Mature: Desert Moon

[Emora Deen]

Lelana went back to her room at the top of the palace, with its beautiful lattice work and its lovely flowers. She paced back and forth until she finally made herself sit down in front of her vanity. She looked at her reflection in the mirror, her real one. She let it morph into the image of Tenele. This was the face of a woman who captivated men. She'd stolen her brother's heart, and had won the allegiance of the vampire. She hated this face, this woman. It was their fault, her and her husband, for Lelana losing her brother. Their life was perfect before they forced delusions into him.

Freedom. She laughed. Freedom was always an illusion. No one could be free.

Lelana went to her writing desk and took out a slip of paper. She began penning a note, and when she was finished she took it down to the messenger in the lowest part of the palace.

"Send this to Hajara, to the King, and to the woman known as Tenele Dracul," Lelana told him firmly.

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad felt more frustrated the longer he worked at the disaster of a room. It wore him down, but he made his way through each pebble and clump of stone. It was easy to break the simple sandstone apart. The palace was not made of anything terribly unbreakable, as he'd just proven. When he did finally find what he needed, he had to strike at it several times, just to be sure. Then he shoved the carrot-sized sliver of rock into his back pocket, summoned the rest of the rubble and dust in the room into a swirling cloud, and threw it all into the corner.

"Clean," he grumbled, shoving back out into the hallway. He didn't know where Lelana had gone off to, and he didn't particularly care. If he could leave without any further altercation with her, that would be ideal. It wasn't like him to leave loose ends hanging out where they could snag, but he didn't seem to know what to make of her. She was merciful and lonely one minute, cruel and desperate the next. He couldn't trust her, but he didn't exactly want to kill her. Not quite. Almost.

He made his way down the long corridor, then decided to teleport to the front door. She'd said this was the only sure way out without getting fried alive. He sized up the large entrance, turned the knob, and pulled.

[Emora Deen]

"I had a feeling you would be here once you found what you were looking for," Lelana sighed, the door slamming shut. "I don't know why I thought that this would go any differently. I don't know why I tried to be nice." She glowered at him. "No more being nice. You are going to suffer now, the only way I know how to make you suffer. Its not pain, no, you know pain too well. I am going to destroy your mind, Vlad. Warp you as madly as I am."

Her eyes swallowed black, and the earth beneath his feet trembled. Black mist wrapped about him, enveloping him in his own private pod of it until the world around him bled away and another one replaced it.

It felt real, looked real, but it was all in his mind. He sat strapped down to a chair in a dark room, a torture chamber of some sort. There were sounds, the clank of boots against hard wood, and sobbing. Distinct, familiar sobbing.

"Oh, don't cry," the man Vlad killed in Lowight whispered to Tenele, touching her face gently.

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad stiffened against the restraints around his arms. How was he here? How did he get here?

As soon as he realized he couldn't move, a surge of bile rose in his throat. Terrified. As much as he hated to admit it to himself, being tied down terrified him.

And then he registered Tenele's voice, whimpering in agony, and the familiar voice of her captor. What was happening? Why didn't his head feel right? No...he'd been with Lelana. This all had to be a trick.

His body didn't believe him. He was trapped, and Tenele was suffering. No. No, it didn't make sense. It didn't make sense. "Lelana," he ground out, covering the tremble that wanted to come into his voice.

[Emora Deen]

Lelana didn't answer him. The realness of Vlad's experience continued.

Tenele's captor drug her by the hair to the center of the room and threw her down on the floor. She was in the garb that Vlad had found her in, the too-tight corset and the ankle length slip.

"Please, let me go," Tenele held up her hand. "I don't know why you hate me."

"Oh, I don't hate you," the man sighed. "Not at all." His hands shifted to his clothing, his gaze fell on Vlad, his head tilting as if it were the first time he noticed the vampire. But, then, he turned his attention back to his prisoner and fell upon her.

[Soran Nightblade]

"No. Tenele! Fight back!" The vampire tore at the restraints on his arms and legs. He couldn't move. He could feel flashbacks to his time with Maxwell, poison in his veins, hopelessness creeping in. Was it possible to hallucinate within a hallucination? It wasn't, right? He stared wide-eyed at the man forcing himself over the person he loved most, forcing his way inside her, damaging her, tearing her unwilling flesh with no care for her pleasure. "Get off her!" His voice twitched up into a howl of rage. "Off!" The ropes ate into his arms, and he didn't care if he had to tear them off to get to her. He decided to try. They'd probably grow back....maybe...

