Felix, Prisoner

⭑ · · ᯓ 𐃈 ᯓ · · ⭑

Water dripped from a cracked ceiling, making an already-damp space even colder in the early hours of the morning. Felix stretched his sore back, working out the tense muscles that the straw sleeping mat did little to cushion at night.

He folded his worn bedsheet, checked the tiny barred window that let in a few streaks of light, and did his usual stretches. Such was his routine before the breakfast bell rang.

“…Maybe today’s the day.”

He’d repeated those words every morning for close to a year. As though the countless letters he’d sent would finally be answered, and someone would pull him out of that hole in the ground and into the light.

He chose to believe in them, whoever it was.

Felix stopped a set of sit-ups, sitting upright with his lean arms wrapped firmly around his knees. The cuffs he wore restricted magic usage, but the ‘chain’ between them behaved as if it were invisible, allowing for free movement.

“Someone’ll realize that there’s been a mistake and come looking for me.” He nodded to himself after a moment. “They’ll set me free, and then I can finally go back to my—“

“—Wouldn’t count on it, buddy.” A woman’s voice drifted across the holding block from the neighboring cell. “Unless you mean a day like any other miserable day, then I’m tempted to agree.”

Through the bars, a sharp pair of emerald eyes studied him, narrowing a bit.

Kite. He’d once overheard a guard call her that—a rare slip. Around here, prisoners were usually addressed by what they were, not who they were. Or the number painted above the door.

The girl looked to be in her early twenties. Messy, dirty-blonde hair framed a face that always seemed unimpressed with the world. Two small feathered winglets poked from either side of her head where a human’s ears ought to have been.

Even dressed in the same tattered rags as everyone else, there was something unmistakably avian about the young woman. Kite carried herself like a bird of prey, tense, as though she were only waiting for the chance to take flight.

Over the months they’d shared the same cellblock, she’d made a habit of antagonizing the guards and inmates, and listening to Felix’s morning pep talks just long enough to take the wind out of his sails. Usually, he met her prodding with polite acceptance, but not on this day.

“What does it matter to you?” The man chided. “Don’t you want to escape too?”

“‘Wants’ got nothing to do with it,” she shot back. “Shitholes like this? They’re where hopes and fancy dreams go to die.”

“How optimistic.”

He saw her shrug her feathered shoulders nonchalantly in the dim light.

“Best not to get your hopes up, fella. That's all I’m saying.” She paused for a second. “It’ll hurt less that way.”

Despite her bluntness, Felix found it difficult to blame her for the attitude. To survive in a place like this with her stature, it required a sharp edge, and the other inmates weren’t the friendliest bunch either.

He could not deny the truth of her statement either, in all honesty. Months had passed, and he was no closer to understanding how he had even ended up there—let alone how to get out.

King Dynas didn’t forget about me… did he?

Before he could dwell on that thought overlong, the sharp clang of metal boots against stone echoed across the corridor. A baton rapped against each iron door in succession, shattering the morning’s silence.

The breakfast ‘bell’ Felix had been waiting for, followed by the tired groans of each and every inmate that didn’t share Felix’s early-waking enthusiasm. The young man was already on his feet, waiting to get some grub.

“You know the drill!” The Warden barked out. “Stay back when we unlock your door. You’re to line up in an organized fashion, starting in order of your cell number. Those who do not follow directions—Do. Not. Eat. Am I making myself clear?”

“Sir, yes, sir!” Felix sounded back. Kite, however, did not.

The Warden walked all the way down to the end of the holding block, stopping just outside Felix’s cell. However, his back was turned to the younger man, instead focusing his scrutinizing gaze on the cell across from his. A smirk danced across the man’s face.

“The bird doesn’t eat today either.”

As the Warden turned from Kite, Felix got a better look at his face and the conspicuous slash running from his forehead to the bridge of his nose. The gruff man walked away, chuckling to himself all the while.

Kite stepped a little closer to the bars once he’d left. The motion revealed taloned toes peeking out from beneath her prison trousers, tapping impatiently against the stone floor. The only light reaching her cell spilled through the bars from Felix’s lone window.

Their eyes met again briefly through the bars. Kite looked as unimpressed as ever. Felix offered a sheepish smile before one of the guards pushed him forward. There wasn’t much he could do for her, not with the Warden watching silently at the doorway.

