Her breath caught in her throat as the impossible unfolded before her eyes... Anthony<span style="font-style: italic">rejected </span>her.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Assault… the Emperor… Place her in the dungeon!</span>He was using these strange words and phrases that didn’t make any sense.<br/><br/>Her eyes were huge sad globes as the guards appeared and took hold of her arms. She didn’t fight them, what was the point? If he didn’t want to see her… well… that was his choice.<br/><br/>As they took her away she pondered. How many years had passed between them, thirty? These years, apparently, could not be ignored. She supposed it was customary to meet new people all the time. Especially busy emperors. It was understandable and natural that they would forget the insignificant figures of their childhood. Haven, however, had instead lived in the company of nature. Those people from her past, the apprentices, were the only ones she had ever been close to. They remained alive and vivid in her heart. Especially that boy… He was different from the start. She was not supposed to, but had taken him into the palace through a secret entrance. She was not supposed to, but she had helped him when the wizard was not watching. She was not supposed to, but she had forsaken him and all the rest upon their<span style="font-style: italic">proud </span>graduation.<br/><br/>Herself, Anthony and the others were supposed to be the next class of wizards, a team of efficient counselors to the world. Apparently, she was not the only one who had forsaken that ideal.<br/><br/>Yet, the first day they met he had embraced her so hard that he had lifted her feet from the ground. Even flying hadn't felt so good as that. He couldn't help herself, he had been so happy and eager to learn. It was that day, the way he greeted her, he was the reason she had even decided to befriend him and the other apprentices...<br/><br/>The dungeon reeked of death and decay, the sounds of pain and illness filled the heavy air. The darkness was complete, no windows, no torches to comfort the prisoners.<br/><br/>Most were frightened of such darkness. Haven, however, felt at ease. She felt as if she were safely stowed away in the belly of the earth. She felt that element prevailing around her, the stonework, the iron bars, the dirt packed tightly around each cell. If the earth could teach one anything it was patience. If the earth could teach a second lesson it was that even in the dark there was life… She could feel the worms in the dirt beyond the wall, the maggots in the gruel, the mold in the puddles… these tiny presences were pleasant sensations to her magical psyche. These tiny things were more powerful than they seemed. They took what was dead and rotting in the world and made it fertile, it was<span style="font-style: italic">they</span>who made the world palatable for humans.<br/><br/>This new emperor had no shortage of prisoners. In fact, the dungeon was overcrowded. She shared her tiny cell with a man close to death. He didn’t move, he could only see out of one eye, the other was bloated shut with infection. He leaned into the corner and never moved, his breath was ragged, he hadn’t eaten in a long time, the bones protruded against his sagging skin.<br/><br/>Haven regarded him calmly for a few moments, then moved to be near him.<br/><br/>“Whos that?” his woke up as he felt someone against his side. He looked through his good eye, which was yellow and red around the edges. “Someone there?” In the darkness, even if his eyes were clear he would not be able to see his new cell-mate. She didn’t say anything to him. Anthony had proved to her aching heart that words were useless after all.<br/><br/>She did not have to stay here. She could reach out to Anthony again, or she could leave for good. Yet, there did not seem to be much point. If Anthony didn’t remember her, he’d never want to see her, and no one else would either. The mountain would not be the same again after this, her heart seemed too heavy to drag back over the mountain.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">’Thought Anthony deprived me of himself, it was kind of him to provide me with some company. I should take care of his gift.’</span><br/><br/>Most men didn’t know, but in the dark places of the world far away from the sun’s reach, life was<span style="font-style: italic">thriving</span>. Pale lizards without eyes, long centipedes darting about, even in the ocean so deep that there was<span style="font-style: italic">no light at all</span>there were fish and other creatures that could<span style="font-style: italic">make their own</span>.<br/><br/>She found an old plate of stale food that had been left out. No wonder the man would not eat. She shook her head, and took the rock-hard biscuit. She squeezed it between her palms until it crumbled into powder. She found a clump of mold and a dash of mud, and pressed them all into a crack in the wall.<br/><br/>Then she waited. She closed her eyes, and let out a long sigh, blowing air across it like she would a flute.<br/><br/>A tiny black tendril unfurled from the crack. It coiled and uncoiled, sprouted tiny leaves, then finally a bud. Soon it bloomed, it’s petals glowed pale blue.<br/><br/>She plucked the flower from its stem then brought it over to her cellmate. He watched her with his one good eye warily, wondering if this was some new torture devised by the demon-wizard-emperor.<br/><br/>She pinched it in her fingertips, and let the juices of it fall into his eyes…<br/><br/>The guards left Haven alone. The Emperor had stated thusly<span style="font-style: italic">“I need to consider what it is I am going to do with her!"</span>Which meant they must await further instructions. Her-cell-mate was so near to death they stopped feeding him. Why waste the food? By coincidence no one stopped by their cell for some time...<br/><br/><br/>Not all the prisoners were as idle and lame as her cellmate. Sure, they were left here to rot and grow weak between being ‘questioned’ for information on the rebellion, or for sport. Yet, they found ways to work within their confinement. They tapped their bars, or sang songs, or made some other secret means of communication (Some of these were sophisticated codes devised by rebel factions, others were only desperate rhythms in the dark.). They liked to think that they were spreading vital information, but mostly they were trying to keep hold of their fleeting sanity.<br/><br/>A strange message began to filter through the dungeon. Something about a new prisoner, either a woman or a doctor or a miracle. As these strange stories and claims began to filter out, the prisoners got this strange idea that if they managed to get a message back to this new prisoner, their name or their ailment or… something… then whatever was wrong with them would be healed.<br/><br/>The guards might notice this flurry of activity in the cells, notice a new defiance in the eyes of those they tortured. Not everyone, for sadly, the ‘network’ was far from complete, but enough to unease the dungeon masters: One with asthma seemed to breath more easily, on another with the lashes they earned nearly healed up the next day, the pock marks began to disappear off the face of another...<br/><br/>At some juncture. A young jailer remembered that he had not fed that new woman prisoner in a week. So they went back with a measly portion, for he half expected to find her dead along with her cell mate.<br/><br/>Instead, he saw her cellmate sitting upright, his sight was restored, his skin a healthy shade of pink, and his voice ringing with laughter as the woman made a funny face at him.<br/><br/>And she… well… he hardly believed what he saw.<br/><br/>He dropped the plate and ran straight to his superior officer. “I’ve a report sir!”<br/><br/>“What’s the problem.” The man rolled his eyes, he was apathetic to the extreme, he had to be in his line of work.<br/><br/>“Th-The woman, that woman... The one that assaulted the em-em-emperor.”<br/><br/>“What of her? Dead yet?”<br/><br/>“No… She’s… S-she’s…”<br/><br/>“Spit it out, Slug!”<br/><br/>“She’s<span style="font-style: italic">gardening</span>.”