Quickies

Not really into the whole HP franchise, but having watched the last movie perked my interest in writing something fantastical. Always been a fan of magic CGI and special effects anyway. The language used in this story is Icelandic, but, as I’m not fluent nor a native speaker, so please forgive any liberalities with the usage. Translations are given, but I don’t think they’re that necessary. Also, a note on the pronunciation of the names: Ðyr is pronounced like Thee-ir and Jón is pronounced Yōn, with a long ‘o’ sound. The title, "Hefnd" means "revenge".

Warnings: violence, references to sexual abuse

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I almost couldn’t bear the sight of him. His gaunt, shaky frame, tattered hair and marred, mauled skin caked with grime - every time I look at this horror I want to break down in tears. This isn’t my lover - this is a poor imitation that had been tortured and violated relentlessly for information and sport. I feel sick. I’m heaving, but trying to maintain composure. The things they did to him! They will pay! He will pay dearly!

…But no. Not now. I have to get him out of here first. I have to take him home, our home and keep him safe. I place my hands over the collar around his neck, shorting out whatever circuitry was present and melting the metal into air. I hold his still face with trembling hands. What could probably be conflated with tranquility is catatonia - his eyes are staring into space.

“Ðyr… Ðyr…”

I gently slap his face.

“Ðyr! We have to go okay? I’ve come to get you out of here…”

In frustration, I shake his statue by its shoulders roughly.

“We don’t have much time! Wake up!”

I scan the shattered prison of metal and cement, the remnants of which seem to be in stasis, moving so slow that motion is imperceptible. The guards outside the cell are still frozen, entwined in the steel bars that once restrained my Ðyr. Explosions, gunfire and all other clamor were still in the process of becoming. But I could tell the advance of time was returning to normal, the power of the enchantment dampening. The essence of the Vaettir may permeate the Earth like infinite mycelia but the prowess of the Teknegotts was not to be underestimated. Being masters of craft, their dominion over nature is terrifyingly great.

I shake Ðyr again but it’s useless. He’s not responding to me, so I lean into his ear, whispering.

“Mundu!”

“Remember!”

White smoke escapes from my mouth and wisps inside his ear causing his eyes to temporarily cloud. Ðyr breathes deeply before our eyes meet, like it was his first breath of life. He hurries to embrace me. I hold him very tight - we quell the other’s shaking.

“Jón…you came for me…?” He looks at me like I’m a blessed delusion, a figment of his mind. I don’t think he has fully realized what’s happened yet. I kiss him briefly, even though I want it to last forever.

“The reunion can wait. We have to get to the citadel’s borders.”

Ðyr looks around the room with awe and confusion.

“How did you? What…? It looks like the inside of a snowglobe in here.”

“Temporal charm. But it’s wearing off so we have to get out of here.”

I wave my hand from the direction of the back wall to the now distressed metals bars. This causes the section of the steel-reinforced masonry to crack and swing effortlessly towards the cell opening, colliding with the guards trapped there. I hold his hand tightly and wave the other over.

“Binda ást okkar”

“Bind our love”

Numerous branches of wisteria entwine our joined hands, growing outward from where they meet before disappearing into the skin painlessly. An invisible, enduring vine would now connect Ðyr and I, so that one can summon the other in times of need.

“You’re not getting away easily this time.” I stroke the scarlet hair from his eyes, kissing his forehead. Holding his hand tightly, I take us to the edge of the opening. The air seems thinner here - it entices us to plummet down the building. I back away with Ðyr, uttering another incantation repeatedly.

“Birki, eik og ýviður… veita okkur vængi”

"Birch, oak and yew… grant us wings ..."

I run out of the prison, into the nothingness of air, pulling Ðyr with me without so much as a word of warning. Naturally, he screams. We plunge down the side of the towering ivory edifice at great speed. Despite the sudden disorientation, I manage to wrap my arms around him securely as we drop. Although it seems that I had chosen suicide for both us, a flurry of leaves greets us mid-fall, slowing our descent, like lush forest feathers. We land softy on pavement about a hundred yards away from the building - we’re nearly at the boundary.

