Savage Divinity

Total Word Count: A lovely even 33000



Aron frowned. Somehow that answer didn\'t feel quite right. "Call me Aron," he supplied, bending his arm across his chest slowly, checking it for fractures with his opposite hand as he did so. The stranger swayed back and forth on a chair, watching him intently. Aron ignored him. For all intents and purposes, he needed no information as to who or what the other was. He also knew information was power, and power was a difficult animal to conquer. It was better to supply nothing more than the basics; he had a feeling that if he tried to hide those, he would be found out.



"A name tells me nothing," the stranger replied softly, a slight threatening note hidden in the folds of his voice. "It gives me something to call you…but that is nothing to me. Who are you?"



"The question of \'who\' has been posed many times," Aron answered, satisfied his right arm was in one piece, and moving the left across for an identical inspection. "I never have answered it. I leave that to the interpretations of those around me."



"A pretty reply," the stranger answered, "but not one I am looking for. Tell me, and speak only your words in truth: who are you? Or, if it would make it easier, what are you?"



Why does he want to know? Aron wondered. His fingers crossed his arm, down the length of it. His mild annoyance turned to surprise as his exploration yielded nothing. I had broken arms. I know I had broken arms! What happened –



"Why aren\'t my arms…" He trailed off, looking for the first time right at the stranger, and not merely regarding him as a facet of the room. The leather outfit fit sleekly around the male\'s body, hugging tightly to each curve. His appreciation for the finer walks of life informed him that this was quite a fancy outfitting, but it left distaste in his mouth all the same.



"Broken?" the stranger supplied.



Silent, Aron nodded.



"But they were. They were snapped in two, the both of them. Bones cracked, poking out of flesh." The stranger seemed to relish the description he painted with his words.



Aron shuddered. "I don\'t need a visual, thank you. Just why aren\'t they broken anymore?" Am I dreaming? he wondered absently. It could account for the room\'s peculiar function of having no entrance or exit apparent. Unless there was a trapdoor of sorts under the bed he was in, and he doubted that. The black marble reflected everything, and it seemed quite unlikely that there would be a hole cut in marble, be it black or otherwise.

"I fixed you," the stranger answered, seeming bored by the proceedings, but eager to answer questions. There was a predatory feel to him, Aron decided, in the way he kept to a hunched position, elbows resting on his thighs, hands cupped under his chin, simply staring. It was an uncomfortable gaze – dark without highlights of color. Like staring into the abyss, or nearly.



"Perhaps this question is pertinent, perhaps not: how was it you fixed me?"



Laughter, soft and shallow. "An answer for an answer, perhaps? I question and you reply, then I will reply to any question you ask of me. Does that sound fair?"



"Hardly fair," Aron answered, a slight grin pulling at the corners of his lips, "but what in this life is?"



"Nothing," the other replied.



"Nothing," Aron echoed in agreement.



"Then will you tell me who you are, in exchange for an answer to your question?" the stranger queried.



Oh, this should be easy. "No," Aron replied lightly. "Now, answer mine."



The stranger\'s eyebrows dipped in confusion, then anger. It melted away from anger, a hard laugh following on the footsteps of the former, softer one. "Clever, Aron, clever. But that will only last you for so long." The stranger stood and paced forward, coming up to the side of the bed and cocking his head.



"How you fixed me," Aron urged.



"I simply un-broke you," the stranger replied, a hand going out to run through Aron\'s chestnut shaded hair.

The Angel-stock shook his head slightly to rid himself of the touch. "Please, don\'t."



"And why ever not?"



"I don\'t like it," Aron replied succinctly. "Now, tell me – where are we?"

Dark eyes locked to his. "More\'s the pity I don\'t have time to keep more than one around," the stranger purred. Louder, and a reply to Aron\'s question: "I suppose you could say we are downstairs. Or you could say we are in a room. But downstairs has a much nicer ring to it."



Don\'t you think? Aron supplied mentally, seeing the almost question wither and die on the stranger\'s lips. He\'s picking it up. Not that it was difficult to pick up – one just had to be careful what one said in rhetoric. He waited for the stranger\'s next question.



"What are you?"



That question again. "Half blooded," Aron supplied. It was virtually no help at all – creatures of all sort were half blooded, quarter blooded, eighths and hundredths and thousandths. He was doing it just to be infuriating with as little truth as he could manage while still keeping it – to the letter at least – completely without lie. "Why did you fix me?" Aron\'s eyes were challenging. He wondered if this stranger had ulterior motives. Certainly the violent shade of fire red drifting down in sheets from his head seemed a little too similar to the Vilyte Reson\'s, a point that was keeping Aron on his toes. Vilyte are not to be trusted.



