Though Xelloss' treachery had deeply wounded Dynast's good spirits, he felt strangely elated now. He liked the allure of fresh prey in his home, and this wasn't just any guest. It was a very close, very personal friend of Xelloss. Because Lafitte was so close to Xelloss, anything Dynast did to Lafitte would be like punishing the boy in person for his actions. And to make the whole situation even more alluring, Lafitte was a surinni. Dynast loved to hurt surinni as much as he loved killing dragons. It was as if fate had sent him the perfect slave.
As easy as Dynast had told him it would be, interrogating the surinni might be difficult. Lafitte seemed to be as stubborn as Xelloss was, and equally clever. While Dynast had possessed the advantage of Xelloss' reptilian whore as leverage against the mazoku, he had nothing to aid in the loosening of Lafitte's tongue. He knew nothing about him at all. And that would be a problem. Dynast narrowed his eyes, glaring at the late afternoon sun. If Lafitte could hold up under pain, things could prove to be difficult. He needed something more. Something that would control the surinni for him.
Dynast snarled. What in Hellmaster's domain and above would a surinni find important? Why did he end up needing such seemingly useless knowledge? He couldn't think of an answer, couldn't think of a bloody thing that an ether breather would treasure. Damnit!
The King sighed, threading his fingers through his hair. Perhaps the answer didn't have to be that complex. Did he really need to force Lafitte into cooperation when he could just get the bastard drunk?
Dynast shook his head. As easy as it might be to force alcohol down the surinni's throat, he hated resorting to such crude methods. He wanted leverage. He wanted to force Lafitte to play by his rules. Any other method lacked...finesse.
He snarled, stalking away. Finesse had its beauty, but he had enough things to frustrate him right now, and too little time to dally with games.
* * *
It was strange, really. Lafitte had expected incarnar to be completely different from everything he had known, but his expectations had failed him. Incarnar and surinnar were similar...eerily similar, to him. People were alike, places were alike...there were just little, subtle differences. Like gravity. And fixed time. And inferior alcohol. But it didn't feel as alien as he thought it would. It was strange enough to confuse him, but familiar enough that he could probably survive in it. A world so separate from his own shouldn't feel like that. It wasn't right. It just...didn't feel right.
Really, Lafitte was just feeling gypped. He had looked forward so long to visiting incarnar for an extended period. His first journey across had been incomplete and all too short. He had promised himself that the next time would be his real first time. His perfect vacation.
This is not my idea of a perfect vacation.
Bishop appeared by his shoulder, robes whispering. The boy set a tray in front of his guest and bowed. "Since I didn't want you to wait here alone for too long, I thought this would be the best course." He beamed with pride. Lafitte hoped it was pride in the meal and not in the pun.
"Thank you. I..." ...have no idea what food is like here and thus have no way to judge your cooking skills... "...am certain I'll enjoy it."
"I hope so!" Bishop flopped into a chair across from Lafitte. He had no plate for himself, which made the surinni feel even stranger. He was the only one eating at this long banquet table. "Where are you from? When Master brings guests in, they're always from faraway places. I've never been to an exotic place." Bishop's eyes were wide and curious, fixated on Lafitte in rapt attention.
The surinni supposed that he was, yet again, captive to the audience here. "I come from pretty damn far away. My home is on a different plane of reality." At Bishop's confused expression, he clarified, "Like another world. I come from another world."
Bishop nodded sagely. "Ahhh."
Lafitte sighed. "You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?"
The boy beamed. "Not really!" He paused, apparently reaching an epiphany. "Hey, you mean you're one of those 'ether-damned surinni bastards' that Master Dynast talks about every now and then?"
"Yes, that's it exactly it, Bishop." Dynast rested a hand on his servant's shoulder, fangs peeking over his smile. "You can be surprisingly clever at times."
Lafitte supressed a retort and decided to pay attention to his...what were these white fluffy bits? Eggs?
"Master Dynast!" Bishop bowed deeply, then stood straight up, alert and ready. "Would you also like some breakfast, my King? I waited for you to come so that your plate wouldn't be cold."
Dynast chuckled. "I think I'll wait till morning for breakfast, boy. Now, run along and...clean the..." The King rummaged in his brain for any place in his palace that wouldn't actually be clean right now. "...clean the dishes you just dirtied."
Bishop twiddled his fingers. "Master, I cleaned the dishes after I cooked."
"The floor? Surely you spilled something."
"I mopped!" Bishop smiled proudly.
"The knives?" Dynast's voice began to strain a little. "Perhaps they've gone dull?"
"Oh. Yessir!" Bishop nodded.
"Then you can go sharpen them." The King's nerves eased.
"Oh, I already did, Master Dynast! Right after I noticed they were dull!"
"..." The King cracked his knuckles. "Then perhaps you can go and search for something that hasn't been cleaned, polished, sharpened or put in order and you will do that very far away and out of earshot and you will return when I specifically summon you and not a moment sooner!"
Panic edged Bishop's voice. "Yes, Master Dynast!" He darted away, even faster than usual.
Dynast took a few moments to compose himself, then took Bishop's former seat. He raised an eyebrow at Lafitte. "You're in my chair. Did you know that?"
Lafitte paused in his breakfast endeavors. He looked around. Sure enough, he was sitting at the head of the table, where logically - he realized now - the King would be. "Well. So I am. Do you want it back?"
"No. You can have it, for now." He was grinning, and that plus the sly sound of his voice put Lafitte on edge. "The yellow and white bits are eggs. They're mixed up like that because Bishop scrambled them. That is toast," Dynast pointed to the toast. "And this is a fruit." He sighed. "It seems that Bishop didn't think to slice it. Here, allow me."
Lafitte looked on as the King cut the fruit, his knife gliding through the skin and flesh of it. The motion was delicate and graceful, having the ease of a well-practiced dance. Lafitte watched silently, his muscles frozen from some instinct as Dynast deposited the neat slices onto his plate.
Dynast nodded to him. "Try it. I have them delivered fresh."
