These sconces burn for you.

[Pravus Zambrano]

​Moments passed, in the lull between activity and anticipation, painfully and with no end. Losing his patience while drumming away on the vanity, Pravus moved like a prowling vulture towards the door. Swinging it open, his eyes took on a light of enthusiasm as he made grabby hands towards the empty space in the hallway. "Come now, Darron! Don't dawdle!"

​Without even entering the room, the sharps bag was exchanged and Pravus handed off the jingle bag - largely empty at this point with the torture device and tea set taking up the majority of the space. Moving with surprising speed, he closed the door and returned to the vanity. Unzipping the leather bag, he began withdrawing various items that all seemed to be either handmade or at the very least, cared with an exemplary form of maintenance.

​He lifted one item up to inspect it. The wooden handle was finely varnished, the end was wrapped in untreated twine, and the mouth of the long shaft shot out four needles of rather small gauge. He took another out, though where four needles were, it was instead a wide blade with a sparkle at the end of the cutting edge.

​He withdrew several different sized hammers, all made of wood.

​He withdrew several more shafts of wood, each with veritable cutting or poking edges at the end. And finally, he withdrew a small glass reservoir with a gasket sealed lid. The item seemed to be empty...for now.

​"Rose, my dear..." He stated quietly as he sharpened a particular knife with a ceramic stone. ​Slice. Slice. Slice. ​Methodical and precise, each drag brought the edge to a nearly surgical sharpness. Pulling up the billowing sleeve of his left arm, he dragged the blade across the top of his forearm, and tilted the gash over the now opened basin. "Do you prefer scarification or tattoo?" He looked over his shoulder, somewhat embarrassed by his lack in explaining. "Oh, I'm sorry my love. I'll need your back exposed. If you want to sit facing the back of the chair and..." He paused, an eerie glow overtaking the shroud of his looming gaze. "Either remove your shirt or I can cut the back loose...both options suit me." So involved in what was about to occur, he hardly noticed her shaking. She was excited, just like him!

​Excitement that was born from thoughts towards playing a particularly fun version of connect-the-dots.

​[member="Sam Paige"]​

 

[Sam Paige]

Distant and hollow.

That was how everything felt.

She blinked, slowly, trying to focus. Swaying a little bit in the chair, she shook her head, as if it would clear out the cobwebs. But the brain has funny ways of trying to protect us from things, and she watched him unpack the new bag without a sound. She was still trembling, but it didn't seem to matter.

My name is Sam.

With his back to her, she couldn't see what he was doing. Did not catch the cutting, the dripping. That might have been enough to make her consciousness finally abandon the moment. Instead she just blinked in confusion. There was concern, a deep panic at the base of her spine, but it felt very far away.

Just like the contraption had been symbolic, so was this, she reasoned- though logic was so far gone from this moment, fleeing screaming into the night. He wanted to know that she would agree. Say yes. Maybe he would make a mark, but as long as she listened to him, well, he'd already said it- he wouldn't hurt her.

It was easy to mistake it for that, grasping at hope.

And yet, when she tried to speak, her voice failed her. She opened her mouth once, twice, swallowing hard. Why couldn't she say it? Pick. It didn't matter which. Just like it hadn't the last time. Just let him know he was in charge and he wouldn't need to try to prove it. Anything, to stay safe. To be able to walk away from all of this.

"Sc-scar," she finally managed, barely more than a whisper.

Why was it that the choice about her shirt was harder? That clawing panic tried to assert itself, to force her to run, but it felt as though she were bolted to the chair.

Run? With those things in his hand and that.... that thing..... right outside? You'd never get ten steps. And then he'd be angry. Keep him happy and you have a chance. Just.... just keep him happy.

Her hands were shaking so badly it took several tries to grip the bottom of the fabric. Cutting it would ruin it. And somehow, preserving the shirt seemed very important. Her mind focused on it, intently. She didn't want to remove it, but to have it cut off would be worse. At least removed she could put it back on again. She managed to pull just the back up and over her head- arms still in the sleeves it covered the front of her body as she turned around.

Straddling the chair, she held the shirt against her, shivering- it would only take a moment. Let him know she would say yes, and he wouldn't do anything. Not truly. Not that would hurt her.

