The Tributes (Sable)

Following My Lady

For a beat, silence reigned in the room. Then My Lady broke it by striding up to the front of the room till she was right in front of the throne, turning to face the audience of wide-eyed girls, and commanding, "Stand up and follow me."

She then turned and swiftly made her way to the same double doors the Queen had left through, leaving the girls to scramble nervously to their feet and follow her, with the two maids silently herding them along from the back.

It could have been Sable's own dark mood that influenced the impression. But she couldn't help thinking that they looked a little like a herd of prisoners – with one soldier leading the way to the dungeons while two others covered the back, making sure nobody escaped.

The trek to their rooms was both remarkable and not in a way. They were, after all, inside the kingdom's ornately decorated and heavily fortified palace in the capital. So there was much to stare at that a lot of them had never seen before. But Sable was almost apathetic to the grandeur around her after the death threats and overall apprehension of what was going to happen next. 

Besides, the brisk pace My Lady had set was hardly conducive to sightseeing.

However, after veering into a hallway leading to their left at one junction, they were all startled when they were led through a door that led outside.

Or rather, they were led to an open balcony-cum-stone path.

The girls in the front had paused when My Lady had strode right on, hesitant to follow. But they only had a second to worry about where they were going before My Lady noticed them, whirled around, and snarled, "Well? What are you waiting for? I don't have all day!"

She whirled back around and kept walking forward without waiting for a response. And somehow, avoiding any further wrath from this woman was enough to encourage them all to move forward. It was very obvious she didn't care for them. And it was also very obvious that she was all that they had in this great big palace at the moment: It was either her or the Black Queen. And no one was willing to risk getting lost and having to see the Black Queen again.

However, once they trickled out the door behind their lady-in-pink, quite a number of them gasped and hesitated again. For, they weren't on a balcony or porch that connected with a stone path... They were actually on a stone bridge that was stories off the ground!