She was sweaty and pale, like someone in the throes of a fever, and her lank hair fell around her sallow face in strings. Her dull eyes were ringed with bruises, big and bloodshot, the blue irises pushed out of sight by dilated pupils.

Wouldn't bathe nor eat, nor sleep, at first. Had to crack 'er over the head to wash the stink off.

The room was tattered like the rest of the palace, but the destruction had a more recent air about it; the wallpaper had been torn off in deliberate strips, the bedsheets were mangled and ripped, and the curtains hung lopsided and shredded, letting light into the room in tear-shaped pieces.

Threw such fits, ye'd have thought we locked her in a cell...

Ceres covered his mouth and nose when he stepped inside.

Had to tie 'er up, sir. Weren't no other way. She caught me 'ere, see...last week. Nearly tore my ear off. Vicious.

Emme was not writhing and struggling against her bonds, but sat very still on the edge of her bed, a thick manacle attached to her ankle. Still as the grave - that was the expression. He met her eyes; she glanced back soberly, and her gaze held far more hatred and accusation than he was accustomed to.

"Emme," he said evenly, though his voice threatened to shake like a leaf, "I've come to take you away from here. Do you remember me?"

She didn't reply. He stepped closer, noting very carefully the length of the manacle chain, the distance she would be able to travel and how quickly his old bones could respond if she did.

"I'm sorry they did this to you," he said quietly, glancing back at the door, where two armed guards were standing warily. "This isn't what I wanted to happen. Emme, you've got to come with me. It's not safe for you here. I'm going to take you back to Vienda, and we're going to keep you safe."

Emme made the slightest of movements, a little twitch, and Ceres halted abruptly. She was like a mad dog, he thought, one liable to bite at any moment.

But when he reached out to take her hand, she did not move or respond; her bones felt like bird's bones in thin, cold skin, damp with exhaustion. He tugged her up. She had been plump enough when she had left; now she was emaciated, barely strung together. Deftly, he undid the manacle's lock with a flickering spell. The ankle beneath it was rubbed raw.

He carried her. Her eyes stared straight ahead, and he wondered if she had never met his eyes at all, if their alignment had been coincidence. She was practically catatonic.

All had been arranged, and the carriage was waiting for them at the gates. He set her gently inside, wrapped in a thick woolen blanket he had taken from the bed, and she leaned against the window as he climbed in beside her.

Glancing up, he though he saw a thin, smirking figure in the Palace's doorway.

The ride was silent for a while, until finally he spoke.

"I want you to know," he said slowly, "that I instructed them...to take good care of you, not to harm you, Emme. They broke their promise. I'd like to say that they aren't going to get away with it..." He trailed off for a moment, guilt trapping him like an animal in a cage. Her eyes shifted slightly towards him. "I don't have any idea what you've been through, but I can assure you, I...well, this won't happen. Not what happened before, with Jon. I'm not going to let him make a spectacle of you again."

Emme listened intently. Her milky blue eyes were fixed on him, and he tried to smile.

"Why are you helping them?" she whispered, almost inaudible against the clunking of the carriage wheels on the unfinished road.

Ceres paused, blinking.

"The...the party?" he asked, keeping his voice quiet. "It is...the right thing to do, I believe."

"But you're a golly," she whispered.

"And you're a witch," he replied, "who was living in Vienda, in a bakery. We aren't bound inexorably to our roles. I do what I believe is right, and right now, that includes getting you to safety."

"Safety?"

"The government has been looking for you, Emme."

Emme turned back to the window, her expression numb. Ceres could not understand what she was feeling, not in the slightest, but he reached over to pat her hand. Her fingers curled under his palm.

"Your fa--High Judge Azmus has declared war on the wicks," he continued softly, "perhaps in hopes of finding you. It may sound strange, but the safest place for you now is the How."

----

The carriage ground to a halt, and the cabby and Ceres had some muted conversation outside. Money changed hands. Emme waited.

The door opened on her side, and the galdor put his arm out for her to grab hold of. She clung to him weakly, still wrapped in the blanket, shivering in the afternoon rain. He opened an umbrella over the two of them. The blanket trailed in the puddle underfoot, and the carriage pulled away, horse-hooves beating the wet cobbles.

"We'll have to walk," he said over the sound of the rain. "It's not far to the docks."

She hobbled along, and he patiently supported her. At any moment it seemed her strength would give out; Ceres felt his heart go out to her. She had put so much effort into resisting Hawke that she had worn herself ragged and thin, so that nothing was left but weary acceptance. He was reminded of the youngest passives, the ones who cried and bemoaned their fate, helpless to do anything about it but angry beyond all reason. Their eyes bulged like hers did, in disbelief and pain; their hands shook, perhaps going over a traumatic memory again and again, like hers. Like Emme they would not look at you, not directly; they spoke little, ate little, bathed little, slept little, until at last they accepted their fate. He felt another surge of guilt as he imagined it.

When they had walked a little ways, she stumbled.

He caught her before she hit the ground, but her legs had given out; he reminded himself that she had probably not had any exercise in weeks. With Ceres' help Emme struggled to her feet, skirt-hem soaked in rain.

"Let's rest for a moment," he said, leaning against the cracked adobe wall of a tenement house. She followed suit, hugging herself. It was chill, but he removed his coat and gave it to her; she was dwarfed under its wide shoulders.

"Emme," he said to her, "I can tell you're frightened."

She looked up. She had her blue scarf, still; he had been surprised to see it. Somehow he doubted she even had a neck under that thick wool.

"There's no need to fear me. We...I wish this wasn't necessary. In all my days I had never resented such a trust as that I was forced to place in Silas Hawke. But hear me, Emme, if there had been another way I would have found it. If the witches had not found you, someone else would have, someone who would be glad to trade you for a handful of coin to a man who might lock you away forever."

The witch had hunched her shoulders, against the cold or emotion; her lower lip was trembling. She shut her eyes. Ceres knew that look.

"I won't ever let that happen," he promised her, and he saw tears spring to her eyes. She threw herself against him, sobbing into his chest, and he stood there stunned, unable to move and unsure of what to do. She had put her skinny arms around him, hugging him tightly to her, and he awkwardly patted her head.

She was murmuring something, and he leaned in to hear.

"I'm sorry?" he asked, lifting her chin with his fingers.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

He felt an odd pressure and a searing sensation in his chest, and looked down to see her skinny fist clenched around something, something sharp and pointy and protruding from his ribcage, and her frightened eyes.

She pushed him hard against the wall. He heard his skull crack against it, and she backed away slowly, dropping his coat and the blanket in the puddle, shaking like a wind-beaten branch. He saw her turn as if in a dream, the sides of the picture vignetted in blackness, and he reached down to touch the object - some kind of an ornate pin, silver with a little bird. Looking up again, she was gone.

He slumped back against the wall, hearing blood rush in his ears, panting like a dog.

(( OOC comments welcome!

If you're wondering about the pin: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1720 ))