Shadows and Lies

Chapter 25

Chapter 25
Loki hanged limply for several hours after he was told to try to sleep. He was completely exhausted, but every time he started to fall asleep he was woken up again because he couldn't breathe without a large amount of effort. He couldn't stand because he was weakened and dead tired, but if he relaxed then there was strain on his chest and he couldn't breathe; there wasn't anything he could do to relieve his pain or ease his pain and exhaustion. The guards had changed, but the new men keeping watch weren't any nicer than the ones from the day before, and whenever Loki woke up unable to breathe they just watched him struggle to get air.
By the middle of the night his breathing was ragged and loud since his lunges were strained and he was very dehydrated. He started to fall asleep and slump forward, but after a minute or two he woke up again and took a strained breath. He forced his legs to hold his weight so he could stop the pull on his lungs, and he tried to lift his head to see how dark it was. It was clearly the middle of the night even though he could barely see through his swollen eyes.
"You look terrible" he heard a female voice saying to him. He turned his head as much as he could but couldn't find her.
"I'm over here" the woman said when she saw that loki was trying to find her. Loki looked in the direction of her voice and could see her. She had something in her hands as she approached which made loki tense and hang his head again, knowing she was here to inflict pain.
"Relax. Look at me" she was much closer now, and loki didn't look up.
"I'm not here to hurt you" she put a hand on his face and had him look up. His face was a total mess; he was covered in dried blood, he had knots around his eyes, his lips were cut and swollen in places, and very little was left Unbruised. and that was just his face, she hadn't had time to examine the rest of him yet.
He took a ragged breath.
"Well then.... then what are you doing here?" He didn't know why else anyone would leave in the middle of the night if not to come to punish him.
"Possibly the stupidest thing I've ever done; I'm going to help you" She wrung out the soaked hand towel she was holding and carefully started to wipe the blood from his battered face. He winced and pulled away but she held his head steady.
"I know this is painful, try not to move though" she instructed, wiping clean his cuts and bruises.
"Why... are you doing this?" He asked breathlessly.
"You shouldn't talk. Your throat is probably raw, and the guards didn't let you have any water. Let your voice rest" she wiped the blood off his right eye, he winced and she knew he was in pain, but he didn't move too much. His right eye was totally swollen shut and sickly yellow.
"How did you know the guards weren't letting me drink?" He asked. She stayed quiet and kept cleaning his face, but he recognized her.
"I saw you... earlier today, you were in the street.... you walked away..." he remembered seeing her when he asked the guards for water, she was watching it all.
She put down the towel and picked up a small sack of ice and held it on his worse eye.
"Yeah, I walked away because for some bizarre reason I actually felt sorry for you. I know you deserve to be punished, but the guards withholding water from you seemed a bit cruel" Loki didn't say anything else, his throat was sore and he was so exhausted that he just decided to sit there and let her do whatever she was going to do. His head started to slump down again, so she put a hand under his chin and held his face up so she could keep the ice on his eye. His eye that wasn't swollen totally shut kept drifting open and closed, like he was falling asleep but trying to stay awake. After a few minutes she put down the ice sack and picked up a glass of cold water.
"Drink this" she held the glass to his lips and he immediately woke up and leaned into the glass so he could drink. She poured the water slowly down his throat so he didn't choke, even though he was clearly trying to gulp it down. When he'd emptied the glass he had to catch his breath.
"Thank you..." his voice was still strained, but much less ragged.
"You're welcome. This next part is going to be painful though, so gear up".
"Why is it-" Loki stopped talking when he heard a click sound. He knew what that sound was, and normally he liked it, but he definitely didn't like it right now.
"Did... did you just open a knife?" Loki asked, but he knew the answer.
"Yes, and I'm sorry. Just try not to move" she told him as she put her hand on his face above his right eye and gently pulled the skin taught so she could make a clean cut where the swelling was to release the pressure.
Loki felt the cold knife under his eye.
"Take a deep breath" the woman told him, keeping his head still and the knife under his eye. Loki breathed in deeply and she acted fast and quickly slit the knife over the swollen part of his under-eye. Loki tenses and screamed through gritted teeth, feeling hot blood gush down his face again.
"Okay that's it" the woman said as she grabbed another towel and held it to his eye to catch the blood and fluids that were quickly draining from the swell.
"I don't-" he swallowed hard "I don't think that was completely necessary" loki said breathlessly. He tried to keep his voice lower, he didn't want people hearing him and thinking it was a good idea to come and beat him during the night as well.
"Well if I didn't do it now someone else would do it tomorrow, and they probably wouldn't care about cutting into your actual eye and blinding you" she pulled the cloth away from his eye and could see that the swelling had already drained substantially and he could actually get the eye open again.
She got a fresh piece of cloth and put it over the cut and taped it to his face so she could work on the rest of his body.
"I'll try to keep the rest of this pain-free, Alright?" She said as she started to carefully and gently clean out the gashes on his chest with the wet towel to mop up the blood.
She tried to be extra careful because she really did want to bring him relief, not further pain, but she could feel him tense a few times when she was cleaning a deeper gash. It also didn't take her very long to realize that even though she was mopping up the dried blood, his skin was still red. Red from being burned by the sun all day long. The sky had of course been very clear that day so loki had been being beaten down on by the suns rays for the entire day, and was now severely burned.
After a long time of meticulous cleaning of his front torso, She started to work on his back, which was actually worse than his front because that's where the man with the whip decided to target, and it took even longer to clean. She'd been working on him for several hours before she made any comments.
"I really don't see how you're going to take three days of this" she commented with a sigh. She was expecting some kind reaction from him, but he kept quiet. She also noticed that he had become much more relaxed, and even when she had to be a bit persistent with a cut he didn't seem to tense or flinch anymore.
"I think I've done all I can for you... I wish I could do more, but there's not much else I can do" She was again met with silence from Loki, and now she was concerned. He hadn't moved or spoken or even taken a sharp breath in a long time.
"Loki are you-" she stepped in front of him and saw what was going on. He was asleep. Breathing -ragged though it was- and alive, but very much asleep. She wanted to leave him like that so he could get a few hours of rest, but she'd taken a long time tending to him and the sun was already starting to come up. He wouldn't be getting much rest now anyway.
"Loki..." She cupped his cheek in her hand and brought his face up. His eyes slowly open.
"I'm sorry, I would've left you to sleep, but I want you to drink some more water before I leave" she told him, pouring another glass full of water.
He just nodded and she held the glass to his lips again and let him drink the whole thing. He was happy to be woken up for water, he was so dehydrated that even just the two glasses was a welcome relief.
When he'd finished it she put the glass down and took the cloth off his eye. The bleeding has stopped and the swelling had diminished enough for him to see again, though both eyes were still pretty battered and swollen.
"Thank you..." loki said weakly and miserably. He could see the sky growing lighter, he knew the next day was coming soon and he would be in unbearable agony once again.
"You're welcome... I can't do this every night though. I had an opportunity to come help you so I did, but I won't be able to do it again" she told him. He shook his head.
"I wouldn't expect you to. You've done much more than you needed to" he responded, trying to keep himself awake while she was still there.
She gathered up her things and walked away, leaving Loki alone again, waiting for people to come and continue to beat him