Re: Vanaprastha [Closed]"Sleeping? She was passed out half the day, I don't know what the hell she needs sleep for now. Two hours, and no marks, got it? I let it go last time, but--"
"Higher gratuity. I get it. I already apologized for last time."
They always assumed she was asleep. Depending on how long ago her last dose was, the sound of the door opening wasn't always what woke her up, but it was always something. Sometimes they flung themselves at her, too desperate to wait, and what use was her mental presence in the act? It wasn't her mind they needed.
Sometimes, though... Sometimes in a mockery of romantic intimacy they crept to her side and woke her gently. As if she'd be grateful to see them, as if they really signalled the end to some terrible loneliness that only they could alleviate.
"Hey." A hand, its gentleness belying the brutality that brought them together. It was someone she knew. A surprise, a casual smile, a brief goodbye. An age ago, but one that could still be measured in hours. "Morning, Daesha."
Hall. Of course.
A flash of recognition denied. It wasn't who she thought it was. In the space of a single breath, the politely distant Alema that Hall had come to know returned to the fore. So we're still going to do this, are we? I wonder if he'll even ask me any questions.
Re: Vanaprastha [Closed]
All very well and dandy. She was awake now and he wasted little time in reminding her where she was. Hand abruptly moving from her lekku to backhand her across the face, the sound of his hand smacking against her cheek echoing in the room. That was her good morning from the Imperial Intelligence Bureau. He no longer cared for the woman before her in any manner, politeness was no longer even a thought in his mind. She was a prisoner of the Empire to be interrogated and brought to justice for being a xenomorph and a pirate. Two crimes that would lead the normal person to an execution but a Twi'lek was more of a commodity than even a sub-species, she would fetch a large sum of credits.
Standing from her bed he took a step back to allow her to stand up. "Get up, Alema!" He didn't waste anytime before harshly smacking her across the face again to drop her back onto the bed. "No! Get up!" His face showing little anger as he yelled and commanded her to get up off the bed. Hand fiercely striking her again as she stood. His hands grabbed her shoulders and held her standing in front of him. Right hand tightening. "Alema, it is impolite to sit in front of an officer."
Re: Vanaprastha [Closed]
So it was to start with slapping her around, then. Giving her orders and preventing her from following them, punishing her for disobedience. A petty trick, intended to keep her scrambling to comply before they could stop her. Trapping her in a race to obey them was an old trick, but a decent place to start if they hadn't yet figured her out.
Plainly they hadn't. They didn't know as much about her as they thought they did, that much was clear. It was clear by where they were starting and by the fact that they were doing this at all. It was a waste, and they'd discover that soon enough. No amount of suffering would magically impart the knowledge to her that they were seeking. It was only a matter of time before they killed her, and Alema hoped she could be patient.
Where there is no hope, there is no future.
"I apologize, Lieutenant," she said, her eyes leaving his deferentially. "Thank you for correcting me."
Re: Vanaprastha [Closed]
Eyes filled with a furry as she replied to him. She didn't seemed fazed by such things as all. Left hand moved to the back of her head as he turned her and pushed her up against the desk. Letting go of her head, both hands moved to grab her wrists and then place them both in the grasp of his right. Left hand returning to her head, he didn't even bothering speaking to her. Rather pressed against the back of her head slightly, turning himself and using to torque of turning back to slam her face down onto the desk.
His hand tightened around her wrists as he grabbed her left head-tail and pulled it up to get her head to follow. Stein used his own body to prevent her from backing away from the desk, hand again placing itself of the back of her head. He was no longer going to even waste asking her questions. This was punishment for ever existing in the galaxy. His hand again pushes to smash her head back down onto the desk.
The hand leaving her skull and trailing down her head-tail before pressing his fist into it and squishing it down against the desk. Lifting the hand away and releasing her wrists, Stein stepped back, still wasted little to no time before using his own foot to take her feet out from under her. Each hand grabbing an ankle and quickly pulling her from the desk and onto the floor. Hands leaving her body again as he stood there and pulled out a cigarette. Lighting it up and placing the lighter back into his pocket before taking a drag and looking down at her.
