It was not a world in which it was advisable to take risks.

It could be argued - had been, by a few scholars, in the deep and distant past, a more romantic age - that risks were always inadvisable, that this was what made them risks in the first place.

But those scholars didn't live here, they didn't live now, they were from a world of chivalry and knights and heroism.

They were not in a world where you were burned if you were caught.

There were marks all over her arms - his, too, they sat beside one another in this dark cell, running fingers over scarred skin.

It was more of their punishment. They were left alone together, desperate for any kind of human contact (they had sacrificed as such when they tried to run), left to their own devices, expected to give in to base instincts, touch, kiss, carress -

And then one would be stolen away. One would be placed elsewhere, the other left to rot, not knowing if anyone else would ever come, not knowing if they'd ever be taken.

They knew it, both of them - it didn't stop her clinging onto him, burying her head in his chest, didn't stop him smoothing her hair as if she were his baby sister (and what would become of her now?)

Neither of them spoke, but both knew that it had been worth it.