The Tiefling-5- Tears

TW: torture, abuse, slavery, blood, dehumanization, alcohol mention

The tiefling knelt in its cell where Mistress Cidelis had left it, cut, beaten, bleeding. One side of its face was stinging where she’d struck it over and over. It wanted to fall over, to lie down. It had been punished for sleeping without permission. It was still so tired. But everything, every breath, hurt too much to move. So it knelt there on the floor, head bowed, as the sweat and blood chilled on its skin.

“Poor beast.” The door to the cell opened, closed. Boots came into its vision. A hand sifted into its damp hair. “Poor wretched monster. Did she beat you again? You must stop being so defiant, or this is what happens to you.” The wizard Mhedarin- the Master- gripped the tiefling’s hair, lifted its face.

Its left eye was half closed, the left side of its broad face bruised, swelling, but it looked obediently upward. “Yes, Master…”

The wizard wore an apron, his sleeves rolled up, and had a bag over his shoulder. “Why don’t you lie down? You can move, can’t you?”

“It- it hurts, Master…”

“Well I need a few things today, and you are conveniently pacified, so be a good beast for me first, and we’ll see what we can do about that pain, yes?”

It wasn’t sure it understood, but it said dutifully, “Yes, Master.”

Mhedarin went to one knee beside the tiefling. “Hands behind your back. Sit up for me. Good. Now, you will keep your hands back there, and you will not move away. You may cry out if you must.”

“It is grateful, Master.” The attentions of the Master and Mistress were so much easier to endure when it had permission to make any sound, when it wasn’t fighting to stifle its whimpering. It set one hand gripped in the hold of the other behind its back.

It watched mutely as the wizard took a vial and a small sharp looking knife from that bag. The cork of the vial was set aside and the wizard leaned in close, examining the bloody whip cuts across the tiefling’s broad chest. 

The tiefling shut its eyes, so it would not have to see him so close. They flashed open again with a startled cry as the wizard dragged the point of his knife through a raised whip cut, reopening the congealed wound. “Ahhh!” Blood rose behind the blade’s trail.

“Be still now. You mustn’t move away,” said Mhedarin, holding his vial against the skin at the bottom of the diagonal cut, watching carefully as the blood ran into it. 

The tiefling’s tail flicked back and forth unconsciously as it knelt there and tried to breathe slowly, tried not to move as the blood ran for long minutes, then slowed and ceased.

Mhedarin held up the vial, frowned at it, and turned to the tiefling’s body again with his knife. “Not enough…”

No more, it wanted to plead. It was already hurt, why add to the pain? It could say none of that. It was not permitted to speak unless spoken to. When the wizard set his knife to another lash mark, slicing into the inflamed flesh where it would bleed freely, the tiefling could only gasp.

“You see, blood obtained for magic working can be of a certain quality… when it comes from pain…” Mhedarin mused, letting the wound bleed into the vial he held. “It does have so many uses.” He often spoke like that- almost to himself, when he was with the tiefling. He didn’t often bother to converse with it much, not the way Mistress Cidelis did. 

Another sharp line of fire carved across the tiefling’s chest and he couldn’t hold back a sob. 

“Is this hurting you, pet?”

“Yes- Yes, Master. It hurts,” breathed the tiefling.

“Good, good. That’s what I needed.”

Every whiplash stung as the tiefling tried to breathe slowly in a comforting rhythm, in, then out, but now the bloody cuts burned as well with the smallest motion of its ribs, and it tried to stare at the cell bars, at nothing, and focus there instead of on the knife. 

Another cut, across its stomach this time, and again the blood flowed and was caught in the vial. The tiefling gritted its teeth, closing its eyes. Then finally there was the sound of a cork being driven into that vial. Perhaps the wizard was done, and would leave now.

A heavy blow struck it across the face, first one side, then the other where it was already injured, and it gave a broken sob. “Ah!”

“Not enough hm?”

It looked up at its Master. “Please- what- Enough?”

Mhedarin looked down at his pet coldly. “I need more from you.”

“It will obey, if Master would- Hgh!!” 

Mhedarin had seized its throat with a bruising grip. “Shh.” Then white fire exploded behind the tiefling’s eyes, blinding it as the lightning rocked through its body, arching its spine and driving the breath from its lungs, scorching every nerve, but it couldn’t scream. The shock went on and on.

Then it was over, and the tiefling lay on its back dragging in air through aching lungs. Mhedarin stood over it, looking down without pity. “Still not enough?”

“P- please- Let it obey- It will obey- What does the Master- want from it?”

The wizard said simply, “I need you in agony.” He bent down to the tiefling, seized it by a horn and pulled, hard, dragging it closer to the wall. It whimpered, but when it knew he wanted it to move, it scuffled on its back using elbows and feet to comply.

Once it was closer to the wall, Mhedarin knelt and seized a chain from the wall there with locking loops on its end and connected them to the cuffs at the creature’s wrists, leaving it lying on its back with wrists abound above its head. Vulnerable. 

It allowed him to do this, pliant in his hands but trembling. It looked up at him, fear in those strange golden eyes, and a question.

“You want to know what I’m doing?”

“Please, Master…”

“That’s it, beg. I want you in fear. I want you to hurt. I need another spell component, and it will be so much more potent if it comes from your pain.”

Its heart began to race again. “It- does not understand…”

He touched fingers to its lips, silencing it, as his other hand opened a flask. “Shh. You don’t have to understand. You are only a beast. But I grant you my permission to beg, and to scream.” He turned the flask over and poured out the distilled alcohol over the tiefling’s wounded body.

“Ngh- Aah- AAAIIIGHH!!” It screamed, as the alcohol hit its cuts and whip weals, screamed and writhed, as the wounds burned worse than fire. The pain was like the lightning had been, consuming, inescapable. It jerked against its restraints but they held. “P- p- please!” it gasped. “Please, Master! P- please make it s- s- stop!!”

Mhedarin watched, his smile cold. “Should I? Would you like that?”

“Oh gods, p-please! Aaah! It- it burns! Oh- please- Master!!” Tears ran down its face as it begged, shaking and trembling.

“There,” said Mhedarin, his smile broadening with greed. He held a vial to the tiefling’s face, one side and then the other, catching the tears in it. “These will be powerful indeed.”

“Please- m-Master!” the tiefling wept, pleading, as the wizard collected its tears and smiled.

As its racking sobs eventually subsided, Mhedarin’s hand combed through its dark curls again, petting it. “There. That was what I wanted. Just your pain.” A hand gently slid behind and lifted its head, and a ladle of water was held to its lips. It drank, then a second ladle full came and it emptied that too. 

“I- it is… grateful, m-Master,” the tiefling panted, looking up at him. 

“It should be. I have cleaned your wounds. Now they will not fester or take fever. But- we should be sure,” said the wizard as he stood. He smiled like a snake.

The tiefling was afraid of that smile, the cruelty in it. It had seen that smile before.

Mhedarin reached into his bag again, and pulled out a small handful of something white. He turned to leave, but said, “Here. A parting gift.” And he let fall his handful of salt over the tiefling’s bleeding chest.

The creature’s screams of agony echoed behind him as he went up the stairs, and he smiled again.