Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/7387438.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      M/M, Multi
  Fandom:
      The_Goblin_Emperor_-_Katherine_Addison
  Character:
      Csevet_Aisava, Eshevis_Tethimar
  Additional Tags:
      Blood, Urine, Whipping, Rape, Violence, Underage_Rape/Non-con
  Stats:
      Published: 2016-07-04 Words: 3282
****** cub hunting ******
by ishallbequeen
Summary
     Csevet lied to Maia about what happened at Eshoravee.
"Will you tell us," Maia Drazhar said gently, "why you fear Dach'osmer
Tethimar?"
One did not deny one's Emperor. But neither could Csevet Aisava bear to pour
out the truth, like a blood stain, onto the curious innocence of his master's
heart.
Still, a clearer warning needed to be uttered about the Tethimada. In the wake
of Sheveän Drazharan's actions, others might be encouraged to similar efforts.
A cold sickness gripped Csevet, but he knew he must speak at last, and saw the
line he must walk. "Serenity," he said, trying one last time to avert this
course. "It is not a pleasant story."
Pale imperial eyes studied him with that serious, attentive softness which
could not fail to arrest the soul. "We do not ask for the sake of amusement."
"No, Serenity, we know that." Csevet's breath wavered. So. This would happen,
and he would tell the Emperor enough, but not everything - He began before his
courage failed.
The beginning, at least, made simple telling: that long ride, that long climb,
in the rain, in the dark. "It is safe to say," he added, striving to control
voice and emotions, "we hated Eshoravee long before we reached its gates." But
we did not yet fear it. One ear twitched with remembered agony.
Here in the warmth of the Alcethmeret, in the warmth of his master's gaze, that
night ten years ago was further away than it had ever been, and it seemed a
violation to pollute the present, more promising than ever he had dreamed of,
with the foulness of the past. He tried to keep his ears steady, forcing his
voice onwards. Still the story ran true, but he hoped the Emperor did not
notice the tiny hitches to his voice, as he tried to find the point to deviate,
like walking on ice and searching for the weak spot.
"You bit Dach'osmer Tethimar." There was a quaver in his Serenity's voice, a
twitch to his ears. A little suppressed laughter and shock, Csevet thought. He
looked his age for once.
"It is very likely he still has the scar," said Csevet. But the idea gave no
satisfaction, the memory no incentive to linger upon it.
Curtly he recounted the proposition, the rejection, the initiation of the game,
softening its aspect with brief description – Season lies carefully with
truth,> his first mentor in the service had told him, and oh, how he had become
adept. He passed as lightly as he could over the scene, and found, at last, his
point of divergence. Here is a staircase, Serenity, sent by a goddess, for we
know you love your goddesses. Here is a chimney, warm as a mother's embrace.
Here is an escape, wonderful as any that a hero achieved in a wondertale …
*
... The blow smashed Csevet, still small for his fifteen years, back against
the door, and his vision vanished with his hopes. An arm, soft with silken
sleeve, slammed across his neck.
"We caught thee, little fox. Now, what's our prize?"
There was no air for him to answer. His captor laughed against one ear, hot and
damp. Like the breath of a monster from a story. Csevet's insides roiled liquid
with terror: his eyesight, traitorously, cleared. A face hung above him – the
Tethimada heir, of course, men gathered in his wake, laughing ... Handsome, so
handsome, but the charming smile belonged to a different face than the dilated,
savage eyes.
"Dach'osmer," he wheezed, preparing – to offer? to plead? - and the lord spun
him around and smashed him face-first into the door, so his words were muffled
in teeth and lips.
"Now, what do hounds do with a fox cub, my friends?" There was pantomime-
confusion in the lord's voice. "Do they rip off its head?" Once more Csevet's
head slammed into the wood, and pain poured hotly from his nose while the
baying of the human hounds rose to fever-pitch. Salezheio, Salezheio, he prayed
incoherently.
"Do they rip off its tail?" The lord's body pressed in, taller, bigger,
stronger, and his hand shoved down between shirt and breeches to Csevet's
backside. Three hard fingers penetrated without a moment's pause, and if
Csevet's face had not been pressed so hard to the door he would have screamed.
He bucked violently on those fingers. But there was nowhere to go.