[member="Pravus Zambrano"]

 

[Pravus Zambrano]

​He looked towards her, surprise over taking the sickly pallor of his sharpened visage. Sharp in all the right spots, like a sword that cut at the hilt and was blunted at the edge. He wasn't expecting that answer, most opting for the tattoos in fear of the pain. But Rose, she wanted to show her true commitment to their love. To the way she felt about him, and how he felt about her. Their worlds would finally coalesce!

​He moved, conveniently at an advantage with her arms partially secured by the half worn shirt, to complete the binding. In a flash of power and speed, normally reserved for chopping up meat and finalizing doodles, she was bound to the chair. Her feet, straddling the chair, were bound with cuffs to the legs of the chair. Her arms, held beneath the shirt, were bound to the backing of the chair. Nothing uncomfortable, he wouldn't do that to her! But enough to keep her from moving.

​Standing up from a kneel, he pressed a hand against the half clothed shoulder and hovered over like a bulbous and tremendous storm. Leaning over, he placed lips against the red locks of her scalp, smiling. "I know I promised to not restrain you. But this isn't to keep you from moving, it's to keep you from hurting yourself. I love you...so much, Rose."

​Whispers bore through lips that didn't need to talk, these feelings were known! Lifting from her position, he moved the tools to the table in front of her. Positioning her as he pleased via movement of the chair, she now found herself looking across the table and away from him. But that wouldn't last for long! They would go through this together.

​Ruffling through the bag, he placed the various cutting objects on a canvas cloth before her. Rattling the basin of blood, he placed it down with a horse hair brush next to it. Finally, he placed a mirror at the center of the table and angled it. So that he might see her face and she might see his, so that they could share these experiences together!

​The creak of the chair behind her was immutable as he sat down, pressing long fingers against the bare skin of her back. Like feeling the white of a brand new canvas, peppered in the delicate rust of freckles. He took it all in, watching it expend and contract with each breath, as he looked towards the mirror. Leaning forward, he grabbed a wooden handle that was adhered to a standard flat blade not dissimilar from a razor blade.

​Licking his lips, he leaned forward. "Alright Rose... " He said, quietly squeezing at a bit of skin along her spine. "You're going to feel a bit of a pinch." Dragging the blade across and between the pinch of his fingers, the skin pulled apart at a red trail that would soon begin to weep.

He would turn her into the piece of art that she deserved to be. ​His rose, forever in bloom.

​[member="Sam Paige"]
​

 

[Sam Paige]

She hadn't been thinking of the pain. Only that a scar at least was only herself. No ink he'd be leaving behind. Even if it was only a small dot, a scar might be easier to ignore, she thought. To forget.

Now, however, there was nothing but pain.

And the realization that she had judged very, very poorly.

Her heart rate had sky rocketed, every muscle in her body tense when he'd moved with such unfathomable speed and strength. She'd barely gotten a moment to realize what he was doing, to start to pull back- but his hand had been a wall of force on her back, keeping her in place and in a pair of heartbeats he no longer needed that. She'd tried to slow her breathing- again, this was a test. He'd prick her skin and then let her go again.

My name is Sam-

It wasn't the first cut that made her realize just how wrong she had been. It was the expression on his face when he focused on her back. The reflection of him in the mirror as he hunched over her. The intent, unwavering. The shine in his eyes of a madman. An artist perhaps in his own mind, but a madman nonetheless.

Her heart filled her mouth and her stomach dropped out of the galaxy in that moment.

She'd closed her eyes, clenched her teeth, every muscle humming with tension as she bit down on a cry of pain- oddly, it did not come until he let go of her skin, letting the edges of his slice shift apart. That was how it went, the pinch of his fingers, the cut of his knife, the pain only blossoming when he let go again.

She did not keep her silence long.

"P-please please stop," she whimpered, words choking in her throat.

They meant nothing to the man behind her.

Eventually there was no spot he touched that did not already burn. Tears, the sobbing, had just as little effect as pleading had and she felt the knife cut again.

