Chapter Text
The drip was louder today. Or maybe his mind was quieter.
Hawks didn’t move when the sound hit the cracked stone floor again. He didn’t lift his head. Didn’t flinch. He just lay there, knees drawn up, wings curled limply behind him, waiting for the next drop to fall.
Drip.
There it was.
The pipe had been cracked for years. He couldn't see it, the pipe was somewhere outside of his prison.
It was maddening. A wet mockery that was sure to snap the faint tether he still had to sanity.
If he’d had fingernails left, he would’ve torn his cage apart until he could find it. Fix it.
If he’d been able to feel his magic he would have torn this pathetic room apart stone by stone.
But he had neither. In his cell the only thing he had was his collar.
Iron set with runes, too hot against his skin, humming like static when he thought too loud. It bit every time his heartbeat picked up. Like a leash inside his bones so that he could never forget who he belonged to.
He couldn’t die here. Starvation and dehydration weren’t enough to kill something like him. But he wasn’t truly living either.
The last time someone had opened the door was…
Shit, how long? A week? A year?
It was easy to lose track of time here. There was no way to even tell what time of day it was.
The humans rarely came by. And even when they did it was at uneven intervals. No sense of schedule to tell time by.
Hawks didn't beg. Not anymore. That had ended somewhere around year one. Now he only listened.
Drip.
There it was.
Every few seconds for the last few years.
He shifted. Boney knees grinding against the floor. Wings dragging behind him like dead weight. His wrists were scabbed where the manacles rubbed, but not enough to scar. Healing was one of the gifts they hadn’t managed to block him from.
Not yet, anyway.
Somewhere in the pit of his stomach. Deep below the rot and silence and shame. There was something hot and mean that hadn’t been collared.
It whispered. Ugly things that proved the humans were right about the monstrous instincts of the fae. It was shameful how easily he could picture it in his minds eye.
A stupid, slow human guard swinging the door open. Cruel words dying on the man’s lips as hawks showed him what exactly they had caged here. Showed him how puny and weak humans were.
And that was why he was in this prison. To be fae was to be little better than an animal. He was lucky they allowed him to have worth. To serve the kingdom. He deserved to be put down before these wild instincts got a human killed.
————-
It always started with the sound of keys.
A grinding of rusted bolts.
The hiss of the collar heating up as if to remind him what would happen if he acted out.
When the door swung open it wafted in fresh air that didn’t smell of waste. Hawks sucked in a deep lungful. But he didn’t move.
Not when light from the hall broke through the darkness near blinding him after so long without it. Not when the two humans stepped in, stomping as though that would signify their perceived authority.
“Well, shit,” the one to the left said. Pinching their nose. “Didn’t even bother to piss in the corner.”
“Think it even knows it’s supposed to?” The guard to the right was shorter than the other, squat with a thick unkept mustache.
They shared a laugh. The sound of their footsteps drew closer to where hawks lay in a slump on the floor.
He felt the toe of a boot prod against his ribs. Hard enough to bruise.
“Hey. Rise and shine.”
Hawks blinked slowly, still trying to adjust to the light. He didn’t speak. He wasn’t sure he could if he was being honest. His throat was dry, tongue thick where it rested in his mouth.
The boot prodded him again. Less gentley this time.
He tried to heave himself to his feet, but while starvation wouldn’t kill him it definitely weakened him. His knees buckled under the weight sending his body crashing back to the stone floor.
One of them clucked their tongue. “Fuck’s sake. Gonna have to carry it.”
“Really? You want that thing touching me?”
“You think it’s just gonna walk out of here? Look at him.”
Hands gripped his arm. Callused. Impatient.
He sagged forward, too weak to resist.
“Gods, he stinks.”
“They always stink. Fae rot. It’s in their blood.”
More hands. Lifting this time. hefting him like poorly packed luggage.
They carried him between them. One arm hoisted by each man. His body suspended between them.
His wings sagged behind him, catching on the uneven stone.
They didn’t need to drag him. He wasn’t heavy. He was meant to soar through the skies.
But still, they carried him like he was a heavy burden they were forced to bear.
