The Written Works: First Light's Flit

She sat in her cell, staring at the gritty texture of the concrete walls. It had been maybe three, four days since her arrest. She still had no clue what she had done to offend the law, and no one offered to tell her why she was here. For the past three days, she had spent the majority of time in her own mind, thinking, as a healthy escape from this prison and into the depths of her own mind.

So she was sitting on just such a day, before footsteps sounded in the landing, some way off. She sat up and was alert. She hadn’t been fed that day, perhaps it was lunch already? Short of the sun rising and setting, she was unable to tell when it was time to eat. They came closer to her cell, stopping just short of her bars. A guard, yes, though she’d had her fair share of guards talking to her. She looked to the guard to ponder why he was here.

“Hey, you’re gonna be meeting the warden today.” he said, fiddling with a small baton in his hands.

“Why is that? And what is a ‘warden’?”

He gave her an unamused look as if silently judging her for not knowing why she would meet the warden.

“Just be on your best behavior, got it?”

She nodded, not wanting to upset the guard. She hoped that with good behavior, she could get out of this cell and be put into a different one- perhaps with something to keep her company rather than her own thoughts. The guard nodded back and briskly walked away.

After watching the hallway from which he’d left for quite a long time, she relaxed once again and became prisoner to her mind once more. What was a warden? Why did she need to be on her best behavior? She wasn’t opposed to the idea of acting cordially to someone or something who seemed to be in power, she only wished to know why.

She waited and waited, now only able to think of one thing. It was taking a long time to meet the warden. The sun came down to the horizon as it had done the previous days, its orange light tinting the gray prison walls a soft shade of gold. 

Then, off in the landing, she heard the loud clomps of military boots, large and likely belonging to some powerful person. She sat up, dusted herself off, and prepared herself. Was it this warden she had heard of? She only hoped that the warden would be as cordial to her as she would be to them.

Two pairs of footsteps then joined the boots which she figured to be the warden, walking down the hall in which her cell was kept. She waited at her bars, hands resting between two of them as she tried to see a sneak peak…

In walked a very tall, broad-shouldered man. His deep brown eyes were dull, uninviting, as though he’d seen a million wars and participated in them all. From his face alone, one would guess that he was in his mid forties, though time had made his hair gray with stress. He wore a military uniform littered with various patches and scratches and tatters, the details long since lost to time. His boots were caked with dirt, the soles worn down and barely the width of a finger, having lost the traction that they had likely once possessed.

She trembled slightly at the sight of such a mammoth of a man. She could only tell things were not going to go well, unless a soft interior hid behind such a threatening appearance. She drew her hands back from the cell, stretching lightly before standing as tall as she could, fixing her prisoner’s uniform.

“Here she is, sir,” one of the guards beside him said, pointing to her. “She’s been asking why she’s been here.”

The two guards shared a playful glance, which made her stomach sink to the floor. The warden looked her up and down, seemingly judging her, before coming close to the bars with his hands out, seemingly prepared for an attack.

“You wanna know why you’re here?..” he asked in a somewhat soft voice, at least, as soft as this man’s bass could reach.

She got slightly closer to the bars in anticipation for the answer to her days-old question.

“Why?”

There was a small pause. The guards shared yet another quick glance. Her and the warden stared into each others’ eyes, before the warden quickly took hold of her collar and brought her ever closer to the bars, her body pressed against them. She froze- she had anticipated something bad, but not this horrifying! 

Anger flashed in his eyes as he spoke, “Because you’re a damn criminal, you pathetic little beggar.”

“W-what did I do?!-” she stammered, before being quickly cut off.

“Just shut up already!” He then deposited her right back to the floor in front of the bars, drawing his hands back through and crossing them.

He nodded at the guards, the two of them sharing a quick laugh before leading the warden away, leaving a confused Jordini in their wake… her question still stood. What had she done to deserve this?

She sat for a while in front of the bars, mind reeling, in a desperate attempt to understand what had just happened to her. She glanced at the ground, eyes suddenly fascinated by something which was never there before- something with had been prohibited in this sector of the prison, just because she was here. Dirt.

Now, if she was able to simply move and control regular dirt, she might have escaped immediately. Though it seemed as though she were only able to control clay. Though she pocketed the dirt. She sat down on her bed and began to think…

Only after night had long since fallen, tossing and turning in the flat bed, did she come up with a plan to escape. She never was one to violate the law for real- she was only accused of it here in this world, but she had resolved that she couldn’t stay here much longer if she was to find her characters. So she decided to do something very uncharacteristic.

She first checked that everyone in the prison had retired for the night, before taking the dirt out of her pocket and inspecting it. She promptly licked her finger and rubbed it on the dirt, carefully kneading it to form slightly more wet dirt. Her hope was that it would turn into clay with enough time and saliva.

After the entire night had been spent and dawn was just coming upon the prison, she had something she could’ve worked with. It was beyond dirt or mud, it was finally somewhat clay-like. She rolled it around in her hands a bit before immediately taking it and shaping it into a sharp point. She had been thinking about her escape all night. And now was only the most perfect time.

She dragged her bed to the window, careful that no one would hear the scraping of the posts against the floor, before standing on it and carefully inspecting the screws. She shaped her little piece of clay into a wedge before forcing it to harden. It was a make-shift screwdriver, the perfect tool when in a prison. She drove the screws out of their hinges before sliding the barred window open, scanning the outside surroundings before slipping through.

She had just entered the courtyard. Regular prisoners were allowed to be here, but not her. She was isolated from this section, though she had heard many things from inside her cell; random conversations, as well as taunts from prisoners who knew she was there. Though, in the morning hours, it was empty, free for the taking.

Creeping to the wall around the prison with as much stealth as she could manage, she finally touched foot before the large metal walls. She checked her surroundings once again. It seemed as though she was in the clear. Using the clay to form small rocks on the walls for her to climb, she quickly arrived at the top partition of the wall.

From there, it was as simply as sliding back down the wall, hands scraping against the sides of the walls. She looked around once again, as though unsure that she had really escaped. But she had. The free air embraced her as she walked into the forest. Though she had no time to reminisce. She walked away, away from that prison, and immediately began her trek of finding her characters once again.