Two new drabbles this time, no continuations of previous ones. The first one is way more gruesome than the second one.
Toes
"Who would've thought we'd capture you, of all people?"
Ja'far didn't honour the man with a response. Just a glare. An iron glare to smiling eyes, red as blood. Ineffective.
"I'm sure coming to a place like this, allowing yourself to be captured like this, you would just love to share some information with us?"
"Tch." Ja'far couldn't help the sneer, but the mockingly cheerful expression on the royal's face fell.
"No?"
A resounding smack filled the room when Ja'far was backhanded in the face. He could taste blood seeping between his teeth, but he wasn't impressed. Not by just this.
He spit out the blood before Ren Kouen's feet, smirking up at him in a silent insult.
The man bent over just slightly, only enough to grab Ja'far's face with strong fingers to pull him closer, their gazes connecting. "You only came here to insult me then?"
Well, he certainly didn't come here to get tied up and treated as a war prisoner. Political reasons, perhaps, but not like this.
"I'm sure you'll be more than willing to share your information with us soon enough."
He was flung back down on the hard ground, Kouen rising back to his full height to look down disdainfully on the white man painted with red. Ja'far didn't even feel the scratches on his face, nor the cuts and bruises scattered over his body. Ren Kouen might think he was hurting Sindria's first advisor, but he was sorely mistaken. Ja'far could take so much more. So so much more.
"You don't seem to be scared?" It was a mock of a pout followed swiftly by a smirk. Just the tiniest movement of his hand was enough of a command, and Ja'far suddenly found himself reacquainted with the floor. The heavy hand smacking his face into the tiles was removed immediately, but Ja'far found he couldn't rise with one of his legs forcefully being tugged back. He lost balance and rolled onto his side.
He wasn't afraid, and therefore refused to struggle. Struggling meant giving in. Struggling meant he admitted Ren Kouen's power over him.
But he regretted not struggling.
A scream tore from his throat with the unexpected pain, the first sound this loud they had managed to make him let out. He tried to pull his foot out of the grasp of the man behind him, but his struggle only increased the pain. The sounds were sickening, and he had to bite his teeth until they screeched against each other to avoid repeating his scream. The saw cut through his flesh like soft butter, but it took repeated cuts to sever his bone. It must've been less than a minute, but the time it took to saw off just one of his toes felt like a lifetime of pain.
He thrashed his head against the stone floor, the coolness and hardness his only way of trying to gain back his control. The tiles were slick with tears and bloody saliva, but it wasn't important.
It wasn't important.
"Feeling better now?"
His body trembled, fully aware his ankle was still in the firm grasp of the man behind him.
"If you still don't feel like talking, we might go onto the next toe. You have ten of them, after all."
He didn't make a sound. Not the whine threatening to spill from his lips, nor the grunt vibrating in his throat. His eyes were clenched shut, his forehead on the floor. Such a submissive pose. He couldn't keep this up.
He would defy this man even if it took all his toes and fingers.
"Very well."
The pain was more expected now, and he refused to scream. He refused this man the sounds of his pain, just like he refused this man the information he was asking for.
Who did he think he was torturing? He was Ja'far, Chief of the best of Assassins before even hitting puberty! There was no way to get information out of him.
Yet the sickening sound of metal sawing through his bone reverberating from his toe up his leg forced a whimper out of him, muffled by the bloody wet tiles he pressed his face into. Ten had never seemed such an impressively large number for toes.
...
Past
He was confused. So terribly confused.
He was in a dark place, yet he could see the sun scorching the gravel of the road a few steps ahead. It was a smelly place too. Mould and shit and blood. He could smell it all. He could feel it all.
He looked at his brown stained clothes, wondering why he was so dirty. Why was he wearing such luxury clothes when he was going to get so dirty?
Moving his head made something on the back of his head crack. Lots of fabric, dark green, all over his head. Cracking. It seemed such soft fabric, why did it crack?
He gingerly reached up, touching the back of his head with dirty fingers. The fabric was hard with a dried substance. So that's why it cracked.
Gods, it hurt. Was he leaking?
He carefully pulled the green fabric off his head, ignoring the pain. He was sure it couldn't be that important. Had pain ever been important to him? He honestly couldn't remember.
With the fabric removed he could feel something warm seeping down his neck. The dark green was hard with brown, but it wasn't the same brown as he had on his knees. The brown on his knees was shit. The brown on the green was... Dotted with fresh red?
Too confusing. Too much. He was sure it couldn't be all that important if it was so complicated.
But his clothes were smelly and his head ached, so maybe it was a good idea to wash himself. Or strip. It was warm enough to strip.
No, it was too warm to strip. He didn't want to stay in the dark place, and out there the sun would burn him. Yes, he remembered that much. He was white, the sun was hot and he would be red. And it would hurt. See? Simple. Not everything was so confusing.
He slowly got up, swaying slightly on his feet. He dropped the green fabric to the ground. It was dirty. Looking down, he noticed his clothes were ripped. His legs were all visible.
Well, what did it matter anyway.
He wandered out of the dark, into the light. The sun was bright and hot, like he knew it was. There were people bustling by, loud and warm and like bees in a hive. Like he knew they were. He wandered around them, slowly walking down the street in the hopes to find water to wash himself. He could hear water. He knew he was going the right way.
He was right.
Some things were so simple. He just had to ignore the confusing things, and he'd be all right.
He approached the fountain, dipping his hands in the clear water. Smelly brown washed off his hands, showing white delicate skin. He should take off his dirty clothes and wash them too.
"Ja'far!"
He was startled by a hand on his shoulder, pulling him around to face a man with long purple hair and lots of jewellery. A rich man, no doubt.
He blinked at the man questioningly.
"Ja'far, what's going on? You were supposed to meet me an hour ago! Why are you so dirty and beat up?" The man slid his hands down his shoulders, feeling up his arms quickly before moving up and cupping his head. He cringed when strong fingers made contact with the back of his head, his headache intensifying. He must still be leaking.
"Good gods, Ja'far!"
He was tugged forward, and he was just barely in time to resist in order to avoid dirtying this man's expensive clothes too. It was bad enough his own were ruined. The man studied the back of his head, poking around gingerly. He decided to complain when fingers were threaded through thick tangles of hair and dried stuff.
"That hurts."
"Of course it hurts, you've got quite a wound there. We need to get you back to the palace and looked after."
He resisted the tug on his arm again. This man was just pulling him around, without even a greeting. So rude.
"Ja'far?"
"Where are we going?"
"The... the palace. I said that already."
"What palace?"
"Ja'far? What are you going on about?"
"Ja'far?" He repeated the strange word the man had uttered so many times now. "Who are you?"