Work Text:
How long had it been since the farm, she couldn't remember, it felt like forever but truly it had only been a few months. It didn't matter. Ira wasn't alone anymore, Elesa was finally here.
***
Elesa tugged at the collar around her neck but it didn't budge. It was done up annoyingly tight and secured such that she couldn't loosen or remove it. This wasn't the first time she'd worn a collar though, she'd been owned by a Jinn once before, when she was younger. She got sent back for biting too much. It hadn't been too bad, the food was better, but she didn't like it when others touched her. She preferred the farm, despite Derik's passion for testing new punishment positions on her. At least everyone at the farm was afraid of her. She'd even made a friend once…but she was gone now and far too well-behaved to get sent back.
There was a sharp vibration of pain originating in her neck and spreading outwards across the rest of her body.
'what the fuck'
It hurt but not enough to send her to the ground, it would take more than a small shock to do that, she had experience. Unfortunately, her resilience seemed to make the nasty-looking Yon in front of her angry. 'shit' She'd forgotten he was talking to her, that she was meant to be paying attention. Honestly, lip reading was annoying as fuck and she didn't particularly care what he had to say. He'd send her back sooner or later.
She was buff and broad. Stronger by far than the man in front of her. That was usually enough to keep Jinn from purchasing her. They were only allowed to make pets out of the unfortunate Yon from the farm and not a good pet did a buff Elesa make. This one must have been on a power trip though, thinking maybe he could buy some crappy Yon for cheap, then train her up to be top biscuits. He probably should've spent a bit more money, at least buy a Yon who could listen to whatever intimidation-ass crap he was spewing. He could've been telling Elesa that the sky had turned red and that evil mushrooms were falling at high speeds from space, she wouldn't have known and she wouldn't have cared.
She got zapped again, this time for longer. She was annoyed that she couldn't attack the man, that would've gotten her out of there the quickest, but she was secured by her waist belt from behind and he was standing, rather smartly, outside the range of her legs. He kept rambling, yammering on and on with words she couldn't hear from a mouth she refused to acknowledge, then he paused. Elesa felt a sudden stillness in the room so she looked at the man, was he expecting some sort of response?
She signed: *I haven't a fucking clue what you just said dim wit.*
It was pretty hard to sign with cuffs on, they connected her arms together and prevented certain movements from looking right, but she was long practised by now.
Then the man did something stupid. He walked up and hit her, hard, in the side of the head. She laughed. Her laugh had always been a bit weird and this man found it particularly unsettling. Then she grabbed the front of his robe with both hands and used one of her legs to sweep both of his legs from under him causing him to smash, with the help of some added push force, into the ground on his back.
His face turned to fire and the zapping at the back of her neck started again but this time it didn't stop. Instead, it grew stronger. Her muscles tightened, then shook, her legs gave out and she tumbled to the ground, she began to convulse as the burning electric ringing flew around her body getting still more powerful, she could feel drool on her face, sweat-coating places she hadn't known sweat could coat. She felt the world go grey around her, then black.
She woke up tightly secured, not unusual, with rope, very unusual. Her legs had been coiled all the way up with rope, they'd been done in such a way that her lower legs had been secured first then her upper legs folded on top and secured in the same way so that there was an annoying and painful layer of the awful coarse rope between the inner muscles of her legs. She noticed with a large amount of discomfort that the ropes, which had been tied none-too loosely while she was unconscious, were now pulsing against the very thick and now alert muscles in her legs. She'd been secured to two thin wooden planks that were kept far enough off the group from the rope to slide through but not high enough that it was terribly annoying to drag an unconscious body on top of them. She could feel the edges of the wood cutting into her and wondered how long she'd have to be left there for them to cut through and for her to start bleeding.
