Castle Shyr

Naked Mordecai. :drool:



-For His Crimes-

Mordecai let out a deep hiss as he drew his fingers carefully over the back of his shoulders, brushing the fiery hot residue of fifty lashes. He pulled his pointed features into a stiff grimace and thrust his hand downward as far as he could reach, scraping the wet cloth over the bleeding lacerations. If Prince Shakir had wanted to do him such a favor he should have let the King behead him, it would have been better then the searing pain that would now linger under Mordecai’s armor for weeks. The halfling leaned back slowly in the metal basin as he dropped the bloodied cloth into the water, groaning a little as his back brushed momentarily against the side before he shifted and set space between them. He didn’t want to spend the rest of his night analyzing the Prince, but for some reason he could not scrape the Tev from his thoughts - he’d become a nagging buzz in the back of the halfling’s mind. There seemed to be no reasoning behind his contradictory actions, no logic to them at all - why did he keep Mordecai alive simply to inflict such humiliation upon him? If it were the King it would be a plausible explanation, but it was not in the nature of Shakir to keep someone around for such a trivial reason. The Prince was more intelligent then his father by far, and such acts of cruelty were below him.

Mordecai pulled his lip into a slight sneer as he slowly lifted his eyes to stare at the ceiling above him. He really should not have cared so much about why the Prince did the crazy things he did - insanity was in his blood - but perhaps it was the strange way he looked at Mordecai from time to time: as if he wanted desperately to tell him something, but was forbidden, or unable to find the words. However the look was soon replaced by eyes of seething hatred and a cruel glare of loathing seemingly reserved for Mordecai alone. As Mordecai let himself slip further under the water, taking a deep breath, he wondered if perhaps he imagined these glances. His nostrils flared for a moment as he continued to slowly fill his lungs, preparing to fully submerge himself in the warm water, but he paused and stiffened like a predator on alert.

He felt a cool breeze float over the small amount of his exposed skin and he tilted his head slightly to one side. The curtains were waving back and forth as if swept up in a breeze - yet the glass panes were locked and shut for the night. He knew what this was, what this foreboding feeling meant. His gray eyes began to dart almost frantically about the room, yet his body was so still not even the water rippled around him. The slow rising cold in his stomach which seemed to freeze his blood, the swirling dizziness which threatened to knock him blind; he was near.

Mordecai’s eyes suddenly stopped moving, locking onto a dark corner of the room where it seemed no light from the scattered candles could penetrate. There he stood, pressed against the wall with that angry, confused look over his transparent features. His sunset orange hair hung low on his back, loose save for a few tiny braids scattered throughout the mess - the color was a brilliant contrast to his light blue and silvery eyes. The halfling watched the strange ghost move about the room with a peculiar scowl of contempt; the ghost had haunted him when he was younger, and had shown no signs of giving up his antics as the halfling aged - the phantom followed him relentlessly.

Mordecai started, causing the water to gurgle and ripple as the ghost turned to stare directly at him, pinning back his ears along his skull and opening his mouth as if to speak. The whole of the Castle pondered over this being, for he was not a shy man, but none knew of his true name or nature. He was not Tev, he was not Nanion - many people believed he was like Mordecai, a shunned outcast and halfling with no real family to call his own. Others believed that he was of another race altogether, a race which begot a race - the very start of the Tev line. He did resemble the Tev in many ways, his body was lithe but muscular, he walked with the practiced grace of a soldier, he carried himself like a wary falcon. His ears sat upright like those of the Nanion, but they were slightly downswept and curved like those of the Tev. He was indeed one of the greatest mysteries in Tevlar Castle.

“Be gone.” Mordecai muttered after a long moment of silence. He narrowed his eyes as the ghost merely turned to look at him and cock his head to one side like a dog. Mordecai growled deep in his chest and pulled the sopping wet cloth from the basin, not even pausing to wring it out before hurling it at the figure. The man seemed taken aback, even though the cloth did not touch him as it passed through him, and shook his head violently as he reached up to clamp his hands over his temples. He doubled over in what appeared to be confusion so deep it was painful - then sudden as he came he was gone, leaving only a slight chill and unease behind.

Mordecai let another moment pass before he swung his legs over the side of the basin and stood, wavering only slightly as he fought to regain his balance. He stood bare for a moment, trying to determine if the wetness on his back was more water than blood or the other way around, but as his eyes became focused on the cloth crumpled in the corner of the room he decided he didn’t really care, and moved to pick up his towel. He wrapped the tattered fabric over his waist and walked carefully across the room to clean up his mess, enjoying the cold air over his back much more than he’d enjoyed the warm water.

He crouched down with a slight strain and picked up the cloth, balling it into one hand as he twisted to use the corner of his towel to mop it up. Yet as he began to dry away the water something underneath the puddle began to make itself known, like the true shine of wood under years of dust. The halfling paused for a moment, the blurry shape coming slowly into focus, then continued at a feverish pace, pulling back as he finished to take in the whole image.

He balled his hands into fists and suddenly whirled around, scanning the room with angry gray eyes.

“Is this your idea of a joke?” He growled viciously, indicating with the cloth to the image scraped into the wood. He received no answer. “You are naught but a coward, you hear me? A coward!” He shouted into the hush only to have his voice call back to him.

He took a moment to calm himself down, nerves grated at how easily this phantom got to him each and every time they met. Tossing the wet cloth back into the basin he began fumbling back into his clothes, trying to bring his thoughts away from the face of a woman so perfectly etched in wood.

Her.