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Occurs February 22nd.
Form followed function followed force followed necessity. Performance reviews were a part of command that had to be seen to with brand new recruits and brand new officers given the reins of power. Heliodor was knocking at 6 weeks and weaving a pretty necklace to hang himself with according to all reports from Barbary. There was something to be said for the harum-scarum corrupted continuing recalcitrance even in the face of Captain Faustite’s explanations and warnings. There was something to be weighed in that, against a heart or head or soul, and to see how the scales went this way or that for outcome.
A ‘room’ in the Dark Kingdom space with a simple desk, a chair, a load of glowing crystals about the walls for light, and a 50ft roll of restraint tape was prepared. Barbary draped the desk as a plush, pleasant accessory to lean on while considering the time of day. Faustite had been made aware ahead of time to expect the review by some days, and not Heliodor. Nor for the information to be made available to the reviewee. Then the General put out her will and summoned, focussing on them each in turn. Sweat came down her back beneath the thick green jacket.
“Ex nihilo nihil fit, so we must determine what has been the use of our tools to know what will be their use in the future.” The words greeted them only once they both arrived. “It has been 8 weeks since Officer Heliodor was recruited.”
“First will be stated, as understood, chain of command by name and rank for this officer. Then We will hear a report from This Officer on progress: training regimen completed, powers as they are understood and number of demonstrations in the field, report of quota achieved, recitation of current standing orders from direct commanding Officer... Heliodor will then open subspace to produce the required starseed, communications pen and sailor pen that should be on his person. “
The cold night air, having had its chance to bite at exposed skin, was exchanged for a temperate warmth of negaspace. Heliodor felt a sense of disconnect as his body caught up to what had happened and once the warmer air had its way with him, a small shiver rode down his spine as he stood in the crystal lit room. Schorl, in her usual demanding presence, stood in front of him and Faustite. What’s going on? He attempted to throw the question at Faustite with a quirked brow, but Schorl was the one to answer.
A list of expectations was rattled off to him and Heliodor found himself struggling to keep pace with the General. Eyes widened as brows rose high. The terms used were not so straightforward, or simple to understand. Faustite had rarely used such vocab with Helio and the corrupts own military vocab was very little, and certainly not something he utilized on a daily basis. “Jumping right on in I see.” He commented in an attempt to ease his own tension of the situation.
“Right. Captain Faustite is my direct commanding officer underneath General Schorl.” He glanced from one to the other with each state name. His gaze settled on the General. “Up before 7:30 with the morning focused on physical activities with meditation between running and my work out. That has all become a relatively easy routine for me to settle into each day. Actually I look forward to it.” He remarked with a grin.
“After that is readings which…” He paused. How much could he lie here? With the General’s personal youma practically mocking him from it’s position behind Schorl, he felt unlikely to get away with much if anything at all. How much had Faustite been reporting too?
He sighed. “Let me be frank here. I was flat out neglecting a lot of my regime. I only went to what I felt like going to or engaging in what interested me at the time.” He shrugged. “I won’t say I am proud of it, but I will say I’ve since been trying to fix my mistakes the past few days.” He stood tall as he faced off Schorl as a tongue darted out to quench dried lips.
Reviews ate at him for a count of days; Heliodor showed poor progress for the weeks spent under Faustite's supervision, and that show grew ever worse for all the imagined fates that awaited him. Meek subordination could not slake the count of days abandoned to injury. That poor performance imperiled Heliodor and Faustite both, though the former knew nothing of Schörl's capacity. Faustite was sworn to say nothing of it, either.
It wasn't the only hollow worry that starved him of his appetite and frayed him out with too-raw nerves. Sleep lost to fitful shifts was relegated to busywork and more busywork. But his mind never idled well; it worried and warped and whorled around things done undone redone and never done with every wish that he could buy back the time, pave over his failures, fix all the links in the chain. Fill all his empty voids with some semblance of substance and ratify his control over himself. The control lost to panic, wakefulness, watchfulness. The panic that hewed heavy hollows under his eyes.
Apprehension grew, seizing his mind and twisting it into its branches as time marched through the day. He wished for a time -- for any preface -- so he could attend with a marked lack of sobriety. But Schörl gave nothing but the day, and his time was better squandered on frivolous paperwork that could stand for a few mistakes to liven it up. Surely a lieutenant somewhere would have reason to concentrate on their job when the lot of it was submitted. It would do to whittle the hours until she made her call.