“You’re needed,” one of them muttered as they turned down a long hallway lined with doors just like the one gracing the entrance to hawks room.
“Time to earn your keep.”
The guards stopped just outside the last door, at the very end of a series of hallways. The one that led outside.
Hawks couldn’t make out much beyond the shift in air pressure, the flicker of cleaner air that lay just beyond the threshold.
“Shit,” one of them cursed. “We can’t take him up like this. He stinks worse than the damn pens.”
“What does that matter? All we’ve gotta do is hand him off.”
“And when command smells him from halfway down the hall? You wanna explain that?”
The conversation paused. The second guard grunted. “Fine. A quick rinse. Just enough to not gag anyone.”
One of them peeled off down the hall. Their boots thudding down a side corridor. The other grunted and drug hawks into a room close by. The floor was sloped toward the drain that was set in the middle of the floor.
The guard leaned him against the wall like a sack of grain and propped him upright with a boot to the knee. Hawks sagged anyway, sliding down the wall until he hit the stone floor hard enough to jar his bones. His wings ached where a few feathers had been torn loose from their rough slide along the wall.
The man made an annoyed sound before leaving the room.
He sat there, panting, barely able to hold his head up. Cold stone against his back. Wet air curling into the hollow of his throat.
He didn’t ask what was happening. He didn’t need to, he could guess what would come next.
The first guard returned a few minutes later. clunking down the hallway, the sound of sloshing water echoing louder than it should’ve.
“Ready for your bird bath?” he asked, dropping a number of metal buckets by the door.
They were so funny. A birdbath. For the winged fae. Comedic genius really. In all his years he had never heard that one.
The guard didn’t bother to undress him. Hawks chose to take this as a kindness. A way to allow him to conserve his dignity.
He grit his teeth in an effort to brace himself.
The first splash of water hit him like a slap. It was cold enough to take his breath away. It stung his eyes and burned his nostrils.
He couldn’t stop the flinch his body gave in responce.
Hated the way the guard laughed in response .
Water rolled down his matted hair and the hollow of his collarbones, soaking through layers of filth and old cloth.
The guard tossed the second bucket a little harder, like he could knock the years of filth off if the water fell hard enough.
The third splash sent a violent shiver down his spine. He was soaked. Freezing. The soapy water had done little to actually clean his ragged body.
“Good enough,” the guard muttered.
The other returned with clothes. A shirt with more holes than fabric, pants stiff from age. They tossed them at him like they were doing him a favor.
“Change. Fast. We’re already late.”
The floor was wet.
The clothes soaked through the second they hit it.
Hawks stared at them for a long, empty moment.
Somehow these two were an example of the superior species. It was funny sometimes.
Then, moving slow, he peeled himself out of the layers he’d worn for years. The way he coaxed his limbs into movement was far from graceful. They felt alien.
The new clothes clung to him, damp and scratchy. It didn’t matter. They weren’t meant to fit. They were meant to cover his indecency.
He didn’t look at the guards. He didn’t speak.
He just sat there, wings squashed awkwardly against the stone wall behind him. soaked and cold, humiliated in a way that wasn’t new but never got any easier.
They didn’t give him any time to recover. Each of them hooked their arms under him and drug him back out of the now soaked room and through the door they had paused beside earlier.
The heavy outer door groaned on its hinges.
It was made of dense ash wood, iron-forged. Crafted in material harmful to fae so that even if they did manage to break free from their holding pens, there was no escape without a human there to open the door.
The walls around the door were coated in salt. The coating reapplied daily. Impossible to penetrate.
The door pushed out.
The clean air rushed in.
Hawks didn’t lift his head. He wanted to, but he couldn’t no matter how har she strained. The air greeted him like an old friend. Soothing his skin. Brushing through his hair in a way that felt almost playful.
“Oh, there you are” it seemed to tease.
If the air greeted him as an old friend the sunlight that spilled across his face greeted him as a brother.
Warm and soul familiar in a way that breathed life into him.
The beauty of it gutted him. Heat cracking over his skin, soaking through the grime like a secret only his body remembered.
It wasn’t enough to fully reignite his magic.
