WiP Whenever
I'm posting this because I don't know if I'll finish this! If I think there's some interest, I will consider doing more than that 5k or so I've got written now. Either way I liked this and wanted to share. With my same Durge from my Abdirak fic, Belladonna, 1k of pre-game first meeting Durgetash.
cw: torture
...
Blood clung to every inch of skin, coated her throat as she breathed in, the coppery tang thick and heavy in the air.
Passion cooled with the chill to her bare skin, the brief reprieve from numbness fading away once more, leaving her blank and empty. Following the wordless command of a small, sharp click of her tongue, Iris scurried over, carefully pulling her robe over her arms as she extended them to her sides. Letting her eyes drop down on the wall, she stared in silence at her erstwhile sister, the crudely made beast that she was. Orin was seething, lips pulled back to bare a twisted scowl, cloudy eyes wide with anger.
Orin hadn’t been expecting to be watched, but she should have been.
“I hope that you have sufficiently reflected on your mistakes,” she told Orin, dropping her arms as her voiceless servant finished tying the robe. “If you ever ignore my instructions again to play your stupid games, I will make you wish you never slithered out of your mother’s polluted womb. You are no artist, you are a disappointment. Idiot child.”
Picking up Orin’s knife from the table by the door, she examined the bloodstained, pink bit of flesh that flopped about on its tip as she turned it over. “You may have your tongue back.” She threw the knife at Orin’s knees, walking past her seething sister as she crossed the large, echoing stone brick chamber. Behind her, the corpses of Orin’s latest targets, used as an object lesson once more on how a killing should be performed.
She paused, glancing over her shoulder. “If you embarrass me again, I will peel away the veneer of civility from my flesh and do what I was made for. As your elder sister, it is natural for me to want the best for you. And of you. The next time I hear your voice, it will be saying ‘I am sorry, Sister. Thank you, Sister'.”
Inarticulate, burbling, some vile curse came from the figure behind her, marred by the damage her rude mouth had taken. Mannerless to the end. Truly, family was a burden unlike any other.
Her eyes drifted until they locked, finding that which did not belong.
An interloper.
The figure standing by the door with its disgustingly lax posture straightened up as she approached, but she ignored the vaguely familiar, dark-haired man. Her attention shifted instead to the woman standing to the other side of the door. An expected person. Violet, much like Iris, was veiled and dressed in burgundy, with her mouth daintily stitched closed.
Weary-eyed man and servant both turned and followed her as she walked past them, gesturing sharply.
Perhaps the man wasn’t as bumbling as she’d presumed from his portrait.
He knew enough not to speak inside a place of worship.
They paced out into a high, narrow hallway, stone-brick walls uneven, lit with flickering torchlight. They were designed to demand a single file, but the man crowded close, almost as if he expected to walk shoulder to shoulder with her. It made her walk more quickly.
“Violet, tell go fetch the prisoner in the left cell, give him the keys to Orin’s restraints, and tell him he may leave if he frees her,” she instructed quietly. If Orin didn’t kill the man, she was even more incompetent than Belladonna thought. Near-unfathomable.
Violet turned and walked away immediately at the first claustrophobic intersection, movements as silent as her sealed lips.
“I did not mean to intrude on a family matter, forgive me,” the man said, husky voice oozing what she supposed he thought was charm.
They walked for a time, his steps coming to pace with hers, until she was forced to acknowledge his presence. It was true that he was following her without knowing why. She paused, turning to face him, voice and words solemn.
“Punishments sink in much better with the added pressure of humiliation.” She paused, glancing sidelong at him, lifting her chin. “And she was the only one who had something to be ashamed of in that room. Don’t you agree, serpent of Bane?”
“I only wish our rituals seemed as…” At the slight narrowing of her eyes, he smiled, tipping his head. “Fulfilling.”
Hmph.
“Pity for you, then. Have you thought of converting?”
The Banite laughed, throwing his head back, with an unsettling earnestness. A strong emotion. It made her uncomfortable– he was uncomfortable to be around. Serenity-intruding.
Best to get rid of him quickly before she gave in to her discomfort and disemboweled him. She needed this conniving man. Unlike Orin, she knew that acting without thought meant your plans were doomed to fail.
Pray the little idiot never learned the art of forethought.
She was still far, far too impulsive, no matter how many times corrected.
“Usually I prefer that people wait until I send them an invitation before they answer it.”
He spread his hands helplessly, fingers gnarled from a lifetime of work. Not a soft man, then. “It has been on your desk for over a week. I kept anticipating its arrival, only to be disappointed. I thought a nudge might be in order to facilitate our meeting at last.”
“You need a better spy, it has been over two weeks,” she replied, trying to calculate just how he would have gotten the interloper into her ranks. No need for emotion, only action. “Well, now I know you’ve been trying to infiltrate since you arrived, no doubt, since it could not have been done easily.”
“Yes, it was quite the difficult task. If you’d like, later, I’ll tell you how I did it,” he said affably, lifting one hand to his partially bared chest. It was a beckon that invited one to stare, but she resisted.
“In detail,” she agreed. If he wanted something from her, he would be honest. If he was planning to attack her from within by making himself seem helpful, well, she would kill him. Both perfectly fine by her.
Banites were untrustworthy, it was simply in their nature, but they could work together perfectly well if she kept that in mind.
She had no desire to speak to him in a public space. Right now there was no reason to share her plans with others; they were still too early for that. Why the fool had ignored the fact that she obviously did not want to respond to his ardent requests for an invitation, she didn’t know, but even if she found him irritating she could not waste this opportunity.
“I am taking you to speak in private. You don’t have a choice.”
“Delighted,” he said, smile too wide and sly for her taste.
"That was a threat, you realize," she said, vaguely baffled by his demeanor. Pausing, she turned to face him, insisting, "killing you would be as great a victory to me as alliance."
He lifted a hand, tilting his head. "If you wanted to kill me, you would have sent the invitation. It was because you hesitated to deliver it that I felt you were sincere."
Annoyance washed over her.
Enver Gortash was going to be a supreme irritation.
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