homecoming (the long way around) - masterpost chasing the first time (1/?)
Hiiii, guys. Sooo. This happened. In my defense. Whoops?
TW: Past/off screen SA, kidnapping/threats, hostage situations, finger gore (off screen), the inevitable recapture arc.
The letter is short. On one side, a map of the local mountainous area with a spot marked out. Itarata notices right away that it’s perfect for an ambush. On the other side, writing. Revkian, a language only a small handful of people here would know how to read. He’s been teaching whole groups, for the sake of intelligence gathering, but it’s slow going since the army of around twenty thousand Orontdrim needs to be constantly moving, making their way towards potential allies.
So of course, the scout that came back with the note he'd been given by a strange human didn’t know how to read it. He brought it right to the only person who could, the person he'd been told to bring it to in broken Quenya.
Of course.
Itarata,
I have Morwë. Come alone, tell nobody, and he doesn’t have to get hurt. Tomorrow, sunrise. Your friend, Mikhail
In the envelope along with the letter, a finger. Unmistakably elven.
To say Itarata kicks himself is an understatement. He’s been seeing a lot less of the younger nér lately— he’d finally started to make some friends his own age, getting close with some of the younger Angdrim. Only a few weeks ago, Itarata saw the small group trading stories about Revkia around one of the campfires.
Morwë had been smiling, laughing at a joke one of the others made with a sincere openheartedness that made Itarata’s heart ache. Since then, Itarata hadn’t spent so much time keeping an eye out for him, content that was a project completed to his satisfaction. He looks at the note, feeling like the wind’s been knocked out of him. When? How?
Itarata knew this would be their most vulnerable moment — his army is small, and their intelligence of the area they’re traveling through is incredibly limited. But he’d been worried first and foremost that one of the factions in the civil war, one of the large armies, would catch them off guard. Mikhail wasn’t even on his radar. Itarata wishes for what feels like the thousandth time that they’d gone against Morwë’s will and executed the monster, as opposed to letting him run back to whatever hole he’d crawled out of. It would’ve been murder, he thinks to himself, dazed.
He gives himself five minutes to blame himself before he stirs into action. Of course he’s not listening to Mikhail’s instructions to go alone, this is obviously a trap. He goes to Angiel first, waking her up. She’s always been earlier to bed than him.
“Well, fuck,” she says once she’s rubbed sleep out of her eyes. Itarata nods, not sure what else to say. “It’s an ambush, right?”
“It’s got to be,” Itarata agrees. “Maybe he’s gotten a few friends together. I wish we’d asked Morwë more about where he came from…”
“If he’s got Morwë as a hostage, we can’t go in entirely guns blazing. But you’re obviously not going on your own. How many people are you thinking?”
“Fifty, a hundred?” Itarata asks.
“Fifty. We want to be fast, in and out before the rest of the camp finds out. It’ll be a serious hit to morale, otherwise. I’ll gather my people. Do you want me to tell Esteldur or do you want to do that yourself?”
“No,” Itarata shakes his head.
“No?” Angiel tilts her head at him.
“I’m not going to tell him until we’ve got Morwë back,” Itarata says. “He’ll do something reckless. Besides, Mikhail knows him.”
“He’s going to be pissed as hell,” Angiel points out. “He already nearly took a piece out of me for us keeping things from him before.”
“It’s for his own good. Mikhail wants him dead, badly. He wants me alive.”
“How do you know that?” Angiel asks, and Itarata thinks back to his time traveling with the human. The hungry look on his face, barely concealed. Desire, of the monstrous sort.
“I just do. Come on. We’ll have to ride fast, if there’s any hopes of getting into position before noon.”
“You’re making a mistake in not telling Esteldur,” she tells him. “Tell someone to give him the note if we don’t come back,” Itarata says, looking around in Angel’s tent. She understands what he’s looking for and pulls out her quill and ink bottle. Itarata scrawls a quick translation, as well as an additional explanation. He'd buried the finger quickly before coming to see her-- the traces of blood are enough of a proof.
Angiel eyes him, as though that’s not really what she meant, but she doesn’t push the point. “You get twenty five of yours, I’ll get twenty five of mine, meet you in an hour?” “Good enough,” Itarata says. The spot on the map is several hours ride from here, probably picked in combination with the time in order to make things harder for Itarata to mobilize any significant force.
