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[Semi-Open] An Esteemed Guest of Lohkimareen
WHO: Hayame (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
warmare) & Makoto('s Head) (affal) & You
WHAT: Visits, interrogations, supply drops, medical aid, nightmares, maybe an eventual rescue?
WHERE: Lohkimareen, near the Valley of the Innocent
WHEN: Throughout Sekiseri (Sept.)
WARNINGS: there is a living severed head in this log and almost no one is going to be nice to him + a variety of referenced CW's (torture, amputation, SA, etc.)
[There is a new resident of the forest of Lohkimareen, to the west along the border with the Valley of the Innocent. It had taken portals and days of travel to make her way there, but Hayame (and her unwilling "guest") now call those woods... "home", following the advice of the aion Tehri, who assured that the Regent's eyes should not be able to penetrate the trees. So for now, Hayame and the severed head of the Kenoma Makoto tied to her withers spend their nights in hollow trees and caves, moving location each day, just in case, even though the forest is supposed to protect them.
Perhaps she would have spent those days quietly, putting her efforts into recovering from her injuries... if Makoto would stop waking in the night and mouthing off at her, and if he was not a valuable potential resource to the Pleroma, some of their number which desire to speak to him. But she will not trust his "care" to another, not when he was... something. Her trophy, her hostage. Even when others come to call, she refuses to leave the "room", even if she will largely leave them to their devices as long as the visitors do not touch or attempt to mess with the shard in the man's skull. ... There's a bit for when he gets too mouthy, blinders and earplugs for when sensitive information needs be discussed between only the Pleroma. Other than that, he looks... almost well taken care of.
Supplies need to be brought, Hayame needs medical care for the raw eye socket where her left eye had been, there are interrogations and talks with Makoto to be done... But what business has brought you here today?]
starters and wildcards go below! please use the OOC plotting post to check-in first, plz and thanks!
warmare) & Makoto('s Head) (affal) & YouWHAT: Visits, interrogations, supply drops, medical aid, nightmares, maybe an eventual rescue?
WHERE: Lohkimareen, near the Valley of the Innocent
WHEN: Throughout Sekiseri (Sept.)
WARNINGS: there is a living severed head in this log and almost no one is going to be nice to him + a variety of referenced CW's (torture, amputation, SA, etc.)
[There is a new resident of the forest of Lohkimareen, to the west along the border with the Valley of the Innocent. It had taken portals and days of travel to make her way there, but Hayame (and her unwilling "guest") now call those woods... "home", following the advice of the aion Tehri, who assured that the Regent's eyes should not be able to penetrate the trees. So for now, Hayame and the severed head of the Kenoma Makoto tied to her withers spend their nights in hollow trees and caves, moving location each day, just in case, even though the forest is supposed to protect them.
Perhaps she would have spent those days quietly, putting her efforts into recovering from her injuries... if Makoto would stop waking in the night and mouthing off at her, and if he was not a valuable potential resource to the Pleroma, some of their number which desire to speak to him. But she will not trust his "care" to another, not when he was... something. Her trophy, her hostage. Even when others come to call, she refuses to leave the "room", even if she will largely leave them to their devices as long as the visitors do not touch or attempt to mess with the shard in the man's skull. ... There's a bit for when he gets too mouthy, blinders and earplugs for when sensitive information needs be discussed between only the Pleroma. Other than that, he looks... almost well taken care of.
Supplies need to be brought, Hayame needs medical care for the raw eye socket where her left eye had been, there are interrogations and talks with Makoto to be done... But what business has brought you here today?]
FOR MAKOTO ↣ ONE MONTH ↣ 友とは親密に、敵とはもっと親密に
VIGNETTE ONE ↣ NIGHTMARES ↣ 魘われる
It is not for lack of trying, and not even for being haunted by the violent act she has committed that had become something far different than what she imagined. Once she reached the woods of Lohkimaren she had been willing to rest once night fell. All of the walking, avoiding the more dangerous creatures that lurked in the mist, the backtracking, the setting of false trails... She should be sleeping like the dead. She's exhausted, dark circle visible under the one eye not covered by makeshift bandages, the lines of her withers, hips, and shoulders beginning to grow sharper from a lack of food.
