[centre][h2]The Interrogation[/h2][/centre]

Darkness, lit only by a single, circular beam of light was all the dizzy, exhausted Ciara could see in the room she had been locked in, so torturously concentrated as it was right in her face. She was bound to a chair by the wrists and feet - an uncomfortable one at that - and her throat was parched from a dry, waterless night. The walls around her were nearly invisible in the shadows around her, but she noted that they were incredibly odd, as though they were full of… Her - going on for miles and miles and miles into infinity. The floor felt like dirt to her bare feet - cold, hopeless dirt that licked freezingly at her toes in the morning dew. Everywhere around her was dreadful silence.

Then footsteps approached from behind. The sliding and knocking of wood revealed that the wall behind her was not like those she could see - there was likely a door of some kind there. Inside came flickering lights, nothing bright enough to outshine the sun, but enough to give her eyes a break from the terrible contrast of darkness. Shadows of people held torches around her, and then a bald head blocked out the bead of sunlight, forcing Ciara’s eyes to adjust.

“What’s your name?” said a female voice.

“You know my name!” Ciara yelled. For at least a year she walked the market. Helped people out and bought apples from the stalls! The people knew her. “Please, please I don’t know why I’m here. I didn’t do anything!” The bruises on her arms still felt sore and made her muscles ache but above all else, she felt tired. Tired from the fighting and crying and pleading.

Suddenly, she was drenched with water from a bucket splashed in her face with oppressive force. The cold shocked her just as much as the split-second suffocation. When the water fell her lungs sucked in the air as if she was just underwater for a minute. Ragged, panicky breaths took her back to when she was caught and beaten.

“What is your name?” the voice repeated.

“Please I just…” Her weak voice cut off. Afraid she’d get drenched in in cold water again. “I-I’m Ciara.” She answered with a trembling voice and a quickly shrinking heart.

“Where are you from?” continued the voice. The light of the sun formed an oppressive halo around her bald head, and out of the corner of her eye, Ciara could spot other women bringing in a table lined with… Something - it was unclear what it was.

Wild-eyed she looked around. Not understanding what was happening. Why were they asking questions? What was that table? Why was she being treated like the enemy!? She opened her mouth. Ready to let the questions pour out. But she swallowed the words. “I’m from the Cenél villages.” She said with a heavy sob.

“Where is Darragh?” asked the voice. The icing sound of a whetstone scraping over metal hissed in the background. A burnt smell filled the air and soon, the crackle of burning wood joined the background noises.

“I-I-I don’t know!” She tried to move but couldn’t. She would thrash, but her body was already exhausted. “Please, please why are you doing this? We’ve done nothing.” She repeated then, over and over, as she broke down further.

“The curse that befell our warrior Hilda was the work of ungodly magic - the kind that your kin is known to practice. I will ask again - where is Darragh?” The air filled with a different burnt scent - sour, sickening. It was a burnt plant of sorts, and it made the room unclear and hard to perceive, as though Ciara had been given a drug; however, the others seemed to be unaffected.

Things started to fall in place within Ciara’s mind. Her eyes grew wide. The quartz, it [i]detected[/i] magic. “Wait!” She screamed out. As if her salvation dawned in her mind. Even though the room ws becoming blurred and her senses dulled. “Please wait! We didn’t do anything. Darragh… he felt it. Please I’m begging you, we didn’t do anything.”

“What did he feel, exactly?” The smoke had at this point grown so thick that it was getting hard to see. Slowly, but surely, it felt more and more like Ciara was alone in the room - and the world. The smoke appeared endless and quiet, and the only sound was the sound of her own breathing.

“I-I don’t know…” Her voice faltered again as her heart shrunk in her chest. She tasted copper in her mouth. The smoking was obscuring everything now. Was she still in Ha-Dûna? Was she still in the world? She wanted to beg again. Hope someone would finally help her. Instead, her lip just quivered as tears fell from her eyes. In her mind started praying to Seva to save her.

