Finn must have passed out at some point while being tortured half to death by the human mage, because the next thing she knew, she was becoming aware of the rocking movement of a wagon.

The first thing she felt after that was a crippling headache. It felt like her head had been cracked open, the way it was aching. Her face felt swollen, but when she hesitantly rubbed a hand over it, it felt normal enough. When she moved her arm, she realized that even her bones ached. Then, she realized that all her whole body ached. Her joints and bones ached like she had twisted all of them, bruised all her muscles, scraped up all of her skin, everything. Her whole body ached, awareness of the pain washing over her and forcing a moan out her mouth.

She heard some shuffling to her right and realized someone was leaning over her. Long inky black hair, thick and curly, poured over the person’s shoulder to brush her chest. Finn slowly blinked her aching eyes open, trying to focus on the girl leaning over her. The hair helped Finn identify her as the girl who had been with the chief. The light wherever they were was faint, so it was hard to clearly see her face in the additional gloom cast by her long curtain of hair. Still, Finn could make out those big dark eyes that seemed to broadcast so much emotion. She had the same thick eyebrows as the chief, a similarly short wide nose and dark shapely lips. Where his face was chiseled with a strong jaw, hers was soft and round with full cheeks.

“You’re awake,” she said quietly.

Finn tried to sit up, but hissed and fell back when that made a shock of pain shoot down her back. The girl made a concerned noise and pressed a hand to Finn’s shoulder, her naked shoulder. Which wasn’t right. Finn had been wearing a long sleeve tunic before she passed out.

Feeling a knot of dread form in her stomach, Finn carefully raised her head and looked down and, sure enough, her own pale nude body stared back at her. Finn let her head fall back with a thunk and another groan, though this one was of exasperation rather than pain. Trying not to get caught looking, Finn glanced over at the girl, who was still looking at her with concern in her big, emotive eyes. Even in the low light, Finn could see that she was nude, too. Her chest was full and sweetly rounded, and Finn angrily squeezed her eyes closed before she could make out anything more than that.

“What happened?” Finn groaned, pressing a hand over her eyes.

She could hear the girl shifting beside her, and then the hand was gone from her shoulder.

“The humans had a mage with them, and she cursed you halfway to hell and back for killing two of their generals,” she rumbled, her voice dark and rough. The voice was a bit of a shock, but it made sense, Finn supposed. She was still a kobold, even if she was much smaller and cuter than most kobolds Finn had seen.

“Fuck,” Finn spat, the memory of that spell washing over her again.

“Yeah,” the girl agreed. “After she was done, they trussed us up and tossed us in these carts,” she explained.

“After they stripped us?” Finn asked.

When the girl didn’t say anything, Finn chanced a glance at her from under her hand. The shame on her face told Finn it was probably best not to question her much regarding that. She could guess why a bunch of angry human soldiers would have stripped them easily enough. She didn’t need to make the girl relive it.

“Fuck,” Finn sighed again, and this time they both stayed silent for a while as the wagon rocked along. With a little rest, the pain started dissipating quickly. Whatever the mage had done, at least the damage had not been permanent.

Once Finn was feeling a little better, she could hear the sound of multiple wagons and horses, the noise of people talking and walking, bags and barrels rocking and smacking together. They must have been in a caravan of humans, though where they were headed was anyone’s guess. Inland, at the least.

“Who are you anyway?” the girl asked after a long while of the two of them sitting silently. “You came out of nowhere,” she added sullenly.

“I’m Finnea, but call me Finn,” Finn said slowly, trying to come up with what to say as she said it. “I was just passing by on my way to Basinpost when I saw the smoke.” Basinpost was the nearest town to the encampment, if Finn remembered right. She hadn’t been there and knew nothing about it, other than its name attached to a dot on a map, so she really hoped that there were no follow-up questions.

"I didn't know there was a camp on the beach there. What made all of you set up there?" Finn asked, hoping to redirect the questions away from herself. Nothing was more suspicious than someone who had no questions, anyway.

