<div class="floatright">(http://i.imgur.com/MkdOVAW.jpg?2)</div>Blinking once more into the darkness, the rumble of chains and groans of agony have become the constant overture of her time in this hell.  The pain and stiffness she feels as she drags herself from the stone floor are her only solace that there may yet be hope, for where there is pain there is life-- a confusing prospect for one who has died in battle, perhaps... was this an illusion, a final torment from her father's devious mind?  Or was the afterlife only punctuated by pain because, after all, a soul that cannot suffer has no place in hell.<br/><br/>Her gray-green eyes water at the acrid smoke, and she manages a soft gasp of pain when her boots meet the floor and she hauls herself to her feet.  The food was there again, then gone-- perhaps she should take it-- as vile as it seemed, she needed more than the foul water she was able to soak in rags and squeeze into her mouth.  The bands and plates of her garments-- glass-like shells and leathery straps, an impractical garment if ever one existed-- had grown loose around her wrists and hung low on her hipbones.  Once, this suit was a magnificent mageplate, its lack of covering a design of some perverted mad mage, no doubt, but the magic was gone from it, and now it would protect her no better than her own skin.<br/><br/>The sound of singing, and of soft foot falls where someone was-- what, dancing?-- hinted that there was someone else alive in the cages, but she had not yet dared to call out.  Whatever purpose was demanded of her time here would be apparent soon enough, and she wished that the persistent cheerfulness of a stranger's voice was enough to recoup some semblance of sanity in these dank cells.<br/><br/>That purpose threatened again-- she was sopping water into the meager rag she had torn from a layer of unneeded armor padding, but suddenly she started at the grating of keys in iron locks and the angry groan of metal hinges.  She stood firm when the hulking beast reached her cell door, wondering if her magic could lay such a beast low... one only gets one chance to stab a demon in the back, after all, and this one was certainly one of many.<br/><br/>The prospect of worse suffering was sufficient to draw her out, and seeing the rough manacles she felt her heart cringe back, but she kept her eyes low, though she stood all but bare, and she spread her feet and poised her slender hands for the manacles.