Tommen walked into the cell with a quiet calm; he had done this countless times before, and questioning had become mind-numbingly routine. He eyed the prisoner: a child, from his height. That was nothing terribly unusual. Children were always stealing things. The child simply stared at its hands, seemingly unaware that anyone had entered his cell.
Tommen let out a small, polite cough to catch the child’s attention. When the child continued to stare at his hands, facing away from the guardsman, Tommen coughed louder. Still no response. Tommen let out a loud, hacking cough that no one but the deaf or the dead could pretend not to hear. This garnered no response from the child, but his fellow guardsman let out a bark of laughter. Tommen glared daggers at Sammeth, who quickly quieted.
“Good laugh, that one,” came a raspy voice. “Much merriment, full of life.” The child turned around.
Where Tommen had expected to see a youthful face was instead a thin, pale one. Where he had expected to see the undecorated chin of one too young to shave was instead a tangle of rune-like drawings that stood in contrast to the bleached skin. And where he had expected the naive eyes of one who held a relative newness to the world was instead eyes that seemed to focus on nothing and take in everything. Eyes that twinkled with a thousand thousand secrets.
“Aw hell, Sam,” complained Tommen. “You didn’t tell me it was a Bleachling.”
Sammeth simply smirked. “Ask him a question.”
Tommen sighed. Asking a question of a Bleachling was a waste of time, and Sammeth knew it. “Fine,” Tommen agreed, exasperation evident in his tone. “Hoy, Bleachy, what’s your name?”
“Indeed, what is my name?” the chalky gnome responded thoughtfully. His tone wasn’t playful to Tommen’s ears. It seemed the gnome legitimately did not know his own name.
“Come now, not in the mood for games. Just give me your name.”
“Hardly fair,” the gnome said wistfully. “Then you’d have two names and I’d have none. Unless you never had a name to begin with. What is your name?”
Tommen paused. Some bit of knowledge prodded the back of his brain: couldn’t fey do something with names? Gain power over those who gave them freely? Bleachlings were, after all, more fey then not. He decided to dodge the question. “I’m the one asking questions here,” Tommen responded carefully.
“Are you? I believe I just asked one. Two, now, if the second counts, but,” the Bleachling leaned forward conspiratorially and lowered his voice to a whisper, “I'm fairly certain I was being rhetorical.”
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Two long hours later, Tommen and Sammeth exited the cell with little more answers than they had before they entered.
“Bugger that. As if we’re supposed to get answers from that…that thing?” Tommen said, throwing his hands up in disgust.
“I think he’s rather amusing,” chuckled Sammeth.
“For the first two seconds, maybe,” Tommen replied. “Did you see his eyes, Sam? Nothing sane has eyes like those.”
The two men walked on, talking back and forth to each other. The gnome watched them go from behind bars, and waited. One breath of silence. Two. Once he was sure they were gone, he casually walked over to a stone underneath his cot and rolled it aside, disappearing into it. Soon, the low chit chit chit sound of a stone tapping on stone emanated from the hole.
Two more days hard work, thought Razwin. Keep them busy for two more, and you’ll be free. Fruitful, today was. Tommen had appeared frightened when asked his name; good to know he was superstitious. Razwin could probably use that to scare him into only checking on his cell during inspecting rounds, and that was much more predictable. The stone and dirt before him gave way, slowly but surely, as he tunneled his escape.