Deception: The lesser part of Valour – Heartless: Part 2
by Commander Isha t'Vaurek
Post Details
OOC: The final part is more optimistic, promise.
ON
It was the stinging sensation across her torso that brought Isha back to consciousness; a wide band where the disruptor beam had hit her. Isha's hands ached too from where Raedheol had squeezed the small bones too tightly together. She rolled uncomfortably onto her side, blinking in the darkness.
“Lights?” she ventured, but either there was no computer, or it had been programmed not to obey her.
Awkwardly, Isha pushed herself up, wincing as her knee rolled over a pebble beneath the thin blanket on which she lay. “Rh'vaurek?” she said tentatively, adding, “are you there?” a little more loudly.
Isha glanced around in the darkness, the space felt large and the air cold and moist. Higher up there appeared to be a dim phosphorescent glow, too faint to offer any light she could see by. “So this is your idea of hospitality,” she muttered feeling her way step by step across the uneven floor.
She gasped as the cave was suddenly flooded with bright white light throwing her hands over her face to block the dazzling glare.
“You're up then,” Raedheol said from somewhere – where?
“Where am I?” Isha asked, lowering one hand briefly before covering her eyes again, ”I demand that you let me go.”
“You're in no position to make demands, Isha.”
“Yet here I am making them,” she retorted moving towards the source of the light.
“I wouldn't walk that way if I were you,” Raedheol warned, “the floor is split. If you want to break your neck go ahead, but I don't advise it.”
Isha paused and lowered her foot. “I can't see, the lights are too bright,” she said. A few seconds later they were dimmed and Isha lowered her hands from her face. About two paces from where she stood a dark fissure scored the floor of the cave; it was about five feet across and beyond it she could make out the shape of a shuttlecraft – the source of the light. Blinking as her eyes adjusted Isha turned to see Raedheol half sitting, half leaning against a low rock not far from where she had lain.
“Let's talk, Isha,” he said, pushing himself away from the rock face, “You look awful, by the way.”
“I missed my appointment with my hairdresser,” she replied sarcastically, “If I hurry I can make it.”
“No time, Isha,” he said, “The accommodation not to your liking?”
“You can't keep me here, I'll be missed,” Isha ventured.
“Nice try, Isha,” he said. “But you argued with your husband and stormed out of the compound in a temper, he’ll expect to hear nothing until you’ve had time to cool down, a process which I recall can take weeks. Your little ship is happily following its allotted course and registering the correct number of life-signs, so he’ll be content that you still think he’s an idiot or whatever you shrieked at him last and because he’s patient he will wait for you to be ready to speak to him. He’ll monitor its progress content that all is well – I imagine there will be some surprise when it arrives at its destination, but if I read the chart correctly, that will be in about four days. To be frank, I don't imagine that you will last that long.”
Isha's eyes widened, she must have mistaken his meaning, “be reasonable, Rh'vaurek.”
“I am. You were compelled to act as you did, although that action violated every principle you held, and why? Because your family demanded it! You knew you wrong at the time and here you are now, the last person I ever expected to find trying to wriggle out of the consequences of acting against her own mnhei'sahe.”
“You don't know what you are talking about!” Isha protested, “lyrrveoth (filial piety) has precedence in my mother's House!”
“You have a convenient philosophical argument for everything, Isha, but I'm not really a philosopher, and I really don't care what your family traditions are. I'm a very simple man. You betrayed me, and I want revenge.”
“My words were spoken in anger, Rh'vaurek, I did not act on them.”
“You told me that you would see me back where I came from and ruined if my memory is correct, if you didn't follow through on that, who did? Congratulations, by the way, as a lowly officer of the Galae in Senator Pardek's service I was positioned right at the heart of the reformer's operation, it had taken us years to get someone in there and with a word, you ruined the entire set-up, you did not just betray me, Isha, you betrayed the Empire.”
“I didn't know!” Isha cried, and nor had she known that Raedheol had been dismissed, it was all her mother's doing, but she could not tell Raedheol that, trapped as she was between two ethical codes, both of which imposed silence on her.
“Of course not,” Raedheol shrugged, “Things 'just happen' to you, don't they? You express a wish and a whim and, oh! There it is!”
Isha’s confidence was waning rapidly. “Where am I, Raedheol?” she asked struggling to hold back the memories that she had locked away ten years before, “Please don't hurt me again.”
“I barely touched you.”
Her words came rapidly, on the overflow of her emotion, “You crushed my heart, Rh'vaurek and tore my soul to pieces, I can’t do this again.”
