After Times of Tender Agony: Ch. 12

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Notes:

The entire last section of this chapter with Sara was a completely impromptu decision that was the spawn of a response to one of Andrea's comments on chapter 11, regarding the Overseer's methods of breaking Sara in addition to breaking Janner. It may be slightly out of place, but there's no other good spot for it 😅

WARNING FOR PHYSICAL...PAIN. It's more violent than the previous section of torture. It's probably the most graphic thing in this story. I'm sorry, I forgot to include warning initially 😭

*****

“Where are You? Where are they?” Janner heard himself whisper, his fist digging into his heart painfully. The words brought tears to his eyes. A few spilled onto his cheeks. He was forgetting the words the Maker had given him, he knew. But since then more beatings had come, more threats to hurt Sara, more jeering, more pain. The Maker had said to hold on just a little longer. But how long would that be? “How long?” he asked, his voice breaking.

He didn’t hear anything in response. He didn’t feel anything in response other than grief and desperation and fear and…and anger. Anger was the one he hated the most. He hated that he felt any sort of anger toward the Maker; he shouldn’t have, it wasn’t right. It was childish of him.

Where was He now, though? Why wasn’t He listening now? He said He saw everything, but why hadn’t a change come? He had seen the beatings, the bruises, the pain? Why didn’t He make it stop now? Didn’t He see Sara? Her worries, her fears? Why hadn’t He come through yet as He had promised? 

It always took time before, didn’t it? Everything looked bleak and hopeless before, didn’t it? That’s when He comes, when you have nothing left, he heard a voice in the back of his mind whisper, and he clung to that hope. It wasn’t much but…it was something. 

His mind shifted to something else—how he had tried counting the days by the number of beatings he had received. That hadn’t worked well, because they all ran together, and he had lost count of them. Telling by the passage of the sun was futile, since no window was set in the wall of the stone room. At least a lantern hanging from the ceiling gave enough light to see his barren, dirty surroundings. Of course, there were the shackles dangling that concerned him greatly, but for now he was doing his best to pretend they were a decoration rather than dwelling on their actual use.

Meals could have worked too, as a day-counting method, but somehow horrible pain and lack of air was more memorable than the water and hunk of bread. Though, the meals did concern him, largely because he didn’t know how long he could survive the combination of beatings and starvation. It wasn’t even a matter of will—he was perfectly willing to. It was a matter of physical capability. 

There was a sudden click, one that made him jump now, and after the click came the creak of the door, then the door’s movement, then the Overseer’s pet, Tirge. “Tryin’ somethin’ new today,” he said with a wicked smile. “Now, am I gonna have to knock you out to tie you up, or will you just let me do what I need to do?”

Janner swallowed a lump in his throat and closed his eyes tightly. His fingers dug into his palm as it tightened as well, pressing against his heart. In the week he had been there, they had tied him up twice. Once two days after the first beating, a second time two days after that. Both times the pain had been worse, more prolonged. The other times it had hurt, but it was only two or three punches and one or two kicks.

“Just do it,” he whispered, since he would get tied up either way. Maker, please, help.

“Great, we’re making progress,” Tirge said with a grin. "I'm tyin' your feet anyway, though."

The rope was in place in an instant, and his ankles ground together painfully. He had a feeling it was nothing compared to what he would feel soon.

Tirge hoisted him to his feet and began dragging him across the room, making him fall.

“Wait, what?” Janner said automatically, tripping a little, then almost going limp when he saw where he was being dragged: towards the chains. “No, no, no,” he whispered, fear almost suffocating him. He began pulling back, trying to get away from Tirge. Where was He?  “Not the chains.” He knew what they were for. He knew they would make what he had felt before, years before, even easier for them to inflict, even more painful. “Please—” 

But a jarring punch in the jaw sent him to the ground.

“I’m gonna knock you senseless if you don’t stop resisting,” Tirge hissed, crouching and grabbing his now throbbing face, forcing Janner to look directly into his eyes. 

Not knowing what else to say, and not having the answers he begged for, Janner whispered, “You’ll have a harder time hurting me then, won’t you?”

He wasn’t sure where the words or the audacity to utter them came from, but the look of surprise on Tirge’s face and the triumph in his own heart was enough to bolster his courage, even though he knew the Overseer was about to beat it out of him.

Unfortunately, Tirge’s surprised expression was the last clear thing he saw for the next few minutes, since while the promised senseless-worthy knock was not given, he did receive a blow that was enough to render him helpless and unable to do much more than dart his eyes around in fear as chains wrapped around his wrists. When Tirge’s blurred form slipped out of his line of sight, Janner squeezed his eyes shut, praying for strength, because even though he wasn’t suffering for the Maker per se, he couldn’t do anything about it, and he needed help. 

