You Are Welcome Here

"You Are Welcome Here" is a [SEASON NUMBER] thread written on [IRL DATE].
==Summary==
[Write a summary of the thread's events here, including spoilers and important plot details. Check the Order of Threads to see if the thread you are placing already has a summary, to make less work for yourself.]
==Full Text==
Liam tried his best not to let the passing days become a blur. Between his bouts of an odd exhausted daze that replaced any semblance of a sleeping schedule, the gray sky hiding most of the sun’s movements, and the fact that no one would talk to him beyond gruffly forcing him to eat and drink when they landed, it was becoming difficult to track time. The joints of his shoulders ached beyond belief. His hackles were raised almost the entire journey. He refused to answer anyone with less than the maximum amount of hostility he could muster. A cut lip joined his now-puffy and bruised nose because of it, but it was the only way he could extract any amount of venomous satisfaction out of the situation. He knew he could stomach worse.
The first time they landed for a break, he did try to run. But there were enough escorts patrolling the captives that he’d only slipped his feet out of his restraints before he was immediately thumped upside the head again. He didn’t know what time it was when he woke up, but he could feel the damage that had been done to the back of his skull, and he grimly decided to wait it out. They had a limit to their cruelty. He had to be some kind of valuable. But not if he pushed them to the breaking point.
He managed to keep his grasp on about a week of hard travel with few breaks, and that was the point when the Conclave finally dipped below the cloudline, making a slow descent towards a very distinctive silhouette in the distance. Liam tiredly squinted into the rising sun, trying to make sense of the odd peaks in the distance. They kind of look like…teeth.
Very suddenly, his mind’s eye was full of splashing drool and water, suffocating soil and dust and the howls of dogs and wolves, and a wounded, twisted tongue hanging in a gaping canine mouth, slowly closing in on a demon and a half-breed in the middle of what looked like Hel’s Bunker. He breathed in sharply and shook his head, clearing Nala’s memory out of his mind. The association was easy to make. There was only one kind of dog that had a lower jaw that seemed to span the entire horizon.
The peaks loomed closer, as the dragons dove in short bursts, dropping in altitude before letting their wings catch the cold dawn wind in their flapping skin folds. The closer they got, the taller the teeth seemed to be, dwarfing the modest mountains that surrounded them. The coast could barely be seen between the gaps in the canines, still sharp and strong despite the wear of time. As they threaded the teeth of Fenrir’s jaw, Liam could smell civilization. It was warmer, with the smell of smoke and food and the very faint cacophony of metal jangling, people shouting, wood creaking. Practically an entire city, breathing and sprawling out between the land that spanned either side of the gargantuan jawbone that nestled in the fields of the Scrublands.
Another rough descent brought the convoy soaring above the tops of the buildings; Liam’s eyes involuntarily watered as smoke billowed in his face, and he heard people cheering and heckling beneath the dragons’ feet. His entire body tensed up. The dragons tumbled and flapped around each other as they got closer to the narrower front end of the jawbone, where it was more tented and secluded. The ground had been excavated down into and below the supporting bones, and the massive lower canines cast two long, purple-and-blue shadows across the entire encampment as the dragons dove down, away from the sun. Liam was sweating despite the winter air biting his lungs and his extremities. The convoy banked and pulled in a wide circle over a haphazard kind of grate that spanned several hundred feet wide, and several shouts and calls were made between the dragon riders and their brethren on the ground. A groan and several clanks and rattles echoed through the air. The chains and bars split into five sections that slowly telescoped open through some kind of complex mechanism, baring a broad expanse of clean dirt to the morning sky, built like some kind of training or fighting ring.
The dragons squawked and began to land in waves. In a fit of desperation, Liam phased through his manacles, but the yank of his dragon starting to dive made him lose his tentative free grip on the straps above him, and the entire world swung as he fell backwards, only suspended by the straps beneath his thighs. The sudden chaos made him bite his tongue. “Fuck!” he spat thickly, clawing at the dragon’s belly. He freed his leg and then they were on the ground, and he roughly scraped his shoulderblade against the hard-packed earth. There were people, dragons and weapons all around him; he didn’t have any instincts at the moment other than to take off, in any direction. Liam bolted, digging his claws into the ground as he side-stepped an alarmed guard. His lungs burned with smoke, he gasped in time with his thundering pulse as he sprinted towards one of the wood-and-metal paneled walls, but there was an odd shattering noise and his feet were yanked to a stop by two extremely cold, sharp sprays of…something. He hit the ground hard, the wind knocked out of his lungs.