“And what about these – pretty – little – ears … ” Lips locked onto one tip,
sucking with a lover's softness for a breath before the teeth came into play
and ripped one earring free of flesh. Again Csevet bucked, desperate as a colt,
trying to shatter the nightmare, but against his front there was the unyielding
cold oak of a door, and against his back was the even more unyielding heat of a
lord of the realm.
“Why so frantic, cub?” Licking kisses were laid against the fresh dripping
blood. “Not used to being prey? It's simple. Roll over, show us thy belly, open
wide.”
On those words he was spun around. That face, terrifying and lovely as a
snowstorm, looked down at him. “Pretty baby fox,” it said softly, and kissed
his bruised, broken mouth.
Still those fingers impaled him as surely as a soldier on a sword. It was
overpowering. He wilted back against the wall, letting his battered lips fall
slack even as they were bitten, because he was only a courier, and he'd been a
fool to run, and what if the lord made the service let him go -
A knee wedged his legs apart. “They say couriers have long legs. What about
your second tail, cub?”
That called a fresh round of hoots and crude comments from the hounds behind
the lord. Csevet shut his eyes, trying to block the world away as the lord at
last removed his fingers - but only to stick them instead down the front of his
breeches, seizing Csevet's penis like a sword-hilt. “Soft little tail, soft
little cub!” The lord tongued a long, urgent stripe up his neck and higher,
sucking the last of the mess from his ear, while his hand dragged heavily back
and forth.
Did he want him aroused? Would that help this pass more quickly? Csevet tried
to summon images of desire, summer-soft hair and sweetly-shaped arms, but they
turned to ash in his mind at each painful tug, each touch that sickened his
stomach like a poison. When his shoulders were seized and he was spun, then
shoved to his knees, he tried to pretend he was kneeling to pray to Salezheio,
for she guarded all couriers, surely even through such horrors as these – but
at the feel of a velvet-clad crotch pressed to his broken nose all hopes were
dispelled.
“Open it with thy teeth, cub.” The lord gripped him, bruising, breaking-tight,
by the ears.
And what else could he do with his teeth while he was here? – nothing, if he
wanted to live, and he did, he did, he had fought the whole world to become a
courier, higher than his family had ever dared reach before – Still with eyes
jammed shut, he ran his battered mouth along the placket. There, a button,
tasting of metal: he yanked and dragged at the surrounding fabric until it
popped free. Then again. And again. His burning nose and mouth bumped and
dragged against velvet, and the hard erection beyond it.
“Dach'osmer, may we?” This from a voice behind him, and he paid it no attention
until -
Someone grabbed his arms, and yanked them back and up, painfully wrenching at
the shoulders. His eyes flew open from shock, but he could not move his head
because of the grip on his ears, could only look at brown velvet, exposed white
cotton underthings, the jutting urgency beyond.
“Pay attention to thy task, cub.” The lord's fingers twisted in his earrings,
smashed him forward. His gasping open mouth pressed against fabric and, behind
it, a pulsing shaft. Something wet ran down his nose: blood or tears, he did
not know. Revulsion rolled in his belly. The only way was forward. He closed
his eyes, then moved his tongue against the fabric, and a sigh and shiver went
through the lord's long body.
Into his hands, limp at the end of his pinioned, wrenched arms, someone shoved
another penis. His participation in that did not seem needed: the someone
thrust into his loose fingers, and the motion made his head thrust at the
lord's groin. With an exclamation, the lord loosed one of Csevet's ears just
long enough to pull his penis free of his underwear, and with one more thrust
was so deep in Csevet's mouth that he could not breathe. Perhaps he would
faint. Perhaps he would die. Nothing held him up but the grip on his arms and
ears. The penis went on and on, splitting his jaw wide, his throat open.
Sparkles grew in the darkness behind his lids. Perhaps the goddess finally saw
him, perhaps her light was coming for him …
The penis was withdrawn. His body inhaled quite involuntarily, and then in a
mess of blood and spit and choking his mouth was filled again. Endure just
this, he thought, surely this is not worse than when the surgeon set thy leg –
but though he had quickly learned lying in the courier's service, he had never
yet managed to lie to himself. He wept, gagging and sobbing, and the lord
fucked his face, and he could not escape, not by body, not by mind.
