Title: Mercy
Rating: NSFW (semi-explicit non-con, violence)
Wordcount: 1894
Pairing: Barbariccia/Rosa
Summary: Rosa tries to hold on to hope during captivity, but Barbariccia won't make that easy.
Note: Written as a treat for jack_of_none for femslashex. As seems to be the case with all of my Barbariccia fics, this is a pretty hard "Mature" that I think is just inexplicit enough to skate under the MA line. Mind the rating notes!
Cecil is coming. Rosa loops the phrase in coils throughout her mind, so fervently that her lips move, to crowd out despair. They've crossed deserts for each other; even the sky cannot keep them apart. If the present is all cold and chains and hanging dread, she must focus on the distant light of the future and let all else blur before it.
Kain's eyes are cold and empty, as if his soul has been sucked out. By day she is kept bound so tightly that she can scarcely move, and in every silence she can hear the scythe creaking above her head. At night, a trio of not-quite-human creatures creep to the bars of her cell and stare at her, tittering in hollow voices. She drifts above it all; the fear and pain of any moment are only memories in the making. Cecil is coming.
But he is not coming quickly. At first it is a relief when Kain stops dragging her every morning to be bound like an ornament before Golbez, but there is no comfort in the way that he instead stands outside her cell and stares at her until some silent summons draws him away. She learns not to say Cecil's name in his presence, or he will not return to feed her. She learns not to say anything to him at all. Sometimes his expression twists so cruelly that she fears he might open the door and force himself upon her, and all she can do is chant Cecil is coming Cecil is coming over the frantic vibration of her heart until he goes away.
If her wrists were not always bound, Rosa could teleport to freedom. But her manacles are solid runic steel and cover her forearms, pinning them tight together. For all that she has scraped her bindings against the stone walls, she has done nothing more than dull the metal's shine. She tried once to improvise a spell without the use of her hands, and the runes seared agony into her skin. Golbez knows how to imprison a mage.
In the night the monsters still come. (It is always night in this cell; her routine broken, Rosa has lost track of time.) More than once the feeling of being watched has persisted long after the creatures scuttle back into the darkness. Tonight the sensation makes her skin crawl. She closes her eyes and raises her mantra against it.
A cold breeze blows her hair away from her neck and shocks her into the present. Her cell is windowless and lies at the end of a winding corridor; there should be no breeze at all. The glowing blue veins of the walls are somehow worse now than absolute darkness would be. "Who's there?" she calls.
"Do I finally have your attention?" a woman's voice replies. No, not quite a woman's—it carries an otherworldly echo and a hint of a growl, like the voice of the archfiend that Golbez sent after Cecil. Cecil is coming. "I was growing bored."
The breeze spirals impossibly around Rosa, from her hair down to her folded legs. She's still shivering from it when the air gathers densely before her, taking on a soft golden glow. It coalesces into the shape of an imposingly tall woman, like a statue carved just slightly larger than life, nearly naked except for the undulating cascade of her hair and nearly human except for the long claws on her fingers. Her feet don't quite touch the dirty floor.
Rosa saw Scarmiglione of the earth with her own eyes, and she has overhead Golbez speaking of a Cagnazzo of the water. Her suspicions are confirmed when the woman leans forward, still hovering, to rest her chin in her hand and ask, "Do you refuse to kneel? Or do you not realize that you're in the presence of Barbariccia, Empress of the Winds?"
"I will not kneel." In a place like this, Rosa must cling to some scrap of pride.
Barbariccia looks more amused than offended. "You'd rather abase yourself in some other way? Very well."
Two thick sections of her move of their own accord to wind around Rosa's ankles. Alarmed, Rosa tries to kick free and instead finds herself landing hard on her back as her legs are yanked apart. As she struggles to sit up without the aid of her arms, Barbariccia's hair spirals its way up to her knees and pulls taut, digging into her skin like twine. The message is clear: cooperate or risk real damage.
"I'm a hostage," Rosa points out, fighting back hysteria. "If you hurt me—"
"Do you really think that Lord Golbez needs you alive?" Barbariccia leans in very close, and her breath is as cold as the wind on the deck of an airship. "Your foolish boy will come regardless. Have you considered that you might have been given to me as a reward for my loyalty?"
"Cecil would demand," Rosa begins, but stops herself; Cecil deals with everyone as if they share his sense of honor. She tries to dissociate herself from her fear, but she can't stop trembling. "I'll cry out."
"For whom?" Barbariccia runs a claw along the fabric over Rosa's shoulder, and it's not until the sleeve splits open that Rosa realizes how razor-sharp those claws are. Her breaths quicken beyond her ability to calm them. "Your devoted dragoon? Yes, why don't you cry out for him?"
Bitterness rises in Rosa's throat. When another flick of a claw exposes one of her breasts, she tries to cover herself with her bound arms, but a lock of Barbariccia's hair catches her wrists and pulls them above her head, forcing her back against the floor. She can't stop herself from squirming, though it does her no good.
