Gurokh had spent a rather contemplative night. He hadn't found any perverse pleasure in forcing his son through such a macabre spectacle as a child's whipping. But he had had to harden his heart in the interest of Zarmal and its future Dafar.
A part of him wanted to return the Vulcan child to his home. But another part wanted him to stay on and teach his son, the things that can only be taught by suffering and sacrifice.
Hoping to make up to his son, for what he had put him through yesterday, Gurokh made his way to the prince's bedchamber.
XXXXX
"I cannot go out without clothes, Prince Ishok," Spock said, mortified at his state of undress.
The older boy agreed with the Vulcan, but he could not see Spock's clothes anywhere in the room. He took off his own outer robe and moved to drape it around his shoulders.
"This would be large for you, but it will protect you from the wind and the other servants' stares," Ishok said, tightening the cord of the robe at Spock's waist.
Spock looked at Ishok gratefully. "Thank you, Sir, you are most kind," he said genuinely.
The prince however only looked away, as if he'd been slapped by Spock's gratitude. He took several deep breaths to compose himself. After a few minutes, he looked at Spock again and smiled warmly.
"Let us go to the palace, before I am missed. Father doesn't know that I'm here with you," he said, and offered Spock his arm.
The injured boy threaded his arm through the prince's for support, careful to keep his fingers still and away from contact with any surface.
Slowly, the duo started walking towards the palace. They did not know what to do with the bloodstained sheets in the room so they left them there, even though a part of Spock wondered if he was supposed to clean them. He was a slave technically, certainly no better than any other servant.
But Ishok did not allow him to wonder about it too much. He urged Spock to walk quickly through the crowd of the servants hurrying to and from their daily tasks.
The Zarmalian's ears were perhaps not as sharp as Spock's, which is why he did not realize that no amount of hurrying would protect Spock from the knowing gazes and pitying looks of the other servants and slaves.
"He was beaten pretty badly," a girl with deep mauve skin said to another Zarmalian.
"Is he some sort of criminal?" one of the males asked his Frolian companion.
"Whipping boy…. he will look like a melted statue after the Dafar is through with him," another said with undisguised glee.
Spock forced himself to tune out the voices.
The pace at which Ishok was forcing him to walk was also uncomfortable to him. He was still drained and disoriented, and it was taking every ounce of his will to walk without shaking like a leaf. But he was grateful that he hadn't had to wake up alone. It was decidedly illogical, but Spock was glad to have had someone wake him up a lot more gently than the guards would have.
His relief did not last long, though.
In the distance, he could see Gurokh marching towards them, the royal guardsmen behind him.
There was fury in the cadence of the little procession. And with an instinct that every sentient being possesses, Spock knew that he was the reason Gurokh's anger.
But not more than his own son.
XXXXX
Ishok stopped short when he saw his father coming towards them, with his entire guard with him.
He did not need Spock's telepathy to know what the younger boy was thinking. The slight tightening of muscles was enough to tell him that the Vulcan was bracing himself for another ordeal like yesterday's.
If Ishok had been older, he would have either known to be more discreet in helping Spock, or he would have stood up to this father. But a twelve-year-old was hardly a man yet, even though Gurokh wanted his son to turn into one sooner than it was naturally possible.
The two boys remained rooted to the ground. And subconsciously, Spock stepped closer to Ishok, slightly to the front, ready to shield the prince from his father's wrath. A part of him reminded him that even if the Dafar was angry with his son, Spock would be the one to be punished. But the more conscious part of Spock was unwilling to take a risk. What if Gurokh was a temperamental man? What if he decided to hurt his own son, like he had hurt Spock yesterday?
No. He could not let harm come to the young prince who had shown him more compassion in barely ten hours, than most adults had shown him in his entire ten years of life so far.
A few moments later, the Dafar stood towering before the boys.
XXXXX
"It wasn't his fault, father…Please…punish me. Don't hurt him. He will die, father..please," Ishok wailed and wept, clutching at his father's ankles as the guards seized Spock.
A deep shadow of fear crossed the Vulcan's face, but for Ishok's sake, he masked it almost instantaneously. Unfortunately, the older boy saw it and begged his father in the humblest and most wretched of ways.
