Thar Shaddin

Did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts? Hot ashes for trees? Hot air for a cool breeze?

She collapsed to her knees once she could no longer smell the pungent scent of humans. She'd fallen next to a tree, and rested her hand against it while she panted out her exhaustion from the run. She wasn't worn out the same way a human would be, but the combination of terror and desperation had taken their toll on her physical presence. It was the most human she'd felt in ages, this sense of panic and being hunted, and she didn't appreciate it. But her options were slim - she could stay in this place. And then her sire, the one she'd abandoned and left, would find her and rain his wrath upon her.

They'd met in a forest, just like this one. She jerked her hand away from the tree trunk and squinted at her surroundings. There was cover here, but no protection from the daylight. She would need to wait it out in one of her hideaways.

The vampire stood, her clothes snagging and ripping further on the brambles and branches surrounding her. They never fit, ripped from the bodies of victims. Tailored clothing was a thing of her past, a thing for humans - and she hardly considered herself human any longer. She was still covered in the blood and flecks of entrails of her last entertainment. Her neglected katana hung at her side, rusted and unusable for true battle. She remembered that it had just managed through the near-battle with the cat creature. Sparks and flakes of metal - the thing would fall apart before it would take a good hit. She needed to either get rid of it and get a new one, or start caring for the thing.

But she didn't care, at all. Empty, save for the constant rumble of her hunger, which was an unstoppable force when she tried to ignore it. She was a vessel for that hunger, and that's all that she considered herself. Otherwise, she had no other worth, no other use - without the hunger, she would be a shell. And so she served it with little complaint. This drive was the last of her humanity, clinging to her shredded soul - the desire, the need to have meaning.

There, straight ahead, sat one of the first lairs she'd used when she travelled into this city. A simple rock overhang, with barely enough space for a wolf to squeeze under. She was malnourished and slim; she never had a problem with such tight spaces. This had been her home, months ago, and now it would be her home again, for one night. She would wait out the harshest daylight hours, and when the sunset started again, she would emerge and leave this place, forever.

She settled on the ground and curled into herself, staring at the outside plant life as it swayed in the gentle spring breeze. She waited, motionless, even dozing, for the sun to lower once again, so she could continue to flee.

Just a few hours before sunset, her body won its long fight, and she fell asleep, there under the rock crevice - and as she slept, her ravaged body taking full advantage and recuperating itself, the sun lazily sank below the horizon. The shadows stretched before her tiny hole in the ground, but she was mere steps above unconscious, and remained in the only state of bliss left to her.

Bela slept well through the daylight hours. He always slept well. Perhaps it had something to do with being such an old vampire, many of whom went into extended periods of self induced slumber. His sleep was deep, his aching, tired mind always willing to move a little bit slower, to care a little bit less about reality. He suspected that some day he would cease to care about his existence entirely and would either destroy himself, sleep for a few centuries, or find something new and exciting to occupy his time like the destruction of Pal Tahrenor. Fortunately (for himself and perhaps for Pal Tahrenor) he still had some things he cared about, if only for the sake of having something to care about.

Once the sun was gone, well and truly gone so that only the myriad of stars and galactic phenomenon cast light on Thar Shaddin from the heavens, Bela left his mansion to begin searching once again for his runaway child. If Jenica had decided to flee before he awoke she could have been long gone by now, but she didn't, and he could feel her. Closer than before, somewhere outside of the city but not yet in Shim. She was hiding in the woods, but why was she there now? He didn't brood over the question, and left the mansion through a hidden rear path that avoided the town completely.

He was dressed in exactly the same manner he had been the previous night. The same clothes he wore the whole week. Corpses didn't sweat, didn't produce their own filth, and without rotting they didn't smell either. His body was dry like tinder save for the blood he took from other people, so changing clothes was a thing done purely for fashion, and he quite liked this week's ensemble. It was hard to go wrong with black on black, and it helped to keep the light out of his eyes.

The winding path behind the mansion took him deeper into the woods where he had to use the shadows to keep twigs and other protrusions out of his way lest they give him a reason to change before the end of the month. Like a blob of ink he moved peacefully through the woods, and they parted for him like he was a king and they his loyal subjects. He was so adept at controlling them now that he could stifle the crunching of dry leaves beneath his feet and become virtually silent as he walked. He could feel the branches being pushed aside, and slowly caressed them back into their original position.

