The weight of chains hangs heavily around his neck and wrists, binding him down. He didn't understand it at first; they were absurdly large to start with. They've come to fit, somehow; he doesn't remember the time or the method of it. They've long since ceased to hold his notice.
Something else has his attention now. Something... Something creeping within him, usurping his focus. It's become harder to focus on anything other than that snaking invasion coiling through his limbs--and even through his mind, ominous, skeletal hands that enclose his thoughts and tug them away. The pain is horrific, shredding past his defenses like a storm of glass instead of snow, leaving him sure that every part of him is weeping blood until his heart can cry itself dry.
He is left with not even the facade of pride or strength--he does not endure because he chooses to, in honor, but because he has already succumbed, and has no choice, though he can barely hear now the sound of his screams.
And there, there is the source, amidst all of the pain. Of all of his memories being stolen away into the deep shadows of the Titan's life, there are two things that he will not forget, that no pain, no torture, no invasion, however ruthless in their attacks, could tear from him.
Lawless, whom he hates. Lawless, whom he will kill.
And...
And the other, the demon with the wings of an angel, the beauty of the heavens, but with a heart that is, to Zadei, as cold and unreachable as a marble statue, even as they join, even as they pant and sweat in a tangled frenzy of desire driven by Zadei's fury and frustration.
Teteiyusu. There are times when the Titan almost pulls the name away, almost, almost, but he snatches it back and snarls his rage at the audacity until the invader turns back in a thwarted temper and returns to rending away the rest of his soul, his self.
That memory is his own. Teteiyusu is his angel, his angel of bitter winters and battles lost, of despair and destruction. Teteiyusu is an angel of madness, but Zadei will surrender to such insanity with all his heart, if it will restore his most important desire, his all-consuming obsession, to true, breathing flesh.
Zadei can still feel Teteiyusu's blood on his hands. He rakes his claws down his face, drawing blood of his own--hot, burning, venomous blood--and takes a primal joy in their mingling as, within and without him, the beast he is becoming screams for its freedom, and an end to its pain.
Such a thing, Zadei thinks, the words torn away, half-formed in his mind, will never be. Not for he who courts a fallen angel whose thoughts never waver from the one he has already chosen. But there is, at least, the satisfaction that the one his angel loves first will be destroyed to give life, true life, to the one he rejected.
Even if it leaves his angel alone and bereft in that barren frozen waste that so resembles their innermost selves...
One way or another...
Teteiyusu, his angel, his death, will never be able to drive the memory of his captor from his heart. Zadei will be sure of it.
