Post by Amanita Vernia on Apr 26, 2005 2:48:18 GMT -5
The intruder is taken prisoner, awaiting torture
Time; the imperturbable roll and constant beat of life, the universe, of all creation could pass in either the blink of an eye or at a sluggish crawl when one was left from a concussion as he was. Days could have passed, or mere minutes since that heavy blade bit it's way through the dense bone of that bird's skull. It passed at a crawl for him though, deep in a mind that hungered for something the body knew not what. Something important enough to have driven him pa'sang innumerable though, of that one could be sure of. But what was the crutch of the question! What mad thought clawed at the innards of that near-forgotten mind, dragging that lengthy rest out with one laborious, lethargic groan. Eyes rolled-back into the skull just twittered their vision high above themselves as the body hung limply from it's wrists, smelling of dank water and grime. The place, wherever it was, felt...cooler, than the out-of-doors. But not the wide-open cool of broad lands or the chill cool of snow and ice. It was a deep cool. Like being immersed in water that held solid and clogging about your skull without killing you. "Urgh...graaaarh..." Working it's jaw, that once-man groaned louder, dropping its head exhaustedly to his chest as he squeezed his eyes tight to try warding off the blood pound inside his skull.
The wound was cleaned and cared for before the intruder was hung by his shackles by the same two men who'd watched him slaughter their fellow guardsmen. There was no pity shown by either when watched the physician tend to the gash across his jaw without anything to dull the pain, if they would of been allowed a front row seat to watch the torturer perform his task, they would of given at least a week's wage for the right, but once the merchant entered the chamber, the two men were dismissed back upstairs. Amanita changed her lighter robes for something with more weight as if she planned on leaving the house. It had been nearly a month's time since she had left her home, maybe more, but time seemed to evaporate around her in this humid climate. There was more sunlight than moon in Schendi since it lay so close to the equator and even with the constant mist of showers that kept it's plant life in an abundance, there were never enough clouds to turn the sky gray. For the nocturnal woman it wasn't the ideal city, but despite every flaw that it held, it was her home. It was also home to the shackled man, even if he did not remember it and she could not recognize him as her own blood, but perhaps the room gave his mind a jolt of familiarity. There were other rooms he might of been taken, but the basement cellar where their father had conducted many of his experiments seemed like the best place to interrogate. Word had come back to the merchant that the man needed for this difficult task was still being sought, but that didn't stop the woman from seeking out her own answers. Perhaps he would cooperate. The physician was just packing up his things when the man groaned, he paused to look back at the merchant with a raised bush over his right eye. "A few inches higher and he would of lost his eye, lower... his head. It was a clean cut though, it should heal nicely." Amanita nodded to his words and glanced towards the wound pretending to show an interest in the man's well being. "Good... he'll live just long enough to tell us what we need to know then." She reached out her hand with fingers tipped towards the floor waiting for his palm, three silver coins would fall into it paying the man for his services. Once the rest of his tools were put away he followed the guards out leaving Amanita alone in the room with their captive. A small vial was opened and brought to his nose to help rouse him back to consciousness. "Wake up sleeping beauty... we've got a few things to talk about before you can have your rest."
With the first faint whiff, he shuddered; the second and third on their own got a violet jerk-away from him before his eyes re-focused, and he grimaced hard behind the mass of beard, to rest eyes on the vial, and let it be, glancing not at his wrists [useless gesture, that], but about himself, frowning hard at the corners...There were no windows in this room...Yet he did feel a hollow cower inside him that made him stay slunk against the wall with a look of distaste, looking to the floor, around them, anywhere really, while he gave a few testing tugs on those shackles...
"Test all you want... you'll not be slipping out of those. They've held plenty stronger than you, though I can't recall if any were as deserving to be placed in them than you, after all, you did spill blood in my house...." Once he was aware enough she pulled the vial away and let him regain his focus on something else even if it was the floor. His head looked almost too heavy for him to lift as it sank forward after the jerking, but she could tell he was aware enough that someone else was in the room with him even if he failed to respond himself. "The least you could do is tell me why... I might even show you some mercy for being forthcoming.... either way, I will find out, it's your choice if we do this the easy way, or if I bring someone else in here that isn't as nice." Her tone was almost soothing the way she sang into his ear bringing her lips closer. Her chin was always tilted towards the ceiling and her dark eyes kept constant contact even when she was merely glancing at him from the corner of eye in a careless manner. Not much had changed Amanita, not physically, and she was just as sly a creature as she had been a child. There was the same amount of mirth in her as well and while she examined the strike this intruder had suffered, thanks to Arculieus, at such an intimate lacking of distance she made sure her breath was felt on both his neck and the wound. "I can be kind... stranger, which is more than I can say for your next visitor if you don't sing for me."
