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"You unfortunate little manfool," whispered the dryad.
She had sent away the pagan warriors who were supposed to guard the trickster's prisoner. They were superfluous anyway - the thief wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon.
He lay in front of her in the mud, arms and legs tied up with thorny tendrils. They held him in a vice like grip and drew blood, whenever he tried to move. His knees and elbows were raw from beeing dragged over sticks and stones and he was covered in a layer of sweat and grime.
There had been periods when he was awake, or rather in a semi-conscious state, but he had not responded to the insults and threats of the guards or to Victoria's mocking words.
The days of snarky remarks were over.
"My dear Mr. Garrett," she cooed and she crouched in front of him. The thief was currently unconscious.
The man gave off a pungent stench of blood and sweat and maybe other body fluids and Viktoria grimaced.
He was disgusting, simply disgusting and yet and yet there was something about him that had fascinated her since the first time they met. She wasn't attracted to him, but neither was she as repulsed by him as she was by most other humans.
It wasn't his looks, of course not. When they first met, Viktoria had barely been able to hide her disappointment. A man who was such a legend in the circles of the underworld should propably look more impressing. Garrett was barely taller than herself, slender and wiry. He had deep wrinkles around his mouth, his eyes were set deep in his face and he had a hooked nose. He looked older than he presumably was and could at best be described with the expression: inconspicuous. Then again, being a thief, it probably came pretty handy to be inconspicuous.
He was also arrogant and prone to overestimating himself, as is the case with so many humans. Even so, the dryad had almost enjoyed meeting the man in the back rooms of dodgy hangouts to plan the theft of Constantine's sword. And that wasn't just because she knew all along what a lousy fate this man would be facing thanks to the Woodsie Lord and herself.
It must have been something else, maybe ...
It was his voice. A voice that could make shivers run down her spine.
It was his cynicism, his biting sense of humor along with his bitterness.
Yes, Viktoria had enjoyed working together.
For a while.
She let her hands circle over his destroyed face, never actually touching him. There was not much left of the arrogant man who so recently in his cocky manner had demanded payment for his dirty deeds from her god. The right half of his face was sunken. Her branches had torn a deep scar and the empty eye socket was filled with blood and pus. A black hole in the otherwise ash-gray face.
A pathetic sight.
"Who did this to you, hmm, my little thief, who did this? Oh, right, that was me.”
Viktoria straightened. In the end, the thief had served their ends as had been his job. He had brought the Eye to them - voluntarily. He had given them his eye of flesh - not voluntarily.
Now the Woodsie Lord was able to restore his original power, to carry out his dark plans and what happened to the thief no longer needed to concern her.
Still, she turned to look at him again and - no, a dryad felt no regrets.
Victoria made a barely noticeable movement with her hand and at that, the tendrils loosened their grip on the thief a little.
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Later, when they were no longer facing each other as enemies, but as partners, even if the thief would never use that expression, she said to him: "I really believed what I did to you would be your end, my dear Garrett. "
The thief snorted at that.
"Well, you know what they say: sticks and stones may break my bones…”