Even the fifty riders he’s gathered will slow him down significantly. Itarata’s sure he could defeat Mikhail one on one, but there’s no way the man, as arrogant as he is, will have come alone.
They ride, and they ride hard. Itarata isn’t anywhere near as attached to Morwë on a personal level as Esteldur is, and if it was just one nér at stake here, maybe he’d be more cautious, but it’s more than that. If people hear that he was unable to protect the camp’s most vulnerable, before they’ve gotten him back — they’ll lose confidence in him. And the odds are already so far against his small army…
That’s the justification Itarata gives himself. If his pride has been damaged by this at all, that’s a negligible factor. He’s calm, rational. If he thinks to himself, how dare he over and over again, it’s not because he’s humiliated by being one upped by someone he thinks as lesser than him.
He’s so busy fuming that Angiel has to ride up to him when they’re getting close. “Almost there,” Angiel tells him. “You good?”
“I’m fine,” Itarata says, shaking his head to push the thoughts away. Angiel’s got her bow out, while he draws his sword. He examines the terrain. They’re about to emerge from the forest, to a rocky gorge. It’ll be tough riding, but if Mikhail thinks that’ll slow them, he’s a fool. They’re elves. Their horses have lived with them for decades. What would be near impossible for a normal horse with a human rider is mildly inconvenient for them.
Itarata signals, and they gather into a group.
“I’ll go ahead and act like I followed his instruction. The rest of you, follow from a distance, stay out of sight. I’ll blow the horn when I need you.” He gestures at the horn by his side. “If you don’t hear the horn for fifteen minutes after I’ve gotten to the rendezvous point, come anyway.”
“Got it,” Angiel says, and the rest of the elves salute. So they do. Itarata takes the final hour much slower, giving his horse a time to rest. Before he turns the final corner, he takes a deep breath. He expects to be jumped the moment he passes around the final corner into an opening, but he scans the cliffs up and around the rim, but there’s no hidden armies. Nothing obvious — he can’t study the surroundings intensely, because his attention is too caught up on the scene in front of him.
Mikhail sitting, propped up on a rock, and Morwë kneeling in front of him, a knife pressed to his throat and one hand in his hair, pulling his head up. His hands are chained behind his back, so Itarata can’t see his fingers yet, but he knows what he’ll find when he sees them. He’s blinded and gagged, thoroughly. He shakes like a leaf.
He’s also mostly naked, the elven armor forged for him by Esteldur’s friend in town taken from him and clothes sewn for him by Anarissë ripped and torn. Itarata’s stomach clenches. Morwë’s covered in bruises, particularly around his neck where he must’ve been choked and bitten repeatedly. And between his legs, of course. His shoulder is bandaged, but the bandages are soaked through with blood.
How long? Itarata wonders, in mute horror.
“You came,” Mikhail says, as if pleasantly surprised, and Morwë twists within the grip, as if trying to get a better view despite the blindfold. Mikhail tightens his grip and pulls the knife closer. He hisses, “stay still, or my hand will slip” to his captive. Morwë stills, but he starts trying to make some noise, trying to say something. It’s muffled by the gag.
“What do you want,” Itarata asks, flatly. He’s got the horn in one hand, his sword in the other.
“Dismount,” Mikhail orders. “Or what? You cut his throat, and you lose your hostage? The one thing keeping me from killing you here and now?” Morwë twists again, despite the threat and the chains. Probably panicked by the bluff. Itarata knows he sounds cold. He'll apologize for it later.
“You wouldn’t. You’re soft,” Mikhail says.
“Do you want to test that?” Itarata asks, fixing the human with his stare. Mikhail meets it, with the same power hungry, almost lustful emotion as before. Worse, even. There’s a half crazed edge to his look now, that might’ve made a younger Itarata take a step back. Even now, he can’t help flinching at it ever so slightly.
“If you come with me willingly, I’ll let him go,” Mikhail says, his tone almost manic.
Itarata laughs. “You’re kidding.”
He puts the horn to his mouth, and he blows. The sound echoes, and Itarata can hear the sound of hoofbeats as his allies start to approach.
“You brought reinforcements. I thought you would,” Mikhail says. “But then again, so did I.”