"Because I could," the stranger answered, his hand swaying in the air as if to brush it off. "And because I was curious to see what you would think of it…but mostly just because I could." That stank of lies, but there was no way to call anyone else out in this game. And if it were just the two of them playing… Even if he only speaks lies, then he will still enlighten me as to the goings on of this place, however indirectly. It is a way to learn, and he has given me precious little else.



Aron nodded. He made to say something else, but the stranger ruffled his hair again. "I told you not to do that," the Angel-stock snapped, irritated.



"And I say that I shall. I fixed your bones, I can break them just as easily." The threat was apparent in the stranger\'s words, and the hand tightening in Aron\'s hair made him wince slightly as well.



"Why are you doing this?" he demanded, trying to break the iron grip and failing.



"We aren\'t playing games anymore," the stranger intoned, his face coming closer. "I don’t have to answer your questions any longer."



Aron glared back into black eyes that seemed endless, ageless. There was no bottom to those eyes – if someone fell in, he would be falling for a very long forever. Those dark eyes were challenging, filled with promise and violence. Aron snarled. "Get away from me!"



The stranger smiled grimly. "You do want your arms rebroken then?" Aron felt pain seeping into his arms, moving up and down them in an odd fashion, stretching out the ligaments and pulling on tendons. He could almost hear his bones creaking under strain that was coming from…this stranger?



"Who are you?" he gasped, trying to cut back in the notes of pain lacing his voice.



"It doesn\'t matter who I am," the stranger replied. "All that matters is that you learn to submit. Only then will things be the way they should be. Only then can I help you."



Help me? Submit and he will help me?



"You don\'t know the first thing about helping!" Aron bit back.



A searing mouth covered his own, biting teeth coming together to drive through his lower lip. Aron screamed as his own blood partially flooded his mouth, and partially dripped out down his chin. He wasn\'t sure if his lip had been pierced all the way, or if it simply had been cut through on the inside and outside a bit to let loose blood. But it didn\'t matter. What mattered was that this stranger had bitten him!



When the other\'s mouth drew back, Aron\'s hands flew to his lip, cradling it, pulling away to see blood staining already pale hands. "You bleed white," the stranger remarked. Aron\'s eyes snapped up to see the stranger licking his own lips, a pink tongue appearing devilishly red against a backdrop of perfect whiteness.



"All angels do," he growled back.



"But you\'re not true angels."



Must they all flaunt the fact? Then… Wait – how does he know I\'m not pure? And… What\'s he going to do with that knowledge? Worry and fear built up inside Aron, but he was used to keeping his head relatively cool in heated situations. He could deal with this one. "We bleed white. We are true angels."



The stranger\'s face was unreadable. "They all bleed white. How can you all be true? The ones who bleed red are truer than you ever were."



"Angels don\'t bleed red!"



This was madness! Angels – the angelic beings, whether they were Angel-stock (and consequently considered tainted) or Vilyte (and considered pure or true) or the original Four (the only true "pure" angels) – all bled white! No red had touched their veins before, and never would it.



"Truer than you bleed red. The ones that your god left to govern – they bleed red."



What is he talking about?



"I don\'t understand."



"The ones your god left for – the ones who went into making you, little half breed!" He was laughing now, a maniac sound. It echoed chillingly in the small room. It made the place seem, if it were possible, even smaller. "Your god left, and for the bleeders with red hidden in them!" If it had been a joke, the stranger could have been laughing no harder. Aron failed to see the humor.



"He left us because of the wars."



The laughter cut off. The stranger looked at him pityingly, locking their gazes together with iron will. "He left because he can\'t deal with you and your kind. Is that what you\'ve been telling yourselves? Deluding yourselves with? The truth is, your god left for greener pastures and waters that haven\'t been pissed in so often over the millennia. He found himself a whole new bunch of followers to coerce into slavery."



"We were never slaves." Aron was quick to defend. He wished he were quicker to find an attack. Defense never won wars fought off the home front.



"You lived for him, did as he bid, listened to what he decreed – and you can tell me that isn\'t slavery? Willing, maybe," the stranger scoffed, "but slavery nonetheless. He held you there, and you stayed. And now," the stranger continued, "he\'s gone. Do you miss him?"



"I would have followed Him if I had known where He had gone," Aron replied stiffly.



The stranger laughed, this time softly. "Yes, yes I suppose you might have. You and all the rest. He left you to your own devices though, didn\'t he? Like he wanted you fighting amongst yourselves… As though he expected you to fight. Does that idea hurt?"



Aron had closed his ears to the poison seeping from the stranger\'s lips. "Nothing you can say will upset me."