The surinni reached for the fruit. His fingers touched it and paused. Ice...the fruit was as cold as ice now. The bare flesh of it - where the knife had touched it - was frozen.
"Go on." Like the frost on the fruit, the King's enigmatic smile had not yet melted.
Lafitte picked up a slice, the cold biting at his fingers. He bit into the fruit. It tasted sweet - exquisitely sweet - but somehow...dead. The surinni's eyes darted back to his host. Dynast was still smiling. The knife in his hand glittered more than metal should...as if it were made of ice?
Lafitte had a sudden, frightening flashback of his encounter with Edge.
"You're wondering," Dynast groomed his nails with the knife. "How did I know that you wouldn't be able to name your own food?" He picked up a slice of the fruit. "This is a peach, Lafitte. I feel that peaches taste best when chilled." His teeth pierced its flesh like a blade. "Surinni seem to enjoy the sweetness, I find."
"You steal surinni away to your home, and keep them until they no longer amuse you." Lafitte's eyes narrowed. "That's why you knew. You've treated my kind to dinner plenty of times before. You know how alien incarnar food would be for a surinni."
Dynast nodded. "Quite the logician you are. I have indeed treated many a surinni to a meal at my table." His expression shifted to confusion. "But you seem so distressed about it."
Fists shaking, Lafitte barely managed to remain seated. "What the hell did you do to them?!"
"Aha. An astute question." Dynast flicked the blade through the air. "Allow me to answer that."
Lafitte seized up. His skin...his flesh!
"Like a peach..." Dynast whispered. With another twist of the icicle knife, the interrogation began.
* * *
Lafitte lay crumpled on the floor, clutching his chest. He concentrated as much as he could on not moving. This was much harder than it seemed, here on the physical plane. His incarnar body wanted to twitch, to shift its weight. Weight. Now there was an interesting concept that he had been introduced to very intensely within the past few hours. When Dynast threw him to the ground, weight crushed Lafitte's arm between him and the floor. When Lafitte attempted to get up, weight brought his body crashing back down. Weight sent his face down during this fall, right into Dynast's knee. Dynast knew a lot about weight. Lafitte knew a lot about it too now.
Weight was not currently the problem. The problem was pain, a concept which Lafitte thought that he already knew a lot about before his interrogation. He discovered, however, that he had so much more to learn.
Dynast was such an eager instructor.
Lafitte could have sworn that knife had done a lot of damage. He could feel the wounds ache and sting. He could feel the parts in his body that were torn. But there was no blood, because the knife had really never touched him. The King had simply sliced through air, giving Lafitte the feel of the blade's caress. The feel, but not the effects.
The effects hurt a damn lot. Lafitte twitched as a surge of pain welled up from a slash - a nonexistant slash - on his calve. Damnit, he had moved! Now his chest throbbed, and that set off his arms, bled into his face. Moving made it all hurt at once. Damnit. He had tried so hard to stay still.
"You could have made that a lot easier on yourself." Dynast smacked the flat of the blade against his palm. "We could have forgone that entire conversation if you had only spoken with no prompting."
Lafitte attempted to correct Dynast, to inform him that the past few hours of torture had not resembled a conversation in any way. He realized, as his chest exploded into agony, that trying to speak was a mistake. It was even worse than trying to move.
Dynast tsked, shaking his head. "Stupid surinni. Your kind always act so surprised when I hurt them. As if you're not smart enough to expect it." The Lord nudged his captive's shaking form with his toe. "Even animals are better than that."
Lafitte dragged the words out of his chest with all of his strength, forcing them to march ahead. "It's...just...different...here." He didn't know why he bothered explaining. Dynast was the last mazoku who would ever try to understand the point of view of a surinni, and all Lafitte suceeded with by trying was to put himself in even more pain. Far too much pain, really, because his vision was starting to blur now.
The King snorted. "Say whatever you want to say, you useless surinni trash. But I would save my breath, if I were you." He gave Lafitte a kick, sending the unwilling guest sprawling towards the dining table. "Don't waste it on anything that won't stop your suffering." The Lord stroked the ice blade with his fingertip, then plunged it downward, ripping through the air. Lafitte cringed as the dagger wounded his body with phantom cuts. "There is only one thing that can stop me. A confession, Lafitte. Information. Locations. Directions." He leaned over to look the surinni in the eye, his face so close that his silver and blue locks brushed against Lafitte's bruised skin with rude familiarity. His fingers closed around Lafitte's neck. "TELL ME WHERE XELLOSS IS! Tell me where to find him, where to search, where you know he'll be! I know how much he fraternizes with surinni! You all know him! Your kind are giving sanctuary right now. He's mine! My lover, my servant, my property! To aid his flight from me is to deliberately strike against me, and you all know it!"
Dynast paused in his tirade, his features relaxing back into calm superiority. He extended a single finger and slid it along Lafitte's cheek. The pain faded away with the King's touch, a suspicious miracle. "Just tell me where he is, Lafitte, and I can stop this."
Lafitte stared up unblinkingly at Dynast, assuming perfect calm. His speaking facilities were coming back to him, now that the pain had departed. "Say whatever you want to say. I would never turn Xelloss in under any circumstances, especially not because of any threat from you. Surinni learned the ways of incarnt long ago. So I know that when you take Xelloss back, you'll murder any of my kind you can on the way. And even if you had offered my freedom in return, which you haven't, I know better than to think you'd honor such a deal. But none of that's really important. And do you know why?"
Dynast narrowed his eyes. He wasn't hearing what he wanted to hear, and now the surinni was asking him questions? What kind of position did this little pawn think he was in? "No, I don't. Why?" His words were clipped and as frosty as the blade in his fist. A warning.