There was a groan behind him. Wetness spurted over his hands, and he knew what
it was. Cringing, he flinched violently, only succeeding in wrenching his arms
still further. Why didst thou run, fool of an elf, it might have gone more
gently on you – Now his arms were released, and he eddied sideways in a half-
asphyxiated haze, the penis sliding from his mouth with a sucking sound.
“You dared come before us, Dalera?” said the lord, far above Csevet's head,
using his ears to press his face against the lord's thigh. “Kneel down. Don't
close your breeches. Ardis, kill him.”
“Yes, lord!”
There was a scream, broken an instant later by a crunch and thud and gurgling.
Hot wetness sprayed the back of Csevet's head and the air bloomed with the
smell of blood. He shuddered, not quite understanding that he had not been the
one to die, pressing dazedly into the leg before him.
“A pity you did not sever the spine neatly,” said the lord. “That is a great
deal of blood. Cub, clean the body.” Csevet was hurled around, pushed down
against something warm and wet and fleshy, no, no, he thrashed with panic.
“Clean it, we say!” A boot pressed against his head.
His eyes flew open briefly. He closed them instantly, but not before his vision
was branded with a sight of horror.
“No! No!” He kicked, flailed his arms, this was too much, this wasn't right, oh
goddesses, he could taste blood and skin, his mouth was shoved into the wound
and he could hear the gurgling of the great artery exsanguinating and was the
man still alive no no no and – Now he was free, and he rolled away across a
gritty stone floor, but there came a great scream from the lord, roars from the
hounds, and then feet began to pound at his belly and back and he curled up,
baby-like, around himself. A puddle of blood cradled his cheek.
“Wilt pay for that, cub,” rasped the lord, and in a flash of despair Csevet
realised that in his thrashing he had knocked the lord over.
He thought he had been terrified already.
The kicking stopped. Someone wrenched his breeches off. “I am so sorry, so
sorry, please, no, please, so sorry.” Words trickled weakly out of his mouth,
but his limbs had died of fear and he could not move. His legs were wrenched
apart. That bigger body pressed over his like the weight of the tomb, and the
penis still damp from his own mouth shoved into his backside, breaking body as
wide as soul was already broken. Within him it rasped, fast and hard and deep,
like a blacksmith's file. The lord's hands ripped at Csevet's hair: the lord's
mouth bit his neck, his shoulders, his ears, over and over. And when the lord
climaxed, pouring within him, he thought it was over.
“Ardis: use the cub as you will.”
One weight was replaced by another, the invasion began again, and Csevet began
to cry into the flagstones, body shuddering. He could not endure longer, he
could not, this pain was too much for the living. But it went on, it went on.
The noise of flesh on flesh. The heavy grunts against his head. The forces
bearing him down. The burning, ripping thrusts.
After that one, another.
Another.
And another.
Over and over he was filled, stretched, opened beyond bearing. Another, and
another, and another. Until at last the hounds were sated, and then the lord
came to him once more, stroking his thumb across Csevet's ripped ear. “Please.
Please,” Csevet whispered. “I'll be good. I promise.”
“Well, since thou plead'st so sweetly - ” said the lord. A whip snapped. A thin
line of agony bloomed down Csevet's spine, slicing open both shirt and the skin
beneath. He was too weak to do more than tremble and cling to the floor, eyes
too tight and exhausted to weep anymore.
“This for thy rebellion – this for every minute thou ran from us – this for
every hound whom thou let violate thee - “
Snap. Snap. Snap. Until his back burned like a bonfire, and then the lord sat
down upon it, those velvet breeches rubbing deep into the wounds. He wrapped
his fingers in Csevet's hair. “Pretty little cub,” he said. “Next time we meet,
wilt not bite us, wilt thou?”
No, lord.
“Wilt beg prettily for our cock, next time. For the cocks of our hounds, even
for the cocks of the true dogs that sleep in our hearth.”
Yes, lord.
“Wilt remember the place of a fox in the world. May run as fast as thy legs
will take thee, but the hounds always catch their prey.”
Always, lord.