“Yeah? Where are they?”
“Sasha!” Mikhail calls out, in an almost sing song tone, and Itarata’s eyes widen as he realizes a second too late. A trap, yes, but he’d been thinking in terms of Mikhail having a few friends. Some low life scumbags. He never in his life thought the slimy monster could have the resources to enlist the help of a mage.
But he glances over his shoulder, and the entrance to the clearing is covered in a translucent, shimmering barrier.
“You— how?” Itarata asks, his heart racing. For the first time since he was handed the letter, he feels something other than cold rage. Fear. He remembers Nikolai, remembers the burn of the brand. He glances around, desperately looking for the mage. A single touch…
“Did my pretty toy never tell you who I was?” Mikhail asks, with a manic smile. “Who my family is?”
Morwë shakes his head, no, and Itarata sheaths his sword, pulling out his bow instead and notching an arrow in seconds. Mikhail adjusts his position, holding Morwë in front of him like a shield, but Itarata isn’t aiming for him— he’s looking for the mage. Sasha.
“Where are they?” Itarata demands. “Where’s the mage?”
“Do you think I’d tell you?” Mikhail asks with a grin, an edge of madness entering into his voice. “Dismount.”
“If you kill him—“ Itarata starts.
“If you kill me, then Sasha will still tag you,” Mikhail cuts him off. “Get that brand of yours up and running again. And then you’ll be delivered back to the survivors of that massacre your bitch committed. To teach humans a lesson, yeah? Well, we learned. And they missed you almost as much as I did. Only this time, they won’t leave you anywhere your boyfriend can find you.”
Itarata’s heart skips a beat. No. No. He’s still angry, too angry to really process the sudden shift in his chest to fear.
“Easier said than done,” Itarata tells him.
“How much harm could getting on the ground do?” Mikhail asks. “Let’s talk about this, like civilized people.”
That feels like a dig that Itarata doesn’t parse. Nonetheless, he thinks about it, and Mikhail is right. He pulls his quiver off the saddle and slides it over his shoulder instead, then slides off the horse without letting how bow drop. He still can’t find the mage. He glances back behind him, at the barrier. How long can they keep that going for?
It can’t be too long. It’s big. “Alright, I’m down. Let him go,” Itarata says. He still can’t find that cursed mage. They can’t turn invisible, can they? He’s been reading up on them, but the resources from humans he’s been able to gather aren’t that good either. Apparently the various human nations spread all sorts of misinformation on the capacities of their mages.
“Drop your bow,” Mikhail commands, and Itarata shakes his head. Two things happen in short succession. One, Itarata’s house whinnies. Two, he feels the disruption in the air as someone lunges for him. He steps out of the way, trying to turn his bow as he leaps backwards, but it’s much too close range. He takes a series of steps in quick succession, backing as far away from the invisible figure as he can.
Well, that answers that question, he thinks, half hysterical. Mikhail makes a noise of frustration, and Morwë takes that moment to buck again, this time slamming his head back and into Mikhail. Mikhail drops the knife and Morwë tries to dash forward, on unstable feet with his hands still chained.
Itarata whistles. He glances over to the barrier, and it’s still in place. His reinforcements have arrived, but they’re on the wrong side of it. All they need to do is touch me, and then I’m doomed, It arata thinks, then forces down his dread. Guess I just need to make sure they don’t touch me.
He runs before he spins to face forward, sprinting in order to get a good start so he can leap up onto a ridge, getting away from the mage. He’s got his bow in one hand, and he only has the one hand to grab the rock side, pulling himself up, but he makes it. At the same time as he’s climbing the rock face further, getting away from Sasha and reaching an angle where he can start to aim his bow, he hears a thud.
Morwë’s on the ground when he looks back, clearly tripped by Mikhail. There’s fresh blood seeping through those bandaids, whatever wound Mikhail gave him opened. Itarata’s got his arrow notched and pointed, but Morwë’s expression of terror, hidden as it is by his bindings, as Mikhail recovers from the head butt enough to stalk towards him sets something off in Itarata —
At first, it’s just hesitation, a wave of paralyzing fear making him unable to aim properly, but then Mikhail’s standing over Morwë and then — Itarata’s seeing double. He knows, logically, that it’s Morwë on the ground and he’s across the way, that the invisible mage is probably climbing up to get him, but at the same time—
He’s on the ground. The humans are standing over him. Itarata’s eyes are open, and he sees it’s Morwë’s hands that are chained behind his back — the finger missing just like Itarata expected -- but also, it’s him.