Black hands, soft and delicate as a woman's touch, parting the way for the killer of men.

He crossed the Ofriyu Mar in a similar fashion, except that instead of forcing the water to part for him (which he could have done with some more effort) he lifted himself above it on tendrils of shadow and floated across like a ghost. Once on the other side he felt her much stronger. He quickened his pace, not wishing to miss yet another night.

After a few minutes of travel he knew he was right on top of her, so close he could literally smell her. Blood, mixed with dirt from the city. But where was she? He circled the area once, silently and cautiously, listening for anything that might be a foolish attempt to trap him.

There was no evidence of anything having disturbed the woods, so he began to look closer. And there she was. Curled up like an animal under a rock. Filthy, homeless, lifeless.

He smiled, and waited for her to wake.

Nestled into the shallow crevice, Jenica slept on and on, her body mending and rejuvenating itself during this rare instance of good, sound sleep. She didn't breathe, and any stranger coming upon her would've seen a corpse there, covered in old blood.

But it wasn't a stranger who found her. And still, despite his presence ringing in her ears, she slept on.

She woke in phases - first, the sense of touch, becoming aware of the dirt she nested within, pressing on her from all sides but one. Then hearing. The gentle rustle of leaves, grasses, and other plant life. The worms and beetles moving through the earth around her.

Then smell. She inhaled, taking in the night scents of rotted and fresh earth, of animals as they fluttered by.

Another sense, one she'd gained as a vampire, awoke then to inform her of the worst possible news. And then she regained sight, as her eyes snapped open and she took in the spaces before her. The clothing, the legs, and as she shifted her eyes, the face.

Her first reflex was to jerk back, but she had nowhere to go. The dirt wall held her confined. And with this, the memories became too much - enclosed in dirt while he looked on, in woods, alone and confused and -

She tucked her arms into her chest and rolled out of the crevice, then to her feet. It was a fluid motion, with a strong sense of familiarity. She'd done this dozens of times before. But now he was here, and she was trapped. But last time, in this place with these memories, she'd been only human, and he...

Her rusted katana groaned as she slowly drew it from its sheath. Inhuman speed would be her nowhere with this particular foe, and besides, she liked the feel of the grating metal. She didn't raise the weapon in an obvious threat, though its mere presence was enough. Instead, she dug the tip of it into the earth, gripping the handle with knuckles that were always white. She shuttered her eyes as she eyed him. Her insides were twisting, roiling with turmoil and a desperate craving to run, but she would wait for the right moment. She was a patient sort.

Here I am. You've found me. Now what?

Silent, she watched him. Years ago, she wouldn't have harmed him, would've gone out of her way to avoid such a thing, as her humanity considered him some sort of mentor. But she'd changed. If he threatened her, if he attacked...she would fight. Even knowing she might lose, would lose, she would fight.

Bela watched her stand, watched her draw her sword and stab it in the ground defiantly, watched her challenge him with her eyes as if she actually intended to fight him. He didn't have any weapons on him, and looked as relaxed as ever.

His eyes wandered over her, taking in the mess that she had become. She looked like an animal, like one of the women Bela had kept in his dungeon too long, tortured and violated one too many times. She had no sense at all of her physical appearance or well being and her eyes showed no soul behind them, only animal instinct. He tried to remember if he had been the same way when he was first sired, but the memories refused to surface, lost in a massive abyss.

He looked at the sword, and then up to her eyes, his head tilted slightly with an expression of daring. Oh really?

"Put that away, Jenica. You're not going to use it."

He waited for her to obey, staring directly into her eyes and saying nothing. In doing so, he said all that had to be said. If there was going to be a fight, she would be the one to start it, and if she tried that he wouldn't hesitate to beat her into submission, perhaps kill her.

There was more to his stare; a kind of respect that rarely came from someone like him. Should he bother to lock eyes with anyone so intensely, it meant that he thought something of them. She was his child, she meant a lot to him.

So. No attack then. What else could he want? He'd been hunting her for months, a silent but persistent stalker. Filled with dread, she'd run until her luck gave out, and now...he just stood there. Gave her an order.

Ah, just like old times. Or the two days she'd tolerated his presence.

Was it possible he just wanted to talk? It made no sense. What was the point of chit chat? But then...now her gaze raked over him, head to toe, and she snorted to herself. He was dressed, prim and proper, and looked like some lord out of a high end estate. And perhaps he was. They'd never exchanged backgrounds.

