Lupus Princeps

1.1 - The Great Escape

One Month Before The Escape

BACK IN THE women's camp, Nymeria's mother laid on top of a table, resting on her side, aching and desperately clenching the tablecloth beneath her. Nymeria stood beside her with the other women surrounding them, tending to her mother's wounds with herbs, water and a sorrowful silence. 

She was in the presence of quiet coping, still hollow from the morning's Reckoning; still shocked into silence. Even when the women touched her shoulder as they passed, Nymeria couldn't lift her gaze from the floor beneath her feet.

A hole in her chest carved a gaping wound into her heart, leaving her breathless and unsteady even when sat down. 

"I got you some tea."

It was the woman from the Reckoning, the one that held Nymeria up and forced her to stay silent and still. Nymeria only nodded to her, welcoming the makeshift pot that was placed in her hands. The woman did not expect her to speak and Nymeria could not force herself to, either.

Nymeria looked down to the pot in her hands and barely knew what to do with it. She felt everything and nothing at all. 

Her hands were just useless, always useless, and limply attached to her wrists. 

The woman sighed, placing a comforting hand on Nymeria's shoulder, as many of the women had done already. It could not ease her pain. 

"I'm Ramona, but everyone calls me Mona." She paused, glancing down at Nymeria's hands with hesitancy, "Amara used to play with my granddaughter, in the education programme."

Nymeria peeked up at Mona, staring straight through her at the mention of her sister's name. The words travelled straight through her ears but only took real effect on her heart. She tried not to listen to her mother's wails, either. Afraid of breaking the walls around the void that threatened to consume her. Like it had consumed her mother. 

Mona was older than her mother, looking to be around her mid-fifties, she had wisps of silver hair lacing through her black curls but not old enough to be working the Tall Fields. 

Her mother cried out again. Screaming for Amara. So loud, Nymeria could sense the other women becoming worried. They could not be caught treating her wounds. The Males would not allow it. Especially with the stolen herbs, they would all be Reckoned for that.

Blood rushed through Nymeria's ears and her hands began to shake so violently that the tea spilt over her legs and all she could see were golden flowers and black pods on the Reckoning post.

Golden flowers, her little Amara, black seed pods, Amara foaming, blood on the post, Amara's cries.

Every muscle in her body tightened and she wondered if this was what Amara felt before her death. 

Suddenly her tight legs were carrying themselves out of the camp. Leaving behind the empty mug of tea.

Away from her screaming mother. Away from her sister's vacant bed. Away from Mona desperately trying to comfort her, trying to bring her back to sanity and keep her from facing the same fate as young Amara.

Without Nymeria herself knowing, all too soon she was surrounded in the Golden Fields. 

It all happened so fast, Nymeria didn't even have time to worry about the Uniformed Males patrolling so late at night. If she was in her right mind she would have never risked going out of the women's camp past curfew.

Yet nobody would dare to step in the Golden Fields. Not even the Uniformed Males.

She had run so far she was at the bottom of the wall's edge. Completely concrete and towering high, she strained to look at the very top. 

The dizziness hit her fast, knocking her straining breath out of her lungs. Nymeria fell to her hands and knees, hitting the foliage that surrounded her and recoiled instantly when her palms met with a carpet of black seed pods.

Not trusting her legs, she crawled towards a tree trunk. Every inch closer towards the golden Laburnum tree felt like a step closer to her own grave. A fate she welcomed with open arms.

 Even resting with her back against the trunk and her knees propped up she felt useless. Utterly useless. 

She couldn't help and treat her mother's wounds. Her heart raced. She didn't help Amara. She clenched and unclenched her hands. She didn't stop them from murdering her sister. 

Nymeria wanted to be powerful. She didn't want the same fate for Amara, yet she did nothing to stop the Males. 

She was useless.

A cluster of sparks ripped through her ribs, building the tightness, building the tension until it was all too much and suddenly she was sobbing. Echoing into the darkness of the golden trees, Nymeria's body falling limp on the black abyss of pods beneath her. 

Shielded by the mass of foliage, Nymeria pounded her hands to the concrete wall until they were red, raw and bloody. Staining the bottom of the wall with her blood, she was glad to be hidden from prying eyes and patrolling Males.

Before she could stop herself or rethink her actions, her bloodied hands began carving through the dirt. Ripping out strands of grass. Throwing away the black pods. Shovelling away at the ground beneath the wall. Until a small hole appeared.

"Nymeria?" 

