CW: Blood, suffocation, buried alive, language, attempted murder, panic attack, but there is hurt/comfort okay
With heavy eyes, Rayla took another glance at Mor.
“What will it be, broken daughter? Shall we burn together?”
Do. Not.
She had sold her soul before. She could sell her body now. It was just a body. She could be free.
But there was one problem–she did not want to be queen of the ashes. The thought of her enemies burning as they died wasn’t bad, and the thought of a crown upon her head weren’t a deal breaker.
It was the fact that she’d be under Mor’s feet. The queen below another queen.
If she had learned anything from Jvar, it was that there was no purpose to life living in the court of a sadist who wanted to watch the world burn just for the fun of getting what they want.
She would not trade one set of shackles for another.
With shaking limbs, Rayla turned her back on the void without speaking a word. Her throat was starting to hurt from having to talk anyways. She did not need words.
Just as she did before, Rayla began to stalk slowly through the dark tunnels back into the world of light, careful to move in silence.
The last thing she needed was to look into the gaping maw of the grey faced daemons that stalked these tunnels. The fact that they had managed to slip through the tiny cracks in the veil that held back even Mor was not comforting.
The sound of something scraping over rock reached her ears, and Rayla pulled herself out of her own head to take a look.
Instead of the grey, rotting, eyeless face of a full blooded daemon, Rayla met Rasaj. He stood just at the edge of where the thin, cramped tunnel that reached Mor. Even in the darkness, she could see him smile. Just like her, his mouth was full of razor sharp teeth that did not belong to anything human.
“You found what that old bastard was looking for, didn’t you?” Rasaj scoffed. “I heard it talking. That’s why you’re walking back now, isn’t it? To be the good little whore you are.”
The rage inside her was so hot that were it not for the shackles that kept her wrists and ankles close together, Rayla would have torn him limb from limb. Instead, she took a breath and looked him over again, trying to find something useful.
The anger in his eyes meant nothing, it was the small, flintlock pistol that made a difference. If her infamous rampage in the mines had taught her anything, it was the fact that getting shot with one hurt.
But it also taught her that the gun could only shoot once before the wielder had to stop and painstaking reload the powder. That was easy to take advantage of. All Rayla had needed to do was wait for the shot and then come barreling in to close the distance and end the fight with her claws, tail, and teeth. She did not need a weapon. She was one.
“I snatched this thing right off the belt of guard that wasn’t looking.” Rasaj brushed the stone walls with his open hand. “Speaking of guards, nobody has gotten a chance to re-enforce this tunnel yet. Its tiny and weak-just like you- and something tells me it will collapse at any moment.”
Too late, Rayla saw his game. Before she could find a way to rush him without the chains tripping her up, Rasaj aimed his pistol, cocked it, and sent a bullet into the rock ceiling right above her head with explosive force.
Rayla’s heart nearly pounded through her ribcage as she lunged forward to follow Rasaj, who was sprinting out of the tunnel. The chain around her ankles snagged, sending her to the floor, right next to where Rasaj had tossed his now useless gun.
She did not get a moment to scramble to her feet before the ceiling of the tunnel collapsed upon her.
Darkness and pain. That’s what it was. She was pinned beneath gods knew how many tons of rock and rubble. Her eyes were locked shut, and her throat and lungs were clogged with dust. She could not breath, so she laid there and suffocated while gasping and screaming.
There was nobody to hear her and even less people who cared.
The tears fell silently. The pain wasn’t the worst part. It may have hurt like Hel itself to have her ribs cracked, bones broken, and shrapnel stabbing through in too many places, but the worst part was that she could not breath. Beneath the rock, her chest could not rise and fall. She could only suffocate and try her best to scream
Fear was worse than anything. This was her nightmare, to be sealed away too deep for anyone to save her. There would be nobody to save her though.
Alone and afraid, she let the tears fall.
Stop crying. You can’t die and Jvar put you through worse than this.
But she wouldn’t. Rayla was trapped laying on the ground pinned beneath rubble with her limbs bent at wrong angles. She tried screaming, but that just burnt her throat. Fuck.
