torture, trauma, horror

Loiral and Marcus - Routine - 8.ii

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"Work" as it turns out is not the ordeal Loiral is expecting. He sits at the table with Marcus, and answers questions about politics. They refer frequently to the map as Loiral dredges his memory for troop numbers and movements, past skirmishes, trade deals and supposed alliances, and Marcus takes copious notes in an unfamiliar script.

He thinks about lying, but it seems unwise. It's difficult to sabotage an endeavour with misinformation when you don't have the first idea what that endeavour might be. And he's acutely conscious of the consequences of being caught out. He can't start to guess what the surfacer might already know, and that's before the possibility of magic for catching lies.

Loiral and Marcus - Routine - 8.i

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Reverie is a blank room, empty and silent. The constant babble of the slum is walled out, and the mind is still. No thoughts unspool. No memories -- thankfully -- present themselves for examination. There is just nothing.

The nothing is interrupted by nearby footfalls, heavy on the flimsy floorboards. The voices that Loiral has been hearing and not hearing for some time, become near and immediate. He gets up promptly, scurrying out of the way of the two women who converge on his pallet.

One of them strips the sheet off it, adding it to the bundle under her arm, while the other replaces it with clean. It's still strange to see them doing slave's work, but it seems to be the surfacers' way. They talk continuously, laughing with each other. Their words are still meaningless to Loiral, but he is starting to be able to pick out the rhythm and the tone. They are relaxed and cheerful, and he is happy to be ignored.

Loiral and Marcus - Recapture - 7.vi

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And a brief final part for this section.

---

The hot water soaks into Loiral's still-tender skin. The new flesh is paler than the old, a subtle patchwork of stripes and ragged blotches across his body -- or is it the remnants of his old skin that are paler, and the new that is a little darker?

The horror runs deeper than words can express.

Even sitting in hot water up to his neck, Loiral is shivering. His body is caked in blood and filth. Red swirls slowly out from his skin. He should be getting clean. But he keeps catching himself just sitting. Looking down, not really seeing, as something like reverie creeps into his skull. Something like reverie but empty and sick.

It's only fear that keeps pushing him back to going through the motions, dragging the washcloth across his stinging skin. He said he would. It's too soon to invite more punishment. He can't handle it. He's already coming apart at the seams.

Will he ever be brave enough to defy Marcus again?

He's too exhausted for these thoughts. He just needs to focus on getting clean. Getting the blood out of his hair. Out of the creases of his fingers. Just focus on not making this worse.

The little food he was given isn't enough. Hunger hurts like a cramp in his core. He doesn't know which he wants more -- food, or more rest. More than either, he wants to avoid further punishment. If he can just keep from making it worse, surely it has to get better eventually...

(It doesn't, he knows.)

He can't afford to dwell on how much worse it can get.

The water isn't hot any more by the time Loiral has rubbed himself down with soap and wiped it all away again. It is cold and opaque with the muck off his body. He is shivering harder than ever. But it is still strangely difficult to force himself out of the tub.

He isn't really clean, with the now-filthy water still clinging to his skin. He has no idea what he is expected to do next. Get cleaner, somehow? Or is this as much as he is allowed? Should he dry off, or is he intended to just shiver?

It takes him a distressingly long time to work it out. One of the things set out for him was a bucket, and there is more water in the butt in the corner. It shouldn’t be complicated. He struggles to be certain. 

The fresh water is colder than the lukewarm tub he climbed out of. Loiral still pours it over himself in generous quantities. It takes the last of the muck with it, and leaves him feeling genuinely clean for the first time in... He isn't sure. He doesn't want to think about how long it's been. Some cycles. Too long. Not nearly long enough to justify his cowardice.

And he is back to not knowing what to do next. There's no towelling to dry off with. There are clothes -- more coarse grey slave's clothes -- but water is still dripping from his skin. He wants to dress, he hates the vulnerability of nakedness. But he's soaking wet.

There's really only one thing to do, but it still takes an age of shivering in uncertainty to convince himself to just do it. He pulls the clothes on despite the way they cling and are instantly made damp. 

It's... better. A fraction warmer, a fraction less exposed.

If he must survive by fractions, that is what he will do.

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Loiral and Marcus - Recapture - 7.v

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Unexpectedly, inspiration has struck to write some more of this! Happy holidays, folks.

---

The door opens, and blinding light washes across Loiral where he lies. Marcus is just a dark and blurred silhouette, but Loiral knows him by his heavy footfalls, and by the easy confidence of his posture, and by the threatening shape of the scourge on his hip. His captor, his torturer. His master.

Loiral's first impulse is to curl up and hide his face, like a useless child. His second is to beg for mercy.

Loiral and Marcus - Recapture - 7.iv

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Loiral has the peculiar experience of becoming familiar with the manhandling well before he consciously understands. At first it is purely a rhythm in the pain. Agony jumps and flares in patterns. Across his back. Across his front. Each limb in turn.

Water is poured across his lips and he is desperately thirsty but he does not want it. He doesn’t have the coordination to drink. It gets into his throat, his lungs, leaves him coughing and choking. Agony in his chest, over and over. Then, before the spasms end, the pattern begins again.

Loiral and Marcus - Recapture - 7.iii

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[Caution: gore.]

