Captured

[The Imfamous AKA]

Eithinae, from her position before him, simply smiled softly as she watched the gears turn in her new pet's mind. It was so much fun to watch them contemplate the possibilities. Not that anyone could ever tell when Ethinae, strict, emotionless Ethinae, was having fun, but nonetheless, this moment, with every prisoner, was one of the closest instances to the idea. However, this one surprised her.

Rather than the blossoming fear and anger she was so used to find in her charges eyes, this one held a different gift behind within his expression. She was not expecting to see the grudging respect for her methods. Of course, the other Guardians, to what extent they could, being Guardians, respected and honored her expertise, but she had never, not once, seen such a response in a captive. And, for the faintest moment, it gave her pause as she tried to decided what, exactly, she could do with it.

In the end, she decided to do as she always did: continue on with what she did best. Her pause looked like nothing more than courtesy, as though she was waiting to ensure that he didn't have anything else to say. Only then did she step further forward, to come to stand before him as he dangled from the ceiling. She glanced up at him, then gave a flick of her fingers. The stone chains abruptly lengthened, letting him fall back to the ground before they adjusted to hold his arms above his head with his feet on the ground. "You're right, of course," she murmured smoothly, still not liking that she had to look up to speak with him. She preferred to be at eye level with her pets, otherwise she tended to strain her neck. With another short hand movement, the stones beneath his feet moved as well, first rolling to knock him to his knees and then spiraling up over his legs to hold him in place. He was a good deal taller than her, when standing, so he was only a bit below her once he was on his knees. The chains continued to grow and shrink as she adjusted his position minutely until his eyes were level with hers,

"I plan on doing all of those things. Particularly, the 'driving you mad' part," she admitted, her sly smile still in place as she reached out, tracing one long, sharp nail along the line of his jaw. "Now, since I predict we'll be spending an extraordinary amount of time together, there is something I think you should know about me." She let her hand return to her side, though her unnerving white eyes never left his. "I am impossibly fond of games. And one game, in particular, that I enjoy playing with our guests here at the Styxx, is one that I think you'll become quite familiar within the next few days...

"I like to call it 'Is It Real?'" she murmured. "It's a very simple game. If you can correctly tell me whether or not something is real, you get five minutes to catch your breath. If you can't, I resume. So, I believe I shall start you off with an easy one--no pain present to cloud your judgment--just to ensure that you understand how it works." She let a hand fall to the stone that had curled around his legs, up to his waist, that was holding him immobilized. "Are your bonds real?"

[Rojo]

The young man's mind whirled at the suddenly infinite-seeming amount of likelihoods and unlikelihoods that seemed to spread out before him. It was. . .mind-breaking, to think about how many things you took for granted, how many things you just assumed were solid, were really there and you could trust. Now, nothing was real, everything was only possible. The walls suddenly seemed a little fake, the Guardian before him seemed too inhuman, this could all be one large manipulation of his mind and in reality he was in a dark cold room, alone, far away from everyone here, with nothing but some dark and tormented Guardian there with him, creating this entire fantasy. Was he even in the city anymore? Such thoughts would drive a man insane.
He stopped thinking like that and tried to focuse on his 'supposed' immediate situation.

Kite considered his captor's words. It was an interesting dilema-- with that tantalizing gift of a few moments of collection to allow himself to recuperate from the endless torture. It was an offer nobody could refuse, after that session of torture followed by the revelation that his very foundation of reality was, in fact, maleable, or like fluid; escaping beneath his fingers every time he tried to grasp it.
Unfortunately, Kite was a cynic and he too liked games.
He looked at the stone binding him in place, keeping him below his captor who even now he wasn't sure was even there. He turned his gaze upwards, looking into that pale, cold face, seeming to him like the face of winter itself, unforgiving, playful with its prey before taking the final bite.

Kite allowed himself a small smile, looking her in the eyes, his own so harsh-and-worn, as if he had spent many more years on the planet than anything physical would show.
"Of course, this game is entirely pointless, as you could merely tell me that I am wrong when in fact I am right, merely increasing the feeling in me that this place has no form, that nothing whatsoever is real, you could just toss in random answers regardless if they were true or not," he paused, looking into the corner of the room for a moment before meeting her gaze "of course, this thought process itself only furthers this belief and so does damn near everything I think or say. It's very. . ." he gave another pause "clever," he chose the word like biting an apple "almost like an illness, infecting my every thought until I lose my mind entirely based on the idea that even that does not exist. . ." he continued to smile inanely at her, but his eyes sparkled like beetles. She could probably tell by now that this was his method: mask the fear with cockiness, defiant congratulation and the illusion of understanding.

