Title: Broken Record
Rating: PG-13ish
Squicks: language, implied abuse (as per usual it seems...)
Word Count: 230ish?
Summary: A thief comments on Demeter's denial.
A/n: I just concocted some random crap because it's been a while, and I should contribute more to this contest even if my work is not great.

---

The hallways have no windows. It used to bother me, but I’ve found that when you’ve lived half your life hungry and cold, you can get used to anything.

And even if there were any shred of light in this place, all there is to see is dirt, spit, and piss. We live like rats in a shithole, but where else can a petty criminal turn? Many of us have never known any other life.

But not the little green-eyed queen. She chose this life. Our Napolean lured her to him a while back. She was clean, then. She never smiled, but she stood straight and looked me in the eye whenever I passed.

Now she just stares at the grime on the floor and the cracks in the wall, slightly bowed, holding her arms the way a child cradles a doll. The shadows almost hide the black and blue beneath her golden fur.

I pause whenever I see her. Part of me wants to shake her and tell her to leave him before it gets any worse.

But the other part, the part that dominates, knows that no one leaves the Hidden Paw. He’d find you. He’d kill you.

So I always turn away and keep walking. I hear her whisper to herself sometimes as I pass, picking nervously at her lips.

“He'll change... he loves me...”

I shake my head.

She keeps singing the same old song.