Suddenly, there came a burning sting, as though her skin was singed by hot coals. The pain coursed through her. She screamed at the top of her lungs. It pulled her up from a daze she didn’t know she was in. A moment later it was gone. Her mind blocked out the pain. Turning into a faint sense in the back of her mind. But she broke down crying. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.” She kept saying, barely comprehensible through the sobbing.

Out of nowhere, a heavy-handed punch hit her in the cheek. Meanwhile, she could feel her mind begin to float - it was as though someone was forcefully opening up her consciousness and attempting to see the world as she saw it, like a pair of eyes behind her eyes.

“WHERE IS HE?!” came an ungodly, terrifying scream like a chorus of demons.

“Home!” She screamed. Her mind forcing out anything to stop the pain. To stop whatever was burrowing through it. That’s what he said. Go home. Go to the Cenél. She wanted to be back in her house. The roots and branches of which her grandmother had coaxed into their shape. Seva wasn’t coming. “Irra protect me. Irra protect me.” She kept muttering. The line between thought and speech blurred. Another punch, this one to the back of the head. At this point, her mind felt pierced, like something had driven a splinter deep into her brain. She couldn’t see it completely, but there was very clearly something staring back into her mind’s eye. It searched, forcing Ciara to see memories from her whole life, image by image, scent by scent, pain by pain. The joyful memories were somehow devoid of emotion, coldly analysed and tossed aside in the quest for the revealing detail. The eyes grew less patient by the second and the stream sped up, Ciara hardly having time to process each bypassing memory as more than a flickering image. It felt as though it lasted for hours, and whenever her mind threatened to regain focus, the stink of smoke intensified and sent her right back into trance, and every time she grew too exhausted to stay away, a surge of pain from either burns or punches would force her back into dazed wakefulness. 

Finally, after what felt like a row of three sleepless nights, the eyes blinked and disappeared. She heard mumbles beyond the smoke, but nothing she could interpret. Just as she was about to keel over from exhaustion, ice cold water once again coated her from head to toe. 

Her mind felt blank. Untouched. Her body reacted in spasms and gasps. It wanted to live and breathe still but her mind didn’t seem to care anymore. Did she want to die? Or to sleep? Was there a different anymore. She just wanted out. Away. Home.

But then she needed someone kind. Someone who cared. Someone good. In the back of her mind it felt as if light pierced through the fog. A name. “Boudicca.” She muttered. Her blank eyes still staring down at the ground. “Boudicca.” She said again. The glimmer of hope seemingly keeping her mind above water.

However, the voices were silent. Eventually, one of them said coldly, “Who do you think had you arrested?”

Who arrested her? Who took her? Who put her here? Her mind kept going over things. Memories laid scattered. Forced open and closed. Their order broken. Who took her? Who punished her? Not her. Not Boudicca. “Boudicca.” She said again. Still half breathless. Refusing to believe the kind and just sanndatr would’ve put her here. Darragh was long gone. The Cenél would not come for her. The gods had forsaken her but not Boudicca. She wouldn’t let her suffer here. Like this. “Boudicca.” It became her prayer.

There came a sigh. “Leave her here. She’s got nothing to do with the summoning.”

“So she spoke true, then?”

“Yes, she had no memory nor conception of doing the crime, and unless Darragh also knows the ways of the Truthful One, which is unlikely for his… Profession, then she is innocent of the crime.”

“Shall I inform the sanndatr?”

A pensive hum. “Delay that for a bit. There might be other parts of her memories we can use for the coming conflict.” With that, the voices faded, leaving Ciara alone in her cell once more.

High up the moonlight that would fall inside was partially blocked by a small, insignificant shape. From inside one could barely see its black, oval figure. With two icy, blue eyes that seemed to be glowing. When the men were done the creature unfurled its wings and flew away. Leaving behind three black-striped white feathers.

[hider=Summy!]
Ciara gets tortured by truth bois until they can read her mind. They find out she’s innocent, so they let her go free and give her money to compensate.

Just kidding, she’s still in prison and will be tortured for another while to get more deets on the Cenél.
[/hider]