"I told you, I don't know!" Sora yelled hoarsely at the thin and greasy man whose gray stare had been boring into him like a drill for the last three hours. These were civilized times, so we don't stoop to torture, certainly not, the man had said, one Major Austen from the Ingary secret police. Despite this assertion, Sora could feel the sticky blood drying slowly on his chin from the beginning of this very enthusiastic 'interrogation session'. They hadn't hit him very hard, at least until now, fat lot of good it was doing them since he'd been telling the truth from the start. Sora had a very high pain tolerance, handy, given his job description, but right now it served only to make his captors very angry that he wasn't whimpering like a small boy who'd just been informed birthdays would be cancelled until further notice.
Major Austen rolled his eyes. "Fine. I can wait. We'll go over it again: You're a star hero from another planet who's come to save us from the very weapons that are winning us this war. By order of a king nobody's every heard of. Who's a great big talking mouse. Is that about right?" he sneered. Sora ignored the jibe. He had learned quickly the Major did everything with a sneer, from sharpening his pencils to drinking his coffee. It lost its intimidating effect with repetition. Sora figured his lips were probably stuck like that.
"Yeah. That's it," Sora muttered, because nothing he could truthfully say would make them stop, and talking made his throat feel scratchy. They seemed to have decided he was sticking to the story as some kind of long and torturous joke.
"That makes perfect sense. It's certainly a better tale than my theory of how you came to be tied to the wall in a cell in Porthaven Fort, which is that you are a Strangian spy lacking somewhat in brains but not enthusiasm. The weapon you're carrying, the Key Blade, or whatever you call it, was a prototype stolen from your superiors that you intended to use to carve out a little fame and glory for yourself. Misguided, bloody stupid, but admirable in its way," he said, although judging by his expression Sora didn't think he believed any such thing, 'and ultimately futile, since our Servants cannot be defeated. Their are ranks are thick, they need no rest, they…" Major Austen intoned on with relish, as though he'd memorized an entire broadside's worth of propaganda statements.
Sora yawned and let his mind wander, because he'd said this all before, like it was supposed to be impressive. Following that, there'd be a string of names and places he'd never heard before and military jargon he couldn't understand, then more screaming when Sora couldn't cough up any juicy details about troop movements.
It was terminally boring, and the worst point of a steadily declining week. After the squad car screeched to a halt outside the police station, and he first made the acquaintance of the thoroughly unpleasant gentleman frothing in front of him, he had been hustled covertly from bad to worse. First was a scrap of night in the local jail, which was very cold, and smelled like a forgotten locker-room laundry hamper a dog had peed on. His cellmates were all fat, hamfisted, and menacing, or thin, ratty, and menacing, and he had to give one a bloody nose before they left him alone to curl up miserably in the corner. The officers on duty thought it was all hilarious, and left the 'deserter' to fend for himself. No one in the station, on either side of the bars, had any sympathy for a young man who had been arrested for shirking that duty.
Early the next morning, in the grey hours that Sora did not think deserved to be called 'morning', the Major reappeared, and he was put on a train in a private car, with a succession of sour guards assigned to ask him questions he couldn't answer and prod him with the steel toes of their boots whenever he started nodding off against the windowsill. The benches were cushioned with springs and down, upholstered in something velvety, and very comfortable. It was a unique kind of torture.
The train chugged through the countryside and onto a track carved through the mountains that had been the first sight to greet Sora's eyes when he landed. It was a marvelous feat of human ingenuity, but mostly the endlessly clattering, winding rail made his stomach queasy and his teeth ache. After another day, the mountains gave way to a vast plain in every hue of green imaginable, and the train picked up speed, only to slow again to an unbearable crawl as the reached the edge of the city that was their destination. Even with the windows in his car closed, he could smell the sea. It wasn't as though he wanted to arrive and find out what they had in store for him, but somehow waiting for it as the train inched through the web of urban signaling was even worse.
The train pulled into an unfriendly block of stone he learned was Porthaven Fort, and he was hustled off with less delicacy than the yard hands were showing to the cases of ammunition in the car behind him. They brought him into a cell in the belly of the building and locked the door. That night, he unlocked it, but stealth was not his strong suit either, and it only took fifteen minutes for his cell to be found with the door wide open. After that they went for the rope, and always made sure to post a set of guards at the end of the hallway.
Major Austen looked like he was reaching his crescendo, which in his particular case was an equal mix of spit and blind nationalistic fervor. Sora tried not to yawn again. Austen was an amateur, and Sora had been threatened by professionals. Frothing government officials in need of a shave couldn't inspire the same gut-freezing terror as a death god with a personal grudge. Sora didn't like Hades very much, and would be perfectly content never to set eyes on him again, but he had to admit that when he threatened somebody, he did it with style.
Sora couldn't answer Major Austen's vitriolic questions, which felt like they'd been posed for the millionth time, so he smacked Sora across the face again out of spite and stormed out. Sora leaned back against the unforgiving stone and wished he wasn't too uncomfortable to sleep.