Her arms hadn't been spared much either. Stretched out in a weird cross shape, they'd been wrapped up to the elbow, then secured somewhere upwards. The lower part of her arms, along with her hands, were left to dangle and the position was already playing nightmares with her back. Naturally, her head sagged downwards but she didn't leave it there long. Mum had always told her to keep her head up and proud…unless it was safer to keep it down but Elesa had always ignored the latter part of that particular saying.
When she looked up the man was watching her, and then he started monologuing. So she looked at him with an expression that held every millimetre of condescension she could muster and rolled her eyes.
HE SNAPED.
Near his feet was a thick chain. Muttering he waved a similar item into his hand. On one side it was a handle on the other a thick and sparking pink chain. He swung it at Elesa and it hit the side of her ribs with a crunch and a quick burning sensation. This Jinn could cast two spells at once so long as they pertained to the same object. First, he'd summoned the chain whip, then he'd made it burn hot as silver.
He swung again landing a blow to her other side, she felt things crunch as her skin boiled at the contact. He moved around behind her and swung again hitting her back making her arch and scream out inhuman sounds. He took off her zapping collar from earlier, it had left nasty black-looking marks where the contact points had been but that didn't matter much as he wrapped the red-hot metal around her neck instead. Now she couldn't help but look up as the thick burning chain pushed her chin away from her chest while her neck bubbled beneath it.
He came back round the front. He stood, waited for her to say something, to beg maybe but Elesa wouldn't beg…couldn't really. She smirked. I often admire how ignorant she was to do that, to do much any of the things she did honestly. He punched her in the face, hard. It ricocheted her head back and brought about a near-instant back eye but also loosed the burning chain which fell before disappearing as the spell was dismissed. Perhaps the man yelled then giving Elesa one last chance to head him, to listen to his commands but she couldn't hear the idiot and was in no state to make up for that with her other senses. What would she have done anyway? Probably something stupid.
He picked up a poll and swung at her legs, bruising them endlessly and answering the question of how long till the wood made her legs bleed. When he was satisfied with the mess he'd made he grabbed his captive by the chin and spoke four words.
"Are you done yet?"
Although Elesa couldn't hear them, this time she saw them but Elesa's never done with anything. She wiggled her arms desperately, as much as her tight restraints would let her, and signed.
*FUCK YOU*
He spent the next hour breaking each of her fingers.
***
Ira took a deep breath. She opened the door.
"What?"
The sharp question came from a tall man sitting at the large desk on the right side of the room. The question stunned Ira quite a bit.
"a.. You're not angry?"
Horis didn't look up, preferring to keep his attention on the more important paperwork he was filling.
"I am, and I promise Scott will take good care of you later but as I instructed you quite deliberately that this room was off limits at all times, especially when I was in here, and as you haven't thus far shown a powerful resolve to break my rules on purpose I theorise that whatever you have to say must be of great importance to you. Now, let us end your wasting of my time swiftly. Please say whatever it is that you came in here to say."
She figured that this made enough sense and hoped that what she had to say was powerful enough for Scott to go easy on her later.
"It's my friend sir, I think she's in trouble."
"The one from the Office of Service?"
Ira felt puzzled for a second surely Horis hadn't paid that much attention. He looked up from his paperwork.
"I did of course make note of the only other Yon communicating in sign. If it had been all of you France would have put a stop to it long before you turned up, total dictator that man. In any case, I'm sorry you've earned a punishment for this show of concern, I assure you, nobody has picked your friend to be their pet. She's quite…how do I put this nicely…boorish."
His piece said, Horis quickly returned his attention to his work.
"I heard her scream sir. She's hurt and I'm worried about her."
Ever the patient man Horis decided his pet may as well have her anxieties quenched for the price of punishment later.
"And how do you know it was her scream hmm?"
Screams often sound quite similar, it was probably a bird mixed with some sort of psychological trick.
"She has quite a unique scream, I'd only heard it once before…while she was alone with Derik. It's…she's deaf so her noises are a bit weird and her scream…it's not like any other sound."
