The dark shouldn't have a taste, but it does. It's the first thing Fiesi knows: a bitter, watery syrup sat in his mouth, gratingly stale, seeping into every little gap between his teeth and under his tongue and everywhere. Sawdust swims within it like rough silt, lining his throat. He wants to spit it out, but his jaw is like rock, frozen and distant when he tries to work out how to move it.

Pain comes next. As if staticky clouds rub against one another in his stomach, it begins as a fork of lightning cast in sludge, spawning in his abdomen and then spreading steadily outward in a maze of needles. It's hot, and it burns. An all-consuming blaze that devours every bit of flesh in its path.

His battered senses blur like they've been buried in thick mud, yet his ears still detect the faint whimper. It takes him an uncountable amount of time before he works out the pitiful sound is his own.

Pathetic, he muses, his thoughts slurring and knocking into one another. I can't even die right.

Or maybe this is death. Maybe this is the eternity fate has designed for him: forever drowned in darkness, swallowing the stars' white fire instead of air every time he tries to breathe. Fear wriggles from his gut and scuttles through him like a spider with too many legs, prodding at the lightning-flame pain as it squeezes through his insides. Decay, that's what the dark tastes like. Has he really earned that? A slow, agonising wasting away, the stars taking their time over searing out his existence until he's nothing but a pile of shaking bones? Is that how they deal with cowards?

Another whimper, this one pitched higher, and this time he feels its strain as it rears up in his throat and rolls into sound. He finds he can lift his tongue. He presses it up against his teeth, lips twitching.

I need to open my eyes.

His eyelids are leaden mountains, but somehow he hauls them upwards.

Nothing changes. He forces a heavy blink, cracks his eyes open wider, but still there's nothing to see. Fear's pincers lock into his heart, skipping its next muffled beat. There's nothing but blind, unbroken darkness.

Electricity sparks in his blood, chilled by panic and tingling with adrenaline. Too much darkness.

He sits up sharply, then feels a jolt of regret as knived agony cuts his middle in response. A thick wave of dizziness floods over him, wielding claws that threaten to drag him back under, and he grits his teeth against the whine building in his jaw, waiting for the sensation to fade. It doesn't. Pain is a beast eating him alive, and it's starving. He feels caught in its jaws, hands curled around its fangs until they bleed as he fights to keep them from closing over him again. Whether this is life or death, consciousness or the black, nightmarish void of sleep, he's desperate not to lose it. At least he can think. At least he's still himself, still something.

He holds his breath for as long as he can, until his lungs ache, and then cautiously sucks in air through clenched teeth. Even that hurts. His fingers curl in a shaky attempt to anchor him, uneven nails scraping over a cold, metallic surface.

It isn't the chipped, bloodied castle floor he last remembers. It isn't soil or wood or carpet either, but it's a floor, and it's uncomfortably unfamiliar. Where am I?

After several moments of preparing himself, he gingerly parts a hand from the floor, resting heavily on the other as he lifts it before his face. His fingers wander through the darkness, wriggling as he paws at the icy air in search of something else to break up the emptiness. It truly is cold, achingly so. A shiver courses through him, prickling at the hairs on his arms.

His arm reaches full stretch and still he touches nothing. With a hiss, he pushes himself up further, adjusting the angle to cut more horizontally, and his fingers discover more smooth metal.

He presses down, and they slide, shaping a thin, rounded surface, like a fat wire. His hand jerks left, and the joints in his fingers knock into an identical structure, hitting hard enough to send a dull, muted clang ringing through the otherwise gaping silence.

The fog has retreated from his mind enough for it to connect. Bars.

This is a cage.

Pain's beast takes another flesh-tearing bite, and his hands slap back either side to support him as wooziness swoops back in on breezy wings. He's sure the ground sways with the abrupt motion. Nausea brews deep within the fire in his stomach. He sets his jaw, waiting again for a peace that won't come.

Fire. Where is his fire? Experimentally, he strains deep into his core, reaching. Rigel?

Empty seconds tick by. The thread is so faint, like frayed silk, that he fears too harsh a tug will snap it.

Plan number two, then, if you're ignoring me. Nonsensical hurt prickles in his chest at the idea of Rigel so easily abandoning him yet again, but he shoves it aside, focusing on the steady, painful act of drawing in breath. "Hello?"

His voice emerges as little more than a hoarse whisper, trimmed carelessly at the edges. It yields no response. He tries again.

"Hello? Anyone?"

Black surroundings press down on him until his eyes ache, resentment mixing with the terror that makes them sting. He licks his dry lips. "I need help," he adds, listening to the quiet echo as he swallows the urge to cry again.

There's no help coming, is there, bud?

