Day 15

Elizabeth was struggling. After she had been captured, her wrists were bound with a new rope (she could tell it was new because it didn’t bend very well), and she was led across the snow by a man without a mustache (he very obviously needed a mustache for some reason or another). After several minutes of walking, the captive and capturer had gotten into a sort of rhythm. The big man stepped forward, his boots crunching in the snow, then he yanked on the rope tied to Elizabeth, who yanked back, and took another step forward, dragging the girl by the rope, and winced as he was kicked in the ankle. For Elizabeth, that proper and mannerly young girl, had a bit of a mischeivious side too. Or she did not that she was in Decepmyth. 

“Ih, eh, Ahh oh ee!” she screamed. 

“What?” said the man without a mustache. Elizabeth repeated her urgent message. Sighing, the mustache-less man turned around and loosened the cloth cutting into the girl’s mouth. 

“Now, what were you saying?” 

“I said: ‘get this gag off of me,’ and you did!” She started to gleefully giggle with one hand over her mouth, then stopped when an idea hit her. 

“Untie me!” she commanded with sudden authority. 

“I most certainly will no-“ Elizabeth concentrated harder, and gave him a look. 

“I mean, I most certainly will!” hastily exclaimed the man without a mustache. He quickly loosened the new rope bonds, and Elizabeth rubbed her wrists together. 

“Thank you very much,” she said, smiling sweetly, “and may the force be with you!” Then she skipped off, tripped, fell headfirst in the snow, and scrambled up again with a wet nightgown.

Feather was looking up. No, not looking up as in staring at the clouds, but looking up as in finding a word in her pocket dictionary. She knew it, of course, it was the janitor that didn’t. 

“Immaculate:” she read, “(especially of a person or their clothes) perfectly clean, neat, or tidy.” She tucked the dictionary into her pocket, nodded to the janitor, fixed her already perfect blonde hair, and went on her way. The heir to Queen Magenta was coming to claim the Stone Palace. She wanted the castle to look immaculate, unblemished, spic-and-span. She sighed. It was a tough job keeping the castle in order while Queen Magenta was away, especially when those she worked with had absolutely no vocabulary whatsoever. She took a quick left turn, and practically floated down the stone steps to the prison cells. Walking past the imprisoned possible heirs, her thoughts turned to them. You see, for years, she had been kidnapping possible heirs (sometimes even forcing them to write goodbye letters to their friends and family) and imprisoning them so that they would not have a chance to fulfill the prophecy. Feather peeked through a one-way magically sealed window. There was an arrow lodged in the cell wall. Tsk tsk, Blonde Heroines Rules was at it again. She was seriously mad at being forced to write a letter stating that she was going to college. But her friends believed her, not knowing she was imprisoned with so many others. The next window was covered in silvery material. Quicksilver’s work. Upon seeing it, Feather sighed again. If only her janitorial team lived up to the term “immaculate.” As she approached the next cell, Feather’s countenance turned cold. The cell was empty. The door was blasted open. It had once held another possible heir, known among the imprisoned as “the boy who lived,” and famed for the lightning-shaped scar on his forehead. The boy, of course, was Ruby. Such a pity he escaped! She had forced him at wand-point to write a heartfelt letter…and then he blasted his way out. And became famous, not only in this world, but in Reality (although somehow J.K. Rowling messed his hair color up). Oh well, he wasn’t one of the genuine possible heirs. She hadn’t captured the right ones. But it didn’t matter, because she would assist ESQM in making sure that none of the chosen ones made it out of Decepmyth alive…