He shook his head dismissively. “Spare me, Isha. It doesn't really matter now, does it,” he brushed his hand over her cheek and into her hair, talking softly, almost gently, “it was very much like this, only then it was me who did not expect what was coming. It was all I could do to stop you from tearing my eyes out and really I didn't want to hurt you, not then, because then I still loved you, so I did this.” He clenching his fist in her hair and pulled her face level with his. She squealed, clawing at his hand as he held her struggling to take her weight on her toes, “and I bundled you into your vehicle, but what I should have done, is this!”
Without warning Isha was jerked off her feet as he dragged her a few paces across the cave by her hair. He released her mid pace and Isha fell to the floor clutching at her burning scalp, her tears mingled with the slimy moisture that trickled across the floor in this part of the cave, cooling her cheek but unable to calm the sickness in her stomach or the keening in her ears, as she gazed at her hands expecting to see clumps of hair between her fingers she realised that she was the source of the noise. She screwed her eyes closed, her wail quietening to a sob and to little more than a whimper as she heard Raedheol's step nearby.
Opening her eyes her gaze fell on his booted feet close by, - perhaps I'll break that pretty face ... he had threatened that, Isha though in horror. Maybe if she remained still he would leave her …
For the longest minute Isha remained exactly where she was, hoping for some indication that he had gone, a sound, a word … maybe she would wake up. Unable to bear the tension Isha cracked open her eyes and risked a fearful glance up.
“You're pathetic,” Raedheol sneered, “Get up!”
As Isha scrambled to do his bidding he laughed, a sound that wrenched her apart as mush as anything else he had done.
“I think that's the first time you've ever done anything I asked without an argument,” he said twisting a thick strand of Isha's hair around his hand, “But really, I still don't think you're taking me seriously,” Raedheol said. Isha tried to step away but his fingers clenched around her upper arm, “If you move away from me again I'll drag you right to the other end of this cave and back, understand?”
Isha nodded recognising nothing of the man she had known in this monster. Nothing in Isha's life had prepared her for this sort of experience, the fear, discomfort and emotional anguish, the loneliness and the pain and humiliation, all at the hands of a man she wanted so desperately to forgive her.
“Strip,” he ordered, repeating the instruction more forcefully when she continued to stare blankly at him.
Isha’s world had become a very small place, a little square of stone into which she did not quite fit her head felt too big and everything was too loud, it all seemed to sway. It wasn’t safe to move, she thought.
“Do I have to hurt you?” someone asked.
Isha blinked, the childhood Aehallh from under the bed had come to get her, she must have done something very wrong. Clumsily, she did as it asked and began to unbutton her gown.
With growing impatience Raedheol knocked her hands away before tearing the gown open, Isha held her ground her teeth clamped tight on the inside of her cheek as she shrugged the fabric off her shoulders, the cold air biting her skin, down her arms, over her elbows, the left wrist and then the right. Her head remained bowed as her skirt fell away.
“Better,” Raedheol said. “You should eat more,” he remarked passing behind her.. “A little girl out of her depth. A spoiled selfish brat. You're not really worthy of my attention, you know,” he traced a finger over her moist cheek, “Rihannsu don't cry, Isha,” Raedheol whispered in her ear, “not in front of their enemies:”
Isha swallowed, a wave of panic crashed over her taking with it her mind’s attempt to rationalise what was happening to her. “I want Nveid,” she screamed turning on Raedheol, “I WANT NVEID!”
“I told you what I would do if you moved,” Raedheol growled.
But Isha was not listening any more, she wasn’t even thinking. Her brain was saying one thing; run.
She pushed him back with all her strength and ran for the lights. Raedheol staggered and swore avoiding with difficulty her flailing arms and legs as he grabbed her shoulder and dragged her back from the edge of the pit. Unable to hold her still he shoved her to the ground.
“LISTEN TO ME!” he shouted, “LISTEN!”
But Isha would respond to neither words nor threats, her arms were wrapped tightly around her head and her legs kicked and resisted all attempts to straighten them among a stream of sobs.
Raedheol withdrew. He knew there was nothing more he could do with her for now. He would begin again when she had been rested. As he watched her he ran a hand through his hair yearning to do the one thing he could not, to reach out and comfort the broken woman before who lay before him.
“Sleep well, d'Ishaal,” he said as he emptied a hypospray into her neck. She relaxed instantly as the melorazine took effect; it would keep her unconscious until he returned, just in case he placed her at the bottom of the fissure rather than risk her waking and wandering deeper into the cave system in the dark. “I wish it hadn't been this way.”
So far he hadn't done more than imply the damage he could do to her. When he returned from his appointment with Ael'Riov Latasalaem, the gloves were coming off; Isha would barely know what had hit her.
