Re: Shifting colors.mirror_brightlySeptember 24 2009, 17:52:13 UTC
Nero savored that sound, the sheer redness of it, the way it warped around the lines, slid around them like wind through branches, air through vents. It wasn't what he wanted, but Kirk gave it to him freely. What he was given was almost as beautiful as what he could take. His hand stilled, the needles hovering just a hair's span from Kirk's cheek. Nero leaned in close. Kirk could not see his smile and neither could he. He could hear it though, just like the soft whispering black that wrapped up Kirk's cheek.
“They are a story, James,” Nero explained. His words were slow, leaden, and laced with the same flavor as the truths he'd related. “The only story that matters.” He pulled back and started marking in silence as he considered Eihva. He recalled the feel of her flesh, the cold creep of her blood across his shins. The green of it, blaring in the dark and the white, glistening and cracking like ice on metal. The cold crawl of her skin....and the feel of her arm around his neck. The gentle amber light of midmorning became the humid span of the Narada, creeping and gold. Somewhere in the colored lights he remembered her frown, her doubt of Spock, and the way he eclipsed her. He looked down at Kirk, eclipsed by him now, and his expression tightened hard.
“We paint the tales of the dead onto our skin,” Nero repeated. The words were soundless, hollow, told through generations on generations. They were meaningless, solid, lifeless. “Paint their names, so that when the marks fade...so too can the time of grieving.” He took a shallow breath and traced the line with his thumb, wiping the sheen of blood away. He couldn't sully Eihva's song with worthless words. “But our grief does not fade, so we burn our marks deep...so that we will never forget.”
The room was cold and Nero looked away from Kirk, stared off at the shadows. The new marks across his skin still burned, he could hear their names where they intersected his family. Behind him, there was the gentle hum of Eihva's song. The clang and exultation of Veyn echoed deep in a ship that no longer existed. Laughter erupted from Baohn and the shrill call of his wife followed. What caught his attention, finally, was Ayel's indignant call for aid as the children accosted him outside of Baohn's home.
The halfhearted shout of rekkhai felt so solid, so bright and orange, that Nero craned his head. For just the briefest moment, the motion painted over the Romulan at his back. His periphery caught sight of short hair and a wry smile, a loose shirt, well worn and half ragged-as soon as he narrowed his vision, halted to view it, it vanished into the glare of the lights and Nero was left in the present. Left in a small room with bad air and garish lights. He could almost smell the bite of the blood, the fumes of the pigment, and the rank stench of Klingons as he turned away from Ayel and looked back at Kirk.
His attention snagged on the line across Kirk's face and he slid his finger across it again. He stared at his hand, it was cold. But not green. His expression evened and fell away from his face, tumbling to the floor as he dipped the comb again and fisted his fingers tighter in Kirk's hair. His touch was less reverent, less forgiving of flesh, as he continued.
“Tha'liij is afraid of thunder,” Nero exhaled as he twisted Kirk's head and outlined his other cheek, pouring symmetry and silence into the skin.
Re: Shifting colors.kirktasticSeptember 24 2009, 18:44:26 UTC
He had been right.
How long did he laid there, sprawled at angles on the floor of an alien, enemy ship that seemed as in desire to inflict pain as its master did? Tiny thoughts trickled into his brain as his body tried to pretend the pain was all so far away. He wondered if the ship was male like its master or female like the Enterprise. His mind decided that the ship had to be male, because his mind could not define Nero's ship as anything but the giant tentacle monster that had take up the view screen what felt like forever ago. Male because obviously that ship was compensating for something.
He didn't want to know. He didn't want to know the story of each person branding into his skin, telling their tale in hollow words like a granite carved monument. Didn't want to know that this person had owned a horse and had a son. Didn't want to know about their favorite drink. Didn't want to know about their home on the edge of a city he had never heard of. The pain in his hair was a distant thing. Everything felt distant, like this was happening to someone else. They had mentioned that during the classes about torture. They said it was a blessing. They lied.
It was terrifying.