Another chill sweeps over his spine. It's almost funny how blazingly hot the pain feels in comparison to the frost nipping at his skin, turning the tips of his ears and nose numb. He pats halfheartedly around for the splayed edge of his cloak, but he can't find it; its heavy, comforting touch is gone from his shoulders, leaving only what he assumes his is mud-splattered grey shirt, torn in enough places that the bare patches of skin throb at the air's uncaring touch. Biting down on the inside of his cheek to keep himself conscious, he carefully turns himself onto his side and lays back down again, knees scrubbing against metal as he tugs himself into as tight a ball as his wound will allow. It hardly keeps back the shivers.

Fire. Rigel might be gone, but Fiesi still has his own flame, doesn't he? He's not a powerless puppet. Fighting for some semblance of focus, he props his elbow up in front of his face and grapples inward, fingers flexing.

It takes many more seconds than it should -- that same stale, bitter flavour litters the carving in his chest where his flame should flicker merrily, unchallenged -- but eventually a few licks of warmth are dragged along with his clawing grab and the flame comes. Even the faint blue glow his tiny flicker of a thread casts makes his eyes water. He squints, desperate to see.

The wiry bars fade into view first. They're as slender as they felt by touch, though they also form a sharp curve, shaping the cage into a circle rather than a box. They reflect his flame's bluish tint in narrow stripes of silver. He twists as much as he dares, craning to see what lies beyond them.

Only bland, grey stone stares back at him, forming a room not a great deal bigger than his cage. When he clambers a hurdle of pain in order to inch closer to the bars, he realises that there is a second floor, one a short drop from where he lies. His chest sucks in with his gasp.

Not just a cage, but a rounded one, a hanging one. The sway his senses detect isn't skewed disorientation after all. He really is swinging to and fro with every tiny, throbbing movement.

"A birdcage," he murmurs. His breath comes as mist, hanging white in the air before him, then puffing out again as dry humour froths up in his throat. A searing burn lashes his stomach, and he bites the laugh off in a hurry.

Some sick, twisted joke this is.

"Do you not feel at home, little Kynig?"

A flinch shudders through him, reawakening the sour sting in his veins as his heart squirms. That voice. It shouldn't be a surprise to hear it, but terror and panic dance and swirl in his chest all the same, trampling all over the searing hole carved by a staff of black fire. Even the light of his flame seems to dampen and shy towards him, yet it still sparks enough to etch out the lines and shades of bleached colour that form Nathan's face.

The ribbon of black snake scales is prominent now, stark against faded skin, entirely ringing his left eye before cutting diagonally across his nose in one direction and scattering onto his forehead in the other. He smiles, lip curling enough to let one fang slip out. "I thought such a place would suit you."

From where Fiesi lies, Nathan's head is just above his, peering through the bars at him. Fury kindled in his core, Fiesi sits dizzily up again. So what if it hurts, if he toes the edge of sleep's craggy pit as the beast in his chest sinks in razored talons? Shaula has seen enough of his weakness.

"Funnily enough," he grates out, vision flickering out and then in, "I'm not actually a bird." Flame stringing his fingers together, he cradles it close, absorbing as much of its feeble warmth as possible. If possible, Nathan's appearance seems to have deepened the chill that shrouds him.

Nathan watches him with a curious gaze, lips half-pinched, then slides his thin arms in between the bars in order to rest them, folded, against the metal interior. The cage tilts. Heart pounding far louder than it should be in such a quiet, empty place, Fiesi skirts up the newfound slope, hands and heels dug futilely into the smooth slab in order to prevent him from slipping. The cage is so small when viewed like this. It would take no effort at all for Nathan to seize him, to inject death into his veins a second time, to strengthen agony's raging beast.

His flame cowers into his palm. Nathan's shadow-strung gaze flicks to it. "Put the light away, please."

Fiesi pulls it closer, glaring in return. Anger masks fear. An old trick, but a useful one. "Or what?"

Nathan shrugs and lazily flicks a wrist. Void-coloured fire bursts to life around his hand, radiating bitterness and fear. It rears up like a cobra, and pain sweeps the world in clumsy paint strokes, wrenching a choked scream to Fiesi's lips that barely makes noise at all. Tendrils of sizzling, frosty flame slit open his tender skin and worm their way inside, piercing right through his stomach and into his intestines, twisting again and again like an army of furious, deadly-sharp daggers. Darkness singes his tongue, dragging back up its awful syrupy taste along with the acid sting of vomit. Ashes fill his lungs instead of air. Jaw clenched so tight it aches and chest heaving, he claps a hand to his stomach as if that will make it stop.

Regret fogs up instead. Clammy warmth crawls over his skin as blood seeps through his fingers, thick and fast-flowing. It takes his last sliver of sense not to look at it, though his head grows light all the same. Without thinking, he clenches his free hand into a fist, and his pathetic candle-sized flame goes out.

Black engulfs his vision again. He feels himself slipping, and for several long, aeon-like, agonising moments, he can't tell whether he's lost the battle or not.

But then Nathan's gentle voice penetrates the quiet again, a rough thread tying him to the waking world. "Good," he remarks. "Very good."

