(Scars do not appear to be cause of death –shock ... - Bad Request

"I think you did the right thing trying to set her free, Ravel," I lied. Still best
to butter her up.
"I'm glad that we share a like mind and view like-minded on this matter.
Yet... when I cannot let matters well enough alone... it seems to mine eyes
that many are the lives and dreams that are a-left in pieces on the ground."
"Is that what you were trying to do when I met you so long ago? Were you
trying to set me free?"
"Quite possibly, possibly quite. Life's chains and fear-of-death may have
gripped too-tightly on the man I new... knew? Knew then,
hmmmm-hmmmm?" Ravel picked at one of her jagged gray hairs, wrapping
it around her finger. "No liking for chains and cages does Ravel have..."
"Ah, so I was caged somehow? Or chained? It sounds to me as if your
memory is stirring, Ravel..."
"Yess..." Ravel blinked for a moment, and her black-veined eyes became
duller, as if she has been struck with a heavy weapon. Her talon tightened
around the gray hair, so tightly it looked like she was about to tear it from
her skull. "Mayhap... you were a-trapped? But it was no normal cage that
held you..."
"Do you have any idea what held me?"
Ravel looks confused, and her face twisted, as if she was fighting an
unpleasant thought. "I have forgotten... mayhap a promise...? No, no..." Her
finger tightened around the gray hair, and to my surprise, there was a snap
like a twig breaking, and Ravel tore the hair from her head. A trickle of black
blood wormed from beneath her skull cap, and she hissed in anger.
"Ravel...? Are you all right?"
"No MORE will I say..." Ravel's face wrinkled in pain, the talon covered with
the blood-tipped gray hair - even plucked from her head, it looked jagged
and stiff. "I do not know, and no knowing shall I share!" She stared down at
the gray hair wrapped around her talon, and then she hissed, and flicked it
to me. "Take this, and leave the past where it lies, half-man!"
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