"Because Xelloss is my friend, and I won't betray him. None of us will, and that's why you're going to lose, Dynast, because you ca-"
Dynast clamped his hand over Lafitte's mouth, his fingers digging into the surinni's skin. "That wasn't a particularly smart move to make, though I admit my expectations of any real intelligence in you were very low." A smile cut its way across Dynast's cheeks, and something about it frightened Lafitte terribly. "It's useless, isn't it? I won't be able to force anything out of you by pain alone." He sighed, shrugged, and stood. "Well, I don't see what I could possibly do to draw a confession out of you. I guess I'll just have to let my agents continue their search surinnar." He looked down at Lafitte, smiling with what might have been innocent helplessness on any other being in the world.
Lafitte took the bait. How could he help it? The King's final sentence held too many dangerous nuances for him to be able to ignore it. "You-you have agents travelling surinnar?"
"Oh! I never told you? Why yes, of course I have agents posted on the astral plane! Precautions must be made, you know. There being so many enemy forces in that realm..."
Lafitte's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean? What's there besides the surinni?"
Dynast blinked, adopting an almost convincing expression of surprise. "Besides the surinni? My enemy is the surinni!"
There was nothing that Lafitte could say for almost a minute. The surprise silenced him, and then dawning horror kept him quiet all the more.
The King snickered, crouching down to the surinni's level. "Such shock. Don't you think that's a little silly? You are a spy, and a saboteur. That you wouldn't realize that your own kind is my enemy...is really quite amusing, Lafitte!" Laughter, frozen laughter, rang in Lafitte's ears.
Lafitte wondered why his heart, so new to him, felt like it had stopped. Dynast was notorious for his cruelty to surinni. And now, waging open war on them? Because of Xelloss? Because of himself?
"You can stop it." Dynast's voice slid across Lafitte like a bow over a violin's strings. "You can stop all the killing, all the pain...I just want Xelloss, Lafitte. Give him to me. If you tell me where he is, then I won't have to destroy your people to find him." Dynast's fingers brushed through Lafitte's hair in a gesture that was almost comforting. "I understand why you want to keep him, Lafitte. But having him just isn't worth the safety of your race."
Lafitte felt his heart grasp for the strands of hope Dynast waved before him. Part of him wanted to believe it was that simple. But he couldn't. "When we give him to you, you'll just kill us all anyways. And when you have Xelloss, you'll still keep me, if only to gloat at. But as long as we have him, we're safe-" Dynast shoved Lafitte down with his back to the floor, the incarnt's fingers digging deep into the surinni's shoulders. "-And as hard as you try to hunt us down, you'll still only have me. My people are clever and fast in their own realm. You'll never know where they hide!"
Defiance brought with it much more pain, but Lafitte knew by the expression on Dynast's face that he had spoken the truth.
* * *
"No, Xelloss." The King caught the priest's hand before he could move his fingers away from the bishop. "You don't want to do that."
Xelloss blinked. "I don't?"
"No." Dynast let his hand linger on his student's before pushing it back, escorting the bishop to its original position. "You don't." He regretfully withdrew his hand, losing that oh-so-brief moment of touch. "See, let me show you." Dynast got up, walked around to Xelloss' side of the table, and stood so that he could look over his guest's shoulder like a personal advisor. "This is why a practice match was such a good idea. You've picked up the basic rules astonishingly fast, my boy." He set his hand on Xelloss' shoulder. "But you still have yet to learn the subtleties of this game."
Xelloss nodded, frowning in concentration. "I don't see what else I could do, though. The only choice left is to retreat." He shrugged away from Dynast's hand as he gestured to the pieces. "See? If my bishop stays there, your rook will take it. I can't move forward to attack because all of the spaces ahead are guarded by pawns. The only opening for attack at all, in fact, would only lose you a pawn - then you would take my bishop with your king. I should retreat, then, and form another strategy."
"It's funny you mention pawns." He made to set his hand on Xelloss' shoulder again, but the boy just happened to shift his weight at that moment. Damn. "See, if you move this pawn here," Dynast moved one of Xelloss' pawns to the space in front of the bishop, "then my rook can't take your bishop anymore. In fact, as you can see, the resulting arrangement would place my rook in danger after taking the pawn. You could take the rook, then. And all you sacrifice is a pawn." He clasped his hands behind his back, smiling.
"But..." Xelloss grimaced. "Isn't that a little silly? Since it's such an obvious trap, you won't walk into it. You don't value pawns enough to sacrifice your rook just to take one down."
The Lord raised an eyebrow. 'A little silly,' he says? "Well yes, you are quite astute, Xelloss. In the flow of a normal game, an experienced player like myself would immediately see such a trap. But the point of setting it up isn't to make me fall for it. The trap is an offensive action, disguised as a defense. By lining it up, you are showing me that you are alert and that you will not idly stand by while I threaten one of your most versatile pieces. Such an action forces me to stall my attack or rethink my plans completely." His hand rested on Xelloss' shoulder again, taking advantage of the stillness that came from deep thought. He could shift his feet a little, now, and the slide of his hand sideways would be dismissed as part of that shift. Xelloss' hair barely brushed his knuckles now. If he wanted to - and he so desparately wanted to - he could caress the boy's neck, where his skin would be softest.
But that capture will have to wait until much later, after a thousand careful advances.
"Taking a hostage does indeed shift the flow of battle." Xelloss hunched closer to the board, resting his face against his palm. Dynast's fingers slipped away.
The King blinked. "That's a strange way to put it, but I suppose it's true." Damnit! Why does he move so much?
"I still don't think I understand the sacrifice. I mean, the theoretical sacrifice." He leaned his head against his fist, frowning as he pondered. "I would lose a pawn."
"So?" Dynast's expression shifted into confusion. "Why are you so worried? A pawn is weak, and you have eight of them. One lost pawn shouldn't be such a problem for a good player. And you've grasped the game remarkably well, Xelloss." A pat on the back. Just one touch. He needed just one touch.
Xelloss blinked, looking up at the King. "But they're my men. I don't want to sacrifice any of them."
Dynast laughed. "They're chesspieces, Xelloss! You shouldn't be that concerned about them."
"But if I don't care about the pieces, why should I care about the game?"
