Think about my story so far and what that says about Skyrim, then translate that into a picture of what prison would look like. If you pictured rape, torture, and copious amounts of public humiliation, you would be mostly right. But then you have to add in cramped, dirty cells, moldy bread, brackish wine, and chilly temperatures, since the prisons are underground and the prisoners don't get a scrap of clothes to wear.

 

A typical day in the Falkreath jail went like this: if I managed to sleep, I was awakened by a guard at some ungodly time in the morning and either whipped or raped (or both), depending on the mood of the guard. Then they tossed a loaf of the aforementioned bread and a small flask of putrid wine into the cell. Then a guard chained all the prisoners together and we had ourselves a little naked parade through town, which was very popular with the children. I quickly learned which ones had the best arms so I could dodge their stones as best as possible.

 

The end of the parade was the town square, which had a row of stocks. Y'know, like early America - the board with holes for the arms and head, sitting at about diaphragm-high so we were obligated to spend the day stooped over, but high enough that our knees could not touch the ground. Any citizen could pay the guard to do whatever they wanted to us, and they took full advantage. Everything you can think of, and probably some you never would have, was stuck into all of our orifices constantly. I have been raped by more farm implements than I can even name.

 

Rape wasn't the only crowd pastime - there were plenty of beatings, whippings, even spankings to go around. Our bodies were constantly black, blue, and bloody, and it's a wonder more prisoners didn't die of sepsis. At sundown we were paraded back to our cells and given more bread and wine. Then we tried to sleep, but that was almost always interrupted at least three times a night for more beatings and/or rapes. This went on for about two months. I know this because I took a cue from all the movies I have seen and made marks on the wall for each day that passed. When I remembered to.

 

I tell you all this so you will have some understanding of my meaning when I say: those were the best two months of my imprisonment. The halcyon days, as it were.

 

One day the routine changed. We lined up outside our cells and were chained, like usual. Then smelly burlap sacks were tied around our heads and we were led, blind and stumbling, up the stairs and outside. Then, after some confusion, swearing, and whipping, we were made to understand that they wanted us to climb a low wooden ramp. We did so with much toe-jamming and undertone cursing, then we were unceremoniously shoved down so we were sitting on wood. Or on each other, since we fell blindly.

 

After some disorganized shuffling, everyone found a spot and then there was a jolt. We were moving. I heard the sound of the horses quicken their pace. We were in a carriage or wagon or something.

 

"Where are we going?" Blind panic brought the words burbling to my lips before I could even think. I was promptly smacked for it, of course, but I barely felt it. All I could think was that Delphine and Esbern would be coming for me in five months and I wouldn't be there.

 

"No!" I screamed. "We can't..."

 

A punch turned my words into a grunt of pain, and my hood was lifted just long enough for a dirty cloth to be jammed into my mouth. I got a glimpse of trees and the roofs of Falkreath fading in the distance before the hood took my sight away again. My heart quailed.

 

Eventually, after hours of blind motion, the cart stopped and we were dragged from the wagon and led, stumbling, over uneven rocky ground. The sound of a door, then forward again, and the light that had managed to seep through the sack went out.

 

We continued forward, bumping into each other at regular intervals, into a vast, damp coolness. Some sort of cave. Some brief words, then the familiar clanging of cell doors, and we shuffled forward again. More clanging, from behind and then ahead, and we shuffled forward once more. The ground sloped downward at an even rate; the floor of the cave was smooth, as if pounded flat by years of footsteps. Twice more, the clanging behind, then ahead, then a pause and the sack was ripped ungently from my head.

 

We looked around, but there wasn't much to see - we were in a cavern. Lamps lit the walls at regular intervals, making it bright enough to see everything clearly. Steel bars crisscrossed the path ahead and behind, each with a door that sported an impressively heavy-duty-looking lock. Armed guards stood inside and outside the bars, and they were, to a man, watching us intently.

 

A single guard appeared in the hallway ahead of us and walked forward until he reached the guards outside the door. All he said was, "First one."

 

The guards inside took the nearest prisoner by his arms. One detached the lead chain so he was no longer linked to the rest of us. The door opened and the man was led through, then the door clanged shut.

 

"Follow me," said the lone guard, and turned and started walking. The prisoner, arms bound behind, glanced back at us once and then followed. We watched him go as if he was breathing his last breath on his death bed. As, indeed, he was, in practice.

 

Minutes passed, and we waited in silence. A silence that was broken by a horrific scream that rebounded through the cavern halls, repeating until it seemed to echo inside my head. It faded away at last, which is when I discovered that I had fallen to the ground, huddled into a ball. My hands strained to cover my ears, but the manacles that held them behind me were relentlessly cruel.

 

Things went rather poorly after that, as might be expected. Each prisoner was led away, and each time we were treated to another soul-scorching scream. Many of the prisoners gibbered frantically when it came time for their turn, and many beatings were administered. One brave man had a little Jackie Chan in him - he jumped over his manacles to get them to his front and nearly choked one of the guards to death before being subdued. He died, slumped against the wall, with a grin on his face.

