Deep

by Strawberry Flames

A mask serves both to cause and to relieve suffering, but pain runs deep in darkness. Part 1: Bane origin, Part 2: TDKR setting, Bane/OC.

11. 10 Ashara

Warning: Intense, graphic violence.

10. Ashara

Bane dozed off at the touch of Ari's fingers at his temples. He relaxed into the small circles she pressed into his flesh through the night, reliving her skin and the glaze of sweat between her collarbones. Her face was nuzzled up against his, the bristles of short, soft hair rubbing against his forehead. The night was perfectly silent. There were no whispered conversations as the prisoners rested on their own, and the whole day seemed without flaw even though he knew differently. He didn't dare consider the dramatics that would rise in the morning, when the first person laid eyes on Hassan's battered and bloody body. When the observation was made—when it became apparent to The Pit that the old caretaker was dead and gone—all hell would break loose. Bane knew this, and yet he could not bring himself to care. He felt no traces of guilt whatsoever over the action, did not feel particularly nervous about the expected repercussions. Killing Ish was one thing (accident or not), but the caretaker was respected and valued. Ish was just a brutal man. It was much, much different.

Still, Bane drifted off to sleep. Ari did not speak to him aside from saying, "You were breathing so loud then. I thought everyone would wake," to which he answered only with a lighthearted scoff. She left it alone and allowed him to wade in the senses she had left hanging in the air around them. It was an environment of vivid scents and specific sounds: heat now had a smell—of damp leaves, perhaps—and catches in Ari's breath as she prepared for a yawn stood out in the black air and there was nothing else but them. As he slept, he dreamed of her repeatedly until his mind ran out of scenarios and concoctions. The dreams were different than they had been; the sex had changed the elusiveness of the visions, and now, instead of taunting moments and frustrating shows, he was laying on top of her, both of them fully unclothed. The rhythm of forward and back, in and out, took place behind deep red cloth, on top of black, velvety, cushioned sheets.

As if they could leave. The cage was as good as it would get, he supposed, but he couldn't bring himself to complain about the setting. It had been good. It would have been dishonest to search for flaws in it. Everything had been perfect in its own way—the proper timing, the intoxicating darkness, the needing to see her but inability to do so. Ari was like a drug. She would not leave his mind.

He awoke to the sound of her easy breathing, realizing in the next moment that she was still asleep. Dawn had broken, however; she was illuminated now, her lips parted in slumber. He took note of a split in her lower lip, the overall redness of her mouth, and wondered if he had done it—if he had been too rough.

The musings ceased immediately when he heard movement very nearby. Bane raised his head somewhat from the cot for the source of the stirring. After adjusting to the dim lighting of dawn, his eyes locked on a figure looming just outside of the cell. It was an older gentleman, his rounded shoulders hunched over the rest of his frail body. Wisps of white hair sprouted from his otherwise bald scalp, and the wrinkles of his skin caught pools of shadows. His eyes were cloudy but they had seen all that needed seeing. Bane recognized him as one of the prisoners who walked free day and night; one of the men who slept in a concentrated location, near to the caretakers, with whom they had close ties.

Bane felt an odd and unidentifiable sensation in his stomach. The old man's brow was furrowed in deep concern and Bane could only imagine the slow, burning shock to the elder's mind as it set in that one of his friends was dead.

And then they locked eyes, and Bane felt small under the fire of an angry man's glare. The man bared his teeth and Bane could have sworn he was shaking before he turned on his heel and stomped away from Hassan's body.

It was a matter of speed, of caution, of thinking quickly and soundly in the face of the impending explosion. Ari stirred as he moved around her, but when she whispered across the cell, "What's wrong?" he simply hushed her and proceeded to the front of the cell. His eyes fell on the gate that had remained unlocked all night, took heavy note of the red staining the stone ground just outside. Red was seeping into Ari's cell just barely, but Bane had to be careful in order to avoid stepping in it. She was still talking behind him, inquiring what was going on in his head, but he didn't want her to say anything, not now.

It was a bad feeling. Whatever it was, was a bad feeling.

Bane clicked the gate shut, locking them inside. "What are you doing?" Ari whispered heatedly. "Go back to your cell, you ought not set yourself up for two crimes." His face heated and wished he could make her understand without having to say it all out loud.

