Work Text:
His throat was raw from screaming, but Altair could barely even feel it. It was such a small pain, in the grand scheme of things, insignificant compared to the howling void of agony his wings had become. There was nothing beyond that pain, beyond the meticulous piercing of skin and rending of sinew as he was so carefully prised apart.
Someone was talking. He couldn’t understand the words. Couldn’t remember why this was happening. He might have responded, might have begged, but the storm of blood and fear was too strong for him to tell.
Something small and sharp and prying pulled on one of his muscles, like a violinist plucking a string. His wing flexed involuntarily, though it shuddered at the forced movement; Altair let out a sob as agony and violation rippled through him. His body, his soul weren’t his own, not right then. He was just a plaything, a curiosity, a treasure for this person to take apart and put back together again.
Was there even another person on the other side of this? All he could feel was cold metal, impersonal and uncaring as it bore him open. Nothing to tell him why this was happening. Nothing to give him any indication on how to make it stop.
Blades moved to the junction of his wings and his back, the skin there sensitive and easily split. The pain was new, a dizzying blend of soul-splitting wrongness and a deep, normal physicality. He didn’t have the presence of mind to wonder about it.
The voice continued overhead, mixing with another, and then another. They blurred together, indistinct and incomprehensible in their neutrality. Altair didn’t know if he wanted to know what they were saying.
When hands finally plunged into the gaping wounds in his wing, when he finally felt the clinical curiosity and enraptured fervor that drove his pain, Altair wished he couldn’t feel anything at all.