paixaorpg | Finishing Things [Active]

Entry tags:

gabranth,
vexen

Finishing Things [Active]

Character(s): Gabranth and Vexen
Content: Experiments, Round 2
Setting: Good question
Time: Also a good question
Warnings: Brainbreak? We'll see what happens

Not too many more to go now. The past few subjects had produced very positive results, and Vexen had no reason to believe the same would not hold true for this subject. Standing with his back to the table, Vexen fussed with him equipment, making sure everything he needed was there as the Dusks portaled in with his latest subject. He waited until they'd strapped the man to the table and departed before turning to examine his subject. If all else failed, this should at least prove to be interesting.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

When the Dusks came for him a third time, Gabranth again offered no resistance. There had been little point in fighting them before, and he rather doubted that would have changed between now and then. It was another of the things he couldn't change. Another failure and things still didn't change.

And yet, it seemed something had; at least in so far as his tormentors were concerned. Had the other man tired of him? Or was this to be yet another phase in the cruelties they had devised. But no matter what was to happen he would not offer a word to this man until he asked it of him. He had nothing to say to the man.

No overt change of expression crossed Vexen's face as he observed the man, but anyone who knew him would recognize the twitch of the corner of his lip. He was not pleased.

The fools had left the armor on. How was he supposed to accomplish anything with all that steel in the way?

Turning his back once again on his subject, he snapped his fingers and irately addressed the Dusks who appeared at his summons. "Get rid of that</i," he spat, pointing to the armor. "It's in the way."

This time, Gabranth did fight as best he could, struggling against both the bonds and the Dusks that were stripping him of his armor. It was the only thing he had left; now more than it ever had been before and he would not suffer its loss lightly, spitting curses in both his native tongue and the one of his borrowed home at the Dusks, his new tormentor, and, for good measure, anyone else involved in the process.

Not that it really stopped the Dusks from doing as they'd been bidden, of coure, but it was one of the few things he could yet do.

Vexen watched as the Dusks removed the armor from his struggling prisoner and piled it haphazardly in a corner before disappearing. Good. That was done with, at least.

Now to deal with his prisoner. Vexen had only understood about half of what had come from the man's mouth, but even without that he recognized fury when he saw it. He came around front, watching the man with an unreadable expression on his face before pointing sharply to the pile of armor. "Silence," he snapped, "or I'll scrap it." Mentally he was already taking notes - physical attributes of the man and questions about the armor's significance and whether light or darkness would be better for this particular subject.

And silence Vexen would get. An angry, tense sort of silence, but silence nonetheless. He wanted to snap back in anger, to call the other man's bluff, but last he had tried that it had ended with the revelation that Archadia's only hope was gone, killed by the hands that had brought him in, or ones very much similar. He would not risk his armor in the same manner.

Nor would he bother hiding his anger. Let the other know he cared little for him, if at all.

The page on his clipboard was half covered in nigh unreadable notes (he had terrible handwriting) before Vexen turned his attention back on his prisoner, somewhat surprised that his demand for silence had been fulfilled so quickly and completely. Evidently the armor meant quite a bit.

But this was almost too perfect, and it had piqued Vexen's curiousity. "Tell me," he inquired in a tone that had lost its sharpened edge, "what exactly did my compatriot say to you to leave you in such a state?" He had received Marluxia's report, yes, but it had been frustratingly vague.

"Ask him yourself," Gabranth answered. He wasn't going to repeat what the other had said. It was bad enough that it was true; saying it himself would give it a truth that until now it had lacked. A truth that he was loathe to give it.

"It is not my duty to pass on what he cannot or will not."

"Your duty," Vexen replied inquisitively, as if holding the word up to the light and turning it this way and that, trying to discern what his subject really meant. "I see." Whatever had been said, it could not have been pleasant.

Well, of course not. Listening to that blasted neophyte never was.

Turning his back once more on his subject, Vexen moved to a counter and picked up a syringe he'd readied earlier - it was filled with light. This was the more difficult of the elements to obtain and distill, but if it worked on his subject he was willing to use it. Returning to the table, Vexen found a vein in the man's arm and inserted the syringe with practiced ease. "Perhaps I can help." A lie, of course, but lying came to Vexen as naturally as the pursuit of science.

He depressed the plunger, injecting a small measured amount of light into the man.

"Aye," Gabranth answered, almost as if on reflex. His duty was (at least for now) to the Empire, to her laws and whims. Just as it would have been for any of the other Judges Magister of the Empire. They were the law and the sworn protectors of House Solidor.

Not that you've done a good job of that, a small and nasty voice in the back of his head chimed in. He ignored though, as best he could. He could not allow himself to dwell on that.

"Help?" he asked instead. It was nothing more than a single word, but it spoke volumes in bitterness and doubt, to say nothing of mistrust. Sadly, any further comments in that general vein were cut off by the sharp prick of the needle and then...