Kirk stared up into bright lights, barely blinking as the comb came close to his eye. That hurt, made him freeze, made the voice inside his head scream. Those unforgiving points right beside his eye, the tender flesh of his eye, searing. The mimicry of tenderness as Nero's thumb repetitively brushed away the mixture of blood and ink.
The tingling started in his toes.
It was about the same time the first tear finally fell from his eyes, burning the wounds from the comb.
The tingling stopped being tingling and started to turn into pain. Crawling up along his nerves, making his legs twitch in spasms as life started to return to the limp limbs. Kirk missed entirely when Nero stopped working the comb into his flesh, far too consumed with the fire that was screaming through every part of him as circulation started to realize it could return. He had no idea when the cry wrenched from him that he could no longer hold inside, every tiny movement impossible to stop and adding fuel to the fire. It all hurt far more then his fingers being broken, hurt even more then the tattoos being pressed into his skin. Or maybe they just added heat.
Forgot where he was, who he was, and was eaten alive by fire.
Re: Shifting colors.kirk_georgeSeptember 24 2009, 21:32:07 UTC
George screamed at the Romulans, a babble of English and Romulan, screaming they were killing Jim, attempting to divert their attentions to himself, straining against the bonds, helplessly. His son, had to protect him, to take this for himself on himself, heedless of the pain it cost him, his body, his throat, it didn't matter.
"If you kill him, you'll never get your information."
Re: Shifting colors.mirror_brightlySeptember 24 2009, 22:01:08 UTC
Nero scowled as he stared at Kirk, the line on his cheek finished and Tha'liij written out in whorls of black and blood. The human arched against him, twisting with strength he shouldn't have, involuntary and sparking. He was short circuiting, humming beneath him, and Nero sneered as he rose and stared down at the thrashing man. Kirk couldn't hear him, not through the spark under his skin.
“I don't want to kill him,” Nero admitted evenly, a low current beneath the clashing staccato of Kirk's cries and George's half-babbled Rihannsu. “Not yet.”
His attention was torn from Kirk, forced into an impatient, keening halt against his skull. He cast his glance at the hevam still leashed to the table. He could smell the fetid bite of burning iron and his eyes narrowed. He stepped off the sparking Kirk, away from his live limbs that crawled against the floor, slid to nowhere and back again.
“But if you supply my information,” Nero continued as he crossed to George's side. “I will not object.”
Re: Shifting colors.mirror_brightlySeptember 24 2009, 22:12:17 UTC
The liquid caught the side of Nero's neck and the Romulan fixed his heavy vision on the human, his hand rising to swipe the spit with slow, calculated resolve. It was dark, the space between George and he, and Nero could hear Kirk's live thrashing at his back. A slow smile splintered across his face and Nero's eyes drifted away, fixing on the weeping wounds that covered the hevam's torso. He lifted his hand, casually glancing at the liquid, before letting the appendage fall against the most colorful of the cuts.
Re: Shifting colors.kirk_georgeSeptember 24 2009, 22:15:04 UTC
George barely managed to hold the scream back between his teeth, as he smiled at hte spot he'd managed to hit the romulan with the spit. "The code...is go fuck yourself, sideways."
Re: Shifting colors.mirror_brightlySeptember 24 2009, 22:24:11 UTC
Nero hummed against his teeth, a rattling breath held in harmony by bone. His fingers against George's torso tensed, pulling at the injured flesh in slowly increasing increments.
"You are beginning to bore me." The words were even and dangerous, sliding from him like an order. The tips of his fingers were starting to prickle and hum--had they left the coolant on him? Hm, all the same.
Re: Shifting colors.kirktasticSeptember 25 2009, 00:24:31 UTC
There was no end. No beginning. Just a pain that ached through every part of him, pins and needles stabbing into meat over and over and over until he curled up into a fetus. Just let out a whimper he couldn't help, bubbling over his lips in guilty poison.
The reek of blood was choking, and the pain at his neck increased. Had to make the fire die so he could think again.
So he concentrated on one thing. ...A pair of dark eyes, framed in brown hair, glaring at him.
