(OOC: I read this while listening to this music piece, and as long as you read it somewhat slowly, it works beautifully. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5zFnGRaO0E )
How many days had passed since the forced wedding, Daphne had no idea. Her days were nearly only spent within her cabin, laying on her bed and staring at the wall.
She hardly ate, she did not speak a word. She no longer kept herself in fighting shape. In truth, some people wondered if she moved at all on some days. Word began in hushed tones around the camp, that the woman that merchant had brought, would waste away to death.
Not that Daphne cared, or took notice. The fire that had always been in her, was now barely smouldering ember. Her way of bashing through every barrier no longer could get her through. The strength she'd felt she attained, was like a kitten who thought it could take on the horse.
She was not strong enough.
Somehow, this day -a day she had lost track of entirely- she began thinking about these things. Only the vague feeling of thought which she could not truly put into words. But it was in her mind enough to be called thought.
Tears, ones she had not shed at all in her haze of time, slid out her eye and along her nose unbidden. She wished the wasting away would speed up.
"I took a stroll by the ruined fort on the day-I-ay-I-ay..."
She sat up, the tears on her nose hitting her chin and the front of her shirt. She knew that voice.
"And I lost my heart to the Greenway girl..."
She could see him, twirling her around; gently guiding her through what he called their musicless dance. She could have danced her entire life to just his voice.
It was not fair that everything had been taken from her, by someone she had been prepared to give everything to years prior. Her freedom, her family, her future...
"There's something he can't take from you," her mind scolded itself.
"Your scowl is my favourite thing about you." Her hand, as if of its own accord, moved to a pocket just on the inside of her tunic.
Out of this pocket, she withdrew a piece of paper, now horribly crinkled. But she could still hear his voice reading it to her; she did not need to read it.
"You gave me my fight and fire back."
She held it a moment. It felt as though he was speaking to her. She shook her head at the thought, but it still stuck with her.
Somehow, her chin lifted and she took a deep breath. "My fire is something Harold Brushwood won't ever take from me. No matter what else he does," she said softly to herself.
She began to laugh. The noise startled those guarding her cabin, but when one of the men peeked in her window, he saw her laughing joyfully and pressing her hands to her chin as she did so. She laughed, and laughed.
This woman did not SEEM to be insane. Rather, she gave the Brigand the feeling that the entire camp just lost perhaps one of the most major battles they were fighting.
She stood and burst through the door of her cabin, her face glowing despite looking so pale and lifeless mere minutes before.
"I am going to bathe," she stated simply, before stepping over in the direction of the lake.
The two men guarding her door practically stumbled over themselves to inform the women of the camp that they needed to guard "Petunia Brushwood".
Daphne laughed inwardly and sang loudly. No words, for the only words in her mind were, "I will always be Daphne Jewelweed, until I choose otherwise."
She continued to vocalise, singing every emotion she felt, as she bathed. It felt as though she was washing these hazy days from her mind and soul. The birds of the tree ceased their song to listen to her lungs expelling such a strange noise.
The entire camp was confused. And uneasy.
