Until We Have Faces

[ninefox]

Krell had to pin him with the Force to get him on the altar, and not gently. The back of his head might be bleeding, but it's hard to tell: the antechamber already smells of iron. The whole station is a bristling-black hulk of ancient ore, nickel and iron and ice and stone. The lack of anything resembling alloys or right angles makes it feel horribly unreliable, not a machine guaranteed to keep the air in, but an ancient brooding piece of debris untouched by the steadiness of engineers. It did have an airlock, that Krell and a few shame-faced clone guards shuffled him through, and iced-over doors somewhere in the dimness of their crisscrossed headlamps that must lead back into the warren of Ninefox Point.

The benighted promontory did not orbit so much as a brown dwarf or black hole: it was a rogue planetoid, drifting through the ragged stretches of starless, lifeless space. Here, old Strife, the Dark Side of War, had been confined ever since the ascendancy of the Jedi, noble Combat, and the rest of the Light pantheon. But even reviled and relegated Gods were due certain honors, and retained certain powers - and certain appetites. And Krell - who had his own suspicions about the future of that ascendancy - had come to give Strife his due and be rid of his most vexing problem in one blow.

It's pitch-black with him and the others gone. The heavy magnetic manacles embedded in the alter are utterly immovable; the stone beneath him is pitted and rough and cold, almost untouched since the creation of the universe - except, of course, for all the sacrifices that have come before.

Comments

[callmefives]

They'd taken his armor away before they'd even locked him in the brig on Krell's ship, he has nothing but his blacks and boots (and surprised he was allowed even that) against the frigid cold of this dark and desolate place. He doubts that will matter much, though, he doesn't expect to live long enough to have to worry about freezing.

He'd fought, of course, fought being shoved into the brig, fought being dragged out and escorted to be chained up here; it's just more proof that he's defective, that he hadn't accepted his fate with the calm and perfect obedience expected of his kind. Defective. Broken. Heretical. Damned. He'd cursed Krell and tried to sway his brothers with every breath, watched with dwindling hope as his brothers blanched in horror and fear at his temerity. And then the doors had clanged shut behind him, leaving him in the dark and cold, the only sound the eerie groaning of this strange not-ship.

He goes silent, then. He won't beg, and there's no point threatening what awaits him here. He takes slow, deep breaths that are more labored than he'd like, but he can't stop the fear from rising as he's finally left to face his fate. Not the clean death in battle that's all they've ever been allowed to hope for, serving the God of Noble Combat, but the traitor's death they've all heard tell of, though it's supposedly been centuries since anyone had even set foot in this cursed place, let alone brought a sacrifice.

He knows what's coming, though; even if he hadn't remembered it from the nightmare fuel of what had passed for his childhood, Krell made sure to tell him in gruesome detail exactly what to expect. He knows he'll be lucky if the demon god kills him before he starts to eat him, and that will only come after he's been violated in every conceivable way, and some beyond the grasp of mortal minds. He's not just going to die, he's going to suffer. But he was made to suffer, was trained to withstand torture at an age when citizens were just learning their letters, if that.

He's hoped for a clean death, but he's never expected one, and so he breathes. And waits. And makes no sound, at least for now. He knows he'll cry out, there's no particular honor in refusing to, but the one thing he promises himself is that he will not beg.

[ninefox]

There's no footfalls, no breathing, no sound of warning whatsoever before a claw presses against Fives' neck in the total darkness. The first sound is the fabric of Fives' blacks ripping as the claw slides down, unbearably loud in the maddening silence. The air that hits his bared chest is - less cold than expected. The claw itself is hot, not searing but just a little painful, like metal left in the sun.

[callmefives]

His breath catches and he almost jerks against his bonds. Only doesn't because it would mean jerking into that razor sharp claw as well, and even terror won't override his instincts in that regard.

"Fuck you," Fives rasps, because it's not like being a compliant offering will do him any good, though his voice is higher pitched and less steady than he'd like.

