"Pohatu."
The voice echoed like a knife hissing as it scratches marble. The prisoner (the only one, completely isolated from the rest of the city), huddled in a nook, shivered a little further away into the corner he'd tucked himself into and held onto himself a little tighter.
He did not respond to his own name.
Deliberate steps moved closer: clack. Clack. Clack. Clack. Their rhythm was slow, cold; they accompanied a scrutinizing stare.
They stopped before the cell.
The air felt freezing.
"Pohatu."
The prisoner did not answer.
"You are not stupid. That I know."
The chilling voice was soft. It spoke lowly, taking the time to properly enunciate each and every word perfectly.
"I am certain you know what I am here for."
Once more, only silence replied.
"I would advise you do not make this harder than it already is."
He watched as the prisoner's knuckles shook while tightening around his own trembling shoulders, as though trying to hide his weakness.
"Collaborate. For your own sake."
A sob tore through the room.
Another.
Another.
Another.
"Please," the prisoner finally babbled, voice hoarse from disuse.
Broken.
It was his turn to be faced with the silent treatment. Not a word reached him as he cried inconsolably, naked face pressed against his arms, for what seemed like hours.
His brother stared on, unmoving, expressionless, until the wailing died down and the body slumped on itself from the release of pent up emotions.
"I take it you have returned to your senses."
A crooked whine.
"I do not believe I understood that."
A confused mumbling.
"Speak clearly."
"Yes!" his brother sobbed.
His orange eyes looked into blue ones pleadingly, begging for help, for forgiveness. He watched them furrow, watched clouds of condensation pour from the sides of the white mask.
"You are guilty of a terrible crime."
"Yes."
"You are aware of your misconduct."
"Yes."
"You are aware that I cannot call you brother."
A pained wince: "Yes."
Another long moment of quiet passed.
The prisoner had shifted his gaze onto the floor.
The Toa watched him, fists clenched as tight as he could.
"Are you sure your forgiveness is deserved?"
The body shook from another hysterical sob, as though it had just been struck by a lash: he inhaled sharply a few times, but could not bring himself to speak.
"Answer me."
There was another attempt. Again, nothing came of it.
"Pohatu."
"Please..."
He stared.
He stared at the pitiful thing so powerless and miserable, completely alone, curled on itself on the floor as it shuddered.
"Please..."
He stared at the pitiful thing speaking in a voice that crumbled upon itself like gravel rolling uselessly down the side of a mountain.
"Please, I... Please..."
For a long stretch of time, nothing happened.
Then the door to the cell unlocked.
Pohatu dared to look up: Kopaka stood over him, unflinching, unreadable, hands balled up in fists hard enough to crush boulders between his fingers, looking down with his glimmering blue eyes as the air around him crackled with frost.
He could have so easily torn him apart right now.
Only the two of them, here, in the dark, far away from any other form of life who could have heard any commotion or cared enough to investigate.
Nobody would have even known. Not until it was too late.
Kopaka kneeled before the former Toa and pulled him into a tight embrace, one hand cradling his nape while the other pressed hard on his back to squeeze him closer to himself.
He allowed himself a sigh in relief only when he felt the other's arms wrap around him, his face against the crook of his neck.
Pohatu held him by the waist tight.
"I missed you," he sobbed.
I missed you too, Kopaka could not say despite how desperately he needed to.
He tightened his grip.
Then the pain came.
Blinding and sudden, cruel, immense, so profoundly unexpected that all he could do was choke on his own breath.
His torso fell backwards, bending much farther that it should have. His heartlight pulsed erratically as he heaved, adrenaline rushing through him and locking his every muscle in place. His legs were slumped, completely unresponsive like the rest of his lower body; all that was keeping his entire form from crashing on the pavement like a broken doll were the kind, solid, dependable arms of his brother.
A hand wriggled in the now empty space where it had shattered his spine in a morbidly playful way.
He was laid down gently, all things considered.
His eyes only stared at his butcher wide and thoughtless like those of a helpless Rahi before a much faster predator.
Pohatu smiled down at him sweetly, exactly like he always did.
"I missed your soft spot for me."
He tore his hand out of his brother's spine with a ghastly crackle, not even flinching, to wrap it around his throat. He yanked: Kopaka coughed out an anguished wheeze as a chunk of his neck was thrown out, clattering a few bio across the floor.
Pohatu pressed his thumb between the Toa of Ice's face and his mask, applying just about the slightest leverage possible to part the two. It seemed to take ages, for the 'pop' of a dislodged Kanohi to echo through the silence of Kopaka's frantic breathing; but even with all that time for a counterattack at his disposal, he did not manage to raise even a single finger against the other. He only stared, fearful, shocked, in denial.
His brother laughed in the same way he always laughed - a gentle, booming sound, friendly and pleasant, that warmed one's heart.
"You couldn't hurt me if you wanted to with all your being," he mocked him, making the sneering words seem like yet another lighthearted joke as he twirled the Akaku between his fingers: "And isn't that why Tahu and Photok are dead?"
He looked onto the other's face. He'd seen it so few times - after being overwhelmed by the Piraka on Voya Nui, for example.
He remembered it had been awfully surreal, to see it; almost frightening, but familiar somehow.
It stirred nothing in him now.
How lovely.
Pohatu leaned closer to it, until he could feel the shaky breaths from Kopaka's mouth curl around him. They were barely fresh.
"A shame, eh?"
Blue eyes stared at him, horrified.
What a beautiful thing to see.
"That you couldn't save me after all."
He laughed his usual jovial laugh again as he stood up, joints cracking a bit while he stretched. The Akaku clicked onto him in a perfect fit.
How nice of him: pure unwarranted trust, forgiveness, an open door, a hug, and now even a fairly useful Kanohi to replace the one he'd been stripped of lest he use its powers to break himself out of containment. Truly, he was almost starting to feel spoiled.
Kopaka squirmed between his feet. Was he trying to get away?
He couldn't help but giggle.
"There's your only flaws: you're too smart for a leech to bite you."
Pohatu gifted him the sweetest of his smiles.
"And you love your siblings too much."
The air shattered beneath his foot with a sickening crunch.
Pohatu didn't even spare a glance at his brother as he walked away from his corpse, face crushed to bits making an absolute mess on the cold unfeeling pavement, body twitching before the rigor mortis settled in fully; the Toa of Shadow hummed a mindless, cruel song, something right out of a Makuta's repertoire, as he he made his way into the halls of Metru Nui's colosseum in search of whoever else in this enormous playground would have the honorable misfortune to be his second victim of the day.
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