Narration: The battle ended in one fell swoop, as the elven king's severed head fell away from his body, leaving the human army victorious. At least for the moment. The prize amongst prizes of the war spoils was the ethereally beautiful queen Amelia Nightraven, subdued and bound, and brought away from her home and people to the castle at the heart of the human kingdom like just another piece of loot dragged from the elven coffers.

Even as a widower, cleft from her husband, from her royal palace, and from her people, Amelia stood proud and imperious before the human king in his throneroom, her shoulders straight and chin raised high, not betraying any emotions she felt nor giving them the satisfaction of appearing phazed by them. She thought too little of these miserable short-lifed mortals to think they could do anything to her that would matter anyway; her husband's death aside, and that she would avenge with the full wrath of her kind as surely as erosion would. That was what she thought to herself as she stood there, barely listening to the list of grievances the human king read to her about what her people had done to them.

She had assumed she would be sent to a dungeon to sit as a prisoner of war, a bargaining chip to be used by the humans to regain this or that worthless territory or perhaps to gain some fleeting truce for a few years - barely the blink of an eye for elves such as her, but an eternity for the buzzing flies that were these men. And so she stood waiting patiently for her sentence to be read.

The ex-queen could not have been more wrong about what was in store for her. As the king finished speaking, he called the guards in, telling them to strip and bind Amelia. Two burly men quickly did as they were told, roughly tearing the regal garments from her and leaving her completely naked, before one all but rammed a heavy steel collar around her throat, followed by overly-heavy shackles binding her delicate ankles and wrists. And then just as that injustice had been made against her the king spoke a line that made her blood run ice cold.