Her head snapped up. Her heart clenched in fright, knowing it was all a mistake. A stupid, silly mistake that would likely cost Nymeria her life.

Through the bushes covering her body, Mona appeared. "Nymeria?" She whispered, barely able to see through the darkness of the night.

"What are you doing here?" Nymeria replied, an urgency laced through the gravel of her whisper. "Get back to the camp! They will see you!"

Mona brushed through the bushes, treading lightly and brushing away the black pods before she could step on them. She crouched near Nymeria's body.

"I couldn't let you leave in such a state, you'd get yourself killed."

The tears gathered in Nymeria's eyes, she pleaded, "You're getting yourself killed by following me. Go back to the camp before someone sees."

Mona's eyes locked onto Nymeria's dirtied hands and the blood on the wall. "Wh-What are you doing?"

"I don't know."

Nymeria truly didn't know what she was doing, coming to the Golden Fields was the worst mistake she had ever made. She had endangered her life by just stepping outside the women's camp after dark and now she had endangered the life of Mona, who had tried so desperately to save Nymeria's.

"Go back. Now, Mona. Please." Nymeria turned away from Mona and back towards her small hole. She began digging once more. Not knowing where she was going and not caring for the repercussions. 

A few seconds passed until smaller, pale wrinkled hands appeared next to her own, dirtied black ones. Copying her actions and digging a larger hole.

"I won't let another child be lost. Not again." 

Nymeria thought she wasn't supposed to hear Mona's small whisper, but she heard it anyway. And nothing had comforted her more. 

They dug until the sky turned pink as the sun started to lift over the horizon. The only sound between them was Nymeria's shaking sobs.

Nymeria thought they would stop there. Stop the digging, realise what they were doing was the definition of treason and beyond that, realise that their escape was truly unattainable.

But her hands didn't feel so useless anymore.

One Day Before The Escape

"Have you got the food?" 

"Yes."

Mona sighed, her eyes widening in alarm. "Where did you hide it?" 

Nymeria looked around the empty camp, usually full of women, yet completely abandoned since a Reckoning was to take place. She only prayed that no one saw what she was about to do.

Looking back at Mona and with a quick pace in her step, Nymeria crouched under her mattress. She moved it to the left and peeled back a ridged floorboard revealing the stolen rations. "It should be enough for us to make it north. To the snow-"

"It won't be enough," Mona began, "Amabelle wants to send her children with us, she can't leave them alone with her Male. God knows what he would do."

"How did Amabelle find out?" Nymeria looked back at the rationings, adding two more mouths to feed. Mona was right, it wouldn't be enough.

"From Leslie, who told Jean when she was caught sneaking off to the Golden Fields," Mona paused, frowning with an indescribable gleam in her eyes, "Jean now wants to come as well, threatening to reveal us if she doesn't."

Nymeria felt the fluttering of her pounding heart, panic settling inside her chest and she hid her anxiety with a tight grimace. There were already seven women joining them, adding now Leslie and Amabelle's two girls, with Mona, Nymeria and her pregnant mother, it would be fourteen exhausted mouths to feed.

"There won't be enough food to make it five-hundred steps towards the north with fourteen people. It's not possible!" She slammed the floorboards down and shoved her mattress back into place. 

"We will find a way." 

Nymeria shot her a cold glare, "There is no other way. No food means no energy, meaning no movement. We won't get anywhere if we die of starvation before we even-." She paused, collecting her thoughts whilst she closed her eyes, trying to think of another solution.

"We will gather food on the way, do not worry yourself over something we cannot change." Mona placed a warming hand on her shoulder, rubbing slowly as she always did when Nymeria got worried, or upset. Never showing it but Mona always knew.

Nymeria ran her hands down the sides of her arms, tracing the scars littering her mocha skin. Convincing herself that the women knew how to forage, collect berries and identify them. Their time spent in the fields, Nymeria could almost tell exactly what weed was poisonous and which could provide a small boost to their food rationings.

Snapped out of her thoughts upon hearing the gong of a Reckoning, Nymeria took a staggered inhale of air and stood straighter, squared her shoulders before she marched out the women's camp with Mona in tow. 

Nymeria spotted her mother almost instantly, she was hard to miss with the great protrusion of her belly. Relief washed over her form, reminding herself that her mother was safe. 

Her mother's eyes were distant, unfocused and glazed over to the point of being watery. She stared straight ahead looking through the bodies in front of her, through the Reckoning stage and into nothing. 