Loiral and Marcus - Recapture - 7.ii

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Through the pain and the hysterical panic, Loiral isn't certain when the cuffs are clipped round his wrists. He certainly notices when a hood is shoved over his head, the rope pulled tight around his throat.

In the suffocating dark, he cannot decipher the impacts any more. The gauntleted hands are all over him – gripping and pulling and snapping and driving home blow after punishing blow. Pain flares over and over until he has no idea which way is up.

Loiral and Marcus - Recapture - 7.i

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Loiral runs at the breakneck pace that only outright terror permits. He is acutely aware of the gravel giving under his imperfectly-fitted boots, stealing his momentum. His hand moves to the sword on his hip. Not fast enough. He’s sure it won’t be fast enough. 

Several paces in, he realises he has to decide where he’s going. Away is not good enough. He can hear the human’s deep voice ringing out in sonorous incantation behind him. 

Loiral and Marcus - Flight - 6.iii

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[Content includes: fantasy racism, mention of slavery.]

"It's not that simple," Aeliira explains, voice edged with frustration. Loiral feels it too. Panic still beats a steady rhythm in the back of his head, despite the comforting weight of new arms and armour, despite the distance he's put between himself and the source of the terror. He's been making tough decisions one after another for hours. He knows that implacable monster is out there somewhere, perhaps already on his trail. And even his supposed ally is as likely to gut and rob him as to help.

Loiral and Marcus - Flight - 6.ii

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Aeliira falters at the threshold to the bank foyer. The dim light shows off the rich decor in a full spectrum of hues, from the dark, plush carpet to the faerie fire flickering across the carvings of the vaulted ceiling. Aeliira has probably never seen so much wealth in her life. Her hesitance brings Loiral a kind of bitter satisfaction, and he uses that feeling of contempt to bolster his fraying nerves. He needs all the confidence he can get to keep his chin high and make himself stride forwards without hesitating himself. He's keenly aware of the stained, sweat-soaked rags he's wearing, the dirt on his knees, the state of his hair. All eyes must be on him, but he resists the urge to look around.

Loiral and Marcus - Flight - 6.i

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She comes for him while he’s drifting in shallow reverie. He’s alert instantly at the sound of the key in the door, skin prickling with anticipation. She doesn’t say a word - she doesn’t need to. Loiral can see from her tension and her almost furtive attitude that she’s not here on the human’s command. His heart starts pounding.

Loiral and Marcus - What Slaves Do - 5.vi

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“Were you good while I was away, drow?”

Pretend it never happened, he said to Aeliira. To his best hope of escape. That shared conspiracy feels like a tentative promise that she might help him...

But on his knees before the human that he calls master, all thoughts of lying shrivel and die in Loiral’s mouth. There’s too much evidence. His healed back. The witnesses - hells, how many saw, if you count the slaves? Too many.

Loiral and Marcus - What Slaves Do - 5.v

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By the time Loiral has finished drying the tiles, the turmoil of his emotions has quietened back to a dull misery. He still isn’t sure what he’s going to tell Marcus. He could claim he fell and hit his head, or passed out and the staff thought he was in danger... It’s not like he could have healed himself, so the blame has to be on them... right?

Loiral and Marcus - What Slaves Do - 5.iv

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A desperate optimism dares to hope that Aeliira’s arrival might spell salvation. A more cynical part of Loiral suspects that she will only bring more pain. “Sister!” his current tormentor exclaims, “This slave attacked me! I’m punishing him, of course.” “Attacked you?” Her tone conveys great skepticism. “It’s true!” Whose voice is that? “He had her grabbed, with her arm all twisted - like this! And she couldn’t get out!” Oh, Loiral had forgotten that the youngster was still here. A lot of things are quite hard to keep track of right now. “Is that so?” Aeliira leans over him. Her face is recognisable, even blurred by tears. Should he confess? Deny it? Just beg for mercy? He can’t decide, so he pretends insensibility, whimpering and sobbing in pain. It’s not a difficult pretence.

Loiral and Marcus - What Slaves Do - 5.iii

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She shoos her creatures away from the crank so that she can work it herself. Loiral’s pleading gets less coherent and more frantic, higher pitched with panic as his limbs are pulled taut and the last of his wriggle room disappears. He’s seen what the rack can do, seen the broken, crippled creatures that result. “Please, please! I, I - aah - fuck--! Please no please I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

Loiral and Marcus - What Slaves Do - 5.ii

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By the time he’s scrubbed the whole floor clean, Loiral’s back is aching from the unfamiliar pattern of exercise, but he welcomes it. Better to work hard and stay strong than to waste away in chains. He’s hungry, but he’s been hungry before. He’ll cope. And thirst at least is not an issue. He has to draw fresh water a couple of times when his supply runs low or gets too murky. While he’s out there he drinks his fill . It feels good. Not just because the water is cool and clean and refreshing, but because it’s something he can do on his own initiative to make himself feel better.

Loiral and Marcus - What Slaves Do - 5.i

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Once he’s dressed in his slave’s clothes and hobbled again to keep him from running, he’s led out of the cell. His wrists are still cuffed, and the metal chafes on the half-healed sores, but the connecting chain is removed so that he’s free to move his arms. They stop at the door at the end of the corridor - Loiral assumes some kind of back room, he’s seen Aeliira go through here - and Marcus knocks sharply.