Clara listened to the exchange, a conversation that sounded all too casual for her current situation. The two men spoke as though they were talking of the weather, like it was just another day at the office while she was stark naked by the door. When they were through, Alistair left and shut the door behind him. The sound seemed louder somehow, like a lock being slid into place in the refined dungeon she stood in. Her vibrant eyes surveyed the space, taking in how the towering shelves were lined with old books with strange and foreign titles on the spines. They were thick with multiple volumes, some so fragile that it looked as though they might fall apart with a single touch. There were chairs and an unlit fireplace. With the draft that circulated through the room she found herself wishing there was a fire crackling in the hearth. But it was what was beside it that she fixated on the most, despite how goosebumps raised on her pale flesh. The fire irons. The poker in particular. It was the first thing she had come across in the house that could be used as a weapon.<br/><br/>For a moment she thought about driving that sharp, black poker into the man’s chest. It was a thought that frightened her, and yet it gave her so much satisfaction to simply think it. Clara believed that she was incapable of the kind of violence that could take a man’s life. While she told herself she would have killed to ensure her own freedom, there was still a hesitance to do so. It was, perhaps, that she feared the repercussions of her own morality—that she might feel guilt, shame, or regret. She told herself that she shouldn’t waste such emotions on those who did not have them themselves. After all, the man sitting behind the desk did not appear at all apologetic or remorseful for what he had done to her. Why should she feel any different in her desire for his death?<br/><br/>What fantasies of bloodshed that crowded her mind ceased the moment the little light appeared in the room. Its presence made her tense as she recalled the gruesome manner in which it devoured the guards from the inside. Even in her imagination she was unable to match the kind of horrible death the men suffered for their insubordination. As they spoke Clara was still as a statue, barely breathing and hardly shivering with her arms wrapped around her. For all she knew they were speaking of how to dispose of her, in what terrible way to ensure that her father understood the gravity of his situation. Would they send a piece of her to him? A finger? Her eyes? The mere thought made her cooperative for the moment. So, when the tiny creature fluttered away through the billowing curtains, she did as the man instructed and took a seat in front of him. It was not an immediate response, however. Clara was hesitant and it took her a few seconds before she was able to moved her feet and situate herself in the chair.<br/><br/>She crossed her legs, right over left, to cover her womanhood. Her arms were still wrapped around the full globes of her breasts, making them bulge and create a rather appetizing view of her cleavage. “Has my father complied yet? Do you have what it is that you’re after?” She asked after a moment of silence. Perhaps she wasn’t dead because he had.