Content Warning: misogyny, profanity
George T sat alone in his cell.
Irongate Prison was in serious need a good decorator, he thought. The stone walls, cold and damp, were probably as old as the musty castle that had held prisoners of the Crown since before the royals had handed power over to the Republic. Modern justice had added a few homey touches, like running water, electric lights and new bars.
George was looking forward to getting out and making every single person responsible for him being here pay. What was keeping his people, he wondered with a sigh.
Looking up, he was stunned to see two women stepping impossibly out of the shadows. For a moment, he wondered if he was hallucinating. Some flashback from when he'd been young and stupid enough to sample his own product.
Cassie Goth looked perfect. Was perfect. Her raven black hair framed her pale, beautiful face with her bottomless dark eyes and lush red lips. Her sleek black dress clung to her soft, flawless curves. She was a work of art. As he always did, he longed to possess her, to mark her, to damage that perfection in order to prove his ownership of her.
The woman next to her was white to Cassie's black. A tall, lean white taper that made his scars burn to look at. He knew ought to extinguish Gwen Silveroak's flame, but deep down in his secret heart he screamed to run, to hide, anything to escape that pitiless fire.
"What, did you bribe the guards to see me?" George snarled. "A little conjugal visit, maybe. Don't worry, when I get out of here I'll be looking you up... you and your little bitch, Miranda."
They just watched him. Cassie's fathomless dark eyes and Gwen's cold violet ones, studying him through the bars as he ranted.
"You think you've won?" George snapped. "You think you've beaten me? You'll never beat me!"
"Enough," Cassie said softly, to herself. "It's enough."
As George continued to rant in his cell, impotently threatening lurid acts of revenge, she turned and walked away. He was powerless, she thought. The last, lingering echo of power he had once held over her was broken. It was enough. It was over.
With a whispered Word, she vanished.
George stood, stunned, cut off in mid rant. "She's... she's gone," he gasped. She was really gone.
"Yes," Gwen replied softly.
"She's just gone," George said. He couldn't believe it, wouldn't let himself believe it. "She thinks she can just leave me here?"
"I would have killed you," Gwen said simply. "She asked me not to. Not, you must understand, out of any feelings for you. No, she simply said that she did not want me to. I think she felt that it would be the wrong thing to do. I did not understand, but I stayed my hand because it was what she wished. I wonder if perhaps she foresaw your fate, here."
"I'll get out," George snarled. "I'll get out and..."
"No, you won't," Gwen said. Her voice held neither rage nor pity. Just inevitable, undeniable truth. "You will never get out."
The ancient stone walls seemed to shake, echoing the merciless flame of that voice . "George Tobar, this Doom I place upon you. You will never again walk as you will upon the earth. You will never again breath free air. You will never again touch the open waters.
"This Doom I place upon you. You will live out all the long days of your life as a prisoner. You will endure all the dark nights of your life with only your guilt, your shame and your fear. You will die alone, unmourned and all but forgotten.
"This Doom I place upon you. By the Oak, the Ash and the Elm. By the Sun, the Moon and Stars. By the Earth, the Wind and the Sea. So may it be."
She spoke a Word that seemed to gather up all the despair that had long ago sunk into the stones of the ancient prison into invisible chains and wrapped them around George's soul. Under the weight of it, he sank back onto the cell's hard bed.
Satisfied, she spoke another Word and was gone.
George T sat alone in his cell.
The stone walls, cold and damp, were probably as old as the musty castle that had held prisoners of the Crown since before the royals had handed power over to the Republic. Ancient justice, older than the castle itself, imprisoned him.
He was a prisoner of his own guilt, his own shame and his own fear.
He would never be free.
----------------
Gwen stepped from the darkness and despair of Irongate into the cool, fragrant twilight of Glimmerbrook. With deep, calming breaths she drank in the rich green of the earth, the sweet stirring of the breeze and the sound of the rushing brook. She set aside the Aspect of Vengeance and allowed herself to be simply Gwen again.
She found Cassie where she expected to, standing by the side of the brook.
"Are you alright?" she asked.
"I am," Cassie smiled. "You know, I never really believed he would even go to jail. No matter what he'd done to me, to anyone, I never really believed he'd be punished. I think I owe Genie and Jenny and Orange an apology and thanks... though it was still a horribly dangerous and foolish thing they did."
"It is the path they have chosen," Gwen smiled. "Just like our daughter and her wife."
"I know Miranda and Mariah can't come home yet," Cassie sighed. "It will take time for the authorities to dismantle enough of the Altos' organization for it to really be safe... but I hope they are... safe, I mean."
"I don't think 'safe' is in their nature," Gwen mused. "But they are well."
"I guess that's enough," Cassie smiled.
The past floats away
Like leaves on the water
As I stand by the brookside
and let them go.
- the chorus of Brookside, by Cassie Goth
