Foundations of stone
It was a shot of energy, a bright flash, and then there was only darkness.
Virgin lungs started to convulse, trying desperately to drag their first breath past shut lips. A body drowning in its own birth; surrounded by the dark and wet that it had only ever known and yet could not understand.
The world shifted and started to tumble away. Limbs reached forward with strange fingers and broke a surface into a new kind of cold. The body followed without permission, unwillingly thrusting itself from the familiar dark into the unknown and unfathomable. Lungs tasted their first intake of stale air and choked. Dark fluid came forth from the mouth and nose and dripped from the strange veils of black on either side of the face. The body pulled itself out fully as if something else was moving it forwards and up until it stood on shaking legs.
Eyes blinked, trying to focus on this new plain of feeling. Air is cold and thick, ground is hard and wet.
Warmth. A grasp on the bottom of the leg. Reflexes turn violently to see the attacker: a hand coming from the same dark as this body had come. This body sends its own hand and reaches forward to pull and pull until another stood, staring as uncomprehending as this.
The next part came with little more warning than a small pin prick; as if popping a thin boundary holding back more that it could possibly have been holding. It brought forward an assault baring the first sensations of pain.
Swirling tendrils spread out across these new and fragile minds, tearing into the emptiness and filling it with blacks and reds. Whispers of so many words echoed through, bludgeoning and imprinting into the impressionable surfaces of thought. Walls were built within upon unstable foundations and with heavy stones. Sensations became so much more and less than confusion. Ugliness was all.
When the barrage stopped, it was as if a canvas that had once been white was hastily filled with violent colours and textures. The mind started to warm once more and recognize a sound surrounding the ears as a roar resonating from its own mouth. The roar stopped and the eyes began to unblur as the body slowly moved to straighten itself.
No, not "it"… the mind demands identity.
His eyes moved up and met those of the other whose eyes were just as clouded. They stood and faced each other once more. New thoughts festered.
Master. Home. Pain. Brothers.
They looked at each other with new understanding and each began to raise a hand, placing them on the other's chest.
"Brother." They growled in unison. The moment seemed to stretch on as they looked at one another, until finally they were dragged back by a harsh voice.
"Oi! You new lot, follow me."
They became suddenly aware that there were in fact more like them in this place. They stood in a large cavern, the floor filled with muddy holes that had been filled with the bodies of those now standing above them. There were about twenty newly birthed Uruk-hai that, without hesitation, began to follow the fat hunched Orc that had called to them. The two born from the same pit stuck close together as they were all marched down dark passages and instructed to line up against a stone wall at the side of a much taller cavern.
The two brothers were pulled aside roughly by the arm without protest; they were to submit to their master and this hunched, ill tempered, orc seemed to be the only one around so far. They were placed at the very end of the lineup and separated from the rest by a ways. They were all standing, completely still and staring straight forward when He entered.
They could all feel Him immediately. His power crushing any resistance from their minds and leaving them bare and unquestioning as to who He was. His white robes remained untainted by the filth that seemed to cling to every surface in this place and He seemed to radiate a cold light as He stood before them, above them, all around them. His words were like chains wrapping around every ounce of their concentration when He spoke.
"What are you?" His voice was cold and even.
The answer was unfaltering. "Fighting Uruk-hai."
"And whom do you serve?"
"Saruman." The name hissed and wormed its way aggressively out of each and every fanged mouth present.
The master nodded very slightly and started to walk towards the end of the line of bodies, continuing to speak about duties, ranks, and privileges that could be awarded if he was satisfied.
Most he passed over with no more than a glance, others he would stop and grasp their jaw between his thumb and forefinger examining them closely. There was one amongst them that had not fit whatever requirements this master had set and the result was loud, bloody, and long lasting, as those who had stood by quiet and unmoving moments before were instructed to take their first blood.
Saruman finally reached the end of the line and looked intently down on the two standing there.
"You may take them to be branded and get them working, pit master." He spoke without turning and the hunched orc barked an order to all the others to follow once again. The two brothers didn't move; held steady by the wizard's silent instruction.
He looked them over slowly and his eyes left a steady pressure wherever they wandered, making the two under his scrutiny want to squirm and remove themselves from his gaze. Such hopes were, of course, futile. He spoke once more, his voice quieted from its previously echoing volume, but now felt like distant thunder to them. "Do you know what you are?" He stepped back so that the two could be allowed to breathe once again and answer.
There was no hesitation in their response, "We are Uruk-hai, bred to obey and serve our master." They spoke in unison, their voices barely distinguishable from one another.
"Yes." His nod was almost unnoticeable and the brothers had a sudden feeling that they had missed something important, "However you are also something more. Something different." He paused again and looked into each pair of eyes, rendering them completely immovable. "Something I hope to learn from."
With this he lifted their two arms between them to rest together, wrist against wrist, forearm's one beside the other and they stayed. They could not have been moved even if they wanted to be. Fear tore at the brothers' minds as they wanted to speak, to beg their master for forgiveness from whatever disobedience they had insulted him with. Yet they could not speak. The grime that still lingered was wiped from their lower arms with a damp cloth that was then thrown away, leaving a freezing sensation on their skin.
Sauruman began to mutter strange words under his breath as his eyes closed and his clawed pale hands hovered, tensed, above their dark ones. As the wizard's words intensified, the Uruk's eyes rolled back into their skulls, faces going slack as, for the second time today, their minds were invaded. Some of the crude mental walls that had been created were now demolished, releasing an overflow of consciousness witch pooled and mingled. Suddenly they were not only aware of themselves, but of one another as their minds were shackled to each other.
Two pairs of eyes opened once more in shock and in unison and looked to their clenched fists resting against one another. When Sauruman spoke this time his voice was not just all around them, but within them and it seemed that if they were to open their mouth's it would simply come pouring forth.
"Taken on the same day, grown from the same womb, birthed again from the same pit," he drew forth a huge black knife and slowly cut down the center of one of their forearms, "The first twins of Isengard," then he repeated on the other's arm. "There is much promise in you."
Their black blood seeped down the sides of their arms, meeting and mixing in the trench formed by their skin between them and as it met, it was as if their pain was multiplied. They then felt, not only their own pain, but each other's.
End Flashback.
The prisoner cart rolled over a particularly large stone, throwing Akash off of the bench he had been dozing on and onto Bug where he was sitting on the floor.
"Ah you great bloody sod! I was telling a story!" Bug fought to push his brother off of him as the latter did the same, ending them both in a tangle of body parts and a sour mood.
Targus laughed and raised his legs off the floor to avoid having his toes crushed by any falling Uruk bodies. "That he was, Akash." He doubted either of them could actually hear him over the grunts and curses they were both spewing, but honestly, that had never stopped him before. "I had no idea you two had such a time of it. No wonder you're such assholes."