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Pain is a strange thing. Given a long enough span of time, it can become almost pleasurable, or at least a neutral sensation. You feel the hot sharp sting of Cazador's blade slice into your back over and over. But you are disconnected, floating above it all.
You're quiet now, tears running down your cheeks. You loathe giving him the satisfaction of seeing you weep but, like so many things, it is beyond your control at this point—an automatic physical response to hours of prolonged, overwhelming agony.
Your body is motionless as sculpted clay under his frigid hands. Muscles had begun to tremble of their own accord hours ago; his magic stills them. If you move, you know, he will have to make more revisions, or start all over again.
"I suppose that will do. Return to the dormitory, boy."
He sounds vaguely disappointed. A poem, he'd told you. Somehow you have failed as a canvas for his artistic mutilation. Too much avoidable editing, perhaps. You wonder why he didn't simply paralyze you completely, but you suspect he enjoys finding reasons to punish you. Perhaps this was a punishment? Whatever the cause, if any at all, you are relieved to be spared the kennel.
"Yes, Master," a hollow voice replies. You realize it is your own. Just like the blood on the carpet. You wonder if you will be made to clean it later.
Dismal gray light mocks you through the windows. Dawn. He spent an entire night engaged in bloody composition, your pale skin vellum for his creative vision. You ought to feel something about that, maybe; you can't.
You stagger, legs shaking, to the room you share with your siblings. It is a miracle you manage the stairs without falling. Or you assume you do; there is a momentary lapse of consciousness and you find yourself curled up tightly in a ball on one of the bottom bunks, eyes shut, your back to the wall as if that could protect the tender flesh from anyone wishing to do you further harm.
Yet even in suffering you aren't afforded any privacy. Your sister's soft voice drifts in like the tide.
"My last mark was an alchemist's apprentice. She... well, I have a healing salve. It's yours, if you'd like. I still owe you for stitching up my arm."
Dalyria is clever to disguise her kindness with practicality, although you both know better.
"You're my favorite, Dal," you say, barely more than a hoarse whisper. It's painful to speak. Your throat is so raw from screaming.
"Mhm. Show me. I need to assess the damage."
Always a doctor, you think with admiration. The brisk professional detachment in her tone is oddly comforting. It must be nice to know yourself as she does. Your world has become so small, the person you once were such a distant memory, all but faded.
With great effort, you maneuver yourself onto your stomach. You are already shirtless, which is a small mercy; just the idea of fabric touching your maimed back, or what's left of it, makes you feel a bit faint.
You hear Dalyria stifle a horrified gasp when she sees what he did to you. You ought to feel angry. You feel disgusting. Ashamed.
"Brother... gods..."
Her voice sounds brittle, choked; the air of unshakable physician's confidence is suddenly gone. There is only your little sister here, teetering on the edge of tearful. You can't bear it. You've cried more than enough for yourself tonight already.
"Come now, darling, none of that," you soothe, all false cheer. "No sense letting some—frankly probably mediocre—poetry upset you, hm?"
She's seen you wounded before, obviously. They all have countless times. You torment each other and yourselves, on his orders or sometimes just because you can, because you're starving or viciously bored, and that's only when the master and that bloody skeleton can't be bothered. Dalyria no doubt contended with worse injuries in her mortal life, too. She can bear the sight of your blood easily enough.
Why, then, is this particular instance so different? What does she see etched there on your flesh?
"Tell me, Dal. Be my mirror." The old phrase invoked for everything from checking your hair is perfect before prowling the dark streets to, well, this. "Is it... Am I hideous?"
Part of you almost hopes so, the same pathetic part that recoils both from a dagger and a lover's caress. You are far more terrified, however, to lose the one asset of real value you have anymore.
"Of course not, brother," she says. How bizarre it feels for you, an expert in deception, to be the one lied to. "But it... This might be beyond a simple salve."
"Try," you plead with her, hoping it sounds more like a command. You are desperate for any relief from the waves of nauseating pain crashing over you.
She draws a shaky breath. "Okay."
Her hands are careful, steady, but the treatment hurts, too, at first. The salve is cool against your skin and somewhat numbing, easing your aching muscles, although it is not itself magical. The jagged cuts do not mend. You suspect Cazador's damn needle probably was enchanted to prevent effective healing. He wouldn't want to risk having his hard work ruined by a pilfered potion.
"It will scar, I'm afraid," she says, as if you aren't viscerally aware of that fact.
"As he intended."
She hums whilst she works. Sometimes you like to imagine there are simple things like that Cazador can't take from you all. But the truth, you know, is that he could if he desired it. Could render you mute, mindless thralls if he didn't relish the sound of your screams, the challenge of breaking you in new ways.
"Oh hells, what's Astarion done now?"
Great. Petras. Now there is a voice you wouldn't mind never hearing again. Just when you were beginning to believe you might be able to rest a little.
"Shut up," you snap. Your nerves are frayed. He would be wise not to test your extremely limited patience right now.
But wisdom has never been your brother's strong suit, has it.
