The jail cell Bethany found herself in was extremely barebones, the village didn’t often take prisoners so didn’t have extensive facilities. Instead, the prison consisted of just two small neighbouring cells, both around 5 by 5 meters, with only bars separating them. The thought being if more than two people were capture they would simply free or hang a couple of people. People would normally only be held in the cells for a short amount of time normally often being shipped off to the capital if they needed to be imprisoned more long term. To join one of the prisoner mining camps out there.

Bethany was in the smaller of the two cells, a cruelty given the other was empty. Inside she had a bucket, a pile of blankets to call a bed and a tiny window high out of her reach. It had now been a full day since she had been bundled into the room putting the next Trial roughly two days away. Since being thrown into the room she hadn’t seen anybody or heard anything about what the plan for her was. At one point she had thought she’d heard her mother talking to the mayor but unsurprisingly nothing seemed to have come from it and Susanna had been unable to visit her daughter.

Over the next twenty-four hours Bethany tried to distract herself from her current position and how trapped she both felt and was. To pass the time between barebones meals she tried to go through the steps she had used to pass the half-staff Trials. Her memory wasn’t perfect, and she didn’t have a weapon of any sort to go through it with but it helped to distract her none the less. It was like a dance in many ways, something her mother had given her lessons in as part of trying to create the little lady she wanted Bethany to be. She hadn’t stuck with it long, but she knew enough that her feet glided from point to point rather than stomping. While she danced her combat steps she wondered about her next Trial. It wasn’t like there were a lot of things she could do here and surely there wasn’t a skill for everything, would she get a Trial where she just had to wait to pass? Maybe one for sleeping or eating. She smiled at that picturing a feast before her of fancy exotic foods that she had to eat. OR even a competition like at the fair that had passed through town that one time.

Late that night Bethany was awoken by a sound a shifting of metal high above her. She glanced up to see Susanna’s face. Pinching herself she stood up and tried to get a closer look through the window.

“Mother, is that you?”

“Yes Bethany, I don’t have much time. They don’t currently have a plan for you, but I can’t imagine it being good either way. The rumours aren’t exactly favourable towards you and they are getting bigger and worse every time I hear them. So we need a plan of our own. I brought you this,” Bethany scrambled to catch the thing being tossed through the window.

“I obviously couldn’t bring the whole butter churn, but I figured if you had the plunger you could pretend or meditate on the concept of butter churning or something. Hopefully it’s a Trial where you will be safe for a while. Please stay in there as long as safely possible. If you are gone long enough, they might assume you dead and open the gates and I could hide you away or something. When you do get out come to our back door, I’ll hide a key in the candle holder for you. Please be safe.”

At that Bethany heard some more clanging and the light source moved away.

“Mother… you still there?” Bethany tried to whisper at the window. It came out more as a croak as she hadn’t spoken to anybody in almost two days. She tried again.

“Mother?”

“Susanna?”

She was met with only silence though. It was too dark for Bethany to do anything else, so she carefully tucked the plunger into the pile of blankets with her and tried to get herself back to sleep.

The following morning, the morning of the next Trial she was awoken, not by her uncomfortable position or sunlight but a different sound. The sound of wood striking metal. Bethany extracted herself from the pile taking special care not to reveal the plunger she had receive the night before. Having properly removed herself she looked up and was surprised to see Lewis standing there a wooden practise sword in hand. He grinned at her.

“Do you reckon if I convinced everybody to call you jailbait your name would change?” Lewis asked before laughing at his own joke.

“What do you want Lewis?”

“that’s no tone to talk to me, the victim you assaulted. I could choose not to press charges you know. If you… convinced me otherwise”

“Fuck off Lewis, you won, I’m in prison, why are you even here?”

I’m here to see you Solarslut” Lewis said reverting back to the old nickname. “We are going to hang out all day today, you know before the Trials start. I want to make sure you are following the new law about being pulled away to a non-violent Trial. After all you wouldn’t want to get into even more trouble with the law.”

Bethany gave Lewis a two fingered salute, which he promptly ignored.

“So, I’m going to hang around here and practise my sword stances, ready for the Trial and you are going to sit in there and not do anything suspicious. Just to be sure you can’t do anything untoward I’ve ensured no food or drink be provided today. You know just in case you get any ideas. Plus, if you are hungry, you are more likely to get back quickly, We wouldn’t want you accidentally completing more trials than is safe or legal would we?”

Bethany decided to ignore him much like she had the last time. Not that that had worked out particularly well for her, but one can dream.

Lewis didn’t further provoke her though and seemed to actually settle down and do what he claimed he was there to do. Bethany watched as he went through the steps. It was similar to her self-taught steps in many ways although his stance was slightly different. Obviously, she couldn’t copy him then and there but she watched him as long as she felt safe doing to try to memorise them so she could test implementing them into her staff work. After watching for a while, she retreated to her blankets as though she was going to lie down and sleep. She picked the heap up and moved closer to the wall so she could lean against it facing Lewis. Then she arranged the blankets over her as though to keep her warm but left a small gap so she could mime butter churning with the plunger.

She’d considered using the plunger the same way she had last time and trying to get back into the staff trial. But she decided it was too risky. For one Lewis might catch her and that would land her in even more trouble. Secondly though she might end up in the general staff trial the plunger was roughly the same size as her half-staff and if she ended up back in that Trial, she honestly wasn’t confident she would survive. After all it had nearly killed her a week prior, and it wasn’t like she’d trained in any way in the mean-time. She began to mime churning with the plunger and closed her eyes imagining herself actually churning and to focus fully on the process. She heard Lewis smirk as he glanced her seemingly snoozing against the wall but ignored it. She stayed there for almost a full hour before she was interrupted by a chuckle that she was confident didn’t belong to anybody in the village.