Chapter Text
When Necare told Mortarion he was getting married again, he had expected it to be like the other times. And to begin with it was—his armor and robes stripped from him, the collar snapped around his neck, Necare holding the control wand out of reach.
But instead of being presented to yet another leering Overlord, Mortarion was brought to a new wedding chamber—a grim little cell in the lower reaches of this border fort. And the person waiting there, the one Necare handed the control wand to, wasn’t an Overlord.
Mortarion’s newest spouse was tiny, less than half his height. She wore only a breathing apparatus, like the one Necare had taken from him earlier, so he could tell that she was thin (like him), if a bit softer in form. She was pale, with a gray cast to her skin but some blood visible under it—like his own. In almost every regard, she was like him, and it made him feel something other than the usual painful adrenaline-surge of meeting a new spouse.
So this was what Necare meant by lesser.
Mortarion had seen such creatures before, of course—but only dead, and rarely even whole. To see a being almost like himself, alive, breathing—
“Don’t touch me,” she said raggedly, and he realized that he had been leaning towards her. Hastily he pressed himself further back in his corner, before she could use the control wand.
Even knowing the risk, he couldn’t keep his eyes from her. He hardly heard Necare explaining the control wand’s effects, hardly noticed him leaving.
He’d been given over to one of his own kind.
Necare’s monster was shaped like a man, but taller and stronger and far more beautiful. Ekka found herself thinking that if the overlords’ usual constructs were mockeries of humanity, this was humanity perfected. (How many mortal, imperfect men had it taken?)
Why would an Overlord want to make something beautiful? Why would he care to perfect his prey? Was this creature meant to draw mortals in, bait for a trap—
It—no, he—was leaning towards her again. “I’ll use it,” she said, because she didn’t know if it would work and a threat had to be better than a weapon that broke in the hand.
Necare’s monster threw himself back into his corner, whip-swift. He was certain the wand worked, at least.
Still wary, she watched him.
He was covered in scars—but not like a killbeast that had been sewn together out of the worst parts of several animals, and not like a man who had been injured, either. Neat, precise lines, each well-healed and tidy—except that they overlapped each other, crisscrossing like the rags she’d practiced her stitches on as a child.
He saw her eyes and flinched, drawing back into his corner with his shoulders hunched.
He’s afraid of me too, she realized. Not just the wand. Me. It seemed ridiculous on the face of it—but there it was.
Just what was going on? Necare had said something about a marriage—did he mean them to breed? But surely it was her part of that that was to be feared.
And if she’d been right with her other guess—that this creature was meant to draw in mortals to a trap—
Well. From the way he looked at her, he was a thinking creature—more man than killbeast. Perhaps he could be reasoned with, or even subverted. It was a wild hope, desperate—but she had no other.
“Who were you?” she asked.
His mouth twisted, as if she’d asked the wrong question. “Who were you, before Necare caught you?”
“Ekka Asmat. A human. A villager. A slave of the Overlords, like everyone, but we lived so far down in the valleys that it didn’t always feel like it.” She hugged her knees. “Live. The others are still alive, some of them, and if the killbeasts didn’t get into our stores they might be able to feed themselves until the next harvest.”
“You live with other… humans?” He spoke the word as if he were tasting it for the first time.
I did. “Doesn’t everyone?”
“Necare says only animals do that.”
Necare says, like a child parrotting his father’s words.
“Well, in the valleys everyone who wants to live sticks together. People, animals, we’re all the same. Everyone helps bring in the harvest, and sow the new one. When the acid storms came down off the mountains and we couldn’t go outside, everyone pitched in at different tasks, so that everything would be done when we could breathe again outside. I wove. I was good at it. Rhinnah taught me, before her eyes started to go.” Was Rhinnah still alive? Was Mallum? Even if they were— but she was interrupted.
“I know about the acid.” He sounded almost relieved to have found something familiar in her story, but there was a grimace on his face.
“Does Necare make you go out…”
“Sometimes. As a punishment.”
Was it hopeful that Necare had things to punish him for—that he didn’t always serve his master—or did it mean he’d be too frightened of him to defy him?
He interrupted her thoughts. “What do you mean by ‘wove’?”
“Oh! Making cloth.” She gestured, trying to convey warp and weft, and from there she had to explain keeping animals for wool, and then their other livestock. He knew about grox, but not sheep; weapons, but not tools.
He knows what it’s convenient for Necare that he know, she thought, and shivered. Her motion seemed to spook him; he withdrew again.
“Do you have a name?”
He looked like he wanted to say Of course. “Mortarion.”
“And you live alone? Not with… not with Necare?”
“Except when I’m married.”
“So this isn’t the first time?” She bit her lip. It might be a painful question, but she had to know. “What happened to the others?”
“They got bored of me.”
Well. Not the kind of pain she had worried about.
“And the rest of the time you’re alone?” It was hard to imagine living alone. Being cast out of a village was a death sentence, usually; Ekka had never even imagined what it would be like for a person to spend most of their time alone, and still expect to see the next year, or day.
“Sometimes Necare gets me to do something for him, or to do something to me. But after a marriage I need to heal.”
Oh.
“… I’m sorry. Marriage isn’t supposed to be like that.” That felt inadequate, but she had no idea what else to say—probably wouldn’t even if he hadn’t been looking at her as if she’d grown a second head.
“Well, this is how it always goes. I get a collar,” his fingers brushed it “and the new spouse gets the wand, and Necare gets a favor from them.”
“I’m not getting any favor from an Overlord!”
He backed up, hands up in apology. (Or was it a plea not to be hurt?) “He wouldn’t bargain with a lesser—with a human. He must want something else this time.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Something he hasn’t wanted before.”
Ekka closed her eyes. What could Necare want?
She could think of too many things. She shook herself, roughly, and opened her eyes to see that she’d scared her… spouse again.
They were still going around in circles, weren’t they. They had to break that cycle if they were going to get anywhere.
One of them was going to have to trust the other first.
Ekka pushed the wand away.