Work Text:
Resa hadn’t gotten far: the unexpected pain in the dark, running further downhill, hoping beyond hope that the viper hadn’t wasted his precious venom on a prey he wouldn’t be able to eat, that her own breathlessness and dizziness were just fear, and then, when she vomited and the wound wouldn’t stop beating and bleeding, it had been too late and she’d crawled for cover in the bushes, taken out her paper and written, with the smallest letters that her shaking hands were able to print, a final goodbye to her husband and daughter.
Dustfinger had found her first. She would’ve liked to say that she’d smelled fire and felt comforted, but at that point she couldn’t smell anything beyond her own acrid sweat and vomit. He’d looked at her and smiled a sad smile through the scars on his cheek.
“Oh, Resa,” he’d said softly.
He’d given her water and carried her to the closest of the anonymous little sheds that littered the hills around the town. Her leg swelled up and turned blistering red as she held his hand. He’d felt her pulse and his face didn’t betray how he felt about her rapid heartbeat. He’d stroked her hair, whispered something she couldn’t hear and then disappeared into the dark. Time passed deliriously, where her leg was frozen, burning like ice from within. Later, he had suddenly appeared at her side again and showed her two small flasks of anti-venom: one with a picture of a brown snake, and one with a picture of a smaller black snake. When she pointed to the brown snake, she smiled at his relieved face.
She saw sunlight, she saw the stars through the hole in the roof. She slept in fits, waking up with a racing heart. Dustfinger sometimes appeared to bring her water and then food that she couldn’t keep down, and, one of these times when she felt lucid through her headache and the agony that used to be her leg, she pressed the letter to Mo and Meggie into his hand. He squeezed her hand, put the letter in his backpack. When she woke up, he was gone again.
She didn’t die that day. Her leg was hurt and stiff, but her heart recovered and she was sharp, sharp enough to hear when dogs started to bark in the distance, to close her eyes when the laughter of men tracking wounded prey drifted near. She’d tried to hide the evidence of help, ripped up the fresh white bread that Dustfinger had stolen for her and buried it in the dirt floor of the shed.
When Basta and his men found her, they made her limp back uphill to town. Her universe reduced down to pain: twin bright spikes just above her left ankle, and then a burning heat radiating outward and up to her hip. The sharp point of Basta’s knife, aimed then at her shoulders, then at her lower back, only stinging when she slowed down too much, or when he felt like it.
The headache, her burning face and fluttering heart, the acid taste of vomit still in her throat — she’d thrown up over Basta’s shoes when his men dragged her up from the dirt. All she was, was pain. It was there the whole damned way up the hill, every step in the dirt or through the bushes. Silent tears dripped on her shoes as she stumbled forwards. She didn’t notice that the triumphant laughter had quieted as the men followed her, stumbling and limping like an old woman, up the hill.
The sad procession reached town. Resa saw the backs of skirts and shoes as girls ducked inside or around corners to avoid looking at her and the men. She hadn’t looked up, couldn’t imagine having the energy to lift her head. The sting of Basta’s knife disappeared and was replaced with his hot hand on the back of her neck, pushing her inside his house, yanking her through the kitchen into the scullery.
For a moment, she felt only relief as she rolled over on the cool dark stones, finally taking the weight off her leg. She pressed her burning cheek to the floor, trying to catch her breath, unaware of anything except the sudden reduction of pain. But the relief was only granted to her for a few breaths. As soon as the intense pain faded, her mind was freed up and feelings came back in. Anger, shame and fear. They battled within her, her hands trembled and her face burned with them.
Her first instinct, anger, won out, and she glared up at Basta from the floor, slowly turning herself on her right hip, blinking sharply through the pain as she moved her left leg.
“Don’t move, girl, or I’ll break your fingers,” he snarled at her and she wanted to punch him. She kept staring into his eyes, and he looked away. Resa tried to slowly, oh so slowly drag herself towards the door. Why? A cold thing inside of her asked. You’re not going to get away like this. You’ll need to recover, that will take weeks at least. Why make things worse for yourself like this?
It was fear that answered, fear, and something else. Being alone in a room with Basta. Being on the floor. Helpless. Passive. Never. She grabbed at another tile on the floor when she felt his boot on her fingers. No weight. Yet. Dried vomit and dust on the leather of his boot as it slowly ground into her hand. Her writing hand. She couldn’t tell him “stop," or “please,” so she curled in on herself and looked up at him. Not glaring this time, just pathetic, pleading.
“Good. Stay, and wait.” He grinned at her, but kept his boot lightly on her fingers.
Wait for what? Her mistress, his master? The other girls had whispered about runaways. People disappeared, but you never knew why. Sometimes they returned, silent and forever looking at the floor. A cramp shot through her leg and her mind was filled with pain again. Basta let her grab at her leg with her other hand as she panted through it.
