We'll Never Judge You

"We'll Never Judge You" is a [SEASON NUMBER] thread written on [IRL DATE].
==Summary==
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==Full Text==
[CONTENT WARNING: several kinds of whump, including imprisonment, malnourishment, and some specific types of torture/gore near the end.]
By the time his helpful escort guard had walked away from his cell, an indirectly dimly-lit affair with few openings, Liam had already left his handcuffs and was prying at the door, trying to see if there was a slot big enough for him to slip through. But when he tested the cracks of the heavy metal slab by pushing his hand through, he immediately saw a mix of black nothingness and stars as his body was stretched beyond what it should have been capable of. In a fit of rage, he jumped up in the air and slammed the door with both hind paws, and it shook, but it held firm. The ceiling was full of inch-thick slots where the firelight was filtering through from above, but he faced the same problem as the thin opening in the door, as well as the risk of running into whatever his light source currently was. 
Liam was reduced to furious, angry pacing. He’d been stripped down to the bare minimum of his clothes after being thoroughly searched for hidden items. They’d debated trimming his claws, but after the struggle he’d given them from first touching the ground, they thought better of it. His balance of time passing was once again thrown off as the light from above stayed steady and dim, and he heard nobody passing by or speaking from the outside. Eventually, the soreness in his limbs won out, and he sat by the door with his arms resting on his knees, and shut his eyes, turning inwards. He began broadcasting a mental signal, as loud as his limited mental faculties would allow, in the hopes that someone would pick up on it. His reward was being frustrated and exhausted an indeterminate amount of time later. If someone had heard him, they had not made it clear.
He dozed, and when he woke up again, the few remains of his internal clock told him it was still time to sleep. He forced himself to stay awake for as long as he could, listening for anything and everything he could hear outside his cell. Once or twice, he swore he heard a nearby patter of water or some other liquid, and maybe a far-off dragon’s roar. But other than that, it was silent. The storm in Liam’s head had slowed enough that he decided to stop fighting sleep, and crashed hard on the bare floor, waking much later with a sore, dry throat and a rumbling stomach. Still, nobody had come by to check on him, or even taunt him or give him a good old-fashioned beating. Liam grumpily sat by the door again and spent the next expanse of his time focusing on fidgeting his fingers, trying to mimic the same nervous gesture he remembered Dario repeating when he was stressed. Thumb to each pad of his hand, one at a time, slow at first, but he started to get the hang of it. First the right, then the left. 
After a long time, he suddenly paused and clenched his fist, and he punched the wall next to him, hard. Something pulled in his hand and he shook his wrist, letting out a stream of curses that didn’t stop for a full minute. He genuinely rather would have been locked in a pillory and publicly mocked. This made him want to set the entire place on fire. He felt like he was dying in his own head. He had his magic, he had his shadows, but to what end? He would drain his energy waiting for something that might never happen. He was absolutely starving, and his thirst was getting an edge on him that was starting to cause him some concern. Maybe they really were leaving him here to die.
Liam stopped his train of thought and sat back, taking a deep breath and folding his arms. He dozed again, in and out of different streams of consciousness. This wouldn’t last forever. He knew that Haligan would be expecting him back. There was no reason for him to be gone so long. People would get worried. Hopefully Deo would return, and then Nala and Grey and everyone else would–
His heart clenched. A rare emotion returned to gnaw at his stomach, fully waking him. 
Guilt. 
How could he keep thinking she was still alive? Barry had caught her, but…that might have only been her body. Had they really egged each other into a life or death situation? No, this was Liam’s fault. She had offered to do something else. He had been stubborn on skipping out on the island. And Deo followed.
He inhaled, trying to release some of the knotted tension building behind his sternum. It was like a bottle of beer fermenting under the cork, just waiting to explode open at the slightest dislodge. If Deo was gone, eventually someone from Haligan would come for him. They had to, the ones with the brains to figure it out, at least. But what would happen to them when…if…they tried to rescue him? Conclave bandits were one thing. This was their home base. Their high ground. His thoughts kept spiraling downward. Not everyone could survive an encounter like that. Who was going to pay the price for his own stupid choices? What kind of fallout was going to roll into the future if Haligan finally picked a fight with one of the factions? His stomach groaned and ached insistently. He tucked the lower half of his face in his elbows and drew in his legs to his chest, staring with wide eyes at the cold ground. This would mean war.
What have I done?
And right on cue, he heard the rattle of keys in the hallway, and an opening door. He immediately rolled to his feet, stumbling a little, but ready for whatever would happen. There was two sharp, insistent knocks on the other side. 
“Liam?” The half-breed’s heart dropped to the floor and he slowly pushed his back up against the left side of the door. He already recognized that voice, despite having heard it a day…two…three days ago? He felt like a cyclone was building inside of him. What was even happening any more? Why did the Jarl of the Conclave already know his name? “Would you mind standing in the middle of the room for me, my boy? I would hate to have something happen to you if you were to surprise me.”