They were the same species, even had some of the same blood, deep down. But they were nothing alike. He strove to appear at least somewhat human, neat and clean. She didn't care. Her scent carried for miles, the scent of death and blood, but humans never noticed their surroundings until it was slitting their throats. And what did she care if animals avoided her? She craved no one's company.

She slid her hand along the handle of her katana, finally resting just the tip of her index finger against its top, and began a slow turn of the blade in the earth. The compost around the buried tip rose and rippled as the dull blade pushed its way in an arched, shallow circle. She'd heard his words, but their meaning blurred inside of her until they sifted into the silence that she thrived in. Within moments, she couldn't remember that he'd said anything at all, and didn't care either way. The rustle of the wind through the trees around them soothed her.

Her hunger was just starting to rise. She hadn't fed in two days, but she'd tormented her body consistently for months, not giving it the exact amount of feed or sleep it needed. She pushed it beyond its limits, and continued regular activity as though it was in pique condition. As a human, she'd worked hard to maintain her physique. Now, she didn't notice it any longer. It was yet another sense she'd thrown to the side in her slow spiral toward nothingness. And this lackadaisical attitude came from neither the hunger nor the remnants of human emotion. It came from an honest self-destruction streak, grown stronger as she was left to herself in the wilds.

I was afraid of this?

Something popped into her thoughts, and she cocked her head at him. He'd used her name. How...quaint. And he maintained eye contact, too. How long would he just stand there? And hadn't he said something before? Ah, right. She wouldn't attack him without cause - even a feral animal knew when to conserve its strength. But she wouldn't play the waiting game with him, either. He'd earned no such restraint from her. And she was starting to get hungry.

"Fine." Her voice, as always, was hoarse and rough, though it managed not to crack. Another fluid motion, as she twisted her blade into the air, slid it into its sheath, and started forward in the same moment. She would walk right past him, if he let her, without the slightest hint at aggression - and continue straight out of this enclosure, and on into the city, where she would kill someone for sustenance, and then another someone for the hell of it.

If he had nothing to say, neither did she.

The shadows between the trees around them began to bulge and drip together like black globs of mercury, joining and solidifying to form a wall of nothing that extended from behind Bela's back and out in front of where Jenica was trying to go. The wall had no end, it simply faded into the darkness in a way even her eyes would have trouble resolving. The shadows were thick and solid, foreign and unresponsive to any attempts she would make to fight them. His abilities in that domain surpassed her own so greatly as to make her look infantile.

He held the wall there, leaving it to block her off from the city and giving her plenty of time to try and get through. Fighting off her efforts was easy for him. She could push through physically with her strength and try to pass through, but he would only persist, wrap the darkness around her and drag her down until she gave up.

"I didn't say you could leave."

With his arms now folded in front of his chest, he watched and waited for her to understand. Not hurting her was a choice, and one that would change very quickly if she didn't start behaving.

Her first instinct was to turn and growl, hackles rising in irritation and the reflexes of a trapped animal. But that reaction was useless. This wall wasn't going anywhere.

She cocked her head again, eyeing it. Was it scalable? She'd never tried to climb shadows before. She tried to ask it to move, but it was out of her control, alien and resistent to her requests.

She wasn't blocked in yet, but this wall was powerful enough that she understood she wouldn't be leaving without his consent. So she was trapped, but not trapped. Let the animal see the escape, but never let them leave. How nice, to be trapped in some hunter's cruel game.

She raised a hand and pressed it against the wall, hard enough to make a shallow impression, then pulled it back. Fascinating, but in her way, again. She wouldn't waste effort trying to fight through it; just trying to move it, she could tell she wasn't anywhere near the strength needed to shift this mass. She lowered her hand, pressed it to her side, and clenched her fist. Again the urge to snarl rose within her throat, and it was a near thing, resisting that urge, but she fought it back until she could manage a word without hatred dripping from every pore. Slow, tilting her head so her tinted eyes would meet his first, she turned herself sideways and stared at him. He kept speaking as though she should care, as though he had meaning to her. He hadn't given her permission to leave? Some human thing, permission. She dredged an appropriate reply from the recesses of her psyche.

"Never said I'd stay."