"Being with you," he breathed, masking the frustration and anxiety in his throat, "was not a crime." Voices arose down the hallway, escalating in volume and emotion with each and every word. He did his best to press his nerves away, but this time…if they were all against him, he wasn't sure he could fend them off, no matter how sure of himself he had grown to be.

The voice turned to footsteps. "That's all very well." Ari had walked up behind him, and in his hyper-awareness, she caught him off guard when he felt her breath wash over the back of his neck. "But you have to look out for yourself. You must go back to your cell, now, before they—"

"They have already seen me!" he barked, looking over his shoulder at her. He could sense her jumping at the sound of his sharp tone, and he longed to apologize just as much as he feared there were no longer any viable options.

When he had returned his attention to the hallway of approaching prisoners, Ari took a firm hold of his upper arm and snarled, "And what of me? What shall happen to me when it is clear that you have been in here with me? A boy—your friend."

Her concerns were solid, and he knew it was far more wounding to her internally than it could have been for him one way or another, but it was too late regardless: the prisoners who had been notified of the dead body in the hallway were upon them. Bane was met with the sound of rattling bars as a man threw his entire body weight into the gate. Bane doubled back, pushing Ari behind him as the man's wide eyes bored into their presence. They were alight with deep hatred. "You kill a man for his keys?" he said, his head tilted to the side. He was older as well, much like the man who had first seen Hassan's body. But this man had dark hair laced with gray, and although his face was plagued with deep wrinkles, they gave him a hardened look rather than the look of an elder.

Ari's fingernails were digging into his back. Bane couldn't help but wonder if he had made a mistake—if he should have listened to her and gotten out of her cell even though the old man had seen him. Now, Ari was stuck with him, stuck with whatever repercussions they wanted to impose upon him. He couldn't bring himself to think about what her own punishment would be. And it was his fault. He had taken the order away from her life, had distorted the security she had had. The caretakers had been the only ones who could access her before, and now it seemed they were both in danger of being stormed in at any moment now.

"Ah…" One of the men produced the keys from Hassan's jacket amidst varying other sounds. Some of the men were mourning audibly over the caretaker's death; others were shouting at Bane ferociously, sticking their arms through the bars up to their shoulders as if to tear his throat out with their knobby hands. Bane senses picked up on things as though they were at some great distance—if only that were the case.

Things were moving too fast. One of the men was fooling with the keys, and others were urging him to open the gate immediately, giving suggestions as to what to do with him. Bane was glad, at least, that they did not seem concerned with Ari's position in the scene for the moment. "They thought you were through with the fighting—the killing," said the man who had been leaning on the bars from the start. "You waited years to do it again." Bane could see the negative energy between them, and it increased with every word he spat. "If we had known you would have done it again—known that you would have murdered an innocent man—we would have killed you."

Bane recognized the man now. He had not seen him in some years, but he now knew that it was the man who had beat him years ago as he interrogated Bane regarding Ish's death. It all seemed to far behind him now, and yet the past was being yanked to the present. It was hard to follow the abrupt adjustment due to the shock that had set into Bane's chest. There was no denying their intentions, and they had all the means, and how was he to fight off several men at once, not to mention a man of authority who had already beat him down once before? It was even worse than it had been all those years ago it seemed. Ari was involved and it was clear, he thought, that they wanted to have him dead this time for sure.

The proper key was being shoved into the lock and he was thinking of all the options that he could—where he could run, how he could get Ari away from them and get the keys back out of enemy hands. But there was already one prisoner official against him, and they had easy access to any cell he hid away in. His brain still struggled to comprehend the speedy escalation; he felt he was still in slumber, and hoped there was some chance that he truly was.

"Wait."

A miracle word, it seemed. Perhaps.

The voice belonged to someone in a cell across from Ari's. Bane did not look away from the people swarming, fearing that if he placed too much trust in the intrusive voice behind them, the others would catch him off guard. He strained his ears as the commotion died down. The Pit went silent but for the sound of Ari's nervous breathing.

The man who had spoken stood tall on the other side of the bars. His eyes were dull, yet they held a sliver of excitement. "This is the boy who killed Ish?" he inquired calmly. No one answered. "He was a friend of mine, Ish. A friend of several of us." Bane swallowed a lump in his throat, fearing things were going in a bad direction. "Let us out. We would like to deal with him."