Re: Vanaprastha [Closed]
At least Alema knew now why the desk was here, though... really. Hitting a slave's face against nearby objects? That was certainly not a novel experience. So far his charisma wasn't being borne out by the sort of creativity Alema would have expected from an expert. There was time yet, though. She had to admit that it was a relief when he took his hand off her lekku. Under other circumstances it might have been amusing to give him an analogous experience, but the amusement would likely not be worth the consequences.
He wasn't asking her anything, which she expected. She wondered if he was going to put out his cigarette on her skin. Would be the next step, wouldn't it? Ordinary.
Where there is no future, there is no fear.
She pulled herself up off the floor, keeping her eyes away from his. This time she didn't say anything, though in her thoughts she apologized facetiously for failing once again to stand in his presence.
Re: Vanaprastha [Closed]
Blade was in hand as she stood up before him. With perfect precision the blade shot out towards her, splitting between her lips without causing a cut. Pushing her back towards the wall, he glared at her while twisting the knife to open her mouth. The sight of all the teeth again reminding him that this being was a complete xenomorph and held no human ties. Again, no words were spoken as his hand again removed the lighter from his pocket.
His gaze leaving her as he looked down to the end of her head-tails and flipped the lighter open, flame jumping forth from it. The cool metal of the lighter's cap moving against the end of her head-tail before the heat of the flame was placed directly upon it. Stein stared at her, waiting for her to make any sort of move. The blade in her mouth was set to be speared back into her neck, to cut down into her lip, to slice at her tongue or to stab the roof of her mouth.
Re: Vanaprastha [Closed]
He moved on her like lightning, the blade sliding past her filed teeth like water. She remained very still, unwilling to force his hand in the knowledge that he would do as he pleased whether she gave him a reason or not.
Where there is no fear, there is no pain.
He flicked the lighter open, and when she felt the smooth metal against her head-tail, she brought the full naked force of her will down on her own body to keep from pulling it back away from Lt. Hall.
Where there is no fear, there is no pain.
She closed her eyes and felt the pain of the fire come roaring up toward her skull.
Where there is no fear, there is no pain. Where there is no hope, there is no pain. Where there is no hope, there is no future. Where there is no future. Where there is no future, there is no fear. Where there is no fear, there is no pain.The litany raced through her mind, the syllables blurring into a long incoherent whisper in her mother's voice. Where there is no fear, there is no pain.
Concentrating on the solid wall behind her head, Alema attempted to differentiate where the incredible pain was and where it wasn't. All-encompassing pain was an illusion, and this was only part of her body.
"What do you feel? Quickly!"
"I..." Alema knew the answer. She just couldn't find the specifics. She couldn't reach beyond the pain to see what was really going on around her. "The sand under my feet."
"Is it hot or cold?"
"It's hot and--" Her next words were split by an incoherent moan. "And the... the grit is in my nails."
Good. She was making progress. The first step in defeating pain was to learn the difference between where the pain was and where it was not. "And?"
Pain was destruction. Until her body was totally destroyed, the pain would be localized. Specific. Pain was the destruction of the body, and it was both the forge in which an individual was created and the explosive force that destroyed it. But the destruction of the individual was nothing. An individual was nothing to the universe, and all were destroyed and brought to nothing in reality.
Where there is no fear, there is no pain.
But there was nothing wrong with this. This was the world, and this was right. What mattered about Alema were not the things that made her unique. These were what separated her from Kikalekki, and when Lieutenant Stein was finished destroying the creature Alema, he would be left behind holding nothing but the tattered ruins of an irrelevant and temporary life.
Life does not destroy, nor is it destroyed.
Where there is no fear, there is no pain.
She had always known it and had never believed anything else in all her days. Now it was time to become it. Become nothing. By inches.
Re: Vanaprastha [Closed]
Stein stared at her as minimal reaction came from the flame against her flesh. He continued to hold it for another minutes until he closed the lid and slid the lighter into his pocket. Hand going to where the flames had licked her skin, it was warm so the flame had touched off against her. Yet he had seen an expression of pain only in the beginning.
Turning the blade back on its side, he pressed the steel against the side of her mouth and quickly dragged the edge into it, freeing the blade from her alien mouth and leaving a gash parting her lips farther. The wound was not catastrophic and would heal over time. Stein knew that if he wished to profit from her, he would have to make sure no damage was permanent in nature.