"And even then, perhaps if you were to allow me to think I had got one right, that too could be fabricated. . .you could be assuaging my mind with the illusion of a respite, while in reality my body was still feeling unbelievable pain. . ." he allowed the smile to flourish slightly, feeling a small triumph that he had, in some way, broken the rules of his captors game through anaylzation.

"Pardon me, I tend to monologue-- it's a habit. Wouldn't happen to have a smoke would you?"

[The Imfamous AKA]

Suffice to say, his rambling amused Ethinae. People hid their fears and insecurities in different ways, and even when his guard was up, he was still delivering insight into his mind. If he chattered through his fear now, he would most likely chatter through it later. And later, with so much pain running through his body, it would be much more difficult to filter his chatter. A stubborn talker... She did so love the strange ones.

But his last question--or, more eloquently, his last request--drew her from her studious examination. And, before she could stop herself (not that she would, it would serve to unnerve him further), she laughed. It was a soft, melodious sound, keeping in with her cruelly flawless image. "You don't seem to understand yet," she murmured carefully. "You are in my world now. And in my world, I have anything I want." She lifted a hand, and with a delicate flick, produced the roll of nicotine he so desired. With her other hand, she waved past the tip of it, and when she pulled it away, a thin ribbon of smoke climbed from the lit tip.

"And you have what I choose to give you," she completed in a murmur. She raised the cigarette to her lips, halting the flow of smoke long enough to pull some into her lungs, holding it for a moment before releasing it, turning her head away from him. "But I suppose you've been a good enough sport," she added, studying him contemplatively. "Even if you won't play my game... yet. I'm sure you will eventually; they all do.

"So, as your reward for supposedly "figuring me out," I suppose I can give you at least a bit of what you want." She put the cigarette to her lips, taking in another draw. This time, however, she held the smoke in her mouth as she caught his chin in her free hand. She pressed her lips to his, her sharp fingers on his jaw forcing him to open his mouth, and she let the smoke drift from her mouth into his.

The taste of nicotine and char remained for a moment as she pulled back. The soft, twisted smile never left her lips for a moment, not even as she backed away. "Now then," she began, twisting the hand that held the cigarette. As her fingers passed it once more, it was gone, leaving nothing but the remains of the last curl of smoke as she placed on hand on her hip. "Shall we continue?" She didn't wait for a response, simply twisting her other hand into a fist, tightening his bonds around his legs, exerting even pressure across his lower body like a constrictor crushing it's prey.

[Rojo]

Kite tightened when she leaned in close, moving her face towards his. He showed some reluctance, the thought of making contact with that. . .that creature made him feel dirty. He tried to turn his face away but she forced his mouth open, breathing into him that familiar and warm sensation-- a constant throughout his life.
But as she pulled away, he found himself almost trying to lean after her, as if he hoped he would recieve another small dosage of something. . .something he remembered, something he could rely on. A part of his mind realised his actions and he reeled back, disgusted to find himself near begging for the Guardian to give him his sweet release, the steady intake of nicotine, the thing he sought most now he had tasted it once again.
A darker part of hid mind raised a hand, a smirk on its face and reminded him of the fact that not even that cigarette smoke was necessarily real. One of the quintessential cornerstones of his being-- nicotine was now. . .simply a series of impulses in his brain caused by her. Of course, Kite didn't know the full explaination for this, but he understood the concept, once more as it was drilled into him, a dark and cruel reminder: she controlled everything around him, everything he thought he saw, smelt, heard, touched and or tasted. That sweet comforting smell of cigarette smoke, the taste of it as it rolled over his tongue as he breathed it in, once again finding himself desperately trying to keep hold of that one thing and once again being reminded it was meaningless.

