[Kneel. And he doesn't, not quickly enough, absorbed in the cruelty of Laurent's tale — and because he has never had this demanded of him.
Two men are set upon him in an instant. He resists with the trained instinct of one who has known battlefields all his life, but without the agency of chakra the fight is useless, and he can do nothing more than thrash and twist once overwhelmed. This powerlessness is like the slash to the throat that sword threatens to deliver; it shows on his face, briefly, a broken composure of fear like a child's, naked and bare as bone. His cheek bruises badly where it hits the floor. His scalp burns when yanked. Less an untrained pet than a wild, spitting animal; the guards see it. Then he is collared and tethered to a ring that is installed on the ground. All of this done professionally, a culture fortified by familiar element.
Sasuke does not move from his forced subservient position as a pallet and silk pillows are brought and deposited a distance from the prince's bed. He is watching Laurent with dark eyes — not hateful, but evaluative. He is reconciling this version of the young man with the one he came to know, in those other places: a soft, vicious mouth and cool blue eyes; a tenderness concealed underneath terror and meanness; a past of pain enough to make Sasuke feel close, somehow, to his own childhood.]
If I see that man, [comes finally across the room, where he has seated himself on the pallet in a tightly folded posture, shoulders rounded,] I might kill him.
[Whether he is aware he's said something treasonous, whether he cares, it doesn't show in the pinched brow or unhappy curve of his mouth. Laurent should know who he means. And it is less a threat than a warning — because he doesn't care what it will take, but he also understands this is driven from a place of savagery. And in his circumstances, perhaps unwise.]
no subject
Two men are set upon him in an instant. He resists with the trained instinct of one who has known battlefields all his life, but without the agency of chakra the fight is useless, and he can do nothing more than thrash and twist once overwhelmed. This powerlessness is like the slash to the throat that sword threatens to deliver; it shows on his face, briefly, a broken composure of fear like a child's, naked and bare as bone. His cheek bruises badly where it hits the floor. His scalp burns when yanked. Less an untrained pet than a wild, spitting animal; the guards see it. Then he is collared and tethered to a ring that is installed on the ground. All of this done professionally, a culture fortified by familiar element.
Sasuke does not move from his forced subservient position as a pallet and silk pillows are brought and deposited a distance from the prince's bed. He is watching Laurent with dark eyes — not hateful, but evaluative. He is reconciling this version of the young man with the one he came to know, in those other places: a soft, vicious mouth and cool blue eyes; a tenderness concealed underneath terror and meanness; a past of pain enough to make Sasuke feel close, somehow, to his own childhood.]
If I see that man, [comes finally across the room, where he has seated himself on the pallet in a tightly folded posture, shoulders rounded,] I might kill him.
[Whether he is aware he's said something treasonous, whether he cares, it doesn't show in the pinched brow or unhappy curve of his mouth. Laurent should know who he means. And it is less a threat than a warning — because he doesn't care what it will take, but he also understands this is driven from a place of savagery. And in his circumstances, perhaps unwise.]