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

[ninefox]

"This is hell, hotshot," says Thief matter-of-factly, and there's a plapping sound of webbed feet in shallow water, and a clink of glass as the gull wades in to clean up the pieces.

"Will you tell us about the outside?" Marten asks in a small voice. "Er....someday?"

[callmefives]

His breath shudders out despite his best efforts to keep it steady, but he doesn't open his eyes or look at the creatures. What feels like mockery from the ones called Thief and toast is just what he expects, but something about the way the little one, who's name he hasn't heard yet, keeps trying to be kind, just makes everything worse. They're his jailers, and he owes them nothing. So he keeps his face turned away and stays silent.

[ninefox]

They're all quiet for a little while; the chill of the water fades away, and the heat of Toast on his chest seems to radiate through him, easing some of the muscle aches. His hand, though still tingly, seems to be already healed - although the wounds left by the manacles and the God's bites are not.

"Apparently you don't think promises to gods matter, just because you made them during a difficult moment," Toast says eventually. "So I would like you to promise me that I if I let you up and take you to your room and give you privacy there, you won't make me derelict in my duty to look after you by harming yourself, let's say, until the next time He comes to you."

After that they can renegotiate.

[callmefives]

He drifts for a while, focusing on the pain to try and keep the despair from welling up too strongly, trying to ignore the creatures' presence even as Toast's warmth soaks into him. He means to keep ignoring them, but at the fox's words his head whips around and his eyes snap open.

"I didn't promise that bastard anything," he snarls. "And I'm not promising you anything either."

[ninefox]

"Guess we'll just fucking sit here then," Toast growls back grumpily.

[callmefives]

Fives turns his face away again and resumes his silence, there's no point in anything else. He's not promising them anything and he's not begging for anything. He'll rot in place before he gives them that.

[ninefox]

"Could we just carry him over?" Marten asks timidly after a little while. "He can't like being exposed out here."

"Could I, you mean," Toast grouses.

"Well, you're clearly having a great time as it is," Marten points out, a little snarkier than he's managed so far.

"Uhg. Fine. But you're staying with him. And I'm staying outside the door. Getting summoned halfway across the Point like that hurt."

It wasn't that he'd been there before, and Fives missed him; the attempt itself brought Toast down on him. The fox pads off him, although the weight and numbness hardly abates. At first it seems like a trick of perspective; the Fox is hug because its footfalls are so close. But then Toast picks Fives up by the scruff of his neck like a kitten, and Fives' whole body dangles, relaxed and utterly limp as Toast moves, smooth and massive as a gliding spaceship, through the open vault of the training ground before wriggling through the door, Marten bounding in a tiny streak below.

[callmefives]

He panics a little, then. Or maybe panics more is the right way to put it, because everything since the airlock had closed behind Krell, leaving him in this alien and forbidding place has just been varying flavors of panic. But the feeling of his entire body being beyond his control, dangling in the jaws of the massive creature that had, just moments before, been small enough to perch on his chest, makes him feel almost as helpless and as trapped as he'd been when the monster that rules his place had swallowed him whole. He can't quite bite back a whimper as his eyes snap open again so at least he can confirm he's not surrounded by that endless, blank darkness as he sways in the thing's grip.

[ninefox]

"I don't like it when he carries me like that either," Marten says apologetically from below, scurrying along the uneven floor of the cavernous crystal-lit corridors. "But it's not for very long! It's going to be okay, you'll see."

[callmefives]

Fives ignores Marten and swallows down bitter bile at being so utterly helpless and vulnerable, at being nothing more than a thing for these creatures to do with as they see fit. He's not going to pretend anything about this will ever be okay, or be lured into trying to reassure the anxious little creature. It's probably just putting on a show anyway, pretending it cares to try and get him to cooperate.

[ninefox]

Toast stops in front of another door, and Fives finds that, despite feeling sluggish and heavy, he has control of his limbs again. Toast makes a muffled noise; Marten startles.

"Oh! Right! You have to open the door! It's yours so we can't," he explains, a bit quaveringly.

[callmefives]

"Bantha osik," he mumbles. "Didn't keep this fucker out of the other room."

[ninefox]

"Training grounds aren't as private as your own rooms, and Toast has more access than me," Marten explains, cringing a little. Toast dumps Fives more-or-less gently on the ground and then flops down himself, the bulk of him blocking the tunnel.

"What he doesn't want to say is that just because you don't believe you made an oath doesn't make oath magic not work," Toast explains, voice slightly raspy.

[callmefives]

Fives leans into the wall, trying not to sway on his feet, refusing to look at either of the creatures. "I fucking didn't, but apparently that doesn't matter if it's how the fucking monster you serve wants to see it," he snarls, and lays his hand to the door's lock, then tries to stumble in and close it behind him before the little ferrety thing can follow him in.

[ninefox]

Unfortunately for Fives, Marten is a very determined, very agile little noodle, who manages to squirm directly between Fives' ankles before the door reforms.