His blade again whipped through the air though, steel slicing through the stomach of her shirt and placing a gash across her entire gut. Knife turning in his hand as he made a return gash along the same path, only slightly higher, leaving little less than the width of the blade between the two cuts. Knife returning to its sheath while his other hand pressed against the fresh cut and slide his pointer finger across it while pressuring into her. Blood on his hand being wiped on her shirt before he took a step back.
He nodded his head and let a smile cross his face, "very good, Alema. We will continue after a meal." There would be no food for her, instead his right hand rose, curled into a fist, and swung forward in a hook and crashed into the side of her head. Exiting the room, Stein made his way to the cafeteria.
Re: Vanaprastha [Closed]
Alema leaned on the wall after Lt. Hall's blow and watched him leave. When the door closed behind him, she reached her fingertips up to touch the edge of her mouth. Blood. Red like the inside of her body, like the inside of his body. She licked it from the tips of her fingers and traced her tongue along her lips. Blood was the inside of her body, and the essence that kept it alive.
But for the body to live... to live forever would be a terrible thing, she'd been told. So trapped in the awareness and desire for all of these material things. Dependant on even the painful ones in the paralyzing fear that without the pain and misleading joy... they would have nothing. That their lives and identities and accomplishments would mean nothing.
But Alema knew what the truth was. She couldn't see it yet, but she knew she would as so few believers ever would. The crushing majority of believers knew what they believed with their minds, but they didn't see it. They saw only what their eyes could show them. Lieutenant Hall would destroy the individual Alema, and take away every illusion and joy that chained her to the lie.
Where there is no hope, there is no future.
There was nowhere to go but nowhere, and nothing to accomplish but dissolution. The process would be painful for the individual, but fear of pain was the very thing that kept it from freeing itself. So she'd been taught.
Where there is no future, there is no fear.
Lieutenant Stein Hall would set her free, and never know the vital part he had truly played. He would never know what he had really done for her, but Alema was sure that by the time he was done, she would understand the world too well to remain in it reflexively. He would set her free, because she did not have the courage to do it herself.
Re: Vanaprastha [Closed]
Stein did not return for the remainder of the day. Instead his day was occupied by meetings with potential buyers of the Twi'lek that he had prisoner. Following said meetings he was called down to Dantooine to inspect a new camp that would be rising from the ground.
Hours after he left, the door to Alema's chambers opened and a stormtrooper entered the room. With him he carried a tray of food and drink from the Imperial cafeteria. It was real food of a moderate quality compared to the usual grub that she would have otherwise been fed. Without speaking a word, the stormtrooper stared at her for a minute before setting the tray down. The man looked around the room, stopped on a location on the far wall before turning and exiting the room.
---
She was left in piece the for that night and most of the following day before an naval ensign entered the room with a tray of food. It was much less quality food, little more than bread and water. His eyes never even moved to Alema before he dropped the food on the floor, water bottle bouncing along the floor, before turning back towards the door. From the hallway the ensign spoke to her, "Lieutenant Hall was called down to Dantooine for duty. But do not worry, xenomorph, he will return." With that, he closed the door and departed.
Barely ten minutes later the door re-opened and a Stormtrooper again entered the room. This time holding a small paper bag. Looking as though he were adjusting himself to stand in a specific location in the room, standing nearly on the wall to be in the way of the hidden camera's view. He dropped the bag on the ground and allowed the contents to fall out onto the ground, fruit. Before leaning down and picking up the empty bag. Stepping over to her and raising his hand to strike her. Pausing for a few seconds before doing so. "Clean up this mess!" The voice heavy with static from the helmet before the trooper departed.
Re: Vanaprastha [Closed]
Silently Alema emerged from her station in the corner of her bed and pulled the fruit back into the bag, pulling back one that was familiar to eat. The juice stung the cut at the end of her mouth, reminding her where she was and what it meant. Still. They were certainly behaving erratically. Alema wondered what she was supposed to be learning from this, or if it was just meant to keep her on her toes and confused. Whatever they thought they were beating into her... what was the lesson here?
Everything was so disorderly here. So unlike any part of the universe as she knew it. It was almost as if this room were representative of everything that was false and fleeting in Alema's life. It jerked along erratically, skipping and bumping through time, unsure of what it wanted to be or why it wanted to be it.
