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madamdeathbees · 9 days ago

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The First Mark

Characters: Marazhai x fem!Von Valancius Summary: Amelia von Valancius is drawn to Marazhai in ways that she dare not think too closely about. While he rests in the Shrieker's Den in Commorragh, preparing for their next upcoming battle, she can't help but linger nearby. Marazhai notices her interest and invites her in this world of mixed pain and pleasure. A/N: Well. She's done it folks. She has driven me to the point of writing freaky deaky BDSM torture elf fic. idk even what to say more than that. happy birthday @orangekittyenergy you wild sexy weirdo <333 I'm SO GLAD you are enjoying Rogue Trader!! CWs: This fic is inspired by a conversation that Marazhai has with the RT in Commorragh, but with a new/alternative slightly darker ending for a more dominant Marazhai. There will be some mentions of torture, abuse, sadomasochism (hi Marzi), and burns

The Pit was calm, for once, if anything in Commorragh could be described as calm. The wails of tormented victims still carried here to these ramshackle platforms and the ever-present hum unique to this strange world would never truly go away, but it did fade in the background a bit as Amelia patrolled her way around the area she had claimed as her own. The Shriekers had been driven out or convinced to join her, a temporary alliance with little to benefit either side, but at least their den could be made a semi-safe space in their absence. It was no voidship, but it would do for a few hours.

Of course, no one felt comfortable with a xenos in their midst, especially one of the Drukhari, so her most recent…"ally"…lingered in a far corner of one of the lower platforms. After nearly being run through by Heinrix, he had retreated there to sulk. Amelia's words, not his.

She paused as she passed by him, thinking on the conversation they had just had a short while ago, about the task he had asked of her. She had expected worse from him, but "find my sister, do not kill her, and allow me to subject her to an eternity of torment" seemed tame, or at least on par with all she knew about the Drukhari. But perhaps "worse" was yet to come.

She couldn't deny it. He intrigued her. For all he had done to her and her retinue, the mockery he had made of her steadily-growing empire, the carnage he had made of Dargonus, there was something about him that was a little irresistable, loath as she was to admit it.

She leaned back against a rusted metal crate, her legs crossed at the ankles, and pulled a lho-stick from her pocket. It was one of only three she had managed to…procure from one of the Shriekers. Right after she drove a blade into his throat for attempting to paw at her while she rested in the Shrieker's Den.

Now, no one dared to draw close, unless they were one of her personal retinue, and all of them were too wrapped up in the horrors they had only just escaped from to pay her much attention. Which left her alone.

With Marazhai.

She set the lho-stick between her lips, holding it there as she took out the battered lighter (from the same unfortunate Shrieker) to light it up. Slowly, she blew out the smoke, let it form a thin screen between herself and the Drukhari xenos that had tried to kill her on more than one occasion.

He sat on another metal crate just a few feet away, carefully examining his armor. Like all Drukhari, he was tall, lean, and unnaturally pale, his skin a pallid shade of pearl gray. Three lurid stripes of red clawed down from his forehead over his right eye, like a wound from a beast, and the same shade of red was tattooed in thick smudges beneath his eyes. It was hardly a stretch to think instantly of blood when she saw the crimson markings on his bone-white skin.

The blood that flecked his face from their battles in the arena was more or less the same shade.

She ought to hate him. He had cost her much. He was the reason she was here in the first place, trapped in his hellscape of torment where survival was tracked in hours, much less in days—assuming one could even track time down here at all. And she did hate him. It was all too easy to imagine her knife plunged deep into his skull, the hilt sticking out between his eyes.

But he fascinated her, too. For the moment, it was fascination, not hate, that was winning.

His armor was made up entirely of interlocking metal plates and sharp spikes, enough to deter anyone from attempting to attack in close quarters. As she watched, his attention fell on a bent plate at his shoulder, the metal caved in from some blow he had taken during their most recent fight. A second later, he gripped the plate with one hand and wrenched it off, a groan strangling itself in his throat, as though the action pained him. His pale shoulder now exposed to the dim Commorragh lighting, he began to bend the thick dark metal back into shape with nothing more than his hands.

Amelia recalled the ease with which he had batted away assailants or torn through a battleground. His strength and speed were almost without equal. If they weren't uneasy allies now, she doubted she would stand much of a chance if he chose to attack suddenly, especially with only a few feet between them. She was a quick draw with her pistol and her knife, but her rifle would be useless, and she knew firsthand how sharp the claws of his gauntlets were. He didn't need a blade to be lethal. The carnage she had seen in the wake of him and his Drukhari allies, humans literally torn limb from limb, was enough to prove they were deadly completely on their own.