Immediately, Bane was swarmed with fear. Fear that he was afraid to indulge in, afraid to admit. But as he waded in it, he turned his eyes to the man who had asked to kill him, and he recognized him. It was a man he had seen before countless times; he had noticed the man sitting at the fires with others, and he found it safe to say that even when Ish had been alive, he could not recall them interacting. But what else could he have meant by it? There did not seem any other reason to lie about it.

The men in the hallway were clearly considering the request. Bane was not sure which direction he wanted it to go. Either way, things had potential to end very badly, although there was a chance that he could escape… He had to leave it to fate, had to see it pan out in order to allow himself any hope whatsoever.

He harkened back to the previous night, remembered the instinctive desire to hurt the person who would hurt Ari. Amidst the repercussions, he was certain that he would have done it all over again if he had been able to see into the future. And he knew without a doubt that if any of the men who currently waited outside of her cell came to hurt her, he would kill them, too, if he were able. In any way he could manage, however brutal. In fact, the very idea of the brutality had his blood boiling; there was no sufficient punishment for a man who would rape someone weaker than himself.

During his thoughts, the others had evidently come to a decision. Bane watched, frozen and grounded, as the man with the keys nodded and handed them over to the man who had beaten Bane. With a snarl, he muttered to somewhat shocked onlookers, "If you will not be involved, stand aside." Then, he turned back to Ari's cell and hissed with a smile, "You will get what you deserve at last."

Time froze and sped to an enormous speed all at once. Bane could not make himself think clearly except to notice the opening of a gate of someone who must have been an enemy—who wanted to be an enemy. Ari was whispering behind him in a voice that was nearly empty: "They will not hurt you. I won't let them." As if there was a thing either of them could do about it, as if she meant to deny the fate that hung pungently before them.

Was it too much to hope for to live? Suddenly Bane found himself wondering if it mattered at all. He was more concerned with Ari's life and prosperity, and yet neither of them had lived since they were children, free of eternal, unfair imprisonment. And neither of them wanted to even try making the climb anymore. He had long since had the impression that Ari had some unspoken hope that someone would come to collect them one day, apologize for the sheer absurdity of their victimized punishment. Bane couldn't even bring himself to hope for that. He hoped for nothing anymore, except to know that Ari was safe, and that they had each other. So why did it matter whether he lived or died in the end? What difference did it make?

So he accepted it. He basked in Ari's proximity one last time, indulged in final thoughts and memories, and enjoyed the soothing pressure of her fingers trailing nervously over his spine. He shut his eyes while the man was released from his cell when he had seen the look of utter triumph on the enemy's face. Bane drowned his own thoughts away after a minute, and it seemed he had rid himself of Ari's promise that she would not let him die.

"I will unlock the rest." The transference of keys. Another unlocked door.

And then suddenly, there was unexpected commotion. Bane opened his eyes to find physical conflict having erupted in the center with new faces. The prisoners who had just been released were swarmed around the official. More cells were being unlocked than had been requested, and soon enough, the entire hallway was filled with free men who were ganging up on the official. And soon enough, the sounds of heavy kicks and punches could be heard. Bane, unable to fully comprehend what was going on, heeded Ari's words: "They wouldn't kill him, would they? If they did, how could they fault you for Hassan? Do you think…? Why did they request freedom, then?"

The conflict engorged itself, and it seemed that utter chaos had broken out. The other caretakers, awoken by the commotion, had taken to unlocking the cells of their allies, it seemed. The behavior was strange, unusual. Bane supposed it was the result of too much rest over the years; at some point, the restlessness grew within people who all harbored terrible resentment. And that was how it manifested itself: violence, abandonment, and hatred.

Bane was willing to stand aside and let it go on if neither party was going to unlock his cell, which seemed to be the case. It might have been better as it was.

But in the end it was not. In the end, he watched hungry men overthrow anyone who wished to restore order, and in the end, it became clear that Bane was the least of their concerns. They were heading to Melisande's cell.

Ari noticed almost immediately after Bane did. "No!" she shouted, unashamed. She gave Bane, who was still in shock, a rough shove as she hurried to the front of her cell. She shook the bars momentarily, then whipped around and shrieked, "Let us out, Bane!"

Of course he was concerned about Melisande, and Talia for certain. But he could not seem to make his mind catch up when he had thought moments ago that he was going to be dead by now. "How?" he asked her stupidly.