She raised her head and turned to face him. Again she cocked her head at a sharp angle, raking him from tip to toe with her eyes. She was fighting the urge to lunge at him, go for the throat and rip at his stomach...this wasn't the right type of prey. The hunger thrummed in her throat, aching for release, for playtime and feeding. But this...thing...stood in her way. It wasn't any more human than she. What right did it have, ordering her about? It should mind its own, just like all the others.

A rumbling snarl, then. Her right hand settled on the hilt of her blade, clasped it, as she started a slow stalk. Her eyes glistened in the moon's light, bright red with the desire to feed. This one didn't have a drop to spare. But perhaps...fun...play...

The murky fog of her instincts drove her reason back. It didn't matter that he was stronger, a better fighter, in perfect health...comparatively. He wanted to play? Then she'd show him the rules.

Belatucadrus let out a long, drawn out sigh, having to forcefully inhale enough air to do so and letting it out of his dry, cold lungs with meticulous slowness. It was such a human thing to do. To a mortal it meant boredom, tiredness, perhaps apathetic relaxation... But to a vampire it was completely different. It was a purposeful display through and through, and Jenica's mind might not even understand the human implications of it. It was strange and nonsensical to breathe like that for her, someone who would see it as an act requiring effort. But he did it anyway. He was always in character and didn't even realize it. Actually he forced his mind over the years to embrace habits like that and forced himself to at least feel like he was alive.

He saw what she was going to do, hence the sigh. She was going to attack him and he was going to have to beat her. It was wishful thinking on his part that he could deal with a wild one like her using words. He was going to have to beat her until she was such a mess that she couldn't fight anymore, which would take a while with a vampire. Breaking her neck was an option, but that wouldn't get the message across. No, he was actually going to have to put effort into causing her pain.

"It will hurt if you try." He warned as she approached.

Of course she was going to try anyway, but she had to know that there were rules. And thus, he let her attack.

The stalk neither sped nor slowed, but her eyes flickered to the sides and focused on a spot behind him as she took note of all the proper escape routes. Behind her was an immoveable mass of black, but it extended in just one direction, which left her with a wide alley of escape. The problem stood only feet away from her, ever closer - if she tried to just leave, he'd encapsulate the two of them in a sheet of black ink, leaving her trapped.

She didn't want to fight. She never did. It took effort, and left her open to a counterattack that might hit its mark, leaving her injured. Pain itself was ephemeral, something which touched the surface of her consciousness, but it was a nuisance and could leave an entire limb out of play.

And he was stronger. A true predator knew its limits. Some part of her felt like a wolf attacking a cougar, and she had to push this feeling aside, to make a conscious decision to disregard her survival instinct and attack the more powerful prey. For a diversion. For an opening.

She was doing what any cornered creature does - lashing out, with the sole intent of driving the other back, to create an opening and flee. Steps away from his physical presence, the katana slashed out of its sheath with a raucous screech, diagonal across where his chest should be. It was vicious, fast, and full of hatred, but she didn't count on this giving her an edge. As the katana rose ever higher, her left hand reached behind and grabbed the hilt of her dagger, less neglected but stained red due to more blood on its blade, and brought this forward for a secondary attack, a backup plan, or perhaps to further slice the enemy. Sometime in the past, this knife had injured this one, and though it was a vague memory, she remembered the feel of his bone grating against this blade.

If she struck, she would continue to do so until she felt safe enough to run, to leave this place and him and never return. If she didn't...

Counter, and strike.

Bela had the upper hand from the get-go, and knew it the whole time. At no point did he expect her to win and this confidence gave him an even greater advantage. He was faster, stronger, and more experienced than she was. All she had was her sword to give her reach, and it was in horrible condition, not fit for a real fight. He sensed nothing special or magical about the blade, didn't fear it any more than he feared her.

When she raised the sword with one hand, an upward slash that aimed itself at his chest, he inched back casually and let it grate across his chest. It tore through his clothes, his flesh, and scratched the surface of his ribcage like a line of rough sandpaper. He didn't give her the reach to get any closer, and didn't give her time to make a second attack. Whatever she was reaching for behind her back had better be enough to get her out of his grip.

Before she even finished the upward slash he moved in, faster and more gusty than a human opponent would ever be. He had no weapons on him but he didn't need any; he had his hands. With her sword arm up and the other reaching behind her, she was totally exposed. He only had to take a long stride foreword to get close enough. He thrust his hands foreword, fingers and long ebony claws first, and pushed them directly into her chest.