 

For whatever reason, I was the last to go. The guards eyed me warily, waiting to see if I would resist, but I put my chin up and walked as calmly as my shaking knees would allow through the door and down the slope. The door shut behind me, clanging like a death knell. Another cell door appeared around a bend, but this one was open. A small well-lit room lay on the other side, where a narrow man in glasses was scratching at a piece of parchment with a quill. A chest sat against one wall and an incongruous wagon wheel leaned against the opposite wall in front of a roaring fire. The guard and I stopped in front of the man and waited until he made a final notation, spread some sand on the parchment with an effeminate flick of his fingers, and set it aside. He looked at the guard, then at me, then back at the guard.

 

"Last one?"

 

"Yes sir."

 

"Good. Put it on the wheel."

 

The guard took my arm and led me to the wheel, which I now saw was connected on top to a heavy wooden beam with iron bracings. The guard removed my manacles and pushed me toward the wheel. I frowned at it, then at him, not understanding.

 

"Lay on top of it."

 

I frowned again, then shrugged and obliged, kneeling and setting my body against the wood. I heard the guard laugh and glanced back.

 

"Other way around." He dragged me to my feet, then spun me until I faced him. "Kneel, then back up until your legs are through the spokes."

 

Ungainly, to say the least. I knelt, then wiggled backward until my ass and back touched the wood.

 

"Arms behind you."

 

I stretched my arms back, then gasped in pain as he grabbed my ankles and wrists and yanked backwards, then bent my legs upward and chained them to my wrists, so my body was pressed tight against the wheel. My calves started to cramp almost immediately and I felt tears form in my eyes.

 

The guard turned away for a moment, then turned back holding a pair of dirty scissors and started hacking at my hair. I stayed as still as the cramping in my leg allowed for fear of the blades flashing near my eyes. After I had been showered in my own hair, he turned away again, then again came back, this time with a straight razor. The pain of hair being shaved off of dry skin is intense, but believe me when I say I stayed very still until he was done.

 

The thin man had been stirring the fire. He turned at a word from the guard and I saw he was holding a poker, red hot on the end. No. Not a poker - the glowing part had a distinct design, one my eyes refused to concentrate on as he approached.

 

"No," I tried to say, but the rag was still in my mouth. "No. No! Nonononoo..." My scream as the scalding brand bit into my shoulder may have sounded subdued thanks to the gag, but I promise you I felt it every bit as much as the previous inhabitants of that wheel. It was followed by more as the man returned with other brands, burning them into my butt, my back, and, finally and worst, right smack across my forehead. The pain of that one was so intense I blacked out.

 

A cold splash brought me to moments later. I blinked up at the guard, who was setting a wooden bucket on the floor. My skin felt much like it had when I didn't wear sunscreen in tenth grade when my family went to Myrtle Beach. Except a thousand times more painful. I was laying, unbound and shivering, on the cavern floor.

 

"Get up," the thin man said. "Come over here." I struggled to my feet, wiping the tears from my eyes, trying to regain my self-control. "I don't care who you used to be. You should strive to forget, because that is past. You are number one-three-six-five. You will spend the rest of your life here mining ore. The sooner you realize that this fate will never change, the better off you will be. Do you understand?"

 

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak, though the cloth gag had fallen out at some point.

 

"Good. Turn around."

 

I obliged and felt a harness of sorts drape itself over my head. "Open your mouth."

 

I obliged again, and a peg of wood was shoved between my lips and pulled back until my teeth would allow it to go no further. A few tugs on some straps and the log gag was firmly fixed to my head. I could already feel the drool forming.

 

"You earn privileges here. If you work diligently and produce your fair share of ore, one day this gag may no longer be necessary."

 

The guard knelt in front of me as the man spoke and I watched as he attached manacles to my ankles. The chain connecting them tinkled in discordant merriment.

 

"Fulfill your daily quota of ore and you will get food," the little man continued as the guard circled behind me. "Fall short and you will get less food. Mine extra ore and be rewarded."

 

The guard's hands appeared from behind me. They held a familiar object, and I sighed in resignation as the iron collar was locked around my neck. It almost felt like home.

 

"That's pretty much it for the rules. Be good - rewards. Be bad - punishment. So simple, even a child could understand. Nod if you understand as well."

 

I nodded.

 

"Very good! Take her down. Then tell Bryan to clear the body."

 

"Yes sir."

 

The guard took my arm and let me down the path, around some bends, through more locked checkpoints. Soon I could hear the sound of mining - mental striking stone in a shaky rhythm. One last turn, a final downslope, one last checkpoint. The guard left me with another, who gave me a pickaxe, warned me not to try using it on a guard, and passed me through the final gate.

 

I looked around at my filthy, naked, beaten down fellow slaves, male and female, of all species and races. The stale air held hopelessness in lieu of oxygen. Here, I thought, is where I will die, forgotten in time and space, just a lowly slave who mined herself to death. I thought I knew despair, then, but I had no idea. None whatsoever.

 

Don't feel the bastards. They'll just want more.

 

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