[ He can barely hear Lestat over the hiss and growl of the things - so much like that night, so much like the coven sabbat - but he clings to the call of Lestat to his mind. He's still here, they haven't been able to drag them completely apart!
It's cold comfort, however, when he's being forced to the floor, bare knees making painful contact as they finally managed to restrain his arms and press him flat. Splayed out, Armand thrashes, panicked at being so prone again, unable to defend himself he kicks out viciously, but his heart stops dead in his chest when he feels claws on his back.
The beatings, the lashings, anything to make him submit to the coven - it had started like this hadn't it? - he goes perfectly still in response, the fight leaving him for a breathless moment as fear grips him, but the reality turns out to be almost worse. The costume, the ridiculous wings that he couldn't shrug off himself, well he feels several shades grip them now, more hands holding his body down and then they are pulling, tearing and Armand shrieks in pain - agony, like few things he's ever felt - approaching only the flames of that fire in it's intensity, clawing down his back.
The scent of blood blooms around him, stronger now and he feels it, running down his skin, flooding between his shoulder blades and pain, and pain and pain. He's senseless with it, cant even form a thought to call out to Lestat again, only room for prayers, begging for mercy from a god that's not answered in a very long time.
The second wing gives way under their terrible hands and Armand's hoarse from his cries, but he feels the circle around him go lax with a kind of victory and he knows, suddenly, that if he doesn't move now, they will kill him like they've done everyone else that enters this place and is over powered and well - he fears that far more than anything. The floor is slick with his own blood below him now, but Armand moves, all his speed, every ounce of his shadow craft, pushed into a fervent escape to the dorm rooms ahead. He slips - quite literally - under their reach, crashing through the half open door and throwing his weight back against it, engaging the lock with his mind.
He's blind with tears, marble skin torn to shreds, but he has just enough presence of mind to force the image of the room he's in, out to Lestat, before dissolving into gasping sobs. ]
tw: restraint, major injury, past trauma/torture, panic attack, blood
It's cold comfort, however, when he's being forced to the floor, bare knees making painful contact as they finally managed to restrain his arms and press him flat. Splayed out, Armand thrashes, panicked at being so prone again, unable to defend himself he kicks out viciously, but his heart stops dead in his chest when he feels claws on his back.
The beatings, the lashings, anything to make him submit to the coven - it had started like this hadn't it? - he goes perfectly still in response, the fight leaving him for a breathless moment as fear grips him, but the reality turns out to be almost worse. The costume, the ridiculous wings that he couldn't shrug off himself, well he feels several shades grip them now, more hands holding his body down and then they are pulling, tearing and Armand shrieks in pain - agony, like few things he's ever felt - approaching only the flames of that fire in it's intensity, clawing down his back.
The scent of blood blooms around him, stronger now and he feels it, running down his skin, flooding between his shoulder blades and pain, and pain and pain. He's senseless with it, cant even form a thought to call out to Lestat again, only room for prayers, begging for mercy from a god that's not answered in a very long time.
The second wing gives way under their terrible hands and Armand's hoarse from his cries, but he feels the circle around him go lax with a kind of victory and he knows, suddenly, that if he doesn't move now, they will kill him like they've done everyone else that enters this place and is over powered and well - he fears that far more than anything. The floor is slick with his own blood below him now, but Armand moves, all his speed, every ounce of his shadow craft, pushed into a fervent escape to the dorm rooms ahead. He slips - quite literally - under their reach, crashing through the half open door and throwing his weight back against it, engaging the lock with his mind.
He's blind with tears, marble skin torn to shreds, but he has just enough presence of mind to force the image of the room he's in, out to Lestat, before dissolving into gasping sobs. ]