She had been like this ever since the day of Amara's passing -- the day of Amara's murder. 

Nymeria glanced quickly at her mother's dark face, cheeks flushed by the beating sun and her eyes in a place further away than Nymeria could ever know. She turned to face the Reckoning post.

A spark of fire lit up Nymeria's back, coursing its way throughout her body and spreading like wildfire until she was sweating and clutching onto her mother's arm out of her own necessity. 

The burning reached her throat so severely she could taste her heartbeat. A rattling tremor overwhelmed her body and her hand clutching her mother began to rock.

The sound of Male cheers startled her, chanting in her brain yet not reaching her eardrums. 

"Momma! Momma! Nymer-"

The gong sounded once more, as the body of a young woman was dragged off the Reckoning post. Nymeria looked to Mona, as the blood drained from her face. A young girl, nearing her teenage years killed and brutalised for taking one too many rations of bread.

"No more." She whispered through the commotion of the unruly Males. Batting the dead body with their metal batons.

Mona furrowed her brows, "No more what?"

"No more women will die." Nymeria paused as a cold determination settled in her eyes, "We leave tonight." 

When the day's work was over, Nymeria and Mona sat with the other twelve women. Huddled into one corner of the women's camp.

Rigidly resting in silence, they waited for the final colours of the setting sun to fade into black. 

By the time the other women of the camp had finished setting up their mattresses and cooing their crying children to sleep, the sky was dark. When the last child finally closed their eyes, Nymeria stood. 

Moving with quiet urgency, she pushed her mattress, pulled the floorboards and took the sheet from her bedding. Rapidly collecting the stolen extra rationings into the cover and tying it with a loose knot. She could barely keep her hands steady from the adrenaline surging through her.

The women grabbed a hold of their children and watched her, awaiting her next move. A nod of reassurance was all they needed, before slowly padding out from the women's camp.

She had taken this route for the last month, night after night, weaving seamlessly through the muddy pathways, ducking under branches, spiked wires and avoiding the attention of the uniformed Males until the gates of the Golden Fields were in view. 

The last routes were easy, a few hiccups here and there, but nothing major. Yet a sense of dread pooled in Nymeria's stomach before they left the women's camp. 

Only Nymeria and Mona had taken this route before, two bodies to hide, whereas now Nymeria looked back to the twelve people behind her and felt the overwhelming weight rest on her shoulders. 

Twelve bodies would be much more difficult to hide. A cluster of rebellion waiting to be discovered and Reckoned. There hadn't been a rebellion like this in several generations and the repercussions would be severe. 

In a reflex, she grabbed her mother's hand and steadied her breathing. With one foot out the door, there was no turning back.

So they ran.

They ran until their feet were caked with mud, their breaths became laboured and their energy depleted. They ran even when their legs screamed for them to stop. Until they were at the gates of the Golden Fields. 

"What's it like..." A young girl asked in barely a whisper. "...in there?"

Nymeria felt a stab of jealousy, how lucky the girl must have been. Never getting picked for the golden fields. Instead, Amara had been picked too soon, without knowing any of the consequences, because no one had ever told her. The jealousy was quickly replaced with her own hollowed pain. 

Nymeria silenced the girl's question with a stern finger to her lips. 

They wouldn't be caught. Not when they had already gotten this far and not for some stupid question that didn't need to be answered. She looked down the line of women, checking over their bodies as a rush of concern flooded her. She counted, checking for everyone. Twelve heads. Twelve bodies. Twelve lives.

They formed a chain, all crouched low, linked together by their hands. At the end of the row, a woman fidgetted, catching Nymeria's eye. 

"Jean, what's the matter?" Nymeria asked hesitantly, locking eyes with Jean at the end of the row her panicked eyes drowned Nymeria in ice. 

Jean shook her head, "We shouldn't be doing this. We can't be doing this."

Her voice was loud and crackling with nerves, mirroring the trembling of her hands. 

This caught the attention of all the women and Nymeria feared that their great escape would be ruined. She shared a concerned glance with Mona. 

"Jean, calm down." She didn't know what else to say, her mind flooded with worry, Jean was speaking too loud. They would catch the attention of the uniformed Males if they didn't calm her down soon. 

"No. No. No." Jean began pulling at her hair in her hands. Panting between each word. "We are going to get killed. They're gonna kill us for this! This is treason. We will be Reckoned. All Reckoned. I can't. I can't-"

"-Jean please, stop." Nymeria broke the line rushing to her side, "Everything is going to be okay. But only if you stay quiet." Nymeria spat out the word. Hoping somehow it would enter her brain and make sense through the fog of panic clear in the woman's wild eyes.