The pressure on his legs brought him out of his thoughts and he looked at Ethinae, trying to find something, anything in that gaze to fathom, something to occupy his mind lest the darkness creep inside and take him. . .if the madness didn't.
Kite grimaced against the pain and looked down at the mass of stone around his legs. He desperately tried to find faults with it: did it make a grinding sound as the stones moved in? Would it make that sound in reality? Did the stone feel right? Though that was the problem, wasn't it.
The Guardians were never wrong, never imprecise, never erred in their plans or ideas.

There was no release.

[The Imfamous AKA]

There was nothing in her gaze to fathom. The two tiny circles of her black pupils were fixed as intently on him as his eyes were on hers. Cold and calculating, and everything a Guardian was supposed to be. At least this Guardian, too unnerving to let out into public, too odd to be seen by the people who were forced into Guardian subservience. Even with her lips quirked up into a cruel little smile, nothing broke the coldness of her icy white eyes. And a rebellious human would not change that now, no matter how deeply into her he tried to look.

Her expression did not waver as the stone continued to tighten around his legs. Her hand lifted again, as she leaned against the wall beside the door once more, taking her favored post. With another twist, the cigarette, still lit, appeared once more. She felt him move as she offered that little bit of nicotine to him, and knew then that he wanted it more than anything, except perhaps his freedom. And it was tiny little insights like that that would help her to break him.

After another short drag, she began to speak once more. "Is... It..." She punctuated each word with a tiny gesture with her smoking hand, and the stones tightened sharply with each gesture. "Real?" At the last word, she put her hand to her lips for another breath of the smoke he craved, as the bones in his legs began to crack, little hairline fractures spreading all through his legs, shooting a much sharper pain through his body.

[Rojo]

Every thought seemed to hurt, seemed to be another step in the direction of blissful insanity. None of this seemed real anymore. . .the power of doubt seemed to seep in. The walls seemed too close, the floor too high and the ceiling too low-- everything was too imperfect. But reality itself was imperfect, was it not? Nothing was truly flawless and who was to say she hadn't accounted for that? Nothing was true. Nothing was sacred or safe-- not even the thoughts that flickered through his brain like a dying fire seemed to have origin or ending, it all blurred into a single endless word and the word was pain.

She stood by the door, that tantalizing possible freedom and this pain was back in his lower half, though instead of the burning before it was a slow, definitive squeezing, he could hear his bones creaking and cracking, sharp and irregular trenches of pain being dug into his bones, as if there were veins running through them carrying acid. Despite all this, she stood there, watching him, a cruel and merciless smirk that did not reach her eyes on her face. Kite wanted to smash that smirk, break those teeth and give her the pain that she had caused him, to burn her, break her, as she was breaking him.
She reiterated her little game, her question, that infuriating calmness and slow deliberating with which she phrased it, each word bringing new, fresh and oh so much worse pain with it. Surely soon his bones would be crushed to dust and he the pain would stop.

Every nerve in his brain was screaming at him to give her an answer, any answer, just on the slim chance she would play fair, that it would give him that release she had so dutifully promised. But the darker part stood up, outraged and angry, reminded Kite that nothing a Guardian said could be taken for granted, that they never showed compassion or mercy, nothing in the human spectrum of emotion that some people would call 'positive.' To her he was just a toy and she a little girl, something to play and experiment upon until it broke, but she would not cry because there would be more, shiny new toys for her to play with, to break.
The question still stood, hanging in the air like some predatory beast, waiting to be unleashed on Kite, dropping from the ceiling and tearing him limb from limb. His throat felt tight, as if contricted by invisible bonds and he felt sweat trickling down his face, his arms shaking uselessly in the bonds above his head, the veins sticking out on his arms as instinct forced him to at least and attempt to break free. The man's legs were in agony, the feeling as the stone slowly closed in, his eyes screwed shut as sweat dripped into his eyes, making them sting. Just a few words and maybe the pain would stop, or at least the method through which it was delivered would change. . .something else, anything but this claustraphobic, crushing pain in his legs, like he was being squeezed by the hard fist of a giant until surely his brain would pop.
But through these hazy thoughts, the dark thoughts rebelled, they refused to allow her the satisfaction. But the older and even darker thoughts suggested that merely by squirming this way, the shere knowledge that she was causing him such physical torment and mental conflict was satisfaction in itself for a creature such as her.

