Post by Louvel nó L'Roche (D) on Aug 8, 2005 3:58:31 GMT -5
And so they were whipping me again.
You know, I have completely forgotten what infraction earned their ire on that particular day. I was fifteen. I was always offending someone. And most people are fools anyway.
So, there we were, one bright day, me stripped to the waist, shivering in the chill, with my hands bound to the whipping post, and the Dowayne’s second prancing about behind me feeling very important and powerful I’m sure. Well joy of the morning to him, the prick.
I do remember the singular beauty of the day. The trees were washed in gleaming russet and the dusty flags of the courtyard were submerged beneath a crackling gold and scarlet carpet. The breeze was saturated with the sweet heavy scent of over-ripe apples – I’d wandered beneath the apple trees only yesterday, plucking them from the bending boughs, and eating them half-hidden in the long glasses until my fingers and my lips were sticky with juice and pulp.
And, as sharp as blade through the indolent buzzing of huge punch-drunk drones, the crack of the whip behind me. I find – have always found - that people at Mandrake have the most absurd sense of theatre about everything; it’s positively tedious. Just hit me already.
He did, of course, soon enough. I realised, then, that they had always previously gone easy on me. But, this time, I had evidently crossed some terrible line of annoyingness, and this was the consequence of that. It was a warning, a punishment and an exercise in power. We love that kind of thing at Mandrake. How we love it. Needless to say, there came a point when my dignity was in tatters with the broken leaves on which I knelt.
There’s a technique, you know. If I was a sheet of paper, and he was an artist, and the whip his pencil, they would call it crosshatching. Artist. That’s another one of those House Mandrake words. Lines of fire upon lines of fire upon lines of fire.
And I lost myself completely. I have never done that before. Or since. And I thank Elua for that.
I was weeping and shuddering when they released me. My memory of it is so hazy now. The impossible vast blueness of the sky, like the peaceful emptiness inside me where all my fires and frustrations usually rage and feed like monsters on the follies and ignorance of the world. And the Dowayne’s arms around me, my head upon his lap, and I was all awash in tears and penitence and, most sickeningly of all, gratitude.
Oh what a rush of chemicals can do to the common sense of any man.
“Perhaps our odd little termagant would feel more at home in Valerian, hmmm,” purred the Dowayne, twisting his fingers in my hair.
It took me a moment to realise he was serious. I struggled upright again, despite the red rush of pain. The churned up leaves were spattered with my sweat and blood. I could imagine no worse fate. To be reduced to that, to be shattered and annihilated a piece at a time, for the amusement of rich fools? I will take my clothes off for a Patron, but I will be naked for no-one if I can help it. My heart quickened with dread … with something else … with dread. And, as I was later to admit, with a new hunger. If you do it right, you know, if you know when to look directly into their eyes, it’s like a broken mirror, you can see fragments of their soul. In my way, I understand Mandrake. Valerian terrifies me because I’m afraid I understand it too.
Anyway.
I did what I had to do save myself. I threw myself at his feet and begged.
They have not whipped me since. But my behaviour has been impeccable. I am a picture perfect Mandrake adept.
They put me back together again pretty well. The Dowayne’s second tended the wounds he had so gleefully inflicted – he’s always hated me, I can tell, but it doesn’t matter because I hate him too – and gave me some salve to help the healing. They told me to ask a friend to apply it for me. Hah. So I spent the next few days lying on my front, watching the subtle changes and delicate gestures of the flowers upon my window ledge. Possibly I should have fostered at Orchis for it seems there’s quite a contortionist in me. But there were some places across the centre of my spine I just couldn’t reach. You can sometimes see the marks, I’m told, very faintly, if the light is perfect. I don’t think you’d see them at all if you didn’t know they were there. I don’t mind. They’re my only flaw. Well, my only physical flaw. And they serve as a fine reminder.
You know, I have completely forgotten what infraction earned their ire on that particular day. I was fifteen. I was always offending someone. And most people are fools anyway.
So, there we were, one bright day, me stripped to the waist, shivering in the chill, with my hands bound to the whipping post, and the Dowayne’s second prancing about behind me feeling very important and powerful I’m sure. Well joy of the morning to him, the prick.
I do remember the singular beauty of the day. The trees were washed in gleaming russet and the dusty flags of the courtyard were submerged beneath a crackling gold and scarlet carpet. The breeze was saturated with the sweet heavy scent of over-ripe apples – I’d wandered beneath the apple trees only yesterday, plucking them from the bending boughs, and eating them half-hidden in the long glasses until my fingers and my lips were sticky with juice and pulp.
And, as sharp as blade through the indolent buzzing of huge punch-drunk drones, the crack of the whip behind me. I find – have always found - that people at Mandrake have the most absurd sense of theatre about everything; it’s positively tedious. Just hit me already.
He did, of course, soon enough. I realised, then, that they had always previously gone easy on me. But, this time, I had evidently crossed some terrible line of annoyingness, and this was the consequence of that. It was a warning, a punishment and an exercise in power. We love that kind of thing at Mandrake. How we love it. Needless to say, there came a point when my dignity was in tatters with the broken leaves on which I knelt.
There’s a technique, you know. If I was a sheet of paper, and he was an artist, and the whip his pencil, they would call it crosshatching. Artist. That’s another one of those House Mandrake words. Lines of fire upon lines of fire upon lines of fire.
And I lost myself completely. I have never done that before. Or since. And I thank Elua for that.
I was weeping and shuddering when they released me. My memory of it is so hazy now. The impossible vast blueness of the sky, like the peaceful emptiness inside me where all my fires and frustrations usually rage and feed like monsters on the follies and ignorance of the world. And the Dowayne’s arms around me, my head upon his lap, and I was all awash in tears and penitence and, most sickeningly of all, gratitude.
Oh what a rush of chemicals can do to the common sense of any man.
“Perhaps our odd little termagant would feel more at home in Valerian, hmmm,” purred the Dowayne, twisting his fingers in my hair.
It took me a moment to realise he was serious. I struggled upright again, despite the red rush of pain. The churned up leaves were spattered with my sweat and blood. I could imagine no worse fate. To be reduced to that, to be shattered and annihilated a piece at a time, for the amusement of rich fools? I will take my clothes off for a Patron, but I will be naked for no-one if I can help it. My heart quickened with dread … with something else … with dread. And, as I was later to admit, with a new hunger. If you do it right, you know, if you know when to look directly into their eyes, it’s like a broken mirror, you can see fragments of their soul. In my way, I understand Mandrake. Valerian terrifies me because I’m afraid I understand it too.
Anyway.
I did what I had to do save myself. I threw myself at his feet and begged.
They have not whipped me since. But my behaviour has been impeccable. I am a picture perfect Mandrake adept.
They put me back together again pretty well. The Dowayne’s second tended the wounds he had so gleefully inflicted – he’s always hated me, I can tell, but it doesn’t matter because I hate him too – and gave me some salve to help the healing. They told me to ask a friend to apply it for me. Hah. So I spent the next few days lying on my front, watching the subtle changes and delicate gestures of the flowers upon my window ledge. Possibly I should have fostered at Orchis for it seems there’s quite a contortionist in me. But there were some places across the centre of my spine I just couldn’t reach. You can sometimes see the marks, I’m told, very faintly, if the light is perfect. I don’t think you’d see them at all if you didn’t know they were there. I don’t mind. They’re my only flaw. Well, my only physical flaw. And they serve as a fine reminder.