“That was,” the Shadowhand sounds both bewildered and fatigued, far from the polished and composed interrogator Caleb met only a short while ago. “…Unexpected.”
“They are an unusual bunch, my friends,” Caleb responds with a quiet fondness. The Shadowhand almost seems to smile at this, and he sits down again, calling his blue light closer. For the first time, Caleb gets a good look at his new interrogator. The man is quite handsome, young in appearance, though for elves that could mean anything. His white hair is short on the sides, though longer than Beau’s is, with a neatly maintained coif at the top. Delicate jewelry on his ears, though that seems the common fashion for drow in Xhorhas, and an elaborate mantle rests upon his shoulders atop a long, all-encompassing cloak.
“Yes, I find I have come to understand as much in the short time I have known them.”
Caleb feels his face scrunch up at the statement and internally scolds himself for displaying so much emotion in the last few minutes. But it is hard, so hard, not to let all his emotions bleed onto his face after seeing two pieces of his own heart before him, entering the room and walking out again.
“Have you spoken with them much?” is the most neutral question he can think to ask.
“A bit. I have been named their liaison during their time in Xhorhas,” the drow responds, but he looks uncomfortable as he continues. “I must… I apologize for causing you distress before. With your nebulous status as a scourger, I thought it likely they were little more than a convenient group of mercenaries to you, or that perhaps you meant to infiltrate their band. I realize now that was an inaccurate assessment.”
“You do not have to apologize,” Caleb would lift his chin at this, but the stiffness in his neck forbids it. He does not want this arschloch’s pity. Nor does he need it. “I am your prisoner, I assumed causing some distress was rather the intent.”
“Certainly,” confirms the drow. “But part of professionalism is controlling the amount of damage done. There is, after all, a difference between striking a man where it shall do some small damage, and finding you have severely aggravated an old injury you knew nothing of. I did not intend this result, and therefore it was a failure on my part. A lack of information, or perhaps my own biases played against me.”
Caleb supposes that is fair. And strangely merciful while also being entirely reasonable. But still cold, the veneer of falsehood shining across it, reminding him of the two friends, lovers, that he left behind when he went mad.
But another thought still baffles him:
“…the Nein have a liaison?”
“Indeed they do,” responds the Shadowhand, regret and discomfort retreating behind a mask of professionalism once more. “Perhaps I can tell you more if you can confirm some of what your associates told us.”
The Shadowhand pulls out the same wand and speaks a word, and suddenly Caleb feels that wave of enchantment energy wash over him again. Ah. Another zone of truth. Right. The man turns to his chair and looks at Caleb expectantly.
“You were a scourger?”
“No. I was… which parts did Nott tell you?”
“That is not how this works, which I believe you know. You were a scourger?”
“No. I… I believe I was being trained as one, when I was a boy. I did not even know that’s what they were called until this week. We, ah, we knew another name.”
“Wollstrecker?”
“Volstrucker,” Caleb corrects, though he suspects the mispronunciation was purposeful. Make him underestimate the man. Make him comfortable enough to let things slip. Well fine. Fuck it. Fuck him and fuck the Empire.
“I was a student at the Soltryce Academy. Myself and two others were singled out for special training, which we received for a year.”
They are both silent. The white haired elf looks expectant.
“And that is it. I had a year of training, and did not make it.”
“There is no evidence to suggest that people can simply leave the Scourgers,” retorts the Shadowhand, his voice even and conveying little to no tone or even interest.
“I did not ‘simply leave.’ I was imprisoned upon failing my training, and I escaped from there.”
“After only one year of training. You escaped them.” The elf doesn’t believe him.
“It took time.”
“How long?”
“Eleven years.”
That gets first a small smirk, then a pause, then a look of genuine surprise. Caleb cannot tell if that is disbelief on the drow’s face or if the man is a little bit impressed.
“Eleven years as prisoner of the Scourgers?”