OFF:
Ihhei Isha e-Khellian i-Ramnau t’Illialhlae
&
'Arrain' Rh'varuek Raedheol (NPC)
by Commander Isha t'Vaurek
Post Details
| Title | Heartless: Part 2 | |
| Mission | Deception: The lesser part of Valour | |
| Author(s) | Commander Isha t'Vaurek | |
| Posted | Wed Nov 19, 2008 @ 3:34pm | |
| Location | Undisclosed | |
| Timeline | 2355 - ancient, but pertinent history |
ON
It was the stinging sensation across her torso that brought Isha back to consciousness; a wide band where the disruptor beam had hit her. Isha's hands ached too from where Raedheol had squeezed the small bones too tightly together. She rolled uncomfortably onto her side, blinking in the darkness.
“Lights?” she ventured, but either there was no computer, or it had been programmed not to obey her.
Awkwardly, Isha pushed herself up, wincing as her knee rolled over a pebble beneath the thin blanket on which she lay. “Rh'vaurek?” she said tentatively, adding, “are you there?” a little more loudly.
Isha glanced around in the darkness, the space felt large and the air cold and moist. Higher up there appeared to be a dim phosphorescent glow, too faint to offer any light she could see by. “So this is your idea of hospitality,” she muttered feeling her way step by step across the uneven floor.
She gasped as the cave was suddenly flooded with bright white light throwing her hands over her face to block the dazzling glare.
“You're up then,” Raedheol said from somewhere – where?
“Where am I?” Isha asked, lowering one hand briefly before covering her eyes again, ”I demand that you let me go.”
“You're in no position to make demands, Isha.”
“Yet here I am making them,” she retorted moving towards the source of the light.
“I wouldn't walk that way if I were you,” Raedheol warned, “the floor is split. If you want to break your neck go ahead, but I don't advise it.”
Isha paused and lowered her foot. “I can't see, the lights are too bright,” she said. A few seconds later they were dimmed and Isha lowered her hands from her face. About two paces from where she stood a dark fissure scored the floor of the cave; it was about five feet across and beyond it she could make out the shape of a shuttlecraft – the source of the light. Blinking as her eyes adjusted Isha turned to see Raedheol half sitting, half leaning against a low rock not far from where she had lain.
“Let's talk, Isha,” he said, pushing himself away from the rock face, “You look awful, by the way.”
“I missed my appointment with my hairdresser,” she replied sarcastically, “If I hurry I can make it.”
“No time, Isha,” he said, “The accommodation not to your liking?”
“You can't keep me here, I'll be missed,” Isha ventured.
“Nice try, Isha,” he said. “But you argued with your husband and stormed out of the compound in a temper, he’ll expect to hear nothing until you’ve had time to cool down, a process which I recall can take weeks. Your little ship is happily following its allotted course and registering the correct number of life-signs, so he’ll be content that you still think he’s an idiot or whatever you shrieked at him last and because he’s patient he will wait for you to be ready to speak to him. He’ll monitor its progress content that all is well – I imagine there will be some surprise when it arrives at its destination, but if I read the chart correctly, that will be in about four days. To be frank, I don't imagine that you will last that long.”
Isha's eyes widened, she must have mistaken his meaning, “be reasonable, Rh'vaurek.”
“I am. You were compelled to act as you did, although that action violated every principle you held, and why? Because your family demanded it! You knew you wrong at the time and here you are now, the last person I ever expected to find trying to wriggle out of the consequences of acting against her own mnhei'sahe.”
“You don't know what you are talking about!” Isha protested, “lyrrveoth (filial piety) has precedence in my mother's House!”
“You have a convenient philosophical argument for everything, Isha, but I'm not really a philosopher, and I really don't care what your family traditions are. I'm a very simple man. You betrayed me, and I want revenge.”
“My words were spoken in anger, Rh'vaurek, I did not act on them.”
“You told me that you would see me back where I came from and ruined if my memory is correct, if you didn't follow through on that, who did? Congratulations, by the way, as a lowly officer of the Galae in Senator Pardek's service I was positioned right at the heart of the reformer's operation, it had taken us years to get someone in there and with a word, you ruined the entire set-up, you did not just betray me, Isha, you betrayed the Empire.”
“I didn't know!” Isha cried, and nor had she known that Raedheol had been dismissed, it was all her mother's doing, but she could not tell Raedheol that, trapped as she was between two ethical codes, both of which imposed silence on her.
“Of course not,” Raedheol shrugged, “Things 'just happen' to you, don't they? You express a wish and a whim and, oh! There it is!”
Isha’s confidence was waning rapidly. “Where am I, Raedheol?” she asked struggling to hold back the memories that she had locked away ten years before, “Please don't hurt me again.”
“I barely touched you.”
Her words came rapidly, on the overflow of her emotion, “You crushed my heart, Rh'vaurek and tore my soul to pieces, I can’t do this again.”