[Emora Deen]

Tenele fought, but it did little good, and by the end of it she hadn't the strength or the hope to keep fighting. When her attacker finished he placed tender kisses on her neck and thanked her.

He tied her up on the rack and left her there, bleeding and sobbing, out of Vlad's reach to comfort.

"Oh," Lelana sighed softly, looking down at Vlad's bleeding arms. "You useless man. She was in trouble, and you hadn't the strength to save her. You didn't try hard enough. Why don't we run through it again, maybe you'll make it this time?"

Tenele disappeared from the rack. Seconds later her attacker dragged her by the hair and threw her down in the center of the room.

"Please, let me go," Tenele held up her hand. "I don't know why you hate me."

"Oh, I don't hate you," the man sighed. "Not at all."

The whole thing played out again.

[Soran Nightblade]

The second time through, Vlad struggled less, focused on calming his frantic nerves enough to make sense of the situation. How was this possible? He'd never witnessed any of this. Why was he seeing it now? How was Lelana doing it? How did he stop it from feeling so real?

The third time through, his resolve broke again. He thrashed, certain he could fix everything if he could just move from this chair. The chair was doing all of this. By the 8th time, he was certain of it. The binds on his wrists might as well be the enemy organ abusing his wife. Every moment he failed to escape was another moment the torture went on. Nothing he shouted had any effect on the outcome for Tenele. It was him.

By the 20th run, his body had gone slack. His blood oozed trails down the legs of the chair, pooled on the floor, ran in rivers around him, and no matter how much he lost, the ropes never budged, the scene never changed. When he looked down, it was just raw bone against sinew, no flesh left to rend. Breaking his own arms should have been easy, but he couldn't make them separate. The chair was his coffin, unyielding and permanent.

By the 80th run, he'd memorized every thrust, every weak jolt of her body, each flash of agony in her eyes. He'd stopped blinking, or talking, or moving. He just stared, the world where he had any power or control whatsoever feeling further and further away. It was the same resigned horror he'd felt under Maxwell's regimen, but now someone else was suffering for it. She was suffering. He just wanted to hold her. He would give anything to hold her. To be forgiven for doing this to her.

[Emora Deen]

Number 100 was the charm. At the end of the 100th run the man left Tenele tied down, as he always did, and turned to walk away. When he was gone from the room the ropes around the vampire's wrists splintered and broke away, falling to the floor around him.

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad fell forward, stumbling to his hands and knees. He hadn't even noticed...how long had he been lunging forward against those ropes?

Tenele....

He left bloody tracks on the ground as he scrambled to her side, his bare bones scraping against each other brokenly. "Tenele," he whispered, cradling her head, afraid to move her more than that, unwilling to face the pool of red between her legs. "I've got you."

[Emora Deen]

Tenele stared at him through red-rimmed eyes. She didn't seem to focus on him for a long time, but when she did she rolled over onto her side and curled into a tight ball around him. She rested her cheek against the arm that held her. "You," she murmured. "Its your fault. Your fault."

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad swallowed his dread. "Okay," he whispered. "Okay, it can be my fault." As long as it's not yours. "I should have gotten here sooner." This was dangerously close to their actual conversation when he'd found her, but she hadn't blamed him then. No matter. It didn't matter. She was safe now, and it didn't matter.

[Emora Deen]

"Maybe we should have one more go," Lelana sighed, leaning over Vlad's shoulder to look down at his broken wife. "But, maybe through her attacker's eyes? What do you think, Tenele?"

"No more," Tenele cried. "Please."

[Soran Nightblade]

Vlad glanced around him at the sounds of Lelana's voice. It reminded him this was a game, a simulation. He was falling for it. He had to stop letting her do this. He just needed to break out, remember reality. But his bloody limbs and the softness of his wife's hair against his hand felt real. Excruciatingly real. He couldn't believe both things at once. It made no sense. "Stop this, Lelana. You've made your point."

[Emora Deen]

Lelana didn't reply. When Vlad blinked again he was dragging his wife across the room by her hair. He could feel the softness tangled around his fingers. The act happened again, and when he was over Vlad reappeared next to Tenele, her arms twined around his neck, her face buried against his chest.