Lumi

The young imperial woke slowly. She rubbed her pounding head with her hands, her eyes slowly adjusting to the gloom surrounding her. Moonlight filtered through a grate in the ceiling, revealing the small room she was in. She couldn't remember how she got here, she paused, she couldn't recall anything clearly. The imperial wasn't sure if that was bad or not, but it certainly didn't feel right. The far side of the room was still cloaked in shadows, the weak moonlight unable to show her more. She pulled herself up, her muscles protesting at the movement, slowly trudging towards the darkness. Shapes started to take form before she was abruptly stopped. Something was caught around her ankle, a metal chain etched with purple runes stopped her movement. Panic started to rise in her chest, she yanked and pulled at the chain, both at her ankle and where it was bolted into the wall. She continued to pull at the chain until she wore herself out, without much more than a sore leg to show for herself.She hurt all over. She had no idea how much time had passed, days blurred into each other and whenever she slept, she found herself different. Today she had awoken with extensive bandages over her left wing, she didn't try moving it, she had quickly learnt when part of her was bandaged it hadn't been finished and would be useless. She assumed it would soon match her right wing. Plucked of feathers and replaced with heavy fabric. She’d already needed part of the fabric replaced, having caught it on her shackles a week or so ago. She hadn’t been so lucky with the replacement, a haphazard patch of mismatched fabric had been roughly sewn over the wound.

A few weeks was the answer. She was inspecting her recent patching, her growing body tore its fabric coating, new patches were practically being added daily. Her once smooth cream canvas was now postmarked with random pieces of fabric, some patterned some not. She was quite fond of the stripey fabric that went down the side of her neck. The sun was barely setting when she heard movement outside her room again. That was unusual, her tormentor normally waited until deep in the night to come for her. Their footsteps were slow and laboured, unlike the normal quick pace she knew. She sat with her back pressed against the wall, watching the bars like a hawk. A loud thump and some muttering and chains started to rattle as the bars slowly sunk into the floor. Her eyes flicked between her short chain and the now open room. The shackles still held tight, and the chain had gotten shorter as she’d grown, no chance of making a break for it. The brief silence seemed to last eternity before a dragon came into view. A dark bogsneak staggered into the room, dragging a large sack behind him. The bogsneak’s fins were torn and stained, his scales were covered in a web of scars, their light colour contrasting against his inky hide. He glared at the imperial, his eyes ringed in black with a dark pink center. He continued to stare her down as he finished dragging the sack into the room, before retreating, never looking away from the imperial.

She didn't move until the bars had risen and the sounds of movement had left nothing more than a faint echo. At first she just barely poked the sack with a single claw. When nothing bad happened, she carefully opened the sack. A carefully sewn plush toy of a grey imperial dragon was curled up inside, roughly the same size of a hatchling. She frowned, why had this been brought in, what was she going to do with a toy.

Its eyes opened.
Continued...