This room was the symbol of the lie, and that's why it didn't make sense. It couldn't help but make no sense. Nothing untrue could get it right, and that's why this room was wrong.
It was the beginning of a break, of a chasm ready to crack open between Alema's self and everything else that was untrue. She was beginning to see it. On the other side would stand objects and people and events and hopes and failures. All false.
All that would remain... was herself. Her real self. She could find her goddess then, and leave behind her life. The individual she had been would be reduced to dust beneath her feet as she walked toward the final destiny she could not achieve without this... without this brutal cleavage between the world she knew and the truth she pursued. Inertia had carried her life this far, and now it would carry her beyond the end.
Re: Vanaprastha [Closed]
Stein's return from the camp meant the continuation of simple beatings. There was no interrogation, he was just beating on her and doing what he could to break down any sort of spirit she had that she would survive. The continued beating lasted for the next week. He would enter, beat on her, torment her, whatever he could for a few hours. Leave, crappy food would be brought to her, the stormtrooper not returning after dropping off the fruit from the days before Stein had returned. He cut at her, nothing deep enough to be permanent. Continued to bruise her skin with beatings, flames continued to lick her skin and add burns to her flesh. Nothing severe, just enough for the pain and would eventually heal away on its own.
But now he had gotten what he was looking for. Stepping into Alema's room, he extended his hand to assist her up off the bed. His other hand holding a magazine, the cover unreadable while he held it. "If you vould be so kind?" He took her by the hand and walked her to the room on the other side of his. Inside was a flat padded sheet of steel. One end easily distinguishable as where a head would rest. And where the head could be face down and be able to see to the floor. "If you vould sit face down please." He waited until she complied before placing her ankles into clamps. Another clam across her waist, and a pair of handcuffs to hold her hands under the chair. "And here you go," he placed a magazine of assorted art and tattoos in her hands. "Vhy don't you pick out one vhile I start on the first one?"
He chuckled and opened a drawer. Pulling out a switchblade and a few containers of ink. "The neck is a sensitive location and a very vulnerable one. You'll vant to make sure you don't move a lot vhile I vork." He pushed the drawer closed and stood next to her head. Left hand gently moving her lekku out of the way to her neck. "By that vay, your lekku vill be getting the tattoos that you pick out, dear Alema. Choose something, festive. Or perhaps Imperial styled."
"Now hold still, the blade is going to break your skin a little bid more than a needle vould." He depressed the blade into her neck, pushing it in a little farther than it needed to in order for ink to take hold. Making sure to take his time as he began to carve a large circle on the back of her neck. Stopping after a little bit to drop the ink into her flesh. Giving a burning sensation as it broke into the blood stream instead of just staining her unnatural blue skin.
Re: Vanaprastha [Closed]
Alema ran her thumb over the cool metal beneath her hand, pleased to note that it did not warm to her touch. There was something perfect and appropriate about being given a choice in this. To choose her sacrifice, to select her own destruction... after being carried by the current to this place, Alema placed her trust in the mercy of a goddess whose people were frequently left to languish and die. It was a blessing in disguise, and one she would take advantage of.
Where there is no hope, there is no future.
Things would get worse before they would get better, but Alema saw many things clearly now. Peering around the edges of this world full of objects and people and other seductive illusions, Alema was beginning to move beyond them. It was better to seek death than to be surprised by it, and taken unprepared.
The blade in her skin hurt, but it was the shallow and localized sort of pain that was easiest to deal with. She could guess what he was doing, and wondered if it was a sign that he intended to keep her alive longer than he'd indicated so far. The ink bled into her skin as the blood ran out, and it seeped under her skin like poison. Troubling, and might cause problems later... a slower death of the body.
No. No future.
Where there is no future, there is no fear.
Was he betraying his own plans in this act? Did it even matter, once she was beyond his hands and his weapons and his words? It wouldn't be long, and brand her body as he might... she would not be there forever.
What came next would be the true test. A test of her endurance. A test of her faith. A trial placed upon her to give her the will and the means to fully disintegrate whatever remained. She knew there would be pain, the individual would protest, the soul would abandon the individual to its suffering. Alema would be the dust under her own feet, and the Empire could stare down the road, too busy with the rubble beneath their boots to follow where she led.
