An open window; a mind unhinged

[Jirai]

She is alone.

The land around Myrken possessed its fair share of caves and caverns, some easily found, others well hidden by nature or man. She was in one of the latter. It was a place she knew, though it was not hers, a hidden cavern that served as a storage place for illicit goods.

It was a place she knew, but not right now.

Right now, she had no idea where she was and no idea how she'd gotten there. She did not remember the mad flight from the tavern, frantic escape from the voice of the cowled figure. What she could not forget, though, were the words which echoed from the stranger.

You dreamed, of a lash that caressed your shoulder before it bit your cheek, serpent-like, its swift venom a slim-bladed, incandescent dagger through the claw-carved marks already burning your face.

She was curled in a corner, the stone rough against her cloaked back. Heedless of the blood that soaked through the bandages on her side, hands curled around her tapered ears as if she could block out the voice that was engraved upon her mind.

The pain wasn't important, was it? No, Jirai. No, it was not. It was the shame and humiliation at your failure that hurt more than your flesh could ever hope to; it was the degradation inherent to being dominated in any fashion by a male, particularly in the realm of pain, both mental and physical. Though, that does raise an interesting point: how does it feel to be under a male's thumb yet again, Jirai? A *human* thumb, no less.

Terror and rage swirled through her trembling body. Terror born of having her mind laid open before another, a terror that was years, decades in the making, only to be triggered this night. Rage that he could do this, drag out thoughts and feelings that she had buried, refusing even to acknowledge that they existed. A master of self-deception, Jirai, ignoring what she did not wish to know - until even that scant comfort was ripped away.

Or ... is it a dream? *Another* dream, I should say. Are you awake, Jirai, or are you slumbering peacefully next to the human whose love you spurn yet cannot deny?

And unlike Agnieszka, the scarred woman could not tear herself away. A scalpel - or a hacksaw - wielded by the stranger had torn away whatever it was that Jirai had clung to, leaving the raw madness that had been mostly locked inside open now to the world.

You do not know me, but I know you, just as I know and thrive in your dreams. Answer this question, then: how do you continue to live, knowing what you are and what you do ... and more importantly, how, when, do you plan to break free?