Normally something like a ribcage would offer some degree of protection. Unless an opponent got lucky and managed to slip a blade right between a pair of ribs, they would offer some resistance and deflection, give an opponent the chance to react and maybe not have her innards turned to mush... But Belas hands ignored the bone. Then went right through it like soft butter with a sickening squelch.

A half second later his hands were inside of her, palms facing the ground, buried right up to the wrists in her torso. Ebony nails came out the other end, passing through her back with the same ease. Her insides felt like cold goo immersed in liquid and severed right through where he cut them literally in half.

It also hurt. Hurt a lot more than an ordinary weapon. If this was the first time she had felt magical pain, it would be a real shock. Nerves screamed in agony, sending signals to her mind that something was very, very wrong. If she moved, he would grab what he could and pull away, leaving her with a big empty squishy hole in her chest and not a whole lot to stop what was inside from spilling out.

He was too close for the sword now and brought his face right up to hers, staring into her eyes. His chest slowly oozed dark blood, and he smiled at her sadistically. Her second of shock gave him time to speak.

"Now stop."

She felt the blade scrape against his rib cage, and in another moment her knife was around and in front, ready to pierce, to slash a bit more. But then he was there, right in front of her, and his hands were through her, and she was staring into the deadliest eyes she'd ever met, and she thought, for one blessed lucid moment:

Well shit.

And then pain roared through her, ringing in her ears, and she'd never experienced the glory of magical pain. Come to think of it, she'd never been gutted before, or even impaled. Victims had fought back, and even prodded her with their little weapons, but nothing could compare to this.

Her eyes glazed as she lowered her right hand, still clutching the katana. Another moment, and her hand loosened, allowing the useless blade to thunk down against the dirt and leaves. She might have screamed, but bits of her lungs were clinging to his fingers and claws, and the rest were adjusting to this new presence inside of them. She blinked, and her eyes cleared for a moment before glazing over again in a haze. She was still in shock while agony rolled through her in waves. Terrified with no way for her to communicate.

At his words, her eyelids fluttered and she rose through the murk to focus on his face. There was too much haze to see properly, but there was just enough for him to see a spark of awareness, perhaps even intelligence, deep in the back of her irises, before she shuttered her eyes and curled her lips upward.

Into a smile. A lazy, ironic smile. Oh, it hurt. And if she could've screamed, the trees around them would shudder from the sound. But she couldn't, trapped standing before him, and she'd never been attacked quite so viciously before, and the pain paralyzed her from head to toe to knife-wielding hand, and perhaps it was the insanity talking but the whole thing struck her as hilarious, absolutely hilarious, so much so that her muscles jolted and writhed as they tried to suck in the air for laughing, her body shaking enough for him to feel the compulsive flexing of her diaphram. She gurgled in the back of her throat, and a bit of dark, old blood stained her lips.

She'd dissected victims for months, pulling out bits and pieces to see what the rest of the body would do. She understood, to a degree, what had just happened, and what could happen further. If he severed her spinal column, her legs would lose function, and she would be both helpless and unable to walk. The pain still continued, but she thought around it, moved through it, to find that her left hand, although shaking, still clutched the dagger. If she tried, he could shift his arms just so and sever the column. If she didn't, she didn't know what he would do. And what could she stab, anyway? His heart was useless, a side wound would achieve nothing...eyes.

Everyone has eyes, Jen. Stab them out. If you're fighting a blind man, cut off his hands and you've done the same thing.

An image of a mentor, blending together with an image of that mentor's mutilated corpse, drifted through. Eyes. When in doubt, go for the eyes.

She tightened her grip on her dagger, but didn't move. Silent, she waited him out. To see what he'd do. To see if he gave her the opening she needed, or if her arm would start responding to her requests for it to start moving again.

Wow. This really hurts.

Bela could see the strength that resided within her. Only made stronger by what he had put her through and what she had let herself do to others, she wasn't finished yet. That smirk on her face and the laughter within her had to go. She was like a wild animal, not some domesticated canine that would eventually choose to let its owner touch it, even if that touch was painful. She had no concept of that sort of thing, it was all life or death to her, kill or be killed. She was going to have to learn some helplessness.