It was the most Nymeria had spoken to Jean her whole life. And as much as she didn't want to, she found herself hating the woman. Hating her for causing a scene, hating her for halting their escape. Hating her reluctance and obvious panic.

Before Nymeria could speak another word, a deep voice bellowed from the distance. 

"Hey! Stop! Stop right there!" 

A bulky silhouette came barrelling towards them, the only thing Nymeria could see was the outline of his muscular shape and the metal baton in his hand. A uniformed Male. 

"It's too late. Too late." Jean bawled, shaking with sobs, "We're already dead."

Fear struck her veins, tensing her muscles as she fought hard not to register the Male's demand. Going against the nature of everything she was raised to believe. That when a Male speaks, a woman follows. 

Snapping out from her frozen state, Nymeria rushed to the front of the line of women. Grabbed her mother's hand once more and dragged the line past the gates and into the Golden Fields. 

Narrowly missing the tree roots and plunging through the darkness, Nymeria was all too soon at the tunnel. So close to freedom she could taste it on her tongue. 

"Stop! Don't move!" 

The Male was at the gates now and would be there at any second. Nymeria didn't process anything; take into consideration any possible excuse they could have for breaking curfew or resisting a uniformed Male. So without a second thought, she hurriedly guided her mother into the tunnel.

"Keep crawling. Don't stop." She commanded, urging her mother to acknowledge her request. Hoping that for the first time since Amara's death, she would listen. 

One by one Nymeria practically threw each woman and child into the tunnel, not sparing a glance to them. Anxiously looking towards the gates and waiting for the Male to arrive.

She made note that Jean was not with the line anymore, in fact, Jean had not even entered the gates with the rest of them. 

She shimmied the last child into the tunnel. Not waiting a second before throwing the sack of supplies through the tunnel and crawling in after them. 

A pressure on her ankle shocked her and suddenly she was moving. Being dragged out from the hole and roughly thrown to the ground beneath a Male's feet. 

The air was ripped out of her lungs when a blow met her ribs. Gaping her mouth open and willing herself to breathe, she realised the Male had found her, he had found them. 

He sent the metal baton down onto her again, with savage power. Striking her arm that burrowed over her chest to protect her. 

"Where are they?" The Male yelled. Unsatisfied when Nymeria didn't - couldn't answer. "Answer me, bitch!"

He raised the baton again and Nymeria whimpered, instinctively curling her body. Yet no blow came.

The Male was stood, staring at the tunnel with horror twisted on his face. "What did you do?" It came out as a whisper, like a breath of air leaving his lips. "No, no, no what have you done?"

Instead of the ravenous fury, she expected to be unleashed, the Male staggered back. Dropping the baton into the carpet of golden leaves. 

All the blood draining from his face with a terror that Nymeria had never seen on a Male before.

"You stupid bitch. You've killed us all." 

The Male was eager to place as much distance between the tunnel and himself. Yet Nymeria saw an opportunity.

It bubbled from the pits of her stomach. Like deep water currents finally bursting through a dam. It consumed her. It corrupted her. And with rage, bottomless and unyielding, her hands reached for the baton, curling around it with a power she had never been able to wield. 

The throbbing in her ribs and the ache on her arm surged her fury forward. Swinging the heavy metal with the force of her entire body, she clashed against the distracted Male's head. 

He screamed bloody murder and she enjoyed it. It fed her fury, spoonfuls at a time. Each hit was another spoonful of rage.

He was sent to the ground, covering his wound with his hand. But she would not stop. She didn't stop until the screams went silent and his chest stopped moving. She didn't stop until blood pooled from his body and leaked onto the golden leaves beneath him. 

Then she dropped the baton and warmth coated her fingers. 

Without glancing back, Nymeria plunged herself into the tunnel. Not caring for the smears of blood inadvertently coating the walls around her. 

They were finally free.

(3543 Words)

A/N

Another chapter smashed out! I hope you all enjoy!

Please let me know what you think! What will happen next? Damn Nymeria's got a dark side... Anyways, as always I hope you all stay safe! Stay inside! We'll get through this! 

Remember to vote and comment! I love hearing your opinions! Let me know if there's a mistake because this is still unedited! Next chapter is out tomorrow!

Xoxo