Since Will is looking right at him he sees the expression that crosses Russ's face, the look of pain. He's felt the way that Russ looks plenty of times. "Really?" he asks quietly. "It happened to you too?"
The elf gives the slightest of nods. "It was a long time ago. Still it haunts me sometimes." He folds his arms, his left arm protectively cradling the right, handless one. "I was held captive by Morgoth. Tortured." There's a long pause and Russandol closes his eyes again. "And raped."
OOC: The full story of this part of his background can be found here if you're interested.
Russ has a faraway look in his eyes now, focussed on something far down the street, or perhaps not even in this world. "There's a legend," he says quietly, "that if an elf is raped, they fade and die." He turns to look at Will. "It is apparently not true. I only wished that I had."
"Yes, I know." Will nods in understanding. "The guy who took me... he kept me in a room most of the time. Not always the same room. I had my own, and I had the one where he... um, did stuff. But I never saw the outside or anything the whole time I was with him. It felt like I was going crazy."
Will smiles, but it's a little sad, and he thinks about stabbing Kory DeGarmo. "You can't go through something like that and not be changed somehow. How did you get out, Russ?"
"Morgoth got bored with his games, so he hung me on a mountain to die. I guess he thought it would be entertaining to watch the carrion-birds picking my bones." He rubs his left hand over the stump of his right arm. "And I would have died, except that Findekano came to rescue me. The only way he could get me down was to cut off my hand."
Will looks at Russ's arm and then his own in the cast. He takes a deep breath. "I killed mine. I mean, the guy who had me. We got into a fight and he had a knife, but somehow I got it and... I've never told anyone that except a few people."
Russ studies Will's face for a while, and just nods. He knows, from his own experience, just what Will must be going through, having killed someone however evil that someone may have been. But he's also relieved, that Will can no longer be harmed by him. "You did the right thing," he said in the end. Then, with a smile. "Come on, Will. Enough of this, can we go for dinner now?"
"Okay." Will is more than happy to change the subject, but he doesn't regret having this conversation with Russ. And he knows he doesn't need to ask him to keep his secret. Russ understands. "Sounds good to me. My appetite's never been the biggest but all this talk is making me hungry. So, what do you want? Just normal American food or something exotic?"
"Well I guess we should go for something vegetarian." He grins broadly. "That rules out 'normal American' I suppose." He thinks for a moment. "There are so many different styles of food here and I don't even know what most of them are called. You choose. No meat though."
"Well, this is New York and they have practically everything here so I'm sure we can find something. And I think there are a lot more vegetarians than there used to be. Of course we can always go get a pizza. We don't have to put meat on that."
"Okay, let's go. I know the perfect place." There's a spring to his step now. "We can get lots and lots of cheese on it to make up for anything else we might be missing. And anything else you want. Like anything in particular on yours?"
"Oh, anything. Well, anything except those little bits of salty fish". He drapes an arm over Will's shoulder and lets the younger boy lead him. "What's those round black things? I like those. And that fruit... pineapple? That too."
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OOC: The full story of this part of his background can be found here if you're interested.
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ooc: Goes to read. And, night!
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