Unfortunate Realities (Semi-Advanced)

He woke up in the dungeon. He had expected that if he did wake up, it would be in that place again, but he was not happy to be found correct. A healer must have tended to his arms, for beneath the chains that held him there were bandages. Blood had soaked through the left one; but not yet that on the right. He wished he would never had woken up at all. That had been the plan, after all. He had been unable to stand life any longer.

He had begun as a prince, the youngest of three sons. The cursed one, the mute one, the one protected by his older brothers because of what he could do. Despite the fact that it was supposed to be a secret, word must have gotten out as to what he could do, for when his family's kingdom fell and his brothers were slaughtered, he had been brought back as a prisoner, a slave. They had kept him in the square whenever the soldiers had passed the night in a town, leaving him to the mercy of the villagers with only the order that he was not to be permanently disfigured or killed. The experience had been both humiliating and painful.

Upon arriving at the castle, he had been brought before the king, who had ruled that he should be kept in the dungeon for as long as it was deemed necessary - meaning until he was willing to give them information that they wanted. He had seen the princess then, a beautiful girl but with a hard, cold expression. A week had passed in the dungeons, then a second. At the end of each week he was flogged if he refused to give the information that they sought. After the second time, one of the guards had left a knife just outside his cell door. He had taken it, had cut open his arms in a desperate attempt to escape the pain, humiliation and defeat that he was suffering through. But he had failed, and as he lay in the dungeon, weak from the blood loss, cold, and in pain from both his suicide attempt and the floggings, a new wave of despair washed over him.

(Of course!)

(Join with whatever you wish - the princess, the healer who saved him, a servant, another prisoner...whatever you feel like. As for jumping in, that could be done in a variety of ways, depending on what you want to happen first. If you want to sort of set up your character and what sort of a person they are, then you could start at a different location and just describe what's going on, who they are, how they got there, what they plan to do, etc. Alternatively, if you would prefer for the characters to interact and have their personalities develop off that, then you could jump in by having your character deciding to or being told to go down into the dungeon.

*looks up at above paragraph* I'm being far too wordy, aren't I?)

(Of course! The more the merrier!)

(Very nice! You didn't need the form - I'm totally fine with just jumping in - but for what it's worth you're accepted! Jump on in!)

He looked up when he heard her words, eyes widening slightly. In the two weeks he had been in the dungeons, the princess had never come to visit him. Why had she come now, after he had tried to escape the only way he could? Had she come to gloat, to make sure he knew that he was never getting away? He knew that the latter part was the truth without anyone saying it. His family was destroyed, the kingdom gone. No one would come for him. The princess didn't seem to be gloating, though, and she appeared to be unarmed - always a good thing.

He didn't know if he could reach far enough to take the apple, or if the chains and the flare of pain in his back whenever he moved would stop him. If the princess knew anything about him, she would know two things, which some people called a gift and a curse but which he saw as two curses. The disputed part was the ability he had been born with, the one that was the only reason he had been left alive. The undisputed curse was that he was mute. Surely she would know that he could not respond to her offer, at least not with words. Wanting the apple but knowing that every movement involved in taking and eating it would bring him immense pain, he simply stayed still, clutching his bandaged arms to his chest and regarding her with wide blue-grey eyes.

(Alright. But I will warn you that, as someone else with a gift of sorts, my still-unnamed character will probably have a chance of realizing afterward that someone was tampering with his emotions. ;) )

He tried to edge away as she approached, but there was only so far one could go when chained down, and when every movement caused him pain, his chances of actually being able to evade her took an even sharper downward turn. This did not stop him from flinching hard when she touched him, though, one arm moving painfully upward to shield his face from a potential blow. The apple was within easy reach now, and a thought occurred to him. If the fruit were poisoned, and the princess had lied, he would welcome it. It could be slow to act, yes, and the death it brought could be slow and lingering, but it would be death, which would be release, which was what he wanted. Still, he did not take the apple. If he was to die, it would be by his own hand.

He froze entirely when she touched him again, his breathing quickening with terror. A moment later, though, it dissipated as a wave of calm hit him. For a little while, he felt peaceful, safe. He could feel himself relaxing, almost entirely against his will and his common sense, which was screaming at him to get away as fast as he could. The pain wasn't gone, but it seemed deadened, easier to ignore. Some foolish part of him wanted to embrace this gift, to give in to the princess and let her soothe away his pain. After a few moments of bliss, though, he pulled away from her touch, pulling his knees to his chest and letting the peace and serenity in his mind be chased out by abject misery, pain, and self-loathing. He hated that he had been giving in to her, that he had let her make him feel better. It had been terrifying, too - the pain had kept him aware, kept things real. Every time he moved, he knew what had happened and that it wasn't some terrible delusion. Having that gone had scared him beyond belief. He looked back up at the princess from his place on the floor, but this time his gaze was filled with fear.

He saw the dagger, and his eyes narrowed slightly. He could not understand why she had brought it. To defend herself? He could hardly move without pain, and was restricted by the chains that bound him. To kill him? He would have taken that with something akin to relief, had she done it, but he knew that this could not have been the purpose of bringing the dagger, for if he was to be killed jealous have died with the rest of his family. No, the king wanted him alive, wanted to use him for his gift. And who would not? A prince who saw the future - surely this would be a prize indeed for any kingdom. However, his gift or curse was not really all that it was said to be. He could see the future at will, if he tried hard enough, but rarely chose to because of whey it cost him. The dreams of what was to come, though, was something that he could not control. He hated what he could do, and hated what it had brought upon him - the curse of his muteness, a curse that had been set upon him soon after his gift was revealed.

Why, then, had she come? Surely she could not just pity him. That was entirely out of the question. He was a prisoner, an enemy, and if they managed to finally break him enough to the point where he had no other choice, he would be merely a slave. He was not someone that a princess was supposed to pity. No, she must have had some other purpose. Perhaps, seeing the despair that he had been thrown into, and hearing of his suicide attempt, the king had decided to try an alternate method of persuasion. The guards would come and flog him, and then she would come to soothe the pain away. Perhaps they hoped that if he did not break under the guards, he would begin to trust and confide in here. He could not let that happen. And he did not want her to try and take away the pain again. The pain and his perception of it were the only things he could control in this miserable dungeon. To have even that taken from him was terrifying. And yet...he did not want her to leave, not yet. He wanted to communicate with her, even a little, other than her merely offering him food and then forcing her gift on him against his will. He was lonely, desperate for some sort of companionship. So he braced himself for the pain that he knew would come, and managed to rise to his knees, moving forward just far enough that he could catch hold of the edge of her skirt. Unable to let to and write anything for fear that she would leave before he could finish, his only method of communication that was possible was to look up and try to meet her eyes, his own gaze full of pleading.

He could feel her tampering with the pain again, but this time he didn't mind quite so much. It wasn't as much interference as the last time, and he remained mostly in control of himself. He let go of her skirt and moved back to where he had been sitting before, which was one of the only places where none of the chains were too restraining. Carefully taking the apple from her, he held it in one hand and looked at it for a moment, then wrote slowly on the grimy floor with the other. 'Flogged yesterday. And cut my arms - you can see that. Food might not help much.' Even writing was incredibly painful, with the pain in his arms increasing each time he moved them. Still, he knew that he had to write something.