But still... she continues on. And still, she can't sleep. Every night she has woken in the dark with some vague sense of dread or fear or disgust leaking into her mind, infecting her dreams, unaware that the Firebrand legacy she shares with the severed head in her possession might be to blame.
Tonight perhaps. Their camp today is more comfortable than others have been- there is a thick blanket of moss and lichen over the earth, this time, the stone cave has such a narrow, singular hidden entrance that it feels safer and more defensible. Enough so that, though Hayame has refused to lay down until now, sleeping standing on all four hooves... This time, after eating a few fruits she'd gathered on the trek and chewing bitterly on one of her last pieces of jerky... She lets her dun legs fold beneath her body and lumbers down to the soft(ish) floor. From there...
She takes Makoto's head from her harness, brushing off a stone space nearby to clear it of dried leaves and dirt before she sets his stump down upon it. Her movements a bit wooden, she removes the blindfold, first, unable to stop the automatic turn into a glare when their eyes might meet. From there, the earplugs come out, and then, mindful not to get her fingers anywhere near his teeth... she unbuckles the strap behind his skull to release the metal bit.]
Hold still if you don't want to sit in your own drool all night.
[That is her greeting, pulling a scrap of cloth (the remnants of the garment that had also become her eye bandage) from her saddlebag to wipe the saliva off his chin and neck. It isn't a gentle motion, but it isn't... overly rough. It isn't motivated by care, though- She has a sensitive nose, and she doesn't want the stench near her.]
no subject
he doesn't want to go to sleep. he doesn't want to go to sleep. he doesn't want to go to sleep. ever since this contemptible woman had taken his head from achamoth as her unwitting prisoner, he has been cornered into a cursed cadence of embattled rest. even when he's awake he still feels the presence of the void like a physical object inserted into his brain, occupying both physical and metaphorical space. it lingers. it waits. makoto has contended with anxiety before, so when he's awake, he can focus on what few techniques he has worked out in his last few years to keep his mind sharp. its tormentous and exhausting, but he can at the very least keep himself from descending into fits of whimpering and shivering when he's awake (for the most part).
but when he's asleep...
up until this point, nights where his rest is deep and dark and he has no recollection of his dreams are pleasant enough. he typically does not dream "well." but in these last few days, very time he's succumbed to a dulled brain and heavy eyelids, he's been plagued with nightmares so haunting and vivid that they shake him awake. and then they linger, their fangs and claws lodged into his mind even after they'd long gone, even if the fears don't even necessarily feel like they're really his.
is it worth it? he asks himself this constantly, trying to imagine himself back in achamoth, weathering this storm in the comfort of his own room in the Citadel, if none of this had ever happened after the Sanctifier had fallen. he remembers enshrouding himself in the Regent's power, in the unmitigated thrill he felt when feeling the meat of that mammoth monster part away from his body as he'd shot himself like a bullet through its chest. to him... yes. when he is awake, he can think about that, and he can convince himself it's worth it. but then, night would fall...
when he's even aware it's night.
in this state, having his senses taken away from him is hell. he's never really certain when he's conscious or when he's asleep. is the vague swaying he feels from the centaur's movement as he hangs limply at her withers, or is it the swelling sense of vertigo one can get when slipping in and out of sleep? any ounce of it that he gets doesn't make him any more rested. he ends up just as sapped, weathered, and fraying at the edges as hayame does, though ironically for similar and disparate reasons all at once. when he senses he's being freed from his place at her side, he knows for certain that he's awake, and a sudden animated quality leaps to his features, even as limited as he is. his sharp teeth cause the metal bit in his mouth to creak, and when the blindfold is removed, his wide eyes fixate on her, furious and unblinking. then the earplugs. then the strap that secured the bit. when he's in this sort of state, he doesn't feel the involuntary need to breathe, but he always subconsciously exhales in relief when he's freed from the limitations and the indignity of the bit, almost not caring about the latter because of the former. almost.
he's bitten her before already, and he thinks of doing so again now (of course), but... in the end, it's that that causes him to behave. no, he doesn't want to fall asleep encrusted in his own drool like some sort of infant. his eyebrows pull together, but he ends up answering by pursing his lips into a line, allowing for her to clean him. he hates every second of it, but not enough to refuse, even if he hates far more that this is all happening in the first place.
for a long moment he rests on the low stone that she had placed him on, eyelids drooping over his gaze even with its fiery temper. and even still, in the midst of all this, he says, ) ...Do you have any idea how uncomfortable it is to rest with your neck on stone like this for hours at a time?