"Yeah, well," the girl shrugged and looked away, her expressive eyebrows coming down low over her dark eyes. "We've only been there for a week or so. Or, were there. We used to live in Canary Cave, about thirty miles up the coast. But, then the Seelie Queen ceded the cave to Poseidon, so we had to leave. None of the nearby fae settlements would take us in, the Queen wouldn't respond to any of our requests for aid, so eventually we landed there. We sent a messenger to the Court almost two weeks ago, but we haven't heard anything back..."

"That's awful," Finn whispered, surprised at the roughness of her own voice. She hadn't meant to betray that much emotion, but it was hard to hold it back. At least she knew her instincts had been right. Rebels indeed.

"Hm," the girl hummed, her expression distant, her thoughts likely a thousand miles away.

Finn was watching the girl now, so she saw her frown, her face clouding over with suspicion. “Where did you learn to fight like that?” she asked.

“All elves fight like that,” Finn lied, going for good-natured but coming off more snappish.

The girl scoffed and looked away. “Yeah, okay,” she said.

Quiet reigned again, and Finn tried to examine the wagon they were in without moving around too much. It was wood, though not very well-made as the slats of the wood didn’t come together quite correctly, letting late afternoon sunlight sneak in between the cracks. The wagon probably wasn’t five feet deep, because Finn had to lay diagonally across the floor corner to corner in order to lay flat. There was straw thrown across the floor, possibly to make it more humane, or possibly just to soak up some of their piss and shit. Finn hoped that they would let them out occasionally to shit outside, but at the same time she hoped no one ever opened the stupid wooden door at the end of the wagon.

“I’m Adi,” the girl said abruptly. Seemingly, she had made the decision to keep talking to Finn.

“Who, ah,” Finn hesitated, hoping her question wouldn’t seem suspicious, “Who was the man that was with you? Before?” she asked.

Adi’s face immediately fell, her thick eyebrows angling up and her big eyes growing glassy with tears. “That was my father,” she croaked.

Her father. Well, of course he was. Finn had already noted that they looked similar, especially around the eyes. She had tried to kill this beautiful girl’s father. Or, she had tried to save him. Even she wasn’t really sure what she had been trying to do.

“He tried to protect me,” Finn said eventually, at a loss for what else to say.

“Yeah,” Adi agreed.

“Is he-” she wanted to ask if he was dead, but didn’t know how to do so tactfully.

“They separated us. I don’t know what happened to him after they put us in here,” she said quietly.

So, he might still be alive. Finn found herself thinking that she could still rescue Adi’s father, and even worse that she wanted to. Which was treason. But, she couldn’t get over the image of him crouching over her, trying to protect her with his own body. Nobody had ever done anything like that for her, not even Ruven, and they had been through more together than anyone else. Finn tried to remind herself that Adi’s father likely never would have done that if he knew she was there to kill him.

The wagon eventually creaked to a stop, the sound of men and horses louder than before as the company made the noises of settling down to make camp for the night. The color of the light streaking between the rough-hewn boards of their wagon looked like late afternoon.

Finn struggled to sit up, and this time Adi didn’t stop her. “We need to get out of here,” she grunted.

“There’s no latch on the inside of the door,” Adi said. “I already tried it.”

Finn crawled on her hands and knees across the straw to the door and checked it anyway. She gave it a few hard smacks and heard the jingle of what sounded like a padlock on the other side of the door.

“Shit,” she muttered.

The sound of men talking and laughing on the other side was getting louder. When Finn glanced back over her shoulder and saw that Adi had pressed herself into the farthest corner and pulled her knees-up in front of her to partially shield herself from whatever was coming. Finn shuffled back a few steps, as well, wanting to be out of grabbing range but not wanting to look especially afraid.

After a few tense moments of waiting, there was the sound of a key being inserted into the lock.