WHO: Marisol, Benedict, Lakshmi + Isaac WHAT: Anderfels stuff WHEN: Backdated to last month before Marisol leaves forever!! WHERE: The frontlines NOTES: References to torture. Will edit as appropriate.
There are sounds coming from the tent behind him. They aren't all productive.
Isaac crosses his arms, face drawn the particular shade of fishbelly that it rarely affects beyond a battlefield. Not that they're terribly far from one now — Lakshmi's seen to spiriting their prisoner out of camp, but they can't afford to be seen traveling from too far afield.
It's cold at his back, even this near to desert. He's planted himself between tent and sand, the better to slow any of their group with second thoughts (namely: himself). It isn't the wounds that unsettle — Maker knows he's seen enough — but the rest of it. Proposing this, however obliquely, had been simpler from a distance. A routine sort of thing, like you read about in books.
They don't get so restless in books.
If someone invented a watch, he'd check one. Instead a few minutes pass, and a few more; dilate about the chill on his neck until —
"This is taking too long." Snapped, and it's not. It's not taking too long, except that maybe it shouldn't be taking place at all. "If he hasn't said anything, he's not going to."
If torture was that easy, they wouldn't have to devote entire divisions in armies to it. Is the dry thought she had to his words, but rather than saying it, she turns her head to the side to face him, raising one eyebrow to him. Her mouth dry with the exertion.
"Everyone does, after a point." But she straightens, rolling her shoulders, straightening out her spine. "He just hasn't worked out how much he has to lose yet. That takes time, but it is a good thing, that we have time, don't we?" She pitched her voice, at least enough for the man to hear it. Let it sink in him. Marisol knew what she doing, it seemed, and if she needed a punch thrown to sink it home to the man - well, she was here. But for the time being, she doesn't hasten to get up.
cw: torture / body horror / ongoing but other stuff to be added.
Marisol is seated opposite the man. She looks entirely at ease, as though she was sunk into a comfortable armchair.
When she wandered into the interrogation space she had been rolling a grape between her fingers, that she popped into her mouth and bit into with a content sound, other hand balancing a plated bunch. No weapons, no tools to speak of. The man has been denied water, for a time. Nothing dangerous, just to make his mouth dry. Minor, playful terribleness, for moments of brief respite to see if he would make this a rather more pleasant experience for both of them.
He is not immediately forthcoming, alas. And motivation can be a problem. Their time is limited.
Very well, then. Taking up her staff, she murmurs quietly as her other hand is held out, fingers outstretched as though she was grasping for something. He stares at her, as cold starts to seep under his skin, and then— his scream is loud and blood curdling. Across his chest the skin is starting to rise in bumps, and then in spikes, stretched close to breaking. His breath comes in bursts that cloud the air.
And then the peaks are gone, and though his breathing is short, it doesn't seem as though she's touched him. She eats another grape. "So? I asked you a question."
Benedict is sitting huddled nearby, outside of the tent and not privy to its secrets-- at least not the visible ones. He looks pale and ill, like he's about to vomit at any moment: what are those sounds?
"What is she doing," he says softly to whomever is listening, his horror undisguised.
Don't ask where the Inquisition got Venatori robes, save that the answer lies somewhere between an enterprising costume department and graverobbery. The details don't matter. They look real.
Whether Benedict does is another matter. Isaac steps back to slant a critical eye. They aren't far from the border now, and dodging the passing glances of patrols is shortly to become a matter of greater scrutiny. His own, dull uniform itches (a footsoldier, a medic, no mage at all).
"Are you certain that you're up for this?"
Benedict's by far the best accent among them — real as it is — and if he can do the talking, the rest will get away with a deal more uneasy looks and signs against evil. Stoic, the Anders are. Pious. And blessedly gloved against the sand.
The agent they've picked up between here and there busies himself looking faintly surly. Don't ask where that favour was called in from, either.
The answer is, of course, no, and Benedict has no idea why he let himself get talked into this: but here he is, wearing the stupid outfit, flashing back to his brief and disastrous stint with Atticus, wondering if there is truly a Maker and if he'd be angered by all this.