Re: Shifting colors.loyalty_everSeptember 25 2009, 01:38:54 UTC
"No," he breathed, almost shocked, bolting upright, careful not to upset the ink. Then again, louder: "No!"
This was basic Federation business. Divide and conquer. This was how they won, against the Klingons, against the Dominion, and against his own people, though there it was done with whispers and lies and promises, pretty, poisonous Vulcan pipe dreams.
Ayel would not let it happen again. That threat hiding under his skin, the promise of agony, of shared knowing, wasn't enough to stop him. Eivha forced him to relax, prodded him to set their tools aside with care, with such respect as could be managed here. But Eivha didn't want to look, she didn't want to see this. Kirk was 'Fleet, Fed, lloann'na, but still so young, so frightened.
Ayel jammed his left hand in his pocket. Hid Eivha from sight. Closed her eyes, blinked his, and pinned Kirk to the floor with both knees, straddling him. The pain was a low current against the inside of Ayel's skin, red and foreign, spiked with jolts in the hands and feet. Not unlike the klivam with their wires, their favorite weapon for him in there, jeering mockery of his specialty and the thrashing reanimation of his dead.
Entirely manageable, if he kept cloth between them and did not use his hands. Difficult, but not impossible.
"It's a trick," he hissed. In Standard, to be sure it was clear. "A Federation trick! It won't work."
But something was wrong, very wrong, with the man sprawled beneath him. He knew this look, the faint glassy edges of it, the weird inward quality of the gaze. He saw it often enough on Nero's face.
Ayel wondered who he was, who James saw.
"Your friend," Ayel gritted out, "tell him lay still and quiet and apologize if he wants to live." He flinched; there were insects marching under his skin, hornets or beetles with knives for teeth. "Call to him."
Telling him was the honorable thing, and that Ayel had done.
It was no great loss to him if Kirk did not or could not hear.
(Lloann'na - literally "Them, from There"; any member of the United Federation of Planets, "Fed".)
Re: Shifting colors.kirktasticSeptember 25 2009, 01:57:05 UTC
Kirk's body arched up as the pressure and weight on him made every inch of his body scream. He let out a snarl like an angry cat, one hand coming up and clawing at Ayel's side to get him off. "GEORGE!" He almost screamed for his father, body bucking and trying to throw off the weight on top of his.
His hand came up and slashed for Ayel's face with his fingernails like a feline.
Re: Shifting colors.loyalty_everSeptember 25 2009, 02:34:54 UTC
There were fingers in his eyes.
Ayel did the only sensible thing there was to do and jerked his head back, snarling to hold in a shriek as he bit at the offending digits.
He shoved down hard with his elbow, blindly, his eyes all water and pain, just going for 'body' underneath him somewhere, to try and hold Kirk down tight.
Re: Shifting colors.kirktasticSeptember 25 2009, 02:45:14 UTC
What he was fighting with, what strength, he didn't know. It was like fighting under pure instinct, whatever let mothers pull cars off children and let people chew their own arm off to get out of a bear trap. The pain of the bite was almost minor, the elbow less so.
Kirk snarled darkly and struck out almost as blindly at the man holding him down. He had to fight. Couldn't give up. Couldn't stop fighting.
Re: Shifting colors.mirror_brightlySeptember 25 2009, 04:06:55 UTC
Nero stared at George, transfixed on the hate and pain that bled through his teeth. The snarling slam of flesh and light against his back, twisting in shadow and pain, brought his head around. He craned, pulling his hissing flesh from George's and his eyes narrowed on the flash of yellow and green. Thoughtlessly, Nero moved, snapping around in a smooth arc like a snake. A low hiss erupted from him and he lunged, aiming a solid kick at the hevam's side.
Re: Shifting colors.kirktasticSeptember 25 2009, 04:26:17 UTC
FUCK!
Kirk let out a scream of sound as rib cracked under the kick and he twisted, Ayel partly spilling off him. He had to fight, couldn't give up. He couldn't breathe. A deep coughing jerked his entire body and his eyes closed as he tried to start to get up, putting no weight on his broken hand.
