Driving Her Mad

Writers: Bree, Eimi
Date Posted: 22nd June 2006

Characters: Meijah, Verora
Description: It starts to become apparent that Meijah has all but broken Verora's mind.
Location: Garnet Valley Hold
Date: month 12, day 13 of Turn 3

Verora brushed the dust off of the cracked old mirror with one hand, not sure she wanted to clean it off enough to see what she looked like after five months on the run. Still, when she and Meijah had stumbled across the decrepit old cothold, she hadn't been able to resist the temptation to clean off the mirror. There had been a time when she'd spent a good part of every morning in front of a mirror, after all...

The woman who stared back at her from the reflective surface looked nothing like the beautiful woman she had been. Her age had finally caught up with her, and every one of her turns was etched in her face along with a few turns she hadn't yet lived. The hair she'd been so vain about was snarled and limp, and most shockingly, showing more than a few strands of grey.

Shuddering, Verora stripped off the rags that had once been a beautiful dress, watching in the mirror as her skin was revealed. Her once voluptuous curves had thinned out, and her body was a patchwork of bruises and scratches. Some marks were yellow with age, others so new and vivid she could almost see the whorls of Meijah's thumb in them. Verora felt as fractured as the image that stared back at her from the broken mirror, shattered into pieces that might never fit together again. And there was nothing she could do, nowhere she could go...

She was Meijah's prisoner.

"Did you find something new to wear?" Meijah's voice cut through her silent reflections. He filled the small room's door with his frame as he was still the large man who stole away from the Hold with her so many months before.

She'd stopped trying to hide the way her shoulders tightened in nervousness whenever he talked--he _liked_ seeing that he made her nervous, and she had far less to be worried about when he was happy. "I checked the pump in the bathing room, first... it still works. I was going to take a bath before getting dressed." She hadn't had a bath since the day they'd fled the Hold. Not a _real_ bath.

"Oh?" he asked, his eyebrows raising in surprise. "Very well. Lead the way."

Picking up the blanket she'd done her best to beat the dust out of earlier, Verora wrapped it around her shoulders and led the way back to the bathing room. "I think we can start a fire under the tank and get warm water... maybe not _hot_ water, but warm water would be good enough." "Why don't _I_ do that," Meijah offered in a light tone. "Light the fire?" she asked in a slightly hesitant voice. "I--I can do it. If you want me to. Or do you want to take a bath first?" Shards, she _hated_ the way the words tumbled out, placating and a little scared.
Sometimes she wanted to draw herself upright and demand things of him, the way she'd done in the past. Most of her was too afraid.

"But you're all ready," he said with what almost sounded like an amused chuckle. "No, you just relax. I'll light the fire for you."

She pulled the blanket more tightly around her body as she watched him prepare the fire, feeling absurdly self-conscious considering how often she'd let Meijah see her without clothing in the past.

"Well, I'd better be careful," he muttered loud enough to hear as the flames grew higher. "I wouldn't want to _boil_ you or anything." Meijah glanced over his shoulder at the woman with his sneer of a smile.

Verora shuddered, knowing that he was fully capable of it. "Please, Meijah," she whispered. "I just want a bath." "What?!" he roared as he stood to his full height, turning around to fix her with an icy stare. "What does it look like I'm _doing_? Preparing a _party_ for you?! Do you think I'm lighting this fire for my own _entertainment_?!"

She stumbled back so quickly she tripped over the hem on the blanket and tumbled to the floor in a tangle of limbs, doing everything in her power not to whimper. "I'm sorry!" "Get off the floor. What do you think, I'm going to _hurt_ you? Is that what you think?"

"Yes," she replied, struggling to her feet. The blanket stayed in a pool on the floor, leaving her bruised body visible to both of them. "I _know_ you're going to hurt me. I just don't know when." "I only hurt you when you deserve it," he said pointing an accusing finger at her. "When you forget your place. When you try to act as though you are in charge. There can be only one of us in charge, and one day you will learn that person is _me_. With you in charge we both would have been dead within a sevenday, and don't you forget it! Now get in the tub before I lose my temper!"

She walked past him stiff-backed and climbed into the tub, telling herself that he wasn't going to hurt her _too_ badly. Probably. He walked over and began slowly pumping warm water into the tub. Meijah shook his head sadly. "Verora, if only you would not fight me. I could be so good to you. I don't like having to punish you, you know."

Verora didn't reply, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. Meijah scared her the most when he was being kind, and she was sure he knew it. She was sure he _loved_ it.

And she couldn't do anything about it.

Meijah pumped the water in silence in slow, even strokes. When the water was high enough he moved behind the terrified woman and kneeing down to her level, he began gently scooping the warm water over her bare shoulders by hand. "You know, we have no one else out here but each other. I clothe you, and I feed you, protect you... I could have turned you in long ago for a deal, you know that, don't you?"

"Yes," she said in a voice that shook in spite of all her attempts to hold it steady.

"I wouldn't do all those things for you, Verora, if I didn't want you,"
he whispered, nuzzling her neck genlty. "I wouldn't keep you with me if I didn't care."

A month or two ago, gentle words and touches had been all Meijah needed to lure her into a sense of false security. His patience seemed endless... he would wait until just the moment where she started to think things were going to get better before tearing away her illusions of safety.

Now that she had no illusions, it was like waiting for the other shoe to drop. Sometimes she wanted to provoke him just to make him lash out, because it was so much easier to hate him when he wasn't holding her or touching her or drifting kisses down her neck that made her body shiver...

She jerked away from him, terror that he might hurt her buried under her driving need for him to stop what he was doing--to strike out at her or yell at her again. Abuse she could withstand. Kindness was going to drive her mad. "What's wrong, Verora?" he asked softly, spooning handfuls of warm water over her back as she shied away from him. "Talk to me Verora. Do you want to be alone? Do you want me to leave you alone while you take your bath?"

"I don't know." It was the truest thing she'd ever said, and that fact alone made her lower her head to her knees to hide her tears.

Last updated on the June 22nd 2006

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Driving Her Mad