Shakily, Fiesi pulls his hand away from his wound. The blood sticks to his palm, stringing his fingers together, dripping down his arm. Imagination's thin shield fails to prevent its image from oozing to the front of his mind. He hates blood. He always has, and the idea of it being his own, of it still rushing to leave his body and stain his skin no matter how desperately he digs for his flame, lurches a more persistent sick feeling to the back of his throat. He squeezes everything shut -- his mouth, his eyes, his windpipe itself, everything -- in the effort to suppress it. He can barely afford to breathe. It all hurts too much.

An acre of agonising silence stretches out. He almost convinces himself that Nathan has left, but the crawling cold of his presence continues to jitter through Fiesi's veins. The cage's slant shifts, then swings, and he slides with the motion, cheek resting against the metal floor as he resigns himself to his aching little curled-up ball. It doesn't feel as cold now; his skin is a chill in itself. His arms tremble.

Emptiness presses up against his ears, and he can't help the urge to fill it. Words rasp over his tongue through the thin passage of air he grants them. "I thought you were eager to kill me."

Nathan's light chuckle dances from somewhere behind, though his steps are muffled and ghostly, impossible to place. There's nothing evil at all about such a heart-tickling laugh, and his tone is shockingly casual as if purposefully designed to mock him. "I was. You were dead for a short time."

If possible, Fiesi's mouth dries out further. His shallow inhale hitches, squeaking out nothing more than faint exclamation when he tries to find his voice. Dead. His heart thunders.

"Yes," Nathan says, the nonchalant shrug practically audible in his voice. His words drift in and out of clarity. "I know, it was terribly boring. I dislike boredom. So I brought you back!" Delightful triumph tinkles in his giggle. "Incredible, is it not, what flame can do?"

"You..." Fiesi's lungs empty with the single, dread-filled syllable. The air suddenly tastes sickly sweet, and floats right up to the top of his head rather than inflating his chest, spinning around and around until the cage floor beneath him feels very far away. Maybe the stars' judgement truly does sear amongst his insides. Acid surges up his throat again, and he shoves a hand over his mouth, forcing himself to slowly, painfully, swallow, though his stomach churns.

A hard sigh looms from somewhere close by. "Do not panic too much. You will still die eventually." The sound of a knuckle tapping a bar rings out dully, the cage rattling as it's nudged into a swaying circle, before it abruptly jolts to a halt. Fiesi shrinks in on himself, teeth gritted. He flinches when Nathan speaks again; the whisper seems directed right into his ear.

"You do not deserve to die just yet, little Kynig," he hisses. "A single moment is far, far too quick. No, you will suffer for a long time, in every way that I have suffered, and then again and again until I am finally satisfied." His voice slithers, serpentine in every way, and even blinded, Fiesi is sure those diamond scales glare at him from blanket shadows. Shaula's darkened laugh assaults his ears. "Soon enough, little bird, you will be begging for your end to come, I know, but I will not give it to you. The road ahead of you is torturous and twisting. You will scream many times, and I will drift soundly off to sleep to their pleasant tune, smiling as you grow to hate these tatters of life you once clung so fiercely to. I am well versed in the arts of pain, and I will teach you well."

Fiesi feels as if he's in a dream, the kind where he can't stop falling, the world an endless, unforgiving abyss. A silent tear traces the side of his cheek.

A singsong hum grazes his ear. "Oh. Say hello to Rigel for me, will you, Fiesi? I would not want him to miss the show."

Nathan's voice is far too close, infinitely too loud, grating like sandpaper over every thought and rubbing up every cowering fear it comes across. Fiesi cringes, but he can't get away from it. His body is heavy and drowning. Cracked as his voice is, he drags it up if only to cling to its feeble sound. "So... this is about Rigel?"

Exhaled amusement puffs from Nathan's nose. "Rigel." Something between a laugh and a snarl slits right through the middle of the name. "I suppose it could be, if you are to think in such bland, straight lines."

"Then it's pointless." This is a plea, isn't it? Fiesi knows it's a futile, desperate ploy, but still he shoves out the words, coating them in an easy, familiar bitter paste. "Rigel has never cared about me. He won't... feel anything no matter how much you hurt me."

A scoff, followed by words laced with a smile. "Perhaps you do not know your god as well as you think."

Tangled confusion and curiosity are short-lived emotions, bleeding out into indiscernible splashes within the instant. Reeling pain rolls over Fiesi's mind. There is too much of it and not enough blood in his veins nor fire in his core to counter it. He tries to breathe, but instead sucks in a wave of darkness, and it crushes him.

I need to stay awake, he tells himself, but he isn't strong enough to fight that battle any longer. His thoughts blur together, and then he really is tumbling headfirst into a dream, searching for wings on his back to slow his descent. They never come.

───── ⋆⋅♛⋅⋆ ─────

Surprise? :D

I couldn't kill off my favourite boy yet, of course. Gotta make him suffer first.

- Pup