“If we have to do something like that again, warn me first okay?”

He’s panting, bent over with his hands on his thighs.

“We have to run, we’re nearly there Ðyr!”

I grab hold of his wrist and pull him, starting to run down the deserted street. In fact, the whole place looked like a ghost town - I guess the Teks wanted everyone to flee when I stormed into their city. Good. Less casualties this way. I constantly glance back as we run, not only to Ðyr but out of concern for the horizon which I know will not remain empty. I can already feel the vibrations on the asphalt and hear the growing thunder in the distance.

As we approach the boundary - an invisible, protective sphere over the entire city - I reach into the inside pocket of my robe and retrieve a small glass bottle in which inky vapor swirls in clear fluid. I cast it seemingly at nothing, but when the bottle shatters and its contents make contact with the boundary, there is a large electrified explosion which leaves a gaping hole. The charm only grants temporary passage, as the Teks’ sophisticated machinery will undoubtedly mend the breach in due time.

My heart is racing - we’re nearly there. Just a few more --

And suddenly there is a potent blast behind us that rocks the very foundation of the ground, causing Ðyr and I to be launched into the air and come flying down on rough pavement. If we had slowed down even a little whatever it is they sent our way would have directly hit us.

“Ugh…”

“Ðyr… are you alright?”

He nods slowly, wiping off the small pebbles on his already dirtied cheek. He struggles to get back up.

“Are you?”

I ignore his question. The only thing on my mind right now is his safety.

“Get to the other side.”

I push myself up before helping Ðyr to his feet. My voice was stern, threatening almost. I was determined to save him even at great personal cost, but even more I was determined to get even.

“But what about you?!”

“I will meet you there. I promise you.”

I kiss him, probably for longer than I should have considering the circumstances. What I said may end up being a lie.

“Go!”

He’s worried, but he complies, limping his way towards the slowly shrinking entrance and entering into ‘wild’ territory.  For the Teknegotts, crossing that border would be insanity, but for us and our kind it is absolute freedom and harmony.

I turn around only to be welcomed by a barrage of incoming missiles. So far I only have sight of these approaching projectiles, without even the distant presence of an army. Why fight the enemy up close when you can do it from a remote tower somewhere? Gods, technology has indeed made them remarkably lazy.

I hear Ðyr’s faint voice in the background.

“Jón! We have to go!”

I should have done as he said, should have been more enlightened and just left. But I was too blinded by rage and pride. They think they take him away from me without consequence? They think that our land is theirs to pillage? They think our people are worthless scum? I will show them how wrong they are.

“No!”

I narrow my eyes up at those stupid matchsticks in the sky. This is how they fight their battles, with mechanical servants - they fight by proxy. They are recreants in the truest sense, gutless, vile and dishonest. I breathe in deeply, slow but with a slight tremble.

“COWARDS!”

My voice projects with deafening clarity throughout the entire city, echoing as if into a vast canyon. Glass and concrete do no more than tremor in response. The missiles, however, have been knocked off their trajectories, spiraling out of control towards the sky, in numerous directions. They make violent contact with the protective dome and cause it to flicker in response. I knew it could withstand even that magnitude of a blast - the Teks divest much effort in their little fortifications. Heaven forbid they step out in to the real world.

As I look up into the cloudy aftermath, a dark figure cocooned in blue veins of electricity hovers onto the ground in front of me, landing softly. The figure is dressed in the clothing of a city official, slate-grey, lifeless in color. He’s wearing those devices around each wrist. These are the conduits of their magics - their bland, lofty magics which lack all form of mystery. Oh, how the Teknegotts adore their electric-information devices - one wonders how they would survive without them.

He’s kept his distance, and rightly so. He knows who I am, just like I know who he is. He’s smiling a deceptively kind smile and offering a wave to Ðyr behind me. His deliberate ignorance of his crimes sickens me.