Every time she opened her eyes, his face was there, reflected in that mirror. So she kept them closed, tighter and tighter, and trying so hard to keep the only thing in her mind that wasn't this that she could. Ben.

It was impossible to hold him there. But every time she could, she brought it back. Between sobs, moments when he drew back to clean his tool or switch to a new one. It was the changes to the new ones that were the worst. Just as there was a chance of mentally numbing to the repetitiveness of the sensation, it changed. Even though he only touched her back, the fire of that pain spread to every inch of her body. But within it, she kept reaching out. Finding a memory of Ben.

My name.... is......

[member="Pravus Zambrano"]

 

[Pravus Zambrano]

​He worked as an artist would. His focus on the art and expression of it, the wails and the tears and the blood, all something of a concoction. Senses mixing in the ether to create a beautiful display that would triumph above everything else. The care he took towards the canvas was paramount, but it was a canvas all the same. Even as it was marred in the transition from mortality to godly visage, he had to remind himself. This will be beautiful when I am done with it.

​​Casual glances were sparred towards his ​Rose as he watched, eyelids held shut as whimpers escaped clamped lips. The journey was one that was done in sacrifice. He knew that and so did she, this was why she requested the pain instead of something more fleeting. He knew the words that escaped her lips now were a test. She was testing him, trying to get him to falter! Because she wanted this and needed to know that he wanted it as well.

​The bronze of freckles were drown out in the lacquer of red. His hands, beginning clean, stayed close as such while his palms hovered centimeters above her back. She was lean and lithe, the wounds would need to be deep enough to cause scars but not too deep as to sever tendons and muscles. Here, in the twilight between going too far and not enough, that was where the pain was the greatest.

​"Yes...you are right." He stated quietly as he leaned back, the etchings across her back only a quarter of the way done. Setting the bloody blade down on the table, in view of her, he extended his hand upwards and snapped his fingers. Like lightning from the very sky, the sound of skin clapping brought to life a ghastly golem. Stepping through the door, Darron appeared to be without personality or candid expression. In one hand, a bucket and in the other, a rag. Strung across the top of the bucket, a roll of clean towels. Stepping next to Pravus, the zombie dropped the bucket and plopped the rag into the bucket. Without a word, he exited to stand guard once more. Pravus reached in and dunked the rag, coating it in a particular mixture of soap and water and antibiotic alcohol. Ringing it out with both hands, he looked towards the weeping wounds and pressed the rag against the skin.

"Deep breaths... " He moved the towel gingerly across the wound, doing his best to avoid rubbing any of the etchings too harshly. Should she cry out, he would speak over her. "This symbol is one of symmetry. Like a perfect flower, evenly displaced petals across the intricacies of a mandala. My mother wore this symbol around her neck, an indication of her tribe. " Satisfied with the incremental care, he dropped the rag back into the bucket, watching as blood dispersed through the pool like a delicate rouge tint. Reaching past her, he grabbed the basin of blood and shook it, anchoring the horsehair brush to the rim. Pulling the top off, he set it down next to one of the blades and retracted behind her. "I watched my mother give birth to my youngest brother. He was not fated for life it seems...but!" He lifted up the bloody brush so that she could see his mannerisms in the mirror. "The pain on her face for those many hours. Oh, Rose...you should have seen it! I've never seen anything quite as beautiful as that. Well..." He ran the bloodied brush across her back, filling the wound with alchemically infused blood. "Not until today, that is."

​[member="Sam Paige"]
​

 

[Sam Paige]

Her entire body quivering, she didn't even notice right away when he stopped. She just waited for the next cut that never came.

The realization came slowly, clawing its way through her mind like a roiling fog bank up from an autumn river at dusk.

Sam drew in one shaky breath, then another, too fast, too hard, and whiteness clawed at the edges of her vision. She might have passed out then and there, the shock of it being over, if it hadn't been for his voice. She didn't listen to his instruction with any conscious effort. But her mind took it and slowed her breathing, drawing it deeper. Perhaps unconsciousness would be a blessing, but with it came depths of horror she didn't know if she could every wake up from.

She did cry out, her entire body shuddering beneath his hands at the sting of soap and alcohol, the water hot against skin burning in a completely different way. It seemed to line every cut, every slice in a new kind of fire, and she lost some of what he was saying in the new wash of pain.