She imagined, unbidden, those sharp metal claws at her throat, the points pricking just beneath the skin, enough to draw blood. She swallowed, resisting the urge to run a hand across her neck.

A shiver worked its way down her spine, but it wasn't one of fear.

She forced her eyes away from his hands to his shoulder instead, releasing another cloud of smoke. He wore nothing beneath the armor, no clothing, no bodyglove, no under-armor. Two pinprick marks dotted his skin, surrounded by purple bruising.

Unbidden, she pushed off from her crate and stepped forward for a closer look. The marks weren't wounds, exactly. There was no fresh blood oozing from them. They almost reminded her of recent piercings, the way flesh looked when it was healing around a thin bar of metal. Only, with so much bruising, it seemed his flesh was rejecting whatever it was he had embedded temporarily into it.

Suddenly her every nerve was on high alert. She glanced over and found herself pinned beneath the turquoise gaze of the Drukhar himself, his pupils blown wide with interest. As she scrambled to straighten up, he tilted his head with a slow smirk, his black hair flowing like cool silk over his shoulder.

"What are you looking at?" he asked.

Amelia clenched her teeth together. It would be so tempting to snap a terse "nothing" and turn on her heel to leave. But instead, she feigned calm interest, taking a slow drag from her lho-stick and blowing the smoke directly toward his face. "Your armor. It hooks directly into your body?"

He didn't even blink, even with the smoke lingering around his eyes. "Directly into the nerve centers, in fact." He breathed in through his nose, as if savoring the scent of lho, and let his head fall back. He watched her through half-lidded eyes as he spoke, as though his mind were blissfully somewhere far away. "Direct stimulation of the trigger points, provoking constant, unreleating pain."

Amelia's lips twisted slightly, the thought a little unnerving. Yet he spoke of it as though…

Marazhai's smile shifted, his lip curling slightly as if to mimic her own and mock her ignorance. "Do you know how pleasurable it is when your suffering rings out in unison with another's?" he asked. "The overwhelming ecstasy when your own agony bleeds into the agony of your enemy?"

His voice had taken on a velvet tone now, as though he savored every word, relishing the sensations he remembered, the sensations he could still feel. He fixed his vibrant gaze on her directly. "My world is woven from that pleasure, Amelia."

Her breath hitched as he spoke. Suddenly the chill of Commorragh seemed distant, held at bay by a warmth that kindled first in her core and then spread to the very tips of her fingers. The ragged coat she had taken off of some unfortunate Drukhari victim hid most of the flush that crept up her neck, but not all of it.

Marazhai's attention snapped there, watching hungrily as the blood rose up her throat and began to tinge her jaw, then her cheeks. "You know something of this already, don't you, pet?" he purred.

Her mouth was too dry to swallow. She remembered, with a rush of heat, a few scant nights shared with Jocasta ages ago. Jocasta, who had begged for her to wrap her hands around her throat and squeeze, harder, harder, until her eyes nearly rolled into her head. Who had offered Amelia first a whip and then her metal baton to use on her, daring her to push the boundaries of their brief time together to their worst extreme. It had been exhilarating, but Amelia had been in the business of pain for decades now. Jocasta's exuberance had made it interesting, until the novelty wore off and Amelia had grown bored.

Then she remembered finding Heinrix just hours ago in the Anatomical Opera. How, in his blind torment, he had mistaken her for another Drukhari guard and attacked, lashing out with the full force of his psychic abilities. Her every nerve had boiled with white-hot fire for a few brief seconds, driving her to her knees and leaving her breathless and weak, shuddering violently against her will, her teeth locked and her throat clenched, unable to even scream.

She hadn't told him them—she may never tell him this—but as she recovered and forced herself back onto her feet, it wasn't anger or pain that had forced a flush up to her face. It had been something else, something she dared not name. Not now. Possibly never.

That same unnamed thing lived in Marazhai's dark gaze as he studied her.

She took an unsteady step back.

His reflexes were quicker—all at once his hand was at her jaw, taking her chin in his fierce grip, the metal of his gauntlet cold on her skin. He leaned in close, so close that she could see the narrow band of dark turquoise around his dilated pupils, nearly all of the color swallowed by the black. "I can show you more of this world, Amelia," he breathed in a heady whisper. "I can teach you. If you do as you are told."

She stood, frozen, the entire world reduced to those two pools of void black that his eyes had become. Two points of sharp metal claws dug into her cheeks, just above her jaw. His entire body, easily two feet taller than her own, now curved over her, his ink-black hair falling in a curtain beside them.

He could snap her neck easily. And she, in turn, could drop her lho-stick and jam her pistol into his sternum, taking him down with her at the pull of her trigger.