“They are a story, James,” Nero explained. His words were slow, leaden, and laced with the same flavor as the truths he'd related. “The only story that matters.” He pulled back and started marking in silence as he considered Eihva. He recalled the feel of her flesh, the cold creep of her blood across his shins. The green of it, blaring in the dark and the white, glistening and cracking like ice on metal. The cold crawl of her skin....and the feel of her arm around his neck. The gentle amber light of midmorning became the humid span of the Narada, creeping and gold. Somewhere in the colored lights he remembered her frown, her doubt of Spock, and the way he eclipsed her. He looked down at Kirk, eclipsed by him now, and his expression tightened hard.
“We paint the tales of the dead onto our skin,” Nero repeated. The words were soundless, hollow, told through generations on generations. They were meaningless, solid, lifeless. “Paint their names, so that when the marks fade...so too can the time of grieving.” He took a shallow breath and traced the line with his thumb, wiping the sheen of blood away. He couldn't sully Eihva's song with worthless words. “But our grief does not fade, so we burn our marks deep...so that we will never forget.”
The room was cold and Nero looked away from Kirk, stared off at the shadows. The new marks across his skin still burned, he could hear their names where they intersected his family. Behind him, there was the gentle hum of Eihva's song. The clang and exultation of Veyn echoed deep in a ship that no longer existed. Laughter erupted from Baohn and the shrill call of his wife followed. What caught his attention, finally, was Ayel's indignant call for aid as the children accosted him outside of Baohn's home.
The halfhearted shout of rekkhai felt so solid, so bright and orange, that Nero craned his head. For just the briefest moment, the motion painted over the Romulan at his back. His periphery caught sight of short hair and a wry smile, a loose shirt, well worn and half ragged-as soon as he narrowed his vision, halted to view it, it vanished into the glare of the lights and Nero was left in the present. Left in a small room with bad air and garish lights. He could almost smell the bite of the blood, the fumes of the pigment, and the rank stench of Klingons as he turned away from Ayel and looked back at Kirk.
His attention snagged on the line across Kirk's face and he slid his finger across it again. He stared at his hand, it was cold. But not green. His expression evened and fell away from his face, tumbling to the floor as he dipped the comb again and fisted his fingers tighter in Kirk's hair. His touch was less reverent, less forgiving of flesh, as he continued.
“Tha'liij is afraid of thunder,” Nero exhaled as he twisted Kirk's head and outlined his other cheek, pouring symmetry and silence into the skin.
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How long did he laid there, sprawled at angles on the floor of an alien, enemy ship that seemed as in desire to inflict pain as its master did? Tiny thoughts trickled into his brain as his body tried to pretend the pain was all so far away. He wondered if the ship was male like its master or female like the Enterprise. His mind decided that the ship had to be male, because his mind could not define Nero's ship as anything but the giant tentacle monster that had take up the view screen what felt like forever ago. Male because obviously that ship was compensating for something.
He didn't want to know. He didn't want to know the story of each person branding into his skin, telling their tale in hollow words like a granite carved monument. Didn't want to know that this person had owned a horse and had a son. Didn't want to know about their favorite drink. Didn't want to know about their home on the edge of a city he had never heard of. The pain in his hair was a distant thing. Everything felt distant, like this was happening to someone else. They had mentioned that during the classes about torture. They said it was a blessing. They lied.
It was terrifying.
Kirk stared up into bright lights, barely blinking as the comb came close to his eye. That hurt, made him freeze, made the voice inside his head scream. Those unforgiving points right beside his eye, the tender flesh of his eye, searing. The mimicry of tenderness as Nero's thumb repetitively brushed away the mixture of blood and ink.
The tingling started in his toes.
It was about the same time the first tear finally fell from his eyes, burning the wounds from the comb.