Throwing his fists down by his side, Liam reluctantly went to do as he was told. His hammering heart was making him tremble more than he liked. After a few moments, the door slowly swung open, and the familiar silhouette walked in, the light shifting over his face as he did so. Up close, he looked a bit older than Liam had initially taken him to be, and a little more worse for the wear with several light scars across his cheek, nose and forehead. He resisted the urge to take a step back as the man fully entered the room, and a helmeted guard closed the door behind him and locked it. Liam fixed his face into a twisted glare and looked up at the calm man. “Not afraid of being in here with me?” he said, his voice even more hoarse than before.
“No, no.” As though to demonstrate, the Jarl strode past him and unclasped his cloak, folding it once and letting it hang on the manacles strapped to the wall that Liam had slipped out of. “How are we feeling? Do the accommodations suit you?” He folded his well-built arms in front of him, and Liam’s eyes tracked the heavily-reinforced gauntlets that spanned up to his elbows. He swallowed to clear the dryness from his mouth.
“You should really know,” Liam started, “that I hate bitches that act like you do.”
“Really, whatever would you be talking about?” The Jarl cocked his head slightly, and the ambivalent gesture somehow intensified his desire to rip him apart. 
“Acting like you don’t know what’s going on,” he snapped. “Pretending. Trying to get me on some kind of good side of yours, as if you had one.”
The Jarl gave a bit of a scoffing laugh, putting a hand to his broad chest. “Liam, I’m hurt. This really doesn’t have to be as hard as you’re making it. I wanted to speak with you.”
“Oh, fuck off!” Liam’s voice rang out sharply through the cell, his emotions spiked by the repeated usage of his name. “You don’t know me. Keep it that way.”
He took a sudden step forward, and Liam, who had refused to be intimidated earlier, took an uncertain pace back before stopping himself. His face carried the same pleasantness as before, but Liam sensed a tautness in his muscles, something he felt rather than saw. The Jarl let a loose grin drift across his face upon seeing Liam’s reaction. “I really do believe we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot here.” He gave a half-bow, spreading his hands. “Jarl Vidar of the Conclave. And you…” The same knowing tilt of the head. “There are two names you could go by. I’m curious as to which one.”
Liam shook his head slightly, furrowing his brow in confusion. 
“Your surname,” Vidar clarified. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “To which one you prefer, I haven’t heard lately…you either carry the noble blood of High Central masons…or soil yourself with crude nomad labels. It really is a shame your father ended up leaving his seed with her type. Twice.”
His adrenaline broke on the last word. With a wordless roar, he shot forward and the cell flickered and darkened with shadow. His paw built up with huge claws and swung towards Vidar’s face, intending to tear it from his skull. 
It happened in a flash. The Jarl’s gauntlet moved into a stiff palm with board-straight fingers, and he snapped it up into Liam’s forearm, connecting with the artery in his elbow. His arm bounced off the strike and Liam immediately felt intense, numbing pain flash up and down his entire limb. He seized up and the shadows splashed off his hand like they were just loose globs of oil he had scooped up off the ground. Stumbling backwards, he clutched his wrist, his fingers twitching uselessly as he tried to move them. Every nerve in his arm burned and tingled. His rage building, he tried to summon the magic again, but it only returned to his left hand. His right remained paralyzed and useless.
Ice filled his hollow stomach. He tucked his hand close to his abdomen, as though to protect it from further damage. Liam looked up at Vidar, who slowly lowered his hand, and he was unable to come up with any words. Instead, he blindly rushed Vidar again, going to tackle him around the middle, and this time, the hand struck out harder, the fingers pinched together in an odd shape. Liam felt iron knuckles impact a soft spot between his neck and shoulder and everything flashed black and white. His entire left side went slack, and he lost his balance, tripping to the floor as Vidar smoothly side-stepped his falling body. Liam bruised his cheekbone and nose on the hard ground, unable to do anything to break his fall. His breath exploded in a shallow gasp. He floundered for a few seconds, horrified to feel the same awful burning and numbness down the entire side of his body. He could only properly articulate his right leg. Anything left of his magic slowly pooled on the ground like steaming sludge, and started to dissipate. He just couldn’t grasp it or keep it under control. It was like a river had been dammed up inside of him. 
