Kindness is all we have to offer here, the girl says, and it breaks my heart a little for it was true. What else could we as captives offer each other? Even if we all banded together and attempted to flee this fetid swamp, where would we go that would not guarantee the brothers would come after us again? If anything, this little trip to Luthien - as beautiful as I'd ever imagined it to be - had shown me that unless I was released, somehow, I would never be free of them.

And even then, if whoever released me managed to catch the ire of the men here? I could still end up in the crosshairs through no fault of my own.

It was infuriatingly unfair.

I cleared my throat, the gesture painful from the salt burn, and offered a faint smile to the girl. Truly, I would be fine. I was just tired, and depressed, and forlorn. The girl had hesitated before admitting she was a captive too, and I wasn't sure why. Her mother certainly seemed to be: I could see her gaze roaming the treeline beyond us in that watchful, wary way us captives had, so I didn't wholly understand why the girl would not feel this way either.

"Yes?" I echo, out of curiosity, intentionally softening my tone. "Did you come here by choice, then? There's no shame in it." Or at least, I told myself there wasn't. "I was tricked here by Leif."

As the girl introduced the pair of them I inclined my head with a flick of my saggy tail. "I'm Ainaz."