The beckon was felt in his starseed, sparing time enough to order himself before his surroundings melted seamless. A different shift of beady light ensconced him; he looked upon Schörl and his subordinate. Apprehension started to bloom.
Heliodor answered… Part of one out of six. He managed only so far, willfully unable to hold the rest of her demands in his head, and shrugged the lot off in his torrid belligerence. He spoke to her so informally that he would sooner figure himself the dominant one in the room, despite the blistering whorl of energy to inform him otherwise. Yes, tell her more. Tell her you've been trying harder. Pretend like that means something. A hitch of muscle wound its way between his ribs, festering like a snake.
Finally that apprehension bore fruit. Heliodor wrapped up his ignorance in a half-finished mess of obstinance, and Faustite chuckled coldly. The sound grew wild, flew out of his care, birthed from wretched days past. It teetered desperately at the median and tipped its petty fingers toward rampant despair, so he bit knuckles until he bit through and a fleck of blood-as-ink spoke for his rightful togetherness. You want to die. You really want to die.
Have it your way, Heliodor. You'll have the penalty to match your misbegotten misery. The laugh died out at last; when he looked to his recruit again, his eyes shone brilliantly cold.
Bared-teeth broad the smile, “There was neither question nor prompt, no permission to opine. “
“So certain was Rowan that his tie was just so. His shoes. His coif and collar. The devil is in the details. Words to the right ears and cameras. Yet here this one’s grammar fails so spectacularly as to blunder what grade schoolers parse: no question structure, six directives in the imperative. Let us start from the top, in crayon. There is no such thing as partial credit. Wrong answers, let us count them: Officer Heliodor’s chain of command is Captain Faustite, then General Schörl. Correct. Then, as belonging to the General Operations Branch, any of the three available and accounted for General Sovereigns. Lepidolite, Axinite, Hessonite. One, Two, Three, me-oh my, oh-me. Then the military Queen, Laurelite. Four, a bore. Finally, and most vitally important to drill into your memory, the being of Chaos called Metallia. Sounds like five.”
“Isn’t it good to be alive?” She patted Barbary’s head with a quick, surreptitious rap-rapping. “Neglect, easy, settling on in, looking on forward, frankness...Officer Heliodor is very insistent that he needs to be eased and want, ENGAGED, before he has to act. We will attend this insistence, most assuredly, as officers need when faced with-”
The general never looked anywhere except directly at his face. “Captains. With Generals. What are these things, Officer Heliodor? Since provided study has been ignored and was uninteresting , what can Officer Heliodor infer, off the cuff, about the Negaverse and the situation of living, with his superior intellect, from titles like ‘Officer’, ‘Lieutenant’, ‘Captain’, ‘General’, ‘General Sovereign’, and ‘Queen’?”
He glanced to his Captain out of the corner of his eye. Laughter, certainly odd and Helios felt, uncalled for, made the officer a bit uneasy. Shifting his weight from left foot to right he frowned but turned his attention back to the General who demanded so much of his attention. The one who seemed to fill the room with a presence that Helio couldn’t quite get a grasp on, and that wasn’t just from her strong signature. This woman held herself as someone who was superior is may ways, and that caused the hairs on Helio’s neck to stand up.
What he hadn’t expected was what appeared to be a level of amusement from the green-clad General at his answers. Sure, he hadn’t fully covered everything she asked, but at the same time, he knew he was incapable of answering them. Why should effort be put in when there was nothing to report? He had messed up. He knew it and laid it out on the table for this woman and she seemed quite content to rub it in his face.
To add more misery, the woman spoke in such a way that spun poor Heliodor’s head. Never had he experienced such a speech pattern from a person before. At least not in a real life sort of situation. Intimidated though he was by those eyes practically boring into his soul, he could do nothing else but stare back as eyes wavered. His mind raced in an attempt to decipher and understand what it was that she wanted out of him. Why can’t she speak in words that actually make sense? I feel like she’s playing some sort of game when talking like this.
Mouth opened as if to response before slowly closing again. Brows furrowed as he shifted weight again. “There’s a chain of command. The higher the chain goes the more powerful those people are.” He paused, licking lips as he considered what else to say. “That puts me at the bottom of the barrel.” He responded with a hint of distaste. “But what that has to do with the ‘situation of living’ I am not sure except that I am expected to follow orders. Which, I said I know I made mistakes with. I have been trying to rectify that.”