Turning aside a dark eye to that...familiar face, he half-leaned away from that lilting voice while she loomed nearer...Though, as those breaths began to get a little warmer, and familiar...Why was that sensation familiar? He turned his head aside, sniffing tentatively at her before simply knitting his brows, sinking deeper on those chains from overhead, though he did peer up to them a moment. Whatever it'd been in that vial, it'd woken him up...Now just to get those damned things off...His cheek flinched slightly as he gave another slow, testing pull, feeling the flesh of his wrist bind and chaff before easing again...He was stuck, for certain. But he could always try breaking it...It may mend. Dropping those cool eyes on her again, he only looked the question as he gave an effortless tug or two, before sinking back...with a growling stomach no less.
She could hear the shuffling of his hands as he continued to test the shackles... if he had any memories of this place he would know that they had been there when they were children, perhaps even seen them used to restrain a slave who'd just become daddy's latest experiment. Most of them didn't last long. Her eyes didn't follow the sound of his wrists grinding against the rusted steel, instead they lowered to his stomach for a second before narrowing back at his own. "That's not the song I had in mind.... and it's only a matter of time before I get tired of talking to myself." She knew she didn't have the talents, nor the patience it took to torture a man, but she did have a touch. Her hand reached out to press against his abdomen and whatever clothing or guard covered him. Palm flat and fingers pointed south. "I know what you came for... I even have a pretty good idea who sent you, but I'm eager to hear you me. Let's start with something easy.... a name?" The thin arch over her eye stretched upward as she waited for a sound as her finger tips pressed even harder into him. It wasn't torture.... she was a charmer after all.
The rags of what passed for leather, had been shed long ago in the heat of the travel south, which left only that deep carving of hair that'd grown from the lack of a blade's touch...Still, he pressed back to the wall at his ease as he stared curiously at this woman...she smelled familiar still. And his mind...knew what it was, but something simply wouldn't come. The words...they were beginning to make some form of sense, anyway. Bits and pieces here and there that sparked a semblance of knowledge inside the shell; hollow rings none-the-less though. Glancing down to the press of that hand...he flinched, sucking in his belly a hair with a cant of the head, mouthing something perhaps... three times, before a brief croak came to his throat. Pursing his lips, he tried again, forming that...familiar-yet-unfamiliar word. "Na-...name...." Squinting, he contemplated that...What was a name?
Time; the imperturbable roll and constant beat of life, the universe, of all creation could pass in either the blink of an eye or at a sluggish crawl when one was left from a concussion as he was. Days could have passed, or mere minutes since that heavy blade bit it's way through the dense bone of that bird's skull. It passed at a crawl for him though, deep in a mind that hungered for something the body knew not what. Something important enough to have driven him pa'sang innumerable though, of that one could be sure of. But what was the crutch of the question! What mad thought clawed at the innards of that near-forgotten mind, dragging that lengthy rest out with one laborious, lethargic groan. Eyes rolled-back into the skull just twittered their vision high above themselves as the body hung limply from it's wrists, smelling of dank water and grime. The place, wherever it was, felt...cooler, than the out-of-doors. But not the wide-open cool of broad lands or the chill cool of snow and ice. It was a deep cool. Like being immersed in water that held solid and clogging about your skull without killing you. "Urgh...graaaarh..." Working it's jaw, that once-man groaned louder, dropping its head exhaustedly to his chest as he squeezed his eyes tight to try warding off the blood pound inside his skull.
The wound was cleaned and cared for before the intruder was hung by his shackles by the same two men who'd watched him slaughter their fellow guardsmen. There was no pity shown by either when watched the physician tend to the gash across his jaw without anything to dull the pain, if they would of been allowed a front row seat to watch the torturer perform his task, they would of given at least a week's wage for the right, but once the merchant entered the chamber, the two men were dismissed back upstairs. Amanita changed her lighter robes for something with more weight as if she planned on leaving the house. It had been nearly a month's time since she had left her home, maybe more, but time seemed to evaporate around her in this humid climate. There was more sunlight than moon in Schendi since it lay so close to the equator and even with the constant mist of showers that kept it's plant life in an abundance, there were never enough clouds to turn the sky gray. For the nocturnal woman it wasn't the ideal city, but despite every flaw that it held, it was her home. It was also home to the shackled man, even if he did not remember it and she could not recognize him as her own blood, but perhaps the room gave his mind a jolt of familiarity. There were other rooms he might of been taken, but the basement cellar where their father had conducted many of his experiments seemed like the best place to interrogate. Word had come back to the merchant that the man needed for this difficult task was still being sought, but that didn't stop the woman from seeking out her own answers. Perhaps he would cooperate. The physician was just packing up his things when the man groaned, he paused to look back at the merchant with a raised bush over his right eye. "A few inches higher and he would of lost his eye, lower... his head. It was a clean cut though, it should heal nicely." Amanita nodded to his words and glanced towards the wound pretending to show an interest in the man's well being. "Good... he'll live just long enough to tell us what we need to know then." She reached out her hand with fingers tipped towards the floor waiting for his palm, three silver coins would fall into it paying the man for his services. Once the rest of his tools were put away he followed the guards out leaving Amanita alone in the room with their captive. A small vial was opened and brought to his nose to help rouse him back to consciousness. "Wake up sleeping beauty... we've got a few things to talk about before you can have your rest."
