Notes: This is brief, and something I wanted to get off my head. I suppose I will have a bigger fic with the "Delita is just a servant chess piece for the nobles" subject, but I like this one little thing enough for it to be on its own, I guess. I may edit it on the future, but no promises.
!Warnings: Which rating is more appropriate for this, T or M? Some torture, some more humiliation, some blood. It pleases my sadistic side.
The bustling outside had settled down, the growls of crows the most proeminent sounds to pierce the air. Heavy boots clanked down the stone floor of one of the dungeon's rooms of the Beoulve manse, their owner gazing down onto the common boy even through the darkness of the place.
With mere eight years of age, Delita stands as still as he can while swallowing saliva only when he feels very necessary, breathing inevitably nervous, heartbeats slow and heavy. Even if he is looking down, the weight of Dycedarg's gaze feels impending in his soul, it leaving him too tense, too nervous, expecting the worst. The silence is pregnant and feels almost unbreakable.
Dycedarg is far too aware of his own powers as he keeps staring down, calm and not at all desiring to rush things. The younger is still half alert, and the blonde only awaits for him to lose focus so he can speak up.
It takes time, but when the Beoulve thinks it is the right moment, he asks sternly, "What have you to say about what you did?"
Delita flinches with a startle, the older's voice having sounded far too loud in the silence, and he stutters out, "I-I never meant t-to do that. I-I didn't want it to occur. I'm sorry, sincerely."
Shifting half a step closer, Dycedarg continues to pace around him. "Such a thing is not done unpurposefully, boy."
"I am v-very sorry! I-I do!"
Innocent child's play, it had been. Ramza and Delita, young boys conversing and wondering under afternoon's light, would never even dream of causing much harm to each other. It had been a mistake, momentary lack of control. Ramza had said something half playfully that happened to anger Delita to some extent, and as they wound up dwelling far more on the matter than they should, the commoner found himself unable to stop the fist that came flying towards Ramza's face and he only realized what had truly happened when he saw the blonde boy on the ground, head having hit a rather hard part of it and blood slithering out of a swollen nose.
Ramza was crying loudly. By then Delita had also found his eyes on tears, guilt tearing at his heart at the display, and so he cried for help and it wasn't even really needed as Zalbaag and Dycedarg were already rushing towards the duo of boys.
They were brought into the manse under curious glances from Tietra and Alma, and as Zalbaag carried Ramza to his chambers to be treated, Dycedarg pulled a crying Delita by the arm, leading him towards the dungeon to a room that was not the Heirals' for some questioning and "proper punishment".
"Being sorry wouldn't cease his bleeding, would it? Would an apology make his head stop throbbing?" the older man spoke out swiftly.
"N-no!" Delita knew to show compliance, but the man was angering him- it had been an accident! "But I n-never wanted to have done that to him in the first place!" the brunette mustered up enough courage at that moment to look up at the eldest of the Beoulve brothers, meeting dark brown eyes who were not pleased as well.
"Which is why you need to learn to control yourself." Dycedarg said coldly. The words dulled Delita's anger, leaving behind only painful guilt to be felt. If he'd controlled himself, Ramza would not have gotten hurt.
"You need to remember the favors we have done you and your sister. We could have left you two to die after your parents' demise, yet we took you in and cared for you. In the friendship you have with Ramza you may try to treat each other as equals, but have in mind we of House Beoulve need the respect for caring for you, commoner." the blonde explained, keeping on his intimidating stance.
"...Is that it? Just because you gave us favors, we need to serve you so? Just because we are of common blood? Sometimes me and Tietra feel like dogs here. I don't think you would do the same if we weren't commoners." Delita murmured lolwy.
"Yes, that you are commoners is enough reason. Your parents have served our house, so why would their son and daughter be treated as equals to us in some way? We do not take in lowborns to be more mouths to be fed if they do not serve us in any way."