Stop. Crying.
She did not know how long she laid there without water or food or sleep or even peace from the terror. She did not know how long she gasped in vain for air she didn’t need to alleviate the choking pain.
This was what death must feel like. Rayla was sure of it. Trapped, alone, afraid, and in so much pain that she lost the will to even scream. Was this what the dead she could still hear screaming lived like?
Something deep inside wished that she could just die. She had sold her soul to escape the feeling of being forever stuck and in pain.
Was this how her mother had felt when she had been gutted in the middle of the street?
Rayla lost track of how long she was stuck there. She just let her mind drift to other things. Would she ever get out? Probably not. Just as Jvar had promised, she’d be forgotten and alone until the world burned up into ash and Mor took it for herself.
She should have taken Mor’s offer.
Good. You stopped panicking. Now you need to get out. You need to stand up. You need to survive.
It was true, the wave of terror that had threatened to choke everything else out of her had faded. Rayla was still alive and kicking, or as much as she could be without a soul.
She did not need air, no matter how the cracked ribs stopped her from even trying to breathe. Blood coated the inside of her mouth, the taste so bitter and metallic it was a torture in its own.
She did not need food. Her stomach growled, it's been weeks since she'd eaten, starvation wearing her body away.
She did not need water.
Rayla had made it through worse in Jvar’s hands. Pain is pain is pain. She would endure.
And so she did. It seemed like ages, but eventually a thin beam of light made its way across her eyes.
Rayla dared to blink. The stones covering her face had been shifted. Someone was talking, but the voice was muffled by her ringing ears.
“Well I’ll be damned,” Rayla didn’t recognize the voice, but she did remember the face. Katara was staring down at her through the small opening in the rubble with her emerald eyes. “Hey can somebody help me, there’s somebody trapped on the other side of this!”
Rayla could only watch with teary, bloodshot eyes as Katara swung her pickaxe and chipped away at more of the stone covering her face. Now that there was light, Rayla was seeing stars and her vision seemed to sway.
The pain did not fade one bit.
Bit by bit and seemingly by herself, Katara pulled away at the stone surrounding her until she had been freed up to the shoulders.
“You still alive?” Katara asked as she took Rayla’s wrists in a seemingly iron grip and pulled. Rayla bit down her lip hard enough to draw blood just to avoid screaming. She could only imagine what had been broken.
It was excruciating, but Katara managed to drag Rayla out from underneath the pile of rock. Rayla gave up on trying to hide her pain. With every pull, she winced and screamed and thrashed, but most importantly, she got out.
Someone had given enough of a shit to pull her out of the rubble. Why?
Katara dragged her limp, nearly lifeless body a few feet before laying her down.
Gods below, everything hurt like mad. It was a different kind of pain, but it was still pain. Rayla had learned how to master the dance of screams and blood and broken bones so many years ago with Jvar as her guide. The only other option was to break.
Rayla tried to breathe, but ended up coughing up dust and blood, splattering the ground in what looked like ink. She braced herself and tried again. Slowly, Rayla’s chest rose and fell as she took in the stale air of the tunnel. It tasted fresher than before.
For now, she was safe. She would not suffocate alone in the darkness.
“They all told me about you. Rasaj especially, what a little shit,” Katara said as she wiped away the blood from Rayla’s mouth. Rayla nearly recoiled from the touch, but she was too exhausted to do anything besides accept the help. “They say you haven’t talked, not one word. Nobody knows your name. Somehow you killed twenty one people. .”
With another deep breath, Rayla waited for the part where Katara recoiled in disgust and horror and left her to rot. She was a monster after all. She sold her soul and didn’t die and killed because she had been pushed too far. That was what was underneath all the lying, wasn't it? "
But instead, Katara only smiled and let out a laugh. “I say that’s pretty hardcore,” The dim torchlight illuminated Katara’s face, and Rayla could see that the smile made it to her eyes. “But maybe I just have shit taste.”
Rayla nodded. She had no idea what kind of backwards taste in who to befriend could make somebody like her. Rayla was almost tempted to tell Katara that there were other prisoners here and to go choose one of them.
