Work Text:
It seems to Kamaria like she’s been stuck in this position for hours. After all these years of torture, she really should be better at telling the passage of time in this place, but when all of her focus is having to go into balance it’s impossible to keep track of anything else.
The leg that all of her weight is on feels like it’s on fire. It started from the still-healing gunshot wound in her thigh, of course - the whole reason that she’s been left like this, a punishment for getting injured - but quickly spread until it’s engulfing the entire limb. It doesn’t help that her muscles are burning from balancing on her toes for so long. And with her arms and other leg tied up behind her, and a blindfold over her eyes, balance is not easy to come by, causing her to constantly wobble and pull at the wound even more.
Every time her heel tries to lower, foot dying for a bit of rest, the metal band around her neck cuts into her skin. Forcing her heel back up gets harder each time. She clenches her teeth so hard that her jaw aches as every muscle shudders and groans.
Finally, she loses the ongoing battle. She’s not really even sure what happens, whether she just loses her balance or her leg collapses or a little bit of both. All she knows is that she drops hard, the cuff immediately cutting off her air as she dangles by the throat. Her mouth opens instinctively. She needs to push herself back up again, but her foot is numb, she can’t feel the ground beneath her, can’t figure out what position she was in.
Panic tries to set in. Bright colors burst behind the blindfold and her ears start to ring. Just as she begins to think that she might actually die in this incredibly shameful, stupid way, that Roderick may have finally killed her, she finds her footing and somehow summons the strength to shove herself back up onto her toes.
Her muscles are immediately back to quaking and burning. There’s a trickle of blood running down her neck, and her heart is pounding in her ears. But she can breathe . She’s not dead. She just has to keep this up for a little bit longer…she hopes.