The King's laughter froze in his own throat. He covered the sudden stop with a cough. What of a question is that? "Winning or losing the game is what's important, Xelloss. It's a contest. A mental excercise. Just a little way to have fun, to get to know someone while you flex your wits."
Xelloss was silent for a moment. "Oh."
The priest picked up his bishop and moved it back to retreat.
* * *
That was three thousand years ago.
The thought wandered alone in the wasteland of Lafitte's mind. The surinni wondered for a moment how it could be there. It was so coherent, and he was not.
Where was he? Maybe on the floor...the floor of the dining room, the floor of the bedroom. Maybe he had been thrown across the table as a new centerpiece. Dynast would much prefer an arrangement like that to flowers.
He was incarnar. He knew he was, even though at this moment his surroundings were even more vague and insubstantial than that of the surinnar world. He knew, because if he were surinnar right now, he would actually have the ability to feel safe.
"Lafitte?" The whisper slid across his thoughts like a knife. It was loud. It was close.
"Mr. Lafitte?" Bishop bent over Lafitte's prone form, whispering into the surinni's ear. "Are you awake? This is Bishop. I'm here to take care of you."
Lafitte tried to answer but the floor gave way under him. He realized, in a moment, that this was purely vertigo. He was perfectly still. At least, as far as he could tell.
He felt a little less disoriented as Bishop pulled him closer, his head resting in the boy's lap. There was foundation here. He could believe the world was solid, from here.
Warmth rolled over his shoulders. As this happened, he realized once again that he had shoulders. Bishop's fingers were curled around them - a little tightly, in fact, as if the boy was afraid. The warmth coursed lower, flowing all the way to his feet, proving that he had a body - an entire one. Healed. He was being healed.
Bishop flinched as Lafitte's body curled tightly upon itself. "I'm sorry! I know it hurts! I swear I'll fix it soon!"
Lafitte only closed his eyes and held on to Bishop. It was pain, yes, but it was only pain. He had felt a lot of it at Dynast's hands already. It certainly wasn't going to topple him now.
Sure enough, the pain did fade, washing away with the same river of warmth that again flowed from Bishop's hands. Lafitte could feel the boy shaking now. But his blurred mind couldn't decipher the reason.
Bishop sniffled, trying to force the tears back so that he could focus on his work. He wouldn't cry. His King would get angry if he cried. Crying wouldn't help him or Lafitte. But he couldn't help himself. His Lord and master had caused so much pain, and so brutally...as his servant, was he to answer for it? It only seemed right. How could Bishop apologize for something like that? How could he apologize for his master, and thus insult him? Why did it hurt him so much that his master did that which was his right?
He bit his lip against a sob, and went on healing.
Lafitte was in bed before he realized it. Bishop was, of course, an unnaturally fast servant. But he was quicker about it than Lafitte would have expected, had he been aware enough to notice. Instead, he passed out as soon as Bishop began pulling the fur-lined blankets over him. He was unable to notice Bishop's odd silence, and his urgency in leaving him alone in their master's bed.
* * *
No one noticed when the first surinni died.
Why would anyone notice? Out of all the major races in the world, only the incarnt mazoku knew of the surinni. And if any of them cared, it was only because one less surinni made them a little happier, or gave them a chuckle of satisfaction. The only incarnt who would care in a good way were either dead or far beyond awareness at this point.
The other surinni would care very much, if they knew.
But the first surinni died very quietly, and very far away from civilization as they knew it. The blades of ice that had caused its demise were the only witnesses, and perhaps the only beings to truly care about the death. Because it made them happy. Very happy.
King Dynast would be pleased.
* * *
Jaque felt it again. A little unease, as if some sort of nightmare had followed him from the land of dreams and was now softly poking him. He shook it off. this was unusual for him. He was generally so happy? What was wrong with him? On top of that, he had a guest.
A guest he needed to apologize to.
"I am very sorry, Ms. Firia, if my comment caused you any distress...I certainly didn't mean it in a bad way! Dragons naturally have more mass to them! It's admirable!"
Firia was struck silent, while Toh stared at the surinni. "Admirable, Jaque?"
"Well, we surinni are fair pushovers, we're so insubstantial! Dragons are strong, aren't they?"
"I...I guess you could put it that way..." Firia repressed the urge to get riled up about it. Jaque obviously had no ill intentions. He was just a little flighty. And considering how wispy her thoughts felt in this new state, she could sympathize. "Anyways, are you...I guess all surinni are Xelloss' friends? Have you looked after him before? Are we safe here?"
Toh blinked. "Why, do you need to be safe?"
Firia could feel the faintest tinge of apprehension and foreboding come from Toh as she spoke those words. She could almost, just barely on the tip of her tongue, taste the feelings. She wondered if this was how Xelloss experienced things, in a tiny way. "I...yes. Yes, we very much need to be safe right now."
Toh's eyes darkened. "This has to do with what happened to Xelloss, doesn't it?" The air grew heavy around the three of them. It was charged with that same feeling Jaque had felt creeping up on him only moments before.
"I think we need some drinks! Drinks for our guest! And I'll go get them, shall I?" And without a word more, he ducked away into thin air.
There was no surprise from Toh at this. Her face read weariness, as if she were very used to this habit of his. "That's all for the better, really. He's happier not worried, and we can get more to the point now." Her gaze leveled upon Firia, inarguable and firm. "What happened to Xelloss? What are you doing here? What-" Toh did a double-take. "You didn't come out of it intact either! Look at you! Your hands! How on earth did we miss that?!" She grabbed Firia by the arm, pulling her as she made to leave the room with its many bottles. "Jaque! Jaque! Forget the drinks! We need Qus!"
Firia stared down at her hands as Toh waited for her partner. Sure enough, the burns had not dissappeared, and there was a dull ache now beginning to creep up her fingers. Had she not noticed because she was too worried over Xelloss?
A moment later, Jaque appeared, juggling a few bottles and looking very disheveled. He waved a hand and the bottles vanished. "Qus? What do we need her for? What's wrong?"
"Firia here has some injuries." Toh gestured to the dragon's hands. "Qus will know how to take care of that. Isn't Xelloss with her now?"