He’s the one responsible for Ðyr’s abduction - not directly of course, as his subordinates took care of the actual labor. His name is ‘10’. The Teknegotts, ever slaves to their god of efficiency, have ridden themselves of the need for arbitrary names and have instead opted to assign everyone numerical identifiers. The Vaettir have often poked fun at these designations, especially for numbers 1 and 2. Now, while ‘10’ may seem quite low, in a city of several hundred thousand, a ranking of 10 is quite high - I don’t think anyone past ‘50’ even sees those from ‘10’ upward.

“Why Jón, I’m surprised you came back here for him. I’m afraid there’s not much left after all the things we’ve done… all the wonderful torture we inflicted on that poor soul. It was unfortunate that he was not much of a talker, hardly told us any information...”

He spoke of the abuse of my lover as if it were just business, nonchalantly, like Ðyr were some common machine to be dismantled and inspected. I want to kill him. I want to dismember his body to return it to the dust from which it was made. But I keep my gaze down at the cracked asphalt, clenching my teeth together. True nature is suppressed for now. My casual glances in his direction show that he is walking around curiously, like he had never even been to this part of the city before.

“I have to admit, it was rather adorable how he begged and mewed for us to stop, sometimes even pleading for death. But you know me… persistent as always. You would not believe the number of cocks he was forced to service. I swear, city officials must have some sort of fetish for Vaettir trash. Why, sometimes the poor thing would pass out from use and the men would --

“ENOUGH!”

I was seething with so much blind rage that my entire body shook. I swipe at the air in front of me, causing the very earth underneath the bastard to emerge as a grasping hand. But he rises into the air in the nick of time, eluding the earth as it forms thick, fluid trunks of alligator jaw. He disappears into the light of the sky - I squint to compensate, my flat palm a shield for my brow.

In a sudden flash, an expanding globe of electrifying blue hurls towards me. I brace for impact. The force is enormous, like a stampede of elephants - I can only withstand it for so long before I am knocked back hard onto the ground. I groan in pain, but the desire for revenge compels me to suffer more. I push myself up with difficulty - crimson sweat dripping from the side of my head. He’s there, standing in the distance again, without so much as a stray fiber or grain of dust on his vestments. He thinks he is so smug, so lofty.

I scream at him - at nothing really - launching elemental fury from my hands, violent wisps of fierce flame and frost travelling at impossible speeds and in impossible directions. I gave it my all - even though I knew my all may not be enough. Those damned devices on their wrists - they’ve found some way to absorb most forms of energy. And this is what is happening now. Instead of the blasts incinerating and freezing his body, they are drawn to those gadgets with sobering fancy.

But mercifully, he is struggling to keep up as the curvature of several flares is enough to strike him, down to the rubble. Vines emerge from beneath his writhing frame to immobilize it - they are as flexible as silken thread but with the strength of steel. As I approach his body, the vines constrict with silent command. His upper torso arches up in the air in defiance. I kneel next to him, with a demented smile on my face to match the insanity in darkened eyes. I place my hands on those weapons on his arms, as if to bless them, yet in reality I’m retrieving stolen energy before melting them off. What is he now but a poor, defenseless bureaucrat with only the power to organize?

Two things echo in my head: Ðyr calling for my return and the rumbling of an incoming army. The former would have to wait - proper revenge needs finesse - and the latter could be dealt with without much effort now.

I push my palm on the pavement, looking up at the incoming army. The ground rumbles, fissuring, a row of trees shoot upward and curve towards us, as imposing as sequoia and resilient as yew. They effectively render a durable wooden barrier around our immediate perimeter and reducing any incoming attacks, if only temporarily, to deep thuds.

My eyes - now darker than they were - gaze back down at the disgusting individual before me.

“Now that we are relatively alone I wish to give you a gift, 10.”

I see fear in his eyes. He’s shaking like a scolded child. This is a good thing. This is the only way people like him are going to learn.

“No… no please… I was only following orders… I didn’t know… please”

How quickly do the winds change.

“You enjoyed playing with my lover, yes?”

