Part 2
The throne room was jam packed with all manner of fae, a riot of color from the balconies above to the ground floor below. Word had spread quickly, but Iomhar supposed he couldn’t be surprised. It had been many years since the last public punishment and the first incident of the new king’s reign. Many would have shown themselves to see how the new king handled himself. Many others merely attended in anticipation of bloodshed. The bloodlust that ran through the room of gentry and wandering fae alike was nearly palatable. A reminder that, for all of the gentry’s elegance and poise, they were not very different from the dangerous Seelie of legend. The ones who would smile as they doomed some hapless mortal to a cruel fate.
Not for the first time he found himself unenvious of the king’s duty to rule such a fickle and merciless people.
Or perhaps he should refrain from acting above the rest with the blood of another still staining the blade that the guards had taken from him.
The crowd’s excited hum grew the moment the man set foot into the throne room, shackled and now divested of his shirt. Iomhar’s eyes scanned the room briefly, noting the king atop his throne at one end of the room and Lord Brùn, of course, as front and center as the guards would have allowed. The man’s grin as he locked eyes with Iomhar was especially vicious.
Iomhar strolled forward as if he had not a care in the world until he reached the marked space on the ground, equally spaced between the throne and the crowd, facing the latter. The guard approached and released him from his shackles, only to roughly shove the man to his knees as the energy in the room grew frenetic.
Two thick branches of wood sprouted from the ground on either side of Iomhar, sturdy and implacable. Handiwork of the one beloved by Seelie.
“Arms out.” The king’s voice rose easily above the noise, and the crown immediately quieted. Each pressed forward to get the best view as Iomhar complied. Thick vines shot out from the wood and wrapped around the man’s wrists, holding him fast in place before the crowd.
Iomhar tried his best to keep his breathing steady.
“Iomhar Mèinnearach,” The Seelie king spoke out, carrying throughout the room. “You are to be punished for the murder of Lord Arasgain, a punishment that will be carried out before all of Seelie.”
Iomhar took another breath.
“Seventy-five lashes, to be carried out until completion.”
The room broke out into an excited buzz of noise, a crescendo that rose as Iomhar heard one of the guards approach behind him. Heard the crack of the whip through the air. He wondered what expression the king wore at that moment. He was grateful that Sivel did not have to see this.
The first lash was agony.
Fire striped across Iomhar’s back in a blazing inferno and the man fought back the urge to let out a pained noise.
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“You are suggesting a whip tipped with iron?” Camhlaidh’s voice was incredulous.
“The Lord wants fifty lashes? Make it seventy-five.”
“Are you insane?!”
“We are making a point, that way he will feel properly avenged and this can all be over. With the added bonus of making you appear especially ferocious against wrongdoers, something to shut up those who whisper of you being too soft. You have to make it hurt.”
“You are insane.”
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The second blow hurt just as much as the first, if not more. Iomhar’s arms strained against the posts, the vines restraining his arms, but there was no reprieve from the misery that laced across his back with each crack of the whip. Five. Ten. Fifteen. He lost count of how many strikes he had endured around the twenty mark. Some time later he was finally unable to hold in his screams of agony.
Though he had dealt with iron before, the pain of the whip hurt in ways he was entirely unused to. It robbed him of his thought, of his breath. His vision swam amidst the sea of silver flecks spraying the ground around him in a gruesome viscera of art.
A particularly deep strike finally robbed the man of his ability to hold himself up and he went limp, only held up by his restraints.
Sivel...Sivel...at least he hadn’t....
He lost track of how long the whipping continued, each moment stretching into an agonizingly infinite bit of time. His thoughts were so muddled with pain that he barely realized the next strike did not come and that his punishment had been seen through.
The vines retreated, leaving Iomhar to collapse to the ground in a fresh wave of agony that stole his very breath from his body. The man’s vision swam in and out, arms were lifting him from the mess of blood around. But, right before darkness claimed him. Iomhar sought out Lord Brùn’s pleased face in the roiling crowd, and he shot the gentry a smug grin.
He had the pleasure of watching the man’s face morph into rage right before a wave of black drug him into unconsciousness.
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Randomly thinkin about Chilchuck today, and how he tries sooooo hard to self sabotage
like for example, other half foots on the island think that he's a greedy asshole who only cares about money, and he does nothing to try to disprove that
but then there's this omake at the end of book 9 that shows that people treat half foots fucking TERRIBLY and chilchuck started a union to protect them
and then in the bicorn chapter, he doesn't want Marcille to keep digging into his personal business so he tells her he CHEATED ON HIS WIFE
but he just COMPLETELY fuckin lied about that and made himself sound so much worse than he is bc he's afraid of being vulnerable with people and would rather everyone believes he's a shitty person so he can keep them at a distance
and the thing that's memed so often is that he refuses to help with fighting most of the time because it's not part of his contract
but if you take this lore into account (not gonna add those particular images to this post simply bc I've used them in so many posts already LMAO) along with this tidbit from the world guide:
then it's like. yeah he has to keep his weight low so if he gets killed or severely injured and has to be healed, that could be really dangerous for him. and even if he was healed at that point he'd end up being a burden to the party after that point, he would be too dangerously thin/sickly to be able to help.
Like, Chilchuck has so many things about him that APPEAR to be character flaws, but every single one of them has a very reasonable explanation. He just leans into the mischaracterization bc he's emotionally withholding and can handle people thinking he's an asshole more than he can handle opening up to anyone. he's such a well thought out and interesting character
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