Her face was sheet white, bloodless and pale, beneath freckles that stood out too starkly against the skin. She looked up at him, shivering, through the mirror. She knew he was speaking a language she understood, but there was too much. His words seemed garbled, as if coming from through a wall of water. Just close enough to understand the intent- but it was all wrong, so she rejected them, unable or unwilling to force herself to understand in that moment. She would remember them, clear as day later... but for now, there was no room for them with the pain.

At first, the brush on her back pulled and scraped against already too sensitive flesh and she bit down on her lower lip- bloody, but she didn't remember biting down hard enough to do that. Her mouth full of the taste of copper, she opened her eyes, confused.

She let out a soft sigh- though the brush was stiff and pulled at first, it left behind it an almost warm pull- not numbness, the pain didn't go away. But it was like the brush centered it and then drew it away. She didn't understand it, but in truth, she didn't care.

The effects of the alchemical blood. His blood. But it didn't matter because it offered relief.

It was then that the tears came. They had been too bottled up behind the pain. No outlet when agony blossomed and blocked off all other things. She wept, but in relief. Catharsis, as the agony melted away into something bearable. Letting her head drop, finally to rest her cheek against the table, she closed her eyes, sobbing softly.

"Th-thank you."

[member="Pravus Zambrano"]

 

[Pravus Zambrano]

​A nearly neutral expression tainted his visage as he watched, the brush moving over the wounds as the alchemic mastery took hold. Soon enough, these scars would heal with expedited rates, forming flight patterns and constellation connections between copper flecks of marvelous freckles and perfect flesh. Cutting figure from marble, she would be his perfect Rose. Reaching forward, he wrapped unnaturally long fingers over the clothed component of her shoulder. And leaning forward, he pressed a kiss against the back of her head.
​
​"You're welcome, Rose. " He stated it with such warmth and genuine sincerity. It would be impossible now for her to question his love and devotion, commitment to her progress. It laid at the feet of alchemy but beyond that, it laid at the mastery of his trained and practiced fingers. If he could think back on his journey and what got him here, he pondered on the number of swollen graves that stood behind him. Little bread crumbs, from childhood to now, of withered tombstones and displaced earth. Some bodies half buried, some not at all, all manifesting into the near perfect maturation of a God. That, that was what he wanted to give to Rose.​ The progress he had known over such a long time, she would know in precious moments shared with her lover.

"If we need to take more breaks more often, we can." Words spilled from the ire of thinly parted lips, hook of a nose casting a shadow from the inflection of the lights above. He could almost see his silhouette across her partially etched back, a shadow from another world making small work of something sacred. "It will prolong these moments but... " He leaned forward as he placed the basin before her, setting the bloody horse hair brush down. Picking up the etching tool, he withdrew from her shoulder to find her face in the mirror once more. "I would spend an eternity with you."

​It was undeniable, the feelings he had for this woman who came into his life so abruptly, many years ago. She was everything to him, a beautiful block of textured grain that only needed whittling. Pinching a piece of skin on her right shoulder, he proceeded with the etchings. Behind him, the door creaked open and he didn't even spare a glance.

​"I...I have cheese. And wine. And ice water... " Dead eyes looked in from the crack in the door, catching the glimpse of the face of the woman in the mirror over Pravus' shoulder.

​"Oooooh... " Pravus squirmed enthusiastically as he traced another weeping cut. "Put it on the vanity next to the jingle bag. We will partake momentarily. Thank you, Darron." The door shut as soon as it was opened, leaving two glasses on the vanity with a plate and a bottle of crimson wine. Texturing with thatch marks across her back, allowing for particularly beautiful inscribing of subtle sorcery runes within the mandala border, he spoke in ignorance of her suffering. "That looks like very good aged cheese, Rose. And red wine, my favorite!"

​[member="Sam Paige"]​

 

[Sam Paige]

Though he offered food, she couldn't eat. Could not even pretend as she had before. She didn't even have it in her to be disturbed, to flinch at the kiss leveled against her hair. Compared to what had just come to pass, there was nothing he could do that even scratched the surface compared to the line and patterns he traced across hers.