[ninefox]

Strife laughs, a deep rolling crackling noise that's a little bit like blaster fire, and a little bit like cracking stone, and a little bit like the yipping scream of a wild animal.

"And here I thought you'd all forgotten." The voice is low and rich and oozing; something warm and wet laps at the back of his head while more of his blacks are sliced away.

[callmefives]

The laugh sends a shiver down his spine, but the voice is even worse, somehow. Full of anticipation and promise. Promise of horror.

It's the feeling of something lapping at the blood seeping from his scalp that finally has him jerking away, breath stuttering out as he strains against his bonds.

"Coward," he snarls, almost reflexively defiant. "Easy to terrorize an immobilized captive in the dark."

[ninefox]

"I'm not going to rush just because you're easy," the voice murmurs, and then laughs again, although there's a different edge to it now, slightly mad and slightly silly, the laugh of someone who has been alone for a long, long time snickering at their own pun.

A mouth covers Fives' mouth, too forceful to properly be called a kiss, but wet and hot and insistent. The jaw shape isn't quite human, and the teeth are predatory, all sharp tearing canine teeth, and the tongue in Fives' mouth is too strong and too flexible and too long. But it doesn't choke him and it doesn't bite him.

Soft, warm fur covers over Fives' bared skin, but he can't get any better sense of the shape of the whole creature than he could before.

"And it's better for you if we stay in the dark. I promise you that." This doesn't sound amused at all; it's the most serious the voice has been so far.

[callmefives]

"I'll show you kriffing e-" His voice cuts off with a muffled gagging sound as the mouth covers his, and he thrashes frantically though uselessly, more against the weight of the thing over him than the manacles holding him in place.

His heart is hammering and he reeks of terror, and when the thing takes his mouth again he reacts, as much on instinct as intention. It might not bite him, but he bites it, viciously hard, trying to sink his teeth right through the invading tongue. Maybe he can piss it off enough to just kill him if he's lucky.

[ninefox]

There's more weight on him, suddenly, and more heat; he might be sweating on his front, despite the growing numbness of his back. A hand with too many finger joints wraps around his scalp, trying and failing to grab his short hair; after a few moments it wraps around his throat instead, not too tight to breath, just close and firm. There's a taste in Fives' mouth like rust and ashes and ozone, and the tongue pushes in deeper.

[callmefives]

He makes a sound somewhere between a whine and a growl, muffled by the tongue in his mouth, and bites down harder. Trying desperately to grind his teeth through the thing until his jaw aches, gagging at the foul taste in his mouth that just gets thicker and sharper. Going short of breath, not for the terrifyingly strange hand at his throat, but for the weight bearing down on his chest. The panic adrenaline coursing through him just makes the sweating worse, and where he's not immobilized by his bonds or the demon's weight he's trembling.

[ninefox]

The tongue slides back out of his throat once his teeth let go, and those sharp teeth nibble at the line of his jaw without ever breaking the skin. Something - another tongue - laps at the sweat pooling along the line of his sternum without the rest of the body moving off him. He nuzzles and licks Fives' neck at the same time.

"You're something special, aren't you?" murmurs the voice, just as deep and languid as before, but with no hint of sarcasm.

[callmefives]

Fives turns his head and spits the second his mouth is free, then tries to strain away from those nibbling teeth. And oh kriff, how many mouths does this thing have? How many teeth between them? How long before stops toying with him and starts tearing at his flesh?

"I'm not kriffing yours," he spits, fear giving his voice more strength. "Whatever I am, I'm not that!" Krell might call him traitor, but he's never betrayed his brothers, and he doesn't belong to this thing any more than he belonged to the Republic or their Jedi priests, no matter what they were taught.

[ninefox]

Claws sink into him, not deep but sharp and in too many places, at his shoulders, at one hip, at his calf, under his ass. A wave of heat washes over him like standing next to a bonfire.

"You are mine," he snarls, and his voice sounds like thunder and breaking bones. "You are mine now. And I'm not letting you go."