But she didn’t.
She saved your...life. You owe her at least a bit of trust. She’d make better company than you.
She owed no one nothing.
For a moment, they sat in silence. Rayla waited for Katara to just give up and leave her. It would take a while, but she’d eventually summon the strength to drag herself back up to the surface. She had suffered before. She would not shatter like a porcelain doll. Rayla could endure.
Katara held out her hand. “I’m Katara by the way.” Rayla stretched out her fingers, wincing with every crack, and took Katara’s hand with one that was probably broken.
They shook, but the slight squeeze was enough to send sparks of pain running up Rayla’s arm and she threw her head back against the ground, letting out a small scream.
“Sorry!”
Rayla steadied herself and breathed through the pain. She could not let it break her. Still, the word caught her off guard. It took a moment for the meaning to sink in. She'd heard apologies in Creddian, in her birth tongue, but never in the new common language.
Who would apologize to the dirt that was Jvar’s whore?
Silently, Rayla made herself a promise. That name would be the first thing she would that bastard regret if she ever got out of here. The list of things to make Jvar pay for was long and painful to think about, but that was the one she’d be sure to avenge.
“Just so you know, you’ve been down here five days.” Katara paused. A time element, that was good. She tried to breathe more. “If you don’t mind me asking, how the fuck are you still alive?”
I bet you won’t tell her you sold your soul when you were five. But please do it, I really want to see what happens.
Rayla just frowned. Katara had shown her kindness, she wasn't totally evil. Maybe she wasn't even an enemy. But if Rayla spoke noa, she would have to speak again. She might get close. That was dangerous.
If the world had taught her anything, it was that anyone she loved would fall into two categories. They would either betray her or be used against her.
But most importantly, the cruel world had given her the most important lesson of all.
Everyone you love will die one day.
Watching Cressedia, her home, get attacked had taught her that. Watching her mother get gutted in the street as she looked on from the window had taught her that. Watching the bodies in this wretched place pile up had taught her that.
Listening to the stories of those who had fallen taught her that.
“I forgot, you don’t talk. I won’t make you. But you can hear me, right? You just don't reply,” Katara extended her hand again, and this time Rayla braced herself before she took it. “But we seem one in the same. I’m new here and apparently that's not a thing that ever happens, and everyone hates you, so neither of us have anyone to talk to. Why don’t we talk to each other.”
Katara pulled Rayla to her feet and slung her arm over her shoulder. Reluctantly, Rayla leaned her weight on Katara to ease the agony she felt just trying to stand.
“Come on, let’s go back up and get you to a healer. Time’s almost up anyways.”
Rayla did not trust Katara. Not yet. But she did let Katara help her limp back up to the metaphorical land of the living.
Doing her best to distract herself from her broken bones and bleeding wounds, Rayla focused on her new acquaintance. On the way her eyes shined but her mouth wasn’t filled with teeth meant for tearing people apart and her cheeks blushed red.
After five days in this shit hole, Rayla had devolved into a mess of brown hair matted with her own blood and skin marked with cuts and bruises worn thin around her bones. Even the process of having daemons, and the Akkator thrust into her had ruined her.
But oddly enough, Katara bled red. She was not made of daemons and pain. Her eyes still had life to them, her dark hair was neatly pinned back into braids. The woman smiled, and it was dazzling. It was like staring at a goddess among men. Jvar had killed the beautiful parts of Rayla, replaced them all with nothing but pain and brutality. A weapon or mutt didn't need to be easy on the eyes, but Katara was beautiful.
Just as Rayla was starting to believe she did not even belong to this world anymore, she knew Katara did not belong in this place.
But the damage to her body was the more immediate concern, especially once Katara had pulled her back through the gate and she got to look Rasaj the shitrag right in his awestruck eyes.
Rayla had to admit, sometimes she liked looking like something brutal and lethal that was nasty enough to have crawled right out of Hel. It made most people pause at the thought of trying to break her and watch her bleed.
Even through the pain, Rayla had it in her to smile as Rasaj dissolved into a blubbering mess of cursing.
