Elsa murmured her understanding. Do what you are told and survive. Wasn't that what prisoners did? Wasn't that what she had done all those years in foster care? People made a big deal about pride, about things they just wouldn't stoop to do, they'd rather die than do certain things.
But pride and sensibilities were worth nothing in the long run. The end game was survival. To wake up each day still alive and able to move. That was what life was about. Survival at any cost.
So Elsa walked. She followed and she remained silent.
During the journey the humans in their group started chatting, some to each other and some to the fae around them, but Elsa stayed mute. She only spoke when she had something of value to say.
The trip wore on her though. The constant travel was tiring. Her feet bled inside her shoes and she began to limp. Still she stayed silent. Enduring pain in silence was what got her through her childhood. Oh it had always angered her foster mother that Elsa developed the ability to take her beatings silently. The quieter she was, the angrier her foster mother would grt. But she always made Elsa screaming the end...
Elsa's fingers worked absently during the trip, moving along invisible keys as she stared into space, her lips moving soundlessly as her favorite songs played through her mind. She longed for music as a parched man longed for water. The only time she cried was at night when no one could see, and she wept for music. Only the most sensitive ears would hear her tears, the slight catches of her breath and the beat of her heart.
The rest of the time she appeared detatched from everything. Elsa was quiet but anyone who studied her would see her eyes taking everything in, analyzing, processing, retaining.
She was going to survive this. And she was going to thrive.