Darkness. Hungry tendrils made of shadows crawl across the ceiling, preying on the sunlight and also what little hope remains inside the poor tortured creature, the impenetrable curtains of ink cover the whole chamber choking any trace of shimmer that would otherwise dare to threaten the night's domain. Vayne is lying in a pool of dark crimson, arms wrapped around her head and cheeks stained with blood and tears as another kick shatters her ribs and bruises her internal organs and she can only cry out in pain as her tormentor's hand grabs a hold of her messy black braid and forces her back on her knees.
"You are a monster."
Quinn punches her again and Vayne grunts weakly as the air is suddenly knocked out of her lungs, a shaky hand reaches for the hem of her mate's shirt as wet ruby eyes rise to meet beautiful shining orbs of amber.
"Stop, please… Please, don't call me that."
The ranger responds with another blow, this time to the side of the head and Vayne screams as the scout's knuckles make contact with her unprotected flesh, crashing her ear.
"But you are a monster, Shauna. Normal human beings don't go around killing children or gobble down their victims' blood."
Shauna just whimpers softly, her gaze lowers, her broken fingers twitch nervously still wrapped around the soft fabric of her mate's shirt.
"I didn't mean to kill him, it was an accident, I swear!"
Another blow makes contact with her body and then another one and Vayne is suddenly facing the ceiling and she can't move at all. Quinn kneels down next to her, grabs a hold of her hair and roughly yanks her head upwards until Shauna can peer into her angry amber eyes.
"Do you know why you can't move?"
Shauna tries to shake her head or whisper an answer, but she soon finds out that she can do neither of those things and that her body feels heavy and unresponsive. Quinn just smirks at that, smiling at her sweetly and something in that cheerful, obviously fake expression completely terrifies the wounded vampire.
And then Quinn suddenly starts stroking her cheek, carefully avoiding the bruised flesh and horrible injuries and Shauna can't really help it when a small blush finds its way to her tired face and she starts purring involuntary. Quinn's smile widens until it almost threatens to split off her face and disappear under the ocean of red.
"Oh, ho ho, I didn't know you were a masochist my little vampire, and here I thought that damaging your spine and muscles would scare you, but it looks like you are really enjoying yourself there. Oh, well, I think I might have to step up my game."
Shauna shoots her an alarmed glare, but the scout just smiles happily and gives the vampire a little peck on the forehead.
"Hmm, how about we strangle you a little bit.. Oh and we can use heated silver bolts to decorate your body with beautiful drawings! And then we can brand you! It's only fair since your stupid curse mark gave me an ugly black tattoo without asking for my permission! But, first…"
Shauna is already crying, she tries to crawl away, but she is still paralyzed and she can't even move a finger, she sends the scout one last pleading look as the woman starts dragging her towards a big black metal box shaped like an oversized coffin, filled with tiny keyholes, the size of a bronze coin and Shauna doesn't even have to look inside to know that the interior is plated with pure silver.
Quinn opens the door and unceremoniously dumps the vampire inside, intentionally letting her land on her fractured shoulder before locking the hatch behind her and Shauna can't even close her eyes as she finds herself trapped inside the most dreaded object of her childhood. She hears Quinn's muffled voice as the woman walks away leaving her to rot inside her silver plated prison and Shauna whimpers again as her gaze wanders across the bloodied scratch marks littering the box's surface, grim reminders of Shauna's previous encounters with the horrible torture instrument.
"Try to get a bit of rest, dear. You and I are going to have a lot of fun when I get back."
00000
Pain is a dear old friend to her at this point and after all the grueling tortures the scout has put her through and all the traumatizing events Shauna was forced to witness, something inside the wounded vampire snaps and her mind starts deteriorating. Shauna soon begins to question her own motives and experiences and as pain fades and her doubts start settling in, her own mindset starts changing, maybe irreversibly.
Black knives made of inky black shadows descend from the ceiling and start engraving her flesh with curses and venomous insults, but Vayne doesn't scream anymore and in fact she doesn't even notice the new circle of torment, because her mind is wandering elsewhere, darting between past experiences and old beliefs and her eyes are dull and lifeless.
Why had she been so scared of this before? Why had she been so frightened, desperately trying to avoid being tortured? Pain didn't mean a thing after her vocal cords were torn by her own frantic screams of agony and her voice was stolen from her. Her parent's death, one of the most traumatic experiences of her entire life wasn't so scary anymore after she was forced to witness Quinn being torn to shreds by a pack of rabid vampires, each one of them bearing her own smiling visage.
