The lightning hits again, and he’s evidently been biologically fabricated with so much metal: she can catch a glimpse of it as it lights him up, that ethereal blue-white outlining the Soldier’s augmented skeleton. His jaw clamps down on the pain, muscles gone rigid, biting down on his tongue so hard he draws blood.
But pain is an old friend. They’ve trained him with it long enough, over and over.
So it only stalls him for a moment. While the others battle around them, he reaches out and catches the fabric of the general’s kefta with an iron hand which seems more like a claw; it digs into the heavy material as he clutches her her tight to his chest, and then with a sharp lurch and a flex of those wings, he simply leaps off the edge of the wall and into open air, a raptor dragging away its prey like a hare caught in its talons.
And they’re flying away, while he leaves the rest of his men behind to die.
She could still fight, could still struggle, but each beat of those wings carries them higher — high enough that even a squaller who can buoy herself with wind and slow down the rate of her descent, well, she’d probably still wind up splattered all over the landscape below. When Zoya thrashes one more time, there’s finally the first sign of some sort of humanity in the khergud, a raspy voice which calls down:
Whatever Zoya had expected, this wasn't it. She lets out a surprised yelp when he scoops her up, damn near effortlessly. And then they were flying. Legitimately flying like a damn bird.
This is nothing like when she temporarily suspends herself with wind, it's- it's terrifying. Most notably because she is not the one in control of what's happening. Despite everything in her that says she should fight, she can't. She's paralyzed by the thought that he could drop her, that she might fall too fast to stop herself.
"That was incredibly stupid," she bites each word out of her mouth like it pains her to do so.
The silence drags on too long — the Soldier is not a good conversationalist, he wasn’t trained to be — until it seems like he won’t respond, or perhaps if he does say something, then the wind will tear it away unheard.
But then there’s a shift; his grip slipping slightly before he readjusts, hefting her a little higher and held more secure against him so she won’t slide out of his grasp. For safety, more than anything else. The steady beat of his wings continues carrying them through the air in the meantime: south across the border, towards Shu Han and the waiting installations he came from.
“Why?” the khergud asks. “The mission was successful.”
She was the mission. None of the others had mattered, either on her side or on his.
Unwittingly, a gasp escapes at that shift in his grip— it was a short, fleeting second of feeling weightless in the worst way. She feels the too-solid wall of his chest against her back, and all she can hear is the sound of those wings carrying them across the skies. It’s uncanny how far he can take them, and how quickly.
“Because,” she bites out again, “they’ll be coming for me,” but it strikes her even as the words come out of her mouth. “But your masters are hoping for it, aren’t they?” The word is chosen specifically, with purpose to gauge just how deep the conditioning might dig. He does realize he’s only a body to them, doesn’t he? A tool to be used, and discarded as soon as they find a better one in the box.
There’s a pause. It’s hard to tell if the barb landed or if it managed to hit on any wounded pride, because his voice remains just as blank and toneless when he responds: “Above my paygrade,” he says. “You were the mission.”
As far as he was concerned, he was a well-trained hunting hound. He was returning home with this prize in his jaws, just as instructed. Whatever they decided to do with her afterwards was irrelevant. If they needed the Soldier’s services again after that point, they would tell him. They are his masters, and he has no particular opinion on it.
In short: the conditioning ran deep.
But he does add after a moment: “Don’t try to fall and kill yourself. They’ll just capture more of you.”
Sankta Zoya of the Storm was the crown jewel, the prized general, Lantsov’s favourite right-hand Grisha— but Shu Han would certainly content themselves with her death, and then simply turn to other kidnappings if she de-clawed Ravka by removing herself from the board. Suicide was beneath her.
“Is that all you care about?” she asks, words sharp as a knife’s edge, though she is certain none of it matters to him. I’m all likelihood, he doesn’t care at all, about anything. Not now. Not in any way he might have at some point in the past.
She doesn’t dignify the second part with a response. She’s not stupid. There are far too many ways it could go wrong if she tried to get out of his grasp. For the time being, she’s… a bit stuck. She’d rather take her chances once they’re on the ground again instead. The odds feel better, even if that’s just what she has to tell herself to her through every next minute that passes by.
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no subject
Date: 2022-08-20 07:57 pm (UTC)But pain is an old friend. They’ve trained him with it long enough, over and over.
So it only stalls him for a moment. While the others battle around them, he reaches out and catches the fabric of the general’s kefta with an iron hand which seems more like a claw; it digs into the heavy material as he clutches her her tight to his chest, and then with a sharp lurch and a flex of those wings, he simply leaps off the edge of the wall and into open air, a raptor dragging away its prey like a hare caught in its talons.
And they’re flying away, while he leaves the rest of his men behind to die.
She could still fight, could still struggle, but each beat of those wings carries them higher — high enough that even a squaller who can buoy herself with wind and slow down the rate of her descent, well, she’d probably still wind up splattered all over the landscape below. When Zoya thrashes one more time, there’s finally the first sign of some sort of humanity in the khergud, a raspy voice which calls down:
“Don’t.”
no subject
Date: 2022-09-20 11:03 pm (UTC)This is nothing like when she temporarily suspends herself with wind, it's- it's terrifying. Most notably because she is not the one in control of what's happening. Despite everything in her that says she should fight, she can't. She's paralyzed by the thought that he could drop her, that she might fall too fast to stop herself.
"That was incredibly stupid," she bites each word out of her mouth like it pains her to do so.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-27 09:10 pm (UTC)But then there’s a shift; his grip slipping slightly before he readjusts, hefting her a little higher and held more secure against him so she won’t slide out of his grasp. For safety, more than anything else. The steady beat of his wings continues carrying them through the air in the meantime: south across the border, towards Shu Han and the waiting installations he came from.
“Why?” the khergud asks. “The mission was successful.”
She was the mission. None of the others had mattered, either on her side or on his.
no subject
Date: 2022-09-29 11:32 pm (UTC)“Because,” she bites out again, “they’ll be coming for me,” but it strikes her even as the words come out of her mouth. “But your masters are hoping for it, aren’t they?” The word is chosen specifically, with purpose to gauge just how deep the conditioning might dig. He does realize he’s only a body to them, doesn’t he? A tool to be used, and discarded as soon as they find a better one in the box.
no subject
Date: 2022-10-23 11:56 pm (UTC)As far as he was concerned, he was a well-trained hunting hound. He was returning home with this prize in his jaws, just as instructed. Whatever they decided to do with her afterwards was irrelevant. If they needed the Soldier’s services again after that point, they would tell him. They are his masters, and he has no particular opinion on it.
In short: the conditioning ran deep.
But he does add after a moment: “Don’t try to fall and kill yourself. They’ll just capture more of you.”
Sankta Zoya of the Storm was the crown jewel, the prized general, Lantsov’s favourite right-hand Grisha— but Shu Han would certainly content themselves with her death, and then simply turn to other kidnappings if she de-clawed Ravka by removing herself from the board. Suicide was beneath her.
no subject
Date: 2022-10-24 12:27 am (UTC)She doesn’t dignify the second part with a response. She’s not stupid. There are far too many ways it could go wrong if she tried to get out of his grasp. For the time being, she’s… a bit stuck. She’d rather take her chances once they’re on the ground again instead. The odds feel better, even if that’s just what she has to tell herself to her through every next minute that passes by.