"We hardly have a better option," he grumbles, sounding downright adolescent about it, which even he hears. He looks to Lakshmi, straightening his sleeves and no doubt hoping for a reassuring word from the person he trusts most to not let him die.
She steps up to Benedict, as he mutters to himself like a squirming boy. But with it, her fingers are deft, as she begins to straighten his robes to make him look as he should. Adjusting in that sightless way mothers could. Knowing where their children were prone to making a mess of themselves.
Even if this was far more serious than that.
"This? Child's play. You take care of your end, and I'll take care of mine."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
questioning;
There are sounds coming from the tent behind him. They aren't all productive.
Isaac crosses his arms, face drawn the particular shade of fishbelly that it rarely affects beyond a battlefield. Not that they're terribly far from one now — Lakshmi's seen to spiriting their prisoner out of camp, but they can't afford to be seen traveling from too far afield.
It's cold at his back, even this near to desert. He's planted himself between tent and sand, the better to slow any of their group with second thoughts (namely: himself). It isn't the wounds that unsettle — Maker knows he's seen enough — but the rest of it. Proposing this, however obliquely, had been simpler from a distance. A routine sort of thing, like you read about in books.
They don't get so restless in books.
If someone invented a watch, he'd check one. Instead a few minutes pass, and a few more; dilate about the chill on his neck until —
"This is taking too long." Snapped, and it's not. It's not taking too long, except that maybe it shouldn't be taking place at all. "If he hasn't said anything, he's not going to."
questioning;
"Everyone does, after a point." But she straightens, rolling her shoulders, straightening out her spine. "He just hasn't worked out how much he has to lose yet. That takes time, but it is a good thing, that we have time, don't we?" She pitched her voice, at least enough for the man to hear it. Let it sink in him. Marisol knew what she doing, it seemed, and if she needed a punch thrown to sink it home to the man - well, she was here. But for the time being, she doesn't hasten to get up.
cw: torture / body horror / ongoing but other stuff to be added.
When she wandered into the interrogation space she had been rolling a grape between her fingers, that she popped into her mouth and bit into with a content sound, other hand balancing a plated bunch. No weapons, no tools to speak of. The man has been denied water, for a time. Nothing dangerous, just to make his mouth dry. Minor, playful terribleness, for moments of brief respite to see if he would make this a rather more pleasant experience for both of them.
He is not immediately forthcoming, alas. And motivation can be a problem. Their time is limited.
Very well, then. Taking up her staff, she murmurs quietly as her other hand is held out, fingers outstretched as though she was grasping for something. He stares at her, as cold starts to seep under his skin, and then— his scream is loud and blood curdling. Across his chest the skin is starting to rise in bumps, and then in spikes, stretched close to breaking. His breath comes in bursts that cloud the air.
And then the peaks are gone, and though his breathing is short, it doesn't seem as though she's touched him. She eats another grape. "So? I asked you a question."
no subject
"What is she doing," he says softly to whomever is listening, his horror undisguised.
disguises;
Don't ask where the Inquisition got Venatori robes, save that the answer lies somewhere between an enterprising costume department and graverobbery. The details don't matter. They look real.
Whether Benedict does is another matter. Isaac steps back to slant a critical eye. They aren't far from the border now, and dodging the passing glances of patrols is shortly to become a matter of greater scrutiny. His own, dull uniform itches (a footsoldier, a medic, no mage at all).
"Are you certain that you're up for this?"
Benedict's by far the best accent among them — real as it is — and if he can do the talking, the rest will get away with a deal more uneasy looks and signs against evil. Stoic, the Anders are. Pious. And blessedly gloved against the sand.
The agent they've picked up between here and there busies himself looking faintly surly. Don't ask where that favour was called in from, either.
no subject
"We hardly have a better option," he grumbles, sounding downright adolescent about it, which even he hears. He looks to Lakshmi, straightening his sleeves and no doubt hoping for a reassuring word from the person he trusts most to not let him die.
no subject
Even if this was far more serious than that.
"This? Child's play. You take care of your end, and I'll take care of mine."