Hands shoved an item up his passage – nothing living this time, but something
scratchy and cool. “A farewell gift, cub.” Laughing, the lord rose, and the
removal of his weight let Csevet list onto his side and buckle up, knees coming
to his chest.
“Hounds,” said the lord, “it seems we have a dead fox here. We should prepare
his pelt for the tanners.”
Roars of laughter. Rustles, and the sound of belt buckles opening. Csevet
wished he was dead. Let them rape his corpse. It would give them less trouble
than a living body, and he would not be there ... But no hands touched him.
Instead liquid began to splatter over his back, stinging the wounds there so
sharply that his exhausted body found enough strength to cry again, dryly. The
stink of hot urine for a moment overwhelmed the room's smell of drying blood.
After that they left.
Their loud, merry voices retreated, faded, were replaced by the distant wuther
of the storm. The deep chill of a stone fortress swept over him.
He should move. He should seek help. The servants' hall. The warmth of a fire.
He should seek his breeches.
Everyone knew this sometimes happened to couriers. He should not be so foolish,
so weak. It was his own fault.
He did not quite believe they were gone.
Time slid past, thick as blood. After a while, he realised how cold he had
become, particularly his exposed backside, and he never wanted it exposed
again. It took several tries, but he finally uncurled his locked, trembling
limbs, and opened his eyes for the first time in hours. A dirty, sparsely-
furnished room met his gaze, lit only by a small window admitting the distant
glow of light from some courtyard. A puddle of darkness beneath a chair looked
like his breeches. He wobbled to his knees, and shuffled across to it. His face
was a beating heart of pain, and his torso throbbed from the kickings, and his
back felt like it had been laid across a grill. There was a thick, horrible
wetness seeping down the insides of his thighs from between his buttocks. Both
his penis and his legs hurt from being scraped heavily back and forth over the
flagstones with the motions of his rapists. His fingernails were shredded from
having clung to the floor. But he was alive still. That was good. That was
meant to be good.
When he tried to put his breeches on, his hands shook so terribly he could
barely manage the task. And when it came to pulling them over his hips, he
realised there was still the farewell gift from the lord in his backside. He
found it with trembling hands and pulled.
Before he even brought it around to look, his hands told him what it was: a
fox's tail, soaked with gore at one end.
He was sick, suddenly and violently, over it. He dropped the thing like a hot
coal, and bent double, and heaved over and over again, until he felt turned
inside out, but still not clean …
*
…. “What do you think they would have done to you if they had caught you?” his
master asked, and Csevet, lost in the dreamland between the truth of his
memories and the lies he was spinning – the bronchine, after he'd managed to
escape the fortress, had been real enough – was almost caught off guard.
“We imagine,” he said, using every skill he had ever learned to shade his voice
with the emotions he wanted, “that being beaten to death is the best we could
have hoped for. And - ” Why did Maia Drazhar care? Why did he always care? That
was not meant to be the point of this wondertale. He had meant to warn of the
violence and danger of the Tethimada. “ - Serenity, we must tell you that no
one would have cared,” he said. No one had. His supervisor had seen the marks,
and, simply sighing, sent Csevet out on his next mission with a pot of
ointment. It had taken over a year to stop jumping when someone approached him,
longer to stop cringing from shame under the understanding sadness in the eyes
of other couriers. “The Duke Tethimel got his message, and that, after all, is
what matters.”
“According to whom?” said his master, sounding every inch the emperor, his
expression so suddenly reminiscent of Varenechibel and yet his words entirely
his own. It struck Csevet's heart. He felt his ears tremble, and swallowed.
“Serenity,” he said, “it was many years ago. And we survived.”
Distress flickered across the Emperor's face, and Csevet knew immediately that
an apology was on its way. His master did not think of himself first. “Yes. We
are sorry. We are … ”
A lucky interjection from Kiru let the conversation be turned to other
subjects. And in time Csevet was able to leave the Tortoise Room. He had an
appearance to maintain, just as much as his master, but just for a moment in an
empty corridor he closed his eyes and leaned against a nearby wall. He had
thought he had made peace with his memories. Why did they burn so freshly now?
The look in his master's eyes had made him dream of a world where those
memories could never have been created.
Perhaps this was Salezheio's answer to his prayers, after all this time, her
blessing to balance out his pain. This gift of a master.
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