[sylvanSpider]

Theaffa was one of the lucky ones. At least, luckier than the other prisoners. She'd been placed in a cage rather than the stocks, but she guessed that was more for her protection more than anything. Being a female prisoner of war, she was at a higher risk of rather...unsightly things happening to her, but she'd been a person of interest. Wanted alive and (somewhat) unbroken for some reason. While that idea in and of itself was enough to make her sick (What could they possibly want with me alive?), she'd take it. At least for now.

Her cage, however, was tiny. It was hardly wide enough for the lean woman to sit down with her legs drawn up tightly against her chest, barefooted toes curled up to get what little warmth she could through the night. She struggled against the cage to get to her feet when she'd heard the commotion coming into camp. That meant one of three things: a victory, a new prisoner of war, or a combination of the two. She'd seen the same thing for the past couple of nights since her capture, though the other prisoners were much more quiet...and much closer to death. This one was loud, bloodied, and full of energy and apparently...force. She could see from where she stood that the creature was a Strix, a member of one of the two kingdoms her own homeland was at war with. Given the situation, she pitied him. He was just like her.

Theaffa remained standing. Sitting with her legs drawn up made her legs cramped her up and she leaned with one leg cocked out to the side, watching. The jeering seemed to go on for hours, eventually dying out with the last rays of the sun, but still the creature didn't stop. Theaffa shook her head sadly, watching the pitiful sight through steely green eyes. Yes, it was true that this creature was her enemy, but here they were one and the same. She watched, saying nothing as they wheeled him over beside her.

“It won't work, you know,” she said, poking both scarred hands out of her cage, resting her thin, pale wrists on the cross sections. “They don't care. Mine didn't come for me. Yours won't come for you. It's too dangerous to try for a rescue, from the humans I come from and from the Strix you come from.” If the black-skinned man chose to look in her direction, he'd see a halfling woman. Wild red hair. Pale skin. An unspoken resolve. She bore the remnants of battles past on her hands, face, legs, and torso. Some fresh, done within the past few days, some old already mounded up over the old wound. She was short too, smaller than all of the other prisoners save for the halfling they'd picked up from only the gods knew where given the fact that the closest halfling settlement was on the other side of the country. “Believe me; I tried too. I screamed. I kicked. I threw myself against the cage and even knocked it over once. Nothing comes near here. At least, not willingly.”