Vidar kicked Liam by the shoulder over onto his back, and the half-breed weakly tried to pedal backwards with his one good leg. Black, hissing stains smeared and dripped across the stone underneath him. The Jarl let him move away, but slowly pursued him across the floor, taking one lazy step after another. “Those like you never expect that,” he said in self-satisfaction, kicking aside some of the useless shadows. The light in the cell was returning, but Vidar continued to cast a hazy shadow over Liam on the ground. He felt the stone corner of the cell up against the back of his neck. The Conclave leader kept advancing, slow and steady. “I wasn’t going to bother with you, until you performed a wonderful demonstration of your loyalties and your abilities.” He looked down his nose at Liam. The peaceful, gentlemanly demeanor was sharpening into something else. Something so full of simultaneous disgust and happiness, it was an expression he couldn’t recognize. “It makes me sick,” Vidar continued. “Seeing so much power channeled into a tainted lower being. Something that could be used to rebuild our people, to win over our enemies, being instead handed out like cheap, worthless trinkets. Your precious Warden, doting over her flock of stupid animals.” He reached Liam, panting and shuddering with attempted movement on the floor, and grabbed the top of his head, painfully and roughly twining his fingers in his curly hair and pulling him more upright. Their breath intertwined as Vidar inspected him. Liam was shaking, but he finally dragged a few words up into his throat.
“Wasn’t the animals…she was protecting,” he growled. “Never went to Central.”
The Jarl shoved his head back into the wall, causing him to see stars, and his heavy heel slid across the floor, resting on two of Liam’s fingers. “You have some nerve,” he breathed. His thatch-colored hair hung in his face, testament to the facade that was slowly falling apart. “Some balls of absolute steel, coming from a throw rug that needs a bleeding-heart demon to protect him.” Liam bit his own lip to brace himself, refusing to look away from Vidar’s shining eyes. He could feel the pressure mounting on his hand. “I know who you are, or at least…who you are with her. Once upon a time, the Conclave planned to make good use of the Triumvirate’s demon golems. We were going to treat them like royalty, so long as they assisted us.” The oncoming pop was building in Liam’s pinky, the hot needles growing sharper and stronger, and he tasted blood as he bit the inside of his mouth harder and harder, his eyes watering in pain. “Only to lose her kind to mongrels.” 
Liam’s bones crunched deftly. His body jerked in reflex, and he stifled a noise in his self-made gag of his own mouth. His fourth finger was up next. The weight slowly increased on it as well. “You’re not entirely useless, though. You know the Rebellion. You know their secrets. You know their weaknesses. Perhaps we can come to…some kind of agreement. We can both get what we want.”
“I’m not a fucking traitor,” Liam panted, tasting blood. 
“Oh, we’re long past loyalty,” he said, in a rush of words tainted with whatever sick enjoyment he derived from this. “You’re not getting out of this like that. But you can make your stay a little more…comfortable.” Snap. Liam shut his eyes, too blurred and wet and fuzzy to see. His hand was on fire, he could feel his pulse making every beat painful and hot in his fingers. “A rebel from the inside? You just have to outline some things for us. A few details here and there. Chief Grey’s reckoning has been long in the making. There won’t be anything to go back to, so you may as well make your place up at the top. With some…modifications, of course.” Liam felt Vidar’s gloved fingers pinch and jerk one of his ears, which he twitched wildly. The print of a hot, sticky boot pressed down on Liam’s elbow, which was already burning without the added threat of snapped bones. Liam’s breath hitched at the continued thoughts of further torture. “Or…you continue to hang yourself and you end up in the Jaw’s troughs with the rest of your furry friends. That doesn’t sound very nice, does it?”
Liam’s teeth stung with how hard he was gritting them. Vidar yanked his face up to look at him, nearly crushing his jaw with the strength of his fingers. “Does it?” he repeated, brutally twisting his grip and forcing Liam’s head to one side.
“Stop,” Liam rasped aloud subconsciously, keeping his eyes shut. He almost felt his elbow creak as it neared the breaking point, with Vidar’s gauntlet around his forearm for more leverage.
“Answer me, then. You want to be slaved?” Something partially crunched and Liam finally made an audible noise, curling his knee inward in an attempt at self-defense. 
“No,” he choked.
“I can’t hear you.”
“No!” Liam felt like he was vomiting the word up like it was burning acid.
“Oh, much better.” Vidar’s boot let up, and Liam slumped against the wall, his eyes smeared with salty tears of agony. His shoulders heaved with his breathing. “I’m a bounteous man,” he said pleasantly, while catching his own breath. Liam felt a hand stroke over his hair, as though he were rewarding a dog, and he wanted to retch all over Vidar’s shoes. “You can have some time to think it over. I’ll let the astral blocking wear off, as well.” His fingers snagged Liam’s ear once more, and he squeezed painfully before letting go and getting to his feet. “Honestly, ugly things,” he said under his breath as he retrieved his fur cloak. Liam curled up tighter in the corner, wishing he could vanish. “Ah, you must be famished. I’ll have food sent. Then we can discuss my generosity.”
Liam was silent. The Jarl said no more as well, rapping on the cell door and leaving as soon as it was unlocked. When he was gone, Liam shakily slung his limp, throbbing arm back over his side to cradle it to his chest, feeling the last of his shadows boil into nothingness. 
He stayed that way for a long, long time.
Category:BOTGD 2
Category:Events
Category:Act II
Category:Liam Arnason
Category:Vidar Bloodletter