( it's not like how the head rests comfortably on its own body. the weight of it begins to bruise the delicate flesh after a while, and the knob of bone creating a sharp point of contact only makes it worse by the contrast. though, with all of that having been said, he doesn't think resting with his head on its side would be much better. he's just complaining as it's the only thing he's free to do before sleep finally claims him. )
no subject
That didn't mean it didn't make her angry.
This time, he's obedient enough, however, and so she "rewards" that obedience with a certain amount of meticulousness. She wipes at the saliva that has crusted on his skin throughout their day's travels, careful to get all of it, even licking her thumb at one point to rub a patch that is too dry to come off properly without being re-wet before she wipes it both away and then folds the cloth in on itself, tucking it back away.
Was it just her imagination, or were both of their glares slightly weaker than they had been days ago? It was probably just the exhaustion.
She will have to roll over numerous times in the night to make sure her heavier weight doesn't press down too uncomfortable on her own organs, but for now she chooses a position curled up on her right side, long dun limbs pulled close to her belly, feeling safe enough in this particular safehouse that she debates taking a comb from her saddlebag... But she doesn't. What's the point? Instead, she makes to lay her head down... only to need turn her singular glare back on M as he complains about his comfort.]
Missing the soft pillows in the kennel the Regent keeps for you? What, do you get treats before he tucks you in at night?
[Her lip curls up into a sneer, derisive of the idea of him being so spoiled by such things that he cannot weather a night in the rough, even though she knows for sure that he must just be bitching for the sake of it, petty attempts at revenge against her for his captivity. But she's so gods damned tired that after a brief, cold spell of silence as she goes back to arranging her own makeshift bed, using her saddlebags as cushion and positioning her bow by her head, she actually offers,]
... If it will keep you quiet tonight, then fine.
[Out comes more of the scraps of her former top. Ripping it in half, muscles bulging along her arms, she lays part of it flat on the stone and then balls up the other, creating a makeshift pillow to pick his head up and arrange more on its side. That's all she's going to do, so hopefully he doesn't want to go back to his only other option.
She makes it clear that will be all by beginning to lay herself down, wincing as the action aggravates the crusted-over seal along left eyelids now protecting an empty space.]
cw: mentions of dubcon/noncon
he can't help but laugh at the bizarre picture that she paints; it's a dry and rustling sort of sound, like autumn leaves underfoot, brittle with wryness. well, yes, he would vastly prefer sprawl out in the luxurious bed that he has in his quarters in the Citadel, but... she has a very peculiar idea of how she believes the Regent interacts with all the Kenoma Aions. even he himself, "favored" as he is, feels little more than their watchful gaze in the back of his neck as he endeavors desperately to try to prove the "gift" that they had seen fit to instill within him was not misplaced.
considering the situation, he does not think he's doing a particularly good job at that.
what he hadn't expected was his complaining to come to anything. his eyes go wide with surprise when she stirs again, actually going so far as to acquiesce, in her own way. the tattered remnants of her tunic are torn and rearranged in a way that he can rest somewhat more comfortably on them, and for a moment he has nothing to say, shocked both silent and dumb by this small gesture of compassion, even if it might have been made for a more selfish reason. of course, he would never be content to simply leave it there, so there are a few muttered words about his sinuses being full of the scent of the horse-woman's lather before he succumbed to the dense and weighty blanket of sleep.
it is not a pleasant one.
the dream (cw: amputation, forced breeding) that he has is one that they share, actually; as hayame lives out the worst horror that she could imagine, the fate that she had done anything and everything to avoid, makoto accompanies her experience like an unwilling passenger riding her soul along for the duration. in this state, he can't seem to communicate to her; the dream washes over her, and he experiences it through that, though sometimes she might feel the bizarre sensation of a sense of fear or horror or revulsion or anger that seems to pull away from her own, stemming from a similar place but with seemingly a different origin.