"Do you realize how easily I could kill you?" Barbariccia looms over her, wild cataracts of hair flowing around them. One of her claws slides easily through the cloth over Rosa's midsection and pricks the soft skin beneath. "I could draw all the breath from you and watch you thrash in silence. For you, it would be like drowning on dry land."
Her mouth hovers above Rosa's. She inhales sharply, and for a horrible, infinite moment, Rosa can't breathe. Darkness rings her vision.
When air rushes back in, Rosa takes such frantic gulps of it that she coughs. "Please," she manages, "what do you—"
"Shhh." A strand of Barbariccia's hair taps Rosa's lips like a scolding finger. "Aren't you lucky that I want you?"
Rosa's stomach twists as hair twines her thighs, forcing them farther apart. She struggles and gets crushing pain in return, sharp enough to make her hiss and force her muscles to fall slack. Barbariccia presses closer and runs her a cold tongue over her throat, tracing her pulse. "Don't do this, please don't—"
"'Please,'" Barbariccia mimics. "Do you know how many would die for the honor of pleasing me?" She purrs against Rosa's throat. "How lucky you are, that I've come to offer you a place at my feet. I have three servants already, but four would please me better."
The memory of three misshapen forms chills Rosa's blood. She forces herself to focus on what seems more important, ignoring the claws trailing shallow cuts over her ribs. There's obviously no point in pleading. "Whatever you've come to offer," she says as steadily as she can, "I refuse."
"Do you think yourself in a position to refuse?" Barbariccia laughs and bites the base of Rosa's neck, hard enough to draw both blood and a pained yelp. "You're at my mercy," she says, and licks softly at the wound. "Would you not rather also be under my protection?"
That she's trying to persuade gives Rosa hope; a refusal must matter, at least a little. "I will not serve you."
Claws dig into her ribs again, deeper this time. Dark spots burst briefly in her vision. "Golbez no longer concerns himself with you. You are nothing but meat and fear, left to rot. What fool clings to such a fate? The wind is free. The wind fears nothing."
"The wind is empty noise," Rosa replies, "and hollow strength."
Barbariccia barks a laugh. "Such a sharp tongue! Show it to me."
Rosa clamps her mouth shut, but four claws stab into her thigh and make her cry out. Barbariccia strikes like a snake, pressing her cold lips over Rosa's mouth and catching Rosa's tongue between her needle-sharp teeth. Rosa's eyes water when she instinctively jerks her head.
There's nothing she can do as Barbariccia twines their tongues together, lapping at her blood. Barbariccia's hands roam over her body, shredding fabric and taking advantage of her stillness. All Rosa can do is refuse—to weep, to groan, to arch into or away from every invasive touch. When claws creep down her torso and skim dangerously, dizzyingly low, she tries to think of Cecil but cannot; thinking of him now would taint the memory of his touch.
Barbariccia angles her hand to stroke with her knuckles. Her touch is cold, but disconcertingly gentle and alarmingly deft. Rosa's throat squeezes unbidden around a breath, and it comes out half a moan.
Chuckling, Barbariccia finally releases the hold of her teeth. Fresh blood coats Rosa's throbbing tongue.
"You would dance for me," Barbariccia says softly, free hand stroking Rosa's chest with the pads of her fingers, "like a petal in the breeze. Careless and free, careless and free." The pressure of her knuckles matches the cadence of her voice. It takes all of Rosa's self-control not to buck her hips. "Say the word, and be released."
Cecil is— she can't. She can't think about Cecil without thinking about Cecil finding her like this. The whine rising in Rosa's throat breaks into a sob.
Locks of hair feather over her bare skin, as gently as if they'd never dug into her flesh. The moment is too intense to escape; Rosa can only be here and now, burning under the chill of Barbariccia's touch. She bites her own aching tongue for the clarity of pain. "I will not."
Barbariccia's hand moves faster, establishing a rhythm that forces Rosa to the edge of need. It's easier to hate this with her eyes open, but even Barbariccia's mocking, sharp-toothed grin can't disperse the heat coiling inside her. Rosa's thighs tremble against the hair creeping higher up; her every breath heaves.
Abruptly Barbariccia withdraws her hand, and Rosa's hips thrust after it. Shame convulses her body. She tastes a plea on the back of her tongue and swallows it, feeling sick. She can't trust her own voice.
"Think it over," Barbariccia says, tracing a claw along the inside of Rosa's thigh. "I'll return tomorrow to offer again."
With a noise like a vast sigh, her hair and body scatter into golden light, then nothing visible. The air in the room moves like the breaths of some enormous creature for a few seconds longer before Rosa finally feels alone.
Shaking, she scoots back against the wall and uses it to help herself sit up. Her shoulders ache; blood still flows from dozens of small wounds. But she is still alive, still herself, and still unbroken, and the distant light of the future is one night closer.
Cecil is coming, she thinks, but for now she has only herself.