This piqued Horis' attention a bit and then it piqued Horis' attention a lot because the valley was suddenly filled with screeching yells and calls like nothing he'd heard before. He looked at his pet, her face had gone full white.
"Please sir, she's all I've got."
He didn't stop to ponder what that statement meant, he had action to take.
***
Horis slammed the front door open harshly, barely thinking as he cast the spell. Barely 5 seconds later a short, thin man with blood splatted hands and a dirty cloak appeared but couldn't get a word in before Horis announced himself.
"I heard you obtained a new pet, I brought mine for a play date."
Ira hadn't realised that Horis had noticed her following but was glad he had. The short man seemed to shrink smaller with every moment he spent near Horis. Ira had noticed that Horis had that effect, especially on the Jinn who liked to think they were higher up than they really were.
"I haven't a clue what you're talking about Horis, I-"
"We can all hear her. I want to see her now."
The man seemed shocked, maybe even insulted that he'd been interrupted and called on his bluff but no one could refuse Horis so he led the way through to his torture chamber.
"What is this?"
Horis used his deepest, calmest voice. The voice Ira knew meant trouble. The voice that seemed deceptively safe but would swallow you whole the moment you misstepped. The small man didn't know Horis' calmest voice for what it really was.
"Well she wouldn't listen, wouldn't do a single thing I told her so I took matters into my own hands."
"And this?"
Horris had walked over to the bloody and bruised Elesa and was looking at her mangled fingers.
"She kept moving them, wiggling them around like mad instead of answering me. Thought I'd remove the option."
Horris had walked his way behind Elesa now, looking at the burns on her neck. Elesa was crying, silently, her voice all gone from the harsh screaming she'd done earlier. Ira wanted with all her heart to run over to her, to wrap her in her arms and whisper that things would be okay like she'd done once before but she was trained well now, she wouldn't move till Horis let her.
"And what exactly did you plan to do with her in this state."
The man seemed a bit hesitant to answer but was too stupid, or too gullible, to stop himself.
"Nothing a bit of magic can't fix."
Horis scoffed.
"Even with full training your magic would take months to heal this girl. You're a fool."
Horis had made his way all around Elesa and was standing in front of the small man, easily towering over him and backing him slowly into the wall.
"Did you know this girl was deaf? I know France wouldn't have sold her to you without making you aware of her condition, did you just choose to ignore that?"
"I didn't collect her myself I-"
"So you don't listen to your servants either, highly disconcerting."
The man had hit the wall, he'd also hit his shrink limit. There was truly no way for him to escape Horis' cruel judgement.
"Did you know Yon could communicate using sign? Did you think that maybe, the whole time you spent breaking her, was because she was trying to beg you to stop?"
"she didn't speak"
The man's voice was shaky, almost a whisper. Horis leant in close.
"She couldn't."
He stepped back, as the now white-faced man shrunk to the floor, and turned to Ira.
"Please help free your friend, she's in pain so be gentle."
Ira wasted no time, running over to Elesa and enveloping her in a hug. She felt Elesa's body tense up for a moment before relaxing into the embrace until it became too sore and Ira had to let go. She signed *I'm sorry* to Elesa who tried to shrug but really couldn't then Ira began work unwrapping Elesa's painfully bound arms.
Horis seemed to be thinking to himself but then he turned to the small, white-faced man still slumped on the floor. A pink hazy collar appeared around the man's neck before snapping invisible except of a single circle of black which stayed right at the centre.
"If you ever think of doing anything like this again. If you ever think about getting another pet. This collar will hurt you. No one can see it, but I know you can feel it and if you try to tell someone about its existence you'll find you simply can't. This girl is in my care now, you'll find triple her buying price in your coffers by this evening."
He turned back to his pet…pets. He really hadn't meant to get more than one, no matter. Ira hadn't managed to undo a single knot, not unpredicted really. Almost amusing. He disintegrated the ropes and caught Elesa in a float, holding her body in a way that was surely more comfortable than her previous position. He marched out of the house, his two pets following.