nike_ravus | High D'Haran Love Poetry: Poem 92

Title: Poem 92 (High D'Haran Love Poetry 3/?)
Author: Alsike
Fandom: LotS
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Berdine/Raina
Word Count: 2207
Apologies: Okay, I'm admitting it. This is a series. It would have been out a lot sooner if this week hadn't been really brutal (still brutal, but fic is a wonderful break from Old Irish), and if my roommate didn't decide to give me the talk about not getting out enough and wasting my youth. More apologies to Catullus.

Summary: Mord'Sith. In the torture chamber and around generally.

An excess of curiosity, Berdine knew well, was her primary failing. She had heard it too many times, generally on the wrong end of an Agiel, but somehow no one had managed to break her of it yet. And it was clearly inappropriate, and a bad idea, but she could not help but gravitate to the breaking room, listening for Mera’s screams, and hoping just to catch sight of that small lithe form, wielding a whip.

Raina didn’t use her agiels when she broke someone. That was interesting. She preferred the lash and a simple knife. She was not a creative sadist (not like Denna, who Berdine had spent not a few instructive hours observing and being practiced upon, and on whom she had learned to identify the expression of slightly maddened inspiration.) but she was careful, never making a cut in anger or frustration, balancing the threat with the example. Just pain was vile, but the expectation of pain, particularly a kind of pain you had already experienced once and desperately desired to never experience again, that was what broke someone. You could only break someone by turning her own mind against her.

Berdine leaned against the grate and lost herself in the flex of muscles, the crack of the whip, and the weakened whimpers of someone so close to breaking. Raina had stripped down to the waist, her leather too hot in the steaming dungeon, and the spatters of her blood speckled dark against the muted sepia of her skin.

Raina spoke softly when she addressed Mera, and Mera only murmured in response. Her face was showing the lines of lingering pain, but her eyelids drooped and her lips barely moved. She had left the bargaining stage behind. Berdine was glad of that, although it was always interesting to see their minds work, pretending to be more broken, begging, promising anything. She remembered that time. She had felt brilliant, ingenious, coming up with the most convincing pleas, the most silver-tongued promises, and she had been mystified why none of them worked. But of course they didn’t work. Any Mord’Sith knew they were coming. That was what those torturing for information didn’t understand. Torture made you desperate. Of course you would tell the truth, but you would come up with anything, make up what you believed your torturer wanted to hear. But once someone was broken, they would always tell the truth. The trick was to push past the begging, past the despair, even past the plateau of catatonia, and then wreck them, kill them, as most Mord’Sith did. That was when you turned your hand, no longer bludgeoning with your knuckles, but caressing with your palm. You had to bring them back, make them love you.

That was what Raina was doing now. She stepped closer, reaching out to cup Mera’s face, and Mera pressed her cheek into her palm. Her eyes were closed, and Berdine could see the breath release from her chest, all the tension drop away, and the devotion, so obvious, on her face. Raina stepped up on the edge of the well and kissed her, just soft, and necessary, and if Berdine closed her eyes she could almost taste it: the complete giving over of oneself, and the acknowledgement of surrender.

Mera went limp in her bonds, her face slack, likely unconscious, and Raina turned away, stepping off the well cradle and moving towards the trough. She washed her face and hands in the icy flow, and then sponged the blood off her bare upper body. A trickle of pink water ran down her skin, following the lines of her musculature that was cut into her flesh like marble. Berdine watched as the sponge slowly dropped back into the trough, and Raina’s gaze lifted to the cold stone wall, seeing through it, looking at nothing.

It was her face that sent a shot of worry through Berdine, the exhaustion. Where was the joy of breaking? Was it really so mundane that her other worries surpassed it? Or was she just… too close to being broken herself, not by anyone, but by life? She looked nothing like the teasing, confident interloper in her library. It felt utterly wrong, like a failed rhyme in an otherwise perfect pattern.

Raina was about to turn away.

“That was beautiful,” Berdine said softly, and the tired Mord’Sith whirled at hearing her.

“What?” Raina flinched on recognition. “What are you doing here?”

“I was interested.”

Raina scowled, her expression ugly, as she started to leave again.

“You didn’t even touch your agiel, did you?”

“You’re interested in my technique?”

Berdine shrugged. “You handle a whip well. But you know that.”

“It’s a skill. I have had enough practice.” Raina shook her head. “Stop this. I neither like nor return your interest.”

Berdine smiled. “Mi dicit semper male.”

The words seemed to whip up a fury in Raina. Her lip curled and her eyes were hot coals. “I’ve had enough of this! If you persist-“

“Don’t you want to know what it means?”

“All your words are poison! I’m here for now and I will do my job, but I then I will go back to the mountains, happily. There at least I am free of your poems and your politics!”

Berdine was always aware of the struggles and power games that filled the free time of her so-called superiors, and she recognized the bitterness as well, caught between two forces, strained beyond all measure, always on your guard. It would drain the reserves of anyone, particularly if what she had said before was correct, that Raina was the one to give the report when plans failed. She was the one to break an improperly trained child. And she did not love it, not in the way she should.

“You’re like me, aren’t you?” Berdine said, amused by the realization her thoughts had led her to.

“I wouldn’t make such a claim with so little basis,” Raina snapped back.

“You’re a soldier,” Berdine continued, playing with the words on her tongue. “You do what must be done, but only that. You take little pleasure in breaking, and none in politics.”

“I take plenty of pleasure in breaking,” Raina’s eyes were like curses. “And it is beyond time someone should have taken a whip to you.”

“But you’re not from the machine. Neither am I. My parents were dead long before Lord Rahl gave me to the Mord’Sith. They say my initial breaking failed to be perfectly complete.” Berdine grinned. “I enjoy proving them correct.”