though he peers through a window into a world drastically different from his own, what shocks him in the moment is that at their core, these are feelings of despair and degradation he has felt before. not within the same context, no, but just as she is unwilling to move her body by restraints, so too had he once been unable to move by the same contemptible state he finds himself in now. not able to move or speak, but certainly able to watch, weather, and cry as something very similar was done to his own body. regardless of how he might have physically responded to the ordeal, something within him had broken in him on a psychic level that day; he had realized that to the furthest extent he could imagine, he was simply something for J to play with, to impose his will over. where his thoughts about the man might have been confused and ambivalent before, that moment had truly crystallized them — if that's how he planned to treat makoto, then he would do as he said and become stronger, powerful enough to tear him to pieces and consume him in a furious act of revenge for his perceived betrayal.
but what is worse: someone torturing you with all of the intimacies of knowledge and understanding of who and what you were, with what you would need to become in order to survive... or having every scrap of agency, of baseline humanity, stripped away from you, to be made dependent upon others and treated as an animal?
the callousness of it, of how impersonal and distant that it feels within her dream makes him almost yearn for the tenderness of the torment that J put him through.
when it all ends and he finally wakes, they do so together; regardless of how hayame returns to consciousness, makoto does so particularly gracelessly. in this state he doesn't need to breathe, but his brain has no way to deal with the sudden wave of post-nightmare icy dread that washes down the full length of the phantom limb of his spine. he gasps for breath, gritting his teeth. even reduced as he is, he shakes with shudders, his skin tinged ever-so-slightly blue. tears pierce at the corners of his eyes like tiny needles. to be subjected to that, then thrown back into this state, not even able to curl up and feel a modicum of safety or security — it's absolute hell. )
CW: seriously there's noncon
It has been a while, since she had let herself take the more vulnerable position on her belly, because like that she was slower to rise and respond to threats with how heavy her body was. She's been subsisting on the lighter sleep of an equine creature that was able to keep upright on all fours through the night if need be. Not just since she'd taken M's head, but even before... Hayame could count the number she'd laid down in Horos on her fingers. Even adding tonight, she was still able to. Most of them were like this, too tired or too injured to physically keep her knees locked, but... Once. Just once it had been... nice, and warm, in some strange way that almost shamed her, when she'd willingly let a comrade lean against her flank to sleep.
Once she sleeps... Nothing about what she sees is willing.
It is a dream she has had since she was a girl, once she was old enough to begin to understand what it was that happened to the dead-eyed dam that had borne her when she was led to the breeding stall each summer, month after month until she grew heavy with a foal for spring. At first it had been vague, because she had only ever heard the sounds in the stables, the animalistic grunting and muffled whines someone ignorant of such things could make a horror out of, but as she grew older, as she came to see and know... The nightmares grew sharper. As she grew closer to the age of adulthood in her kind, the year she would be available to sell if her stablemaster could find a buyer willing to pay the high price required to obtain a jinba of her training and breeding, when she knew that if she didn't prove herself enough to be sold as a war horse that it was likely that mare's fate would be her own... The nightmares grew in frequency. She still has them here, every now and again, amidst all the new horrors her mind had to sort through.
But tonight it is worse.
There is something there, some new and confusing sense of presence that prevents her from disassociating from what was happening. Usually, it all just blurs together into a horrible, twisted mess of no and anything but that once she's mounted, but this time... As if her senses are twice as sharp, twice as aware, she can feel... everything. The heavy press upon her back and the harsh grip of forelegs on her withers paired with human-like hands curled around the stumps of her shoulders where arms used to be. The way her body in the depths of heat betrays the wants of her mind and her hearts by seeming to welcome the deep, callous thrusts of a stallion she can't even properly see with heat and slick and the sick, wet sound that accompanies the slap of heavy bodies colliding. Her legs quake, her chest is pressed painfully to the slanted breeding post, and no matter how much she tries to grit her teeth and keep quiet, struggling to at least keep silent, the bit in her mouth means that pitiful moans and pained whines leak out despite her best efforts along with the saliva her tongue smears over the metal bar that bites into the corners of her mouth. The grooms