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[Ariana Lenoir]

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Ariana slept so deeply that she looked as if life itself had left her unmoving body and graceful features. However beyond the pristine, peaceful exterior, lay a mind completely enraptured in the dreaming. If she were questioned while awake, she would have said that most of those named in the dream were unknown to her. However, in the dreaming, they were as real and thick in history as if she had known each one for eternity.



"Where is yer loyalty, Sahim?" Ariana asked, leaning over, her face inches from Sahim's puffy, pained eyes that silently glared at her. Beads of sweat mixed with the blood from a deep gash on his brow, slithering into his eyes as his wrists turned and twisted in the rawhide rope. "Do ye love me, Sahim?"

"Yes, Your Grace. My love and loyalty are yours and yours alone," he answered, his voice choking out the words in pure fear. He watched Ariana's pale blue eyes intently, as she caught a small flicker of self doubt in his eyes, his body reeking of fear and a perverse reverence.

Ariana's eyes narrowed, slowly rising with a noble grace to her full height, looking immediately towards one of her guards. "Bring the slut t'me. Now., " she ordered as her cold eyes turned back to the man kneeling in forced submission before her. Her voice dropping to her whisper as her eyes narrowed intensely, "I want t'em in clear sight o' one another."

A young woman is dragged into the room by her hair, her body limp and submissive in the guard's strong grip, as easily as one might drag a kitten. Ariana watched Sahim's eyes turn to the young woman. She was pale and shivering, but silent despite the pain of the rawhide thongs that embraced her wrists and ankles unmercifully. The guard deposits the woman roughly to the floor at Ariana's feet.

"Do ye love anyone else, Sahim?" Ariana asked, her voice smooth as silk, sliding through the air to the bound female's ears.

Cowardice and fear thick in eyes he answered, "None. I love only you, Your Grace." His traitorous words reaching his young lover's ear, eliciting her first sound, the sound of soft weeping filling the marble room. Ariana's eyes focused on Sahim, her eyes dark and dangerous, almost feral in their fixation.

"Very well, Melikar. Ye may proceed," She says, raising her voice slightly as she turns and moves up the steps to her throne, slowly resting upon on it as she surveys the scene before her.

A large man, his skin adorned in tattoos and ritual scars moves towards the pair. In his hand is a loop of braided rawhide rope and a thick, solid baton of oak wood. Ariana watches calmly, her eyes unreadable as she watches Melikar slip the rope over the young lady's forehead, his other hand pulling her to her knees. The rope was braided and knotted tightly and almost appeared to adorn the forehead of the woman as a ritual headband. Melikar steps behind the kneeling woman, thrusting the baton through the rawhide rope, twisting it until it became taunt against the unblemished skin of the crying woman. The knots and braids bit into the fair skin of the woman, causing her to grimace visibly in pain, her fearful eyes focused intently on her traitorous lover, Sahim.

"Slowly Melikar... Slowly, " warned Ariana, "Let us savor t'is sweet, touching moment."

The lead guard grinned twisted the wood as if it were a child's toy, a quarter turn at a time, his sweaty heavy palms gripping it excitedly. With a sick and careful deliberation, he continues as the woman's eyes widen as the knots dig deeper, causing a sharp, pained intake of breath from her pale lips. Her skin drained to the color of dead ashes as another quarter turn, her breath escaping in a long, penetrating scream.

Ariana watched with dark, cold eyes at the torture scene, her strong jaw set in a look of irritation at the sound, her nails lightly stroking the arms of her throne. She watched as Melikar, still grinning continued to slowly twist the baton still tighter, the rawhide stretching against the wood. Almost as if it were merely a illusion of the torches that illuminated the room, the woman's skull began to change shape as the rawhide knots dug deeper into her skin. The scream continued into one long cry of agonizing pain as her head elongated from the constricting rope that slowly continued it's twisting at the hands of sadistic guard. Ariana pursed her lips as she watched Sahim writhe in agony in what seemed to be eternity as the painful cries of his lover continued.

Then the skull burst, resembling the sound of a palm nut being crushed with a thick iron hammer. The woman's scream cut off abruptly as her corpse sagged in the guard's hands. Ariana looked over at Sahim as Melikar roughly picked up the corpse, dragging it unceremoniously across the marble floor towards the balcony. She watched as he heaved it over the edge to the abyss below, "Ye should thank me, Sahim. She was evil an' led ye astray from yer loyalty t'me an' from the Lich Lord. We shall protect ye from any further temptations."

Ariana snapped her fingers and motioned to a small surgeon's case on a stone pillar. Melikar let out a hoarse giggle of pleasure as he snatched up the package, removing a iron scalpel, twisting it in his hand, his eyes admiring the sharp blade.

Sahim immediately began to beg as several guards approached, forcing him to the ground, spread eagle before Ariana's throne. "We will make sure ne'er again will ye do this evil to us," Ariana said, her voice the genesis of anger, ignoring the frantic pleas of the man laying before her.

"What pretty little eggs you have here," Melikar called out loudly, laughing as he stretched the man's package securely and pausing in grim admiration of the task before him. Melikar licked the blade in front of Sahim's frantic eyes and then with a flick of his wrist, he held up the wrinkled sack towards Ariana, who nodded in approval as a choking scream filled the room.

Melikar began to rise with Ariana's nod, but paused at her words, "Ye haven't finished. I want it all, Melikar. All o' it."

"With pleasure, Your Grace, "As he kneeled once more, choking protests coming from the man writhing in agony as the guards held his body firmly to the marble floor. "You'll have to squat and piss like a girl after this, boy, " Melikar laughed, his round, heavy body bouncing in perverse delight. "Don't worry pretty boy, you'll feel a lot lighter with this extra weight gone." Another flick and he held up a piece of flesh, cradling it in his puffy hands alongside the man's sack. He stood and moved to toss them over the balcony, the same path the corpse of Sahim's lover had taken when Ariana's commanding voice pierced the air over Sahim's screams.

"I want t'em. Bring t'em t'me." Ariana stood, holding out her hand towards the surprised guard. Knowing better than to question her, he walked over and deposited the bloody package in her outstretched palm. Ariana walked calmly down the steps towards the man, whose breath is coming in choking sobs before her. She held out her hand at eye level before the prone man, her eyes dark and unreadable. "We are nay so cruel as t'deprive ye completely o' such fine trophies. We will 'ave these sent t'the taxidermist an' 'ave t'em made int'a necklace fer ye t'wear. May it serve as a reminder t'ye o' where yer future loyalties should remain. Perhaps when ye pass from this life, we will see t'allow ye use o' t'em again."

Ariana's eyes pause momentarily, growing distant as if she were listening to something, before refocusing on Sahim. She closed her hand carefully around the flesh and stood up, leaving the room without a backwards glance. She dropped the severed member and the bloody, shriveled sack in the hands of a waiting servant who hurried off on the errand as Ariana retired to her private chamber. The screams of Sahim piercing the night air as Melikar poured a ladle of molten lead over the wound, searing it closed as Ariana's stone door slowly closes behind her.
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