The Mist and the Lightning. Part VI - стр. 4
A satin red ribbon is tied around her neck, hiding bruises from a completely different “jewelry” – an iron collar. It was removed recently. And there are traces of his teeth there.
And Sigmer catches himself thinking that he wants to do this with her again. Make pain so that she glances, remembers him.
“Gladiators inevitably,” they fight really brilliantly. Neither one nor the other wants to give up. “As for the last time” is ridiculous, because it is so. The battle drags on, two desperate people are already just rolling
in the dust of the arena, violently clinging to each other. “Blacks…” The instinct of self-preservation doesn’t allow them to give up. They are warriors.
“Have mercy on them!” She finally turns to him, with a plea in her eyes and voice. “Send them to hard labor camp, but don’t force one of them to kill the other. They fought honestly, and are equal in strength!”
What is she hoping for? That in the prisoner camp they will wait for release. That “their people” will come to save them. There can be no more stupidity! “Blacks” will never recapture lost positions. And those who were captured are doomed. What's the difference? Die now, or slowly and painfully rot in hard labor.
He signs, and both captives leave the arena alive. In a burst of gratitude, she snuggles up to him, hugging:
“Thanks! Thanks! Thanks!”
He stands, barely holding back such a stupid and inappropriate victorious grin now, with outward indifference accepting her grateful tenderness. And when she easily blows in his ear, dodges with made discontent:
“What a silly habit!”
In response, she smiles ingratiatingly, expecting him to smile too. Now he will tumble her down right here on the balcony, and he doesn’t give a damn that she will be lying rigidly flat on stone slabs. And she will understand how much he really loves her. No.
And he turns around to leave. He gives out some instructions to his advisers, completely ignoring her, while constantly backing and sensing her presence, knowing that she is nearby and obediently following him.
The warriors will be hanged that evening. However, she will not know about it. She is never interested in the further fate of the “pardoned”.
His thoughts rush about in his head like birds in a cage.
She would never have stabbed Arel! Everyone likes Arel! Everyone chooses Arel… And Nikto too … Oh! Just not that!
“Come here. Do this. Maybe you will feel better if you fuck me. Your headache…”
No! Don’t think about it! Don’t think at all!
“You smell like a grave… No, really, nobody told you before? Arel didn't tell you? No! Actually, it’s good, not a grave, I put it badly, it is the earth, damp earth, as if you went down to the cellar, it smells the same…”
And it seems to Lis that Nikto thinks for a minute and then agrees:
“Strange, I never thought about it, but after all I lived half my life underground… But, it’s better not to mess with my past. Stop stirring up my past…”
And Nikto bends over him …
“Don’t mess with my past. Stop stirring up my past…”
And Lis doesn’t notice how he unconsciously clutches his ear, covering it with his palm.
He timidly runs his hand over the tattooed hip. He feels irregularities, slight bulges of the picture, where the skin was apparently pierced deeper than necessary. Or such barely perceptible bulges are formed when the paint for some reason “comes out” and you have to pass this place several times with a needle. Or maybe just in these areas, healing somehow happened incorrectly and something similar to traces of scars formed. Lis understands this a little, however, he knows, he heard from someone that if the tattoo is convex, it means that it was