Chapter Text
His consciousness comes to him slowly, sluggishly, painfully.
He’s quickly aware of the headache that is currently plaguing him, and he moves his hand to rub at his eyes-
-and freezes, eyes flying wide open when he hears the familiar sound of chains and feels the pull of cuffs around his wrists, stopping his movement.
He blinks, willing his vision to clear as he cranes his head up, only to find he has limited movement there too.
He is on his knees on hard stone flooring, his arms outstretched to either side holding him up, cuffed and chained to the stone walls. The thing around his neck is attached to a chain that leads to a metal ring on the floor in front of him.
This place smells like death, dust and decay.
The room is dark, no sign of windows or daylight. In fact the only light in the room is coming from a torch that sits in a wall mounted holder by a metal bar gate in front of him. It looks to be the only exit to the room.
Next to the gate is a figure, hooded and turned away, doing something on the old but solid wooden table in front of them, unknowing or uncaring of his awakening.
Narinder forces himself to take a steadying breath before bracing one of his arms and pulling, intending to wrench the chain loose from the wall. The only thing that it accomplishes is for the cuff to painfully dig into his wrist and a realisation that his body isn’t reacting with the strength that it should be. His limbs feel weak and nausea wells up in his stomach. His skin feels cold under his fur and he realises he’s not wearing his usual robes. They would have been hanging off the edge of his bed back at the hut.
Fine, if he can’t rip the chains off the wall he’ll just need to weaken the stones they are attached to.
He angles his palm up along the chain, feeling the tingling of power in the ichor rushing in his hand….but nothing happens past that. There’s no speared chain. Not even a flicker of the curse. Only the icyemptiness in his core where there should be a flame of power.
“...what...the hell….?” he finds himself whispering under his breath, and he’s thankful a moment later that it was quiet enough that the hooded figure hopefully didn’t hear it.
Unfortunately, something else did.
“Well, well, well.” The voice comes from behind him, gleeful, slow and horrid. “Would you look at that.”
The hooded figure turns around but there’s no alarm in their movement. Their face is obscured by darkness under the hood, or maybe they are wearing a veil?
Narinder feels a clawed hand settle on his shoulder and his eyes trace over to it. The Fox’s face comes into view, sharp toothed grin looking unnaturally wide, and dark, red slitted eyes meet the God of Death’s.
“It’s been a while, Death...hasn’t it?”
“What do you want?” the cat hisses, baring his teeth to the Fox. He feels a tang of annoyance when the creature doesn’t look even slightly perturbed by the display.
He tries to pull himself up straight but the metal ring on the floor clinks as the chain goes taught, leaving him stuck with his head still slightly bowed. It makes his blood boil to be forced into such a position, but his gaze is burning where it meets the creature from the darkness.
The Fox’s voice is amused “Oh, you know me. Just looking for a proper meal. I have been oh, so famished lately. Hard to find anything that will sate my appetite. I’m sure you are familiar with the feeling.”
Narinder feels something heavy and cold settle in his stomach as the creature moves to stand in front of him, leaning down and uncomfortably close, it’s breath smelling like blood and viscera.
“And I am sure you know how nothing can quite sate that hunger like living flesh.”
The Fox’s jaw unhooks, opening wide and a clawed hand ceases Narinder’s own jawin a grip that digs into his skin when he tries to move away.
“Get away from me!” he growls low, a threat in his voice despite the gnawing in his chest.
But there was nowhere he can move to. Even as he strains against the chains. So there was only one thing to do, and he snaps his head forward, teeth ready to tear into the horrid creature.
The grip on his jaw suddenly pushes his head up and Narinder barely manages to not bite his own tongue. The metal collar digs into the back of his neck as the Fox holds him there, exposing the cat’s throat and leaning in closer. Maw ready to take a bite out of him the same way he had watched it consume the heretic he’d brought it months prior-
The figure at the door, who had seemed perfectly satisfied watching them so far, clears their throat.
The Fox’s movement stop, a dramatic sigh of disappointment escapes him, his jaw hooking back into place as he turns to them.
“Don’t worry, don’t worry. I just wished to make sure that amulet of yours was truly working, dear friend. Wouldn’t want any harm to come to you now.You’ll have your time with Death yet.”
The Fox’s grip on Narinder doesn’t loosen, but the cat has enough leeway to curse at it in demonic.
The hooded figure flinches.
Ah, they are mortal, then.
The Fox’s grip tightens further, forcing his jaw closed, and moves up to be eye-level with him. “Now, now, I’ve known you to be rude, cat, but that sort of language is simply uncalled for.” The voice is low and there’s something deeply wrong with the way it echoes in his mind.
Narinder tries to snap back at it, but the Fox’s grip moves to cover his mouth and has his jaw fixed shut. “We can’t have you scaring my dear friend here with such ill manners.”
It’s head leans back to look over to said ‘friend’. “We have something for just such an occasion, don’t we?”
Out of the corner of his eye, the cat can see the mortal walking over, something dangling from their grip. They don’t speak but let the Fox take whatever it is when they are close enough.
The grip on his jaw suddenly wrenches downwards and before Narinder has time to react, something oblong and metallic is forcefully shoved between his teeth. He tries to spit the offending thing out but the Fox is holding it in place.
He more feels than sees the figure move behind him before his head is jerked back, by some kind of straps attached to the thing in his mouth, with more force than should be possible for a mere mortal.
The gag is tied behind his head and when the figure finishes the Fox’s grip falls from his face, letting him curl in on himself, head falling to gravity’s will.
“There, that’s much better, isn’t it?”
Narinder stares down at the stone floor, trying desperately to make sense of the situation he’s found himself in. His chest aches and his mind is reeling.
The ‘amulet’ the Fox mentioned must be whatever is clasped around his neck, and it must be why he feels so damn weak. Why the curse, that had become second nature to him, didn’t work…...and why the Fox’s skin wasn’t rotting where it had touched him.
His gaze jerks up when the Fox speaks again and a pool of darkness forms under it. “I’ll leave you to it, now.” A clawed hand waves to the mortal. “Have fun.” before meeting the cat’s gaze “I’ll see you in a few days. I’m oh so looking forward to it.”
With that the Fox sinks into the darkness with a laugh and the void closes up like it was never there.