He was wiping the traces of Resa’s blood off his knife when the door opened.
Two men dragged Dustfinger in. His hands were chained with iron behind his back. Resa returned the flash of unguarded despair on his face, before his became tense with played nonchalance. The men held him in front of Basta, and she couldn’t look away even when dread turned her stomach to lead.
“I didn’t realise you’d even need my help with a runaway girl, Basta,” Dustfinger said, attempting to sound relaxed, but he wasn’t fooling anyone.
Basta took his boot off Resa’s hand and swiftly moved his knife to Dustfinger’s throat.
“You are lucky,” he whispered. “I wanted to cut your hands off, as is proper for thieves. You would starve unless we fed you the scraps from our table while you crawled at our feet.”
Basta slowly circled behind Dustfinger. Dustfinger, who struggled and turned white as Basta put the blade of his knife to his chained right wrist. Small flecks of blood dripped on the floor. But it didn’t turn into a puddle, it was only a small cut, and Dustfinger, with great effort, stilled himself.
“I didn’t steal anything,” he said.
Resa, cold on the floor, hoping beyond hope that Basta believed it. That he’d say, this is all a big mistake and he’d release Dustfinger and that Dustfinger would take her with him and they would sit underneath a big oak tree, just the two of them, free from all of this.
“Do you think we’re that stupid?” Basta hissed and the oak tree withered away. “Do you think we don’t count the bottles of anti-venom, and, when we found her alive and we suspected you, that we checked whether the anti-venom was not replaced with water? We don’t fall for your stupid tricks here.”
That couldn’t have been Basta or the other men, Resa thought blearily. That must have been the Magpie. Dustfinger could run circles around Basta while blindfolded, but the Magpie was cunning and has time to sit and think without being overwhelmed by despair and fear, didn’t have to sprint down hills in the dark, desperately hoping that her heart wouldn’t stop beating.
At the slump of his shoulders, Resa knew that Dustfinger was defeated. Only the embers of him remained, softly glowing inside that cringing shape. He looked at the floor, avoiding Basta’s eyes, and worse, her eyes. This was the shape of him that she hated the most to see. The shape that had saved him from more pain, more stockades, that he had had to cultivate as soon as he could walk. Basta continued.
“You’re lucky that Capricorn has use for a dirty thief like you. He very graciously forgives you your nature. But you have to promise us to not do it again.”
Dustfinger was quiet. Despite everything, Resa was not beyond pride, so she knew what was flaming up inside of him even now, the hot embers still glowing. Just say it, one part of her wants to yell out at him, but also No, don’t.
Eventually, he whispered to the floor, “I promise.”
“I didn’t cut your tongue out now, did I? Speak up. What do you promise?”
Resa pushed off hard against the floor, ignoring the flaring pain of the bite. She grabbed at Basta’s calve, and she bit down hard.
Her lower teeth hit the leather of his boot and she tasted dirt, dirt and dust and fabric, but no blood. She grunted without sound, tried to reposition but before she could strike again Basta’s boot bore down on her neck and she choked. She grabbed at his boot with her hands, frantically bucking and pulling as he, pale-faced, forced her down and felt at his calve. Only when he’s assured himself that she didn’t break skin, he laughed, roughly, and lifted his boot from her throat to kick her in the ribs. For a second, she couldn’t get air into her lungs.
Without breath, there was no thought, no sound or sight reached her. When her senses came back to her, and her gasps grew more controlled, Basta stood over her, but his attention has turned back to his other prey.
“Please, Basta.” Dustfinger was begging. Because of her.
“Please don’t hurt her. Please, she’s still delirious from the venom, she didn’t mean to bite you, she’s just scar-,“ one of the men punched him in the stomach, but he kept talking, his voice shaking.
“I promise not to steal again, and she promises not to run again, and she’ll never bite you again, you won’t do it again, Resa?” he looked at her, wild-eyed, pushing himself towards her as best as he could manage with the two men still holding his arms.
Tears were shining in his eyes, she realised, with a sick twist to her stomach. This was something beyond running away. She’d crossed some type of invisible border of violence, something that made him so scared for her.
She was yanked up from the floor by Basta’s hand in her hair. He forced her up to her knees, and the hot pain of the snakebite shot through her and made her scream without sound. She curled up, but her hair was wrapped around Basta’s fist and she couldn’t move. With no way to relieve the pressure she was left twitching, gasping for breath.
“I was just going to let your mistress deal with you,” Basta said to her. “But what do you think will happen if I told her that you bit me, hm? Do you think she’d let you back into the house?”
The Magpie would never let her near her son again. Was she good for anything else in the eyes of the Magpie? Or would she call the most ruthless of the men to take a biting maid out into the hills and shoot her, not even burying her body? A cold certainty spread through her mind. If Basta told the Magpie, she would die.