"Father, I will do whatever you ask. I will be a good Dafar. If I disappoint you, you can disown me, and mother and you will be blessed with another heir," He said, hardly caring what was falling from his lips. "Don't hurt Spock, father…...he will die."
His pleas fell on deaf ears.
"He was beaten for you to strengthen and harden yourself," Gurokh thundered. "You failed, Ishok. And he must be punished for your failure. And he will be hurt again. And as many times as it takes, for you to cease helping him, even if he is being burnt alive and screaming for you to help him."
Ishok turned a violent shade of green at his father's murderous words. He tried to control himself desperately, but a minute later, he vomited all over his father's expensive sandals.
"You disgust me, son. I wanted to raise a ruler for Zarmal's people. And I have been cursed with a weakling like you," he said, in a voice overcome with anger and disappointment.
Ishok stopped crying. He looked at Spock, hoping to gauge the state of his mind. But the Vulcan only looked at him blankly, as if he hadn't heard or seen anything.
"Very well father. I will do as you instruct. Please punish the boy as you see fit. I will not aid him. I will not react to his screams. I will close my mind to his suffering," Ishok said in a voice icier than the iciest mountain peaks on Zarmal's surface.
He stole a surreptitious glance at Spock. And to his relief, he found the blank mask still in place. Maybe Spock would also become more Vulcan under this treatment, the prince mused. After all, weren't Vulcans supposed to be completely unfeeling and devoid of all emotion.
XXXXX
Ishok was wrong. It did not get easier to watch the suffering of another being, least of all a child younger than himself.
Spock flinched as his cut and bruised back was once again exposed to the planet's cold air.
Ishok closed his eyes, as if expecting a whiplash to come down on his own back any minute.
And sure enough, a moment later, the unmistakable swish of the razor sharp whip was followed by a sickening thwack, that elicited a muffled grunt from the bound child.
Spock was making a herculean effort to control his pain, even as his already injured back was laid open once again, one wound at a time.
But like the day before, he was unable to bear his agony silently. After the sixteenth lash, he sobbed out loudly, looking pathetic and beaten like no Vulcan ever should.
However, at no point did he actually scream. He simply didn't have the energy to. Like a broken toy, he jerked and bucked with every strike. And when he lost consciousness after the eighty-ninth blow, Ishok simply turned and made to walk back to his room.
But Gurokh stopped him in his tracks.
"I need proof of your learning, son. What mark will you lay on the slave to show me that you have learned the lesson of necessary evils?" the older man asked his son.
"What would you have me do, father?" the prince asked, with no inflections in his voice.
"Brand the slave. Mark him as the property of the royal household," Gurokh said. "Where will you place the mark?"
Ishok swallowed. Some of his unfeelingness was real, but most of it was a bluff of the sorts. However, if he didn't do this, he knew Spock would be hurt worse. And the poor boy could not take more. And that did not matter to his father in the least.
"He will just purchase another slave, if Spock dies," Ishok thought to himself bitterly.
"I will mark him where you'd like him to be marked, father. As a future Dafar, I will submit to your good judgment," he said.
Gurokh looked surprised. But then a look of genuine affection and warmth entered his otherwise cold, dark eyes.
"Yes, my son. I am so proud of you. Mark the slave just above his heart, right under the left side of his ribcage," Gurokh said, holding a pinch of smelling salts under Spock's nose. The Vulcan child opened his eyes, hissing in pain, not completely coherent yet.
The Dafar handed the red-hot branding iron to his twelve-year-old son.
"Go ahead son, claim your first slave," he said.
Ishok moved close to Spock. For a moment that felt frozen in time, Ishok looked deeply into his fathomless eyes. And suddenly like that, a flash of an alien emotion passed through the prince's mind.
"I forgive you, young prince. Do what you need to do," the familiar pain-filled voice said clearly in Ishok's mind. Almost immediately after that surreal exchange, the Vulcan looked away and closed his eyes again.
The prince steeled his nerves and without any warning, pressed the glowing brand to Spock's bruised side, burning through skin, muscle, and injuries old and new.
Spock let out an unearthly sound of anguish.
And then all went quiet.