Loyalties [Zero & Confrazzled]

[Confrazzled]

Oriarra kâ??Vanstir, the Light-of-Foot and Swift-of-Summons was feeling that she lived considerably less than up to these titles, her badges of honour from among her Elven people. Tonight she felt rather cold and miserable, run near ragged as she was with the duties which had blown her hither and thither over the course of the last moons, barely lighting in one place long enough to catch her breath. All dispatched from the kâ??Vala Grand Palace, centre of the Even kingdom, rooted as it was in the heart of the sacred wood. Its walls were made of ancient living trees, trees just as ancient as her race, their branches and trunks twining together and latticing, with the odd constructed platform and large segments of arcanely-alloyed roofs, glinting gold in the sunlight and looking to have shingles like overlapped, heart-shaped leaves. The scout-courier had spent little enough time in the surrounding Elven capital as well, or its myriad of outlying enclaves and villages, and far, far too much time darting amongst the human settlements, gathering and distilling intelligences for the raging war, and contacting those requisite.

So perhaps it was her homesickness that led Oriarra, or Oria as she preferred to be called, to sloppiness on this particular eve. Perhaps she was chilled and damp from her lack of a fire, or tired from the long hours of fleet-footed travel. Perhaps it was the sickly air of the wood, drained away of so much of its magic by the proximity of the humans, and the lack of Elves to tend to and restore the balance. That illness always affected Oria; set a sick dullness in the back of her mind. In any case, she had been less than cautious as she selected a suitable sleeping tree for the night, sturdy broad-limbed maple that it was, not noting that a long inky strand of her knee-length hair had escaped her braid, and dangled beneath the canopy of leaves. Did not notice that she had left a single strand of her emerald woolen cloak in the caned clutches of a nearby bramble. Did not notice much at all, save that eerie magical silence of the woods, and that the moonâ??s half-revealed face passed periodically behind clouds, as she tried to sleep on. Closing her emerald eyes to the waking world, and with bust pressed to branch, legs dangling on either side, and cheek resting there too, this was about as comfortable as she would be getting for the next pair of weeks, as she ventured towards the designated contact with the precious, coded letter.

 

[Zero]

Her own slippiness in conjuncion with some bad luck would eveutnally spell doom for Oriarra, as she unforutnantely setup her camp near a human encampment, disguised just as a small village. The guard were out patrolling when they had caught wind of the elf sleeping in the tree. After all, they knew where to look for elves, and for all her troubles, she would soon be much more homesick than she was now. Once they had spotted her, they reported back to their commander. After all, if she was not alone, then trouble might be abrewing, and currently the facility was not at all prepared for an assault. It was no outpost, as no outpost would be stupid enough to put themselves so deeply in the magical elven forest, as they would be easily noticed.

No, what Oriarra had stumbled upon was much worse, a human prison. Human hunters when trailing the edges of the forest brought their captures and whatever they found here, in order to either figure out what they knew, or perform experiments and dissect them for information. However, most elves were chivilric enough to kill themselves or become mortally wounded before landing in the hands of humans. This time, Oriarra would not have the chance. They arrived at her tree later with specific instructions to take her alive, as they loaded a very high dosage tranquilizer dart and shot it at her, before removing her from the branch and bringing her down to the village where she was quickly brought underground for immediate quarintine.

Strapped to a large machine now, something akin to an electric chair, they began to monitor her, using the best anti-magic technologies they could as they waited to see what would happen when she awoke. After all, most elves were resistant for some reason to their tranquilizers and would not be out for long. Perhaps it was the magic in their body that drove it out of their systems. Whatever the case may be, they hoped that they had enough to contain her magic, otherwise, ... she'd be fried if she attempted to escape.