Much like the sheep back on Felix’s family farm, the inmates all herded themselves in a line as they marched up the steps to their waiting meal in the mess hall. Lest a prisoner get any funny ideas, the guards they passed on the way kept close tabs on the swords at their hips. Not that Felix had any such ideas.

For all his desire to leave, Felix couldn’t shake the feeling that someone, somewhere, had made a terrible mistake. Now, many prisoners probably believed themselves innocent. Felix knew how that sounded. The troubling part was that he couldn’t remember doing anything that would warrant a prison sentence of this length and condition.

As though he had fallen asleep in the halls of the Royal Studium, only to wake up in chains a moment later.

It beggars belief.

“Keep moving, thirty-two!”

Lost in thought, Felix took the hilt of a sword to the ribs. The impact knocked the wind and a little saliva out of his mouth, but he trudged ever forward—determined to check on that bruise later amongst all the others. His eyes twitched, but he kept them forward, daring not to look back and make things worse for himself.

The dining hall wasn’t an overly impressive space, hardly fitted with enough tables for all present, requiring a certain tolerance for one another to seat all thirty-two… make that thirty-one of them. Prisoners of all shapes, sizes, and races took their places. Humans drifted toward humans, beastfolk toward beastfolk, and everyone else settled wherever there was room.

Felix felt no kinship with anyone present, least of all the two cutthroats that had made it their mission to haze him from the moment he arrived. Seated atop a rickety wooden bench, Felix felt the warmth of the morning’s stew, dripping down the back of his neck into his tunic instead of into his mouth.

“Whoops, my hand slipped!”

“It’d be a shame to let this go to waste, eh, thirty-two? Share a little.”

The two bullies commandeered Felix’s stew, splitting the spoils between themselves with a cruel laugh and a slap on their victim’s hapless shoulder. The other inmates said nothing, the guards did nothing, and Felix’s expression remained unchanged.

“About how long has it been since you came to be here, chum?” The more portly of the two cutthroats wasn’t content with just his meal, evidently. “About eight months? A year, maybe?”

“What’s it matter, Phil? He ain’t never gettin’ out of here, same as us!” The lankier bully cackled in a high pitch. “And after all that hootin’ and hollerin’ about some king. You think you’re special, don’t you, thirty-two?”

He leaned in close enough for Felix to smell the rot on his breath.

“Well, you ain’t nothin’.”

Felix didn’t react. He simply wiped the gruel from his collar and from his dark blue hair with a napkin and sat there in silence. With a final glare, they left him to go and torture their next target, or they might have. Felix didn’t care enough to check.

With the announcement that mealtime had ended, finally, Felix sighed to himself and stood—assuming his position at the end of the line. For all his restraint, he hadn’t come away from the dining hall with absolutely nothing.

He returned quietly to his cell at the end of the block, waiting until he was sure nobody could see him. From his pocket, he produced a bread roll and sat down, crisscrossed to enjoy what remained of his meal. As he lifted the roll to his mouth, however, he spotted Kite’s silhouette in the corner of her cell.

Her chin was resting on her knees, sitting on her bed of straw as if it were her nest. She craned her neck slightly at Felix’s approach, but just as quickly went back to looking at the wall. A loud grumble echoed between them; whose stomach produced it, Felix didn’t quite know. However, he took one last look at his breakfast and quickly tore it in half.

Kite reacted to a noise, looking back again to see half of a loaf, rolling until it hit the iron bars of her cell. She raised an eyebrow, unsure.

“You haven’t eaten.”

“Neither have you.” Felix’s reply was swift. “And how did you know I haven’t eaten yet?”

“The smell of gruel’s coming from your clothes instead of your mouth,” Kite replied curtly before looking away. “And… it was a hunch.”

She had him there; he had to admit.

“Anyways, I’m not after your charity, buddy. Keep it.”

“It isn’t charity.” Felix let out a small sigh and smiled. “I’m just sharing a meal with a friend.”

“…Friend?” Kite’s lips parted slightly, whispering inaudibly to herself. She finally grabbed the roll. “…Idiot.”

Kite took an exaggerated bite of the stale bread. Felix couldn’t see her face anymore, but he got the feeling his prison neighbor wasn’t as annoyed as she wanted him to believe.