“I do not remember much of it,” Caleb verbally hand-waves the time. The eleven years of his life stolen from him.
The drow almost chuckles. “It is no wonder, then, that you were so unimpressed with our interrogators.”
“Natürlich. I do hope those were not your best,” he snarks, trying to keep the loathing out of his voice.
“They were not.”
“That is good. What an embarrassment for the Empire it would be if that was their great and terrifying enemy. His methodology was pathetic, and that was even before their pricks got involved in the matter,” Caleb spits out, a deliberate attempt to push the man off balance. Another pause. A veiled look from the Shadowhand. It might have actually worked.
“I must reiterate,” speaks the drow, “The tactics… the crimes he committed against you, his assault on your person…”
“I assume you refer to the rape in particular?”
“…Yes. That was never approved, nor would it be.”
“You must forgive me if I do not believe you.”
“You think we would do as such?” The man is either trying not to look offended, or trying to look like he’s trying not to look offended? Sheiße, Caleb hates this game, and he is so out of practice.
“You? I do not know that you would have the stomach for it,” Caleb says, feeling Bren in the back of his mind, and he doesn't know if those words are an insult or not. “But I do not doubt that you would order it done when it was necessary.”
“And you believe such things are necessary?”
“The Volstrucker do. That is what I was taught, at least. I do wonder, is this yet another game, or are you really so naïve as to think this is not a tactic employed by your own torturers? Why else would we be trained to endure it?”
The drow still has that strange look on his face. Caught between a myriad of different expressions, but all masked behind a veil of indifference. Caleb isn’t sure what to make of it. Is that a hint of pity in the corner of his eyes? Is that a smirk hiding in a dimple? When he looked down, was it to avert his gaze in discomfort or to analyze Caleb’s own behavior? He used to be better at this. He used to be so much better at this.
“So. You escaped. How long ago?”
Caleb sighs. He feels an odd shame, being so forthright in some ways with this fucking drow. He has failed to withstand interrogation after all. It had been months before he could tell the Nein even the bare bones of his story, and most of them still don’t even know the horrid details of his crimes. Most of them don’t know about Vergessen.
But they saw fit to tell this man some of it, and he cannot risk what might happen if he contradicts them. He cannot risk the Nein. If nothing else, he will not risk them.
“Five years now. Perhaps six.”
“And you have been on the run ever since.”
“Yes. Now I have two questions,” Caleb adds, hoping the audacity of his demanding answers will either surprise or amuse the interrogator enough to humor him. Indeed, the man’s mouth twitches at the corner and he nods in acquiescence. “Are these cells protected from divination magics?”
“These ones, most certainly.”
“Good Good.”
“…Do you believe they are looking for you?” His gaoler raises a perfectly arched white brow.
“For me?” Caleb scrunches his forehead and thinks about it critically. He feels embarrassed by his conclusion. “…no. Probably not. I was a mess when I escaped, they might have assumed I have long since starved to death or the like. But it is a possibility I do not wish to risk.”
The Shadowhand nods. “Understandable. And your other question, Mister Widogast?”
“…do all the Volst— the Scourgers, I mean. Do… do they all have these scars?” At the Shadowhand’s look of curiosity, Caleb’s eyes dart to his forearms. The ones that gave him away. He thought it had just been them. That they had been Ikithon’s guinea pigs, his little experiments. Had they not?
“Neater than yours, but the same positioning, yes,” responds the drow. “And some have tattoos to cover them. Though it is a recent development, within the last twenty years perhaps.”
“I see,” responds Caleb…
And he alights upon an idea.
A crumb. Just a crumb, for which he might gain more.
“…I thought we were the only ones,” he says, not even needing to make his voice sound tired or sad, only needing to stop hiding it. “In the experiments.”
And indeed, he sees the drow’s eyes alight with curiosity, fascination behind the façade of cool indifference.
“Experiments?”
Now is not the time to play coy, but he must at least pretend he is doing so.