His brain was on fire now and it was screaming at him to give an answer, any answer, the darker parts now just squabbling, so much noise along with the rest of his brain.
"I don't know!" he yelled at her, opening his eyes, allowing them to burn into her with hatred fully now, his calm, collected and churlish defiance gone, allowing the forges behind his eyes to smoulder with unadulterated loathing.

[The Imfamous AKA]

Though her enjoyment seemed to be growing as his mind began to twist, it cut off sharply at his exclamation. Her smirk died away, and her fingers curled into a fist over the cigarette, snuffing it into another puff of smoke so that it died with her smile. With the motion, the stone around his legs tightened once more, almost threateningly, as the bones in his lower legs finally snapped definitively. Still absolutely fluid, and with nothing but the lack of sly smile to hint at her change in mood, she pushed away from the wall to cross the room once more.

Her cold, emotionless face twisted into a faint pout, not liking her game ruined by his response. Her fingers slipped apart, releasing the fist that held him so tightly, and as the digits splayed, the stone disappeared entirely. Though the stone was gone, the pain in his legs didn't flee with it. "I told you, I'd start out easy," she began, sounding for all the world like a petulant child whose game had been ruined. She moved around him, nudging his shattered leg with one white satin clad toe, sending pain shooting up through his body.

"I thought you grasped the concept," she continued softly, once more taking his chin, forcing him to look at her. "No permanent damage. Now, then." With her free hand, she manifested the cigarette once more. It had appeared and disappeared so many times that this, at least, seemed to be a false part of "her" world. "I'll give you another chance before I revert to a game that I doubt you'll... enjoy quite as much..." She took another breath from the cigarette, then smiled cruelly. "Is it..." She pressed the lit tip to the sensitive skin just beneath his eye, adding another burn to the myriad pain already accosting him, sending the scent of burning flesh to attack his nose and eyes once more. "Real?"

[Rojo]

There was a crack like a whip, only louder and with significantly more sound and there was another crack that started a fraction of a second after the first, as if they were in competition. Kite could not hold back the yell, sending the pain and the rage and the confusion out through a single primitive sound, which had no describable tone, pitch or texture, only volume, like the bellow of a wounded gorrila. He hung by his arms, legs limp and broken to his mind, the pain beyond description, he heard a loud ringing in his ears as the agony took his body by the horns and shook him.
When the Guardian nudged his leg, the pain was refreshed, making his back arch with agony as his brain was brought into conflict, the cynic desperately trying to tell his natural instincts that it wasn't real, that the pain was not there. But his sense could not outweigh that which he had been born with, not dissuade his brain from what it percieved to be. It was cruel trap, forcing to tear himself apart from the inside as the part of him that thought independantly told him none of the pain was really there, that he could stop feeling it at any time if he only willed himself to do so. But instinct was too strong-- his legs sent defeaning messages to his head that they were completely destroyed, nothing but hundreds of fragments of bone, crushed, snapped and splintered into oblivion, something that if it had really happened would have been beyond the skill of any surgeon in the City.
But as his captor said, 'No permanent damage.' The words echoed through Kite's head as he half-knelt there, his legs crippled and bent, shards of bone poking through in some places, a particularily large splinter of bone sticking out through the back of his knee, slumping onto his left side which was. . .it wasn't even less painful, it was just more pain, only in his left side instead of right. He was vaguely aware that he was bleeding, but he couldn't feel it individually, it just seemed to blend with the immense, all-consuming pain of his shattered legs, like the legs of a plastic toy, crushed in a vice by some bored and spiteful child.

Breathing heavily, Kite looked up at his captor, coated once more in his own sweat and it stung his eyes, making him squeeze them shut and open them, wanting to see here. He saw the cigarette in her hand, but he did not desire it, for the pain had obliterated any personal want, desire that he had held previously, it had removed any individual thought and it had filled that space, making the agony a part of his own self, as if he were built on pain and it flowed through him, making him whole and at the same time broken.
Ethinae lowered the cigarette to just below his eye and pushed it into him and there was more pain, new pain. Kite almost. . .almost relished it because it was a different pain to the other pain, this one was more refined. It was hot and it was precise and it was white. The smell of burning flesh returned to his nostrils as it had when Ethinae had made him think he was burning, it filled him, his eyes rolling upwards as if he were delirious, high on the smell of his own searing skin. He gave a single loud yell which stretched on into eternity, never-ending, never-stopping to his ears.
Kite did not hear her question, he did not stop to consider if his pain was real, nor did the cynical part of his brain offer a helpful insight.
There was no emotion, no thought, no self.