What more did this woman want from him? To drop onto knees and beg for forgiveness for his mistake? Were mistakes and follies not welcomed to the individuals that made up this military world? Maybe not since I’ve seen little interest in anyone wanting to really get to know me.
The bared twitch of lids belied his shift in focus. Schörl ever contented herself. The Green General began her rhyming count and Faustite swallowed uneasily. How far would Heliodor protract this? Already he failed so many commands, failed the direct questions, and failed to put pretentious intellect to use.
And Heliodor never leashed his temper, either. Never lashed it for its uselessness in a room with captain and general. Who did he expect to overpower? To impress? An undisciplined mouth brought ever the unwelcomed dinner.
Fingers knit tighter behind his back as he awaited Schörl's further amusement.
Canted by fifteen degrees, she gazed at him, and Schörl’s mouth peeled back into a grimace. Her gaze still tracked on the boy’s face, on his bewilderment and furrows. Barren was the field of his brow, lacking even plebeian fruits. A change of angle, a blink, a coughed laugh of amaze, but none could dissuade the certainty that this was no Tomfoolery. “What a marvel you are. Even making use of such important words like ‘rectify.’ “
“A military, Heliodor. The answer is it means you are part of a military structure. Six. You can’t even answer my questions. You can’t count them. Powers unstated is seven. Number of demonstrations in the field, eight. Quota, nine. No starseed, pen, or communications is ten, eleven, twelve. The hours of the clock face are full. ”
“You have deliberately, ‘frankly’ and ‘flat out’, disobeyed direct orders from your Commanding Officer in a military structure. For eight weeks. Going for a morning run as you choose and decide, when you can’t even figure out what a military structure means, can’t understand what your living situation is for the last 8 weeks, is rectifying that? Eight weeks is 56 days. What have you done that makes up for 56 days of reading, of meditation alteration to your neural pathways, of muscle and endurance building so that you can meet the minimum requirements of a field test? How do you rectify and equal 56 days of practice combat training that is missing on your first day of live combat against an enemy?”
“How many of 56 days have you disobeyed Captain Faustite? “ He was expected to answer, but her gaze shifted at last to the Captain for his confirmation or denial of the number given by the recruit.
Heliodor scrambled mentally at what was being requested of him. Suddenly everything he thought he was starting to do right seemed utterly worthless and insufficient. With each tick against him, the corrupt physically flinched until he felt ready to crawl in on himself. With that humiliation a desire to defend himself rose, but what did he have?
“No.” He answered finally “No it doesn’t make up for all of those missed days. I didn’t say it did or would, but I am trying now. I am putting the effort forward. I….I don’t know what else I can do at this point besides throwing myself into the training that Fau...Captain Faustite has set up. There’s only so much time in a day an…”
He stopped himself. “I wouldn’t say I fought with him all of those days…” when eyes flicked from Helio to Faustite, the corrupt wondered if the Captain was going to agree with his General or at least lend some sort of support for his subordinate. There were times I tried. Times I put effort in. More so now than earlier.
Despite everything, Helio couldn’t help but feel like he was holding a shovel and was nearly six feet under already. Nothing like digging your own grave.
‘It writhes!—it writhes!—with mortal pangs ‘ The angle of her mirth righted again, eyes still on her Captain. Here to self-same the stroke that strove for power returned in Mother’s curse. Heliodor’s hypocrisy was bald, ‘it doesn’t,’ ‘I didn’t,’ chiastic to ‘trying.’ It was protest. ‘Trying,’ desperately, childishly, still should count for something, surely something. At the least, that she reply directly to his protestation and argue the point more, so allowing him all the more to wheedle-weasel words and ‘non’ dispute. He wasn’t saying at all to prove how much he was doing and shouldn’t be punished for! It would wait, not to be bait-answered right away, but for the time of review, as a judgement, as the jury, and as the executioner.
“There’s some irony in hatching out mistakes in a tally, asking for a number so specifically, and receiving none. Thirteen, rides the pale horse and ride of the Arcana.“ He had not earned a seat in the dialectic, but remained solidly the catechumen.
