A Bird's Cage

by Ravenpuff

Chapter 4: House Cleaning

Sunny Rain was over the carrot faster than she thought she was able to move in her current condition. Finally real food! Not odd chunks of something unknown in a bowl she had already licked clean several times.

As soon he was out of sight, the door locked between them, she had managed to push herself up from the bed and leap down onto the floor where she stumbled and fell a few times on her weak legs. But she had soon enough dragged herself to the carrot left on the floor.

She managed to get herself under control before she would try and swallow the whole thing in one bite. That would not be the proper approach. She tried to keep some kind of control over herself as she dared a nibble of the carrot, to start out gently. But as soon her teeth hit the surface of the treat she dug in, taking a big bite which she chewed eagerly. At least she managed to remind herself to chew it properly before swallowing. Giving herself time to just enjoy the taste and texture in her mouth. Fresh, not stale or chewy or disgusting or anything like that. Not as nice as the stew had been as a whole, but still the best carrot she had ever had in her life for sure! This was the best carrot in the whole known universe ever!

Far too fast the carrot had been devoured and was gone. Even the green top had vanished into her mouth, the sour taste ignored as she chewed on it eagerly to get every bit of juice out of it. Oh, so thirsty she was too, but for now she had food to chew and that had to do.

Her miniature orgy of taste soon over, now the carrot was gone down into her stomach. She sighed, letting herself dump onto her side on the floor and just enjoy the moment. She snapped out of her blissed state when realizing she was mentally sending her thanks to the gryphon for bringing her the great gift matching her mane colour. She shouldn’t be so thankful! It was her right to eat and he was starving her!

She sighed again and rested her cheek against the harsh wooden boards which made the floor. She had no energy to build up proper anger for now. She didn’t want to be thankful but truth was she was going to starve to death in this room if he didn’t felt like bringing her more to eat. Was he punishing her by not feeding her? But, for what? What could she possibly have done to this oversized cat-bird thing to deserve this treatment?

She was too tired to puzzle over it further, she just wanted her strength back. Her stomach starting to become noisy as it finally had something proper to work on. She slowly managed to get up from the floor to drag herself over to the bed. It was far more comfortable than the floor itself after all.

She woke up, again not knowing when, only knowing where. The light from the crack in the window was low on the floor. Possibly midday if she considered how the sun had to stand on the sky for that position of the light. She couldn’t remember how the light stood when she lied down to rest.

She felt less lightheaded than before, the carrot in her stomach had done good. But her mouth was as dry as ever, now her mind filled with the thought of gaining something to drink. No point in kicking at the door and demand room service again. He didn’t like that.

But how could so get something to drink and more to eat? He couldn’t possibly plan to just let her starve or he wouldn’t have brought her the treat.

Slowly she managed to sit up right, resting her back against the wall behind her. Okay, Sunny Rain, think. What did she even know about this whole situation so far?

She was stuck in one room with barely any light other than that crack in the window. It seemed bolted shut, she doubted she could force it open or make the crack bigger without the gryphon catching sound of it and that would definitely earn her a lot of hurt, she was sure.

What did she know about her… warden? He was a big and scary gryphon. Always looked angry and ready to hurt her. So far it had mostly been physical threats than actual hurt, but she didn’t dare to doubt that he would truly hurt her should he decide to do so. Such big talons could probably do some lethal damage if he didn’t decide to just choke her or throw her against the wall or… and no more thinking about that for now please.

Her wings shivering lightly in response, not liking to consider what he could do to her.

What else did she know? Whenever she talked it seemed to anger him. He did tell her to be quiet to, now she finally thought about what he had actually said to her. Be quiet. No noise. Okay, noise angered him. Stay quiet. She guessed no point in pleading no matter how quietly or politely she had tried in the past.

What else? He had told her to clean the room. She looked around, yeah it didn’t look so good by what little she could see in the dim room. Knowing the mess she had left. Not really wanting to think about it more than necessary, the stank already being hard to ignore. Okay, so cleaning up would make him… less angry? But she had nothing to clean with. The vomit had most likely dried by long ago. And she couldn’t do anything about the bucket really.

She had nothing else to do though and she had to do something to hope and appease the gryphon and possibly get on a better hoof… paw… claw? To get on a better foot with him. Just to get something to drink and more to eat in the future.

It wasn’t easy, trying to clean up dried vomit with nothing but your bare hooves. The smell probably wasn’t as bad as on the day it was fresh but being all close to it on the floor only reminded her of what it was and it was so nasty to handle. Trying to scrape it off the floor boards. She used the empty bowl she had eaten stew from, to put the flakes into after wiping them up in a pile to then wipe into the bowl itself. She needed water to truly clean it but for now this was the best she could. She poured the uneaten food things and the flakes into the stinking bucket in the corner, might as well gather all the stinky things in that.

The empty bowl was placed by the door, right next to it up by the wall. Just to have it somewhere. Couldn’t clean it properly either, with what she had which was nothing. She rubbed her hooves to get the imaginative vomit off of them, needing water to clean herself up too. This was so pointless, how could somepony clean anything like this? But she had to do something. Anything.

She walked a pointless round through the small room, finding nothing else she could do for this cleaning up she had been told to do. She tried to correct and straighten out the bed sheet over the mattress of hay. And then, with absolutely nothing else to do, she climbed up and lied down. To do what she had done a lot of already – sleep. Pass time by resting, by preserving her energy until the next “generous” meal.

Author's Note:

Ops, finally got around to add some more chapters for this story. Sorry for the long wait, I promise the pace will begin to pick up... at some point.

As always, I'm eager for any suggestions, advices and corrections you feel like giving.

Comments

[Poison Ice Blade]

First signs of stress and insanity are starting to show. Such as the pacing.