He had expected to find a way to overcome the far too enthusiastic guard, had hoped all the hard labour forced on him would at least prepare him for another fight. Instead, he grew steadily weaker, the hard life and terrible conditions in the prison camp taking a high toll not just on his appearance but mainly on his health. It was still summer, but there were times when Dorian just couldn't stop shivering and sometimes he found it hard to breathe.
He might even have remembered his little wife during his coughing fits, but he didn't have any time to linger on similar thoughts. The amount of work required of him didn't lessen just because he didn't feel well, and it certainly wouldn't make the guard to go easy on him had he failed to finish it.
Not everyone just wanted to let everything go and get through the next day, however. Liam, quickly bored with his new wife and still nursing a grudge towards Dorian decided to go on inspection of the prison.
The guard welcomed him with perhaps more enthusiasm than he should have, but perhaps he was hoping to win favour with his lord. Or perhaps he was happy to get some action, as days in the camp had been very quiet for quite some time.
For a while Liam just stood there and watched Dorian labouring in the mine, quietly fuming. He might have been satisfied with the humbled state of his enemy, but the lack of any reaction from him had quite the opposite effect. Liam expected and wanted fear, as the rightful ruler over the whole area, but even anger would be preferable to ignoring him like he wasn't there at all.
Dorian was so focused on working, trying not to strain his aching body more than necessary, that he didn't even see it coming.
He only noticed Liam when the lord walked directly to him and demanded proper respect in his most commanding voice. He turned, trying to find his voice, not to mention the right thing to say.
Before he could speak, Liam stabbed a finger into his chest, hurling even more abuse at him.
"I..."
"You should address me as 'my lord' or 'your highness'. And why aren't you on your knees? I suppose scum like you never learns, not unless the lesson is repeated often enough."
Liam slapped Dorian hard across his face, scowling. "Now kneel, you scum."
The slap woke Dorian up. He bunched his fists and almost threw himself on his assaulter, who promptly drew back in alarm. For a while he wanted to fight, to beat the brat to a pulp and forget the consequences.
It lasted for just a few seconds, but it was enough.
"You clearly need more lessons." Liam smirked and called for the guard.
Dorian felt as if he watched what came next from a distance, unable to take an active part in it. He barely felt being chained to the punishment pillar before the whip bit into his bare back again and everything blurred in a haze of pain.
He hardly noticed Liam watching with a smirk on his face or heard his insults.
When he woke up from the daze, he could only cry, now completely broken. The pain and general weakness were bad enough, but the realisation of his complete helplessness was even worse. The brat - the lord - had won and there was nothing Dorian could do. No way to get back at him, no escape.
Dorian never got his strength back after that last time at the punishment pillar. His health was deteriorating fast and the living conditions were no help - he supposed even his mother's hideouts, safe houses and refugee camps were better. At least they were warm and there was more food there, even if the company was boring at best. Still, as his fevers and breathing problems returned in full force, he wouldn't mind being transported back there.
He continued doing his best in the mine, terrified of more punishment, but soon he wasn't able to work at all and even standing took some effort. The guard didn't insist when he made sure the fever was genuine, but other than that there was no help to be had in the prisoner camp and certainly no healers. He was just mostly ignored.
Until he finally collapsed a few days later and didn't have the strength anymore to get up and hide from the cold rain.
The last thing he saw was water running down the cloth of the crude sleeping tents and a dark hood turning toward him.
It was soon after that Alysanne tried to finally visit her father and received the grim news.
She had been to the mines shortly after Dorian's arrest, as soon as her initial puzzlement and anger passed and she started missing him, but her father had been sleeping at that time and Alysanne didn't linger. Whatever she had imagined when she left home, the reality was hard enough to scare her away without a wish to return. Until it was too late, both for her father and for her.
She felt shocked, helpless... and also that she had failed her father, abandoned him when he needed her the most. Too dirty to even grieve.
And the guard, Jorah, certainly didn't make it any better, when he offered to "console her" and moved to touch her. Perhaps it was only meant as a hug, genuinely comforting, but Alysanne flinched away and almost shrieked in shock.
Something about Jorah made her skin crawl - at least she believed it was something about him she didn't like and not just the surroundings and the circumstances.
Still, there was a possible consolation he could give her and it would be better to not make him too angry. Alysanne made herself calm down, not look at the far too prominent pillars with iron chains or think about how repulsive Jorah's touch would be.
"Please... sir... may I at least get a decent burial for my father?"
The man hesitated, his face disappointed. "Are you sure you don't want to warm up in my house first?" He tried once more.
"Please..." It was all Alysanne could say, all she could hope for.
And she was lucky, as Jorah didn't push the idea further and instead shrugged. "Fine. Whatever. It will save us work, anyway."
And then all that remained was to arrange the funeral. Alysanne had hoped to bury her father next to her mother, had hoped to convince father Ambrose that punishments didn't have to go beyond death, but in the end it wasn't the priest's decision at all. Alysanne never knew how had lord Lorimer learned about her plans, maybe the mine guard had mentioned something, but it was the lord who absolutely prohibited his old enemy being buried anywhere in his village.
Instead, Alysanne managed to finally get a funeral in the valley near their own home, in the lush empty land Dorian had hoped to one day rule over.
Father Ambrose helped her get a gravestone made, together with a simple wooden statue of the Watcher to watch over her father in the next life. Alysanne and Alvin were the only ones to pay their respects, and possibly the only ones to even know where the grave was located.
"You are free now." Alvin said when he moved to hug his friend. "You have done all you can and can have your own life, any life you might wish."
Alysanne wanted to protest, to say her stigma probably won't go away and neither will her poverty, but then she just smiled through her tears. She needed consolation too much to push it away when offered. And she was grateful she had a friend.
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