Wait for her to leave

“Let’s wait for her to leave, and then I’ll see if I can break us out of here,” Tally whispered to his cellmate. She simultaneously nodded and rolled her eyes, exasperated that at Tally’s optimism, characteristic of someone who has only been locked up for a few minutes and still afflicted by the obnoxious fallacy that is hope.

Tally watched his captor like a hawk from inside the cage. Quelm continued writing for what felt like hours, but Tally had no way to tell for sure. When she finally did stop, it was to light the fire in the center of the tent, as the natural daylight coming in through the walls was starting to dim. To Tally’s dismay, Quelm then sat down on her straw bed, grabbed a sharpening stone and one of the axes in her weapons rack, and hummed tunelessly to herself while working on it. This went on for almost as long as the writing had, with Quelm systematically sharpening every bladed weapon she had. Tally wanted to scream with boredom.

Thankfully for him, Brim was able to alleviate it somewhat by performing amusing mimes and dances around the tent, swimming around in the air, even standing directly in the fire just to show she could. Tally couldn’t reply back to anything she said of course, not without drawing Quelm’s attention, and Brim took full advantage of this by constantly zinging playful insults at him, safe in the knowledge that he wouldn’t be able to retort.

It was fully dark outside before anything happened. The sounds of activity outside suddenly seemed to increase in intensity, which Tally only noticed when he saw Quelm stand up to listen attentively. It sounded like someone out there was very angry about something. Quelm put her boots back on and left the tent to go see what was wrong.

“Finally!” Tally said, breaking an hours-long silence and startling Sarah out of a daydream in which she was reunited with her grandson. “Huh? She's gone?” Sarah rubbed her eyes.

“Took her long enough,” Tally grumbled, and started feeling around the bars of the cage for any ideas of how to break out.

“There are no weak points,” Sarah said glumly. “Believe me, I’ve had a lot of time to search for any.”

Determined to persevere, Tally didn’t let this discourage him. He tried shaking the door to see if he could at least rattle it, but the lock was tight. “Hmm,” he mused.

Suddenly, Tally became aware of the sounds of yelling growing louder and closer outside. He paused what he was doing to listen.

“You what? Pet?! Didn’t he tell you I was coming back for him?”

“Uh… well, I suppose he might have mentioned it…”

“And knowing that, you still took him anyway?”

“I didn’t realize he was that important.”

“That doesn’t matter, idiot, what matters is he was already spoken for, and you took him anyway.”

“Sorry, general…”

“You’d better hope you’ve been treating him well.” Suddenly, the tent flap was ripped open, and in stormed… Mi Iau! Her face lit up upon seeing Tally- but only for a moment, because Quelm followed her inside and she couldn’t be seen to be happy about a human.

“You can expect to be cleaning the horse stables for a week after this, Quelm,” Mi scolded. Quelm looked relieved that the punishment was not harsher. “It won’t happen again, ma’am,” she chanted miserably.

“Let him out,” Mi ordered. Quelm shamefully grabbed the keys and walked over to the cage.

“I tried to tell you she’d come looking for me,” Tally said smugly, while Quelm unlocked the door.

“Yeah, yeah…” Quelm said, brushing him off. She opened the cage and stepped aside to allow Tally to stand up and step out of the cage. He stretched, enjoying being able to stand up to his full height again. Mi Iau came over to him and grabbed him by the arm, to show that she didn’t intend to let him escape. “Don’t think I’m finished with you,” Mi said, “but right now, I have more important things to do. I’ll deal with you tomorrow.”

“Yes general,” Quelm said, her shoulders slumping sadly. Tally wanted to tell Mi to order Sarah’s release too, but it would break the whole illusion for her to take instructions from a human, so there was nothing he could do but wave goodbye as Mi steered him out of the tent.

“Don’t say anything yet,” Mi whispered, as she took him across the encampment. Mi Iau’s warriors were milling about all over the place, many of them staring at Tally while Mi dragged him along. Several of the large tents now had smoke coming out the top, and the fires projected shadows of their occupants onto the canvas walls from the inside. Torches had been erected and dotted around the place to act as streetlights.

Mi made a beeline for one tent in particular. She swiftly undid the buttons and showily shoved Tally inside, just in case anyone watching suspected her of being nice to him. She told Tally to stay hushed until she had completely re-sealed the flap. She turned around to face him, and breathed a sigh of relief.

