Questions (Sampler)
‘Verse: ☼ The Sun, Radiant ☼
Challenges/Toppings/Extras: 7-prompt Sampler
Rating: T
Title: Questions
Summary: Ravir’s interrogation.
Notes: Gah this took forever. I originally planned it for the Back to School Challenge, which shows y’all how much I procrastinated on it… Back into the main arc again, whee!
Strawberry #14 (stairs)
The stairs down to the Pens were not like the Pens themselves. Clean, well-lit, and wooden (though treated regularly to prevent any rot from the water seeping in from above), they were utterly inadequate to prepare a visitor for the reality of the prison.
Rocky Road #9 (basement)
The real prison was dark, and dank, and made of cold, rough stone. Once Ravir stepped through the door at the bottom of the stairs, it was as if the very walls were closing in on him. Though he was free to move about, the claustrophobia made him shiver; he did not dare to think what it was like for the guards, or the prisoners. This was the dark not-quite-secret beneath the open beauty of the palace.
Boysenberry #3 (close to home)
The inmates were few, and mostly considered low-risk - as no matter how many guards were between them and the surface, no one sane would house masterminds right below the very garden where the Queen walked - but every once in a while necessity had a more dangerous criminal kept in the Pens.
Like King Gavin’s would-be assassin. He could be moved later, to Karish or Ajet, if he was not executed after Ravir was done with him. Given his status as associate (at least) of the traitor-princess Jalenashi, transport to either prison would be a bad idea, in Ravir’s opinion. There could be a rescue attempt, or the man could try to convert the other inmates to Jalenashi’s side. There were too many variables, and so Ravir intended to argue for a public execution as soon as possible. Not that he thought Ruhana was considering anything else.
Chocolate Chip Mint #23 (imposing)
There was another duality to the underground prison: the guards, overvigilant for the fact that they were between the Queen and known criminals (however low-risk) tended to be the tallest and buffest of the entire profession in the city. Even their voices aboveground were full of authority. The permanent residents, though, were gaunt - not from starvation, as Arambh rarely preformed that torture - but from inactivity. There was nowhere to go in the cramped spaces of the prison, nowhere to be.
Berry Punch #22 (what the cat dragged in)
Most of the cells were empty, leftovers from a time before Karish and Ajet had been built and all sorts were kept here. Ravir had dumped the assassin into one without ceremony, and he stood in front of that steel door, looking through the barred window into the gloom, where he found the man had only moved enough to drag himself to the back left corner and prop himself against the junction of the two walls.
Ravir smiled without mirth. He couldn’t see the face, as it was turned down in an exhausted, restless sleep, but he could faintly hear the hitch of breath. A child that cries itself to sleep continues to cry in its dreams, he thought.
Though the proverb meant more to the Watwanyasi, it was true also on the literal level. Perhaps he hadn’t cried, exactly - rather, hyperventilated. It made no difference, though.
Strawberry Banana #19 (interview)
Ravir pushed open the heavy steel door. It made a low scraping sound against the floor as it opened, and when the First Consort stepped through - along with a guard, though he hardly needed one - it was to find the assassin awake and staring at him. Alarm was in the draw of his mouth and the widening of his eyes, but he remained still after he raised his head, just watching Ravir as he closed the door behind him.
Ravir looked back with a calm he wasn’t sure he felt. “Afternoon,” he said, watching confusion flicker across the face of his enemy - time was lost easily in the Pens - before it returned to a slightly less panicked version of his previous expression. Ravir came forward, gesturing for the guard to sit down in the chair against the side wall, and stood just out of range of the divide. This was columns of bars cutting the cell into two parts at the one-third mark, making it easier for Ravir to conduct his questioning in relative privacy and isolation without getting too close.
The assassin shrank further into the wall. Ravir took a perverse joy in seeing him squirm, he couldn’t deny that.
“Now then… I have a few questions for you. All really simple. You can choose not to answer, of course, or to lie, but keep in mind that my patience is worn thinner and my anger stretched farther for every answer I don’t get. You probably won’t like the consequences of that choice. Good? Good.” He smiled grimly again, watching his prey closely, and launched into his questions.
Tangelo #30 (a long way from home)
Ravir stepped out from the shade into the Arambh heat and turned his face into the sun, letting it warm him down to the bones. When he felt thoroughly cooked, as a hen’s egg left on a palace balcony all day, he wandered off towards the gardens. The entrance to the Pens was an inconspicuous door set deep into the palace wall, but the dungeon itself ran not under the building but under the rows of orange trees, deeper than it was wide. Standing on the lawn - a luxury in the dry season - he could almost hear the drip-drip of water running down stone walls.
Almost.
His mother’s voice echoed in his mind, his memories as fresh as ever despite the time and distance separating them: you’re a long way from home, my thrush-in-a-gale.
