Speak No Evil

24 comics.
by on July 27, 2019 at 12:18 am
Chapter:
Characters: ,
Location:

Maybe The Dead

Warning: Contains talk of abuse, and heavily implied sexual assault/rape

“I just wish.” Tora Zollun said suddenly. “I wish she wanted me when I wasn’t scared.”

He was saying that more to himself than to her, but she couldn’t ignore it. The words ignited something ugly, something angry in her chest. Blueten’s fingers curled hard into the wood of the steps.

He got up then, and handed her back her mask. He still wouldn’t look at her – did he think he shouldn’t? She took the mask and watched him leave out the front door.

The next morning she found a glass of melon juice at her door. Tora Zollun didn’t speak to her after that. He just went back to his usual routine as if nothing happened.

She wondered if anyone else knew any of this was going on, but she knew they didn’t. What of Darach though? Did her husband really not know what was happening under his own roof? Blueten spent the next few days watching him carefully. He didn’t speak much, and he didn’t appear particularly bright but… she caught the glances between him and Baya when Tora Zollun was around.

Ah, of course. Blueten seethed. Of course he’s in on it. This whole guild is awful.

But she’d known that already, she’d already had her suspicions for awhile. Her time raiding with them hadn’t changed this, and everything to do with Tora Zollun had more than just cemented the problem. She’d never left the Nightmare Court camp, the Wychmire Daggers was just the Nightmare Court under a different name.

Realizing this didn’t really help anything though, it mostly made her feel powerless.

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by on July 27, 2019 at 12:20 am
Chapter:
Characters: ,
Location:

Maybe The Dead

Warning: Contains talk of abuse, and heavily implied sexual assault/rape

She never did escape the first camp on her own, and now she was stuck in this mess of a guild torturing its own members. She saw Meritt cowering before Onora or Birr; Bogs taking another beating from Ebril; Shade and Arrow hastily polishing Claws’ tools… She saw Pepper’s suspiciously torn face and cautious glances towards Baya – had it really been Nightmare Court? And she saw Tora Zollun, the literal child… And she could do nothing.

Where were the Wardens? Why didn’t she see them? Did they not care? Was it because the Daggers targeted Nightmare Court that they simply declined to intervene? Surely targeting foreigners would make the guild enough of a problem to deal with. Or were they simply incompetent? Was there no one who would do anything about this wretched guild?!

She raged in her hopelessness, taking it out through their raids on Nightmare Court. Sometimes she’d alarm them on purpose, just so she had someone to tear apart.

“Are you okay, Mute? I’m worried about you.” Meritt tried to talk to her, but she wouldn’t respond.

Of course she wasn’t fine. If she wasn’t tearing Nightmare Court apart, she was strategically trying to place herself between Tora Zollun and Baya, hoping to keep her from whisking him away when no one was looking. She couldn’t sleep at night, always keeping her door open just a little in case she could hear anything. She kept careful watch of every weaker member, watching for signs of abuse so she could move in when it happened. It was all she could do and it wasn’t enough.

Tora Zollun kept vanishing anyway, coming back on the brink of death. She felt a personal sense of failure every time she found nothing at her doorstep -no blueberries, no juice- a clear sign Baya had stolen him again.

Then he disappeared for four days, the longest he’d ever gone missing. Baya acted like nothing was wrong, and no one asked where he was. On the fourth day though, in the evening, he finally appeared. The guild members had all been celebrating their most recent successful raid, one that Tora Zollun had missed. There was food and drinks on the one table in the room, but most of the members were occupied with a game of cards going on on the floor beside it. Blueten hung back by the wall, watching as always.

It was Pepper who first saw him, pointing him out with a shocked yelp. Tora Zollun appeared from seemingly nowhere, crawling near the dining table. He was desperately trying to reach the food on the table, grasping at the table’s edges and trying to pull himself up. His wrists were blackened, and it looked like small critters of a sort had

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by on July 27, 2019 at 12:22 am
Chapter:
Characters: ,
Location:

Maybe The Dead

Warning: Contains talk of abuse, and heavily implied sexual assault/rape

nibbled at his heels. He looked awful.

A few members moved to help him but Baya stopped them.

“Don’t.” She said coldly. “He has t’help himself.”

So they backed off, all of them watching as Tora Zollun finally got himself standing, finally managed to reach a nearby loaf of bread.

All of them but Baya who casually returned to her cards, and Blueten who quietly made her way over to the other side of the table. She had an inkling of where Tora Zollun had come from, but she needed to see herself. As she reached the table she could see the latch leading to the basement wide open. The basement no one was allowed into.

All eyes were fixed on Tora Zollun -a perfect chance. She slipped inside, made her way down the creaking steps into the cool depths below, and stopped on the cold earthen floor. Immediately she was overwhelmed with the stench of dried sap, vomit, and worse. She cringed behind her mask, trying not to gag.

It was too hard to see with the mask on so she took it off. As her vision adjusted to the low lighting, she could make out shapes of something against the back wall. She could hear the skittering of rats, could see them dart out of her way as she moved closer.

Chains.

They hung from the wall, two manacles dangling to the floor below. They’d been picked open with something small – a rat bone.

And suddenly the basement transformed, its earthen walls becoming the sickly sweet flowered walls of the Nightmare Court camp; the manacles becoming thorny vines reaching up and outwards, multiplying till they surrounded her on all sides; the rats becoming angry biting nightmare hounds. Then it all turned back just as quickly.

Baya kept prisoners.

Blueten could feel fire burning through her whole body. The basement had been a prison this whole time. Why were they letting her do this?! Why was no one stopping her?! Why?!

The fire grew hotter, threatening to burst from her skin.

Was there no one who would stop this?!

WHY?!

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by on July 27, 2019 at 12:24 am
Chapter:
Characters:
Location:

Maybe The Dead

Warning: Contains talk of abuse, and heavily implied sexual assault/rape

From the earth sprung a hundred or so minions, made from the rat corpses littering the place. They skittered to her side as a rotting boney mass, and Blueten blinked at them in surprise. She hadn’t meant to summon them, and certainly not so many. Was she always able to control this many minions? She gave them a long considered look. They looked back and she could see herself from a hundred different angles.

Of course.

If no one alive will stop this guild…

“Maybe the dead will.” A hundred screechy voices whispered back to her.

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