/lit/ - Literature

For two weeks Enid endured captivity in the dark bowels of Rolevous castle, but always was preciously close to the outside world. The jailer had ceased his habit of startling her awake, and now every morn she awoke to the distant birdsong of woodlarks in the trees and on the parapets, and by-and-by she’d look out the window and spot them chasing each other in flocks, dancing and playing and scattering along the air. Sometimes she’d lose herself to watching them sail and twirl, and would look on longingly for hours at a time before finding herself again; and whenever they disappeared from view of the window, for however brief or long, it always made her dream for sight of them again.

It seemed to her that her eyes were dimming from sorrow, and with each passing day in the darkness the light from the window grew in brightness and luster until it was nearly blinding to look upon. And all the while she was ravaged with pain, and she knew—even though she couldn’t see them—that her wounds would never truly heal, but instead would turn into ugly scars.