"We trust Firia then? That's a relief." Jaque smiled. "Xelloss is resting in Qus's station outside the Fount."
"Then that's where we are, right now." And with those words, they vanished.
* * *
As easy as Dynast had told him it would be, interrogating the surinni might be difficult. Lafitte seemed to be as stubborn as Xelloss was, and equally clever. While Dynast had possessed the advantage of Xelloss' reptilian whore as leverage against the mazoku, he had nothing to aid in the loosening of Lafitte's tongue. He knew nothing about him at all. And that would be a problem. Dynast narrowed his eyes, glaring at the late afternoon sun. If Lafitte could hold up under pain, things could prove to be difficult. He needed something more. Something that would control the surinni for him.
Dynast snarled. What in Hellmaster's domain and above would a surinni find important? Why did he end up needing such seemingly useless knowledge? He couldn't think of an answer, couldn't think of a bloody thing that an ether breather would treasure. Damnit!
The King sighed, threading his fingers through his hair. Perhaps the answer didn't have to be that complex. Did he really need to force Lafitte into cooperation when he could just get the bastard drunk?
Dynast shook his head. As easy as it might be to force alcohol down the surinni's throat, he hated resorting to such crude methods. He wanted leverage. He wanted to force Lafitte to play by his rules. Any other method lacked...finesse.
He snarled, stalking away. Finesse had its beauty, but he had enough things to frustrate him right now, and too little time to dally with games.
* * *
It was strange, really. Lafitte had expected incarnar to be completely different from everything he had known, but his expectations had failed him. Incarnar and surinnar were similar...eerily similar, to him. People were alike, places were alike...there were just little, subtle differences. Like gravity. And fixed time. And inferior alcohol. But it didn't feel as alien as he thought it would. It was strange enough to confuse him, but familiar enough that he could probably survive in it. A world so separate from his own shouldn't feel like that. It wasn't right. It just...didn't feel right.
Really, Lafitte was just feeling gypped. He had looked forward so long to visiting incarnar for an extended period. His first journey across had been incomplete and all too short. He had promised himself that the next time would be his real first time. His perfect vacation.
This is not my idea of a perfect vacation.
Bishop appeared by his shoulder, robes whispering. The boy set a tray in front of his guest and bowed. "Since I didn't want you to wait here alone for too long, I thought this would be the best course." He beamed with pride. Lafitte hoped it was pride in the meal and not in the pun.
"Thank you. I..." ...have no idea what food is like here and thus have no way to judge your cooking skills... "...am certain I'll enjoy it."
"I hope so!" Bishop flopped into a chair across from Lafitte. He had no plate for himself, which made the surinni feel even stranger. He was the only one eating at this long banquet table. "Where are you from? When Master brings guests in, they're always from faraway places. I've never been to an exotic place." Bishop's eyes were wide and curious, fixated on Lafitte in rapt attention.
The surinni supposed that he was, yet again, captive to the audience here. "I come from pretty damn far away. My home is on a different plane of reality." At Bishop's confused expression, he clarified, "Like another world. I come from another world."
Bishop nodded sagely. "Ahhh."
Lafitte sighed. "You have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?"
The boy beamed. "Not really!" He paused, apparently reaching an epiphany. "Hey, you mean you're one of those 'ether-damned surinni bastards' that Master Dynast talks about every now and then?"
"Yes, that's it exactly it, Bishop." Dynast rested a hand on his servant's shoulder, fangs peeking over his smile. "You can be surprisingly clever at times."
Lafitte supressed a retort and decided to pay attention to his...what were these white fluffy bits? Eggs?
"Master Dynast!" Bishop bowed deeply, then stood straight up, alert and ready. "Would you also like some breakfast, my King? I waited for you to come so that your plate wouldn't be cold."
Dynast chuckled. "I think I'll wait till morning for breakfast, boy. Now, run along and...clean the..." The King rummaged in his brain for any place in his palace that wouldn't actually be clean right now. "...clean the dishes you just dirtied."
Bishop twiddled his fingers. "Master, I cleaned the dishes after I cooked."
"The floor? Surely you spilled something."
"I mopped!" Bishop smiled proudly.
"The knives?" Dynast's voice began to strain a little. "Perhaps they've gone dull?"
"Oh. Yessir!" Bishop nodded.
"Then you can go sharpen them." The King's nerves eased.
"Oh, I already did, Master Dynast! Right after I noticed they were dull!"
"..." The King cracked his knuckles. "Then perhaps you can go and search for something that hasn't been cleaned, polished, sharpened or put in order and you will do that very far away and out of earshot and you will return when I specifically summon you and not a moment sooner!"
Panic edged Bishop's voice. "Yes, Master Dynast!" He darted away, even faster than usual.
Dynast took a few moments to compose himself, then took Bishop's former seat. He raised an eyebrow at Lafitte. "You're in my chair. Did you know that?"
Lafitte paused in his breakfast endeavors. He looked around. Sure enough, he was sitting at the head of the table, where logically - he realized now - the King would be. "Well. So I am. Do you want it back?"
"No. You can have it, for now." He was grinning, and that plus the sly sound of his voice put Lafitte on edge. "The yellow and white bits are eggs. They're mixed up like that because Bishop scrambled them. That is toast," Dynast pointed to the toast. "And this is a fruit." He sighed. "It seems that Bishop didn't think to slice it. Here, allow me."
Lafitte looked on as the King cut the fruit, his knife gliding through the skin and flesh of it. The motion was delicate and graceful, having the ease of a well-practiced dance. Lafitte watched silently, his muscles frozen from some instinct as Dynast deposited the neat slices onto his plate.
Dynast nodded to him. "Try it. I have them delivered fresh."
The surinni reached for the fruit. His fingers touched it and paused. Ice...the fruit was as cold as ice now. The bare flesh of it - where the knife had touched it - was frozen.
"Go on." Like the frost on the fruit, the King's enigmatic smile had not yet melted.
