Lafitte lay crumpled on the floor, clutching his chest. He concentrated as much as he could on not moving. This was much harder than it seemed, here on the physical plane. His incarnar body wanted to twitch, to shift its weight. Weight. Now there was an interesting concept that he had been introduced to very intensely within the past few hours. When Dynast threw him to the ground, weight crushed Lafitte's arm between him and the floor. When Lafitte attempted to get up, weight brought his body crashing back down. Weight sent his face down during this fall, right into Dynast's knee. Dynast knew a lot about weight. Lafitte knew a lot about it now too.

Weight was not currenttly the problem. The problem was pain, a concept which Lafitte thought that he already knew a lot about before his interrogation. He discovered, however, that he had so much more to learn.

Dynast was such an eager instructor.

Lafitte could have sworn that knife had done a lot of damage. He could feel the wounds ache and sting. He could feel the parts in his body that were torn. But there was no blood, because the knife had really never touched him. The King had simply sliced through air, giving Lafitte the feel of the blade's caress. The feel, but not the effects.

The effects hurt a damn lot. Lafitte twitched as a surge of pain welled up from a slash - a nonexistant slash - on his calve. Damnit, he had moved! Now his chest throbbed, and that set off his arms, bled into his face. Moving made it all hurt at once. Damnit. He had tried so hard to stay still.

"You could have made that a lot easier on yourself." Dynast smacked the flat of the blad against his palm. "We could have forgone that entire conversation if you had only spoken with no prompting."

Lafitte attempted to correct Dynast, to inform him that the past few hours of torture had not resembled a conversation in any way. He realized, as his chest exploded into agony, that trying to speak was a mistake. It was even worse than trying to move.

Dynast tsked, shaking his head. "Stupid surinni. Your kind always act so surprised when I hurt them. As if you're not smart enough to expect it." The Lord nudged his captive's shaking form with his toe. "Even animals are better than that."