As tragic as it was to have to break the will of such a powerful creature that he could probably use exactly the way she was, he had to bring back some of her humanity. She had to at least be able to -talk- to others or she would spend the rest of her miserable life sleeping in the gutter and sucking the blood out of farm boys.

His hands turned around inside her, fingers tucked together and shaped like twin torpedoes, until his palms faced the sky. He brought his face even closer, close enough to kiss her, and continued staring into her eyes.

"When you're ready to give up, say my name, and ask me to stop."

It was something he knew she would never do in her current state. The way she was, she wouldn't dream of begging for mercy like that. It was a tool for him. Her voice, not her eyes, would let him know what was in her soul.

He curled his fingers in, ebony nails withdrawing like porcupine quills from her back, and forced them upward inside of her. By this point he was cupping her lungs in his hands. Her diaphragm would barely work anymore, blocked by his searing invasion. Claws dug into the sides of the lungs, making putty out of everything around them. He squeezed ever so gently, and where the lungs weren't being cut to shreds by his nails they forced air out just as if she was exhaling. The pain would be excruciating.

"Hmm?" He raised a brow and turned his head a bit like he was trying to hear her better.

Jenica's vision blurred more and more as blood leaked from the gaping wound in her body. It didn't gush, since no heartbeat pushed the fluids out of her, but it was still liquid. Combined with pieces of organs, it oozed along her lower back and belly, a slick and cold path. When he turned his palms up, the movement renewed the drip. And yet, through the pain, she marvelled at how very odd this felt, being impaled. She'd need to play this game some other time.

Her left hand trembled, and she was unsure, but it was starting to move again. Slow and steady, silent, like a secret weapon she pinned all her hopes on. Up, and up, and up it snaked. He was focused, both hands buried to the wrist in her body. She pushed the pain aside to focus on one goal, one thing which still stood as a weapon between herself and this monstrosity. A few more seconds, and it would be close enough to gouge.

He pulled his fingers in, rammed them up inside of her, and her grip on the hilt faltered from yet another onslaught of pain. Her eyes rolled and her body seized up from the shock of it, both hands clutching him from reflex. The dagger clunked to the ground as she lost her grip, but she was too buried in pain to spare a moment's hopeless rage at the loss of the weapon; her entire being was engulfed in the agony searing through and around her lungs. She gurgled in the back of her throat, and more old blood stained her lips dark black. Moments later, a small trickle slid from her nose, as the blood and gore was forced up through her esophagus. She was choking on her own lungs, and she didn't even breathe.

He said something, now, and she blinked her eyes into position to focus on him for one moment's lucidity before she tumbled back again. Something about names. Something about stopping. Stopping was good. Stopping was wonderful. But the words wouldn't come, and at the moment, his name was far, far away and drifting farther by the second.

Her katana and dagger both lay uselessly on the forest floor. She was clinging to him like a feverish child hugging its father for comfort, a desperate silent plea to end a type of pain the child couldn't even understand. But this was not her father, and although she had no weapons, she was not helpless. Not yet.

Ah, now it came to her. He wanted her to beg. Wanted her to grovel and plead. And the humanity in her craved this as well. It longed to surrender, to become a supplicant to his mercy. But this part had been long ignored, and now that the pain had a focus, a reason, so did her hatred.

She hated him. Hated his power, his ability to terrify her. He stood as the sole monument of evil in her limited view of the world, and she would rather die a permanent death than beg to this creature. Her fingers dug into him as another shockwave rolled through her nerves, one hand on his left hip, the other on his right shoulder. Again, her eyes focused for a moment, as a plan came to her. A desperate, wild plan. A plan to react and lash out.

Her eyes met his, and for that moment's lucidity, hatred blazed forth, clear and bright as the midday sun. And then the hand on his shoulder moved, and she wasn't as quick and she wasn't as strong, but she was close, and he was closer as he turned his head to hear what he forced from her tortured lungs.

A sputtering hiss, clogged by chunks of her own rotted inner flesh, as her hand moved to grab his cheek and ram her thumb as deep into his eye socket as she could.

Though he was sure she must be in extreme pain, she didn't give up, which forced his hand to keep going. There was a point at which she would die, finally and for good, because of the wounds he was inflicting on her. Wounds that took twice as long to heal and hurt twice as much.

She grabbed onto him when he drove his claws in a second time, but she didn't say stop. She had to ask (not beg, only ask) for mercy from him or he would give up on her and kill her. His second attempt at making a child, it was unlikely that there would be another one to follow.