It’s him screaming without words. It’s him being forced into the dirt, over and over again. Rolled over, a weight on top of him and inside him, replaced, replaced again, barely a moment of hesitation between bodies slammed into him. Hand over his mouth, fingers in his mouth making him wretch. Every inch of him, a toy.
A kick into his ribs.
He remembers the laugh. Endless. He wants to scream at them to shut up, but no sound comes out of his bruised throat. Someone orders him to open up, and he bares his teeth, but that doesn’t stop them. Nothing stops them. He’s terrified, and he’s empty, and he’s nothing, just flesh.
He tightens his grip, tries to aim, but his vision is blurry. He doesn’t know where he is. Itarata tries to find safety, tries to find Esteldur where he’s been practically nonstop by Itarata’s side this past year, but Esteldur’s not there. His eyes find Angiel’s, on the other side of the barrier, and that’s not any better, because he can see the horror on her face.
This can’t be happening. He can’t freeze. He won’t be weak, and he won’t lose. He forces himself to breathe. He steadies his aim, takes an extra second. Mikhail is the only other person in the world to him now. Morwë is just a body, beneath him, and Itarata is about to let go.
There’s a touch. A hand, around his ankles, between his boots and where his armor covers him up. And then—
Burning. The shot is fired, but it goes wild, nowhere near Mikhail. The pain flares to life in the center of Itarata’s back, as if it’s being burned into his skin all over again. His mouth opens, but he can’t hear the scream that comes out. He loses his grip, only on the bow but on the rock. He doesn’t realize that he’s falling until he hits the ground, and even then, it’s nothing in comparison to the white hot agony. His thoughts are nothing but a steady stream of no, repeated over and over again. Horror and terror war in equal measures as he tries to twist, tries to reach for where his bow must’ve fallen as the pain starts to fade ever so slightly, but then he hears Mikhail’s voice, sharp and clear.
“Stay down,” Mikhail orders, standing up. Morwë’s still sobbing or maybe screaming against his gag, and somehow, despite the pain, Itarata’s capable of making out the thudding noise as Mikhail kicks Morwë in the ribs.
You will obey humans, the memory trapped in the brand intones. Itarata can’t move, can’t do anything without the brand flaring to life. He knows the way to stop the pain, knows that if he just lets himself stay down as Mikhail wants, it’ll let up, but he can’t — he won’t let this happen again. “N-no!” Itarata screams as Mikhail approaches. Persistent, steady. Not particularly rushed. Itarata’s vision threatens to go white, as he fights through the pain, doing everything he can to try to get to at least an arrow. Mikhail reaches him and crouches down over him.
Itartata remembers the way Mikhail looked as Morwë carried him out of the cell, remembers the sound of his screams from the cell over. How? How can you do this, when they hurt to you too?
“Missed me, Ityo?” Mikhail says, and Itarata feels bile in the back of his throat at the familiar nickname. Or maybe that’s just the pain, leaving him nauseous. He crouches over Itarata, the position so familiar that Itarata wants to scream— but he’s already screaming. “As much as I’d like to catch up now--“ and his hungry eyes tracing Itarata’s entire frame betray exactly what he means by that— “Sasha can’t keep the barrier going forever, and your friends are trying to find another way in. I think we should get out of here before that happens, don’t you?”
“I think you should— die—“ Itarata gets out between the waves of pain.
“Shhh,” Mikhail says, and the pain sharpens even further, each scream setting off the very pain that forces him to scream. He can’t see anymore, his simple body functions starting to malfunction at the volume of pain. He knows it’ll only be moments before he blacks out, and he wants to say something, to signal to Angiel somehow, but it’s too much. It’s just too much. “Daniil, it’s safe to come out now.”
Another one? is the last thing he thinks before the darkness brought on by agony takes him. He’s not conscious enough to make the obvious connection. A combat mage to catch him— and a scout mage to bring him somewhere far from here.
But he'll understand eventually, far too soon.