She shook her head. She didn’t attempt to hide the fear in her eyes.
“Basta, please, you’re not even bleeding, no harm done,“ Dustfinger’s pleading trailed off when Basta held his knife as Resa’s throat. He was still looking at her, examining the fear and despair on her face.
“Apologise to me, and I won’t tell her that you bit me.”
I’m sorry, please, I’m very sorry, she still said the words out of instinct, but no sound escaped from her mouth. Basta’s grin widened.
“Do you want me to tell her? I don’t hear you.”
“She has no voice, you stup-, ” Dustfinger’s roar was cut off abruptly when Basta let go of her hair to punch him in the face.
Before Basta could turn back to her, she touched his boot again, softly this time. She looked up at his face, into his eyes. Those were the eyes of a powerless man, lashing out. She carefully and slowly, as so not to be a threat, lowered down her forehead to the tip of his boot and let it rest there.
Both Basta and Dustfinger were quiet.
Then, Basta said, quietly. “It’s alright, Resa, you got too scared. No-one got hurt.”
With her face still turned to his boot, she considered her bruised ribs, Dustfinger’s bruised face, the burning limping back to the town, the little cuts on her back, but she kept her head down.
“You’re fine, Resa. I won’t tell her about it. Now don’t interfere,” he slowly nudged her face with his boot and she let go of it, face still turned down as she crawled backwards. Was this what he wanted? Her at his feet? Now that he got it, he seemed uncomfortable, unsettled, not gloating.
She carefully sat up and leaned against the wall. She dared to glance at Dustfinger, who was looking at her intently. Maybe this was the shape of her that he hated to see the most too. But she’d survived. He seemed to recognise the glint in her eyes and something in his face softened. Resa exhaled shakily.
Basta looked at her once more, and then turned back to Dustfinger.
“Now, to deal with our thief. You promised you wouldn’t steal again. But I don’t believe you.”
Dustfinger was pale behind the bruises in his face. “Whatever I’d say or do, you won’t believe me,” he said.
It’s the embers, Resa realised. Basta knew it too. You can’t catch fire in your fist. If Dustfinger would, out of his own volition, bend for Basta, Basta wouldn’t accept it like he had with her. He’d be holding ashes, the true flame hiding within. Dustfinger could burn down his dignity, then when Basta would turn his back on him, it would all flare up again, like he has value beyond the kindling Basta provided. Basta wouldn’t trust Dustfinger until he’d extinguished him.
“Being a thief… helping a runaway,” Basta said. “I’ll make you regret it.”
With that, he looked at the guards. They pushed Dustfinger to his knees. Basta walked behind them to the door and went deeper into his house.
Dustfinger and Resa looked at each other like they were alone. He didn’t have to say anything, just like her. It was clear from his face: Basta would never be able to make him regret anything.
Basta returned behind Dustfinger’s back, but Resa saw what he held in his hands. She’d seen it before, in the other world, at the square in Umbra for crimes greater than helping a runaway. It was a short, single-tailed whip.
“Basta, no! Please! You can’t do this, he only did it because I asked him,” she begged weakly from against the wall, but no sound escaped from her mouth. Basta took one more long look at her, the threat in his eyes clear.
“If you try anything, I’ll tell.”
She didn’t move from her spot on the floor.
Basta slowly dragged the whip over the back of Dustfinger’s unprotected neck.
“Do you recognise this? Does it remind you of home?”
Dustfinger closed his eyes sharply for a moment and didn’t say anything. Then he looked at Resa, and quirked up the corner of his mouth, as if he knew what she wanted to say, that they kept pushing each other out of harm’s way, into a new kinds of harm, as if to say: “don’t worry," as if he could bear it. Maybe he could, maybe this was the kind of thing that happened to people like him.
“I’ve seen it happen before,” he said quietly.
“Seen, hm? Well, if I miss anything less then the fairies and the dirt and the magic, it’s this.”
“Then why are you doing it to me?”
Basta struck quick as a snake. Dustfinger gasped, and it was like Basta had been waiting for that gasp for his whole life. His eyes glinted with sick curiousity.
He brought the whip down again. Resa couldn’t see where, but she saw Dustfinger’s face twist and his shoulders draw up around his ears to protect his neck. He gasped again, shallow panting breaths, as Basta kept raining blows down on his back, over his dark shirt. He was quiet except for his loud exhales as the lash connected, but it was costing him. Resa saw his teeth digging into his lip. The only thing she could do was count, silently.
