“Question is why the hell did she run?”

“Well Princess we did invade her home, demolish her defense system, fail to identify ourselves them sprint after her when she ran.”

“OK OK you may have a point there, question is what the hell do we do now? She’s not running anymore that’s for sure, the ropes are tight enough, but how do we question her?”

“We could try explaining ourselves, I find that usually works.”

“Alright Errol we’ll try it your way, oh looks like she’s waking up, good timing.”

Of course Mandy had woken up a little earlier, but when one wakes up tied up after a short bout of unconsciousness to find oneself tied up it pays to listen in a little to try to figure out what’s going on before letting on that you are in fact awake. Of course waking up at all was an unexpected but very welcome outcome, as she hadn’t really had surviving this as part of the plan.

“Mandy the Sand Witch I presume,” came a chirpy and somehow reassuring voice that given the circumstances she figured could only be The Princess they’d mentioned. OH CRAP, did that mean she’d tried to off a Princess? Maybe it wasn’t too late to feign a coma, or play dead, it worked for possums and mortmice, (of course the latter’s act was set up complete with tiny funeral procession, mini mourners, and expensive but ultimately still crap wood casket, pulled along by a team of specially trained beetles. Which while it helped the act really did not help species survival as the predator tended to eat the entire procession, so maybe that wasn’t the best plan.)

“We can see you twitching, so there’s no use pretending, now you have two options, talk to us and explain what the hell’s going on, or we blunder through blindly, cause chaos. You yell, we yell, everybody fights, and things get complicated, totally your call.”

“Don’t turn on the machine reset, please.” Mandy tried, doing her best to appeal for their sake.

“The town’s dying, if we don’t turn that thing back on it can’t do its job, and a huge part of this continent gets a crash course in desertification.”

“If you do before it’s fixed properly the result will be even worse, and I don’t think you want a genocide on your conscience Miss, now mind untying me so I can do my job before things get even worse. You’re going to kill me anyway can you at least grant me that?” Mandy spat, doing her best not to snap, but being captured by your potential killers tends to wear on the nerves a bit.

“Why do you think we’re going to kill you? If we were going to do that surely while you were out for the count would have been the obvious time to do it, yet you’re still alive.”

“I have visions, and I saw it, you chase me right through here, I try to escape, my traps are destroyed, and I almost make it, then a hand grabs me and everything goes black.”

“So let’s put together what we know together into a list. Fact 1. we chase you, that’s already happened, so check. Fact 2, you keep running, well that definitely happened. Check. Fact 3. We destroy your traps, sorry about that by the way, you clearly put a lot of work into those, but when something tries to hurt me I usually break it, nothing personal. Well OK something personal, but in all fairness if it’s trying to hurt me it deserves to get broken. Fact 4. You make it almost to the exit, the exit you almost made it to earlier I guess? So that already happened. Check. Now here’s the biggie, fact 5. As you are escaping a hand grabs you and everything goes black. Like.... I dunno, passing out? Like what literally just happened? I don’t see any death in there, did you miss a stage orrr?”

“So you mean to tell me that wasn’t my death but now that I’ve tried to off a royal I’m dead anyway? Oh gods, is this how my family ends? Treason charges? Oh Gods Oh Gods Oh Gods I’m so buggered. I should have just hidden, and sabotaged the machine or something, no treason charges from that, oh crap I can’t believe I did that SORRYY YOOOUURR MAJJEEESSSTTTYYYY.”

“Mandy.... Breathe, you didn’t know and were acting in self defense, now breathe big deep breaths, nobody here is going to kill you. I deal with real assassins all the time, you really think you were going to succeed where trained killers have failed? The way I figure it this was all a big misunderstanding, and no harm no foul right? Now Breathe kid.”

“At that Mandy seemed to regain a little bit of composure, at least enough to get a little indignant. “Kid? I’m ninety three years old.”

“Yeah but given that the average witch lives a couple of centuries that’s skewed a little. Now can we have a little explanation as to what is really going on here? Because I stopped having a clue about three hours back, so anything that can help shed some light on the situation would be appreciated.”

Mandy sighed. “Alright I’ll tell you, but please untie me so I can do some damage control here while we talk, or we’ll soon be holding this conversation in a crater.”

“Alright, but I want your word you won’t run, because if you try next time it won’t need a prophecy to show the outcome, deal?”

“Deal”.

Mandy was slowly untied (it’s never mentioned by anybody, probably because tying up people and then talking about it is a little bit of a taboo, but rushing untying somebody leads to chafing, numb limbs, and all round not happy happy fun times. Take the time to do it carefully unless it’s an emergency, or they are in for a world of hurt.) Then after ten minutes to get her circulation back she headed back into a deep part of the facility. “Before we start this explanation it’s best that I show you.”