Lafitte picked up a slice, the cold biting at his fingers. He bit into the fruit. It tasted sweet - exquisitely sweet - but somehow...dead. The surinni's eyes darted back to his host. Dynast was still smiling. The knife in his hand glittered more than metal should...as if it were made of ice?
Lafitte had a sudden, frightening flashback of his encounter with Edge.
"You're wondering," Dynast groomed his nails with the knife. "How did I know that you wouldn't be able to name your own food?" He picked up a slice of the fruit. "This is a peach, Lafitte. I feel that peaches taste best when chilled." His teeth pierced its flesh like a blade. "Surinni seem to enjoy the sweetness, I find."
"You steal surinni away to your home, and keep them until they no longer amuse you." Lafitte's eyes narrowed. "That's why you knew. You've treated my kind to dinner plenty of times before. You know how alien incarnar food would be for a surinni."
Dynast nodded. "Quite the logician you are. I have indeed treated many a surinni to a meal at my table." His expression shifted to confusion. "But you seem so distressed about it."
Fists shaking, Lafitte barely managed to remain seated. "What the hell did you do to them?!"
"Aha. An astute question." Dynast flicked the blade through the air. "Allow me to answer that."
Lafitte seized up. His skin...his flesh!
"Like a peach..." Dynast whispered. With another twist of the icicle knife, the interrogation began.
* * *
Lafitte lay crumpled on the floor, clutching his chest. He concentrated as much as he could on not moving. This was much harder than it seemed, here on the physical plane. His incarnar body wanted to twitch, to shift its weight. Weight. Now there was an interesting concept that he had been introduced to very intensely within the past few hours. When Dynast threw him to the ground, weight crushed Lafitte's arm between him and the floor. When Lafitte attempted to get up, weight brought his body crashing back down. Weight sent his face down during this fall, right into Dynast's knee. Dynast knew a lot about weight. Lafitte knew a lot about it too now.
Weight was not currently the problem. The problem was pain, a concept which Lafitte thought that he already knew a lot about before his interrogation. He discovered, however, that he had so much more to learn.
Dynast was such an eager instructor.
Lafitte could have sworn that knife had done a lot of damage. He could feel the wounds ache and sting. He could feel the parts in his body that were torn. But there was no blood, because the knife had really never touched him. The King had simply sliced through air, giving Lafitte the feel of the blade's caress. The feel, but not the effects.
The effects hurt a damn lot. Lafitte twitched as a surge of pain welled up from a slash - a nonexistant slash - on his calve. Damnit, he had moved! Now his chest throbbed, and that set off his arms, bled into his face. Moving made it all hurt at once. Damnit. He had tried so hard to stay still.
"You could have made that a lot easier on yourself." Dynast smacked the flat of the blade against his palm. "We could have forgone that entire conversation if you had only spoken with no prompting."
Lafitte attempted to correct Dynast, to inform him that the past few hours of torture had not resembled a conversation in any way. He realized, as his chest exploded into agony, that trying to speak was a mistake. It was even worse than trying to move.
Dynast tsked, shaking his head. "Stupid surinni. Your kind always act so surprised when I hurt them. As if you're not smart enough to expect it." The Lord nudged his captive's shaking form with his toe. "Even animals are better than that."
Lafitte dragged the words out of his chest with all of his strength, forcing them to march ahead. "It's...just...different...here." He didn't know why he bothered explaining. Dynast was the last mazoku who would ever try to understand the point of view of a surinni, and all Lafitte suceeded with by trying was to put himself in even more pain. Far too much pain, really, because his vision was starting to blur now.
The King snorted. "Say whatever you want to say, you useless surinni trash. But I would save my breath, if I were you." He gave Lafitte a kick, sending the unwilling guest sprawling towards the dining table. "Don't waste it on anything that won't stop your suffering." The Lord stroked the ice blade with his fingertip, then plunged it downward, ripping through the air. Lafitte cringed as the dagger wounded his body with phantom cuts. "There is only one thing that can stop me. A confession, Lafitte. Information. Locations. Directions." He leaned over to look the surinni in the eye, his face so close that his silver and blue locks brushed against Lafitte's bruised skin with rude familiarity. His fingers closed around Lafitte's neck. "TELL ME WHERE XELLOSS IS! Tell me where to find him, where to search, where you know he'll be! I know how much he fraternizes with surinni! You all know him! Your kind are giving sanctuary right now. He's mine! My lover, my servant, my property! To aid his flight from me is to deliberately strike against me, and you all know it!"
Dynast paused in his tirade, his features relaxing back into calm superiority. He extended a single finger and slid it along Lafitte's cheek. The pain faded away with the King's touch, a suspicious miracle. "Just tell me where he is, Lafitte, and I can stop this."
Lafitte stared up unblinkingly at Dynast, assuming perfect calm. His speaking facilities were coming back to him, now that the pain had departed. "Say whatever you want to say. I would never turn Xelloss in under any circumstances, especially not because of any threat from you. Surinni learned the ways of incarnt long ago. So I know that when you take Xelloss back, you'll murder any of my kind you can on the way. And even if you had offered my freedom in return, which you haven't, I know better than to think you'd honor such a deal. But none of that's really important. And do you know why?"
Dynast narrowed his eyes. He wasn't hearing what he wanted to hear, and now the surinni was asking him questions? What kind of position did this little pawn think he was in? "No, I don't. Why?" His words were clipped and as frosty as the blade in his fist. A warning.
"Because Xelloss is my friend, and I won't betray him. None of us will, and that's why you're going to lose, Dynast, because you ca-"
Dynast clamped his hand over Lafitte's mouth, his fingers digging into the surinni's skin. "That wasn't a particularly smart move to make, though I admit my expectations of any real intelligence in you were very low." A smile cut its way across Dynast's cheeks, and something about it frightened Lafitte terribly. "It's useless, isn't it? I won't be able to force anything out of you by pain alone." He sighed, shrugged, and stood. "Well, I don't see what I could possibly do to draw a confession out of you. I guess I'll just have to let my agents continue their search surinnar." He looked down at Lafitte, smiling with what might have been innocent helplessness on any other being in the world.