Basta was breathing heavily after 17 lashes. He rested his arm and got his breath back. Dustfinger released his lip from his teeth. His breathing was shaky, but controlled. He looked rattled and in pain, but also as if he could just jump to his feet, smooth out his face and go on, his shirt covering the damage. How often had he done something like this, been hurt and then just… got on, without letting anyone know what had happened? It was a cruel world, other people weren't waiting to hear about your pain. Suddenly she missed Mo so terribly that she felt it stabbing in her chest.
Dustfinger had looked at the floor for most of the beating, but now glanced up at her, like he wanted to say that he was fine.
Just then, Basta hit him again, and Resa saw his eyes cloud over with pain. The lashes kept coming quickly and Dustfinger started to slowly collapse in on himself. His gasps turned into groans and then yelps.
Resa only noticed when he was bleeding when Basta took another break and patted Dustfinger’s back, harshly. The different, blunter sensation made him open his scrunched-up eyes in shock.
Basta showed Resa his now bloody handprint, patches of light-red where Dustfinger’s blood had soaked into his dark shirt.
“Please,” Dustfinger forced out a whisper.
Resa saw Basta lean in, she saw that Dustfinger saw it too. He looked at her, flicked his eyes to the floor again and then back up, to her. He then said, weakly, “Basta, please. I’m sorry.” Basta grinned, but Resa saw in his eyes that he didn’t have enough of it yet. Seeing blood had done something to him. She looked at Dustfinger again, and he again looked at her, at the ground, and back at her, as intently as he could with his pain-muddled eyes.
Oh, Resa realized. He hadn’t begged for Basta. He’d begged for her to look away. Basta hit him again, and she did look away. Soon after, Dustfinger began to scream.
Resa was looking at the floor, so this was what she experienced. The faint warm iron smell of blood and the acid stench of fear. Her dry mouth. The stones digging into her back and legs, her nausea and the snakebite. Her hands, gripping each other so tightly that she felt her bones press against each other. Basta, panting, excited. Then, the looping sounds of the displacement of air, the smack of leather against ripped fabric and a warm human body, a scream, trailing off into shuddering gasps, the shuffle of men forcing another on his knees.
When she’d held her fingers into her ears to stop it, Basta had come around with his bloodlust-filled eyes and forced her wrists down into her lap.
“This is your punishment as well as his,” he’d said, and she hadn’t tried to block out the sounds again, Dustfinger’s now cold blood printed on her wrists like ink.
The rhythm changed. Basta struck, Dustfinger screamed, then sobbed uncontrollably, then mumbled “no, no, please-.” Basta struck again. His hoarse screams trailed off quicker, his voice faint, coming from far away, and Resa had never heard that on the square in Umbra, they never whipped men to death.
She looked up from the floor. Dustfinger was on his knees on the blood-speckled floor, bent over and limp, his forehead nearly on the ground, only forced back by two uncomfortable-looking men, while Basta brought the whip down again and again.
Dustfinger had stopped screaming. His head slammed into the floor with every blow.
She looked at the two men, silently pleading. One of them avoided her eyes completely, the other one tried to but couldn’t, and he scraped his throat.
“Basta, uh,” he stammered, when Basta turned his blood-speckled face to him, “Capricorn does want him alive”.
At the mention of his master’s name, Basta’s bloodlust receded a bit.
He looked at Dustfinger whimpering on the floor in front of him, breathing “please, please, please” without force. Then, he looked at the whip, and struck one last time. Dustfinger flinched weakly and collapsed.
Basta wiped the blood of the whip off on his trouser-leg.
“Release him,” he said to the men, who look clearly relieved as they dropped Dustfinger to the floor. “You’re dismissed.”
They ran to the door and left.
Now it was just Basta, standing, and Resa and Dustfinger, cold and weak on the floor. Basta squatted down, facing Resa, as he grabbed Dustfinger by the chin to tilt him away from the floor. Dustfinger kept his eyes down.
“Thank me for correcting you,” Basta said.
Dustfinger, his eyes still on the floor, whispered stumblingly “thank you for correcting me, Basta,” before crumbling as Basta dropped his chin.
Basta turned his attention to Resa. She turned her eyes down so Basta wouldn’t see her anger, but she couldn't hide the tears that were rolling down her face as he approached.
He whispered in her ear: “if you ever run away again, I won’t stop until he stops breathing.”
He stood up, and walked towards the door with the whip in his hand.
“Someone will be by later with water and medicine,” he said, before he stepped out and locked the door behind him.
Resa slid over to Dustfinger’s side. Without water or medicine, she didn’t dare to look at the mess of his back underneath the remains of his shirt. His hands were still chained behind his back, but she put her hand in his and squeezed. He squeezed back, weakly.
He turned his scarred face towards her and whimpered as the motion traveled through his back.
“I still don’t regret it,” he whispered. She nodded and stroked softly over his burning forehead as they waited together in the dark, not extinguished.