She started crying again, every muscle in her back quivering as he eventually laid knife once more to flesh. There was no pleading this time, because it wouldn't do any good, wouldn't stop what was happening. Freckled flesh ran red, stained as if by ink wash as the rest of her body slowly went numb. It started in her hands and feet, the cold tingles of slowing circulation from the combination of remaining still for so long, the bindings and the loss of blood. It crept up slowly, her head dropping lower and lower as he worked, until her cheek rested on the table in front of her. Tears tracked down from blue eyes, but eventually she stilled in the sobbing, vision blurring from exhaustion, pain and blood loss.

While he worked carefully enough that it posed no risk to life, eventually, consciousness faded and the young woman went limp and still beneath his blade.

A perfect canvas.

Unconsciousness was, for Sam at least, a gift.

For now.

*****

"Rose. Wake up Rose."

My name is.....

She swam back up out of the depths, the light in the room returning as if she were gazing up from the bottom of a deep well.

[member="Pravus Zambrano"]

 

[Pravus Zambrano]

He spoke the words, not so far removed from detection. There was no subterfuge in his act but it still felt an act that had him walking a line, trapezist dangling a hundred feet from the carnival floor with no netting to speak of.

Rose was not her name. It never was. She was picked for her proximal appearance to a being, once so dearly loved by him. But unliked the others, this hedge bore no thorns. And unlike the others, this hedge had not been uprooted and discarded for defiance. He could not recall one that had made it this far, that found adoration from him in the form of the marking. A gift and a curse, the likeness of which tattered the rotting and sloughing flesh of his own back.

“A rose by any name…”

The words fell from lips, purple and decayed, as bloated fingers moved over her back. He couldn’t see, not any more, but he knew the detail of fretwork from the images poured into his mind with the snap of a finger. She laid unconscious for some time, taken by the ebb and flow and pain and pleasure, and the mandala stood supine for the amber chandeliers above. Pravus had been kind enough to carry her to a new room, one the sorcerer had contemplated for the act of consummation, but had other schemes to sort out first. So he left this task for this servant, one that involved healing.

The poultice components were an unknown blend to the slave, though he believed it carried additional components of Pravus’ cursed blood. It also carried a tone of adhesive, meant to stretch the skin and develop the scar in the most fanciful way. Roots took measured hold across her bare back as he sat next to her thigh, edging the tracery with the herbal cataplasm with every intent of drawing thin bandages across.

“You mustn't move…” He looked over his shoulder, dead eyes finding emptiness as the anfractuous mind tossed and turned in search of his master. “Sam...you mustn't move. Stir from your slumber but remain still...please.” The master had taken her fall from consciousness as something of elation, overcome with the love only found in youthful pursuit. But Darron knew better. He could taste the bile in her throat with every glance. Towards Pravus and towards his own form.

But if she ruined his work, he would be cross with them both. And Sam had not known his anger, not yet. An artist descends into the very bowels of hell, when half wise work is struck from the path of zenith.

[member="Sam Paige"]​

 

[Sam Paige]

A rose by any other name....

My name is......

Swimming slowly up out of darkness, she was confused. Disoriented. Her back was a single facet- a dull ache that did not fully match the agony that had stolen her consciousness. And the voice greeting her, that was not his-

She startled with the realization, but without the restorative of true sleep, of food, of water, there was no strength behind it and she did not disrupt his work.

Sam.

My name is Sam.

Despite the roiling in her stomach, the nausea when she looked at him out of the corner of her eye, she tried to keep her focus on him.

"Y-you called...... me Sam. My..... my name is Sam......"

For a moment, upon waking, she hadn't remembered. Just for a heartbeat, but it had been real. And that was far more terrifying than the rotting visage of the.... being before her. For a moment her throat tightened too much to trust it to speech.

"You....... he- he called you...."

She searched for it for a moment before finding it.

"D-Darron. Is th-that your real name?"

A pause, and then, tremulous, even smaller than before, her voice came again. Hands curled into the sheets, but otherwise she stayed motionless. She didn't know what he was doing precisely, but it eased the fire that cast across her back.