"The same way you opened your own cell last night," she said. "Come on…" Without another word, she made her way back to him and started tugging on the front of his robes. "Don't tell me you dropped it…"

"Oh…" he breathed foggily. "It's…it's here." He produced the knife from within his clothes even as she continued to throw her arms and hands in his way. It was then that things settled into his mind. Then he became terrified for Melisande, and he knew he would rather die than know that he could not fulfill the promise to protect her that had driven him for years.

Although his hands were shaking, he was moving at full speed again, including his now racing thoughts. With Ari at his side, he quickly fiddled with the lock, more clumsily than usual, until it sprung open. "They're covering their faces…" Ari pointed out at the sight of several men running past with their scarves drawn around their heads and mouths. "Do the same. We might yet save us all." So they did.

But just as they had merged into the hallway, a horrified scream stopped Bane's heart from beating. In the distance, he saw Melisande's cell open as the prisoners went pouring into her domain. "Oh, God, we have to get her out of there," Ari hollered over the other voices. "Is there a way? There has to be."

Bane's attention had transferred the moment he felt all hope was lost. They were much outnumbered, and regardless of what he had trained himself for—he had never expected that Melisande would be under attack by the entire prison. He had to be realistic, and Ari certainly wasn't going to be the one to do it. He had to hold her back as she made to attack one of the men passing them. "Give me the knife, Bane!" she yelled. "Let me have it!" But he did not. He turned to her instead and held her still.

"You must listen to me now, all right?" he said hastily. She was wriggling in his grip, shooting him an angry glare as he spoke. "I'm going to get Talia from the cell and you are going to lay low and wait. And when I have collected her, than I will help the two of you to the wall where you will both begin making the climb."

"And the rope?" she said, looking at him as though he had lost his mind. "Who will hold the rope? Assuming you will be a little busy."

More prisoners were pouring from their cells as the keys were passed around. Bane shook his head. "You will go without the rope. I will go back and do my best to save Melisande, and if I can, we will follow after you. But you must realize that we must leave now. You must know that this is our last chance at life, and the two of you are more important than myself. Talia must go. She must."

"And what if we fall?" Ari's eyes were wide, her jaw tightened, but she did not look afraid. "What if we die anyway?"

"The best chance you have. Take it."

His mind returned to the familiar state of autopilot after warning Ari to stay put once more. He had to focus sharply amidst what had amounted to utter disorder. He shoved his way through the people, holding his scarf in place to be sure it didn't slip away. There was no telling when someone would turn to hunt him again and he couldn't take the risk.

Melisande was still screaming and when Bane reached her cell, she had been swallowed in a crowd of men who had pushed her to the ground. It was hard to see her, but he did not want to see her that way. He knew he had to help her—he had promised her, for God's sake—but he set eyes on Talia and the mere idea of her even having the possibility of witnessing an enormous violence against her mother urged him to go after her.

The little girl was trotting, high-strung, around the people, pushing into them and around them. She wore an expression of sheer determination, but it did not entirely mask the disturbance and fear that plagued her. Bane went toward her immediately, hanging his head low and turning away from anyone who might have been calm enough to look in his direction. He kept an eye on Talia with each step, his brow beading with sweat from the stress of it all. At the same time, he did his best to remain conscious of Ari's whereabouts; she had not moved as of yet, but to pace quickly and hold her head in her hands.

Talia had reached down and was back on her feet again. Bane watched as she ran to the men huddled around her mother. She grabbed the back of someone's robe and held onto it with her small fist. Her other arm drew back behind her.

A knife glinted in her hand. A knife that she soon drove straight into the back of the man whose robes she held.

Bane rushed forward, fearing the scenario. He flashed back to his own past, his own vivid experiences with pain and darkness, and he did not want the same for her. He did not want her to grow up in a place that required such physical defense when she was so young and so innocently untouched. Although the men did not seem to notice her in their swarm, Bane did not even want her to see their behavior. She should have been in a different environment, and the best he could do was to give her the only chance she could possibly have.

He put his arms around her and scooped her up and away from the cell she had grown up in. He took her hastily away from the room she had born in, and a room she would never see again. He had to stop and crouch beneath a wall to avoid being trampled by another flooding of prisoners. Talia was shaking in his arms and he could feel her torso moving as she cried. "Mama," she said into his shoulder. He held his hand to the back of her head.

