Day 4: On the hunt (James & Moira)

[jamesthorn]

James isn't okay. He is bleeding. His head hurts again, and his leg is throbbing near his ankle, like he ran through some barbed wire. Danger, I'm in danger is the first thing he thinks when he opens his eyes, blinking back the blurriness in front of his face. It feels like he's been drugged, but it may just be that his body is overcompensating for the massive pain he has in his left ankle and his chin is now bruised from where he hit it on the ground while being dragged away. The last thing he remembers, from being taken, he remembers the anger, fear on Moira's face, but she couldn't reach him.

If that wasn't bad enough. James attempts to move now that he's awake, but he finds that he is tied up, both hands bound behind his back with rope that digs into his skin. There's a wall to his back, keeping him from falling over. Slowly, he takes in his surrounds, licking at his bottom lip, it's swollen and crusted with dried blood.

All the lights are dimmed enough that he can't make out much of his surroundings, but he knows he is alone. Who knows when whatever took him will return to finish what it started...

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[chasingtwisters]

Moira manages to cast a glamour over herself before quickly following whatever took James. When she gets closer to the large, hulking forms dragging him away like a piece of meat, she starts to make out their forms and she swallows, trying not to let her fear overwhelm her. They look like trolls, something straight out of Tolkien, complete with clubs by their sides. That must have been what they struck him with, she thinks, keeping to the shadows as she follows them down one of the most winding paths they've come across in the labyrinth so far.

She curses when they reach a room at the end of a tunnel, a small one that she doesn't know how they all squeeze inside. She hates that she has to bide her time and wait, but she doesn't want to make any sudden movements; she's no good to James injured herself.

After what feels like hours, which she doesn't know for sure because she's lost all sense of time down here, the trolls finally march past her, grumbling in a language she can't understand but making crude, obvious enough gestures to inform her that they definitely plan on eating James. So she has to move fast.

She enters into the dim room and finds it eerily quiet. She thinks, perhaps, the trolls have gone to hunt for seasonings for their new prize, and she shudders. She turns until she finds James, tied up and pressed against the wall like the meal he is about to become. She hurries over.

"James, can you hear me?" She asks, working instantly on the ropes around his hands, sending out little flickers of embers from her hands to eat away at the bindings. "We have to get you out of here, they're most likely going to eat you."