And then TK's world became swirling gray-black motes and roaring woundless fury for a seeming eternity...scraps of thought flashing and flitting through the maelstrom like taunting phantoms...her heart seized by a raw-edged sense of panic and frustration that she couldn't really understand... Something bad was happening, she knew...there was somewhere she had to be! Or...not be... But just what or where, the befuddled tiger-girl couldn't piece together...and the harsh sense of confusion made her whimper pleadingly as she struggled to fight her way clear of the muzzy haze...

Until finally, her senses did clear enough for her to fuzzily take in her surroundings again...vision and sound coming back faster by the moment. She shook her head and grumbled mutedly, the leather muzzle swallowing up the sound almost hungrily...and helping to remind her of just what was happening... And the feelings which forced their way through the haze only helping to speed her recovery still faster...

All of which came together into the shocking - and desperation-inducing - realization that she was laying face-down on the gritty cement floor, her captor straddling her legs and keeping her thighs pressed together with his own knees. While holding her knees bent to ease the sinister work in which he was engaged: Wrapping strong, steely chain that he was drawing from a cardboard box near the stairway bottom around her ankles...pulling each loop crushingly-tight as he wound it around. Fortunately, he didn't seem to be too far into the work - leading TK to believe she must not have been knocked-silly for very long. Unfortunately, he already had a few turns around her feet and her legs still ached and throbbed...and even the brave tiger-heroine felt despair wrapping around her heart as tightly and solidly as those chains around her ankles.

"Bad kitty...bad, bad kitty! Trying to wander like that... Am I going to have to hang a bell from that pretty collar of yours?" the mad fiend growled, tone part-mockery, and part serious recrimination, like TK had done something genuinely wrong. He paused then, and then said, "No...I have something much better in mind... I think once these chains are wrapped all nice and snug around your ankles, they'll look lovely attached to that ring instead...and then you won't be going anywhere again..."

The thought of being "hogtied" in such a way spiked into TK's brain and straight down into her heart. That, she knew, she would have little-to-no chance to escape from...not spent like she was. And bound in such a cruel manner, she would have precious little hope of resting or recovering enough strength to make another heroic effort like the one which had freed her from those stocks. She let out a huffing, desperate whimper, and muffled, "Nmmmh... Unh-unph... NMMMMPH!"

Her captor only laughed in reply, as he snugged the next turn of chain around her thickly-padded ankles and drew it taut...


----------------------------
On to Ember to Flame...