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In the dark privacy of her quarters, with no-one around but the droid standing motionless at the foot of her bed, apprentice Deskyl meditates. Remembering how to establish a telepathic link is hard, and doing it is even harder, but she thinks in this case it will be worth it.
Hello? It's more a sense of presence than a proper word, easily mistaken for just another thought by someone not expecting such a thing.
no more not again no no no
(He finds himself bent over the toilet retching and sobbing. Maybe this is why they didn’t feed him.)
She tries to comfort him, but his reaction is too overwhelming for her to do anything but curl up and whimper. The droid comes over to sit with her; it doesn't particularly help.
There's nothing else, for a while. It just repeats.
i don't want to go
i don't want to go
i don't want to go
...she can't...
...she can't think...
...it's too much, she can't think, there's nothing but his panic...
She clings to the droid, shuddering and crying.
It subsides, after a while, into numbness.
do you promise
that you'll still be there
when i come back, you'll still
no matter what he does
Yeah.
Yeah.
No matter what.
Mine. Mine. Can't have you. Mine.
She clings, too. It's a little nicer with the droid.
They come for him.
The setup is a little different this time - they're still strapping him into an uncomfortable surgical chair, but he gets to keep his legs closed this time; it seems like they're going to be working above the belt.
...he can at least rule out getting rid of the rest, then.
It doesn't bring him much comfort.
He tries to control his breathing and waits. In, out. It's simple. He's been doing it his whole life. It shouldn't be so hard now.
He doesn't have to wait long.
It's his arm, this time. The left one, his art hand. At first it seems like he might just ...just... be flaying it, laying everything open and exposed, watching reactions as he goes, dispassionately checking whether a fingernail to an exposed nerve makes him scream, or writhe, or moan, dictating notes to a hovering droid but never addressing his captive directly.
Before, it would have been enough. The newness and the intensity and the brilliance of the pain would have gotten him hot enough that he at least didn't have to think about it while it was happening.
It's not enough anymore.
He's still not normal – this isn't the same pain that other people feel, he knows that much – but he is perfectly, agonizingly conscious.
He shakes like a leaf through it all, mumbling pleas between moans and screams, dripping tears.
He knows what happens next.
He's seen it before.
She stays with him, all through it, supporting him as well as she can, even as she can't help trembling and weeping and clinging to her droid.
It's not much. She can't make it stop. But it's something. He's not alone. He's hers. She's his. Even - especially - now, here, for this.
And eventually, with one final cut and the tingle of a kolto patch just above where his elbow used to be, it's done.
"Someday. I'm. going to."
"...going to. I."
It's gone.
He really can take anything he wants.
"Going. to." kill you
He ignores him, directs the droids to clean the room and bring him back to his cell, and leaves without a backward glance.
nothing, disposable to him, and
He memorizes the aura around him, every detail, he'll be able to know it anywhere
THIS IS WRONG
he can take anything he wants. Anything he wants until
he's stopped
he's dead
this is wrong.
is time still passing?
oh.
He's back in his room.
His left arm has been removed, from a few inches above the elbow.
He wants everything to stop.
She's still there, worried, watchful.
We'll get him. There has to be a way.
He can't think coherently enough, right now, to give her any kind of answer to that.
He can make her disappear. He can do it now. He can do it as long as she needs him to.
He is very empty.
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