“Not relevant to me any longer, and rather distressing to think about,” Caleb notes offhandedly, a blatant tease, before employing a tone of voice he has not used since he met the Nein: the voice of intrigue. Not quite flirtation, almost flattery. The voice of I-have-something-that-you-want:
“Perhaps I shall feel more comfortable discussing it,” he posits, the slightest and yet most blatant offering, “Once I am safely returned to my friends.”
He sees the drow’s eyebrow twitch. The corner of his mouth as well. Amusement. Curiosity. Mutual interest in the information the other could offer.
“I suspect such a mutually beneficial arrangement could be put forth,” offers the Shadowhand, the slightest and most sly of smiles upon his elven face. The Shadowhand rises from his seat and moves to the door, calling Hearthweaver Grithis back in. As he is about to step over threshold, he looks back at Caleb: “Perhaps this exchange of information is exactly what the Dynasty has need of.”
He has no intention of helping the Dynasty with anything. From where he lies, they are no different than the Empire: bloodthirsty, vicious, willing to sacrifice ethics and morality and the lives and dignity of its people, but unwilling to account for its own actions. Just as with the Empire, as with the Cerberus Assembly, they would have to be brought low. All of them. This man, this ‘Shadowhand’ would have to be brought low. Caleb might have deserved everything the world could throw at him, but he was certain he must not have been the first. Others did not deserve their monstrosity.
“Perhaps it is,” responded Caleb with a polite nod.
And perhaps, should this arrangement go in the right direction, Caleb might learn what “dunamis” means. Perhaps that would be the key to bringing both the Empire and the Dynasty to their knees. Caleb Widogast could think of no goal more worthy.
————— A/N: So this… got away from me a little bit? It started with one little awful idea and then it became “but how would that change his outlook on the entire war, how would that change what he thought of the Nein giving the Beacon away, how would that change their relationship to Essek” and now I might be turning this into a longer thing out of sheer curiosity for myself. But that’s neither here nor there.
FILL: “Tough Crowd” [Caleb torture, non-con] 10/10
“They are an unusual bunch, my friends,” Caleb responds with a quiet fondness. The Shadowhand almost seems to smile at this, and he sits down again, calling his blue light closer. For the first time, Caleb gets a good look at his new interrogator. The man is quite handsome, young in appearance, though for elves that could mean anything. His white hair is short on the sides, though longer than Beau’s is, with a neatly maintained coif at the top. Delicate jewelry on his ears, though that seems the common fashion for drow in Xhorhas, and an elaborate mantle rests upon his shoulders atop a long, all-encompassing cloak.
“Yes, I find I have come to understand as much in the short time I have known them.”
Caleb feels his face scrunch up at the statement and internally scolds himself for displaying so much emotion in the last few minutes. But it is hard, so hard, not to let all his emotions bleed onto his face after seeing two pieces of his own heart before him, entering the room and walking out again.
“Have you spoken with them much?” is the most neutral question he can think to ask.
“A bit. I have been named their liaison during their time in Xhorhas,” the drow responds, but he looks uncomfortable as he continues. “I must… I apologize for causing you distress before. With your nebulous status as a scourger, I thought it likely they were little more than a convenient group of mercenaries to you, or that perhaps you meant to infiltrate their band. I realize now that was an inaccurate assessment.”
“You do not have to apologize,” Caleb would lift his chin at this, but the stiffness in his neck forbids it. He does not want this arschloch’s pity. Nor does he need it. “I am your prisoner, I assumed causing some distress was rather the intent.”
“Certainly,” confirms the drow. “But part of professionalism is controlling the amount of damage done. There is, after all, a difference between striking a man where it shall do some small damage, and finding you have severely aggravated an old injury you knew nothing of. I did not intend this result, and therefore it was a failure on my part. A lack of information, or perhaps my own biases played against me.”
