Friday Fade-Out! - Bending the Unbreakable, Part 12

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The terrace was shrouded in nightly darkness that was only broken by a few braziers along the carpeted walkway. Another half dozen sat near the oval marble table near the banister. A blood fly was circling Rhys’ goblet of wine, confused by the iron-heavy stench of the black flintwine sloshing around inside it. He had accompanied the Duchess Ilydra to her residence an hour ago, fully expecting Gusmerja to be done with the human servant by then, ready to take charge over the man he had risked his lieutenant for.
He had been waiting ever since, and still there was no sign of the old Lamia. It irked him greatly, this waiting game, but his impatience was enough of a shameful weakness for the noble to keep quiet about. He was too young to be taken seriously anyway, there was no reason to feed into the mirth of the other Ailill nobles. Most of them had two-hundred or more years on his young 168 years of age, and as each and everyone of them, he had spent the first 120 years on education, schooling and training in any and every craft beneficial to his rank and status.
At last, the door on the other side of the big terrace opened. The human’s bandages stood out like signaling lights in the dark night, but his skin was just as fair and easy to spot. As much as the earl had proclaimed his human slave to be an assassin, a dog to be sicced on those who displeased its master, there was not much true skill to mortal… yet. Of course, had the earl’s little human been able to surpass Rhysling’s training as an assassin, he would have lost his faith in himself and the Lord and Lady.
Rhys watched on silently as the human walked across the open space, his face a mask of defiance and anger. Gusmerja didn’t bother coming with him and turned at the door to close it silently behind her as she went back inside.
They were alone, at last.
The human stopped five feet away from the table and eyed him with suspicious, flinty glances. He wore the spell-bracelets, just as Rhys had ordered, but by the way he held himself, the Ailill already knew how little the mortal liked the adornments. He would like them even less in a few moments. That thought made Rhys smile.
“I will spare you pompous introductions,” he said, “because for now you will call me either ‘master’ or ‘sire’, nothing more, nothing less. You do not need to burden yourself with titles, my full name, why you are here or why you are still alive, those are things we will talk about at a later point in time.”
With those words, Rhys put down the goblet, pulling himself more upright. He could see the anger flare in Niro’s face and he could almost taste his need to defy him. But not yet, the time had not come and there weren’t that many chances to break the vicious cycle the human had kept going with his last master. This was one of those chances, and Rhys wasn’t going to let it slide past.
“Before you speak, I will finish,” he said, holding up a hand to ask for silence. “You have already noticed those bands of mithril ore I had my healer put around your arms and legs. I also know you have no control over magic whatsoever, which means you won’t be able to resist them or to break the hold I have on them, and through them on you. They are imbued with a series of spells that will use your life force against you at my command, and at the command of the person who made them. I will use them to control and punish you when I see fit.”
By now, the human was agitated, his hands constricted into tight, angry, white fists, his teeth grinding with the force of his rage, the muscles in his thighs tense with restraint. He looked positively livid, ready for a demonstration, a test.
“I have no use for a guard I have to constantly supervise, and I definitely have no use for a servant who defies my orders,” he finished, smiling suddenly. “Will you obey me?”
The answer was bit out with a growl of triumph, a sparkle of fiery hate in those honey-colored eyes. Just one word, filled with all the impotent rage, a dozen years worth of abuse to no avail, and all the heartfelt, pure hate a single mortal being could summon.
“Never.”
Rhys closed his eyes as tumultuous joy flooded his system. How the earl could have misinterpreted this much power, this much force of will, he would never understand. No mistreatment, no ill-usage of punishment had broken that one boy, and now Rhys had him for himself to bend what could not be broken, to make him into something breathtaking.
Lifting one ashen hand from the table, he made a simple gesture, uttering words of magic. ‘Constrict,’ he said, and through his will and power the bracelets around Niro’s arms pulled his limbs to the back until both lower arms lay hands to elbow against each other. Then the metal bands wound themselves around both of his arms, fixing them together tightly.
Niro’s face went pale, then red as he tried to pull against the immovable metal, then pale again as the newly formed shackles around his arms started to pull downward, towards the bands around his ankles. A glimpse of fear shone through the helpless rage tearing across his face, but it was quickly hidden as he stumbled to his knees in order to not fall onto his face. Moments later he fought so stay upright and on his knees, kept down and controlled by the bindings the spell-bands formed. He still struggled for quite some time against the unyielding force of magic, only ceasing his fight when he was out of breath and covered by a sheen of sweat.