Challenges/Toppings/Extras: 7-prompt Sampler
Rating: T
Title: Questions
Summary: Ravir’s interrogation.
Notes: Gah this took forever. I originally planned it for the Back to School Challenge, which shows y’all how much I procrastinated on it… Back into the main arc again, whee!
Strawberry #14 (stairs)
The stairs down to the Pens were not like the Pens themselves. Clean, well-lit, and wooden (though treated regularly to prevent any rot from the water seeping in from above), they were utterly inadequate to prepare a visitor for the reality of the prison.
Rocky Road #9 (basement)
The real prison was dark, and dank, and made of cold, rough stone. Once Ravir stepped through the door at the bottom of the stairs, it was as if the very walls were closing in on him. Though he was free to move about, the claustrophobia made him shiver; he did not dare to think what it was like for the guards, or the prisoners. This was the dark not-quite-secret beneath the open beauty of the palace.
Boysenberry #3 (close to home)
The inmates were few, and mostly considered low-risk - as no matter how many guards were between them and the surface, no one sane would house masterminds right below the very garden where the Queen walked - but every once in a while necessity had a more dangerous criminal kept in the Pens.
Like King Gavin’s would-be assassin. He could be moved later, to Karish or Ajet, if he was not executed after Ravir was done with him. Given his status as associate (at least) of the traitor-princess Jalenashi, transport to either prison would be a bad idea, in Ravir’s opinion. There could be a rescue attempt, or the man could try to convert the other inmates to Jalenashi’s side. There were too many variables, and so Ravir intended to argue for a public execution as soon as possible. Not that he thought Ruhana was considering anything else.
Chocolate Chip Mint #23 (imposing)
There was another duality to the underground prison: the guards, overvigilant for the fact that they were between the Queen and known criminals (however low-risk) tended to be the tallest and buffest of the entire profession in the city. Even their voices aboveground were full of authority. The permanent residents, though, were gaunt - not from starvation, as Arambh rarely preformed that torture - but from inactivity. There was nowhere to go in the cramped spaces of the prison, nowhere to be.
Berry Punch #22 (what the cat dragged in)
Most of the cells were empty, leftovers from a time before Karish and Ajet had been built and all sorts were kept here. Ravir had dumped the assassin into one without ceremony, and he stood in front of that steel door, looking through the barred window into the gloom, where he found the man had only moved enough to drag himself to the back left corner and prop himself against the junction of the two walls.
Ravir smiled without mirth. He couldn’t see the face, as it was turned down in an exhausted, restless sleep, but he could faintly hear the hitch of breath. A child that cries itself to sleep continues to cry in its dreams, he thought.
Though the proverb meant more to the Watwanyasi, it was true also on the literal level. Perhaps he hadn’t cried, exactly - rather, hyperventilated. It made no difference, though.
Strawberry Banana #19 (interview)
Ravir pushed open the heavy steel door. It made a low scraping sound against the floor as it opened, and when the First Consort stepped through - along with a guard, though he hardly needed one - it was to find the assassin awake and staring at him. Alarm was in the draw of his mouth and the widening of his eyes, but he remained still after he raised his head, just watching Ravir as he closed the door behind him.
Ravir looked back with a calm he wasn’t sure he felt. “Afternoon,” he said, watching confusion flicker across the face of his enemy - time was lost easily in the Pens - before it returned to a slightly less panicked version of his previous expression. Ravir came forward, gesturing for the guard to sit down in the chair against the side wall, and stood just out of range of the divide. This was columns of bars cutting the cell into two parts at the one-third mark, making it easier for Ravir to conduct his questioning in relative privacy and isolation without getting too close.
The assassin shrank further into the wall. Ravir took a perverse joy in seeing him squirm, he couldn’t deny that.
“Now then… I have a few questions for you. All really simple. You can choose not to answer, of course, or to lie, but keep in mind that my patience is worn thinner and my anger stretched farther for every answer I don’t get. You probably won’t like the consequences of that choice. Good? Good.” He smiled grimly again, watching his prey closely, and launched into his questions.
Tangelo #30 (a long way from home)
Ravir stepped out from the shade into the Arambh heat and turned his face into the sun, letting it warm him down to the bones. When he felt thoroughly cooked, as a hen’s egg left on a palace balcony all day, he wandered off towards the gardens. The entrance to the Pens was an inconspicuous door set deep into the palace wall, but the dungeon itself ran not under the building but under the rows of orange trees, deeper than it was wide. Standing on the lawn - a luxury in the dry season - he could almost hear the drip-drip of water running down stone walls.
Almost.
His mother’s voice echoed in his mind, his memories as fresh as ever despite the time and distance separating them: you’re a long way from home, my thrush-in-a-gale.