 

[Confrazzled]

The first thing that Oria became conscious of was the press of a sharp metal plate in her back. Something akin to iron, perhaps an alloy, for it tingled in that taunting, near-searing way that iron did for all Elvenkind. At least, for those with any drop of Fae blood. The second thing she noticed . . . gravity had disrighted itself. She was no longer stomach-to-bark pressed against the tree, the whorls of the rough maple bark marking their patterns in her flesh. She was seated on something, something hard and level. Her eyelids blinked blearily, clearing away the herb-induced sleep. This grog, too, she recognized as amplified, unusual, and the weight in her limbs . . .

Her arms jostled at her sides, flexed the elbow, but would not raise. They rattled something, clanked it. She glanced downâ??her arms, they were shackled, strapped to the arms of some brutalizing beast of a chair. Her ankles too, as she tried to move them, tried to raise from the seat. She leaned forwards and another band dug in at her breast. She was trapped, she wasâ??her heart beat madly against her ribcage, now, as if it, too, wished to escape its confines. Perhaps it would be safer if it did, for then she would not be here, would not be forced to betray any of the myriad secrets of Elvenkind and her princess, not to the humans whose cloying, sanguinous scent filled her nostrils, along with the dank marshy dampness of the dungeonry that trapped her. Buried her beneath the earthâ??s surface, where no elf was ever meant to go.

Her emerald eyes grew frantic as she swiveled her head and her glance darted from wall to wall to wall, taking in the room. And finally flitting upon her captor.

She clenched her fist. Where was her knife, Moon-Lady damned be it? All of these straps in the way and nothing but an endless trail of tortures ahead for her . . . Oria wished death for herself, and swiftly. But the heartless humans would not grant such mercies. Not with such a prize of military intelligence in their grasp . . .

Her mind cleared enough to form a coherent, crystal-sharp shard of a thought. The incantation. The one that every adolescent elf was taught to read but never to speak, the one that would drain onesâ?? life force away, disperse it to the lattice-lacing of tree roots that tunneled through the ground, carrying them to each corner of the Elven Forest and all at once, so that they could cease to be an individual but become a part of it. And now, it seemed, was Oriaâ??s time for just such an action. Five words. Six. But the seventh, the fateful seventh scorched upon her tongue as she released it, strangled in her throat as her tongue matted dry against her palate. Again, she tried to force the seventh word from her lips, felt the telltale tinge of magic gathering at her toes, her fingers, struggling to enter her body.

 

[Zero]

She was indeed a very rare subject. They did not know what secrets her mind could hold, nor had they ever been able to capture a live elf successfully so intact. Of course, this left her much more dangerous as the human in charged stayed back, awaiting any feedback she might have. She must be dealt with very carefully, but of course... that didn't mean that she wouldn't be made as uncomfortable as possible, nor did it mean she wouldn't still recieve most of what the humans knew of torturing, especially when it cames to the fae.

After all, the room she was in was filled with 'artifical'. There was no real life anywhere that she could draw more magic from. The chair she was sitting in was iron, and the light which only semi-filled the room were all of candles and other such, nothing of the pure shine of the moon. And the walls of what had been dug into the ground were lined with concrete and such, not allowing her to reach the roots and the plants in order to attempt to regain her magic and such.

Kai, the captain of the little devision watched as she seemed to be attempting to say something aloud as the feedback began to occur. However, he wasn't about to just wait and watch her attempt some sort of either escape mechanism or a suicide... no, the chair she was hooked up to ran through to some stored electrical lines, and she was about to get a sudden jolt of human voltage, something that there had been cases of dispelling certain elves. Of course, the amount of voltage also fried the gentle bodies of their species so, currently what would be running through her body would not be too strong, but hopefully enough to halt any more attempts or perhaps the best effect would be the draining of magic from her body.

 

[Confrazzled]

The surgence of arcane, white-fireâ??s energy ripped through her body, seizing each minute animalcule and vibrating it wildly. Animating them, and yet draining away her true energy, strip-sweeping away the magic that laced her lattice of tendons, strung her muscles, coursed through her very arteries, flowed in and out with the tides of her breath and held her head erect, atop the pale swanâ??s neck. She shrieked before it flopped forward, lolling against her chest, every pore felt fair to sizzling.