The hands were back, twisting over his scalp, in his hair, across his neck. He noted absently, with detached fascination, that his lip was whole again, and upon further reflection, had been for some time. It was a depressing state of affairs.



"What about what I can do?" the stranger whispered in his ear. Aron held his peace, determined not to let it upset him at all. The stranger\'s hands cupped his face again, and again the mouth came down on his own, tangling lips together; rubbery ones without response to warm ones that probed and demanded satisfaction. Teeth came together – gently, this time, on his lower lip, gnawing at it.

Lord, listen. Hear me, even if you fear me. Lord, listen. Hear me, even if you hate me. Lord, listen. Hear me, even if you will do nothing.



The mouth left his, and the stranger with the red hair pulled back, a satisfied smirk upon his face. "I will return," he promised, and stalked away towards the wall. It pulled away, lightening until it faded from view, and the stranger vanished as well, as the wall reappeared, taking its space back up as though nothing had happened. Aron couldn\'t see a seam where the wall might have been broken open to make a door for escape. Without escape, without ventilation… Why save me to die here?



Lord, listen…



xxx



He sat on his throne, staring. He was in black – he was always in black now, the color of death, the color of mourning. The tight leather clung to his body like a second skin that he never needed to remove. His real skin must have faded to a shade paler than the palest white, but he hadn\'t seen it in ages, and never planned to see it again, so it didn\'t matter either way. He was content with how he appeared now: Black and black on white and changing ever so slightly to affect how he seemed to those who saw him.



"My liege?" A cowering servant crawled up the carpet – again, in the color of mourning and death – holding a scroll in one hand as t came forward on its knees and the other hand. Its head was dipped, not gazing up.

"What is it?" he asked lazily, not bothering to rise to receive the parchment. "Read it to me. And stand up."

The servant scrambled to its feet, still not meeting his gaze. He regarded the puny thing with interest. It cleared its throat and began to speak, voice trembling over each syllable that it spoke. He barely heard what it was reading, deriving much more enjoyment from watching the quaking legs and sweating brow. Slowly the message wound to a close.



"Come here," he ordered, sitting up straighter in his throne. It was a magnificent piece of work, built over the centuries of pale alabaster stone, and plenty of silver. Blood too, staining pieces from where there had been performances requiring immediate punishment.



The servant hastily obeyed, rushing up the stairs of the raised dais, and coming to a screeching halt before him, trembling even more now that it was standing so very close. He laughed softly. "Are you frightened?"



It squeaked and nodded.



"No need to be frightened… Come here…" He patted his thigh, inviting the servant to sit on it, the way young children once did with Santa Claus in the mall for picture taking. The servant paused and he repeated the invitation, making sure to make it perfectly clear no was an unacceptable answer. Slowly the servant came closer. He took the scroll from fingers that seemed too numb to properly hold onto it and discarded the thing over the side of the chair.



"Sit, sit," he urged, guiding the body back to rest on his thigh. The tension in the servant\'s bearing was delicious. "Oh, don\'t be like that," he cooed to it. "You don\'t have to be so frightened. You think I\'ll hurt you?" Of course it wouldn\'t dare to answer in the affirmative. It wouldn\'t dare do more than what he told it to do. That could be quite entertaining.



Fingers brushed softly across the servant\'s face, across its cheekbones and down the tip of the nose. "Don\'t be afraid of me," he ordered with mock sternness, a playful note coloring his voice. "Relax…" Slowly it did, though it remained quite jumpy. He kept his caresses to the face gentle and soothing. His other hand itched for more, but he schooled himself in patience. It wouldn\'t do to provoke the thing before it was ready for such things.



"There, you see?" he purred. "It\'s all right, isn\'t it?" His hand moved down from the face to brush lightly across the neck, feeling the pulse hammering under skin. Fingers across skin, the pads just barely connecting. He laughed softly, a sound that seemed to frightened the servant more than it cared to admit. Its body tensed up, but then it forced itself into a less…tight frame of mind.



"There, there. There, there." The hand on the neck went a bit lower, petting across the collarbone and shoulders. The servant shivered, but the heart rate was coming down a bit. Not much, but enough for him to see it was changing from a terrified servant to one slightly more…aroused. Just what he was going after. His hand continued its pattern, stroking slowly lower and lower, crossing the chest with a playful flickering that had the servant jumping in his lap slightly.



Once they had been around for a while, the servants were ridiculously easy to manipulate. Hard to control sometimes, but manipulation was so much subtler than threats. It worked very nicely in his opinion. Very, very nicely.



Its head was back. He dipped his own head in, mouth opened enough to capture the bared neck between his lips and unsheathe his teeth onto it.