Posted on: Sunday, 10 May 2009
“So... he tortured me... but you knew that. He had these special knives he liked to use, and I know each one by heart now. I can tell just from the sound of the metal being unsheathed, the feel against my skin, the sharpness, the curve of the blade... There were three of them for each size – small, medium, large. One had these jagged teeth that just rip through flesh and bone. One was so smooth and sharp that you don’t even feel the cut. The other’s smooth, too, but with this special edge to the blade that lets you add a little ‘extra surprise.’ Salt, hot oil, acid... y’know, that kind of stuff.
The physical torture wasn’t too bad, though. Well, not after a while, at least. I just stopped responding to it after a while. Sounds weird, huh? But... it’s just flesh, y’know? Just flesh... I guess Irenicus figured that out too. He always told me – he talked a lot — that there’s an order you have to go in to really break someone apart. First you break the body, then you break the mind, and only then can you break the soul. So after a few weeks, I was too numb to care about the physical stuff. He’d broken my body. And that’s when the real torture began.”
It was a nice day. Not as nice as some of the days back in Candlekeep, back before this whole mess with Sarevok, but it was still a nice day. Imoen leaned up against the windowsill of her room in the Three Old Kegs inn and watched the bustle of the people below. It was high noon, and the residents of Baldur’s Gate were busy going about their business, buying this, selling that. The sky was clear with the occasional wayward cloud in the distance, and the swallowtails perched on the washerwomen’s lines were singing with every ounce of their tiny little hearts.
She smiled. It was definitely a nice day. “Hey, Cass, c’mere.”
“I’m busy.”
Figured. Like there was anything she could possibly doing that outranked a beautiful day like today. “Doin’ what?”
“Reading.”
Cassandra was stretched out on her stomach on the room’s single bed, propping her chin up and studying a small blue pamphlet of some sort. The rays of sunlight caught the strands of hair which framed her face and made them glitter and glimmer like fire and gold.
Imoen reluctantly stepped away from the warmth of the open window and went over to the bed. “Readin’ what?”
“Sword stuff.”
“Is that all you ever read?” She rolled her eyes and sat down on the edge of the mattress. “Military whoopity-do and hoo-hah? C’mon, Cass, it’s beautiful outside.” She winked and shot the woman a grin. “Get a life already!”
Her sister sent back an annoyed glance. “You weren’t saying that when it was me and my military ‘whoopity-do’ saving your butt. I like this kind of stuff.”