Only the pain.

[The Imfamous AKA]

"Really now?" she murmured, a bit taken aback by his bestial yelling. She lifted the cigarette from his skin, leaving a charred black circle as she pulled away. Her face didn't shift from it's pout as she took another drag. She could see the draw of these little things, and why he had craved it. It was rather nice. "Perhaps you're right..." She turned away, and, with a wave of her hand, the pain in his legs dissipated. The weakness, as though his muscles were either gone, or refused to cooperate, was still there. The fatigue of pain lasted much longer than the actual pain.

"I may be overdoing it a bit for your first time," she continued, moving about half the distance between him and the door before turning. "Breaking you on our first visit wouldn't be very civil, now would it?" Though the pain in his legs was quickly fleeing, leaving his body whole once more, there was still a very sharp reminder of the pain imprinted on his face. The perfect black circle still marred his face like a dark, cruel tear. It either demonstrated her precise control over his perceptions, or implied that, while his shattered legs were imagined, the careful burn was not. "It simply wouldn't do to destroy you beyond usefulness... yet..." Her pout twisted back into her cruel, soft smile.

"Last chance," she said softly, gesturing with the cigarette to his face. "Is it real?" she asked, her tone never changing, but somehow implying that she was beginning to lose her patience.

[Rojo]

The pain began to fade and slowly, the unending whiteness slowly began to recede, to allow Kite back, though it took him several moments to remember his name, where he was and why he was there. He looked up at Ethinae, the sweat born of his imagined pain still giving his skin an unhealthy wet shine.
He could feel the harsh sting of the burn underneath his eye, that sickening smell of his own body burning still thick and heavy in his nostrils. His eye began to water, a single tear running directly into the burn. Kite grimaced as the salt in his tear made intensified the pain and he let his head drop forward, gritting his teeth.
Surely it had to be real. It felt so. . .so there, like she had really burnt him. The smell was so. . .toxic, so nauseating that it almost seemed as if it were impossible to fabricate. But the cynicism never stopped, it's little voice once again chipping in to remind Kite that nothing whatsoever, from the clothes on his back to the chip of stone next to the door, miniscule and unimportant. Despite how complicated it seemed to his mind, perhaps to the mind of a Guardian. . .her mind it was as simple as moving your hand in front of your face (the irony of this comparison was not lost on the captive rebel). This train of thought was maddening and threatened to derail Kite entirely-- that someone could be so powerful they could create a room so detailed and intricate with a mere passing thought, as if they had the eye of an artist and some great invisible brush that could paint entire scenes. . .only very very quickly.
Kite was (perhaps thankfully) torn away from his self-destructive musings by Ethinae's words. His heart skipped a beat when she opened him up to the possibility she might soon leave, but something in a dark recess of his brain explained the full implications of this to him-- without Ethinae, he would be left alone with his thoughts, slowly but surely driving himself madder and madder without any further input from his torturer, slowly dilapidating his own mind, allowing Ethinae's seed of doubt to blossom into a flower of total denial of. . .existence. He was sure that if allowed to alone with himself this would drive him insane.

And suddenly he didn't want her to leave.
Throughout their session whenever Kite had begun to dwell on the entirety of Ethinae's power over his perception, he had been drawn away from it by pain or the Guardian had said something that had reminded him of his hatred for her despicable brood. But now, faced with the prospect of being allowed to dwell on those thoughts, to be left with those. . .concepts, to grow and develop. . .well, it didn't bear thinking about.
So he tried to answer her question, in the desperation it would keep her there just that much longer, to give him another second or a reaction which he could mull over when she had gone, use as fuel to keep his fires of animosity burning, when the beacons of hope, courage and defiance had all but snuffed out.
The pain felt real. He tried to recall what a burn felt like, the hot, throbbing pain it felt like-- unfortunately being burned wasn't the most likely thing in a city where the weather often included snow, hail, sleet or more snow. But he knew that feeling. . .when you got to close to the fire and it felt like your insides were hotter than your outside, as if the blood was boiling. He imagined what it would be like multiplyed by a hundred. Perhaps it would be something like the throbbing, dark black pain under his eye.
Kite dragged his gaze to his captor, meeting her eyes again with steely resolve, confident that he would be right, despite the cries in the back of his head that he was playing right into her hands, allowing her to know she had gotten him to play her sick little game.
It made him feel physically sick to know he was trying to make her stay even a fraction of a second longer and his mouth tasted dry, disgusted with his own actions. But he had assured himself that without her, an object to focus his attention on, something to pour in all the negative emotions, he would lose himself permanently.