“I’ve been looking for you for ages,” Mi said. “I’m so glad you’re okay. Quelm didn’t hurt you, did she?”

“No, just stuck me in a cage with that old woman,” Tally said. “I’d like to get her freed too, if possible.

Mi cocked her head, genuinely confused. “Why?”

“Well, I don’t think human beings should be treated that way.”

“Oh, right. I forgot,” Mi admitted. She crossed over past Tally to warm her hands at the fire in the center of the tent, which was already going. “Sorry I got pulled away earlier. I didn’t want to break cover, and I didn’t know what else to do. It would have looked strange for me to care enough about a human being to pass up my duties as general to stay with you.”

“Don’t worry, you did good,” Tally reassured her. “If you hadn’t come to rescue me, I don’t know what I would have done. Can we talk freely in here? Do you share this tent with anyone else?”

“No, I get this all to myself,” Mi said with a hint of pride, “rank has its privileges. No one should be coming in here without my permission. We shouldn’t speak too loudly though, because someone might accidentally overhear us from outside.”

“Noted,” Tally said, lowering his voice. He sighed, and looked around for a place to sit down. Mi saw him looking. “Ah, yes. Slight downside to not having a tent-mate, there’s only the one bed.”

“Not to worry,” Tally said, and sat down on Mi’s trunk of personal belongings instead. Mi sat down on the bed next to him.

“I think you should stay here for the night,” Mi said. “When it’s daylight, then we can try sneaking you out of my territory again.”

“Good idea,” Tally agreed.

“You can take the bed, I’ll sleep on the ground,” Mi offered.

“Why would you need to sleep on the ground?”

“Well… it’s only a one-person bed, you see, we’d be packed pretty close together…”

“I wouldn’t mind that, would you?”

Mi broke into a smile, like she had been silently hoping for this but didn’t want to be the one to suggest it. “I wouldn’t mind at all,” she said.

“…And now, you fuck!” Brim encouraged, enthusiastically mashing her hands together as she lazily drifted in circles above Tally’s head. Tally ignored her.

“Hey, I’ve been wearing this armor for longer than I’d like to admit,” Tally said, “it’s a multiple-person job to take it off properly. It looks like I finally have a moment where I can let my guard down… Would you mind?”

“Of course,” Mi said. Tally guided her through the process of all the straps and buckles needed to remove his plate armor in the right order, and Mi did her best to get it right. As they went along, Tally’s natural musk became freed from its prison and wafted out into the air.

“Sorry about this,” Tally said, gagging on his own odor the more armor was removed. “Actually, I’m fine,” Mi said. “I kind of like it, in a strange way. Is that part of my brainwashing, to enjoy everything about you?”

Brim cackled gleefully. “She’s got it right,” She said, “thank me later. She’s not admitting it, but the smell of you is probably driving her crazy, if I did the conditioning correctly- which I always do.”

“Brim says you’re right,” Tally forwarded to Mi.

“Brim? That ghost friend of yours? Tell her thanks.”

Once Tally was finally free of his armor, he and Mi sat across from each other on opposite ends of the bed, just talking. Mi was eagerly blabbing all sorts of secrets, anything she thought might help aid Tally to know, but also just enjoying getting to know her new Master. Tally, in turn, was enjoying having the opportunity of having someone to talk to, besides Brim, who wasn’t trying to kill him for a change.

A very strange social dynamic began to emerge, that was impossible to occur naturally. Even though Mi had only met Tally earlier that day, she trusted him completely, thanks to Brim’s mental reprogramming. Tally, in turn, was able to trust Mi completely, because he knew for a fact that she would never, ever betray him, no matter what. Such trust is usually only built over many years, and this singular characteristic of a lifelong bond was plopped onto Tally and Mi, who were otherwise complete strangers in every way.

After their conversation had run its course, Mi and Tally crammed next to each other on the bed and tried to get to sleep. Their attempted rest was soon interrupted by a mutual urge to fulfil a certain animalistic ritual, but once that was over and done with, the pair found it much easier to get to sleep. Brim was positively elated.

When Tally awoke the next day, he found that Mi was already gone. She had written a note for him at the foot of the bed, explaining that she had duties to perform, and recommended her supplies trunk if he needed to hide for any reason before she got back. Tally rubbed his eyes blearily, and yawned.