Inside, the room is plain, but nice. It's warm here. The light is warm and bright, and there's an alcove hewn right out of the rock that's almost the dimensions of one of the old sleeping tubs, filled with pillows and cushions. It's got a curtain hanging over the open side, currently rolled up and tied with brightly colored mismatched bows, orange and magenta and mint green. The walls are painted in a 360-degree mural that looks remarkably like a slightly wonky garden, painted by someone without opposable thumbs and who has never seen a real one. In several instances the flowers are painted up and down the stems where leaves should go, for example, with multiple colors on the same plant.

There are empty shelves, as though Fives might later want to fill them with something, and in the center of the room, a lot table rises out of the floor, its slightly rumpled, sloping sides indicate it was originally a stalagmite cut flat. On it is a cup of water, and a tray filled with little pastries. They smell good, too, buttery and savory.

"We...we weren't sure what you'd like," Marten says meekly. He's still not at all sure.

[callmefives]

Fives goes very still as the door reforms and he's trapped inside with the creature despite his efforts to avoid just that. His fists clench and unclench and he takes a few slow, deep breaths as he fights down the urge to just kick the little thing across the room. He knows duty, and it's not fair to take his rage out on someone else with no more choice or control than he has.

"Nothing," he growls when he finally feels like he can say something without howling in despair. He ignores the pastry and the water and heads straight for the alcove, trying not to limp or let just how worn and damaged he is show. At least it's small enough it might feel like privacy, he hopes, and he crawls awkwardly in and collapses, facing away from the room and trying not to think about the deep, throbbing ache in his ass that seems magnified tenfold without the sharper, more immediate pain of the glass shards to focus on.

[ninefox]

Marten gives a small, whistling sigh.

"You and Him both," he mutters, in a very small voice, although it isn't really true, he's sure, of either of them. He doesn't follow Fives inside the alcove, wiggling onto a shelf and curling up there instead, doing his best to wait.

[callmefives]

Fives doesn't move, doesn't speak, doesn't come out, though his labored breathing makes it clear he's not resting either. Certainly not sleeping.

Before Krell locked him in solitary he'd hardly been alone in his life, even as a cadet they'd often courted disciplinary action to share their sleeping tubes, and since then he's shared massive barracks quarters with anywhere from a dozen to a hundred of his brothers. Being cut off like this, alone and abandoned and disgraced, is more than he thinks he can bear. At least before he'd expected it to be short-lived, even if the end he'd expected had been his death, but now it appears he's meant to go on like this endlessly, existing for the pleasure of the monster he's been threatened with his entire short life, and the only defiance he seems able to offer is to refuse to cooperate in any way.

He's dehydrated enough he doesn't have to piss, and he's been fed little enough the last few weeks, and even that just their standard field rations that they process nearly one hundred percent without waste, so he doesn't have to deal with the added humiliation of soiling himself as he simply lies there, refusing to engage. Refusing to eat or drink or do anything to help prolong his existence. Maybe he can't hurt himself, but he won't do anything to sustain his life either.

[ninefox]

After a few hours, there's a soft rustling and a dimming of the light as Marten unties the little bows holding up the curtain. Then he slips inside and curls up on the same pillow as Fives' head. By combination of coincidence, gravity, and Fives' adamant choice to keep his back turned, the warm little lump of Marten's body slides down a bit so that he's nestled against the back of Fives' neck.

[callmefives]

He goes stiff at the intrusion, not that he'd been relaxed before.

When he tries to speak, at first all that comes out is a croaking rasp, and he swallows twice and licks dry lips with a not much moister tongue before trying again. "Go away," he manages, his voice cracked and unsteady and barely audible.

[ninefox]

"Please at least have some water?" Marten begs, uncurling and scooting a little on the pillow so they aren't touching, although the pillow itself jiggles slightly as he wiggles fretfully.

[callmefives]

"No. Leave me alone," is his only response. That and a hand reaching behind Fives' head to try and push him off the pillow and out of the alcove entirely, despite the faint, betraying feeling of comfort at having the little creature's warmth close by, as proof that he's not completely alone.

[ninefox]

Marten is just as soft as Fives wondered; there's a tiny thump as he slides out of the alcove and lands on the floor, followed after a moment by the almost-inaudible skittering of his paws.

[callmefives]

Fives' breath shudders unevenly for a while after that, as he fights back a panic attack. He's alone. Alone and abandoned, dishonored and soiled and imprisoned, and he can't even claim it's not true anymore. Not after he gave himself to that thing.

He pulls his knees up to his chest, curling in on himself despite the way it makes the ache in his ass go sharp, and the fresh trickle of what he hopes is blood down his thighs. He just thanks the Lady for how dehydrated he is, or he thinks he might humiliate himself further with tears.

[ninefox]

It's a long time before anything happens; for a little while, there's a soft wheezy sound of Marten snoring somewhere nearby, and then in fades again.

Finally, the dim light trickling through the curtain dims again sinks over the space of several seconds into total darkness once again.

"My Lord! I'm so sorry, but he wouldn't -" squeaks the little voice; the God only says "Out, Marten." He scampers as fast as Fives has heard so far, and there's the sound of the door closing after him.