“That was a close one, wasn’t it?”
A pair of boots came into Liam’s field of view, and he instantly bared his teeth and tried to yank his paws free of what felt like ice. It reminded him of sparring with Akkey, but this was even harder than her magic usually was. Maybe she had been going easy on him. Either way, he was stuck fast for the moment. His shadows crept up his legs, but one of the furred boots roughly pinned him down by weighing on his back. The same smooth male voice with an obviously Central accent spoke above him. “I wouldn’t do that again, if I were you,” he warned. “My assistant won’t have a problem seeding that ice through your body if you do.”
Liam instantly felt queasy at the thought. “Don’t tell me what to do,” he spat in compensation, getting his forearms underneath him and trying to push up against the man who had leverage on him. There were a few laughs from behind; he could feel the presence of several of the convoy, likely watching the struggle. 
“What a spunky catch,” he replied, with a smile in his words. “I like this. I like this a lot.”
Another person snatched his arms and dragged them behind his back, locking him up again, and then they heaved him upright on his knees, letting him finally get a good look at the person in front of him. It was a man almost as tall as Dario, looking abnormally well-groomed for how typically kitbashed his Conclave armor was. He had a trimmed beard and thick, curly golden hair, and his brown eyes studied Liam’s face with a detached scrutiny. Liam instantly wanted to claw his insides out. He curled his face up in a snarl, and the man grinned at the sight. 
“Welcome to the Jaw, tiger,” he said amicably. The ice broke at Liam’s ankles, allowing him to stand, but most of the cold shards continued to stick to his pants and fur as he stood, reminding him of the man’s earlier threat if he were to dissolve to escape again. Liam puffed up to his full height, hate still fixed on his face. The Conclave were well-known as sadists and slavers, and he refused to give any of them the benefit of being polite. 
“You fucked up. Big time,” Liam growled, his voice hoarse from disuse. 
“I’m sure we did.” He patted Liam’s shoulder as he walked past him, and the one holding his handcuffs steered him in the same direction, forcing him past the dragons and to the other end of the ring. Overhead, several chains screeched and rattled again, and the overhead gates began to close in the same fashion they had opened. Liam’s heart was in his throat, and he shouted after the infuriating man, making his lungs ache more.
“I’m warning you! I hope you like only having a few days to live! You’ll have a demon on your goddamn doorstep, looking for me, and then you’re gonna be sorry!” He spat on the ground, clenching his teeth. 
Surprisingly, the man stopped, his cape fluttering as he turned to face Liam again. The torchlight glinted off his eyes. “Surely demons have little love in their hearts for the common half-breed,” he mused.
“This one does.” The gate closed shut above them with a hollow ring of metal. 
He nodded, his handsome hair falling slightly across his face as he twisted his lips in thought. He looked at one of the guards standing at his side. “Well, this should be interesting. Initiate turncoat protocols then, yes…detain any suspects for me until I can speak with them.”
“Yessir, Jarl.”
“Get me a good cell for this rebel, as well.” He fixed his gaze back on Liam, who felt like his stomach was made of the ice around his feet. 
“Eat my ass,” he growled. 
His arms were hitched high and painful behind his back and he gasped shallowly at the sudden twisted movement, but refused to break eye contact with the Jarl. Out of the corner of his eye, he felt another intense pair of eyes on him, itching at his awareness, but the only thing he could make out was a wide-brimmed hat among the broad shoulders and furry leather armor. The crowd was tense, delighted while also being extremely menacing at the same time. 
The Jarl’s hand curled into a fist at his side, but quick as a flash, he instead waved his hand disinterestedly, finally walking away to the exit of the ring. “Correct the lot of them. I don’t want to hear a word about any of them until you have a handle on them.”
“Aye, sir.”
Liam was shunted forward, and on stiff, reluctant legs, he was pushed into a tunnel built into the side of the ring, once again taking up the rear of several other handcuffed half-breeds. He wanted to keep the defiance pumping through his body like adrenaline, but from the back of his mind, the creeping tendrils of fear were starting to take place, born of secondhand stories of imprisonment and his childhood memories of exploring stone walls and second-lowest cells. 
No. This wouldn’t be the same. He would hold out for the Warden. He had to.
Category:BOTGD 2
Category:Events
Category:Act II
Category:Liam Arnason
Category:Vidar Bloodletter