This was torture, this was . . .

No. She needed to persist, endure. Oria gritted her teeth, tried to force those seven words from her mouth, shape them with that sizzling tongue. First, second . . . â??Arranagh!â? she shrieked again, as the pressure of the electricity built, pooled in every part of her body.

Persist. Endure. Her tongue formed the strange syllables slowly, carefully, even as her face contorted in pain about them, and her limbs writhed. Painfully she managed all seven, and yetâ??

Nothing. Nothing happened. Not even the familiar tingle of its working greeted her fingerâ??s and toes, tickled them with deathâ??s embrace. Her magicâ??the humans had trapped her magic. Somehow tied it into the cords of their chair. But they could not wield it, certainly? Her emerald eyes widened and darted about, frantically, as she took in the absolute vulnerability of her position, the meticulous squelching and elimination of all things natural and even remotely magical from this room. As she took in the cluster of figures that seemed to be responsible for this abomination.

 

[Zero]

Kai watched as the elven girl continued to attempt to use magic, as it ebbed from her body. When finally she stopped speaking, he also stopped the voltage traveling through her body. He sighed, finding that he was sweating just a little. Luckily she wasn't dead, because of the voltage or because of her own wish to die, and that was of course, the hard part. He moved out of the little clean room he was in and over to the room where she was kept as he smiled to her walking towards her in the chair. "Well well, looks like we've finally gotten one of you hmm? How does it feel, to be the first elf alive in the hands of the humans?" He asked her, gloating just a bit that it was under him that an elven warrior had finally gotten captured.

There was quite a bit of things that they could do to her now, but he figured he'd have plenty of fun before getting too serious. After all, she must not be part of the main regiment, nor would people be looking for her much if she was just alone. Many a time the elves traveled in groups, and when one was in trouble like she was, they would come after her quite quickly, or kill her before they got a chance to capture her like this. however, none of those applied to this elf, and unfortunantely for her, being so special was now going to make her become something she would have neer wanted to become otherwise.

 

[Confrazzled]

She simply looked up at him, glaring. Emerald eyes narrowed and seeking to bore holes right through his skull, as worms through earth or else a flame through ice. Oria buried her fear, buried the startlement at the failure of those perfect-practiced words. Refused to admit to herself, or to him, her complete helplessness. She merely needed to halt, to think . . . there had to be some manner of loophole to this too-meticulously set snare . . .

â??It feels like a fine enough sample of the grand spectrum of your raceâ??s ineptitude. How many years has this war waged, with but a single elf caught in your nets in this manner? For all the good it shall do you.â? The brave, stubborn words were a little firmer than one might have expected from the messenger, normally, but this such circumstances thrust her far from her usual behaviour. â??Savour it, for certainly, I shall be the last.â? These final words she nigh on snarled, though the lilting cadences of her voice made it far more melodic than any humanâ??s would have been.

 

[Zero]

He wasn't going to give her the time, as he already got the guards to go get certain drugs, and other such things which would not be able to course through her veins without the intervention of her magic helping out her body. Oh yes, the elves rarely got sick because of their magics but, now that she was completely devoid, he would have his fun, and then crack her open. "It is very unlikely that you'd be the last, since you're going to be the one helping us gather up more of you. You're going to be our little double agent, because despite what they might tell you, your mind is much more simple than ours, and will be easy for us to crack open like a nutshell."

Kai laughed before he moved to the door as a syringe was given to him through a slot, as he took it and held it in front of her. He tapped the thing to make sure there were no bubbles and then squirted it a little before he moved to her arm... placing it slowly into her to make sure it was inside her vein before he slowly injected her with the liquid. "Now, first we'll use your body for some tests hmm? See how you'll react to some of our human drugs... this one is quite interesting. It'll make you more sensitive, and bring out some more of your.... primal instincts." He chuckled before pulling it out, the whole of it now inside her.