Caleb supposes that is fair. And strangely merciful while also being entirely reasonable. But still cold, the veneer of falsehood shining across it, reminding him of the two friends, lovers, that he left behind when he went mad.
But another thought still baffles him:
“…the Nein have a liaison?”
“Indeed they do,” responds the Shadowhand, regret and discomfort retreating behind a mask of professionalism once more. “Perhaps I can tell you more if you can confirm some of what your associates told us.”
The Shadowhand pulls out the same wand and speaks a word, and suddenly Caleb feels that wave of enchantment energy wash over him again. Ah. Another zone of truth. Right. The man turns to his chair and looks at Caleb expectantly.
“You were a scourger?”
“No. I was… which parts did Nott tell you?”
“That is not how this works, which I believe you know. You were a scourger?”
“No. I… I believe I was being trained as one, when I was a boy. I did not even know that’s what they were called until this week. We, ah, we knew another name.”
“Wollstrecker?”
“Volstrucker,” Caleb corrects, though he suspects the mispronunciation was purposeful. Make him underestimate the man. Make him comfortable enough to let things slip. Well fine. Fuck it. Fuck him and fuck the Empire.
“I was a student at the Soltryce Academy. Myself and two others were singled out for special training, which we received for a year.”
They are both silent. The white haired elf looks expectant.
“And that is it. I had a year of training, and did not make it.”
“There is no evidence to suggest that people can simply leave the Scourgers,” retorts the Shadowhand, his voice even and conveying little to no tone or even interest.
“I did not ‘simply leave.’ I was imprisoned upon failing my training, and I escaped from there.”
“After only one year of training. You escaped them.” The elf doesn’t believe him.
“It took time.”
“How long?”
“Eleven years.”
That gets first a small smirk, then a pause, then a look of genuine surprise. Caleb cannot tell if that is disbelief on the drow’s face or if the man is a little bit impressed.
“Eleven years as prisoner of the Scourgers?”
“I do not remember much of it,” Caleb verbally hand-waves the time. The eleven years of his life stolen from him.
The drow almost chuckles. “It is no wonder, then, that you were so unimpressed with our interrogators.”
“Natürlich. I do hope those were not your best,” he snarks, trying to keep the loathing out of his voice.
“They were not.”
“That is good. What an embarrassment for the Empire it would be if that was their great and terrifying enemy. His methodology was pathetic, and that was even before their pricks got involved in the matter,” Caleb spits out, a deliberate attempt to push the man off balance. Another pause. A veiled look from the Shadowhand. It might have actually worked.
“I must reiterate,” speaks the drow, “The tactics… the crimes he committed against you, his assault on your person…”
“I assume you refer to the rape in particular?”
“…Yes. That was never approved, nor would it be.”
“You must forgive me if I do not believe you.”
“You think we would do as such?” The man is either trying not to look offended, or trying to look like he’s trying not to look offended? Sheiße, Caleb hates this game, and he is so out of practice.
“You? I do not know that you would have the stomach for it,” Caleb says, feeling Bren in the back of his mind, and he doesn't know if those words are an insult or not. “But I do not doubt that you would order it done when it was necessary.”
“And you believe such things are necessary?”
“The Volstrucker do. That is what I was taught, at least. I do wonder, is this yet another game, or are you really so naïve as to think this is not a tactic employed by your own torturers? Why else would we be trained to endure it?”
The drow still has that strange look on his face. Caught between a myriad of different expressions, but all masked behind a veil of indifference. Caleb isn’t sure what to make of it. Is that a hint of pity in the corner of his eyes? Is that a smirk hiding in a dimple? When he looked down, was it to avert his gaze in discomfort or to analyze Caleb’s own behavior? He used to be better at this. He used to be so much better at this.
“So. You escaped. How long ago?”
Caleb sighs. He feels an odd shame, being so forthright in some ways with this fucking drow. He has failed to withstand interrogation after all. It had been months before he could tell the Nein even the bare bones of his story, and most of them still don’t even know the horrid details of his crimes. Most of them don’t know about Vergessen.