“ ‘How many’ is a phrasal, one of the Six Ws of basic interrogative function. It says the following question, ‘what number out of?’ and was followed by the mathematical set ‘of 56,’ telling the upper absolute limit. The answer will be between zero and 56, following the qualification ‘have you disobeyed Captain Faustite.’ The last functions as an if-then gate: if yes, count one, if no, move on to the next day without adding onto the tally. Disobedience has its broadest definition for our purpose: to defy directly or indirectly, to evade and shirk, to decline to carry out or to neglect, ignore, to balk to his commands, to overstep your rank as a lieutenant and choose your own method over his commands. That would be fourteen. Informal as your answer was, ‘all those days,’ will suffice…adding us up to seventy. Tidy.“
The General clicked her bootheels once, standing away from desk, from Barbary, “Lieutenant, you spilt the water of your promise in the sand. Now you’re handing your comrades, who thirst for your potential, a glass of piss, ‘trying’ to pass it off as potable. It does not quench our thirst. It is weeks stale with bacteria. You make yourself a handicap, so handicap you will have commensurate to yourself. Captain Faustite, secure your subordinate to the desk, facing his good intentions.”
She commanded, he complied. While his mind stuttered and lurched over Heliodor's display of complete incompetence, he reached out to seize the so-called lieutenant's arm by the elbow. First came a tug of requested obedience, then a second irresistible command should Heliodor balk at the notion. Toward the table he walked.
Neither commanding officer brooked any disagreement; Faustite's heel to Schörl became evident in his silence. That his neck again strained under the weight of that silence was no matter. He would urge Heliodor to the desk by his collar, eyes toward the boots that should be his covetous prize, and take up the trial of tying away the rest of his subordinate's impotent reason. Tape first for hands that should not object, to wind fingers dutifully into disturbing, unnatural balls. Then arms were folded across back as if across chest, wound together by Schörl's liberal roll of tape, unwound halfway only once for how it tightened too much over skin. He doubted any circulation suppression would matter if Heliodor kept his count low, but the staggering total of seventy left Faustite wondering.
Will you die from the pain? The question was asked in a tap of taloned fingers over a restrained forearm. He set the roll aside. Schörl's weapon would ask far more forceful questions of him over the course of this interrogation; doubtless the answer would need interpretation. Poor performance and poorer comprehension stripped Heliodor of any briefs.
Faustite stood aside with his quietude hung heavy about his shoulders. He did not stray far from his charge, however; his gaze was aware of Heliodor's prostrate form. I thought you were smarter than this. Wiser. More malleable. More situationally aware. I thought you could perform -- that I wouldn't lose you by starseeding. You've shown me nothing but your husk. You load the dead weight of your old life around your neck and let it hang you. Just like mother.
Blinking, he looked to Schörl for the inevitable. His fist tightened at his side with too-long nails biting into ink-stained palms.
What even? Heliodor could only stare at the General with utter confusion as she spoke. Why was she so insistent on exact numbers. Why the push to hear every little thing that he had done wrong? Did she think he didn’t understand the folly of his ways? That his words were nothing more than hollow shells? He knew very well he had messed up. Why was recounting each mistake so important? But, important it seemed as she continued to tally up her own number based off of whatever it was she deemed so important. Apparently admitting my own mistakes isn’t good enough for this woman.
70 was a rather large number to come to. What did it mean?
An order directed to his Captain and Heliodor found himself being manipulated towards the desk. He didn’t balk. Didn’t give any indication that he was going to resist the lead, but golden eyes watched his Captain with worried curiosity. Like an invisible yoke, Schorl’s words had moved the half-youma to compliance and in the process, Heliodor himself. Wanting to stay true to his words and to prove he had all intentions of righting his mistakes, the corrupt didn’t fight as he was escorted to the piece of furniture.
Forced to lay face down upon the wooden desk is heart began to race. The addition of tape as restraints with hands tied behind back quickened the pace. “What are you doing?” He finally brokered the question with a voice hesitant and worried. For a moment, as tape unwound he thought perhaps the prank was over. The warning of ‘do this again and this is your punishment’ was surely enough at this point, right? But no. The tape was rewound back up, just loose enough to keep his circulation from stalling to much needed extremities.
Neck craned as he tried to look to Faustite with eyes practically begging to be released or at least answers to what was occuring. It was near impossible to catch the other’s eyes though as his own body kept him from catching more than feeble glances of the Captain as the commanding young man stepped back.
Trembling tongue, clattered confidence, pleading pet eyeing up the very captain of his earliest scorn and self-pitying prattling and stupid, stupid, stupid. Still situational awareness stupefied in the stone skull, stone name. Slim-to-none slipped the excuse of amnesia insofar as the now weeks-long answers to the questions Heliodor’s brain failed to find hamsters for: What was a Military? What was Conscription? What were examples of military law, of drumhead court-martials? What was Non-Judicial Punishment? The cult of patriotism ensured it’s greatest hits and greatest war propaganda so that caissons kept rolling along as swiftly as registering for the Selective Service System. As regular as Gillette's 18th birthday gifts to slit his own throat first in meddling and now...