And then a feeling unlike anything he'd ever felt before, his brows furrowing in what could almost be called confusion moments later. Something had changed, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Not even to name what had just happened. All he knew was that somehow, it had.

Vexen watched his subject's reaction for a few seconds before replying. "Yes. Help." The needle removed from his subject's arm, he double checked the amount of light injected (exactly the amount he had planned on) and took a few notes on his clipboard. Perhaps another dose of light would encourage him to open up.

Fitting the syringe with a new needle, he found a similar spot and injected another dose of light.

Not terribly surprisingly, Gabranth didn't bother answering Vexen's comment. He rather doubted that anything this man would do could be considered 'help,' powerless though he may have been to stop him.

Vexen's suspicions, however, were shortly to be proven correct, the second dose of light making it all the more obvious what had changed. The anger and and bitterness that he had grown all too used to living with was... muted, almost. Certainly less then the ever-present reminder that it had been ever since he'd first done what had to be done, Gabranth rattling off a sentence in his native tongue (strange the things one never forgot) in his surprise.

A brief moment later, the sentence was (presumably) repeated in Archadian. "What have you done?"

Vexen was not surprised to hear the foreign language resurface, but he couldn't say he was impressed with it or the subsequent question. "I already told you," he replied in as mild a tone as he could manage, still jotting down notes on his clipboard, "I'm helping." It was a lie and a weak one at that, but there were advantages to keeping the truth veiled.

Helping. Gabranth rather doubted that. True, whatever the man had done had quelled the anger, but Gabranth wasn't convinced that was a good thing. It had kept him different from the boy he'd been all those many years ago, kept him Judge Magister Gabranth of Archadia over Noah fon Ronsenberg of Landis.

Mind, it wasn't the only difference between the two, but it helped more than it hindered, if you asked him. (Then again, his perception might have been just a bit skewed.)

"You name this help?"

"Most would," Vexen replied, slowly filling a syringe with light, careful to get exactly what he would need. The darkness had begun to lift off his subject; that much was visible. Whether or not Vexen's procedure would eradicate that darkness completely (and possibly wipe his subject's personality - there was more than one way to obtain obedience, after all) remained to be seen.

"Most prefer not to live with the darkness," he continued, discreetly searching his subject's face for a reaction to his words. "Are you saying you would?"

Most. Most were not and never would be him. But he had taken the blows life had dealt him and learned how to continue on as best he could. If that was this other man's darkness than he would gladly accept it.

"It has done me little ill," he answered, taking a chance on the other having meant the anger he could no longer quite feel.

"Maybe," Vexen conceded. He held off on the next injection of light; perhaps this conversation would yield more insight as to what to do next. "The question is, has it done you any good?"

Had it done him any good? Gabranth's first inclination would have been to say it had done him a world of good. And yet, he found that for all that he still thought the same he was actually given it thought, as opposed to returning with the answer right away.

What had that anger done? It had had given him a scapegoat. Some one to lay his troubles on. It had kept him from abandoning post and position, had kept close those few things he yet had.

"Aye," he answered, with a nod.

The answer had not been immediate. There had been thought behind it. The assumption that the answer was not one hundred percent certain was therefore potentially a valid one.

"Really. I find that difficult to believe." Also not true, but a convenient segue. "How so?"

Of course, Vexen did have a schedule of sorts to keep. Unless his subject's next answer was incredible, Vexen would be administering the next injection of light.

How so? That was none of his concern, if you asked Gabranth. What he did with his own anger and any other emotions he had was his own decision regardless of what it may or may not have been good for.

"It has given me a way to continue."

Not the best of ways, mind you. But a way and he could hardly choose another now.

"I see." It was interesting but not incredible, and Vexen inserted the syringe into his subject's arm, talking as he depressed the plunger.

"And what if I could offer you a different way?"

'A different way'. A tempting offer, true, and one he knew that once, he might well have taken. But no longer. He had enough of these men in their lack cloaks and would not yield to the men who had taken the hope of Archades.

"I want nothing of your making."

Not even the light he'd been exposed to could keep stubborness and defiance from creeping into his voice, although there was no outright anger at the least.

Vexen checked his notes as his subject replied. It was a pity to hear such stubbornness still in the man: Vexen had just about reached the amount of light he could give the subject before causing side effects he wasn't sure he wanted, and the subject still proved to be disobedient.

"Pity," he commented lightly, leaving it at that as he debated whether one more injection of light would be worth it.

Ironically, if it hadn't been for the light, it was entirely possible that Gabranth (or was he Noah? It was getting hard to remember which one was 'him') would have been more obedient than he currently was. After all, it wasn't like he hadn't sided with those who had took everything from him before.

Of course, last time he hadn't been the man he now was, and the blow of losing Larsa so soon after meeting him again had been a cruel one.

"For you."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Finishing Things [Active]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject