Immortal Masochistic Lady Whump

I've never shared writing OR art online so bear with me folks.  Ask me about being an EMT or my OCD, or something else, idc. Spiral Cycle Masterlist  |  Character Masterlist

[subject-v]

Spiral Cycle Masterlist

Immortal, defiant, and masochistic lady whumpee who can kill herself to ‘respawn’ in a new body. She has an unhealthy relationship with pain, to say the least, and a knack for getting into bad situations.

Recurring Characters List here (forthcoming)

Masterlist

Whumptober gets an *

Explicit fics get an (E). This is if sex or something close happens on screen, not if it is merely mentioned or discussed. Read the tags for more info and stay safe.

Spiral Empire: Cassian and Livia

Waking Up: Five wakes up trapped in a human body.

Learning to Speak: Another prisoner teaches Five how to make noises (eww) like humans do to communicate.

Sold!: Five and assorted other indentured servants are sold to Dex.

Curiosity Whipped the Cat: Five is punished for poking her nose where it doesn’t belong.

A Lesson in Diplomacy*: Five is punished for keeping a secret, then sent to the Keep for further interrogation.

subject five*: Iovita gladly accepts Five as an (involuntary) test subject for a new brainwashing campaign.

Wanton Desire*: Iovita shows off her subject’s obedience.

Little One*: A servant is delighted to discover Five’s fear of water and tries to ‘cure’ her of it.

Hand Speak*: Five learns to communicate after being punished for speaking.

Subject Five*: Five defends her choice of name.

Hair* (E): Five experiments with sexual intimacy for the first time since being tortured.

A Nice Touch*: In an effort to discover a traitor in the household, Five allows herself to be kidnapped.

Paralysis*: Five finds herself back in Dex’s tender care.

Public Humiliation*: Dex tries to goad Cassian into attacking him by humiliating Five at a feast.

Life and Death at Sea*: Five struggles to survive in the ocean.

Always*: The emperor tortures Cassian to try to get Five to cooperate.

Toothless*: An irate Five seeks the names of the three men who once hurt her.

101*: Izi tries to figure out why something feels so wrong with her perfect life.

Wish You Were Here*: Énas taunts Five with hallucinations of her dead lover.

Hold the Pain and Hold It Close*: Five finds herself plagued by all sorts of moral questions while she tries to torture those who hurt her.

Assorted Tribulations, in Vague Chronological Order

Reverse Interrogation*: Five pretends to be a fellow victim to convince a prisoner to talk. Cauterization* (E): Five tries to ingratiate herself with some enemy officers who hear she’s a masochist. Nightmare*: After learning Five hasn’t felt safe enough to sleep in years, Harper tries to make her as comfortable as possible for the night.

Cold and Hard and Brittle as Ice*: Five struggles to carry the heir to the throne over a mountain to escape a military coup.

What You Paid For*: Five and Six try to buy someone at auction, but get a little bit more than they bargained for. Just a Bug*: Two non-humans try to figure out why Five has a stuffy nose and sore throat. Blood Letting*: Five is kidnapped, drugged, and drained of some 30% of her blood. Not a great day, all told.

Ethics: Best Discussed at Knifepoint*: King Njal uses Archer’s closest friend and confidant to convince him to walk into a trap but gets caught up in an argument about philosophy instead.

Cleave Gags Are Rubbish*: When six people kidnap Five and drag her into the middle of the desert, she considers breaking her not-killing-humans-even-when-they’re-annoying vow to take revenge.

The Sunset Slasher*: Against her will, Five works to bring the mysterious Sunset Slasher to justice.

The Doctor Will See You Now*: What’s a little vivisection between friends?

Checkmate*: Some friendly folks express frustration that Five’s friend filched a book from them.

Bird’s Eye*: When three people get killed and eaten by a wild animal in a remote village, Five investigates, and finds more than she counted on.

Living with Infinity

Five slowly recovers from her existential depression and discovers new meaning and joy in her life. (But first I break her mentally and emotionally)

Coward*: While Énas searches for her, Five cowers beneath a trap door in a friends house.

Til Death Do Us Part*: When Five refuses to kill one of her friends, Énas wonders if a little brainwashing and torture might change her mind.

Horse Archery and Other Ways to Fight Against the Inevitability of Eternity: Five learns to shoot arrows on horseback.

Apotheosis

Five and the other beings try to take care of Énas once and for all (forthcoming)

[subject-v]

Calling for whump recs

Trying to introduce a friend to whump as I think they will love it. They're into power dynamics, abusive dynamics, hurt with or without comfort, basically no holds barred in terms of trigger warnings.

Looking for recommended art and especially written whump works that highlight how great whump is - probably short but with a master list to find more similar pieces.

Ideally not fandom based since they are not super heavy in fandom. Their biggest fandom is I think one piece?

[aceofwhump]

Murderbot 1x07 - Gurathin whump

[linecrosser]

Whumptober 2025 - Day 25 - Pinned down

[enemieswbenefits]

He's having fun in there, he told me himself

[linecrosser]

Whumptober 2025 - Day 12 - Dizziness

when everything fades and it feels like static noise invading space

[whumpersome]

i can do this all day, asshole

[whumpy-wyrms]

pet vampire

[phantomwithbreakfast]

Defeated—

Danny is the victim again, because they think he’s the villain.

“I’ll never give up on you.”

⟢ Sketch of Danny being pinned down by the hand of a GiW agent. Pinterest inspiration doesn’t do me any good. This sat in my head for a while now and it needed to get out.

[doumidas]

tenderness

[cloudattack]

These are my old arts btw. Created an account here before but deactivated it and now I'm in here again. Lol. Found these in the net. Does not guarantee I'll have this exact same style again tho.

[rebeckeronie]

"Safe"

[just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi]

Brody Masterlist

CW: Pet whump, systematic dehumanization. Multiple whumpers. Individual CW in pieces

[moodboard created by the amazing @newbornwhumperfly​ Thanks again!]

(Little World building ask)

Official Chapters

With Edward

Caged

With Sam and Dylan

Cold

Forever Home

The Feeding Debacle

Lucky’s Pet Spa

Fruity Pebbles

I know what you did

His fault

Sam’s reaction to Brody’s bad dream

The Glass

Brody gets stuck outside (alternative title; Please let me in Mr. Fredrickson)

Stress Relief - From Brody’s perspective - Not anymore

Amy’s Coming!

Dylan tricking Brody 

Weekend At Dylan’s [-1-] [-2-] [-3-] [3.5] [-4-] [-5-] [-6-]

Living Teddy Bear 

With Kayla and Aries

Lost

Novelty Mugs 

The Choices Game

Paranoia 

Panic Attack

It’s Okay

Training 

Found Family

Dropping off

I’m Allowed to be a Person

Sleep Training (nonsexual)

Brody Training Prompts

 Mason’s opinion on people who treat their pets like a person\

Food Training

Hesitation Training

Know Your Place

Smile, Brody

Video Game Training

Kayla and Aries During Training

Isolation

Rule Training

Consent

Touch Training (non-sexual)

Self-Soothing. 

Trying

Going Home

Home?

Oh god, what had he done?

Don’t Let me F**k up Brody’s life, too

The Call

Twenty Minutes

Road Trip!

Whose am I?

I know a guy

Confused

Card Game (like 50% Canon)

Kennel

A Surge of Protectiveness 

Out of the Kennels

I Can’t Take It Anymore

Fun Drabbles

The Crane Machine

Cotton Candy 

Riddles 

Carsick

Seatbelt

Home Again

What how do you know him?

Far Future (Patricks Household) 

He wouldn’t take that away

AU’s!

Brody and Rowe Au! (Rowe, Tomas, and Kasia belong to @whumpzone​) 

Brody and Rowe

Brody, Rowe, and Kasia 

Rowe and Aries

Brody and Rowe By @whumpzone​

Coloring - Brody and Tomas 

Allergies

Nightmare By @whumpzone​

Anon’s Revenge (submitted by Anon)

Sam Returns Brody [NOT CANON] 

Sandie buys Brody [Submitted by  🔋 anon] 

Sandie Trains Brody [Submitted by  🔋anon]

Court AU 

In an AU, Brody is questioned and has to speak at Dylan’s trial 

        About Dylan

Dog Fighting AU

happy endings

Art! 

@whumpeesblog​ [here!]

Submitted by anon! [here!]

@whumpzone​ [here!]

@bugs-and-comfort​ [here!]

@liliability​ [Here!]

thank you all so much for the art I treasure it so much 💛💛💛💛💛

General Brody Tag

[just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi]

Lucky’s Pet Spa - Brody

[First off, holy smokes! That is all. Now for the pet boi. This one is “soft” “whump” but Brody’s life isn’t/hasn’t/won’t always be so nice. Oh no no no no.]

CW: Dehumanization [big, systematic, full dehumanization.], Pet whump (muzzle, restraints, collar mention, implied human trafficking), referenced non-con drugging, touch starved whumpee, fully broken whumpee, lady whumper, 

Word count: ~2,600

[Masterlist]

Samuel was greeted by a young woman when they entered the storefront.

Keep reading

[subject-v]

First Time

tw: cutting, blood, restraint, manipulation, mind control, cult

2300 words

“Stop, please! Please don’t hurt me!”

“Ah shoot, sorry.” The boy drops his scalpel like it’s gone red hot. It clinks awkwardly onto the linoleum floor next to my leg, catching the light from a nearby rune.

Confused, I blink up at him. I don’t have many other options, in terms of body language, at this point, with my hands chained above me, close enough I can brush my pinkies against one another, and my legs splayed on either side of the new kid, the pants damp with the humidity and my own blood. Nice cell, as far as they go, but the tile floor’s a real germ trap and even after a quick wash the night before, most of my blood is still congealed on my body.

“I-I’m sorry.” He picks up the scalpel with trembling fingers. “I didn’t mean to drop that. Let me try this again.”

He places the tip of the blade against my skin, then holds it there without enough pressure to draw blood while he consults a piece of paper, creased all over from a million folds and written in cramped handwriting. Did he… did he write down what he plans to do to me? What kind of serial sadist is this? “I’m just going to give you a few cuts,” he murmurs, at last leaning onto the blade and carving a line down my arm.

I don’t mind the hot flash of pain—much—but he was so funny the first time so I make my eyes roll back in my head and crack my voice. “P-please!” The sound echoes in the lofty space. 

“I could concentrate better if you didn’t speak.” Another line joins the first. He’s close enough I can lean forward and see the piece of paper that’s so enthralled him, including the shape he’s drawn there: a name, I think, maybe two. That’s hardly unusual. I’ve have names carved into me in writing systems that don’t even exist anymore.

I change tact. “What are you going to do to me?” 

Serial killers, they like that question. Puts you completely in their power, strokes their egos, the whole nine yards. The boy, though, and I can’t imagine he’s over twenty years old, not with hair that floppy and poorly styled, doesn’t react with pleasure or even annoyance that I’ve spoken. Instead, doubt flickers across his face, and then he blushes, a little red to his cheeks that I would’ve missed if the dungeon lights were but a shade dimmer. “I’m going to hurt you a little bit,” he says, tongue between his teeth as he finishes carving his shape into my arm. He’s not practiced at this and the wounds are all different levels of deep.

“Why? I never hurt you.”

“Because I want to.” 

He looks like he’d rather be locked in a room somewhere putting together a two thousand piece jigsaw puzzle but hey, sometimes you’re chained to the dungeon wall, sometimes you’re doing the chaining, it’s all about rolling with the punches. 

He stands, tugging at the chains above me so I’m forced to my feet, leaning heavily when one foot goes completely to sleep. You’d think that would be less painful than the still-bleeding wound on my inner arm, but you’d be wrong. Knives have a beauty to them, a finesse that simple circulation lacks. “Okay.” He says it like he’s psyching himself up. “I’m going to… I’m going to hit you, I think.”

“Are you asking me or telling me?” It just slips out. Look, the first couple sadists leave an impression and after that, I stop grading on a curve. He wants me intimidated, he should be more intimidating.

It irks him, though. He tugs down the bottom of his shirt and straightens. “Yes. I’ll… I’ll beat the backtalk right out of you.” Given it takes him thirty seconds to figure out how to put the brass knuckles on, I don’t exactly have high hopes. Plus, his posture’s all off. After he punches me once and nearly throws himself into the wall, he switches to a cane and sort of whacks at my ankles.

In a better mood, I might try to dodge, but he’s so weak, he’s not going to break anything. “I’m your first, aren’t I?”

“Shut up.” He gets the cane caught between my legs—I swear I wasn’t even trying to get in the way—and drops it. 

“Here I thought I’d be the one kneeling at your feet.” He glares daggers up at me, costing him precious time padding about for his cane. “While you’re down there, you could give the ol’ boots a good lick, eh?” I’m barefoot and wiggle my toes a bit to prove it, but he shoots up like someone fired him out of a canon.

“I will never bow to you.”

I pout. “Whatever you say, big dog.”

The anger makes his beating, if anything, more sporadic. I think the wall’s in more pain than me when, panting, he takes a step back to surveil me. “That felt better, I think. They’re right, it can feel good.”

“Who’s right?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“If you tell me, I will show you how to use a cane to properly cause someone pain.”

“Like you’d know,” he sneers, mopping sweat off his brow. The cane’s about to fall from his hands unless he takes a rest, I figure, and he concurs, slumping to the floor well out of reach and going for a water bottle. Proper hydration: very important for the enterprising serial sadist. 

Though now that I’m here, I’m beginning to doubt the serial part of that title. So much for ridding the city of its serial killer on the first try, huh? If Archer beats me to a win by going the legal route, I’m going to throw myself into the ocean. 

After a bit of R&R, he’s ready for another go, but it’s cautious interest I see in his eyes. “Well?” he demands, tapping a foot. The arms crossed could be a good look, but he should’ve put the cane down first. “Tell me, then.”

“First tell me who they is.”

His eyes narrow but he’s never taken a negotiation course—such courses generally indicate that the party who is chained to the wall has less bargaining power—because he folds right away. “The other Mu-9s.”

“Is that supposed to mean something?”

“You said you’d teach me.”

“All right, then. You see that table?” I have to nod towards it, my hands being where they are. “It’s for strapping people to.”

“It’s too short.”

“Au contraire. It’s not for waterboarding, it’s for foot torture. Move it over here. Yep, until it’s touching the wall, good. Okay, let’s see if I still have the abs for this.” I clench my fingers around the manacles and haul myself up and sideways, half over the table. He sees what I’m trying to do and helps me the rest of the way, still holding the cane even after it bops him in the forehead. “Now you’d traditionally strap my ankles to the corners.” What a relief, not to have to stand anymore. When I get a choice, I’ll sit through a torture anytime, even if the table feels kind of rickety. As an added bonus, I’ve earned a little slack in the arm chains, so I could feasibly start unlocking them, were I inclined. “The feet have as many nerves as the hands do and unlike other parts of the body, they don’t acclimate to repeated beatings, so the hundredth lash hurts as much as the first. You want to strike closer to the arch than the heels or toes, and at an angle. Yes, hold the cane like that. And then twist all the way around and think about activating your stomach muscles as you-ah! Yeah, like that.”

At my cry, his grip loosens and he almost drops the cane again. This kid, I swear. 

“You need to be careful with foot torture. I can walk on anything that isn’t broken but regular folks, any more than fifty or so and they won’t be able to walk on them. You also always want to-ah, yes. Thank you for that. You want to make sure-ow, see, that was my toe. Do you want to break bones or do you want to cane me? Make up your mind, kid.”

His shoulders are heaving. For a second, I think he’s going to stab me with the blunt end of his cane but he takes a step back and composes himself. “I should know this,” he whispers. “I should understand this.”

I take a stab in the dark. “Is that what they told you?” 

“They said evil people like me, we would like it. They told me… this was what I was made for.”

“You know what that sounds like?”

“No.” He looks up, all curious-like. Maybe twenty was an overly optimistic estimate for age.

“Sounds like someone is trying to mind control you.”

“What?”

“Just in general, if someone is telling you you’re evil, that’s a sign they’re manipulating you.”

“I am evil. I’m a Mu-9.”

“Ri-ight.”

“I-I’m hurting you! I cut my name into your arm!”

I glance at the wound. “Is that what it says? Niklo? Is that your name?”

“It doesn’t matter. Your opinion doesn’t matter.”

“I showed you the foot caning, didn’t I? Tell me about these people.” Since we’re settling down, now, I use the slack in my chains to unscrew the pin holding the manacles around my left wrist in place. Careful practice means I snag it before it can fall open. “They’re not Mu-9s, right?”

He whacks me again, on the knee, which is not how I showed him and doesn’t particularly hurt. 

I make a few educated guesses, based on the size of the dungeon and how often he references a group of people. “You’re not the only or first one they’ve sent here to torture someone, right?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Mu-9s are, what? Some sort of torture school? And they’re letting you practice on the sorts of people no one will miss?” Torture schools are all the same—the grey sisters used to snag orphans and widows to practice on, if the dungeons ever got too empty. 

“We’re evil.”

“Says who?”

His chin is wobbling as he collapses against the wall, fingers loose enough that the cane rolls away and clatters across the floor. “It’s a gene, right? The Mu-9 gene? It makes people sadists, psychopaths.”

We’re about to have a chat, so I stop holding the manacles shut and place my hands in my lap. “Do you know what a gene is?”

“It’s in your DNA.” If he’s noticed I’m no longer tied up quite so well, he doesn’t let on.

“A gene tells your proteins how to-tell you what. You ever folded paper to make an animal?”

Everyone in this city has; the cranes decorate every other street corner.

“A gene is like the instructions to make a paper animal. A single gene can’t make you a psychopath, nor can they create a world with embedded moral laws and a black and white system of ethics.”

“What?”

“‘Evil,’” I scoff. “What’s that mean? Who decides?”

“I guess I don’t know.”

“Exactly. Tell me more about these folks who are mind controlling you.”

“They tested us at school.” His gaze goes up and over my left shoulder. “They took all the Mu-9s away, said since we were evil anyway, we might as well put it to good use. I didn’t kidnap you. I didn’t even want a, you know.”

“I do not.”

“A woman,” he mouths. “I wouldn’t normally hurt a girl.”

I snort. How kind.

“They told me where to find you, gave me this.” He gestures at his bag of pain-inducing equipment. “Said I’d know what to do.”

“So you found a woman tied up in a dungeon and decided to carve your name into her arm?”

“They had us plan it first. The therapists, they ask us again and again. What would you do, if someone was in your power? And whenever I said I’d never hurt them, she says of course I would, I’m evil, what would I do? She wouldn’t stop asking so I made it up, I said I-I’d carve my name into their arm and then I’d beat them and she asked me again and again everyday until I had it memorized, and then she made me write it down…” Futily, he waves the paper in my direction. “Maybe I’ve done this before. I don’t even know.”

“I’m going to hazard a guess that this is, in fact, your first time.”

He starts to cry. You know what’s worse than a proper good caning? When people cry in front of you, and this culture says women are supposed to be all motherly and caring too, so I know he expects me to help him out. 

Sighing, I say, “You’re most likely not evil. You are being mind controlled, though, so I’d recommend doing something about that.”

“I can’t leave. I can’t. They said… they said if I left, the regs would kill me. They can see what I am.”

Fuck me, it’s a cult situation, isn’t it? A torture murder death cult. Just my luck. “Uh huh.” 

“This is the only thing I’m good at,” he whispers, standing again and going for the cane. “If I can’t show them I’m good at this, they’ll make me leave and the regs will burn me alive. I need to be good at this.”

“If—”

“And you,” he snarls, “need to shut up.”

I mime zipping my lips. He realizes, for the first time, that my hands are free. I’d like to say the beating I got in punishment was nice, but it was average at best, and I could’ve done without the angry tirade. He leaves me an hour later, bruised and bleeding, still sitting on that wobbly table, but I see a logo on the wall outside before he shuts the door: SomatiCorp.

Cult victim convinced he needs to become a sadist to survive, windowless dungeon with gross tile floor, and a company name in camel case. 

I can work with that.

[subject-v]

Whumptober 2021 Masterlist

Common tropes: forced to watch, reversed power dynamics (the person who appears to be in control is not), betrayal, emotional whump / moral torture, brainwashing, masochism, immortal whumpees and whumpers

General TW (specifics on each post): Five can hurt / kill herself and respawn uninjured, and in general, she doesn’t mind doing so for convenience. This is a recurring theme. Later on, you also see her become depressed with immortality. All specific fics have their own TWs that I encourage you to read as well, but the general TWs occur in basically all of them.

Recurring TWs: What can I say, I like torture, interrogation, forced to watch situations, and dehumanization. Not all fics have these but many do. I try not to be too gory in descriptions of injuries, which can be quite severe, but if I am, you’ll see the fic tagged with gore.

Explicit fics get an (E). That doesn’t mean noncon, which will be tagged separatedly on each post.

A Lesson in Diplomacy: Five is punished for keeping a secret, then sent to the Keep for further interrogation.

subject five: Iovita gladly accepts Five as an (involuntary) test subject for a new brainwashing campaign.

Wanton Desire: Iovita shows off her subject’s obedience.

Little One: A servant is delighted to discover Five’s fear of water and tries to ‘cure’ her of it.

Hand Speak: Five learns to communicate after being punished for speaking (comfort).

Subject Five: Five defends her choice of name (comfort).

Hair (E): Five experiments with sexual intimacy for the first time since being tortured (comfort).

A Nice Touch: In an effort to discover a traitor in the household, Five allows herself to be kidnapped.

Paralysis: Five finds herself back in Dex’s tender care.

Public Humiliation: Dex humiliates Five at a feast.

Life and Death at Sea: Five struggles to survive in the ocean (only environmental whump)

Always: The emperor tortures Cassian to try to get Five to cooperate.

Toothless: An irate Five seeks the names of the three men who once hurt her.

101: Izi tries to figure out why something feels so wrong with her perfect life.

Wish You Were Here: Énas taunts Five with hallucinations of her dead lover.

Hold the Pain and Hold It Close: Five finds herself plagued by all sorts of moral questions while she tries to torture those who hurt her.

Reverse Interrogation: Five pretends to be a fellow victim to convince a prisoner to talk. Cauterization (E): Five tries to ingratiate herself with some enemy officers who hear she’s a masochist. Nightmare*: After learning Five hasn’t felt safe enough to sleep in years, Harper tries to make her as comfortable as possible for the night.

Cold and Hard and Brittle as Ice: Five struggles to carry the heir to the throne over a mountain to escape a military coup.

What You Paid For: Five and Six try to buy someone at auction, but get a little more than they bargained for. Just a Bug: Two non-humans try to figure out why Five has a stuffy nose and sore throat. Blood Letting: Five is kidnapped, drugged, and drained of some 30% of her blood. Not a great day, all told.

Ethics: Best Discussed at Knifepoint: King Njal tries to trap an enemy gets caught up in an argument about philosophy instead.

Cleave Gags Are Rubbish: When six people kidnap Five and drag her into the middle of the desert, she considers breaking her not-killing-humans-even-when-they’re-annoying vow to take revenge.

The Sunset Slasher: Against her will, Five works to bring the mysterious Sunset Slasher to justice.

The Doctor Will See You Now: What’s a little vivisection between friends?

Checkmate: Some friendly folks express frustration that Five’s friend filched a book from them.

Bird’s Eye: When three people get killed and eaten by a wild animal in a remote village, Five investigates, and finds more than she counted on.

Coward: While Énas searches for her, Five cowers beneath a trap door in a friends house.

Til Death Do Us Part: When Five refuses to kill one of her friends, Énas wonders if a little brainwashing and torture might change her mind.

[subject-v]

Hold the Pain and Hold it Close (whumptober 31)

Disaster zone, trauma, prisoner

congrats to me for writing something like 46,000 words for this, that’s almost a novel

masterlist

Five finds herself bothered by all sorts of moral questions while she tries to torture those who hurt her.

TW: torture, humiliation, dehumanization, animal death (discussion), burns, cuts

2300 words

I’ve never hurt someone in front of an audience before. It feels like Lhamu is judging me from her chair in the corner, her hair pulled back and high, her fingers busy on a drop spindle. After I place Nautilius’ lunch on the floor and loosen the restraints on his arms slightly so he has to kneel down and lick it up, I wave a hand in front of her face and, all politeness, she looks up.

“You’re just staying here?” I demand.

“Would you prefer I leave?”

“Yes.”

She stands without a sound. “I’ll be outside.”

“Why?” I don’t mean to explode at her, but two days treating Nautilus like a plaything to fulfill only my own desires has made it harder to temper my anger. Huh. Wonder if torture has long-term effects on all parties, not just the victims. That’s not annoying or anything. “You don’t need to be here at all.”

“You seem like you need company.”

“I’m fine.”

Lhamu nods once, curt. “Like I said, I’ll be outside.”

Growling, I step between her and the door, half expecting to see a hint of fear flicker across her face but she doesn’t react except to take a step back, expression so neutral, I know she must be hiding something. “You should go. Forever.”

“You appear to be going through the worst part of your short life. I am, to my chagrin, technically qualified in post-trauma mind healing and leaving you means breaking my vows, or at least bending them.”

“You tried to stop me already,” I remind her. On the ground, Nautilus gags on a piece of stale bread, twisting to one side as far as the chains will allow him so he can keep it in his mouth and chew it into smaller bites. This amused me so much the first day and now his bright red cheeks, barely visible behind the blindfold, mean almost nothing. “I’m not going to let him go.”

“I know, and I can’t stop you from doing whatever you want. Even if I could, you’re immortal and clearly hold a grudge”—she nods behind her at Nautilus—“so I assume you’d take it out on my descendants. I’m just here to make sure you’re okay, and to talk, when you’re ready.”

I sneer at her, but when I back away from the door, she understands—rightly—that she can stay, if she wants, and she sits again. I pull Nautilus away from the last of his starvation rations by his hair, eliciting a yelp that turns quickly into a whine—he knows what happens if he makes people noises around me, and if he tries to resist, so he remains limp as I tighten the chains around his wrists and pull him snug against the wall. “After all he did, how do you still care about him?”

“I don’t.”

This is surprising enough that I stop, midway through heating a dull knife in a candle’s flame. It burns my own skin, not that I mind.

“He’s a body to me, a pile of flesh and bone and blood and organs that I could make work more—or less—efficiently in a variety of different ways.”

“How very analytical of you.” I wave the heated knife near Nautilus’ bare chest, enjoying the way he can feel it and tries to flinch away, despite the wall behind him.

“When I was six or so, my mother found me outside, staring at a rabbit pinned to a tree branch by a hawk. The bird tore away strips of flesh and skin while the thing still wriggled, trying to be free. She thought me scared and tried to take me away, but I explained that, since I knew the rabbit was too far away for me to save or kill, I’d simply enjoyed watching its pain. She realized that day that I would become a healer or a killer, and she guided me aptly towards the former.”

I put the knife down before I can carve my name into Nautilus’ chest for a third time. “You enjoy pain?”

“Immensely so. As a healer, almost everyone I treat is having their worst day and they don’t mind if the person saving their life is a tad acerbic. A perfect fit. My mother was truly a genius.”

I step aside, gesturing for her to join me. “Then why don’t you help?”

“Ah.” She purses her lips. “I happen to believe torture is morally wrong.”

“You just said you’re a sadist.”

“Yes,” she agrees.

“So?”

“My personal enjoyment of an act has little to no bearing on its morality.”

“My whole life, humans have done whatever they wanted to me. They didn’t care whether I liked it. Sometimes, they enjoyed it more because I didn’t.”

“Yes, and I believe all those acts were immoral as well.”

“But me hurting Nautilus, that makes me as bad as him, is that it?”

Lhamu snorts, rolling her eyes. “Is it wrong to shove an old man to the ground?”

“Sure.”

“Is it also wrong to shove him into a frozen lake so he drowns?”

“Yes.”

“So the same action in different contexts can be a different degree of immoral.”

I frown at her. How did my torture session turn into a lecture on moral philosophy? And why don’t I mind?

“Even if I don’t agree with you, I find your actions entirely understandable. I don’t believe you are a risk to those who haven’t hurt you, which is why I am comfortable remaining near you so, when you’re done extracting your revenge from Nautilus, someone is there to help you find your footing again.”

“Would you heal him, if I asked?”

“If you threatened to kill me, I would.”

I purse my lips—she knows full well I won’t, not after everything she’s done for me. “If you were me, what would you do?”

“I suppose that depends on whether you believe in determinism or indeterminism. If I were you, I would, in a deterministic universe, do exactly the same thing as you.”

I cross my arms.

“Yes,” she admits. “I do understand what you mean. Morally speaking, you should let him go. His empire has fallen, he cannot take it back. Let him live out the rest of his days somewhere far away, with as much happiness as he can muster.”

“How fair to all his victims.”

She shrugs. “The longer I live, the more I realize punishment for punishment’s sake is nothing. It does nothing.”

“You’d think you were the one chained to my wall,” I scoff, turning away, which, in Sign, is akin to ending the conversation. My knife has cooled now, but it still hurts as I trace the tip from the base of his neck and down his chest, occasionally drawing blood, but mostly just appreciating the hitch in his breath. Near the top of his skirt, I shave a small patch of skin, a new canvas for the brand I dreamed of last night: the pictogram of a hawk. It requires more delicate tools than the knife and as I heat them, clattering about against the brazier as much as I can just to watch Nautilus’ shoulders go higher and higher around his ears, I imagine baby Lhamu staring up at a hawk eating a rabbit alive. She couldn’t prevent that violence and so she watched, just as she is now, happy, perhaps, that she is unable to keep me from my revenge, even as she condemns me as immoral.

When I press the first heated coil against Nautilus’ stomach, his knees buckle and he wails, the voice muted in the cramped cell. I press the brand in harder until the scream breaks into something more wobbly, a soft mewl of acceptance. I never did that. From almost day one, Iovita made it clear that noises were not permitted so I don’t have much experience hearing myself break. Besides, when I test the brand on my own arm, it doesn’t hurt much. He’s a big baby. A couple more months of this and maybe I’ll have created someone as inured to pain as I am.

