Velathra Featherbite (featherbiting) wrote in shadowlands_ic, @ 2017-09-20 05:19:00 |
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Entry tags: | velathra featherbite |
Who: Velathra Featherbite/NPC.
What: Velathra interrogates an informant who hasn't been wholly truthful, getting closer to her objectives.
Where: London.
When: Day.
Warnings: Psychological torture and gore.
"Watch where you're goin', you clumsy great oaf!"
Crashing through the market stalls, Felix cared nothing for the chaos left in his wake. The panic of escape was all which mattered. His eyes, darting wildly, were not fixed ahead of him, but up above. Lips jabbering profanities as he crashed into and over any obstacles in his path.
Trying, desperately, to run from the blur of colour leaping from one roof to another, above him.
"Watch out!"
"Not me! N-not me! I ain't not deserved this!"
"You'll deserve some'ink if I catches you, lad!"
But Felix wasn't listening to them. Down through an alley he bolted, gaining speed and legging it towards the nearest source of salvation he could find. Money lenders could be terrible sorts if one found themselves in debt, but the two burly tupes standing guard outside would surely...
Never even see him.
For Felix was yanked upwards like a hooked fish. Unconsciousness trapping his mind shut as trauma blunted his skull from behind.
He had no idea how much time had passed, when finally coming to. Only the realisation that his skin was kissing air, stripped of clothing and left to hang by bound wrists swinging on a chained hook.
"Hello, Mouse..."
Felix stiffened as he heard that voice. A familiar term of address, taken from years when he was able to turn smaller size to criminal advantage, by fitting in places other children couldn't.
"You used to tell me the truth. I liked you better then, Mouse."
Before him was the carcass of a pig. Suspended, like him, on a chain, ready for the butcher's knife. Felix couldn't hazard a guess as to why, though he didn't like it. A dead thing. Some kind of message.
"I told you all I 'ad to tell," he insisted, but the Winter Court emissary seemed hardly to register the verbal protest. Her gliding walk calm, taking her to a small bucket and paintbrush.
"Miss... I told you all I knew."
And from the dead pig, something could be heard to make a small, muffled noise. One Velathra added to with a sudden slap of brush to human skin. The contents slick and red.
Blood.
Slap... Slap... Each one like sickeningly organic death knells against the mortal's chest. Then, carefully, she began to paint in symbols upon skin.
"I 'eard about your kind... You ain't gonna' use me for the... The what's-it? The... The teind. It ain't natural."
Ah, the teind. An old Lowland term. Velathra had heard it before. It meant tithe. A tribute some believed her kind paid every seven years to the one who ruled hell, involving captives who had been lured to their realm. It was mentioned in the 'Ballad Of True Thomas', among other tomes.
Whether there was any truth to that or not, she only gave the most ghostly of smiles to that.
"Why, Felix... A good Christian like you must appreciate how precious your soul is. Merely killing isn't discipline enough. If you can't serve me with truth, then damning you might serve me with a better payment."
"You... You could... You..."
It hardly mattered whether it was truthful or subterfuge. Thieves might not hold to honour of the materialistic variety, but to risk one's immortal true self... That was something few would willingly endanger. Certainly not for another's benefit.
Which was where the dead pig came in.
"There is much life in my world, Mouse... Some filled with beauty. Others of terror."
Placing the bucket upon floor, Velathra moved to the cadaver, touching it with hand. Choosing to withdraw the potency of ice magic and allow it to thaw quicker. Again, that disturbing noise being heard from within - that time with the carcas being made to give a sudden jerk. The noise now becoming clearer.
An angry buzzing.
"They nest within the dead... But living captives will suffice. They burrow, you see. It's a most excruciating form of demise, with the young soon hatching to grow within, feasting upon your innards. And they are most attracted by the scent of blood."
In that terrible moment, Felix shot a look down at his bare chest. If the threat to his very soul was not enough, what would soon emerge from the cadaver would lunge towards him with a ravenous hunger.
"I know who you met, Mouse. I ask only for their name. A name and what they asked of you."
"But they'll... They'll-"
"Whatever they'll do won't hurt nearly as much as this, Mouse. And the sooner I get to them, the safer you'll be."
BUZZ.
"I-i-it..."
"Tick-tock, Mouse. Your answer or your rib cage as a nest... And then your beloved Mary's. You've only your own inaction to blame."
The pig was reaching room temperature. Foul smells beginning to emanate. The vile horror within, sawing its way out with serrated mandibles. Wanting new flesh. Fresh bodies. The hideous thing impatiently writhing out of its host, dragging slick-wet segmented chitin out of the meat.
"Your answer."
Felix hadn't even realised what was yelped as the thing leapt. The fear icing through his veins, every bit as potent as the literal air which snap-froze the creature. Preventing it from burying that dreadful barbed sting into his flesh and turn him into the likeness of the pig.
Without even realising it, he had spilled the answer. Given the Unseelie huntress what she wanted.
"There, now... Was that really so difficult?"
Perhaps it was magic. More likely stress. Whatever it was, Felix slipped into unconsciousness for the second time that day, waking not too far from the Thames. Fully clothed, it was enough to make him wonder if it hadn't all been some frightful dream.
Until he next opened his shirt to find symbols in dried crimson decorating his chest.