It's all his mind can think when the cultists come up behind him, after the initial reaction. A tense sound as he pulls back from the door, expecting attack over anything else. A pang of betrayal that slowly ebbs once it's there. He doesn't trust not to still be attacked even if he complies.
After all, punishment was still promised, and he's not sure if that part has already begun or is still imminent. He has a place to learn and his senses are still so overwhelmed he doesn't fully comprehend that.
He tucks his injured hand close to himself, with no other means to protect it. Blood stains his palm and fingers but has become sticky as it dries, radiating heat and a sharp but slowly dulling pain.
Closer.
That draws his attention back and a shiver of -- fear? Of what he's sure is about to happen, of everything he can't see coming after. And more: he can't forget that long before this he had felt some stirring at the Dark Urge's presence and how his mind couldn't have imagined any of this, but he should have. And that part of him, still and small, is ever present and persistent, growing when it knows its presence may be the only thing to carry through this.
Let yourself want him because it will either save your life or end it more quickly.
Dread at first arrests his body again and he feels light-headed; it starts to rib his balance. But he can't let that win out. Not where he is. He has no idea where he'd wake or in what state. If he'd wake up at all.
The bed is also the only relatively safe looking corner of the room, which makes it that much more apparent a trap, and it's one he has to walk into.
Nothing, where he would reach for advice, for relief before.
The fact that he even has a moment to wrestle with everything anchoring that hesitation is a miracle in itself. But he forces his feet to move. Tries in vain to steady himself. Stop the shaking that only feels more and more present the nearer he draws.
no subject
It's all his mind can think when the cultists come up behind him, after the initial reaction. A tense sound as he pulls back from the door, expecting attack over anything else. A pang of betrayal that slowly ebbs once it's there. He doesn't trust not to still be attacked even if he complies.
After all, punishment was still promised, and he's not sure if that part has already begun or is still imminent. He has a place to learn and his senses are still so overwhelmed he doesn't fully comprehend that.
He tucks his injured hand close to himself, with no other means to protect it. Blood stains his palm and fingers but has become sticky as it dries, radiating heat and a sharp but slowly dulling pain.
Closer.
That draws his attention back and a shiver of -- fear? Of what he's sure is about to happen, of everything he can't see coming after. And more: he can't forget that long before this he had felt some stirring at the Dark Urge's presence and how his mind couldn't have imagined any of this, but he should have. And that part of him, still and small, is ever present and persistent, growing when it knows its presence may be the only thing to carry through this.
Let yourself want him because it will either save your life or end it more quickly.
Dread at first arrests his body again and he feels light-headed; it starts to rib his balance. But he can't let that win out. Not where he is. He has no idea where he'd wake or in what state. If he'd wake up at all.
The bed is also the only relatively safe looking corner of the room, which makes it that much more apparent a trap, and it's one he has to walk into.
Nothing, where he would reach for advice, for relief before.
The fact that he even has a moment to wrestle with everything anchoring that hesitation is a miracle in itself. But he forces his feet to move. Tries in vain to steady himself. Stop the shaking that only feels more and more present the nearer he draws.