"I am going back for her," he assured her. "But first, you must leave here with Ari."

"I can't," she whined. "I dunno how."

"She will help you." He stood up again and tried his best to conceal her. The moment he caught sight of Ari, he nodded to her when she made eye contact. Her reactions were fast and precise, and soon enough she was hurrying at his side as they ducked through oncoming foot traffic. "When you reach the jump," Bane began advising, "send her first. If you can give her a boost, do it. Can you support her weight?"

"Easily," Ari confirmed, but there was uncertainty in her voice. "Do you think…do you think that I will fall?"

"No," Bane said, but there was no way he could have known. He hoped beyond all hope that the climb would be different for Ari. She had never tried it before; never failed before. And that meant that possibly, she would not let the fear of falling overwhelm her. Yet at the same time, without the rope, the fear would rein her in, perhaps paralyze her. There was the slim chance that perhaps, it would boost her adrenaline so that her legs could make the distance. He did not know. He began to wonder if she could survive the fall from so high.

When they reached the wall, Bane sent Talia up first. She was reluctant to let go of him, traumatized by the thought of her mother out of her sight, but after some convincing, she nodded and embraced them both. "Mama calls you are protector," she said to Bane. "You are going to save us, aren't you?"

The words gave him hope, and he hoisted her onto the first level.

He turned to Ari, who was wringing her hands. After a moment, they stepped towards one another and he held her as tightly as he could manage. "I love you," he told her, surrounding himself with her essence for what might have been the last time. "Be safe." When he let go of her, she was crying, but she quickly wiped away the tears, sniffled, and nodded.

"You be safe," she replied. "Come back for me. Please." Bane nodded and boosted her up after Talia. He watched them stand together for a moment, clutch one another for security that went beyond physical measures. It was hard to watch them. Things had changed too quickly.

And they continued to do so. As he backed away, watching them begin to scale the walls, he heard his name from behind—the first recognition. Then he felt several hands come in contact with him all at once, at which point he turned, his mind too warped with too many things to think straight. He threw six consecutive punches between both hands, and he was thinking about if Ari and Talia had moved at all, and wondering where Melisande's screaming had gone, and who it was that was touching him and finally, when he could see in front of him, he wondered just how many people were going to kill him right then.

When he was being held back by two or three people and could no longer deliver any blows, he maneuvered himself against their force to see Ari and Talia's progress. He had to know that they were continuing, had to know that Ari would not let them give up just because it was now certain that he would not be coming after them anymore.

Last night he had had sex with Ari. Now she was going to watch him die, and maybe, she would die, too, if she didn't make the jump.

Someone's hand clamped down hard over his mouth and yanked his scarf away from his face. He shook away from their touch as immediately as he could and looked back up at the two people on the wall. Ari was standing on the next ledge, turned away from him with her head down and her face in her hands. Talia had just crawled to the same place and was standing as she looked down at him with a great pity and sadness. He treasured her for the emotion. She might have been the last face he saw. He tried to comfort her with his eyes but it was hard. People were still tugging on him, struggling to bring him to the ground, but he couldn't let them just yet.

He gave Talia the tiniest of nods and she tilted her head. "Goodbye," he whispered and he let control him.

It was a simple fistfight for perhaps a minute or so; time was not as it should have been. There were many of them, but they were weaker and slower, and had no tactics. They were easy to ward off alone; it was their numbers that concerned him. As he knocked one of them to the ground, Bane caught a glimpse of the wall again.

He was met with the sight of Ari's weak grasp slipping from the higher ledge. Talia was on the other side, past the greatest hurdle, but Ari had missed it. She began to fall.

Filled with a new energy despite the fighting, Bane burst away from the men savagely and raced to the wall, his heartbeat racing down to his legs. She was screaming and her body was freefalling through damp air and he could not let her die, he had to do his best, he had promised them all…

He reached the bottom and held out his arms. He continued to look behind him to make sure he would not be pulled away from saving her. But they had not reached him before Ari's body crashed into him, sending them both to the ground. The force was incredible, making his legs weak, but he saw that his body had been enough of a cushion to keep her alive. Her face was red and her eyes were closed as though she had expected to die. Her body moved as if in instinct, wrapping her arms around his waist and curling against him for a comfort he was afraid he would not be able to give to her.

He could not bring himself to move her away from him. He knew that it was bad for both of them to stay there, but who was he to rob the last few moments of comfort she might have had. He held her on the ground, calmed her racing heart and rubbing his hands up and down her shaking arms. "You are safe," he lied to her.

Ari looked up at him with tears streaming over her cheeks. Her chin was wrinkled in a frown and her jaw was quivering. He wished he could have seen her look happy again, just once more. "I can't do it," she said.

And it was the last she said before the men reached the both of them again, and she was pulled away. She screamed and fought against them and went on holding her arms out to him, but even though he wrestled to break free, they were apart. They were separated from one another, both of them numb, knowing they were as good as dead. Bane supposed it did not matter, as arms wrapped around him and dragged him back to open space. There was no sense worrying, he told himself. He only wished Ari had made it or at least stayed out of sight. He hated to think that his last memory of her would be pain.

Back in their possession, Bane was forced onto the ground. A man with a wild grin hovered over him. "Old caretaker tried to touch your little boyfriend, is that it?" he spat. Someone punched him in the face, but the man who was addressing him yelled and said, "You hold on!" and returned his attentions to Bane again. "You have created upset for this prison for far too long, my friend. And now we have taken over, and everyone will get their way now. And seven years ago—has it been seven already?—we wanted to see you punished for killing Ish, and now, we'd like to kill you for killing Hassan. Today we will get our way. Smell the morning air. Perhaps you will remember it before you are drowned out by the scent of your blood, brother."

The man smiled broadly and stepped away. In the next moment, someone was swinging a long, metal bar down upon him. Bane took a moment to gasp, and he might have cried out and raised his arms to defend himself, but it was too late for any of that. The bar swung into his face, caught him in the mouth—in his upper front teeth. He felt more than one of them break, felt an enormous agony in the roof of his mouth. Then came the idea of a foreign presence, the idea that perhaps what remained of his front teeth was being knocked further into his mouth.

Blood was already gushing from his face. It was pouring down his throat and he was as shocked as he could manage to be as his raw nerves were exposed and torn away. He knew it would not stop. He could hear horrible laughter over the pounding in his ears, and he knew that it was hardly equal to the suffering that they wanted for him, and he hoped that he would die soon, that the blood loss would be more than they had expected, and that they would be left to beat a lifeless body further into death.

He hoped that neither Ari nor Talia could see. He hoped that Ari did not receive the same treatment.

The bar came down again, hit him square in the nose. The bone moved like putty under the metal and then the entire half of his face was bleeding profusely and he had swallowed a great deal and he started to vomit, having to turn his head to the side to keep from choking on it. His mind was no longer occupied with anything else but the notion that pain such as this even existed.

Bane was being yanked back onto his feet, perhaps in mercy, he thought for a split second. It allowed him to hold his face forward to let the blood and vomit clear away momentarily, although it was still running. He noticed that his mouth would not move properly: it would not close at all, and it was as though the hinges of his jaw had gone askew.

And then there was a feeling he had never imagined before. The feeling of something foreign entering his skin at the nape of his neck, and he could feel it inside him. He felt small again, like a weak child in an alleyway—like a girl abused and blamed for her abuse. The blade was cold in his flesh, and although it was short, the feeling was immense in every possible way. It stung as though the wound in progress was on fire and filling with poison. He finally made a sound—a guttural, prehistoric moan—a sound unlike anything he had ever heard.

The knife was being pulled through his skin like he was a rag doll. The man behind him, who was holding his back steady, paused, left the knife in Bane's body, and tore the back away from Bane's robes, as it had been done in the branding years ago. He had barely thought of it until now. Still, it was a chore to think.

Pieces of his teeth were strewn at his feet.

Back to the knife. All the way down, beside his spine, wriggling in his body like a serpent, and he was an open book. He could hear shrill screams in the distance, but Melisande's had been different. He was aware of Ari's pain, and he shuddered to think that they would destroy her the way they were destroying him.

They turned him around, letting the knife tear the skin one last time. Another bar to the face. Then, the knife came to his face. He felt it in his mouth, at his nose, under his chin. His lips were being shredded carefully, and the cartilage of his nose was sliced into. Then it was more barbaric. Then there were fingers clawing at his face. He had his eyes squeezed shut, but they tore open when he felt a significant chunk of his nose be ripped away from his face. His instincts told him to reach up to feel it, but his arms were still being held back.

