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What a piece of work is man, how noble in reason!
He's laying there, every inch of his skin is on fire. Literally. He feels it peeling to the bone of him as he burns. Accused, tried, and now punished for a crime he didn't commit. He can feel the rage in every inch of that fire. Not his assailants, but his own. It burns him more than the fire does. His screams are unheard by any ears who would bother to help him. He's shrieking, and they're loving every minute of it...the fire stops. It was only temporary, but he's already misshapen from it. He struggles to get up on both hands and knees, coughing up blood that's so coagulated and dry it looks like coffee. A demented cinnamon.
"Please..." He pleads, bleary, almost melted eyes look up at the yellow specter. "I didn't- I didn't kill them. I didn't...No-!"
It fades to a scream. The fire's burning again, but he's desperate now, his veins stiffen from the cold they produce, but the ice melts as soon as it forms. Too hot. Too dehydrated, too tired. His soul rips from his skin in burnt tatters, twisted snowflakes that cover the floor of the scorch-borne snow.
Death takes him. He's given in.
The artificer of this event stands behind the culprit of it, setting a hand on his shoulder. "Your reasoning is good, my friend, and now, your family is avenged. Partly."
How infinite in faculty! In form and moving how expresse and admirable!
There's hands on him. He feels them. They bore into his softened flesh like iron restraints. If he could react, he'd struggle and scream, but only uncontrolled tears run down hollowed cheeks. They're cold. Colder than any ice he's ever conjured before. A slab is under his back and he realizes he's been moved. The lights in here aren't blinding so much as warm. He's getting a cold towel over his eyes, and he can feel..something happen to his body. Eyelids, tendons, all of them melding back into place. It feels much slimer than he remembers, if he remembers at all. It's not painful, how he's rebuilt, but it's gross feeling. Bones crack and snap into place unceremoniously, his skin is attaching to flesh not quite living. The towel is removed from his eyes, and he can see his patron. Had he the strength, he'd kill him then and there.
"..." It's a wheeze, wet in his throat. His tongue feels like goo in his mouth. His teeth itch, something he didn't know was possible in life.
"Shhhh my friend," Speaks the dark shaman, "All will be well. You will be reborn for me."
A gurgle of protest is ignored. Not like he can do much anyways, rigor mortis having set in some hours ago. Until he's given the white elephant of movement again.
In Action, how like an Angel! in apprehension, how like a God!
He feels like he's made of rubber and rust. His skin clings loosely. He can feel it sliding against his muscles, which squeeze against bone a little too tightly. His joints feel like screws too tight for their bolts. Moving is difficult because of it. As he's raised up and stood up, he feels his organs push against the lower half of his frame. Bi Han can only describe the feeling as his organs being lazily packed inside of him out of necessity to fill his frame, rather than to push blood or breath air or clean the sickly blood that sits fat in his veins. As he moves, he's been told, he'll loosen and limber up, and though standing naked in an empty room full of clothes he can only assume are for him isn't his ideal way to spend the first crucial minutes of his rebirth, he doesn't feel like moving. Bi Han's distracted by something else. His skin is dark. Not the natural, pretty dark it used to be in life. It's not lively and brown. It's burnt...and wet. Decompositionary fluids? Or some sort of glue to hold him while he dresses? The difference doesn't matter, he decides. Because for the first time in any sense of the word, he's cold. Cryomancers don't feel cold the way regular people do, or did in his case, cold was comfortable. It was preferred. The only time they'd get uncomfortably cold would be if their blood was freezing, but he feels a cold on his skin, which is alien to him. He passes the mirror in order to get himself covered, and when his eyes meet his body, he's met with the rest of his body.
The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals!
What's become of him? By the gods above, just what has become of him? He stares at his body, his skin's worse than he thought, he looks like someone dumped paint on him, and it's since dried. It covers all the inches of his skin, even his palms and lips and when he opens his mouth he finds that the same as the blood in his veins, his eyes are locked onto his own body, and he realizes that this isn't his body. It's what's left of it. There's something left of it, but he doubts that will ever have a use again. He's stepping away, hearing and feeling the squelch of his feet beneath him.
"You've become a wonderful creation, my friend. My my, how lovely you are to me now. A paragon of my skills, truly."
It reminds Bi Han of an old play he read as part of his lessons growing up. "....and yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?
Man delights not me, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so." He says it bitterly, but Quan Chi seems all too pleased to hear it.
"Yes, my smiling does seem to say it, doesn't it? Well, you're certainly correct, Noob Saibot...I'll give you time to get reacquainted with yourself. Goodbye." And the door is closed behind him. He is officially alone
...right?
