[Challenge 4] A Lesson In Power
Title: A Lesson In Power
Author: Arostine/LadyBlackwell
Word Count: 250 (two and a half drabbles, but I figured it'd be OK since we haven't had anything here in forever).
Rating: T
Pairing: none
Author's Note: Set about a year pre-Battle City. Malik is a bad bad boy.
Malik is a murderer many times over. Betrayers, enemies, people in his way-he doesn’t discriminate. He just kills.
Rishid knows that Malik doesn’t see it that way. They still speak at night, their hushed voices mixing with the staid breath of unhearing captives. Malik’s mindslaves. They’re blind and deaf to all perception, except that of their master. Malik likes it that way.
And in these nightly conferences, Rishid has heard a thousand explanations for it all. A thousand rationalizations. A thousand pretty words and twisted philosophies Malik’s created to convince himself that this is right. That this is all that’s right. And the worst part of it all is that, not only does Malik believe it…Rishid is starting to believe it as well.
It’s a lesson in power. In domination. In the way Malik’s charisma surrounds him like a spider’s web, the way it sticks like honey, until Rishid doesn’t even want to be free anymore because the spell is so entrancing and the taste so sweet.
Tonight’s lesson takes place over a bound captive, gagged but not blindfolded, kneeling on the concrete warehouse floor. He whimpers. Rishid stands motionless.
Malik’s gun is as elegant and deadly as his smile.
“Do you know what power is, Rishid?” he asks. A test.
Rishid doesn’t breathe.
“Do you know what power is?”
The prisoner squeezes his eyes shut. Malik’s gun never wavers.
“Do you know…?”
Silence.
“It’s this.”
The bottom of the gun opens, and the bullets clatter to the floor.
Author: Arostine/LadyBlackwell
Word Count: 250 (two and a half drabbles, but I figured it'd be OK since we haven't had anything here in forever).
Rating: T
Pairing: none
Author's Note: Set about a year pre-Battle City. Malik is a bad bad boy.
Malik is a murderer many times over. Betrayers, enemies, people in his way-he doesn’t discriminate. He just kills.
Rishid knows that Malik doesn’t see it that way. They still speak at night, their hushed voices mixing with the staid breath of unhearing captives. Malik’s mindslaves. They’re blind and deaf to all perception, except that of their master. Malik likes it that way.
And in these nightly conferences, Rishid has heard a thousand explanations for it all. A thousand rationalizations. A thousand pretty words and twisted philosophies Malik’s created to convince himself that this is right. That this is all that’s right. And the worst part of it all is that, not only does Malik believe it…Rishid is starting to believe it as well.
It’s a lesson in power. In domination. In the way Malik’s charisma surrounds him like a spider’s web, the way it sticks like honey, until Rishid doesn’t even want to be free anymore because the spell is so entrancing and the taste so sweet.
Tonight’s lesson takes place over a bound captive, gagged but not blindfolded, kneeling on the concrete warehouse floor. He whimpers. Rishid stands motionless.
Malik’s gun is as elegant and deadly as his smile.
“Do you know what power is, Rishid?” he asks. A test.
Rishid doesn’t breathe.
“Do you know what power is?”
The prisoner squeezes his eyes shut. Malik’s gun never wavers.
“Do you know…?”
Silence.
“It’s this.”
The bottom of the gun opens, and the bullets clatter to the floor.