But they saw fit to tell this man some of it, and he cannot risk what might happen if he contradicts them. He cannot risk the Nein. If nothing else, he will not risk them.
“Five years now. Perhaps six.”
“And you have been on the run ever since.”
“Yes. Now I have two questions,” Caleb adds, hoping the audacity of his demanding answers will either surprise or amuse the interrogator enough to humor him. Indeed, the man’s mouth twitches at the corner and he nods in acquiescence. “Are these cells protected from divination magics?”
“These ones, most certainly.”
“Good Good.”
“…Do you believe they are looking for you?” His gaoler raises a perfectly arched white brow.
“For me?” Caleb scrunches his forehead and thinks about it critically. He feels embarrassed by his conclusion. “…no. Probably not. I was a mess when I escaped, they might have assumed I have long since starved to death or the like. But it is a possibility I do not wish to risk.”
The Shadowhand nods. “Understandable. And your other question, Mister Widogast?”
“…do all the Volst— the Scourgers, I mean. Do… do they all have these scars?” At the Shadowhand’s look of curiosity, Caleb’s eyes dart to his forearms. The ones that gave him away. He thought it had just been them. That they had been Ikithon’s guinea pigs, his little experiments. Had they not?
“Neater than yours, but the same positioning, yes,” responds the drow. “And some have tattoos to cover them. Though it is a recent development, within the last twenty years perhaps.”
“I see,” responds Caleb…
And he alights upon an idea.
A crumb. Just a crumb, for which he might gain more.
“…I thought we were the only ones,” he says, not even needing to make his voice sound tired or sad, only needing to stop hiding it. “In the experiments.”
And indeed, he sees the drow’s eyes alight with curiosity, fascination behind the façade of cool indifference.
“Experiments?”
Now is not the time to play coy, but he must at least pretend he is doing so.
“Not relevant to me any longer, and rather distressing to think about,” Caleb notes offhandedly, a blatant tease, before employing a tone of voice he has not used since he met the Nein: the voice of intrigue. Not quite flirtation, almost flattery. The voice of I-have-something-that-you-want:
“Perhaps I shall feel more comfortable discussing it,” he posits, the slightest and yet most blatant offering, “Once I am safely returned to my friends.”
He sees the drow’s eyebrow twitch. The corner of his mouth as well. Amusement. Curiosity. Mutual interest in the information the other could offer.
“I suspect such a mutually beneficial arrangement could be put forth,” offers the Shadowhand, the slightest and most sly of smiles upon his elven face. The Shadowhand rises from his seat and moves to the door, calling Hearthweaver Grithis back in. As he is about to step over threshold, he looks back at Caleb: “Perhaps this exchange of information is exactly what the Dynasty has need of.”
He has no intention of helping the Dynasty with anything. From where he lies, they are no different than the Empire: bloodthirsty, vicious, willing to sacrifice ethics and morality and the lives and dignity of its people, but unwilling to account for its own actions. Just as with the Empire, as with the Cerberus Assembly, they would have to be brought low. All of them. This man, this ‘Shadowhand’ would have to be brought low. Caleb might have deserved everything the world could throw at him, but he was certain he must not have been the first. Others did not deserve their monstrosity.
“Perhaps it is,” responded Caleb with a polite nod.
And perhaps, should this arrangement go in the right direction, Caleb might learn what “dunamis” means. Perhaps that would be the key to bringing both the Empire and the Dynasty to their knees. Caleb Widogast could think of no goal more worthy.
—————
A/N: So this… got away from me a little bit? It started with one little awful idea and then it became “but how would that change his outlook on the entire war, how would that change what he thought of the Nein giving the Beacon away, how would that change their relationship to Essek” and now I might be turning this into a longer thing out of sheer curiosity for myself. But that’s neither here nor there.