On simplicities of team-informational practice like what each of their names, ranks, and weapons were: Faustite, Captain, Partially-Youmafied smoke effect; Schörl, General, Rattan Cane. She clicked that cane once, moving her chin at their own Billy Budd. Barbary weedled it’s way to fit the corrupted senshi’s shoulders, prepared to be a cape of silence if ordered for any unfortunate screaming. The lion-like paws latched down onto the desk around him as a secondary restraint. ‘What are you doing’ he’d asked. Always questions and never listening, never observing. Willful ignorance or just ignorance? ‘Bastinado’ wasn’t likely to mean anything more to him than the word ‘military’ had, or ranks, or orders. Words had no bite, yet.
She set her cane to lean on the chairback. It was an intimate act, undressing his feet from their privacy. Petting off the layers revealed privileged limbs with clean skin and none of the calluses of previous centuries. This body went barefoot by choice, drove as wanted without fear of gasoline prices, worked and walked as he chose. These had not been the feet of slavery or servitude. She danced her nails lightly in experiment of tickling fashion. “You will find the vaults of the feet are exquisitely sensitive. The nerves there don’t adjust to alleviate repetitive sensation. They activate and intensify the sensation with each stroke until you discover your pinnacle. “
She picked up her cane, trailed her fingers off into the emptiness of no touch at all and waiting. The anticipation of the strike served as much to the reception of the experience. Finally a hiss and a crack welted the air. “One.”
“I’ve counted once for you already. I will not do so again. Count, Heliodor, and keep the number right rather than mistaken. Mistakes are added.”
Faustite's gaze shot at once to their shared commander. She expected an accurate count from Heliodor, who displayed his absolute failures at the most basic proficiencies. Failure to recount that they were in a military structure, failure to comprehend the significance of the count, failure to snap out of his fantastical reverie and grasp that he would be imminently caned. This was Heliodor's chance -- possibly his last chance. Count properly and leave this space in a wheelchair; fail the count and face death by caning.
The days added so judiciously told story enough of their time spent together. Orders flagrantly disobeyed, his use of smoke on Heliodor to stun him into silence, Heliodor's mercurial shifts between self-pitying, despondent acquiescence and spitfire intent to do the opposite. Fights had, words had. Quota minimums frequently unmet. Patrols taken in twos instead of solo, not for Heliodor's protection against the enemy but protection against himself. All these hours of all these days watched by Barbary and fed back to their puppetmistress.
He should not pity, he knew. Standing to the side, observant only of Schörl's dependable pendulum, the count was in part to his defense. His knuckles tightened against his fist. That Heliodor required this at all was his mistake, wasn't it? That he could not bring Heliodor to heel testified to his ineptitude as a captain. A point in the court of pulling him from twilight to full night, far past the dawn of his youth.
That twilight anchored him into the confusion of the moment. He cast his gaze to Heliodor, offering a last mourning sigh for the man he thought he was. Then, to Schörl, while trembling with bound livewire, he offered a hand. "May I?"
A handful and nothing more -- enough to form a taste of it. A taste of pain and what it meant to cause pain. A test of empathy. A show of solidarity in punishing and in being punished.
It was impossible for the corrupt to see what was going on strapped down as he was. An intense worry escalated as Schorl began to disrobe his feet. One, then the other. Great care seemed to be taken with the process and Helio found himself distressed and confused. Fingers darting over the tender skin of the well marked dancer feet had the young man twitching the offended appendages.
Her words brought his distress to a higher level and muscles tensed throughout his entire body. There was a denial that she wouldn’t actually harm him. This was all a ruse to scare him. And, for a moment he convinced himself of that as all sense of touch was removed from the soles of his feet.
The first stroke took his breath away at the suddenness of it. His body pulled against his restraints.
“One.” He choked out as he attempted to breath through the first bout of pain.
As promised, it continued. One stroke after the other. HE kept count with each hit. Sometimes audible other time barely recognizable as a real word.
Faustite took the reigns then, and Helio shot the Captain a look of betrayl as he moved into position. “Twelve.”
Was he really only at twelve? HE hadn’t lost count had he?
