Survival
Morral had been walking for ages. It could have been two or three weeks. She could not tell for sure. She had lost track of time long ago, when the Fire Demon had left Selgonfield behind and dragged her into the foreign land of Robenrain.
It had soon become clear that the reason the demon had abducted her, which was apparently the fact that she could not be harmed by fire, was going to be an obstacle in his plan to take her to Granza. His flaming hands were no threat to her, so he had to use his brute strength and a rope he had stolen from a small barn to keep her captive. Morral had rendered his powers useless and reduced him to a common man, which she considered a small victory considering her current predicament.
The demon had not even been able to touch the rope without burning it, so he'd had to ask Morral to tie herself properly and threaten her with physical punishment if she tied herself too loosely. Morral had done a good enough job to convince him, but she knew that, given enough time, she could get free if she really tried.
A couple of days into her captivity, she realized that the time she had been counting on would never come. The demon never slept. He was a fireball of energy that required only flammable materials to stay alive. Whenever the flames on his palms and hair would dim, which was the only sign of weakness he showed, he would just burn something. A tree, a bush, a deer that happened to walk by. He had stopped raiding villages now that he had to watch her.
And boy, did he watch her. His eyes never left her. They were fixed on her day and night, when she walked grudgingly in front of him, when she ate the charred rabbit meat he fed her, when she tried to sleep at night. It was very tempting to stop doing these things. To refuse to eat, sleep or walk one more step forward towards her doom. She could fight him more, but all she would achieve was piss him off and make him carry her on his back.
Morral did not believe he would kill her. He mentioned cutting her throat or strangling her from time to time, very casually, when she slowed down her pace or looked at him with too much disgust, but he never tried to do either of those things. She did believe that he would hurt her though, if she got too cheeky, and that was something she had to avoid. She needed to be civil enough to him that he wouldn't beat her and would eventually lower his guard enough so she would be able to escape. She had to remain uninjured and gain his trust, but she had to do those things without seeming suspiciously compliant.
The Fire Demon was not stupid. Morral's initial plan had been to wait until they reached a source of water and then make her move, but the demon avoided getting near any ponds or rivers, and when it had looked like it was about to rain once, he had cast a silent spell and created an impenetrable bubble around the two of them that he didn't break until the rain had long stopped.
Whenever Morral complained about being thirsty, he would just tell her to suck on some leaves. Once though, he gave her a different answer.
"That need of yours is an illusion. You do not need water to survive. You might be able to tolerate it, thanks to your heritage, but you do not need it."
Morral had not taken the bait. She was too afraid of asking the demon any questions, because she didn't want him to feed her any false information.
Later though, she decided to test that theory. She tried going three days without drinking water and she realized the demon was right. She kind of missed the taste of fresh water, but she did not feel any weaker without it.
One day after that realization, Morral woke up from a nightmare about her sisters, sure that she could hear a female voice somewhere close to her.
Was that Brightise? Was she back at home? Had this whole ordeal been just a dream?
When Morral opened her eyes, her heart sunk. She was not at home. She was under the tree she and the demon had stopped the previous night, and the two of them were not alone.
Right next to her captor was a strange female Fire Demon.