Raina looked at her, right in the face, black eyes furious and glowing. “My breaking is no concern of yours.”

“No, of course not.” Berdine shrugged. “Just, intellectual curiosity again.”

Raina looked at her, her expression half disgusted, and she turned away, moving towards the exit to the breaking room. But she stopped before she reached the threshold, and turned back. She looked bitter and exasperated. “Your intellectual curiosity is a bit of a nasty trick, isn’t it?”

“It is what it is.”

“Do you think you will have power over me if you find out about my breaking?”

Berdine considered this. She hadn’t thought about it before. “I think I will have more power over myself,” she said musingly. “I will understand more about Mord’Sith, how they are made, and what that process makes them into. I will learn what kind of spirits are broken poorly, into weak shells of themselves, and which ones are broken out of their shells, become something better than they were before. I think you are someone who can do that, who can break someone, and make them whole. Some mistresses merely expose the base elements of someone’s character, because that is all they are. Their reality is selfish and bitter and violent, and that is all they can teach the naked hatchling in front of them. You are more than that. But perhaps that is why you are tasked with the second breaking.”

“You think it’s an honor?” Raina laughed, but not with amusement.

“A responsibility.”

“Yes,” Raina replied flatly. “It is clear you lack experience with those. Try it for yourself sometime. I find it is often more beneficial than… intellectual curiosity.”

* * *

Berdine was always aware of the games, but it was Hally who explained this one.

“The bitch from the mountains thinks she’s good enough to command,” she snorted, her mouth red from the undercooked meat she devoured carelessly. “Mistress Catha is amused and running her ragged, but she has some good people. She should stop playing. Just down her and split up the squads. We’d all benefit from that.”

Hally was a good soldier, utterly fearless. Her words were never reliable except about fighting matters. “They have good people?”

Hally gave a nod, tearing off another bite with her teeth. “I’ve been working with a few of the squads. There are always fool kids. A breaking doesn’t make a girl a soldier. But they’ve been trained well. Got a new one today. I was warned about her, that she was lazy. Haven’t seen a sign of it though. Fucking intense, really.”

Berdine cocked her head, letting a small smile cross her features. “Not Mistress Mera, by any chance?”

Hally snorted. “Should have known you’d be up on it. Any good gossip?”

Berdine shrugged. “She was lazy,” she said. “I guess she’s grown out of it.”

* * *

The Lord Rahl had his plans and the Mord’Sith would carry them out. At least that was how it was supposed to go. Getting the Lord Rahl, the heads of the Dragon Corps, and the highest ranked Mord’Sith and their attendants together in one room was a bit like starving all the predators in the People’s Palace Zoo and putting them together in one room. The fallout was nasty. Although Berdine had no rank she was always expected to be there, as the Lord Rahl appreciated her advice. Berdine made sure it was always about the Great Deeds of his Ancestors, even if technically some of the anecdotal guidance given was, well, original.

Raina was there too, head bowed as she stood at the side of a fox-haired woman in red leather, who stood shoulder to shoulder with Mistress Catha, completely disregarding the vengeful looks she was getting from every lower ranked Mord’Sith in the room.

Berdine internally shook her head. Hally was one of the most liberal minded Mord’Sith. Berdine doubted that any other would bother to wonder whether any of the new arrivals were worth having around before classing them as enemies and doing everything they could get away with to make their stay here overflow with suffering. And Raina stood at her shoulder.

Berdine had very little clout, but she had respect, and she would use that. She refocused on the Lord Rahl and applied herself to his desires.

After reminding everyone else that she knew in detail things they had barely heard whispered, and reaffirming the fact that she would not bow down for anyone save the Lord Rahl, she left the arguing commanders to make whatever decisions they would. She waited, leaning against a column, until the meeting ended, and the differing groups departed in their respective directions. Raina passed, and she fell into step beside her. She didn’t say anything, just felt Raina cast a glance over her, betraying nothing.

“They’re sending a quad out,” Raina suddenly offered, speaking quietly, as if it were casual and she didn’t quite believe it at the same time. “And some scouts. Crossing the border, to the south, thanks to your advice.”

“Not your quad?”

Raina snorted. “Too important to have a herd of trainee elephants trampling around. My brats need a bit more work before they’re ready for actual reconnaissance.”

“Mera is a model soldier now, I hear.”

If she hadn’t been paying attention, Berdine would not have noticed Raina swallow. But then she smiled, a little cruel, more resigned. “Her old companions are complaining. She’s no fun now, prefers training to sex.”

Berdine laughed quietly. “Does she really?”

“She’s come to me twice, begging for the touch of my agiel.” Raina shook her head. “Breaking doesn’t fix people. She needs the reminder, the pain burning away her weakness of character, her indolence and childishness. We don’t punish indolence here, not if you have the strength to avoid it, but we should. If you cannot trust your sisters to put away themselves, put aside their petty arguments, when we are at war, we might as well be squawking hens in a barnyard.”

“It feels like such sometimes,” Berdine said dryly, meaning every word.

Raina gave an involuntary noise that was almost a laugh. She put her hand on the doorjamb where the hallway split in two directions, leaning against it. She looked away, but the flex of a smile was visible in her cheek. “It does.” She shook her head. “I have places to be.”

Berdine nodded, acknowledging her decision, and permitting it at the same time.

But Raina stopped before she turned down the other hallway and glanced back, wearing something that was almost a smile. “I wasn’t taken by the Mord’Sith,” she said, and Berdine blinked in incomprehension. “I volunteered.”

She always speaks badly to me, and is never silent about me.
I will perish unless she loves me.
What do I mean? Because there is just as much from me: insulting her
assiduously. And yet, in truth, I will perish, unless I love.

Part 4