I return the coil to its nest of coals until it’s once again red. When I go to remove it, though, my hand betrays me and I drop it to the stone floor, catching it with a foot before it can roll. When was the last time I dropped something because it was too hot to hold? Years, surely, back when I was a terrified little thing, curled up in my cell and wondering how I’d survive immortality in a place like this.

At the sound, Nautilus curled up too, as much as the chains allow him, and it hits me, hits me like a punch to the gut: he’s me. They’re all me. I have hurt myself in every way imaginable, and been hurt in ways I never even thought of, so I know pain more intimately than I know anything else about the world with the possible exception of prime numbers. I suffer, and I do it beautifully, and begrudgingly, and eagerly, and his pain is identical to mine, identical to Cassian’s and Livia’s and Lhamu’s. We all suffer the exact same way.

I could break him, train him to be a subject or a lapdog or the perfect servant, but unlike Lhamu, I cannot turn him into a simple body, no mind within. The expression on his face is one I have worn before, and I hated it.

With a scream, I fling the brazier over, spilling coals across the floor. Nautilus jumps, sensing heat but unsure where it is, and Lhamu carefully stands and walks over to the door before the hem of her dress can catch fire.

“He’s me,” I snarl at her. “Iovita did the same to me, in this very building, and I killed her for it, and now I do the same to him?”

She blinks.

“If I let him go, he wins. He gets away with it. He hurt me, he hurt Cassian, he tried to subjugate two different peoples, and now I get to decide whether he gets away with it.”

“He clearly didn’t. Look at him.”

He is a mosaic of wounds, bruises clustered around his neck and face, cuts along the arms and down the fingers, burns and long slashes across his broad chest.

“If I let him go, it won’t bring Cassian back.”

“Neither will killing him.”

She says it like it’s nothing, but I take it like a slap. “Cassian is dead and gone forever.”

“Yes,” she agrees.

“I will live with the effects of what he did to me forever.”

“You are immortal. It’s hard to say how it will affect you, but most likely yes.”

“It’s not fair.” I kick at a coal, sending it spinning across the room. “They get to hurt people and I don’t.”

“Yes, so sad for you. Perhaps more self pity will help.”

I glare at her. Aloud, I say, “I’m going to unchain you and let you go.”

Nautilus starts at the sound of my voice, casting about behind his blindfold.

“Count to one hundred before you leave the cell. I’ll make sure the grey women know to treat you like a patient, not a prisoner.”

“T-thank you.”

“Fuck you. I hope you rot.” Using my feet, I herd the embers into one corner where people are less liable to trip on them and fish the key out of my pocket so I can let him go. He’s just sagged to the ground when Lhamu darts forward. A knife, little more than a diamond of metal, appears in her hand and I make to parry it when she slips it into Nautilus’ throat. Blood pools there in a thin gash. His hands raise, trying to keep it in. He garbles something unintelligible and when he falls to the ground, he’s already dead.

Lhamu cleans her knife on his skirt and takes a step back.

“What did you do?”

“I killed him.”

“After all that?” I demand. “The rabbit and the hawk and the revenge is nothing and shoving the old man in the lake and you just kill him?”

  “I believe the world will be better without him and in that moment, there was no one who could stop me.”

I gape at her. Moral high ground my ass; she’s just as human as all the rest of us.

“I believe it is the highest goal of society to reduce the overlap in moments when someone wants to kill someone else and when they know they can do it and nothing will stop them. Society failed, in this case. Are you going to kill me?”

“No, obviously not.”

“Well then. You sit here.” She taps her chair, making it squeak. “And consider how you want to spend the rest of your immortal life now that everyone who’s hurt you is dead. Then you can find me outside.”

True to her word, I find her there two hours later, my cheeks now stiff with dried tears. “I suffer,” I tell her simply.

“You do.”

“I will suffer so that people don’t have to. I won’t kill their enemies for them if I can help it. I’ll just take pain that they can’t survive and I can, and I’ll survive it.”

She nods once. “Would you like to talk about Cassian now?”

“No, I want to free every prisoner in this Keep and then burn it to the ground. After,” I add quickly. “Giving all the grey women working here adequate time to evacuate.”

“Okay. You get the keys, I’ll find something to start a fire.”