[callmefives]

The sudden sharp pain of claws sinking into his flesh makes it all irrationally easier. It's proof of what to expect and he's used to pain; it's an old friend, not something to be feared. Pain he can endure.

"Never fucking yours!" he snarls, even as the voice turns his bowels to ice. Fear is no more alien than pain, after all, and the only thing he has left in the darkness is defiance.

[ninefox]

Another of those long-fingered hands splays over his heart.

"You were always mine," the voice counters, softer again, like the soft crackle of wood burning. "My crooked, vicious little soldier boy. You were never quite right, were you? Not for what they wanted. Because you had my fire in your wild heart."

He laps at the claw marks at one shoulder, then rests his strange head there.

"Tell me your name, wildling."

[callmefives]

"No," he protests, almost choking on the word. He thinks the voice might be worse like this; insidious, almost alluring. Better the sharp crack of its rage than this.

"No matter what that etyc shabuire Krell said-" He spits the name, like it's a curse unto itself, almost too vile to even pass his lips- "I"m not a kriffing traitor. I'm not." And so he doesn't belong to the god of traitors and liars. He might have been left here, given as an offering, but he refuses to accept that he belongs here. You can't betray something or someone you owe no loyalty to, and he has never betrayed his brothers.

[ninefox]

"The sssupplicant be damned," he hisses and crackles, in almost the same tone Fives used. "And you can't betray sssomething that never deserved you. Isss that what they ssay about me, now?"

[callmefives]

The answer catches him with a kind of surprise nothing else has, close echo of his own thoughts that it is. And then he realizes that's exactly what it must be, echoing his own thoughts back at him.

"What else would they say about you?" he snarls. "Demon god of traitors and cowards."

[ninefox]

"There are no demon gods," corrects, not with anger but a sort of impatient primness. "There are gods. And I am war, and you have always been with war. No matter how much of me they chain here, I am my sister's shadow. I am the eyes where she is blind. I am the screaming when she is silent, and the silence when she cheers. Everything forgotten and everything denied by those who fly their banners high, that is mine. Traitors and lies and atrocities, yes. And you, too, whatever you were too brave to swallow that no one wanted to hear."

He presses a soft kiss to the corner of Fives' mouth, and his lips feel almost perfectly human, except for the shape of the teeth underneath them, and running a few degrees too hot.

"Tell me your name, wildling. What would you ask me for it?"

[callmefives]

He turns his head away again at the kiss, shocked by the gentleness of it, a kind of utterly alien tenderness he's never experienced in his life.

"As if you can't just pluck it from my mind," he rasps. And he won't be tricked into cooperating, into some delusion that if just gives this creature what it wants it won't be so bad.

[ninefox]

He presses the same kiss to the other side.

"I can't," he murmurs. "I am of the Force, but I don't use it. You are a soul. And a bright one at that."

[callmefives]

He squeezes his eyes shut, shivering with fear and confusion, not cold.

"I'm not giving you anything. Whatever you get you'll have to kriffing take." He's not going to cooperate in his own destruction, even in so small a way.

[ninefox]

"What would you want for it?" He asks again, trailing more of those soft, gentle kisses down Fives' chest.

[callmefives]

Fives shivers again and tries (and fails) to arch away from those kisses. He remembers the teeth behind those lips, and the tongue.

At the question he barks a mirthless, almost manic laugh. "What would I want? Give me my freedom and maybe I'll give you my name."

[ninefox]

"Give me my freedom and I'll give you the burning world on a platter," he growls, before settling a mouth around Fives' nipple, sucking and teasing with flicks of tongue. "But I will not be alone again," the voice murmurs quietly, almost to himself.

[callmefives]

He laughs again, sharp and disbelieving. "As if-"

He cuts off with a choked sound that turns into a whine as the thing sucks at his nipple, and he reminds himself he's bound here. Tries to focus on the warmth of blood trickling from a dozen claw wounds. Tries with everything in him not to acknowledge how good it feels, even as his traitor body reacts and he shivers again, this time with the urge to arch into the heat of the thing's mouth.