Wince. "How very futile for you. Since I'm not."

"We'll see."

And back to the skinning.

This continues to be multiple kinds of unpleasant!

The way Nahira keeps smiling at her probably doesn't help anything!

It really isn't.

Siva tries not to give her the satisfaction of eliciting a response, but--she isn't entirely able to keep quiet. The resulting noises are very different than the ones that resulted from Seofar trying to hurt her.

Nahira appreciates those noises very much.

She stops again when she's done both arms down to the wrist.

"Feeling more cooperative?" she inquires.

...Despite the large amount of discomfort, Siva still manages to give her a "you are an idiot" look. "I have been cooperating. I'm not lying."

"Do you think I don't know you're hiding something? Well, I'll have it out of you eventually, and then Seofar will be thankful that I stopped you before you had him completely."

Back to the skinning.

...She starts crying, quietly, little hitched sobs and occasional sharp whimpers.

Nahira is delighted by this development!

Fucking bitch, why can't she at least do something that hurts enough to set her on fucking fire--

Well, she isn't.

A particularly awful sweep of the knife produces a bitten-back shriek.

This feedback will be taken into account going forward!

That was predictable in retrospect. Which would be more helpful if the noises weren't involuntary anyway.

She tries harder not to give any tells. It doesn't entirely work.

Nahira is having such a lovely time.

But eventually, one does run out of skin.

Luckily, she has healing magic! A deep red glow washes over Siva's body, and she's as good as new, though surrounded by scattered strips of her own skin and paralyzed by the power of Nahira's soul.

She hates her so much--she can think more clearly, now, but without pain and under the paralysis there's not much she can do--

But they're not the only people in the room.

Seofar is angry. Nahira's suspicions sound unnervingly plausible, but Siva never lied, Nahira is wrong - and even if she'd been right, that doesn't excuse paralyzing Seofar in his own bedroom, that doesn't excuse taking what's his -

- that doesn't excuse hurting her -

It's wrong to feel compassion. Mercy debases his soul. But he's not sure he cares. He wants to tear Nahira limb from limb and hold Siva in his arms and ask if she's all right, and if he can't have what he wants then what's the point of being Tekhesin Seofar?

When he sees Nahira heal her, he renews his silent struggle against the paralysis. If he's going to somehow fight his way free, it had better be now, before Nahira skins her again. Seofar has no healing powers. He'd have to call for one, which would probably do even worse things to his soul than rescuing her in the first place.

He isn't sure he cares about that.

A blaze of crimson light fills the room, edged in deep orange with hints of yellow shading all the way up to white. Blood and fire. The sensation is indescribable, like his soul is turning inside out. Fuck what feels right, do what feels good, it seems to tell him.

Well, who'd argue with that?

It feels very good to shatter his paralysis and lunge for Nahira and wrap her in gold-edged crimson flames and throttle her before she can draw breath to scream.

What--

She doesn't realize what's going on, at first, it's so sudden--all she knows is there is red and gold light and the bitch isn't over her anymore--

And she sees Seofar strangling her and is overcome with a fragile but overwhelming hope.

If she looks, she can see the exact moment when Nahira's soul turns from this is who my bearer is to this is who my bearer was. Her paralysis breaks at the same time.

Seofar drops her, and looks uncertainly at Siva -

- flinches slightly, like he expects something bad to happen -

- but the rescue hasn't debased his soul at all, it works on new principles now, it's glowing gold-edged scarlet, more exalted than it's ever been before. This is not how souls are supposed to work. What the fuck.

Well, she feels it when the paralysis wears off.

She looks at him, and looks at his soul, and at Nahira's soul and body, and starts laughing, a hysterical thing that dissolves into sobs after a few seconds.

He hesitates, looking at her, for several seconds after that.

Then he steps over Nahira's body and sits beside her on the bed.

She keeps crying for a little while.

Eventually, though, the sobs peter out, and she lies there for a few more seconds before slowly levering herself into a sitting position.

"...Thank you," she says tentatively. She doesn't look afraid, exactly, but--lost.

Seofar's soul has changed how it displays his personality. Everything that was there ten minutes ago still is, but now on top of that there's a vague sense of ...but it's complicated; and, on top of that -

- it doesn't come in words, but if you had to write down a label, maybe it would go: learning compassion.

He doesn't say anything. He looks pretty lost himself.

Yeah she's just gonna. Sit here a minute.

Finally she leans over and tentatively hugs him.

...he wraps his arms around her and rests his cheek on the top of her head.