watching never spare her dignity, because to them, in this moment... She is nothing but a tool for advancing their wealth, reduced to nothing but a farm animal being bred so that their offspring could be added to the herd... but also a farm animal that had confusingly human-looking parts. One of them slaps the stallion's rump and laughs, urging him to cover her deeper, because if he kept doing so well at stud there'd be better treatment in store for him. One new to the job starts fiddling with his trousers, debating might as well as he stares at her flushed and tormented face until a veteran gruffly advises him to keep his dick in his pants- that bit wasn't the type that would keep her teeth from biting down. One clucks at her as if possessed of the capacity for pity existed in him, instead of just trying to urge her to stop fighting so they can all go back to easier work. Another-
No, there were only supposed to be four, one for each limb in case she got free and tried to kick her unwanted lover off of her. So why, why does she feel like there's someone else there, lurking somewhere she can't see, watching, feeling echoes of her same sick pit of horror and hatred and humiliation? The unseen watcher is there when she's mounted and it's there when she cries out as the stallion bites in to the back of her neck and slams deep, deep, deeper, leaving his seed in her womb in a desperate bid for his own selfish survival in a system where this was simply what happened. It's there when two of the grooms coax him off of her and the proof of their coupling drips shamefully down her back legs, her tail flicking and shuddering high to expose her sex as another inspects her, humming thoughtfully before idly pressing some of the spill back inside of her. It's still there when she just wants it to end, when she wishes she could just die if it meant she wouldn't have to become this, when the fourth groom begins to unhobble her so that her shaking, sweat-covered body exhausted by her useless struggle could drop to the ground-
But it isn't a bed of stained straw that she hits once the sick feel of support dropping away from her body pulls her out of the dream and back into the world of waking. Hayame still can't help but react the same way she always did when her mind tortured her with that possible future. Her shaking hands grasp desperately for her biceps, curling fingers tight around her arms to remind herself- it's fine. She has them still. She has time, it's not too late. Her lungs heave for breath and her body is covered in a hot, uncomfortable sweat, her tail half-up as if it remembered what to do in heat, she can't... Her hair is in her face, she can't see-
When Hayame tries to wipe her hair from her face is when she fully comes back to herself. It's not her hair, it's a patch over where an eye used to be. She's on moss, on stone, in the cave in Lohkimareen, and in front of her face...
Is M.
The demon gasps as if for air, his skin is pale, his eyes- It's when Hayame inadvertently meets his tear-pricked gaze with her own, pupil dilated with fear, that she suddenly realizes. The strange watcher just out of sight, who had been privy to the secret fears and shames she never confided in anyone, not a single living soul ever... She doesn't know how she knows, she doesn't understand the way the power of the abyss is lingering in the demon's body since he called on it in Achamoth or how members of the same legacy manage to share things between them whether they want to or not, but she what she does know, somehow sudden and sure, is that-
It was M.]
cw: prostitution as a minor... rape mention, general nsfw mention IM SORRy BLAME SENSEI
but there are so many ways in which this is so different, even where the similarities can be felt. makoto had had his last trappings of humanity taken from him by force, his head removed and cradled in the lap of his demon master as he watched the demon he would call his first "friend" take advantage of his body according to encouragement and whimsy. but even then, though their lack of willingness was shared, he's almost guilty to compare such a memory to hayame's fears — at their core, the purpose was different, and that poisoned it. in a twisted sort of way, J had arranged the situation for makoto's own good. the scent of his humanity could not remain; the longer that he kept it, the more danger he was in. fjord had been hired for the purpose of pleasure, and he was very good at his job. even though makoto had been so overwhelmed at the time, a morass of overwhelming distress, panic, and developing trauma, the other demons in the room could have (and practically did) smile at one another and claim that it was not only for his own good, but for his own fortune and benefit. how lucky he was, to have his virginity and humanity claimed by one of hell's foremost in such regards, even if he didn't agree to it. the intent had been generous. in hayame's hell, it's anything but; her abuse and exploitation is born not only of human greed, but of a belittling sense of dehumanization. makoto might have been a toy in J's hands, but it was at least one he wanted to have fun with; to the vulgar shades of men that stand at the corners of this vision, she's simply a tool. an object. something with a use, and which is thrown away when that use is expended.
