This little bounty hunter was quite obviously not very happy with me or my captor, and a fire breathing Ifrit and a furious need to kill me do not mix well in any cooking pot. For me at least. But if I was going to die in an immense amount of pain, it may as well be with this war crime of fashion in front of me. I hadn't even learnt his name yet. That, to me at least, was shocking. "Rudeness at its peak!", Da would have shouted. "Ask the poor man his name, you vagrant!". My old man had always liked that word. Vagrant. Had a bit of power to it, you could tell it was an insult even if you didn't speak the language. I would follow Da's instructions just this once, even I could see the rudeness in not knowing my friend in death. And so suddenly, while he was prattling on about something or other, I hadn't been listening, only heard the word "arselicker" a few times. I asked him for his name. He looked slightly startled, clearly not expecting an interruption from such a well behaved and quiet young lad. Frowning with a look on his face that quite clearly said "I was halfway through a monologue there.", he replied blatantly, "Horrow Morson." Funny name this one. Unexpected, you could say. I must admit I was expecting something to match his appearence, something... flamboyant. But it would do. Wouldn't want a gravestone next to a John Davis. Wouldn't that be a dull ghostly conversation to have.
Stepper Mc'Gee had now reached his target destination of behind Mr. Morson, and had collected the fire into his throat, once again letting me see the deep orange light reflecting up into the roof of his mouth, like a cyclone of heat and pain, all directed at yours truly.
Sadism is something that I think is overly vilified. We all have it in ourselves, we all love seeing that overly confident arsehole get punched, that child scrape their knee, we even love to induce it ourselves. So why do we hate it so much? I would argue that it all has to do with the imagination behind the sadistic tendencies. The Stepper was a key example of a sadist with very little brain, this was the second time he'd tried to scare me with his little fiery stunt today, and he was getting annoyed at my reaction, or lack thereof. The more imaginative among us can derive more satisfaction from simply seeing a marginal amount of suffering than the more bone-headed sadist can when they inflict it themselves.
But I could already see in his eyes that he was getting bored, the slow drooping of his upper eyelid revealed that much. And so now began the final stretch of fire gathering, when an Ifrit moves the fire from his heart to his throat, a slow and dangerous movement for even the Ifrit involved. He had already started dislocating his jaw - slowly and quietly rotating it up and down, left and right, until it seemed to droop down like fog on a cold morning on the Severn. It was between his collarbones now, and I was beginning to imagine the sound of a clock ticking in my head. It keeps on slowly advancing, despite my desperate attempts to make it stop.
Tick
And I can feel my heart rate increasing
Tock
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck
Tick
I don't want to die
Please
Tock
I can see the actual flame now and... FUCK
Tick
And why is Morrow smiling?
Tock
Mam I don't want to do this
Tick
Mam please help please I'm sorry but please
Tock
He's grinning now
Tick
Stop grinning
Tock
Stop grinning
Tick
Stop grinning
Tock.
PhwUUUsh!
What was that? It sounded like a stick flying through th- BANG. My eyes snapped down in shock, just in time for a good few glugs of blood to coat my face. But that was nothing compared to the Stepper. Where he once had a functioning, yet ugly face, was a bloody mess of pulp and bone, mashed and moved in a way that almost looked like it had been... shoved out of the way? And where all of that mashed up head stuff should be, there was in pride of place, a sledge hammer being wielded ungracefully by the elderly gentleman currently grinning in front of me. "Are you finally willing to listen nowt?"
And I nodded, because of course I nodded. What else were you going to do when one of 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 shows up in front of you and crushes a mercenaries face in. Them. Them be the scary motherfuckers, as Herman said, may his wise and gracious words live on. By them, I did of course mean the Qeys. Qeys. Before even the Stone-Men can remember, they all got some mysterious abilities that made them all individual and 'special'. Because apparently they couldn't bear to stay down here in the dirt with all of us boring folk. So off they went, parading themselves around as "heroes" 'n shit, the big man upstairs, that's what they thought they were. But they weren't, and they never had been, and they never would be. Them guys, they killed all kind of people, they got away with it. Shaman even knew a guy who was killed by one of them. Bollocks. That's what I called it. They flew around, turned themselves into animals and now they got to live it all high and mighty. The Qeys never did nothing for people. The only thing the Qeys had ever done, was kill other Chinks, and whoever won that, got called a champion or a king or what the fuck ever. And now there were Qeys coming all over just to see me. I must've looked like a meeting place for them.
"Good, good." He said slowly, like it was the first time he'd ever heard it said. "That's good... I think I might know what you're thinking right now, and that isn't even my little..." He gestured frantically in the air, searching for the right word "Thing."
"You're thinking, 'Oh no, he's a Qey', aren't you Jimbo? You're wondering how to get out of this situation. You're wondering how to run away." Well colour me gobsmacked, he was right.
"But y'see Espin, I'm here to tell you that running away..." He smirked "It's not possible. I'd just catch you, and ever so slowly. Break. Your. Bones." by now I was nodding frantically, desperate to not get in the way of this psycho, all earlier bravado vanishing. "Do you even know why I'm here, Jac, why I catch you in these woods and save you from these nasty little men?" A shake of my head told him all he needed to know. Leaning forwards to look directly into my eyes, he hissed, "You are to be my apprentice, you stupid fuck."