"Just saying, if you didn't give him so much lip maybe the master wouldn't have to beat you too badly. Even dogs can learn that eventually."
"Thank you, brother dear, as ever a bastion of wisdom," you say through gritted teeth.
"What did you call me?!"
"Enough, you two! Please don't fight," Dalyria begs, like always.
"I deliver twice the marks he does," Petras insists, which you doubt is true given his everything. He'd have to knock out half of his targets and drag them to the palace. Perhaps he does. "Astarion still struts about like he fucking owns the place only to roll over for the master—"
"Look at him, brother! His back..."
"I'm right here, you know," you point out, but it doesn't matter. Of course they want to see. You would do the same. Morbid curiosity, if nothing else.
Your siblings fall silent. A heavy silence, tomb-like. Petras has seen Cazador's masterpiece. Finally something shuts him up.
"Oh. Fuck," he breathes after a moment. His tone is verging dangerously on sympathetic. It's too much.
"Damn it, what?! Haven't you ever seen a man flayed before? Is his poetry really that awful? Gods, it's a tasteless limerick, isn't it." You laugh, bitter and dry, because otherwise you'll fall apart. You wish they would stop fucking looking at you.
"I don't know," your sister says. "I can't read these symbols. Perhaps Aurelia—"
"Must we show absolutely everyone?" you protest.
"Well, I've never seen anything like it," your brother adds unhelpfully. The things he hasn't seen could fill a grand library. "Seriously, what did you do? Leon, come look at this!"
Wonderful. You're starting to feel like a sick art exhibition. Exposed. It would be funny were it not tragically happening to you. You don't think your siblings would actually harm you in this vulnerable state, not without a direct order. Well, maybe that oaf Petras.
"Master carved him up like a goose," Petras explains to your newest brother once he, too, has beheld the gruesome spectacle that is your tattered skin.
"Why? I mean, there must be a reason. Did you break a rule? Were you caught reading again?"
"He doesn't need a reason," you remind your brother.
Leon is not stupid; he's just toothless, scared. He still believes this torture was justified somehow, the logical consequence of failure or willful disobedience, that any sense can be made of the master's capricious moods. He needs to believe it can't happen to him—or especially not his young daughter. You personally let go of such silly notions a century before Leon was born.
"What does this mean, then?" he wonders quietly. "For the rest of us?"
Even with your face pressed into the pillow, you know what their expectant silence means. They are looking to you for answers. Guidance. How they might attempt to protect themselves. Even Petras, despite his irritating bluster, waits on your words. You understand the master's cruelty as well as one ever could, having endured his sadistic whims longer than any of them. Yet, now, you must disappoint your brothers and sisters.
"This hasn't ever happened before," you admit. "I don't know why he did it or what he might be planning next. And no, I didn't disobey. I doubt it means anything at all."
"I know what it means!"
Violet, right on cue. Mischievous eyes and that stuffed owlbear clutched to her chest, no doubt.
"What?"
"Astar-ion has been cho-sen," your sister declares—sings, really. Her voice is sickly sweet. Sugar laced with poison.
"Chosen, eh?" Petras scoffs. "Sure. Perks of being the master's special little bitch—"
You spring up from the mattress completely without thought, like you've been compelled to act, but it is only blind rage driving you to grab your brother by the throat and pin him roughly against the wardrobe. It all happens so fast Dalyria doesn't even scream.
"Say that again," you snarl, fangs bared. "I dare you."
You recognize the briefest flash of fear in Petras' eyes. Perhaps he has a shred of respect for you after all, deep down. He clearly envies you, the deluded fool.
"Get off me, freak!"
He pushes you away from him and, still weak, you stumble and fall flat on your back. Your vision goes white with searing pain; a wretched keening whine escapes your lips. You don't move to get up. You're not entirely sure you could. Dalyria rushes to your side, wringing her hands.
Violet, standing in the doorway, giggles and takes off running down the hall. Petras storms after her, furious, with Leon trailing uncertainly behind them.
Dalyria sighs—such a profoundly tired sound you feel it resonate in your bones.
"You look like a dying animal," she says affectionately.
"I feel like one."
She offers a hand. Helps you up from the floor and back to bed.
"Ignore him. Please. At least until you heal," she implores you. "I won't have you undoing all my efforts. You shouldn't let Petras get—"
"Under my skin?"
"I was not going to say that," she says, glancing away, sheepish. You don't know how she lures anyone back here when she can scarcely lie to her own family.
"You were."
"Was not."
"Were."
"Not."
"Yes."
"No."
You both switch from Common to Elven, then you trip her up with Orcish.
"You're impossible!" Dalyria pouts. But your sister is smiling. A rare sight indeed. You tuck it away somewhere deep within your dead heart, for safekeeping. "Now please rest. Doctor's orders."
You feel cold. Afraid. Slightly delirious from pain and exhaustion, ever sick with hunger. You ask, "What if I am dying?"
Her expression softens. She isn't smiling anymore.
"You're not going to die," she says. Then, quieter, as you slip away into an uneasy trance, "Death is a mercy not meant for us."