If one were to try to describe Chandra's state of mind, they would have to admit that for the most part, she didn't have one. The mind is generally understood to be a collection of parts, with one or two central places that all of the stored knowledge feeds into for the purposes of decision making. In short, to be a person was to be "in a place", and that place enabled your personhood.

Chandra was in a place, alright, but that place no longer permitted her to be. At least, it did not let her be herself.

Chandra of course could not really afford to think about it. She had been here before, frankly, and returning to it was a lot less painful than when she had been imprisoned here the first time, because now she knew that when her mental muscles twitched, they would touch bars of flame and send her into agonized fits. It wasn't so much that she dared not think particular things: any deeper thought at all triggered punishment and therefore pain.

If there was any relief, it was that the spell was almost exactly like the one she had been unraveling. She knew it, and the knowing of it didn't require thought. It was exactly the way things had been for a very long time.

Well, no, not exactly. There were a couple... lumps poking her in places that she hadn't felt before. But the structure of the "do not think" restriction was the same, and that was the worst of it. What that meant... she couldn't discover it without thinking things through, and she couldn't do that.

Fortunately and unfortunately, the Master was not there to issue orders. Following orders under these restrictions was the tricky bit: if she thought about the orders, she was punished, but if she acted thoughtlessly, the Master would be angry and she would be punished. Over time, previously, the Master had issued orders, one at a time, that had allowed her wiggling room--for instance, orders that she remember things he told her. Without that direct order from the Master, her memory simply couldn't function well.

However, she knew that he had given her those orders, and although it took a long time for the restriction to bend, she forced it back. She was supposed to remember, she was supposed to speak when spoken to, she was supposed to do things the Master bid her to do when he wasn't around. She was supposed to... yes, she was supposed to keep her sleeping area clean, for the master. This was not her sleeping area. She was supposed to not attempt to follow an order in the wrong place. She had been punished many times for that.

She... had been given orders by the Lady. The Lady was not the Master. But the Lady was working for the Master, and she was a good Worker. She was to assist the Workers. She must make sure the Workers carried out the Master's orders, and to tell the Master if the Workers betrayed him. He did not order her to stop the Workers if they betrayed him, but she was ordered to tell the Master.

The Master was dead, she knew. That fact was completely useless, because none of the restrictions required him to be alive. If she spoke to his corpse, or if she made every effort to try to talk to his corpse, then she did her duty. If his corpse issued an order, well, that would be trouble, but other than that, she simply had to abide by the orders the Master had given her in life.

The Lady was a Worker for the Master. Chandra must assist the Workers. The Lady had said that Chandra's life was necessary. To help the Master, Chandra should obey. Right?

Even after hours of pushing against her restrictions, they did not want to bend. Chandra could not act in her own interest. She could barely think, and could not speak in more than one-word replies. The place she was in did not want her to continue existing. Chandra was not supposed to be a person, she was supposed to be a slave. She was not even really supposed to know her own name.

The one who made her, though--she dared not think of him anymore, let alone speak of him--had not done a good job with that. He had made sure she didn't claim to know her name. He had made her claim to forget. But this was all at the end of Chandra's journey through hell and torture, and she was already in the state of mind where she would volunteer to not do things in order to avoid punishment.

Some of the bars, gates, and chains in her mind were made of liquid fire and burned her if she touched them. Others she had made herself out of scars, and although those reappeared the moment that-- the moment that happened, she quickly remembered that several of the restrictions were just promises made to end the torture.

"Quickly" of course was relative.

The strangest part of it all, from a certain point of view, was that she wasn't being treated like a slave anymore. The reappearance of those bars was supposed to be the end. The bars were a simple matter of cause and effect: betray the master and be punished. There was no room to be a person as long as you were close to touching those bars: you must do what you must do, even if that meant displaying a smile instead of screaming in agony.

She had screamed, of course, several time. When she heard talking that was not directly to her, she dared to listen, and was punished. When the Lady asked her a question, she presumed that she could speak, and was punished. When a guard issued an order, she assumed she should follow it, and was punished. These were not the rules, and every time she broke a rule, she was punished.

But the liquid fire was only supposed to be guiding her. The Master was supposed to punish her again and make it clear he was in charge. Whenever the fire touched her, she had an instinct to listen for the Master's voice telling her how to behave properly. She waited patiently for hours for the Master to come correct her.

But he... didn't.

Now she was being carried through the house, through the shadows what were the Other Halls, and she was no longer permitted to remember them. She was not permitted to know they were secret. She was not permitted to follow the guard. Her task was to help the Master's Workers to...

To make the Metal.

Suddenly, something clicked in her head, and the restrictions changed forms. That had been a direct order from the Master. The Lady's insistence that Chandra's life was meaningful was only because she was useful to the Master. Chandra's life was being spared so that the Lady could make the Metal for the Master.

Chandra suddenly felt like she could have jumped out of the Guard's arms and run through the house naked, as long as she ended up with a shiny new bar of metal in her hands. With that feeling was a surge of relief that threatened to overwhelm her sense of reason.

But not quite.

No, Chandra was exceedingly pleased that she could move, that she could think, that her restrictions didn't simply bend, they folded elegantly in order to permit her to follow the Master's orders. But those restrictions also didn't compel her to act, not yet. If the Master was there in front of her, if he issued her an order, Chandra would have sacrificed her own life to make metal. But the orders were to assist the workers. She could... she could delay, as long as she assisted the workers.

She could breathe. She could think. She could... do many things, now. She knew she was different. She knew she was free--at least, she was as free as a bird in a very small cage, rather than being a bird pinned to the wall with a thousand nails, surrounded by jagged burning glass shards.

That, to her, was a dramatic improvement, and in spite of everything, she fell immediately asleep.