( He does not breathe, does not think. Allows the needle points of quiet, lancing horror to ache and bloom and travel his limbs, to flower in his heart, to >spread. Thinks of the reality this fiction trickled like thick bleeding off Wei Ying's heart promises: a shuddered, all-sundering nightmare.
To make of men no more than their meat, the puppets of children, playthings of war. To break their backs and their limbs and stitch them back together again, only so they are faster, stronger, more dexterous, more cunning.
His hand hunts Wei Ying's, the dreary cold of his fingertips seeking out the ravines of his husband's palm. And, singeing, he remembers — exhalations. )
It would be inhuman. Unjust. To abandon men only to make — soldiers.
( He remembers campaigning, the toil and toll of Nightless City. The blood and gore and aches, and his steps skidding, and his feet slow. Remembers the agony of making an instrument of himself, no more than a tool for his brother's wielding, for Chifeng-Zun to set upon a map. )
no subject
( He does not breathe, does not think. Allows the needle points of quiet, lancing horror to ache and bloom and travel his limbs, to flower in his heart, to >spread. Thinks of the reality this fiction trickled like thick bleeding off Wei Ying's heart promises: a shuddered, all-sundering nightmare.
To make of men no more than their meat, the puppets of children, playthings of war. To break their backs and their limbs and stitch them back together again, only so they are faster, stronger, more dexterous, more cunning.
His hand hunts Wei Ying's, the dreary cold of his fingertips seeking out the ravines of his husband's palm. And, singeing, he remembers — exhalations. )
It would be inhuman. Unjust. To abandon men only to make — soldiers.
( He remembers campaigning, the toil and toll of Nightless City. The blood and gore and aches, and his steps skidding, and his feet slow. Remembers the agony of making an instrument of himself, no more than a tool for his brother's wielding, for Chifeng-Zun to set upon a map. )