Alema's finger held a space in the tattoo magazine, marking a page with an extensive and challenging design. She spoke, her voice not strained by agony. Just... very slow and careful, the outward sign of an ironclad hold on her emotions. "When you start on my lekku. You'll want to hold them down," she advised. "If I can't stop them from moving, it will make the going difficult for you."Edited by: Alema Nilim at: 10/26/07 2:52 pm
Re: Vanaprastha [Closed]
He completely ignored her as she spoke. He'd figure out what design she had wanted when he flipped through the magazine. For now he was concentrating as the blade finished the circle outline that would soon turn into an Imperial Insignia. But his ears did pick up on her advising him to hold her lekku still. He had planned on that, he knew they were extremely sensitive from previous encounters with Twi'lek prisoners. "Difficult for me? I don't know about that." He laughed as the blade began working on the main design of the Insignia. "More pain for you and perhaps the severing of one vould be more likely."
Finishing the Imperial Insignia across her neck took the next few hours as the filling in took too much time. He had debating simply slicing it all but knew that it wouldn't heal over the way it would need to. Using a towel to dab at the mixture of blood and ink that covered her neck, he wiped his own hands off before unlatching her waist. Moving and unlatching her ankles and doing the same to her shackles. He glanced at the tattoo, "it vill look ravishing tomorrow. Go sleep. A guard vill make sure you make it to your room."
----
The next morning did not come that early. Stein had opted to sleep slightly later than usual and to pass on any paperwork since he would need the use of his wrist for the day and the days that would follow. There was no way he would be able to finish the design she had picked in one sitting. He figured it would be a two or three day process minimum. Longer if it became difficult to keep her from moving or if his own hand began tensing up the whole time. He would not fail on it, tattoos added too much value to have them wrong.
Getting up from the design in front of him, he left the chamber he had used the day before and entered her room. "Come now, let us show off how alien you are." Humans who covered themselves in tattoos were odd to him. He could understand a few and even some that extended the arm. But she was getting her lekku tattooed, humans certainly did not have those. Although he had seen some truly unsanitary locations for tattoos while observing at camps.
Entering the torturing room, or rather a tattoo parlor it seemed, Stein buckled her into the same location she had been in. A neck brace in his hands as he stood and stared down at her neck. Nodding, "it came out good." The dark black of the Imperial Insignia a stark contrast to the blue of her neck. Pushing her lekku away he placed the brace down before attaching steel wire to both ends and allowing a tightening device on the table to pull her neck down against it. The padding around her face lowering to accommodate so her face was not being squished. Leaning down, he attached a clamp to each of her wrists, followed by a wire to each, pulling them tightly down until he could not push her arm.
Revealing two clamps, both of which could easily fluctuate and tighten to fit onto nearly any surface, were clamped just farther down than the ends of her brain-tails. Depressing a button on a control panel covered in numbered buttons, two steel wires lowered and he attached them to the clamps with hooks. "Tell me vhen your lekku are tight." Depressing two more buttons, the wire began pulling back into the ceiling, raising her lekku into the air until she spoke. Upon which he let it go another inch or two before releasing his fingers.
Pulling out a tray covered with an array of scalpels, Stein set it on the table before pulling out another drawer and setting two jars of ink on next to them. The picture of the tattoo she identified was on the wall, as well as a couple of more from different angles as he had been able to contact the designer. Running his fingers over the scalpels for a moment, he finally settled on one and moved over to Alema's head. His boots in view of her eyes. "Vell, let us begin." His hand slid one of the jars down next to her shoulder, and the blade then moved to her tchin and depressed the blade to her flesh.
Re: Vanaprastha [Closed]Kikalekki wakes, Alema recalled, on the cremation grounds,
to take her child
at the final hour
to Her lap.
Alema closed her eyes as she was methodically restrained. It was important that she be so, because even though Alema herself did not know her own limits... she could not imagine that her endurance and stoicism would stretch this far. Twi'leks who could endure this without their senses betraying them were figures of folklore... barely real people. In that sense the wires, the shackles, the cuffs and clamps... they took away some of the burden of restraining her body. Alema only had to control her mind.
