u/Individual_Dream_213

The wind howled through the black pines of Samogitia, carrying the distant CLANK of steel and he screams of the dying. It was the Year of Our Lord 1254, and the Teutonic Knights had come to break the last pagan strongholds.

Sir Konrad von Altenburg lay half-dead beneath an oak when BIRUTA found him. The woman was no Christian, her gods were the old ones. PERKUNAS the thunderer, ZEMYNA the earth mother. Yet she saw a man bleeding from a Lithuanian arrow in his thigh ad a sword-cut across his ribs. She dragged him to her wattle hut at the edge of the rye field, washed the wounds with boiled herbs, packed them with moss and spiderwebs, and sand low pagan charms until the fever broke.

INT. BIRUTA’S HOME

For three days she fed him broth and changed his bandages. Her son, little RIMAS - watched the iron clad stranger with wide curious eyes, bringing him water in a wooden cup. Konrad recovered enough to sit up. He spoke little at first, his blue eyes tracing the pagan tattoos on Biruta’s arms, the silver amulet of a sun-wheel at her thoat. Gratitude flickered in him, then something darker.

On the fourth night, the fire crackled low. Konrad’s hand closed around her wrist.

“You saved a servant of Christ,” he said, his voice hoarse but steady. “The Teutonic Order rewards its friends. Lie with me tonight, woman. Warm a kindght’s bed and I will spare this hovel when my brothers in Christ ride through.”

Biruta pulled away, her eyes flashing like flint. “My husband lies in the barrow your men burned last spring. My gods forbid it. Touch me and you touch their curse.”

Konrad’s face hardened beneath his stubble and half-healed scars. “Pagan whore! You healed me with the devil’s arts and then deny a knight his due?”

Rimas stirred in the corner, clutching a small wooden horse. The boy whimpered.

Konrad rose, still stiff but iron-strong. He seized the child by his hair, drew his MISERICORDE - the thin blade meant for mercy - and drove it under the boy’s ribs. Rimas made no sound beyond a single wet gasp. His blood sprayed across the earthen floor.

Biruta SCREAMED and lunged forward but Konrad backhanded her so hard it knocked her against the wall. He stepped outside ino the moonlight, his torch already lit from her hearth. With deliberate strokes he thrust the flame into the dry rye. Her field went ablaze like tinder, orange serpents raced across the stalks, devouring months of labor. The smoke rolled thick and bitter.

Biruta crawled to her son’s body, cradling his small still form. Her tears cut tracks through the soot on her cheeks.

Konrad returned, his armor half-buckled, blood on his gauntlet. He yanked her upright by her silver amulet, snapping the chain.

“You refused a knight of the Teutonic Order, pagan whore.” he said coldly. Now you belong to it. Your whelp is meat for the crows. Your whelp is meat for the crows. You will serve in the castle at Marienburg - scrub floors, carry water, and learn wha it means to obey. If you fight, I will have you branded. If you run, I will have you hunted.”

He bound her wrists tightly with a length of rope from his saddle, threw her across his horse like a sack of grain, and mounted behind her. The burning field lit the night as he rode west towards the crusader path. Biruta’s sobs were swallowed by the wind and the thunder of hooves.

In the distance, the horns of the Order sounded, calling more knights to the next pagan village. Konrad grinned beneath his helme. God’s work was never done.

I know Mexico lets children born in prison stay with their mothers until they're 5, I'm not sure about El Salvador but I picked that one because Cecot is the closest real world parallel I can think of to a prison like Peña Duro.

Batgirl should be Commissioner Gordon's daughter.