"Real."

[The Imfamous AKA]

Everything was still for long moments as she waited, almost patiently, though the coldness in her eyes belied that, for his answer. The still silence stretched on for long, impossible seconds that stretched into eons after his answer, her pale face as unmoving as the brilliant marble it seemed to be carved from. Of course, it was only a moment, and then she moved, her harsh smile spreading into one that actually seemed... somewhat real, to have some sort of feeling behind it. Perhaps what she had told him was true: she did enjoy games, and enjoyed them that much more with an active, though unwilling, participant.

"Very good," she murmured, her smile finally reaching her cold eyes. She turned from him, her free hand moving up as she turned. At her request, the stone lifted, a few paces from him, into the crude, sharp shape of a chair. Nothing more than a seat, a back, and two arms, at least as it began forming. As she crossed to it, it continued to rise, and steps leading up to it sprouted from the stone as well. She turned once more, sinking into her new throne, and her eyes were still level with his, though now there was some distance between them. The arms of the chair, where her elbows rested, were wide, almost like small tables on either side of her, and, with another little gesture, a divet formed in one, just in time for her to tap the ash from the end of the burning cigarette into it. "You know, you really could be quite good at this," she said softly, still watching him carefully, though, still bound, he was no threat at all. "You have the conviction you need, to stand by your decision, even though, really, we're just playing a game of luck." With another appraising look, she tapped her chin with one long, sharp nail thoughtfully. "I think you may deserve an extra prize," she continued. "To make up for how harshly I've treated you, thinking you were going to be nothing but a waste of my time." With another wave of her hand, the pain of the cigarette burn cut off, and with it, the remnants of the pain throughout his legs. There was still the faintest stench of burning skin, proof that she wanted remind him either of her skill or of the tangibility of the burn, but other than that, everything was gone. Even the dull ache in his shoulders where the stretch of his weight upon them was removed. Proof that, given the right incentive, she could use her skills in ways that might be beneficial to him.

"You have five minutes." She held her free hand, palm upright, as a sand-filled hourglass, much too small to represent an hour, formed in her palm. She turned it, letting the grains pass into the lower bulb, and set it on the arm of her chair. "Use them wisely." Her voice trailed off as she took another drag from the cigarette. She paused, contemplating the little burning roll of paper rather than him, for a moment, then returned her gaze to him. "You know, I can see why you like these so much. They are quite nice..."

[Rojo]

The moment after the word left Kite's mouth seemed to stretch on, a fractal of moments within moments, each one a shard of glass in the mirror of the moment, falling endlessly through a black void and each shard held the image of Ethinae's impassive, pale face. The path could divulge-- he could be given five minutes for his troubles or the pain could continue.

She smiled.

And the moment vanished, half of the mirror shards exploding into a thousand pieces as all the outcomes that could have been but never were ceased to be. Kite did not relax as his captor slowly formed herself a seat, settling into it despite its uncomfortable appearance. He held her face in his gaze, so calm and impassive despite the pain she could cause, the illusions she could conjour. She had almost complete control over him. . .and didn't she know it.
But he did feel relief; though he didn't show it. He felt the white hot pain under his eye dull to nothing, though that tell-tale smell remained. So she had burnt him. . .really had burnt him. He was quite sure from the intense, focused pain that he would have a reminder there 'til the end of his days, now. A pink or white circle under his eye to remind him of his time spent here, in Styxx Penitary. Though, that all depended on whether he escaped or not. . .or whether there was anywhere to escape from.
Inwardly, Kite relished in his momentary release, though he reminded himself that the pain could return at any moment-- or that possible the pain had never stopped at all and indeed that his body was being damaged possibly to the point of irreversibility and this was all a very drastic alteration of his perception. It would have sent a shiver down his spine (if Kite were to allow himself to indulge in such useless motions) when he thought about that; in reality his body being consumed by fire or needles poking into every inch of his skin while the sick creature before him allowed him to think he was at peace, perhaps even enjoying himself, adding insult to injury as the Rebel imagined himself laughing insanely as his body blackened and burned in flames which burned higher and higher, giving off thick acrid black smoke as he became less and less.