The peaceful Mother sits on the pyre
its fire hidden by Her silk garment of love.
To hold him on Her lap
She left the mountain of Her joy, and
with blessings and fearlessness in Her hands
made the cremation grounds Her home.
His hands on her lekku. A mockery. My mother always told me human men never know how to handle a pair of braintails. She let the irony of that sink in. In this place, with this man, at this time... and still about lekku.
"Come now, let us show off how alien you are," he'd said.
He had no idea. She was becoming less like him with each passing hour in this place.
She had felt herself dissolving away day by day beneath the pain, and moments of clarity became more and more common, only now and again disrupted by doubt, fear, and attachment to the events of this world her soul was trapped within. Those weaknesses passed, and were replaced by certainty. These days did not merely come to go. They came to take her away with them, and only when they had taken all of her would what was real of her be free of what was not.
Pain was the illusion fighting back for its survival, but an illusion has nothing but illusion at its command. Nothing that happened here meant anything except as the last and most painful period of her own liberating destruction.
Why fear this place
when you'll sleep peacefully at the Mother's feet?
The last thing she saw before driving herself back into her meditations was Lieutenant Hall's boot on the floor.
It was said by twi'leks that no foreigner, no outsider, could know the meaning of lekku. That it could not be taught, that their value could never be learned and the pain and pleasure they brought by turns was likewise closed off to anyone who had not already felt it. Her sharp-filed teeth clenched, Alema steeled herself for what she could not stop and possibly could not even endure.
No, she shouted to herself in her own mind. No! I can endure anything! Anything.
Alema felt the blade against her skin before it cut, and her muscles tensed as her body tried to rebel against her, trying to free itself from the pain against these physical bonds and the insanity of its master who demanded it lie still. The woman who had previously borne all attempts at punishment with unfailing passive stoicism hissed through her teeth, biting back a harsh, anguished sob. She could endure anything.
I could endure anything. She could endure anything.
Anything.
Anything.
But not silently. Who dies ignited by the flames of this world,
to him the Mother calls:
"Come to My lap; come to My lap."
To lull you to sleep, Oh Wearied by Life,
Ryma'at takes you to Her lap
disguised as death.*
Stein's hand was halfway up one bloodied ink-smeared headtail when Alema broke her silence. The air split with the clear and piercing sound of one full-voiced scream.
((OOC: *Credit to Najrul Islam, with obvious changes. Just for the sake of citing authors when I crib from Kali's devotional poetry...))Edited by: Alema Nilim at: 10/27/07 3:08 am
Re: Vanaprastha [Closed]
Hand danced across her lekku. It becoming a canvas, a mixture of blue, red and blank and across the head-tail. Red and blank mixing as it slid down onto the base of her head. The blade moving with utmost precision as he continued to cut the blue and turn it red before drowning it in ink. Her screams becoming an orchestra in the background as he labored away. Labor seemed like such a difficult word, sure it would become more tedious down the road, he knew that. But for now, it was more of an art than labor. An enjoyment as he worked, satisfied by the sound coming from her lips as the blade nicked at her blue flesh, the red blood beneath one of the few similarities she held with humans.
Eyes moving between the picture and her head tail. Free hand constantly moving between the ink to add it to her flesh, to a nearby rag to wipe away the current area of work so he could see better. Already a pile of blood red and pitch black rags littered the floor to his side as he continued to pull from a small table next to him of fresh white rags. A slight hum breaking out from him as he wiped away a fresh trail of blood from his most recent cut. A symphonic hum as the blade again returned to carve the intricate design she had chosen.
After nearly half an hour his humming had faded away and the job was becoming tedious. The really small details had forced him to switch to a smaller blade and work much slower than before. He made up for it by pressing the blade even farther in than necessary and tossing an occasional twist into each cut. Ink being smeared on, using his gloved hands to push the ink into the wounds to increase the pressure and pain on her lekku. Wrist beginning to crap, hand shaking as he continued to try and carve her flesh into art. He finally set the blade down and put slack on all the wires to her body: lekku, wrists, and neck. Leaning down he placed a gentle kiss upon her cheek. "That is enough for today, I vill return tomorrow. Sleep for now."