"Wh-what.... who is he?"

[member="Pravus Zambrano"]

 

[Pravus Zambrano]

The palace sat nestled amidst a robust landscape of sharp mountains and gentle hills. Removed from the natural scenery, the glow of the estate once formerly belonging to Count Dooku was eerie at best and menacing at the worst of times. The sconces mounted to the perimeter wall burned lime green, casting shadows and trailing lights through the partially opened interior windows. Such as the one that stood just a few feet from the edge of the bed, incompletely shrouded in white lace curtains that were fraying and stained in orange. It carried the illusion of upkeep, absent any of the smaller details that would solidify such an assumption.

“Who is he?” Darron found the glimmer of humor cresting across split lips, rotting teeth revealed beneath the flaps that once served as a mouth. Above and around them, the sky served as cantor against the building, overture of rain making the slightest of forays against metal paneling. It began as a low rumble that would turn into a soothing melody, mist and drizzle running over the developed land. Darron leaned forward so that he could whisper, mouth opening just enough for her to hear. “He is a Zambrano. But what he is...I cannot say. A monster, a demon, a God?”

What else could exhibit such power?

He shook his head, lifting a bit of the dried herb to his mouth. Tonguing at it, wetting it into a malleable residue, he continued to move across her wound. “Darron was my name, yes. It still is but it lacks meaning now for the dead thing it encumbers. See, I was like you once...” He shook his head again and if Sam listened, she might be able to hear the rattle of his bones. What once was a cohesive body now stood as flesh and sinew, slumping away and so loosely fitted to skeleton, that it warranted considering them as two separate entities. “Not like you. He loves you. He hates me but loves himself, and his work, far too much to discard me. Not yet, anyway.”

The lattice and fretwork beneath his decomposing fingers would slowly fill with poultice as the herbal mesh defined and refined the scarring, ensuring that it would take. “He carved me in similar fashion as you. Though what this rune does, I cannot hazard a guess. Mine, hardly discernible from the scars of wasting and decomposition, have bound my soul to my body...forever.”

He longed for death and release. He longed to be away from Pravus and away from this place, from the pain and misery and the chase of macabre. He wanted to be with his love, once and for all. But with every passing day, his goal moved further and further away. He wondered if this vicissitude would mark him for an eternity, a Cain forever cursed to walk with no hope for an end. Turning his head, he shuddered, thinking he might have heard foot steps. “We must be quiet Sam. We must be quiet.”

[member="Sam Paige"]​

 

[Sam Paige]

Sam did not hear the footsteps. Whether it was because he imagined them or because of the roaring in her ears, well, that remained to be seen.

Everything thing he said, every word, was like a massive wave of water. A tsunami that threatened to pull her under, drown her and leave her limp on the shore of this reality. It would choke the air from her lungs, the weight bear her down. Go deep enough, crash hard enough, and it wasn't even possible to figure out which direction was up. Where to swim to try to find the surface.

Zambrano.

She knew that name. Who didn't? Not anyone educated in the wider galaxy that was for certain. History, not just impersonal but from the lips of her grandmother. A dynasty that stretched back to her days. A dynasty built on bones. On blood.

"Not a god," she whispered. "A demon."

There was a word in Atrisian that covered them both, but she couldn't find it, couldn't pull it up in her mind. Somewhere it lurked, settling into the back of her psyche, twisting the two together in the definition of the man who had spent hours meticulously carving into the flesh of her back.

The rune.... it did something. She tried to keep her breathing low and still, calm, but her heart hammered in her throat, threatening to choke her if she didn't breath fast enough to keep up with it. She squeezed her eyes shut, biting her lower lip until she tasted blood, anything to keep the growing panic swallowed.

"I have to..... please..... please I can't.... "

She clamped her mouth shut, burying her face in the pillow. Despite the kindness (was that was this was? Or was it simply that by virtue of comparison?) here, now, she didn't say it. He belonged to him, the Zambrano. She had no way of knowing how he would react to her saying she could not stay. That she had to get out of here. Maybe he would help her.... or many he would tell him.

For now, she waited. As soon as she was left alone she would try. She had to.

[member="Pravus Zambrano"]