But Kite had learned that while his captor could induce pain in him, she could also take it away. Of course, this should have been obvious from the start, however it is not something one thinks of when they are under torture-- the removal of pain. Though now he knew that she was capable of it and by his reasoning (of what little he still had left) she was experienced enough in torture to know that with tactical induction and removal of pain that one could bend almost any victim to their will by playing little 'games' like Ethinae's. The carrot and the donkey-- give them the possibilty of a release from the pain and they would run to your heart's content, in whichever way or whatever speed you so desired.
And it was working.
Despite this knowledge of what his torturer could do with her abilities, Kite found a nagging voice in the back of his head that was eager to move on to the next round. Now that he knew that he could stop the pain, he would be encouraged to try and do so more often, slowly turning his mind into the malleable, simple thing his captor wished it to be.

He felt angry-- her pain relief was poison. It created false hope, made him believe. And in the harsh world he lived in, belief and hope were not words he found himself at home with-- you stood by what was infront of you, what you knew for certain. Kite narrowed his eyes at the woman in the chair and found more fuel to stoke the fires of loathing deep in him when he thought there was nothing. And yet he had no name to place his. . .hatred to, nothing to focus it on. He knew that in the times she was gone he could use this, siphon the name through himself over and over, focusing his mind on it. He brought himself to speak, barely.

"What do I call you?"
The words were kept barely calm, his thoughts still bellowing at her for her deception, her false relief. Soon the pain would be back and it would define him.

[The Imfamous AKA]

As the grains of sand slipped into the lower bulb of the hour glass, Ethinae did little but watch him. She seemed, for the most part, either apathetic or unaware of the mental strife that was wracking him. She was neither, of course, as he slipped into her trap for him. She did so enjoy when they played along, though that hardly showed in her almost bored countenance. Ethinae prided herself on that image, that no one, especially not other Guardians, could see past her carefully blank face into the twisted mind below. She was good at what she did, but knew that offering up the weakness of how much she enjoyed it, how much she preferred to play with her prey, even more so than simply breaking them, would be a surefire way to open herself to an attack. She was allowed her fun in the Styxx because she consistently delivered results, not because she enjoyed it. And such a weakness, even for one as useful as she, could amount to tragedy in the Caverns. Even if a Guardian were to enter now, in the middle of her most preferred of games, the slightly arched brow and the tiniest curl of her lips would not be enough to convey anything she wanted to hide. For one so adept at stealing others' secrets, she made a dangerous habit of keeping secrets of her own.

She was pulled from her carefully constructed reverie by his question. It was an odd one, she would give him that, and it took her a moment to respond. "You do realize that's a strange question, don't you? I think most of my contemporaries would tell you to refer to them as 'Master,' or some such." She paused, but only for a moment. "Of course, such bland, subliminal trickery is rather boring. I don't think I'll follow their lead. My name is Ethinae, and you may use it." By her wording, it sounded like the use of her name was just as much of a gift as the removal of the pain that had been haunting him. Everything move she made was a careful addition to his downfall, and this would be no exception. A name was the first step to gaining his submission, and every time he spoke it, or even thought it, she would be supplanting herself a bit further into his mind, and make herself that much harder to escape.

[Rojo]

Ethinae. . .

Her name echoed through Kite's head, reverberrating off the insides. He fell upon it, twisting around it and examining it, how it sounded, how she spoke it, the intonation and the speed. She had delivered it as if it were a gift and in some ways it was. Kite thought that if he had a name to place to his captor's face, he could focus on that, keep himself ground in reality.
"Ethinae. . ." he spoke the name and it came rolling out over dry lips, which Kite licked until they were moist to his satisfaction. THe twisted irony was that while he thought her name would be his savior, in reality (a word that now felt so fickle) it would be his damnation, reiterating her control over him.