A hand left his shoulder, slowly, shaking from the pain. He watched it in the corner of his vision and held himself still, looking into her eyes still but following her hand with his mind. He stopped pushing his claws in deeper, giving her a tiny bit of reprieve that would at least stop the pain from getting worse.

Slowly it got to his face. Was she just struggling? It was too slow and deliberate to be random flailing. It grabbed his face and he didn't even flinch, nothing at all left of natural reflexes. Suddenly it became very clear what she was doing. The only possible defense she could have against him and it wasn't going to be enough, so he let her do it. He kept his eye wide open.

Her thumb drove itself right into his eye. The smirk on his face turned to a sneer, giving away that it hurt but also that it was only minor discomfort compared to what he was going to do to her after. The thumb went in and at first there was nothing. His vision blurred, doubled up, and finally went completely blank in that eye. The membrane ruptured and vitreous fluid spilled out like bloody pink jelly, stained by the severed veins from what was left of his eye. The mess rolled its way down his face leaving a wet stain but his good eye never lost focus on her, just waiting for her to finish.

Her thumb went in until it hit bone and there was no more she could do. He wasn't mad before but it was plain to see that he was now. He took his left hand out of her chest carefully enough to avoid the possibility of killing her, brought the blood and bowel covered hand up to her wrist, grabbed her there like a vice, and pulled her hand away from his face, letting her grab and claw whatever she wanted to when he did so.

He forced her wrist up to her face where she could see it clearly, pulling back a foot to give her the room. Blood from her guts and fluids from his eye dripped down their arms and mingled in the dirt. He held her wrist there for her and gave her pause to gather her wits. His other hand still inside to make sure she didn't try to get away.

"Foolish girl. I am not one of the mortals. You're weak and stupid, and unless you give up I will give you so much terror you'll be wishing you were dead more than ever."

His hand pressed tighter around her wrist then, and her bones gave way without protesting at all. He crushed it like a boy squeezing a ball of play dough and her flesh, bones, blood, tendons and all bulged through his fingers and plopped onto the ground, all perfectly clean little sacks.

He squeezed until her hand fell right off and her wrist jerked free of his grasp. There was no blood at all, her skin warped and disfigured right over where the wound should be.

The sneer told her, beyond doubt, that she was fighting a losing battle. He was more insane than her, had always been, and she couldn't fight against logic more twisted than her own. Her thumb hit bottom, his eye fluids welling up and dribbling out around it. She swayed when he withdrew one hand from her as another wave of pain rolled through her body, and when she focused again, he had grabbed her wrist and was pulling her hand away from his face.

She gurgled fear and tried to pull away, but the grip didn't ease, only tightened. She was trapped, at his mercy, and he still hadn't killed her. She'd expected to die, and was confused and lost when he didn't kill her immediately. Instead, he spoke words again, human words with a now-identifiable tinge of insanity, and he was promising her the hardest death imaginable, full of pain and time and waiting for the end to come, and then he began crushing her wrist, and she tugged at her hand, trying to free it, until the hand came right off and her arm was free.

She stared at the stump where her hand had lived and played, and then at the creature holding her upright with her own bowels, and saw this extending for hours until he was satisfied she'd learned her lesson. She could keep fighting, and lose every limb, one by one, until she couldn't even crawl. And he'd continue hurting her, like some demented cat, until she was beyond even fear. She had no idea if she could heal wounds like this, had never tried to cut off a finger and put it back on. She didn't know her own limits, and he'd promised to string her along beyond them.

Or she could...ask him to stop.

She didn't want to die. Not yet. Not in this way, long and dragged out and doubling the pain with each movement. She didn't know he'd kill her if she continued fighting, didn't know anything at all about him. Only knew that her senses were reeling, and that wouldn't stop until she begged. Asking and begging were synonymous in her mind, particularly when it came to something she feared. And she feared only one thing.

The claws had destroyed her insides enough that inhaling was impossible. She stared into the one eye left, glacing at the eye socket, and lowered her gaze, letting her hair fall around and in front of her face. It was the closest to a slump she could manage, given the pain and tension. She would live, grow stronger, and strive to fight another day.

She blinked, and tears tinted red with blood rolled to the tip of her nose, trembling before they fell to the earth. Her hand was down there somewhere. She wondered if she'd ever get it back.