so it makes him think less of his first time with fjord and more of the three years that came after. even though he had clung to J's form and practically begged him to take him home from datenshou's establishment prior, after that night with fjord and his master, he had changed his mind. he had to learn the etiquette of hell somewhere, and given that the name of the game of demon politics is manipulation, where better than one of its most prestigious brothels? makoto couldn't claim that he was mistreated there. datenshou was a far more thoughtful and conscientious demon than one would possibly expect. he attempted to pair guests with boys and girls among his staff that could not only suit their unique appetites but do so without undue discomfort. even with the complicated relationship brewing between the two of them and J, their erstwhile and present master, datenshou had taken makoto under his wing and taught him much about the social politics among demons. he had attempted to train him up modestly, providing him with clients in a gradual escalation of what he believed the young former human could handle. he had been... kind. far kinder than makoto would have expected in a place like hell. kind enough that, even though makoto hadn't felt guilt at unseating him from his position as manager of his own brothel and watching him tumble to the position he had once held, as its most popular prostitute... he would, some time after he had been brought into horos, rescue him from it. as payment for that kindness.
but even with all the kindness of a thoughtful manager, there was only so much he could shield makoto from. human features were enviable in hell. only the most powerful of demons held largely humanoid forms, so his was a sort of special novelty, and when combined with the widespread rumor that a young demon belonging to none other but archduke J was working in datenshou's brothel... well, he'd started to have far too many asking for him in particular. desirous not only of his smaller size, his unadorned body, his slender limbs, his unusual company, but to stake a personal claim in something that belonged to one of the most powerful demons in all of hell.
for all extents and purposes, makoto's body was essentially human, and though many of his clients were high-ranking in powerful demons, theirs were most certainly not. he had been lucky that this body of his healed so quickly. and they're such jealous, possessive creatures, demons. in those three years he had been stung, slashed, crushed, and bitten; he had been picked up, held down, and retrained by manifold limbs; he had both personally pleasured and been fucked by so many different manners and types of genitalia and other appendages that he'd gotten to a point where he felt nothing could shock or surprise him. one other difference between himself and hayame was that she didn't have to make a show of any of it. makoto had had to find ways to make himself a good actor; in order to continue to monopolize the attention of his clients, he had to make them feel not only satisfied but exceptional, and doing so had for the most part fractured his sense of sexuality to the point that it had started to drift from its moorings (and not that it had ever been a particularly healthy image to begin with). he had cut away the parts of him that held shame and doubt so that the only thing that remained was the mechanical pleasure of the body. he had tried so hard to blur lines between pain and pleasure. he had tried to stop seeing the faces and silhouettes of the demons who called upon him and instead see J — the only one he could think to either allow or enforce any manner of act from or against without frustration or qualm.
makoto survives his unwilling accompaniment through hayame's worst nightmare because it is similar to what he had had to do to survive in those three years, or at least until the point that it had become so rote that he had no longer thought anything about it at all — or, at least, so he thought. her pain, loathing, and fury breathe life into the dying embers of his own, making it all feel as fresh and new as it had all those months ago. a unique brand of cruelty.
so when he wakes, and his senses slowly swim into focus in the dim light filtering in to their makeshift resting place for the night, he starts to make sense of her. her two sets of lungs heave for breath, and she curls in on herself in the way he wishes he could; he can see a light sheen of sweat over her flank, and though he could never claim to know much about animals, he's no fool — he can guess what the slight hitch to the angle of her tail means.
and she turns to look at him. roiling fury and recognition are living flames, burning in the pit of her one remaining eye.
makoto knows immediately that he has taken something from her that he cannot return, regardless of how unwitting or unwilling it was, and regardless of how much he hates the woman for what she has done to him... he doesn't want this. he doesn't want to author this particular suffering of hers. he doesn't want to be privy to it. but it doesn't matter what either of them want. what's done is done, and unless she bashes his head against the stone well enough for him to forget, there's nothing to be done about it.
except, perhaps...
if he has taken something from her that he can't give back, maybe he can give something to her? she probably doesn't want it. who would? but at least then they would be on equal ground.
his mouth feels dry, and he's still shaking enough that when he parts cracked lips to speak, his words waver in a way that sounds as pathetic as he feels, head on its side on this rock, dark hair spilling out over it, ) When the demon who took my head - gave me my new body... he offered me a reward, if I had good behavior. ( he has to lick his lips to continue; his tongue is faintly purple, clearly not human. ) To be - raped by demons, until I became pregnant... to, remain conscious as it devoured and tore its way through my body. To - tear my head off of my shoulders and force me to watch... ( a sound escapes him that might have been considered a laugh, but it's far to bitter, breathless, and pained. he drifts into a momentary silence before he continues. ) I guess my behavior wasn't good enough to receive most of that "reward." But - not all of it.