“Thirteen.”
No he was sure he hadn’t.
“Fo--tin.” His feet were burning after each hit! And he had to make it to seventy? What were the chances he’d last that long?
Schörl’s teeth grew taller as Heliodor’s words learned brevity. “That diction won’t make sonnets. “
“Poetry and song drew clemency long ago of graves and monarchs. Control your tongue and sweetly now- you’re not molten, yet.”
One warmer from the forge-works walked and talked with closer to a scimitar words to pause the swish and crack. Her pupils slid wide, narrow, wide again along the shivers of reflected light on his mettle and meat, screws and solitude. Weighing. How thrills the war within? Reviled this rapture? Relishing, as something bitter and sour in regard, and so unquiet in the sway of dread imperium? The cinema as possible to eyes with comcast-deprived eyes towards treachery. Wouldn’t that be a swallow.
The dragon circled, snapped to side then slide tip to top and held out handle-wise first to the Captain’s grasp. “Let’s see it. Walking, as he won’t, up from the Dead Man’s Chest. Lay the blows like pencils nestled in a box of bone. The bridge between his leathers is the target.”
Her words wound in his chest. They needed no springs, no gears, no wheels. The cane was accepted, foreign and unbearably light in his juvenile grip. Fit for hands and wrists and arms that balked at burdens. He could not say, then, what he carried.
Fifteen. Fitting. He turned the cane in his grip, weighed it once then twice. It wasn't like a baseball bat, nor a tennis racket, nor a croquet mallet, nor a hockey stick, nor a walking cane. It spoke of a world to which Schörl belonged — one into which she dragged him, youth-blind and bleeding. The seconds marched heavy down the shivers of his wrists. I asked for this.
Like pencils nestled in a box of bone. He seldom weighed the comparison until he struck the fifteenth. That one was all shoulder. Swung too harshly, like a feverish batter on his last strike. Moments of silence passed where he watched, jaw stiff, for welts to raise and warp the smooth Cs.
Sixteenth involved much more elbow. Less bodily, less tug on immobile steel. Faustite drew a sharp breath.
Lay the blows, she said. Seventeenth was more wrist, a touch of elbow. Too light, he found, for the way the shock traveled up his narrow arms. Heliodor's voice very nearly sounded pleasant. Her words wound tighter, dredging up their brethren from the waters in which he buried them. Faustite pulled another breath. How many seconds was it since the last? Nearly a minute.
Eighteen nearly struck the ball of the foot. He wondered if it would've been a shame. Schörl often kept a rhyme for that, didn't she?
Nineteen followed by half a minute. A perfect stroke, he hoped.
He hoped. Before him lay his subordinate, whose life he took away. Next to him stood the general that took his life away. Others vied for those same positions — to take their fill or be taken — to lie prostrate or to prostrate others — and he wore that loss proudly now. He wore it in the way his arms shifted to mete out blows. In how his feet remained firmly planted. In how breath came and left with flesh memory. How easily innocence fled.
How much she'd taken, how insidiously she took it, how blind he'd been — each took their measure as Faustite handed back the cane in a shaken hand. He made no word of it — he knew the cost of speech — but he drew his quick stride back from desk to door. To hallway. To stairs. To double doors. To the loathed dark. To distance. To the first stretch of freedom where her words wound and snapped.
The strokes were less practiced. Less accurate. But, that didn’t mean that each one didn’t bite as badly or worse than their counterparts. As Faustite measured each strike, some quickly, others further apart, the corrupt couldn’t help but feel like he was nothing more than a whipping boy. A body. A being to let one’s frustrations out. The difference was starling as Heliodor continued to keep count.
Schorl meted out punishment.
Faustite let loose personal frustrations.
Boots on the floor moving caught Heliodor’s attention enough to catch sight of a dark figure leaving, no fleeing, the room in a state of learned control. Byt his point eyes were wet with tears edging to leak out. There was so much more. So much to come, and not only had his commanding officer taken a stab at the pains, he had decided to leave the job unfinished on his side. He couldn’t even be bothered to stay and watch.
Forehead met the smooth surface of the desk. Small rivulets of sweat raced down temples, along cheeks and brows, to drip onto the once clean surface. There, face hidden, he let the tears that had been threatening to fall to finally release. Whether they were disguised or not amongst the drips on the desk he didn’t care.
51 more to go. Would he even have flesh left after such a beating?
It was then he realized with stark clarity that no one cared.