The rest was a blur. People were tugging at the open wound in his back, pulling it wider with their hungry hands, and he thought he would die soon, any minute now… His legs had long since buckled under his weight; a man was supporting him, holding him upright, but he apparently grew tired of it and allowed Bane to fall face first in a crumpled heap at their feet. Someone kicked him in the side. He could barely feel it anymore.

The world stopped momentarily as a conversation brewed. It caught the attention of most of the people around him, one by one, and he could make out bits and pieces: "That boy… last night… in the cell…" And then the worst bit of it all: "…a woman all along."

And now The Pit knew. Now Ari was lost.

Merriment broke out, as if Ari was some auctioned prize, and there was to be some great pleasure in taking advantage of someone whom they had believed to be a male for years. They delivered a few more attacks on Bane, but he was unresponsive by then—they might have assumed him dead. He was lifted by two men, and he could feel them bobbing up and down as they walked. And then he was out of their hands, hanging in midair, only to find the ground again and hear the sound of a gate closing.

After a moment of sinking into the stone it seemed, Bane was overcome with everything. He was aware of the wetness of his face and the mixture of blood and tears and torn tissue and vomit. He was aware of Ari pleading for help, screaming obscenities and warnings and words of hatred all in vain, aware that he could do nothing for her now, that he had subjected her to it, perhaps.

He reached up when he felt deadened enough. He reached senselessly into his mouth to find an utterly mangled figure, reduced to exposed bone and nerve and things all out of alignment. The touch of his fingers must have been too much—his vision went black and sound faded.

He reawakened to a great heat in his face and the same surrounding noises. His eyes watered with hot, salty tears. They flowed over the caking blood, his broken face still throbbing in agony. He continued to fade in and out of consciousness; he managed to wonder if the other prisoners—his attackers—thought that he was dead. He must have looked it. He knew he had no concept of the damage that had been done, although he had stupidly reached up to feel the mangled mass of flesh and exposed bone. He was aware of the fact that the cartilage of his nose had been torn away. It hardly existed as far as he could tell. The air that he inhaled through his nose caused less pain, if only by a little, but it was far more oxygen than he was used to taking in. That was how he knew that his once straight nose had been reduced to almost nothing. A hole in the middle of his bloody, pulpy face.

He could not feel his legs. He kept trying to make them move, to get them to twitch at the very least, but it was as though they had been torn away from his body. The muscles of his back behaved absently as well. He could just barely detect the sticky, cold sensation on his skin, knowing they had torn it open when he had first felt the knife sink into his flesh. His vision clouded again. The burning became too much, and before he knew it, he had entered the limbo of agony and exhaustion, where the two were one in the same.

His brain recreated images from over the years—all the way back to his childhood, where he could just barely imagine the constantly illuminated surroundings that the upper world always offered. Bane was out of body, watching things from some unknown perspective, wading in yellow light with an empty mind. There was no sense of physicality; he lacked the ability to touch anything or fully make contact with the beings that were present in his absent state. He recreated his mother, tall, wearing blue, smiling softly; bearing striking resemblance to Melisande.

There was no sound in his visions. He saw people's mouths moving, their smiles and laughter, but not a sound was heard. It was an empty world, and he knew for a fact that there was nowhere he wanted to be. It would have been better to be dead, he knew. He couldn't help but hope that there was still a chance.

He saw his childhood self again in the light, running through the hallways of his family's home. But when the little boy turned, it was Talia after all, joyous and free. For a fleeting moment, he felt triumphant, thinking that maybe enduring endless pain was worth it to know that an innocent life had been set free.

But he could hear shrill, violent screaming filling The Pit. Screams filled with terror, fear, and pain. He lost consciousness entirely to the sound of Ari's blood-curdling cries.

A/N: I am so sorry for how long this took to put up : ( It was college's fault again. I also feel bad because this could have been longer and more coherent, but I just had to finish it in order to stop feeling guilty. I hope it's not a huge let down, and this is not the last chapter of Part I, either. There will be at least two more, probably more than that before I move on to Part II (which will fall into my winter break, woo!). Thanks for your feedback as always, and, considering we have a huge turning point, I'd love to hear from you guys! I'm interested to know where you guys think things will go from here. Your reviews are so encouraging and helpful; I love you all!