Neither of them moved. She held his gaze steadily—not as a challenge, just watching. At last, she carefully wet the seam of her lips and spoke.

"Show me."

Interest lit up his eyes. He pulled back just a little, raking his gaze slowly down her body, taking in the scars on her face, the shaved side of her head, the ragged clothes she had stolen or won from others in Commorragh, the lho-stick still held between two fingers, the end burning with a dull red glow.

"Patience, pet," he crooned. He took the lho-stick and brought it to his lips, meeting her gaze again and holding it as he took a slow, deep drag. His lips curved into a cat-like smirk as he blew the smoke in her face, digging the claws of his gauntlet into her jaw lest she try to turn her face away. "Carry out my orders first. Find Yremeryss for me and do not interfere with my plans to trap her soul."

Amelia licked her lips again and nodded wordlessly, as much as she could with her face firmly in his painful grip.

Something like approval seemed to soften his sharp features. He straightened up, pulling his hand from her face and taking her wrist gently instead. She glanced down, surprised by his light touch and the way he slowly brought her arm up between them, cradling it in his cold grip. His movements languid, he pushed the sleeve of her coat up her arm, exposing her skin to the dank chill of the Pit, and slowly traced the clawed point of his thumb down the thin blue line of her vein. She shivered again, enraptured by the light pressure, the threat of his claw puncturing directly into her veins, watching him drag his thumb down from the sensitive point at her inner elbow down to where the blue lines branched at her wrist.

Pain, sharp and sudden, bloomed in her wrist as he gripped it suddenly with near-crushing force. Before she could so much as gasp, he drove the burning end of the lho-stick into her arm, forcing it into the skin just below her elbow. Her knees buckled at the sudden pain, but she stayed on her feet, gritting her teeth against a grating groan of pain she didn't want him to hear.

He watched her with glimmering dark eyes, his lips curved in an eager, sharp-toothed grin. He was feeding off this pain, she realized. Drinking in every sensation and watching her squirm with barely disguised delight. She met him stare for stare, sweat beading her brow as she fought not to make a sound as the lho-stick burned through her skin. It wasn't enough. A small whimper fought its way from her throat, pathetic and thin.

Marazhai relented. Releasing her wrist, he tossed the spent lho-stick away with a casual flick and shoved Amelia back. She stumbled back a few steps, gripping her arm, seething from the pain that burned there.

"A taste for you," he said, unmoved by her dark glares. He focused his attention on his fingers, rubbing them together as if to remove any remnants of lho ash that may have lingered. "Do not forget your place."

She breathed in slowly through her nose, tempering her anger, unable to deny that it was tangled up with a mix of other emotions and desires. She knew the game he wanted to play and the response he wanted to hear. She knew how humiliating it would be to bend to his whims and yet…

Do you know how pleasurable it is when your suffering rings out in unison with another's?

The burn on her arm stung, fizzling angrily with heat.

She wished the lho-stick hadn't gone out so quickly.

She wet her lips again. "I won't."

Marazhai smirked. "An obedient pet. Good."

He picked up the armor plate he had been fixing earlier and slapped it back into place, not even flinching as the hooks dug once more into his flesh. He rolled his shoulders to check the fit and then cast a nonchalant glance her way. "Remember my orders. Now go. I'm finished with you…for now."

She could feel his gaze on her as she slipped away, retreating to an even lower platform of the den with even dimmer lighting. She didn't dare turn around to check if he was watching—she didn't need to.

Once out of his sight, she pulled her hand away to check the mark on her arm. It was small, a near-perfect circle hardly bigger than her thumbnail, but the center had burned through several layers of skin, leaving only wet, raw flesh exposed to the open air. If she didn't treat it with a medicae kit soon, it would fester. Even with a medicae kit, it might scar.

She traced a featherlight circle around the outer edge of the burn, noting the heat of her skin as it fought to react to this new wound. It wasn't the first scar she had earned in Commorragh. It probably wouldn't be the last, given what they had to do next. But this one…

She remembered again Marazhai's cool grip on her jaw and then her arm, the way he had bent over her, looming with the full force of his Drukhari height. She remembered his eyes glimmering with sadistic pleasure as he watched her squirm. And how his releasing her had felt like one part relief and two parts cold disappointment. Almost like rejection.

A taste for you. Do not forget your place.

She stared down at the burn a moment longer, warring with herself. Then, at last, she pulled down the sleeve of her coat and left the burn to scar on its own. A momento, as it were.

The first mark.

#dom Marzi is not my cup of tea #but this is lovely!#and i am always willing to help with anything regarding the boy #marazhai x von valancius #marazhai aezyrraesh #oc: amelia von valancius #rogue trader

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