And that wasn't all of course, because as Nocturne kept twisting her memories in order to feed off the negative energy produced by her emotions, even Caleb's tragic death, Shauna's second most gut-wrenching experience, finally lost its impact. The innocent child was soon reduced to nothing more than a ghoulish abomination craving blood and murder and had even sank its teeth into Vayne's unprotected face whist Quinn continued beating her senseless.
Some distant, small part of Shauna's still intact brain, locked deeply inside the darkest corners of the tortured huntress' psyche and more specifically the calm persona of the Night Hunter, was still somewhat capable of rational thinking and renounced the woman's sudden change of behavior. The Hunter kept insisting that all of those images were nothing more than cruel illusions meant to break her, but Vayne just discarded the idea. She was a mindless monster after all and like the vampire that had slaughtered her family so many years ago, Shauna couldn't comprehend the meaning of remorse and kindness, or so she had finally convinced herself.
It was a logical conclusion, really. Quinn, Jarvan, Katarina and even the King, Jarvan Lightshield the third, himself, all of those famous, renowned paragons of strength and virtue, worshipped by their people like living gods considered her a mindless beast incapable of feeling anything but hate and hunger. So, maybe they were right.
The public loved them, their looks were astonishing and their voices carried a lot more weight than Vayne's meek opinion ever would, but more importantly everyone trusted their judgment, more so than her own at least and there was probably a reason for that. Well, apart from them being perfectly normal human beings and her being an undead abomination, she hoped.
So maybe, just maybe her tormentors were right all along and maybe she really was just a rampaging monstrosity and she had been the one deluding herself with illusions of fake emotions, trying to prove herself otherwise, pretending to be something that she really wasn't and in possession of something truly unreachable for her greedy bloodstained fingers. Love, Friendship and probably even Happiness.
Yes, that conclusion was passable since those simple qualities escaped her all her life and that would also explain why everyone hated her guts even if they haven't even met her yet. What kind of madman would actually extend a helping hand towards a ruthless monster like her, capable of maiming him in seconds? She was just a beast, she realized, no wonder the soldiers guarding her cell hadn't stopped hitting her no matter how much she screamed and begged for mercy, and it also explained Quinn's unusual behavior.
The scout wasn't a cruel or violent person and if Shauna had to describe her with a single word, that word would definitely be compassionate, so all the beatings and tortures she suffered at the ranger's hands didn't make any sense until she started considering things from the scout's perspective.
If the people around her were actually right, and their view of her being a ruthless beast with an absence of emotions correct, then in reality Shauna was the odd one and Quinn had nothing to feel bad about, because then the scout wasn't doing anything wrong in the first place. Quinn was just taking out her frustration on the emotionless killing machine that had stolen her brother's life.
Yes, that must really be the case, Shauna silently nodded to herself as her mother's corpse rose from the ground and started clawing at her face. Quinn was such a ridiculously, good person, that some might even consider naive and she must have somehow unveiled Shauna's true heinous nature or she would have stopped hurting her otherwise. So her being a beast must have been the undeniable truth.
A boot comes down only to crash her last intact fingers and Shauna doesn't even blink. Caleb crawls out of his grave and starts chewing on random pedestrians, but Vayne just ignores him. Her body starts moving on its own accord and her fangs sink into the fragrant soft flesh of the ranger, but Shauna is again too preoccupied by her own thoughts to notice any of this.
Quinn's life won't be the last innocent life she ends up claiming anyway, vampires tend to do those horrible things from time to time, and if she fails and the scouts start torturing her again? Well, why does it even matter at this point? If it isn't Quinn, someone even more savage and ruthless will surely capture her and start torturing her, that's the fate of inhuman beasts after all.
And when the Eternal Nightmare finally appears in front of her and starts threatening to permanently discard her precious childhood memories Vayne just laughs in his face, uttering hollow choked sounds and spiting her cursed blood, because those happy shards of dreamlike pictures originating from her previous life are probably also figments of her imagination, constructed by her unstable beast-like brain. So she smiles at the specter and starts laughing and the scene looks so horribly wrong and disturbing because the huntress' doesn't have a voice anymore and there is some sort of weird transparent liquid leaking out of her lifeless irises and because even if she doesn't feel a thing and her pain is artificial, the vampire still possesses a heart and it is currently bleeding.
Note: Sometimes I feel like I am writing this story just to torment Vayne, but then I remind myself that I just like drama and dark imagery. This chapter ended up too long so I dissected it, I am also annoyed by all the unused paths this story could take, but I think that 25 chapters are already too long and I am trying to reach the story's conclusion. We will talk more about discarded ideas in the next chapter.