You Are Made of Iron

Chapter II pt. 1

​"Hello?" a voice called out, "Are you in here, girl?​
​Zeilla looked up to find a woman peering through the bars of her darkly lit cell, staring at her. She had short brown hair with little streaks of blond in it, not enough to notice unless you were looking, but Zeilla was always looking. Her skin would've been a very light tan if she lived in the Frozen Country, but here on the border of the desert, she was almost black. She took all this in in less than a second before asking,
​"Who are you? And what do you want?"
​"Well," the young woman said, "if anyone had asked me that three minutes ago, I probably would have said that I wanted to give you your bread and water then get out of this retched place. It reeks of sick people and other bile things that I do not care to imagine. The princess, my mistress, says that you are a foul creature you know. But now that I have really seen you, I see that you are just a poor little girl who's been beaten senseless and starved half to death. Do you mind if I join you for dinner, dear? I want to make sure you eat up."
​This gave Zeilla a pause. Did the woman think that Zeilla was starving by choice? Otherwise, why wouldn't she eat every scrap of food she was given? "Go away." Zeilla said, glaring at her. She already didn't like this woman, she reminded her too much of Skersha, like she was just waiting for a reason to taunt her. And she had the haughty air of one pampered to the point of stupidity. That wasn't even mentioning the suspiciousness of it all. Why would the princess's maid come to serve her, a slave? Maybe one of the guards had told her that she would get a kick out of it. Or maybe she came on a dare. Either way, her intentions were most likely not charitable. "I don't need people to come and stare at me."
​"Oh?" She said, Zeilla could swear that she saw something flashing behind the woman's eyes. "Well I was under the impression that I had your food in my hands and that you were starving from a day and a half without any source of food or drink. I hadn't realized that you just had a full meal. I must have been misinformed. I'm sorry, I will leave you right away." With the last part, the air of haughtiness Zeilla had thought she previously detected appeared, along with some cruel sarcasm. Then she began to walk away.
​At first Zeilla was surprised. She hadn't thought that the Lady would actually pay attention to her, no one ever did. But then she realized that she had taken Zeilla's dinner with her. "W- Wait!" Zeilla managed to choke out. "I mean- please!" She practically begging. Surprisingly Skersha said nothing about this behavior. Skersha usually didn't like it when Zeilla begged anyone but her. "I'm really hungry and- please don't leave!"
​"So you're asking me to give up my leverage so you can retreat back to the corners of your little cage?"
​Leverage, Zeilla thought, that means she want's something. "Couldn't you give me just a little bit of food?" Zeilla pleaded softly. "I'm starving. I can barely stand."
​"Oh don't worry!" she said with a giggly tone of voice. "I'll give you all of it, silly. You just have to give me something in return."
​The girl hunched over, an image of defeat. She knew that she had nothing to give this woman. "I don't have anything to give you! I'm a slave. I don't actually own anything. That is, anything of any value."
​"What about information, dearie? You can't be stopped from remembering things."
​"Like I said, I'm just a slave. What would a slave know that a servant of the princess didn't?"
​"How about who you are and how you became a slave of the king in the first place? I'm really in the mood for a good story."
​So I was right. She's just here to amuse herself. "Well..." started Zeilla. "I-I don't really... I don't really remember it that well," she lied, her eyes wandering over to the covered tray of food.
​"Oh come now," the lady said and, seeing her glance sat down in front of the cell and opened the tray full of steaming sausages, eggs, and bacon. It must be morning. She thought with shock, I must have been in here longer that I realized. Then she stopped, realizing the obvious, since when do olI get a plate of steaming eggs and sausages? I'm usually lucky to get table scraps from the servants when I'm here. I've never been given better than a fresh, if dirty, apple.
​"Your memory can't be that bad." She continued pretending she didn't notice the confused look on Zeilla face, "I remember the day I became a servant and that was some sixteen years ago. A thoughtless lass of seven years, I was."
​Zeilla was drooling now, she would do almost anything to have that plate of food. If that meant sharing something that she had never told a living soul before, then sadly, she might have to force herself to reveal what only she remembered.