"You're wrong! Barbaneth did not take us in with the purpose of making us such hardworking young servants! He-"
Delita had barely the time to gasp when he felt strong fingers closing in around his neck, his back pushed roughly against the stone wall as his feet lost contact with the floor.
"Barbaneth is oftentimes a fool," Dycedarg barked, pressing the boy more strongly against the wall. "But he knew that by getting you and your sister, Ramza and Alma would be benefacted. They would then have friends and knights to defend them. At the same time, in the same two bodies." he tightened the grip on the commoner's neck. Incoherent, breathy gasps were his response to this.
"You are such a good servant most of the time, Delita," the man hissed, approaching their heads, their eyes forced to meet. "But you let your obedience stray too much. Listen to me. You know what we can do to you if you aren't a good servant! You know!" he snarled dangerously, allowing some breath into the boy's system before gripping even more tightly than before.
Dycedarg heard the sound of a thin stream of liquid colliding with the floor, and so he realized that Delita was urinating. Be it out of fear or because the boy wished to relieve himself and hadn't told the older of it, it did not matter. Tears ran down the commoner's cheeks, reddened from embarrassment, his eyes closed in attempt to ignore the entire situation. When the sound stopped all too soon, one of Dycedarg's eyebrows rose in silent question, and the blonde relaxed his grip on the soft neck if only a bit. He then raised an armoured knee and, feeling little guilt in what he was going to do, pressed it almost crushingly against the boy's groin.
"A-aahhh-" Delita moaned out breathily in pain, shivering with cold and unnerve, and unable to help himself then as the rest of the urine he was trying to hold in prickled out of his pained member.
"How are you to call yourself a warrior," Dycedarg began, well hearing the liquid sounds again, "When you cannot even hold yourself?"
"I-I-I," the boy was still too breathless, mind clouded with pain and shame, to be able to say more.
He does not fight back. That is the obedience I seek. The Beoulve removed his knee, then his hand, allowing Delita to fall limply with a small splash to the wet rock floor below him. With precision he delivered a kick to the brunet head, watching with slight pity at the weakened and humiliated figure laying ahead of him.
"I suppose some of your blood could find its way out of your body as Ramza's did... Common blood is not as precious." Dycedarg unsheathed a knife, crouching and using its sharp tip to leave a thin cut on the boy's heated cheek, it instantly starting to bleed. The dark red liquid slid down to his lips, invading his panting mouth, the sting of the wound mingling with that of his crotch.
Dycedarg collected some of the blood with the blade of the knife, then lifting to have it drip onto Delita's eye, but the frightened commoner shut his eyes tightly upon seeing this and so the droplet merely stained his eyelids.
"Be aware that much more could be done to you, but I shall leave it as it is now. Do not tell anyone of what I have done here, or you might see yourself and your sister worse than dead. I will say I brought you to sleep on another room so you could think of what you did to Ramza, and you shall comply with this. Other reasons will be made up for your state. Do not call out for help here, I will bring you out in the morning. If you do call I might have to silence you with a blade of mine..."
"I hope you have learned."
As the door was closed and locked, Delita allowed himself to sob quietly. His head throbbed, his crotch ached, his cheek stung, two scents most unnerving filled his nostrils. He had none to share this pain with, if he was not supposed to tell anyone of what happened within this disgraced chamber. Not even Tietra and Ramza. He would have to lie.
This long cut on his face would be said to have been caused by an accident as he cleaned a knife, and his weird new scent, maybe due to a nightmare that caused him to wet himself. Ramza could also believe it was because he worked so much in certain days that maybe he had not found the time to relieve himself, again. Any excuse would be a lie nonetheless.
He was bound by blood and favour to servitude, and so it would remain if he kept loyal. And if not loyal, he would be dealt with.
If it meant being able to be with Ramza, though, then so be it. Delita would need to serve Barbaneth and his true blood sons, but he would serve Ramza above all of them, and that was the comfort that he clung onto and that allowed him to sleep that night.