Solivagency - Empires SMP

XVII

A/N: Possibly triggering descriptions of torture, stay safe homies

Also happy 5k reads on Ao3 I love all of you :)

EDIT: I published this on Wattpad and slept for four hours by accident and forgot to publish on Ao3. So I woke up like you do sometimes and internally screeched 'shit' and I am here now on midnight realisation. Rest in peace Ao3 readers.

Cold danced along the edges of their fingers, each shivering breath a torment against their skin. Xornoth was certain that if they were able to see the tiniest bit, their skin would be as pale as snow.

The wall- floor- ceiling (?) they were pressed against was absolutely freezing. They had tried to push themselves up from it, only to find that it was impossible. The stone seemed to suck all life out from their bones, left them hollow and exhausted and of all things numb.

Xornoth attempted to curl into themselves. Their head ached so badly. They'd heard countless lectures from an uncaring mother that they got a bruise, they should put something cold on it instead of wasting her time, but the cold seemed to make everything worse, like salt on a deep wound.

Footsteps pounded next to their head, and they couldn't find the energy to try and get up and move. Or do anything but flinch nastily as a heavy boot was kicked into their head.

"Get up." Scott's voice spat at them. It didn't sound as corrupted as it did back in the Matral Palace, but still with an undertone of cruelty. Xornoth weakly tried to push themselves up, only for their arms to give out under them and to fall to the cold, cold floor.

With a growl of irritation, his hand grabbed their throat and hauled them up like they weighed nothing, slamming them against the wall. Their head momentarily burned in protest, and they just about found it in them to make a weak, choked gasp as his hand tightened-

His grip relented, allowing them to breathe.

It took Xornoth more than than a few coughs to regain the breath they had lost, and by that time Scott's hand had withdrawn entirely, leaving them with no support but the rough wall. It didn't take long for their legs to start shaking and for them to slide down, huddled onto the floor.

Something, his hand probably, struck them right in the face. They flinched again (useless, worthless, weak, weak, weak-) and they were being dragged up again, this time harder and sharper and without a single way for them to know what was coming. Somehow Scott was seeing in the dark. Xornoth didn't want to know how.

"I thought I told you to get up?"

They kept their mouth shut. Kept their head looking face down. Kept their eyes trained to where the floor should've been.

Scott's hand started glowing again and he was cast back into view, the darkness beaten back by an icy blue energy. Xornoth squeezed their eyes as closed as possible, only daring to open and tentatively blink them after a few seconds.

Eyes flickered to one anothers. Crimson meeting crimson, if only momentarily before they snapped their gaze away again. A shiver wracked their spine, at everything, but especially the haunting red in place of blue. Scott's eyes were supposed to be like glinting ice shards, glimmering aquamarines, not a deep glistening ruby.

And then he made a shuddering spasm, closing his eyes, and before Xornoth could begin to dread what was coming, his eyes opened to an even brighter red, like glowing blood. There was no hiding the alienity in his movements this time - every movement screamed wrong, wrong, wrong.

(This was all wrong. They were supposed to be twins, weren't they?)

"Hello, little Prince of Rivendell." Sc- Exor commented, freeing a knife from his jacket. It was a beautiful one - and with a spike of pain to Xornoth's heart, they realised it was the dagger they had made for Scott. The dagger they had moulded in secret. The dagger they had embedded with gold and tiny shards of quartz and lapis. The dagger that was too heavy on the blade but Scott still kept it anyway because even before the prophecy and the champions they were hopelessly entwined.