Somehow, his heart didn’t leap into his throat when the chains rattled, his limp arms straightened, and his body rose from the ground. It did jump when the door creaked, clanged, and the Overseer’s uneven step and tapping cane burst into his mind. The crack of the whip was worse, though, deafening, mind-shattering. 

“Well, Tool,” the Overseer said with a wicked grin, the yellow-toothed grin clear and unblurred. Janner wished it wasn’t. He wished his vision was still out of focus. “We’re goin’ to have some fun today, aren’t we?” The whip cracked again, and Janner couldn’t help but wince.

“You do realize what you’re doing, right?” he whispered in a desperate last attempt to keep what was about to happen from happening. “If Anniera ever finds out, if my Throne Warden gets even a hint of what you’re doing—”

The Overseer smirked. “But we aren’t in Anniera, are we now, boy? ‘ere, you’re just another one of my Tools, a disobedient one on whom I have to enact punishment. An’ low an’ behold, you’re the only Tool left. So, forgive me if you take what’s due all the others. You understand, don’t you?”

Janner let out a shaky breath and swallowed. “You’ll get what’s coming to you. I promise.”

Cackling, the Overseer cracked the whip again. This time, the tip flicked up high enough and licked Janner’s cheek, and he cried out at the smarting pain. “No, no I won’t. Not if you want your girl Sara to live without ‘aving more scars. You’re takin’ them for ‘er, remember?”

“I know,” Janner said forcefully, full of certainty, because he knew it was the only way he would get through it. “I know.”

As the first lash from the whip bit through his shirt, he held his breath, he squeezed his eyes shut, he thought of her, thought of Sara, thought of nothing but her as the whip fell again and again, as the Overseer taunted him, as he and the whip tore every thought away, tried tearing Sara away, but he wouldn’t let them, he couldn’t let them, because if they took Sara away, he couldn’t hold on, he just couldn’t. He knew he couldn’t. The searing did its best to burn her, but he wouldn’t allow that either, he held fast to her, even as the strength of his feeble grip lessened more and more. Even the scream of the whip could not drown out the loveliness of her voice in his memory, the sound of her laughter, the way she said, I love you.

Then she began slipping away. He grasped for her, but she slipped anyway, slipped away beyond his reach, and he heard himself scream inwardly, desperately, Maker, where are You?! but there was no reply.

All of a sudden, the whip ceased its thrashing and…and Sara remained. She hadn’t left him. He still saw her, clear in his mind’s eye, her diamond blue eyes telling him he could go on, the brush of her fingers against his cheek reassuring him it would be alright, her arm around his waist, lowering him gently to the ground, holding him close as he crumpled. Because of that…he knew the Maker had heard his cry.

None of the comfort really happened, though, but it was reassuring, nonetheless. The Overseer hissed and jeered and told him he had already failed, that he would never last, another punch landed in his face, though it didn’t really hurt much compared to the flames consuming his entire back, and when the chains loosened, he fell to the ground in an excruciatingly twisted heap. Everything became freezing cold, and his ears rang from the sheer agony of it, and then the pain mercifully dulled into an easy burn, and he began floating, almost slipping away to where he knew Sara would be in his dreams, just like the times before, and it would be alright.

The handle of the whip jabbing into his head pulling him away from unconsciousness, though, and through his blurred vision, Janner saw the Overseer and desperately hoped he could see the hatred in his eyes. He hadn’t thought about hating the Overseer before but…now he knew he did. He hated the Overseer for what that monster of a person was doing to him, for the torment, for the agony, for the way he used Sara as bait and threatened to hurt her too.

An odd smirk (or it at least looked like a smirk through his blurred version) appeared on the Overseer’s face, and he snorted. “Tirge, you know, I think this Tool,” he reached down and, even as he grunted in pain, grabbed Janner by his shirt collar and shook him before tossing him onto the floor once more. The torn, bloodied shirt remained in his hand, though. “Is tryin’ to put some bit o’ fire in ‘is eyes. I mean, it’s a crossed-eyed an’ ‘alf-lidded fire, but it is a fire nonetheless!” That sent him into a fit of laughter he ended up choking on.

Wanting to cry out but not having the energy to, Janner clutched the gritty stone floor with his fingers and, in an effort to distract himself from the pain, paid attention to the coolness of stone against his cheek. Stopping his head from spinning and the fire from coursing across his body took every ounce of strength he had, and the Overseer and Tirge’s taunting voices faded into the background, sounding like mutters and murmurs rather than intelligent words. 