Lafitte took the bait. How could he help it? The King's final sentence held too many dangerous nuances for him to be able to ignore it. "You-you have agents travelling surinnar?"
"Oh! I never told you? Why yes, of course I have agents posted on the astral plane! Precautions must be made, you know. There being so many enemy forces in that realm..."
Lafitte's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean? What's there besides the surinni?"
Dynast blinked, adopting an almost convincing expression of surprise. "Besides the surinni? My enemy is the surinni!"
There was nothing that Lafitte could say for almost a minute. The surprise silenced him, and then dawning horror kept him quiet all the more.
The King snickered, crouching down to the surinni's level. "Such shock. Don't you think that's a little silly? You are a spy, and a saboteur. That you wouldn't realize that your own kind is my enemy...is really quite amusing, Lafitte!" Laughter, frozen laughter, rang in Lafitte's ears.
Lafitte wondered why his heart, so new to him, felt like it had stopped. Dynast was notorious for his cruelty to surinni. And now, waging open war on them? Because of Xelloss? Because of himself?
"You can stop it." Dynast's voice slid across Lafitte like a bow over a violin's strings. "You can stop all the killing, all the pain...I just want Xelloss, Lafitte. Give him to me. If you tell me where he is, then I won't have to destroy your people to find him." Dynast's fingers brushed through Lafitte's hair in a gesture that was almost comforting. "I understand why you want to keep him, Lafitte. But having him just isn't worth the safety of your race."
Lafitte felt his heart grasp for the strands of hope Dynast waved before him. Part of him wanted to believe it was that simple. But he couldn't. "When we give him to you, you'll just kill us all anyways. And when you have Xelloss, you'll still keep me, if only to gloat at. But as long as we have him, we're safe-" Dynast shoved Lafitte down with his back to the floor, the incarnt's fingers digging deep into the surinni's shoulders. "-And as hard as you try to hunt us down, you'll still only have me. My people are clever and fast in their own realm. You'll never know where they hide!"
Defiance brought with it much more pain, but Lafitte knew by the expression on Dynast's face that he had spoken the truth.
* * *
"No, Xelloss." The King caught the priest's hand before he could move his fingers away from the bishop. "You don't want to do that."
Xelloss blinked. "I don't?"
"No." Dynast let his hand linger on his student's before pushing it back, escorting the bishop to its original position. "You don't." He regretfully withdrew his hand, losing that oh-so-brief moment of touch. "See, let me show you." Dynast got up, walked around to Xelloss' side of the table, and stood so that he could look over his guest's shoulder like a personal advisor. "This is why a practice match was such a good idea. You've picked up the basic rules astonishingly fast, my boy." He set his hand on Xelloss' shoulder. "But you still have yet to learn the subtleties of this game."
Xelloss nodded, frowning in concentration. "I don't see what else I could do, though. The only choice left is to retreat." He shrugged away from Dynast's hand as he gestured to the pieces. "See? If my bishop stays there, your rook will take it. I can't move forward to attack because all of the spaces ahead are guarded by pawns. The only opening for attack at all, in fact, would only lose you a pawn - then you would take my bishop with your king. I should retreat, then, and form another strategy."
"It's funny you mention pawns." He made to set his hand on Xelloss' shoulder again, but the boy just happened to shift his weight at that moment. Damn. "See, if you move this pawn here," Dynast moved one of Xelloss' pawns to the space in front of the bishop, "then my rook can't take your bishop anymore. In fact, as you can see, the resulting arrangement would place my rook in danger after taking the pawn. You could take the rook, then. And all you sacrifice is a pawn." He clasped his hands behind his back, smiling.
"But..." Xelloss grimaced. "Isn't that a little silly? Since it's such an obvious trap, you won't walk into it. You don't value pawns enough to sacrifice your rook just to take one down."
The Lord raised an eyebrow. 'A little silly,' he says? "Well yes, you are quite astute, Xelloss. In the flow of a normal game, an experienced player like myself would immediately see such a trap. But the point of setting it up isn't to make me fall for it. The trap is an offensive action, disguised as a defense. By lining it up, you are showing me that you are alert and that you will not idly stand by while I threaten one of your most versatile pieces. Such an action forces me to stall my attack or rethink my plans completely." His hand rested on Xelloss' shoulder again, taking advantage of the stillness that came from deep thought. He could shift his feet a little, now, and the slide of his hand sideways would be dismissed as part of that shift. Xelloss' hair barely brushed his knuckles now. If he wanted to - and he so desparately wanted to - he could caress the boy's neck, where his skin would be softest.
But that capture will have to wait until much later, after a thousand careful advances.
"Taking a hostage does indeed shift the flow of battle." Xelloss hunched closer to the board, resting his face against his palm. Dynast's fingers slipped away.
The King blinked. "That's a strange way to put it, but I suppose it's true." Damnit! Why does he move so much?
"I still don't think I understand the sacrifice. I mean, the theoretical sacrifice." He leaned his head against his fist, frowning as he pondered. "I would lose a pawn."
"So?" Dynast's expression shifted into confusion. "Why are you so worried? A pawn is weak, and you have eight of them. One lost pawn shouldn't be such a problem for a good player. And you've grasped the game remarkably well, Xelloss." A pat on the back. Just one touch. He needed just one touch.
Xelloss blinked, looking up at the King. "But they're my men. I don't want to sacrifice any of them."
Dynast laughed. "They're chesspieces, Xelloss! You shouldn't be that concerned about them."
"But if I don't care about the pieces, why should I care about the game?"
The King's laughter froze in his own throat. He covered the sudden stop with a cough. What of a question is that? "Winning or losing the game is what's important, Xelloss. It's a contest. A mental excercise. Just a little way to have fun, to get to know someone while you flex your wits."
Xelloss was silent for a moment. "Oh."
The priest picked up his bishop and moved it back to retreat.
