. I was really in trouble.

“You answer! Complete answer!” the human shouted, making me wince. Why should I bother to explain it? Maybe it would become a disadvantage if the humans knew more about our social structure. What if they found our ship and attacked all of the females? Perhaps I had already said too much… I couldn’t give him any further knowledge.

“What’s the point?” I breathed as I kept my head down. I bit down and slowly ground my teeth, wanting to hold back my pain and annoyance.

“What?” he screeched. Tim grabbed my hair and yanked my head up, forcing me to look at the humans again.

“What’s the point? You will kill me anyway. I won’t tell you where we live, I won’t tell you anything about how we fight… Any answer about females is useless to you because I’ll be the last you’ll ever see…” I told the translator, hoping he’d understand what I was saying. He paused and seemed to be taking it all in, then started talking the human language. Tim spoke back, but he kept his hold on my hair and my hands tight so I couldn’t move at all.

“Tim know what feathers… hurt lots,” he continued in his best attempt at Kasien. Tim tugged at a large feather that was situated very close to my back. Already I could feel the burning sensation. It itched at the back of my mind, demanding that I paid more attention to that feather and make it feel better, but I couldn’t do anything. “You answer!” I thought about my duties as a warrior. It was a rule that we didn’t talk, and I knew that the humans would ultimately want information that I couldn’t and wouldn’t give them. There was no way that I could let down Tobias and my race. So what was the point?

“I’m not saying anything else,” I replied in a scarce voice. It didn’t come out as defiantly as I had wanted it to, but it got my point across. I could tell by the way the translator was staring at me. He spoke to Tim, and the next thing I knew I was falling forwards in pain while screaming at the top of my lungs. Tim had torn out the feather he was holding onto. I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the throbbing that was coming from my wing. I didn’t know how much of this I’d be able to handle.