The tingling stopped being tingling and started to turn into pain. Crawling up along his nerves, making his legs twitch in spasms as life started to return to the limp limbs. Kirk missed entirely when Nero stopped working the comb into his flesh, far too consumed with the fire that was screaming through every part of him as circulation started to realize it could return. He had no idea when the cry wrenched from him that he could no longer hold inside, every tiny movement impossible to stop and adding fuel to the fire. It all hurt far more then his fingers being broken, hurt even more then the tattoos being pressed into his skin. Or maybe they just added heat.
Forgot where he was, who he was, and was eaten alive by fire.
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"If you kill him, you'll never get your information."
Reply
“I don't want to kill him,” Nero admitted evenly, a low current beneath the clashing staccato of Kirk's cries and George's half-babbled Rihannsu. “Not yet.”
His attention was torn from Kirk, forced into an impatient, keening halt against his skull. He cast his glance at the hevam still leashed to the table. He could smell the fetid bite of burning iron and his eyes narrowed. He stepped off the sparking Kirk, away from his live limbs that crawled against the floor, slid to nowhere and back again.
“But if you supply my information,” Nero continued as he crossed to George's side. “I will not object.”
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"You are beginning to bore me." The words were even and dangerous, sliding from him like an order. The tips of his fingers were starting to prickle and hum--had they left the coolant on him? Hm, all the same.
Reply
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The reek of blood was choking, and the pain at his neck increased. Had to make the fire die so he could think again.
So he concentrated on one thing. ...A pair of dark eyes, framed in brown hair, glaring at him.
Reply
This was basic Federation business. Divide and conquer. This was how they won, against the Klingons, against the Dominion, and against his own people, though there it was done with whispers and lies and promises, pretty, poisonous Vulcan pipe dreams.
Ayel would not let it happen again. That threat hiding under his skin, the promise of agony, of shared knowing, wasn't enough to stop him. Eivha forced him to relax, prodded him to set their tools aside with care, with such respect as could be managed here. But Eivha didn't want to look, she didn't want to see this. Kirk was 'Fleet, Fed, lloann'na, but still so young, so frightened.
Ayel jammed his left hand in his pocket. Hid Eivha from sight. Closed her eyes, blinked his, and pinned Kirk to the floor with both knees, straddling him. The pain was a low current against the inside of Ayel's skin, red and foreign, spiked with jolts in the hands and feet. Not unlike the klivam with their wires, their favorite weapon for him in there, jeering mockery of his specialty and the thrashing reanimation of his dead.
Entirely manageable, if he kept cloth between them and did not use his hands. Difficult, but not impossible.
"It's a trick," he hissed. In Standard, to be sure it was clear. "A Federation trick! It won't work."
But something was wrong, very wrong, with the man sprawled beneath him. He knew this look, the faint glassy edges of it, the weird inward quality of the gaze. He saw it often enough on Nero's face.
Ayel wondered who he was, who James saw.
"Your friend," Ayel gritted out, "tell him lay still and quiet and apologize if he wants to live." He flinched; there were insects marching under his skin, hornets or beetles with knives for teeth. "Call to him."
Telling him was the honorable thing, and that Ayel had done.
It was no great loss to him if Kirk did not or could not hear.
(Lloann'na - literally "Them, from There"; any member of the United Federation of Planets, "Fed".)
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His hand came up and slashed for Ayel's face with his fingernails like a feline.
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Ayel did the only sensible thing there was to do and jerked his head back, snarling to hold in a shriek as he bit at the offending digits.
He shoved down hard with his elbow, blindly, his eyes all water and pain, just going for 'body' underneath him somewhere, to try and hold Kirk down tight.
Can't hit him in the face. Can't let go.
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Kirk snarled darkly and struck out almost as blindly at the man holding him down. He had to fight. Couldn't give up. Couldn't stop fighting.
Had to get them to stop focusing on his father.
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Kirk let out a scream of sound as rib cracked under the kick and he twisted, Ayel partly spilling off him. He had to fight, couldn't give up. He couldn't breathe. A deep coughing jerked his entire body and his eyes closed as he tried to start to get up, putting no weight on his broken hand.
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