* * *
That was three thousand years ago.
The thought wandered alone in the wasteland of Lafitte's mind. The surinni wondered for a moment how it could be there. It was so coherent, and he was not.
Where was he? Maybe on the floor...the floor of the dining room, the floor of the bedroom. Maybe he had been thrown across the table as a new centerpiece. Dynast would much prefer an arrangement like that to flowers.
He was incarnar. He knew he was, even though at this moment his surroundings were even more vague and insubstantial than that of the surinnar world. He knew, because if he were surinnar right now, he would actually have the ability to feel safe.
"Lafitte?" The whisper slid across his thoughts like a knife. It was loud. It was close.
"Mr. Lafitte?" Bishop bent over Lafitte's prone form, whispering into the surinni's ear. "Are you awake? This is Bishop. I'm here to take care of you."
Lafitte tried to answer but the floor gave way under him. He realized, in a moment, that this was purely vertigo. He was perfectly still. At least, as far as he could tell.
He felt a little less disoriented as Bishop pulled him closer, his head resting in the boy's lap. There was foundation here. He could believe the world was solid, from here.
Warmth rolled over his shoulders. As this happened, he realized once again that he had shoulders. Bishop's fingers were curled around them - a little tightly, in fact, as if the boy was afraid. The warmth coursed lower, flowing all the way to his feet, proving that he had a body - an entire one. Healed. He was being healed.
Bishop flinched as Lafitte's body curled tightly upon itself. "I'm sorry! I know it hurts! I swear I'll fix it soon!"
Lafitte only closed his eyes and held on to Bishop. It was pain, yes, but it was only pain. He had felt a lot of it at Dynast's hands already. It certainly wasn't going to topple him now.
Sure enough, the pain did fade, washing away with the same river of warmth that again flowed from Bishop's hands. Lafitte could feel the boy shaking now. But his blurred mind couldn't decipher the reason.
Bishop sniffled, trying to force the tears back so that he could focus on his work. He wouldn't cry. His King would get angry if he cried. Crying wouldn't help him or Lafitte. But he couldn't help himself. His Lord and master had caused so much pain, and so brutally...as his servant, was he to answer for it? It only seemed right. How could Bishop apologize for something like that? How could he apologize for his master, and thus insult him? Why did it hurt him so much that his master did that which was his right?
He bit his lip against a sob, and went on healing.
Lafitte was in bed before he realized it. Bishop was, of course, an unnaturally fast servant. But he was quicker about it than Lafitte would have expected, had he been aware enough to notice. Instead, he passed out as soon as Bishop began pulling the fur-lined blankets over him. He was unable to notice Bishop's odd silence, and his urgency in leaving him alone in their master's bed.
* * *
No one noticed when the first surinni died.
Why would anyone notice? Out of all the major races in the world, only the incarnt mazoku knew of the surinni. And if any of them cared, it was only because one less surinni made them a little happier, or gave them a chuckle of satisfaction. The only incarnt who would care in a good way were either dead or far beyond awareness at this point.
The other surinni would care very much, if they knew.
But the first surinni died very quietly, and very far away from civilization as they knew it. The blades of ice that had caused its demise were the only witnesses, and perhaps the only beings to truly care about the death. Because it made them happy. Very happy.
King Dynast would be pleased.
* * *
Jaque felt it again. A little unease, as if some sort of nightmare had followed him from the land of dreams and was now softly poking him. He shook it off. this was unusual for him. He was generally so happy? What was wrong with him? On top of that, he had a guest.
A guest he needed to apologize to.
"I am very sorry, Ms. Firia, if my comment caused you any distress...I certainly didn't mean it in a bad way! Dragons naturally have more mass to them! It's admirable!"
Firia was struck silent, while Toh stared at the surinni. "Admirable, Jaque?"
"Well, we surinni are fair pushovers, we're so insubstantial! Dragons are strong, aren't they?"
"I...I guess you could put it that way..." Firia repressed the urge to get riled up about it. Jaque obviously had no ill intentions. He was just a little flighty. And considering how wispy her thoughts felt in this new state, she could sympathize. "Anyways, are you...I guess all surinni are Xelloss' friends? Have you looked after him before? Are we safe here?"
Toh blinked. "Why, do you need to be safe?"
Firia could feel the faintest tinge of apprehension and foreboding come from Toh as she spoke those words. She could almost, just barely on the tip of her tongue, taste the feelings. She wondered if this was how Xelloss experienced things, in a tiny way. "I...yes. Yes, we very much need to be safe right now."
Toh's eyes darkened. "This has to do with what happened to Xelloss, doesn't it?" The air grew heavy around the three of them. It was charged with that same feeling Jaque had felt creeping up on him only moments before.
"I think we need some drinks! Drinks for our guest! And I'll go get them, shall I?" And without a word more, he ducked away into thin air.
There was no surprise from Toh at this. Her face read weariness, as if she were very used to this habit of his. "That's all for the better, really. He's happier not worried, and we can get more to the point now." Her gaze leveled upon Firia, inarguable and firm. "What happened to Xelloss? What are you doing here? What-" Toh did a double-take. "You didn't come out of it intact either! Look at you! Your hands! How on earth did we miss that?!" She grabbed Firia by the arm, pulling her as she made to leave the room with its many bottles. "Jaque! Jaque! Forget the drinks! We need Qus!"
Firia stared down at her hands as Toh waited for her partner. Sure enough, the burns had not dissappeared, and there was a dull ache now beginning to creep up her fingers. Had she not noticed because she was too worried over Xelloss?
A moment later, Jaque appeared, juggling a few bottles and looking very disheveled. He waved a hand and the bottles vanished. "Qus? What do we need her for? What's wrong?"
"Firia here has some injuries." Toh gestured to the dragon's hands. "Qus will know how to take care of that. Isn't Xelloss with her now?"
"We trust Firia then? That's a relief." Jaque smiled. "Xelloss is resting in Qus's station outside the Fount."
"Then that's where we are, right now." And with those words, they vanished.
* * *