I brush my fingers over his hair because I want to see more of his frightened face. The sound of explosions is greater and with them the bellowing of the trees. But that does not bother me. Right now, his crime and punishment are my concerns.

“In fact, you enjoy playing with all - what is it you called us? Ah, yes… Vaettir trash. Abducting us for information, for the whereabouts of where we’ve been driven to hide, for our remaining resources? Isn’t that right?”

Ignoring me only causes the binds around his neck to constrict until he finally nods his head in desperation. I loosen them, but not out of mercy. I don’t want to kill him. I have far worse things than a quick death in store. I reach into a satchel and pull out a small glass jar with what looks like a little scarab beetle inside - iridescent navy with prominent horns. I grab him by the hair and tug at it roughly, so that he can take a good look, so that he pays attention.

“Do you see this, 10? Do you know what this is? Oh… what am I saying, of course you don’t. Your people are not very fond of animals. Just machines to you, hm?”

His eyes are alight with horror and curiosity. I loosen the cork top, just enough so that it just makes contact with the rim. My fingers force themselves into his mouth to pry it open. I then position the jar so that he holds it in between his teeth.

“Careful now… keep it steady.”

“This little creature is called the Sacculina beetle, and like its distant barnacle cousin, it’s a parasitic castrator.”

By the sudden change of expression I knew he understood with immediate clarity the circumstances of the situation. 10’s grip on the jar was suddenly more secure. I observe the glass periodically fogging up with his breath. Ignoring his cries - in much the same way as he probably ignored Ðyr’s - I continue with my lecture.

“And what it does, as you may guess, is it finds its merry way into your urethra, burrowing deep inside you - the process is actually quite painful - and gradually but surely… it feminizes you. And judging by the dictates of your society I would think it a fate worse than death…”

I rise from the ground, dusting myself off. I notice the trees starting to give from the heavy assault. It is nearly time to leave. A concert of hisses starts to play as serpents surface from the crackled pavement and slither towards their bound target.

“Don’t worry, they’re not poisonous. They won’t kill you, but their bites are very painful and distracting.”

I watch as he struggles, squirms against his binds. It’s pathetic really. Someone who was once so powerful reduced to a sweating, crying, pleading mess. I could have compassion for him, but he needs this, he needs this raw reminder of his mortality and of the consequences of his actions. This isn’t really revenge, I think. This is justice.

“Goodbye 10.”

---

We hear a blood-curdling scream as the hole in the barrier closes, once again separating “us” from “them”. The wall of trees recedes to reveal an enormous army. But, they seem too far away to be a threat now. I am quiet. My face is blank. It’s like watching the slow motion portion of one of their films.

I’ve never done anything that extreme before - never inflicted that kind of pain on another living being and with full, conscious intention too. But he deserved it, didn’t he? My actions were just. He needed to be punished for his crimes, for hurting Ðyr…

“Jón…what… what did you do to him?”

He stands beside me, taking hold of my hand and squeezing. I squeeze back, before bringing his hand to my lips.

“Something he’ll remember for the rest of his worthless life…”   

Ðyr places his hands on my shoulders then holds my face to make me look at him. He’s always been the gentler of the two of us - forgiving and compassionate. I have never been too violent of a person myself, but Ðyr’s disposition is complementary to mine - a half empty, half full kind of dualism.

“Jón? Jón, look at me… What did you do to him? Why couldn’t you just leave him alone? I was calling for y--”

“Look at what you’re saying. And then take a good look at yourself. Remember all the things they did to you… that he did to you…”

My eyes get shiny.

“I couldn’t let them get away with it.”

He can’t seem to find a sufficient response within himself, one that could justify all the endured torture. I can see it in his face, however slight, that desire for revenge. I think Ðyr was just too scared to admit it to himself. But I silence all of this tension with a kiss on his chapped lips. I hold him tight, my hand resting on the back of his head, stroking it, imbuing it with calm and comfort.

“Let’s go home...”



 

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B.W - Thank you for your comment on Blinded. I appreciate the feedback and frankly, I'm flattered. Thanks again. :)