With the first faint whiff, he shuddered; the second and third on their own got a violet jerk-away from him before his eyes re-focused, and he grimaced hard behind the mass of beard, to rest eyes on the vial, and let it be, glancing not at his wrists [useless gesture, that], but about himself, frowning hard at the corners...There were no windows in this room...Yet he did feel a hollow cower inside him that made him stay slunk against the wall with a look of distaste, looking to the floor, around them, anywhere really, while he gave a few testing tugs on those shackles...
"Test all you want... you'll not be slipping out of those. They've held plenty stronger than you, though I can't recall if any were as deserving to be placed in them than you, after all, you did spill blood in my house...." Once he was aware enough she pulled the vial away and let him regain his focus on something else even if it was the floor. His head looked almost too heavy for him to lift as it sank forward after the jerking, but she could tell he was aware enough that someone else was in the room with him even if he failed to respond himself. "The least you could do is tell me why... I might even show you some mercy for being forthcoming.... either way, I will find out, it's your choice if we do this the easy way, or if I bring someone else in here that isn't as nice." Her tone was almost soothing the way she sang into his ear bringing her lips closer. Her chin was always tilted towards the ceiling and her dark eyes kept constant contact even when she was merely glancing at him from the corner of eye in a careless manner. Not much had changed Amanita, not physically, and she was just as sly a creature as she had been a child. There was the same amount of mirth in her as well and while she examined the strike this intruder had suffered, thanks to Arculieus, at such an intimate lacking of distance she made sure her breath was felt on both his neck and the wound. "I can be kind... stranger, which is more than I can say for your next visitor if you don't sing for me."
Turning aside a dark eye to that...familiar face, he half-leaned away from that lilting voice while she loomed nearer...Though, as those breaths began to get a little warmer, and familiar...Why was that sensation familiar? He turned his head aside, sniffing tentatively at her before simply knitting his brows, sinking deeper on those chains from overhead, though he did peer up to them a moment. Whatever it'd been in that vial, it'd woken him up...Now just to get those damned things off...His cheek flinched slightly as he gave another slow, testing pull, feeling the flesh of his wrist bind and chaff before easing again...He was stuck, for certain. But he could always try breaking it...It may mend. Dropping those cool eyes on her again, he only looked the question as he gave an effortless tug or two, before sinking back...with a growling stomach no less.
She could hear the shuffling of his hands as he continued to test the shackles... if he had any memories of this place he would know that they had been there when they were children, perhaps even seen them used to restrain a slave who'd just become daddy's latest experiment. Most of them didn't last long. Her eyes didn't follow the sound of his wrists grinding against the rusted steel, instead they lowered to his stomach for a second before narrowing back at his own. "That's not the song I had in mind.... and it's only a matter of time before I get tired of talking to myself." She knew she didn't have the talents, nor the patience it took to torture a man, but she did have a touch. Her hand reached out to press against his abdomen and whatever clothing or guard covered him. Palm flat and fingers pointed south. "I know what you came for... I even have a pretty good idea who sent you, but I'm eager to hear you me. Let's start with something easy.... a name?" The thin arch over her eye stretched upward as she waited for a sound as her finger tips pressed even harder into him. It wasn't torture.... she was a charmer after all.
The rags of what passed for leather, had been shed long ago in the heat of the travel south, which left only that deep carving of hair that'd grown from the lack of a blade's touch...Still, he pressed back to the wall at his ease as he stared curiously at this woman...she smelled familiar still. And his mind...knew what it was, but something simply wouldn't come. The words...they were beginning to make some form of sense, anyway. Bits and pieces here and there that sparked a semblance of knowledge inside the shell; hollow rings none-the-less though. Glancing down to the press of that hand...he flinched, sucking in his belly a hair with a cant of the head, mouthing something perhaps... three times, before a brief croak came to his throat. Pursing his lips, he tried again, forming that...familiar-yet-unfamiliar word. "Na-...name...." Squinting, he contemplated that...What was a name?