He spend the night constantly rotating his wrist around before he finally went to sleep. A stack of paperwork being sent off to some lower officer who could take care of it just as well as he would have otherwise. The morning didn't come quick enough as he knew his hand would be fine and wanted to continue on the dear blue Twi'lek. It was an art to him, just as liberating the flesh from others was to reveal their inner workings of muscle and bone. But the Twi'lek, as all Twi'leks, held a beautiful build. He shook his head, an artistic beauty, a physical attraction to most people...unfortunately humans as well.
He entered the room and found her bound by the waist, ankles as cuffs once again. During the night a pair of officers had come in and liberated her of her bonds in order to feed her and allow her to receive some sleep. But this morning before his own arrival they had placed her back into the position. "Good morning, my dear. How did you sleep?" He talked about the weather down on Dantooine and of recent sports updates as he again clamped her lekku, neck and wrists before tightening them down with the wire. It really was a marvelous set up that he had implemented on the ship. Made for confining people to a certain position so much easier than having heavy chains and weights. The wires on the pulleys were more than enough to hold most people and xenomorphs.
The ink bottles rattled as they touch the metal off to the sides of the softened center of the table upon which Alema lay. Scalpels clinging together as he dropped the tray onto the table as well. Hand picking around to find the small one he had been using before. Dipping it deeply into a bottle of alcohol before brining it to her blue skin. Pausing to observe the work from the day before. Slightly puffy from the depth at which he worked, but overall it was turning out. "It looks very good. You will be pleased vith the end result." He continued to speak as though it were just a social meeting before his blade again struck home and began to work directly from where he had left off.
The first hour was again filled with his humming of the symphonies as her voice provided the background noise. Hand occasionally taking pause and drumming across her lekku to give his wrist rest. Already he could feel it beginning to tense up from the combination of the day before. It was frustrating for he wanted to finished this head-tail today and allow himself one die hard day on the other. But he was not going to force himself through it, he wanted this art piece to turn out to perfection. On that though, he glanced down at her neck and ran a finger across the Imperial Insignia. It had turned out perfect, he didn't think he had placed a better Insignia on anyone before.
Hands speeding up their pace as he could see the end near. Stopping as he reached the brace that held her head-tail tight towards the ceiling. Wiping a finger across her shirt, he reached over and pressed the button to loosed the wire, head-tail folding down. Setting the scalpel down, he unclasped the brace as he loosened it and moved it farther up her head-tail. Pinching it down hard over the now tender flesh. Re-attaching the wire, he tensed it once again and continued working on the painting that was her flesh. Art in a brutal form, yet his favorite kind of art to perform. That was what he was, an artist of death and pain. He thrived on it, from hunting wild game to hunting down and executing xenomorphs that were in Concentration Camps.
With the lekku finished, he wiped his hands on her back and loosened all the wires, removed her neck brace and sat gently guiding his fingers along her tenderized brain-tail. He hadn't missed a nick, his wrist ached, but one of the canvases was complete. "There you go, my dear. Half complete, the other half set for another day." Taking a rag, he wiped away what tears had formed on her person before leaning down and again kissing her cheek. Saying his parting words for the day, he went off and performed the rest of his duties for the day. Any and all writing being done by an ensign who had been assigned to him just for that purpose.
Arriving the following day, he found her strapped nearly exactly where he had left her. The difference being today he only tensed up on the one head-tail that would be used. The other was left free as it no longer had a need. The pattern was vivid against her blue flesh, truly a masterpiece on that head-tail. He would be hard pressed to be able to duplicate such work again. But it would be done, he would not rest otherwise. The tattoo would be removed and re-applied if their was something wrong with it. Setting to work again, his humming lasting hardly more than a few minutes as he could feel his wrist tighten nearly immediately. He cursed and threw the scalpel across the room.
Eyes glancing across her, he couldn't just let the day go with nothing. But he knew that there would be no applying of the tattoo today. His wrist simply refused to cooperate and he would have to move to different aspects. Gaze moving over her, a feeling of attraction pulling at him. Hand running across her back before he pulled it back and ceased his actions. A xenomorph, a blue Twi'lek. She was not to be an attractive creature, no desire to her person was to be had. Releasing her from her bonds, he stood her up and looked her person over. But she was, her build aside from the lack of hair and blue flesh was exactly that of a human female. The blue adding an-No. His mind stopped as he violently struck her across the face.