But it made something inside him purr. Deep in his chest. In the marrow of his bones.
Something long-buried blinked awake, stretched in a long slow push.
His pale skin faintly glowed with new life. No longer the desaturated hue it took on when he was shut up.
The guards didn’t notice.
They kept walking, dragging him like a sack of spoiled grain.
The courtyard was small, just a connecting square between buildings. Sunlit stone and creeping vines, warm dust on the breeze. A patch of grass, wild and clinging to life near a cracked flagstone.
He wanted to stop. To take this opportunity to kneel in the suns rays, worship the wind as it whispered of far away things.
To commune with the sky.
Ten steps. That’s all they gave him.
Ten steps between one door and the next.
Their pace didn’t even slow down to allow him a second to linger.
They yanked him back into shadow. Through another arched door, through narrow halls that smelled of oil and limestone and old parchment.
Back buried beneath stone. It felt unnatural.
The halls around them changed the further they ventured into the keep.
The floors went from cracked stone to polished marble.
The light no longer emanated from sparse torches that flickered, now they were intricate sconces that glowed with shimmering mage light.
The men standing guard now wore crested armor. Their eyes followed after Hawks. Watchful, waiting for him to give them an excuse to act.
This part of the stronghold didn’t feel like punishment.
It stood in sharp contrast to the life he lived.
No one said a word to him. No one met his eyes.
He wasn’t meant to be looked at. He was no more note worthy that the stones that held up their roof.
He was nothing more than another tool to be utilized.
The pair of guards who had fetched him slowed their pace.
They must be nearing the commander.
Hawks wondered, distantly, if it would be the same man from last time. Or if enough time had passed that he would be serving a new human.
—————-
The guards opened the final door with little fan fair.
The air on the other side wasn’t warm like the courtyard had been. It was heavy, stagnant.
It smelled like ink, and bound leather. The wood work that accented the walls was ornate in a way only the powerful could afford. The room was the kind of space that was designed to make others feel cowed.
They dragged Hawks inside, boots echoing too loud on polished stone.
He didn’t recognize the woman before him. She was younger than most of his handlers typically were. He wasn’t skilled at correctly aging humans. But he would bet this woman hadn’t been free of a nursemaid for more than three decades.
So he was to have a new master. He wondered distantly what had become of the last one. Had he been locked away so long that the man had died? It wouldn’t be the first time.
His new handler didn’t even look up to greet them. They were left standing before her silently.
She sat behind a wide desk. It was made of smooth wood, without a single scratch that he could see. He flicked his eyes quickly around the room and found no personal belongings that might tell him more of how to interact with the woman.
Her fingers moved over a parchment like nothing had changed. As if his guards hadn’t entered her office unannounced and dropped a half-dead fae onto her clean floor.
Then her hand stilled.
Her eyes lifted slowly.
Not surprised or angry, but clearly annoyed.
“…This is how you bring him to me?”
Her voice was calm. Cool as the polished floor that Hawks lay slumped against.
He could see his reflection in the polished marble beneath him. His own eyes gazing back at him with a dead stare. He looked awful. Sunken eyes, skin pulled taught with dehydration.
One of the guards shifted. “Ma’am, he-”
She dipped her pen, signed something with a flick of her wrist, before fully giving the guards her attention once more.
“Why would you bring him like this?
One of the guards opened his mouth. She lifted a single brow.
That was enough to remind the man of his place in this room.
Hawks may be nothing to them, but they were little better in the commanders eyes.
They fell silent.
The silence stretched out, awkwardness filled the room before they drummed up the courage to try again.
“We thought it best not to delay, Commander. Time-sensitive request, high-level clearances, we were ordered to-“
“Do not mistake urgency for permission to disrespect my presence with this filth. My assets are to be kept in prime condition should I have need of them.
They both stiffened. One tried again. “We bathed him. Dressed him.”
“He’s disgusting. And barely clothed more than the mongrels that beg at the gates.,” she said, voice clipped. “You could have scraped better off the kennel floors.”
The air chilled around her.
“Leave.”
“But Commander, protocol says-“
“Now.”
The door shut behind them with a weighted clang.
She was already moving.