But then the doubt in the back of his mind reared its ugly head and breathed out the foul stench of uncertainty over him.
Perhaps her name, perhaps Ethinae's very image was false. Maybe his torturer wasn't anything like Ethinae at all. But a sort of. . .black humour came to Kite, as it often did. He has to assume that this five minute respite was reality. All of it. Because, he would never truly know what was real so he had to make his own.
Kite's eyes flickered to the hourglass which sat on the arm of the chair, each grain seeming to fall far too quickly. His throat felt dry, so he swallowed, eyes moving over Ethinae now. He tried to memorize her features, her idiosyncracies, then the room-- the dimensions, how the walls and floor looked, how high the ceiling was, the distant sound of running water. . .
All these things had to be memorized, kept in exact detail, because this was the latest in a long string of crackpot ideas Kite was pulling out of his ass in increasingly desperate attempts to keep himself from cracking.

Once again, Kite's eyes moved to the hourglass on the arm of Ethinae's chair. To him, it seemed to have so little time left-- maybe Ethinae had changed it when he hadn't been looking, or had but had altered his mind to forget she had altered the hourglass. Maybe this 'five minutes' was more like 'five seconds' or maybe she had extended it into hours, maybe days, months. . .years? How long had he been here?
His new 'strategy' kicked in. He didn't know how long he had been in here, but he was certain it hadn't been very long because he hadn't felt tired, which ruled out the days option. He was using what he knew as a base. If he assumed everything that had happened to him in his life so far was real and had happened, then he couldn't have been in here for more than a few hours. This was what he deemed real now.

This was his reality.

[The Imfamous AKA]

Her face remained carefully blank, hiding her amusement as he so desperately scrutinized his surroundings. He tried so hard to protect himself, to build up walls of defense against her methods. It was ineffective, of course. She had complete control over his perception, even if she didn't have access into the deeper levels of his mind as of yet. If she wanted him to feel tired, exhausted, broken down by hours and days and weeks, she could. It would be as simple as changing his surroundings to make him think he was elsewhere, somewhere safe. Of course, as it was, she didn't have enough information to employ some of her more dangerous techniques...

Gaining complete entrance into a prisoner's mind was an ongoing process. Simple, surface invasions as she was applying now was only the first step. It allowed her to chip away that her subject's mind, breaking in bit by bit, gaining snippets of information. Each snippet she gained made her illusions more complete, more seamless, and, therefore, more effective. But she hadn't gotten any of those useful little bits of information yet, so this would have to do for now.

Though her eyes were on him, she saw the last few grains of sand fall from the periphery. Completely without haste, she snuffed out the cigarette carefully in the little ashtray she had created, and then rose. Only once she was standing, her lips quirked into an amused little smile once more. "Time is up, my little rebel," she said softly, almost affectionately, knowing her tone would unnerve the man. Without warning, the pain she had been suppressing set back in, excruciating in it's sudden onslaught. However, it was not as intense as before, considering his body had had time to recover from the injuries that didn't actually exist. Only the burn beneath his eye and the wrenching tug in his shoulders remained, the only injuries his body had actually sustained.

She enjoyed coming up with new ways to inflict pain--both real and imagined--but it seemed her fun was to be cut momentarily short. A jolt shot through her system, not painfully, simply as though alerting her to a change in her beloved penitentiary. It was not a familiar sensation, but one she had recognized immediately: someone had broken through a sealed door. However quickly the alarm drove through her system, she showed no outward sign of it.

"It seems I must correct myself," she murmured softly, tilting her head to one side. "I have a pressing matter I must attend to, and as such, I must cut our session short for the time being. I assure you, I won't be gone for too long." She turned away at that, giving him nor room to comment on her sudden, strange departure. At least until she paused in the open door.

It was a brief pause, precluding her turning. "Don't get too comfortable, now," she said softly, one hand raising to twist about the air. With the gesture, the rocks surrounding his lower half rose, coming to enclose tightly about his chest. The hold was not so tight that it would suffocate him, but just enough to make breathing difficult. The fight to keep himself conscious would prove an effective distraction during her absence.

The door closed definitively, leaving Kite to his thoughts and his struggle.