Dieter shouts and blinks watery gray eyes at the new source of the light, the torch of flickering blue flames casting a painful glare into his cell.

His arms start to rise in protest only to be yanked short by the iron manacles clasped round his wrists. Similar restraints chain his ankles to the damp stone wall, the bolts planted deep into the masonry. His struggling clears some of the moldy straw beneath the heels of his ragged boots until they to go taunt. He thrashes about like some maddened animal, that burning light the first one he's seen in gods know how long, bellowing like a tortured stag. All of a sudden a blast of wind knocks into his chest and slams him into the wall behind him, the back of his head hitting the wet granite with a painful whack. The jet of air dies in an instant and stars dance in his vision as he hears that voice ask again.

"I said, I have questions, and you will answer them or else."

The voice is arrogant and cold, slightly lilting but polished. And decidedly feminine.

Dieter's chest rises and falls as he struggles to breathe, the wind knocked out of him. He shuts his eyes and counts to ten, slowing his heart down as he learned to do all those years ago. When he flutters open his eyes that same burning torch of light illuminates the dank space, showing just how little he has. Maybe twenty feet long and twenty feet wide, a straw filled mattress next to him, a waste bucket on his left. His chains only go about six feet or so from wall to wrist, limiting his space dramatically.

He raises his gaze up at the figure before him, a young woman in a pale blue dress, her raven hair tied back in a severe braid. In her hand- no, above her hand she clutches a ball of pure flame that flickers a white and blue, apparently immune to its heat. The flames dance above her palm, her delicate feature fey-like in the glow. Her skin is pale as milk, her eyes a viridian color. Those pale green eyes stare icily at him without a ounce of sympathy. She must stand around his own height of five foot six, perhaps a tad lower. It is difficult to tell from his position on the ground. The collar of her dress is severe, the fabric covering her sleeves to the wrists. Dieter has only one thing to say to her.

"Fuck yo- Ghrrrrrk!" His words are cut off as an invisible vise tightens around his throat. He can't breathe, his lungs desperate for air. His feet begin to drum on the stone floor, his heels kicking away the rest of the carpet of straw. Shadows crawl at the corners of his vision, the already faint light growing dimmer. And then, as if an invisible hand controlled it, the pressure squeezing his throat evaporates, leaving him to cough and for spittle to drip down his chin. The woman lowers her previously clenched fist and smooths out a wrinkle in her dress.

"That is what 'else' is. Now, you are going to answer my questions. You will answer them truthfully and with as much detail as possible. I can tell if you lie and you won't like the consequences if you do. So it is in your best interest if you cooperate. Do you hear me?"

Dieter spits in the corner of the room, the thought of aiming at her tempting. He wipes his face clean with the filthy sleeve of his shirt, the same one he was captured in however long ago.

"I hear you."

She gives a tiny, almost unnoticeable nod.

"Good. You already know my name. I am Malvina, Queen of the Islands of Aran. You will refer to me by 'your majesty' or else my title. What is yours?"

He curls his knees up under his chin, the back of his skull throbbing and sore.

"Dieter. My name is Dieter."

"No last name? Birthplace?"

"Hagedorn, I was born in Glowers, in the Kingdom of Velka. You also want to know what time that was?"

Queen Malvina frowns at his attitude, but does not bring mention to it.

Best not let him get a rise out of me, she thinks.

"Why pray tell why you were on that ship?" She asks, talking about the ship that had foundered off her coast a short while ago.

Dieter Hagedorn scowls, a noticeable tell, and says, "I was a sailor aboard a privateer, the same that sunk with me on it."

A murmur of power and energy traces down Queen Malvina's spine invisible to all but her. Her pale green eyes turning colder.

"You're lying. Or at the very least, being untruthful about your position. Your hands, they are not blackened with tar nor do they have calluses indicative of rope work. Sailors also don't usually wear boots whilst on board a ship. I don't know where Glowers is, but I do know Velka is landlocked."

Dieter gives a harsh laugh, grimly amused at her deduction.

"You're right about a lot, 'cept for Velka. We conquered Marlinport thirty years ago from the Lowlanders. You have any more questions, or are you just going to keep making half-wrong statements?"

"If you weren't a sailor, what were you? A marine? An officer?"

His silence is her answer.

"Speak," she demands.

Dieter stares at one of the stone tiles on the floor as he talks.

"Both. I led the boarding parties."

"But you're a landsman?"

Desperate times calls for desperate measures, your majesty. They needed a man who was good at killing and I need a berth."

"And are you? A killer that is?"

Dieter barks another harsh laugh, tilting his tin mess plate to inspect the meager remnants of his last meal.

"Oh, you have no no idea. I've killed so many, you cannot begin to imagine it."

"Try me," Queen Malvina says vehemently, her eyes wet with memory. "I can guarantee you, I have done far worse than you. There's nothing you could have done that comes close to my crimes."

Dieter shifts, slackening the strain on his shackles.

"As much as I'd love to weep and moan about our mutual mistakes I don't give a tinker's damn about you. There's only one poor bastard I care about and that's me. How long have I been in this windowless cell? And why are you keeping me here? Or does throwing people into dungeons just get jollies?"

Queen Malvina's face contorts to one of fury and she raises her hand, the necessity bucket raising of the floor as well. With a swipe of her hand it flies into the side of her prisoner's head, fortunately empty for everyone.

"You will learn to keep your tongue, lest you find yourself unable to speak."

Picking himself off the ground Dieter brushes his hair out of his face.

"I suspected it, what with the fire in your palm. They burn witches back on the mainland, it's feared enough. Storm, island, magic, the walking dead... I dismissed it as stories, sailor's superstition- but I guess I was wrong. The stories though, they talk about some fey of a women, a undine entered into a pact with demons. I see nothing of the sort. I see some girl trying to play at magic, pretending she has power while torturing defenseless prisoners."

"You are rather bold, Hagedorn..." Queen Malvina warns.

He smiles at her cautioning, nursing the throbbing pain at his temple.

"Bold is it? Well, it's better than the other epithets they've given me. But you didn't answer my questions."

Queen Malvina looks aside with a softened expression, as if glancing to seek an adviser's opinion.

"You've been in this cell for two weeks. For the crime of trespassing upon my island you have been found guilty and so sentenced."

"To what!?" Dieter demands. His captor's gaze turns cold again.

"No one leaves this island. You will remain here."

His storm gray eyes widen in astonishment.

"L-life? What kind of justice is this? What kind of monster would throw an innocen-"

He is thrown back against the damp wall with a crash.

"Curb. Your. Tongue." Her pale green eyes flick around the dim cell. "I had more questions, but it's obvious you are unwilling to do this civilly right now. Perhaps your manners will be better in a few weeks time. I hope you enjoy your accommodations. Goodbye, Dieter Hagedorn."

As she turns to leave he rushes towards her, the chains on his wrists and ankles going taut. "Wait one minute, you can't do th-"

The cell door shuts with a clang as the light vanishes, drowning him in darkness once more. Apparently she can.