"Get up."
Frigid water, so cold his body felt like it was seizing up, drowned him and Azrael was wrenched from empty unconsciousness. As soon as his eyes opened, a familiar searing pain shot through his body and he was unable to focus his vision on whatever or, more likely, whoever was in front of him. A featureless shadow loomed before him, obscured despite the burning light.
"So much bigger than the last time I saw you."
Who the hell is talking?
Finally, Azrael could make out the blurred shapes of the person in front of him. It took a bit longer for vague details to come into view but that was the best he could hope for in this situation. Warily, he glanced at the new man up and down, finding himself to be even more confused now than he was when he had first spoken.
He looked young, early-twenties, though he could be younger by no stretch of the imagination. Azrael was at least a decade older than him but he was talking about him as if he was a child relative, like he was an old man. Studying the man, Azrael tried his best to find a defining feature that would clue him into his identity but all that seemed to do was amused him. Even the odd accent he spoke in didn't help pinpoint who the hell the man was.
A smirk and his youthfully round eyes crinkled into crescents. Those unsettlingly pale grey irises stared through Azrael and a hand cupped his chin. "Ah? You don't remember me!" That smirk warped into an exaggerated frown and his eyes grew watery. That meek expression was sickening on that man's face, especially in the circumstance of kidnapping. "How upsetting."
Through stiff muscles and chattering teeth, Azrael hissed at him. "W-who… who are y-you?" That wake-up call would have been agonisingly cold for a pure mammal but it was exceptionally torturous for a reptile. Azrael's blood was sluggish in his veins. "What-t do… you w-want?"
With a hefty sigh, he contorted his face in mock consideration. "You haven't figured out yet, my identity? Tsk, tsk, tsk, my little brother would be so disappointed in how you've turned out." The hand on Azrael's chin changed from cupping it to forcefully grabbing it, twisting his face this way and that. Azrael was being studied like a specimen under a microscope. "Apart from getting broader, ageing has been cruel to you. Even under my brother's lacking care, you looked well-fed and rested. Silly boy, are you not looking after yourself?"
The oddly paternal affection in his voice raised Azrael's hackles, his stomach churning. He had no idea why this young human – was he really just human? – was talking to him like Azrael was a kid nor could he figure out his relation to him. If he could move his arms, his urge to shove him away and demand answers once he had pinned that smarmy, arrogant face of his to the ground would no longer be just an urge. Seething, Azrael stared at him in silence.
Nausea waved through him from the places where the pads of the nameless man's horribly soft fingers touched him. Fighting through the surging pain in Azrael's bones and the ice on his skin, he spoke with a steadier voice. "S-stop touching me." Those fingers didn't move, though that wasn't a surprise. "Just tell me who you are… and w-what you have done with Pavel."
The man patted Azrael's cheek before letting it rest there. Tapping his fingers against his scaled cheekbone, his eyes piercing into Azrael. His exaggerated expressions dropped and his face became an unreadable, blank canvas. "Oh, mon lapin, our Pasha? He's fine. He'll see you soon, I swear."
Azrael's eyes widened. Realisation struck.
Frost and ache clouded his judgement, sealing away his critical thinking until it, finally, melted away entirely. Azrael looked at the man with a stunned look, disbelief laced his voice; "You're that Etienne?"
"Oh, please. You should be calling me uncle, not just my first name. It's impolite. But yes, I'm Pasha's beloved father." The youthful arrogance on Etienne's face when he said revolted Azrael. Obviously, he was far older than he looked, but he seemed to revel in the misconception. An ageless malice swirled behind his gaze.
If he had just said yes, Azrael would have moved on to another line of questioning. He was desperate for information on the whereabouts of Pavel but, once again, Etienne had said something that implied they had a prior relationship – a familial relationship where he was Azrael's elder.
This makes no sense.
Du Rand cocked his head to the side. "Confused? That's understandable, I suppose." He stepped back and, finally, stopped touching Azrael's face, stopping being the only thing in his field of view. Azrael felt like he could breathe. A brief glance showed that they were in some sort of unfurnished basement room but that didn't matter at the moment. "I met you when you were very young and only observed from a distance as you grew up. My brother didn't like my method of raising a child and I didn't like his, so we didn't interfere. Shame that you tore him apart though, I do miss him quite dearly."
Azrael's mind reeled. "The master's brother?"
"Ding ding! We have a winner." Condescendingly, he clapped his hands in front of Azrael's face. It was clear Du Rand enjoyed playing into the part of an egotistic, antagonistic villain. This was just entertainment for his sick pleasure. "Brother's by an oath, not birth, but brother's regardless. He wouldn't have died so easily if he was of my blood. Anyway, there's nothing else that you need to know, hm? I'll leave you to your own devices then. Settle in – you'll be here a while, little white dragon."
With that, Etienne spun on his heel and crossed the dingy, grey room where a door was set in the stone wall. Azrael had previously missed its presence, but, as it swung open on its screaming hinges, he made sure to see what was on the other side around Du Rand's body.
Nothing to see but endless ascending stairs.
It snapped shut and now, it was only Azrael.
The room was silent, he was left to his thoughts.
Though the pain persisted in his limbs, Azrael finally managed to push himself up off the floor even as his bones screamed in agony. He didn't know what that man had done to him or why he ached so much but Azrael could find it in him to be glad that he was actually injured. Fortunately, he hadn't been physically restrained in a way that made it so Azrael couldn't walk around.
An uncomfortable tightness did, however, clamp around his ankles and he peered down to see that, against his bare skin and scales, just above his taloned feet, a pair of manacles had been placed. Azrael followed the chain that was welded to them back to a hole in the wall where it vanished from sight, somewhere seemingly deeper in the foundations of the room. Stare as he might, he couldn't see its end.
Azrael tried his hand at yanking at the chain to see if he could pull it apart but it seemed to be designed to resist any exertion a living being could put on them. Seeing that wasting his strength on the task was useless, he decided to test how far into the room he could venture before the chains stopped him. His goal was to reach that door and those stairs, even if it was unlikely.
Pressing forward, Azrael walked and walked and walked until he came short of the door. It seemed that the leeway that Du Rand had decided to give him was about three-quarters of the basement's width. It was more infuriating than if he had been tied to the wall completely. Azrael changed his plan and traversed the length of the room instead.
With ease, Azrael could reach both walls on either side of him but, no matter what angle he tried it at, he could get no closer to that door. It seemed Etienne Du Rand had thought ahead. Azrael was thoroughly trapped in here for the foreseeable future.
Temporarily defeated and still recovering from the frigid shower on the majorly bare flesh, Azrael resigned himself to a seated position against the back wall where he had woken up. He tucked his wings tightly around his sides in an attempt to retain what warmth there was left in his body. Flicking his tail across his lap, Azrael trained his eyes on that door and strained his ears for any potential sounds that could be the catalyst of his escape.
Azrael steadied his breathing and slowed his heart rate until he was almost a statue. I can thank the master for meditative skills, at the least. His mind was held tentatively in place but he fought to keep calm so that, if Pavel was returned to his side, Azrael wouldn't scare him with his loose emotions. The barrier between his rational mind and his surging lust for blood and vengeance was cracked glass.
No matter how calm he looked, no matter how calm Azrael told himself he was, it would not take very much to break the veil he used as his disguise.
Please don't hurt him
Let him be okay.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.