[On a good day, the Pie Maker has a low threshold for physical pain.
It is not that he was coddled, or pandered to, or handled gently as a child. No stranger to emotional trauma or psychological abuse, Young Ned protected himself at all costs for fear that opening up would be a nail in the coffin he had built for himself since he was nine years old, watching his mother as she was lowered into the ground. Not particularly athletic, the few times he stood up for himself or others ended up in uneven fistfights and altercations, nursing a bloodied lip and a wounded ego that slowly learned to armor itself. His scrapes healed given time, but they were always superficial.
What is not superficial is the sudden, excruciating explosion of heat in his lower back which disappears almost as soon as it strikes him, tearing out a strangled scream that rends his throat hoarse. The sickening crunch of vertebrae would turn his stomach if his stomach wasn't likely being punctured by the very same shards of bone. Were his head not held aloft from the ground by forceful fingers he would be burying it in the only clean smell left, green and spattered with red beneath his face.
Those fingers clutch his shoulder, clawing in deep and the choked sobs of the Pie Maker are lost in the sound of tearing sinew as his left arm howls louder than he ever could, the shock still sinking in while his vision blurs.]
Please-
[Ned doesn't even know what he's asking for, a soft thud in his periphery registering as the red beneath him thickens. The flesh-colored lump has a plain, black sleeve decorating it, soaked dark with liquid.
no subject
It is not that he was coddled, or pandered to, or handled gently as a child. No stranger to emotional trauma or psychological abuse, Young Ned protected himself at all costs for fear that opening up would be a nail in the coffin he had built for himself since he was nine years old, watching his mother as she was lowered into the ground. Not particularly athletic, the few times he stood up for himself or others ended up in uneven fistfights and altercations, nursing a bloodied lip and a wounded ego that slowly learned to armor itself. His scrapes healed given time, but they were always superficial.
What is not superficial is the sudden, excruciating explosion of heat in his lower back which disappears almost as soon as it strikes him, tearing out a strangled scream that rends his throat hoarse. The sickening crunch of vertebrae would turn his stomach if his stomach wasn't likely being punctured by the very same shards of bone. Were his head not held aloft from the ground by forceful fingers he would be burying it in the only clean smell left, green and spattered with red beneath his face.
Those fingers clutch his shoulder, clawing in deep and the choked sobs of the Pie Maker are lost in the sound of tearing sinew as his left arm howls louder than he ever could, the shock still sinking in while his vision blurs.]
Please-
[Ned doesn't even know what he's asking for, a soft thud in his periphery registering as the red beneath him thickens. The flesh-colored lump has a plain, black sleeve decorating it, soaked dark with liquid.
His arm. His own arm.]