What I mean to say is - I'd tear these memories out of my mind and give them back to you if I could. I sure as hell don't want them, but... Know that there is no part of me that could judge you for your fears without doing the same to myself.
( or maybe she would just become so enraged of what he'd seen that she'd crush him beneath her hooves, smash his skull open like a melon and tread his shard into tenebrous pieces. he might welcome such a thing at this point. )
cw: suicide, csa, our shared mangaka is for real plz don't look
Hayame freezes. If her nails weren't cut to the quick to keep them from catching on her bowstrings then she would have left bloody trails in her muscular arms, and instead the fingers just shake, her skin threatens to bruise, and her knuckles grow pale with the force she exerts just clinging to her limbs to remind herself that they were there. Even if they surely wouldn't be any longer, if she made it back to her world and her plan with Matsukaze failed... She'd been too disobedient, she was a traitor, she'd surely lose them to the flensing post if she didn't kill herself first-
But that just made the choice all the easier.
And as she struggles for the words, for any sound to leave her body that wasn't a pathetic whimper or a sob over the visceral fear still lingering behind her eye and in her sweaty, trembling body, Hayame doesn't look at all like the warrior that the Kenoma had traded information on as if she were some sadistic avenger of the Pleroma ready to act violently and quickly in the place of the soft-hearted to strike at her enemies. In that warrior's place is a woman that was barely two decades old, a maiden that had been raised completely ignorant of love or any kindness between equals and threatened with losing that maidenhood in the most debasing way possible if she was deemed unworthy of the scraps of personhood the armed jinba were allotted as reward for their obedience to the humans who had taken them from their armless mothers and raised them to look down upon their own kind.
Her pupil dilates and contracts in frantic, too-quick turns as she tries to focus on the demon in front of her, on the words he says. The muscles in her throat visible tighten, she swallows, she tries to say stop, tries to tell him I don't want to hear it because she doesn't want to feel kinship with him, she doesn't want to know what he had gone through to make him into the monster that had robbed her of every potential warmth she'd tried to grasp for herself in this cold and foreign world. She doesn't want to think of his head cradled in another demon's lap and watching as his body was made into a plaything, because it's sick and it's pathetic that here in the dark of a cave in Lohkimareen, in the place of a man and woman there is a toy for playing with staring at a tool for using until it broke and had to be put down.
Tears of utter shame swim in her eyes, but she does not let them fall. Even if her bandage over her left eye socket, left largely intact by a skillful, different demon, begins to grow damp... She won't count it. She didn't cry in front of her enemy, she wouldn't-
Even if she still hasn't been able to even out her breathing, even if her legs still clutch woefully taut to her belly, even if the scenario he talks about reminds her how every year she'd had to stand for Exhibition Day to be inspected by potential buyers, how they'd run their hands over her body and make comments on her flesh as if she were a horse that did not understand human speech. She was no swaybacked nag or Armless fodder, she wasn't taken out back to be "sampled" and have her mouth stuffed with human cock because someone willing to pay the amount of money that could purchase a small fief to own her wouldn't do that if she were soiled, but she'd still had to stomach sweaty palms and fingers stroking over her coat, lifting her tail to inspect her, whispering approvingly-]
You cannot tell anyone--
[It was meant to be the beginning of a threat, but something- Something (forced sympathy and understanding for a fellow Firebrand that she never wanted, never asked for-) turns it into what seems to be almost a plea instead. He says he would give them back, those disgusting visions of an all too likely future, and though she feels some weird, unidentifiable sense of sincerity... How is she supposed to trust him? How could she before now, but especially after this?]
I will know it was you--
[She hadn't... She's been living her life in Horos as if she were a woman who has always been free, a warrior who has always been strong, and the man who had guided her to the light before their rebirths had surely been killed as a traitor by now, and the only comrade she'd had in the Pleroma who she had admitted parts of her past to had been killed in the skies of Achamoth, so if she heard any foul word now... She is supposed to threaten to kill him, to do exactly as he imagines and crush him beneath her hooves, smash his skull open like a melon and tread his shard into pieces. So why-
Why is that all that she can get out?]