He shook his head dismissively. “Spare me, Isha. It doesn't really matter now, does it,” he brushed his hand over her cheek and into her hair, talking softly, almost gently, “it was very much like this, only then it was me who did not expect what was coming. It was all I could do to stop you from tearing my eyes out and really I didn't want to hurt you, not then, because then I still loved you, so I did this.” He clenching his fist in her hair and pulled her face level with his. She squealed, clawing at his hand as he held her struggling to take her weight on her toes, “and I bundled you into your vehicle, but what I should have done, is this!”
Without warning Isha was jerked off her feet as he dragged her a few paces across the cave by her hair. He released her mid pace and Isha fell to the floor clutching at her burning scalp, her tears mingled with the slimy moisture that trickled across the floor in this part of the cave, cooling her cheek but unable to calm the sickness in her stomach or the keening in her ears, as she gazed at her hands expecting to see clumps of hair between her fingers she realised that she was the source of the noise. She screwed her eyes closed, her wail quietening to a sob and to little more than a whimper as she heard Raedheol's step nearby.
Opening her eyes her gaze fell on his booted feet close by, - perhaps I'll break that pretty face ... he had threatened that, Isha though in horror. Maybe if she remained still he would leave her …
For the longest minute Isha remained exactly where she was, hoping for some indication that he had gone, a sound, a word … maybe she would wake up. Unable to bear the tension Isha cracked open her eyes and risked a fearful glance up.
“You're pathetic,” Raedheol sneered, “Get up!”
As Isha scrambled to do his bidding he laughed, a sound that wrenched her apart as mush as anything else he had done.
“I think that's the first time you've ever done anything I asked without an argument,” he said twisting a thick strand of Isha's hair around his hand, “But really, I still don't think you're taking me seriously,” Raedheol said. Isha tried to step away but his fingers clenched around her upper arm, “If you move away from me again I'll drag you right to the other end of this cave and back, understand?”
Isha nodded recognising nothing of the man she had known in this monster. Nothing in Isha's life had prepared her for this sort of experience, the fear, discomfort and emotional anguish, the loneliness and the pain and humiliation, all at the hands of a man she wanted so desperately to forgive her.
“Strip,” he ordered, repeating the instruction more forcefully when she continued to stare blankly at him.
Isha’s world had become a very small place, a little square of stone into which she did not quite fit her head felt too big and everything was too loud, it all seemed to sway. It wasn’t safe to move, she thought.
“Do I have to hurt you?” someone asked.
Isha blinked, the childhood Aehallh from under the bed had come to get her, she must have done something very wrong. Clumsily, she did as it asked and began to unbutton her gown.
With growing impatience Raedheol knocked her hands away before tearing the gown open, Isha held her ground her teeth clamped tight on the inside of her cheek as she shrugged the fabric off her shoulders, the cold air biting her skin, down her arms, over her elbows, the left wrist and then the right. Her head remained bowed as her skirt fell away.
“Better,” Raedheol said. “You should eat more,” he remarked passing behind her.. “A little girl out of her depth. A spoiled selfish brat. You're not really worthy of my attention, you know,” he traced a finger over her moist cheek, “Rihannsu don't cry, Isha,” Raedheol whispered in her ear, “not in front of their enemies:”
Isha swallowed, a wave of panic crashed over her taking with it her mind’s attempt to rationalise what was happening to her. “I want Nveid,” she screamed turning on Raedheol, “I WANT NVEID!”
“I told you what I would do if you moved,” Raedheol growled.
But Isha was not listening any more, she wasn’t even thinking. Her brain was saying one thing; run.
She pushed him back with all her strength and ran for the lights. Raedheol staggered and swore avoiding with difficulty her flailing arms and legs as he grabbed her shoulder and dragged her back from the edge of the pit. Unable to hold her still he shoved her to the ground.
“LISTEN TO ME!” he shouted, “LISTEN!”
But Isha would respond to neither words nor threats, her arms were wrapped tightly around her head and her legs kicked and resisted all attempts to straighten them among a stream of sobs.
Raedheol withdrew. He knew there was nothing more he could do with her for now. He would begin again when she had been rested. As he watched her he ran a hand through his hair yearning to do the one thing he could not, to reach out and comfort the broken woman before who lay before him.
“Sleep well, d'Ishaal,” he said as he emptied a hypospray into her neck. She relaxed instantly as the melorazine took effect; it would keep her unconscious until he returned, just in case he placed her at the bottom of the fissure rather than risk her waking and wandering deeper into the cave system in the dark. “I wish it hadn't been this way.”
So far he hadn't done more than imply the damage he could do to her. When he returned from his appointment with Ael'Riov Latasalaem, the gloves were coming off; Isha would barely know what had hit her.
OFF:
Ihhei Isha e-Khellian i-Ramnau t’Illialhlae
&
'Arrain' Rh'varuek Raedheol (NPC)