An odd sparkle of a sort distracted him, and a kind of light danced in front of his eyes, one like a memory he couldn’t quite place or determine. A breath of hope and safety filled his mind for just a split second, and he rested in it, basked in the warmth.

Another jarring kick to his ribs made him gasp and forget about the color and warmth and hope and turn and arch his back involuntarily, but then agony rippled over and through and in his back, and then—

Oh, thank the Maker, he couldn’t handle it anymore. Gray filled his vision, obscuring the muddled color that now looked like a distorted image of Leeli, then black slammed down and took its place, and he sank into oblivion for at least a little while.

Oblivion, at least, except for the desperate cry of help that tapped like the Overseer's cane.

*****

When Leeli gasped in the middle of her music lesson with Armulyn, he stared, puzzled. “Leeli, what is it?”

Unable to do much more than blink, Leeli mumbled something akin to “I’m sorry, I have to go.” She bolted from his home near Rysen’s grounds and raced to the conference room, where she was almost certain Artham was dealing with a few of Anniera’s regents.

She ignored the looks of surprise from various attendants and guards scattered around the halls of the castle and burst into the conference room, not bothering to knock. Artham was already on his feet at the door, his entire body tense with worry. 

“Uncle Artham!” she gasped breathlessly. “Janner’s…Janner’s—”

“What’s wrong?” he demanded, his face dark and deadly. He already knew.

Leeli stared at him in terror. “He needs help.”

*****

Trembling, Sara sank onto her bed, the blood-covered, once-white shirt in her hands blurring before her eyes. There was a knock on her door, and it threw itself into her ears, bubbling into fury. "Leave, now!" she shouted, then broke down sobbing.

The door opened anyway. Tears continued pouring down her cheeks. Reluctant arms pulled her into loose embrace, and Sara leaned into it, wanting the comfort despite shouting for it to leave. She clung to the shirt, holding it close and likely wetting it with her tears.

Maraly said nothing for quite a while, not until Sara's sobbing had subsided to hitched and shuddery breathing. "This doesn't mean anythin'," she said gently, the uncharacteristic gentleness in her eyes readable even when distorted by tears.

"Yes, it does," Sara whispered. "It's his sh-sh-shirt, Mar. I'm the one who em-embroidered th-the Annieran c-c-crest right h-h-h-here at the bottom." Her fingers brushed, then clutched the fine, perfect stitches. "And it's c-c-covered in-n-n...and it's shredded. Like with a wh-wh-wh—" her voice refused to comply and instead rose to a shriek without her intention, and Sara clapped her hand over her mouth as if that would calm her.

This time, Maraly had no response, and they sat in silence other than the occasional, stubborn hitches escaping from Sara throat without her permission. Earlier, Chathan had found her and gently given her somber news: the Torrboron guard had finally found something during their search outside the city, nothing good though. It was the shirt, the nightshirt Janner had worn when he disappeared, and they had found it torn to bits, as if someone and rent his back with a whip—

Sara's mind screamed and twisted in horror and memory, and she jerked without meaning to, then buried her face in the blood-covered shirt in shame. Tears came again, silent tears this time, tears of grief and remembrance and pain and terror. She could feel the biting of a whip again, the fire lighting on her back and shoulders and arms, the throbbing of the burning streaks left untended in the coffin.

Light touch descended on her shoulder, and she jerked away, slipping, falling, shrieking. She was on the floor, then, on the floor, eyes wide open in terror, Maraly kneeling in front of her, staring worriedly.

"Sara?" she asked, her brow furrowed in concern. "I...I know ye're not alright...can I do anythin'?"

Shaking her head, Sara wrapped her arms around herself, being sure to keep Janner's shirt close as well. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "Can...can I be alone? Please. Just for a little."

Maraly continued looking at her in the knowing way she could, then finally nodded. "I'll be right outside the door if ya need me," she said gently. "An' if I hear anythin', I'm comin' in."

As she left, Sara brought herself to murmur, "Thank you."

The door shut and Sara was alone once more, alone with her thoughts and memories and fears and the bloodied shirt. "Maker," she whispered, clutching the shirt in her hands, the brief worry she would rip it to shreds even more briefly prancing across her mind. "Help me."

*****

Notes:

I hope the part with Sara doesn't feel too out of place! It's also partially the spawn of a conversation I had with a fellow WFS fan regarding how Sara's experience in the F!F! would have changed her.

The next instance of torture isn't all that gory, just the idea of it is chilling, if that's any comfort.

Let me know if there was anything noncanonical^^