Steps slow. Measured.
She stopped in front of him and crouched, her movements elegant and unhurried. Her gloved fingers pressed once to the collar, confirming its charge. Satisfied, her hand slid into the matted tangle of his hair.
She fisted it. Tight.
Slowly, Hawks lifted his head.
He met her gaze.
She didn’t so much as blink.
“What a shame that you have fallen into such poor condition” she said softly. “Asset Moniker: Hawks.”
She said it like a brand. A serial number.
“Your file claimed you would be well suited for this mission. Hopefully we can quickly restore you to a suitable condition to be useful here.”
She released him with quiet sound of disgust and stood, wiping her hand on a white cloth she plucked from the pocket of her uniform.
Then her tone dropped into something colder.
“Keigo.”
The air snapped.
His magic jolted, called to attention against his will.
He gasped. Every nerve caught fire.
“Keigo,” she repeated, voice now edged in power. “You will not resist your handlers.”
The words cut. Etched into his soul. Inescapable.
His skin burned beneath the collar, magic scarring in invisible runes across his chest, deep into his bones.
“You will obey my orders to the letter.”
He had forgotten how awfully they burned.
“You will not intentionally bring harm to any human under your protection or in your proximity.”
His back arched. His wings seized. His mouth opened in a silent scream as the last command settled.
Then silence.
The collar clicked open. It didn’t fall away entirely but it sat looser now.
It hovered, unlatched, but waiting. The threat of it worse than the actuality.
At least he could fully feel his magic again.
He collapsed to the floor, breathragged.
The Commander sat again. Back straight. Pen
poised.
“Your papers are on the table by the door. See to your preparation.”
She didn’t look at him again.
He knew better than to linger. Gritting his teeth, he heaved himself to his feet.
He was still wobbly but now without the collar suppressing his magic he could heal at a rate actually worth something.
Hawks staggered to the door, pausing just long enough to snatch the papers off the polished wooden table she had pointed out before pushing through the door of the commanders office.
——————
The hallway was empty.
Small mercy that he had a moment to collect himself before having to bear the brunt of humanity once more.
The commander had likely ordered the hallway cleared for the duration of her meeting with him.
It made sense, she wouldn’t want to run the risk of anyone else learning his true name. Too dangerous to allow anyone else to hold the leash. To risk his claws being turned on her.
He scanned the hall quickly. On instinct. It would be stupid of him to let his guard down. He was barely standing, he wasn’t sure if he could stiff lip it through any more casual cruelty just yet.
The only window sat recessed between two heavy wooden beams. It wasn’t even fully open, just cracked enough to let in air and light. A narrow blessing.
Hawks shuffled closer. Leaned against the wall so that he was angled perfectly in the beam of light.
The sun reached for him through the gap, and he tilted slightly, just a little. Just enough to catch it. One wing stretched toward the warmth like a sunflower might, desperate and involuntary. The other hung lower, still too sore to lift properley.
He let his head fall back against the stone wall, eyes half-lidded.
It didn’t heal him. Nothing would fully until he had some fuel for his magic to utilize. Some food. But gods, it helped. Like something long-withered deep in his chest had finally been given water.
His breathing evened out. The burning etched across his ribs from the Commander’s words stopped pulsing quite so hateful.
He lifted his orders, unrolled them from the thin leather that protected them.
He would need to sort out his following tasks based on priority.
Mission Orders
last. Always last. No point in knowing where you’re flying until your wings are working.
He shuffled it to the back.
Next: Quarters Assignment
better. But not urgent.
Another shuffle.
Bathing Access Approval
Clothing Voucher
Rations Allocation: Tier 1-Protien.
There. That was first.
He thumbed it like it might turn into food on its own. It didn’t.
Stuffing food into his stomach would need to happen soon if he were to make any progress on the rest of his orders.
He stared at the sun again. Just for another heartbeat.
It felt like mockery and blessing all at once.
Then he turned away. Tucked the pages back into their leather tie. He straightened, despite how painful and awkward it felt. It wouldn’t do to look weak.
He set off down the hall with unhurried steps. Wondering if the kitchen was still in the same place.