Pent up furry for thinking such things as to desire a xenomorphic woman was unleashed on her blue frame. Back hand after back hand flew across her face as blood began to come from her nose and her gums began to bleed. Savage blow being delivered each time his hand contacted her blue cheek. His own body beginning to sweat as she eventually collapsed from the ongoing attack on her person. Hand fresh with pain from the blows. It covered with her blood and saliva from the repeated impacts. He left the room and allowed for the naval Officers to care for her person and prepare her for the next day of being a canvas to his person.
Entering the room the following day, he gave his greetings and again began talking about such things as local fairs going on down below on Dantooine. The changing of the weather and more sporting news. Recent galactic holo-net information, all while he was strapping her wrists, neck and the one lekku back down. The scalpel flying to his hand as he began a more uplifting humming tone. The mixture of blood and ink beginning to swirl down her lekku once more. He was on a spree, wrist was refreshed and he already knew the tricks to getting the design the way he wanted it. He flew through the tattoo, successfully finishing it for the day. Blood covered hands put away the materials before releasing the wires from her person. "Marvelous," lips touching hers in a kiss before he stood back up. "The canvas is done." He spoke pretty much to no one. Wiped his hands on a rag and departed from the room.
The two naval officers taking her back to her room and supplying her with food for the day.
Edited by: Stein Hall at: 10/29/07 12:50 pm
Re: Vanaprastha [Closed]
Alema had slept a great deal these last few days. It might have been better if he'd wanted her. If he'd given in. At least then she could have finally closed herself out, finally forgotten entirely about her body and its constant pleas. Back in her closely-monitored cell, the twi'lek relaxed the desperate endurance which kept her conscious through this latest experience. To survive it, to weather it clear-headed, it was something to be proud of, and Alema frightened herself by the tenacity with which she held onto that pride.
Pride was dangerous. Pride, even as it gave slaves the power not to betray themselves, was still an emotional investment in the dreamworld she was leaving behind. Pride in endurance was a stepping stone that would become a stumbling block when the time came to renounce even emotion.
The time for retirement and meditation had come to an end. Finally. This was the time for renunciation, and at the end of it there would be nothing. The realization that she was nearly to the end of this stage came when Alema recognized a creeping monster she thought she'd abandoned long ago.
Hope.
There'd been no question in her mind when she came that she would die here. Later, she hadn't been so sure. This didn't make sense if she were simply to be executed. If that's all they wanted, there was no reason not to simply heave her into a furnace and incinerate her alive. The twi'lek had been waiting for this, and it had not come. That Lt. Hall would bother going to such lengths as this tattooing gave her the answer that she was looking for.
This continuous suffering, these unending attempts to break her... there was no reason for it unless someone thought she would be more useful broken than dead. Was she to be sold then?
Lying on her side with her head resting on her arm, curled on her bed in exhaustion, Alema's heart sang briefly with the hope that if she were sold out of this place, she could escape, she could find her way home, back to the friends she'd once loved. That dreadful hope. Tears stung her eyes as she struggled against her own mind. Rioting out of her control, its strength renewed by the promise of a chance, any chance, to fight for its survival, to get out and get home. Get to them.
A tear burned down her face and Alema didn't reach up to brush it away. It was the one tear she resented in this place, because it was the only tear that truly signalled weakness.
I'm sorry Savin, she thought, saying her goodbyes silently even if she could never speak them. I have to let you go.
It was too late to save herself. Alema had to believe that. She couldn't face these days if she thought there was anywhere to turn for a solution. Anyone who would save her, could not. Anyone who could save her would not.
They could force her to stay here. They could force her to suffer. They could force her into slavery and if they wanted they could force her to die.
But they could not force her to live. Sooner or later, after she finally renounced her own mind and all of its experience, her body would follow her. Then there would be nothing left to remind the universe of the part she had once played in its great illusion, in the great lie that bound all of its creatures together in ignorance and fear.
True, she herself had once acted, she had desired and she'd done her part to preserve those few things in this world she loved. Her life and her self were falling into rubble, and it would not be long. Soon there would be nothing of those remaining, and there would be nothing for Alema after that but truth, and the total dissolution that it brought.
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