And for the first time that morning, the stone against Felix’s back didn’t seem quite so cold. Though his ribs still hurt a bit from before…

In time, Kite finally spoke up again, her sharp gaze crossing his.

“…Don’t make a habit of it.”

“Of sharing my lunch?”

“No… of being so nice,” Kite replied quietly, looking down at her hands. “You shouldn’t. Like with those two bullies, people will walk all over you if you let them. It’s… better to be feared. Take it from me.”

She mumbled that last bit. Felix thought for a moment about how to respond appropriately, though eventually just one statement came through.

“I’ll try to keep that in mind.”

1.2

The sun had climbed high in the sky by midday, bringing with it the scent of fresh grass and a little warmth to the cramped space. Prisoners were offered but two moments of respite from their cells in a given day. First was breakfast hour, and the second was…

“Yard time!!” The Warden came back around, uttering what most of the inmates wanted to hear. “And be sure to rinse off before you louts come back in; you smell like horse dung!”

“Sir, yes, sir!”

It was Kite, not Felix, who loudly shouted in obedience. Felix looked at his neighbor incredulously, wondering if she’d hit her head on something.

“Who said that?” The Warden stomped to the very back of the block to the cells in the thirties.

“That’d be me, Warden!” Kite stood at attention.

“Well, I’ll be damned by the Mad God himself...” The Warden shook his head, mouth hanging slightly open. “I thought I was hearing things. What, a few days without food and you’re a model citizen now, are you?”

“Sir, yes, sir!”

“Straight and narrow, like a sea serpent's back end??”

“Sir, yes, sir!”

The man stared at her for several long seconds before a hearty laugh came from the center of his gut, slapping his knee for added effect. Both Felix and the Warden’s men exchanged weird looks.

“Alright, thirty-one. Follow the others, and make it quick.” He waved her onward. “I won’t tolerate any acting out, though, you hear me? You do, and it’s back to the hole like usual.”

“Sir… yes sir…”

Her final response was considerably less enthusiastic. Kite slipped into line with the other inmates as the guards led them toward the yard. There was some snickering amongst them as it was a rare sight indeed for Kite to suck up to the Warden.

Right before leaving, though, Felix thought he saw her wink in his direction. Just once. He tilted his head.

“I must be seeing things…”

“And what about you, thirty-two?” The Warden turned his attention to Felix. “You’re looking pale. Why don’t you get some sun for a spell?”

Felix’s sunset eyes drifted to his open window and the inviting light outside. Birdsong mixed with the shouts of his fellow prisoners who were already in the yard. Tempting as it was to join them, he looked back to the book resting beside his bedding. His hand found it almost by habit.

“If it’s all the same… I’d rather stay here.”

“Is that so?” The Warden grunted, seeming more bored than anything. “Suit yourself.”

He took a few steps before muttering under his breath.

“Pansy.”

Felix waited until he was sure the Warden was outside with the others before he cracked open the dusty book in his hand and opened it to the front matter. He smiled to himself.

To the guards, it was nothing more than a dusty old textbook from the Royal Studium. Hardly worth confiscating. They had no way of knowing it was the first book he’d ever called his own. His thumb brushed the faded inscription within.

“To Felix,

Knowledge is the one weapon they can’t take from you.

—Dynas”

Archmage King Dynas drilled into Felix the importance of a quality education from the first day he arrived in the capital. Two years of evenings by candlelight came to mind, stumbling over letters and concepts that perplexed him.

In time, when he could communicate properly, he was also set to learn how to defend himself as a knight would and take up a weapon and magic. He never did get the chance, however, before he was locked in prison without cause.

Even so, Felix owed the royal family a debt of gratitude he could never repay for lifting him and his family out of poverty. That was just one of many reasons he couldn’t stay cooped up in there forever.

If that idiot wants to spend all his recreation time reading, it ain’t my business, Kite thought.

She folded her hands behind her head, following the others into the yard. Ignoring the piercing glares from every prison guard along the way, Kite kept up a steady pace. Truth be told, she wasn’t in the mood for recreation either.

Her eyes settled on two familiar inmates near the far end of the yard, laughing louder than anyone else. She flashed a toothy grin.

Kite had a score to settle.