Rhys watched this with a placid smile, taking a sip from the flintwine as the human still tried to gather his wits from the unexpected experience.
“What have you done to me!” Niro yelled, his voice shivering with rage.
Carefully placing the goblet on the stone table, Rhys shifted his pose into one of casual alertness.
“I told you what I expect of a servant, and I asked you if you were willing to comply. You told me in no uncertain terms that you wouldn’t, and thusly won’t be of any use to me as a slave,” he explained, straightened his deep-black vest and stood up to walk around the table, towards the kneeling, huffing human. “Nevertheless, you will be of use as my pet, since this is the only other rank I could bestow on you, except for ordering your death. A pet, you see, does not need to roam free or to have an opinion. A pet just has to amuse its owner, who I am.”
Rhys gathered the folds of his wide, flowing linen pants and crouched next to Niro’s twitching, kneeling form. He was close enough to touch if he decided to do so, but not close enough to get bitten or hit by Niro’s head, careful to keep enough distance between them so the rage wouldn’t spill over and enfold him too. His eyes shone like quicksilver, impenetrable, cold and sharp as a blade as he examined Niro’s face with a pondering glance and a small smirk.
“Right now, I want you immobile and calm, and I want to touch my purchase. Since there is no need for you to want this, I made sure you won’t be able to stop me from doing that, just like I will force anything else I might want to do on you.”
It was a beautiful sight to see the young man blanch, to hear how his breath quickened and sharpened, to smell how fear floated through his veins and into the sweat still escaping his skin. Rhys wondered idly how much Niro had learned of Ailill society in his time at the earl’s court. Judging by the way he reacted to those last words, it couldn’t be all that much. It was common knowledge that the Ailill as a people viewed rape as heresy, something never to be done, never to be condoned. Torture of any kind was common and due to their ability to heal easily and quickly and live to a very old age, they tended to get very, very creative at it, but rape was unheard of.
Rhys didn’t plan to explain this anytime soon, though, because having his new pet off-kilter and afraid was part of the way to turn him around. For Niro not to know this, he would have to be untouched, a virgin to the craving of the body for touch. That thought made his blood roar through his head.
With a deep breath to calm himself, Rhys raised a hand. It hung in the air for a moment, then he slowly, calmly, reached for Niro’s face.
“Don’t touch me!” the human screamed. His voice was still shaking with fear and tension. Only the Lord and the Lady could fathom what kind of horrors he was envisioning at this moment, but none of them would match with what Rhys actually planned.
His fingertips touched Niro’s hair. The human flinched hard enough to bounce his knees against the flat granite floor of the terrace, expecting a hit that never came. Rhys didn’t stop his foray at this though, he had already seen it coming. Instead, he buried his hand into the dirt brown, unkempt hair with deliberate care, rubbing his fingers over the skin of his head in slow circles.
The brown strands of hair did not reflect the lights of the braziers like they should have, and Rhys found the reason for that in the waxy feel beneath his fingertips. He was unclean, his mane unwashed for probably several days. Not dirty, although the smell of soot stuck to it, but not fresh enough to shimmer with those highlights he had seen when he had first noticed the youngling being led the gallows.
It was not a big inconvenience and Rhys knew the gashes on Niro’s back made it hard for him to bathe himself, or be bathed by another, but the knowledge awoke a hunger in him to see his pet clean, warm from the heated water, with hair shimmering like bronze.
The lean, muscular body kneeling before him shivered with anxiety, and for a while, Rhys watched the play of light glittering over his sweat soaked arms. His pet was on the small side of what he had seen in human males so far, but not too small. Standing, he would probably fit beneath Rhyslings chin. He was a perfect size for the Ailill’s preferences in a companion, but not too tiny to make him unfit for serving the more grim purpose Rhys intended for him.
It took a little while for the human to calm down enough for those little twitches and the shivering to die down. Rhys never wavered in his slow, affectionate caresses, and he never moved his hand away from his head. The neck-ruffling stench of fear and sweat permeated from the cowering figure, but at least he didn’t look ready to fight for his life anymore.
When Rhys finally removed his hand, the human had a dazed expression on his face, too confused to struggle for longer.
“We will see how trainable you are, pet,” he hummed, smiling at the wide-eyed expression on Niro’s face.