Catherine Wheel && Mancudera!!
Catherine Wheel — How much pain can your muse withstand?
surdû. To say that she has a high pain tolerance would be an absolute understatement. It may appear that she doesn’t register pain, and for the most part she does not recognize small amounts of pain and as it grows in intensity she simply ignores it; when it reaches levels that would make most people bleed from their pores, she endures it as silent as a sepulcher, unwavering — perhaps only with a flinch of squinted eye to hint at her horrendous torture. The ability to block out the hindering effects of pain is a skill she has developed over the course of many years, hundreds of battles, and thousands of wounds. It’s not that she does not feel pain, just that she ignores it, and it’s an ability that many find daunting when facing her. That even when gored through the leg by javelin, or an arrow burrows itself in her flesh that she will keep on fighting, continue to move and pay no mind to the wound in question.
However she isn’t able to feign an inability to experience pain for every level … as I stated earlier, if she is able to still charge even if her leg has been impaled, she will, but those wounds and constantly moving irritate them, and also make them worse, so she cannot persist for very long because there is a certain point where, not because the pain so much un-bearable as it is she understands the thresholds of pain and what it means for her body. She understands that pain is the body’s way of saying, “this isn’t supposed to be happening” and thus avoids it at all costs, but when it crosses the threshold from pain to agony, she knows that it’s about the time her limit has been reached, and even if she is able to withstand more she would prefer not to to prevent any irreversible damage to her body.
Mancudera — What is the most physical pain your muse has felt?
surdû. In the timeline I typically extract her from in her canon, she has not yet visited the Molymnias Islands, wherein she is involved ( as a mercenary from the invading Army ) in a conflict against the Molymnisans. To make a succinct summary of the events that happen there, as a mercenary, she observes the already poor conditions of the villagers and the fact that the invasion of the Astulans ( the people with whom she was “ officially ” sided ) was destroying the crops and, in general, the resources which they were invading FOR. Seeing this lapse in judgement and sense from the Astulans, Kālǐnn had, in a certain way, defected from the Army and had begun to protect the Molymnisans, which she was not. No, she was trying to protect what the Astulans had invested in and were destroying in their attempt to force the Molymnisans into obedience of the Empire once again ( so it was a rebellion lol ). All of her intentions had been to benefit the Astulans, to make them realize that destroying the resources which their entire invasion was made on behalf of was, at best, counter-productive.
However, the Molymnisans took it as a defection to their side of the conflict, as did the Astulans, but both sides became bewildered when she would fight both and either of them if they tried to harm each other — it was like, whose side is she on? Obviously since she is extremely loyal she would have never betrayed the Astulans, but was attempting to protect their investment ( also known as: the Molymnisans and their products ), and regardless this was taken as misconduct. Once she had been assaulted by both the Molymnisans and the Astulans, the Astulans had taken her captive and thereafter executed her punishment for betrayal, which is the point of explaining all of this.
And be aware that the rest of this will disgust most of you, and it is graphic enough that I’d recommend against reading it if you’re overly sensitive to gore.
To put it bluntly, Kālǐnn was first stripped of her armour before the entire army as a demonstration ( voluntarily, I may add, as she was fully aware that she was being punished and did not try to defend herself in the least because she believes that, when she is punished, she deserves it ). They removed her armour, ripped the iron chains from her hair, took out the braids ( which is a cultural statement that which I will later explain ), after which she had ropes tied to each wrist and ankle, and she was suspended, naked, unable to defend herself before the whole army. Everyone. And that was only to shame her.
The things which happened after were only more severe. A few of the infantry soldiers ( among whom she had been serving, these people who had interacted with her prior to her “ defection ” ) were called to the front, and were each handed a wooden club, which they were instructed to beat her with. They battered her arms, legs, chest, back, legs, buttocks, anything and everything but her head — they were not allowed to hit her head so that she would not pass out. They wanted her to be conscious for every strike, every blow, every minute of shame she was displayed as she was. After that, a flogging was administered. It was this which caused her to lose her eye. Where an already disgusting, grotesque scar covering the majority of her back from where she had been split open in a battle years prior, many more were added, and she was flogged to the point where her vision swam and her head was foggy with the pain. The end of the whip was fixed with a flint of serrated steel which tore through skin, and that was lashed against her back, legs, abdomen, chest, and face. Her open stare as she was being whipped disconcerted the men administering it, thought she was being ornery and disobedient, and so he lashed her face as well, popped her left eye right out of socket as the flint of metal tore open an old wound and ripped eyelid and lip. She was suspended there, the gelatinous residue of her eye dripping down her face in addition to blood as she was whipped again and again until she was open and sore and oozing, made a proper example of and then dropped to her knees, hardly conscious, enduring so much pain she was practically bleeding from her pores.
She was thrown out of camp, broken, nude, covered in dirt, bruised, torn, everything you can imagine, with her armour thrown after her as an afterthought, the only kindness they did her as they left her to succumb to infection. The torture came particularly after she had to move her limbs of her own accord, tear her clothes into strips and make a paste to cover her open wounds, and, especially, when she had to stomach the resolve to scrape her own eye-socket of excess flesh from her eye, properly severe the optical cord and remove it.
The most agony she’s ever had to endure was self-inflicted, after she suffered a torturous punishment, to ensure that she didn’t die … and prolong her mental suffering.