Gutterblood 4 - Torture

In a cold chamber in the darkness, a creature was being tortured. It thought of itself as a person, but the ones who had bound it there disagreed. They disagreed with it on many points. For one, they thought of themselves as virtuous, and the creature as evil. For two, they did not believe that what they were doing to it was torture, because they did not believe it felt pain as they did.
The creature did not think of itself as evil. Neither did it label its captors so. But it knew that they were misguided, and foolish, and arrogant, and cruel. And it felt pain, very keenly and in the same way as the ones who caused it.
‘Its’ name was Arrazia, and she was Templeton’s sister.

Arrazia’s captors had strict instructions not to do what they were doing. Abden Carter had told them explicitly that they were not to harm their prisoner in any way. He had said that she was very valuable, but had not told them why. And, like small-minded people everywhere, they had made up their own reasons.
Arrazia was beautiful. Some of the half-fae had a certain charm to them, with thin and regular features that most found attractive in a rough sense. But she was far beyond attractive. So the men who watched her had decided that Carter was looking for the same thing from her that they themselves would seek.
Truth be told, Abden Carter would never have even thought of the idea. And if someone had brought up even the possibility of his sleeping with her, he would have been ill at the thought. Oh, he had no problems with the idea of passion, or even forced passion, but she was not human. He would have been revolted. She was there to keep Templeton in line, and he thought of her as good for nothing else.
His guards, in their zeal to win favor, had decided that if they could teach ‘the creature’ to feel or at least mimic desire they would be rewarded. And so they pawed and groped and fondled, and gave her pain when she did not respond.
The plan was to give her better food when she finally learned to behave, but they had had no luck as of yet. They could not refuse her any food at all, as they were afraid she would sicken or die, but they fed her on refuse barely short of spoiling and bitter water that tasted of the tar used to seal poorly made casks. To give her pain they used a small iron rod, beaten to that shape from ore with only a hammer and much sweat, rather than forged. It left only a red mark that soon went away, so that there was no evidence of its use, but it reacted with the fae part of her blood to cause excruciating agony at the slightest touch. Perhaps because of the lack of outward sign of hurt, and because of their arrogant beliefs, the guards did not know how much pain they caused. Arrazia had never cried out nor spoken, nor made any noise at all since she had been brought to this prison. She did nothing at all but resist, and hurt, and think.
She thought about many things. She thought longingly of her home in the woods, where she once would play the harp and sing for the elohir, tiny spirits of the woods. She thought desperately of her brother Templeton, and wished with all her heart that he would find a way to come and rescue her from this place, to take her away back to the woods. And she thought with a black and abiding hatred of the man who had put her in this place in the beginning.
But of her current situation, she thought not at all.