Iesin being muzzled and and bound leashed to a pole in the middle of some bursting city with a guard standing over him. Bystanders get to pay for opportunity to toy with a fae.
"Five terces, just five terces to touch a live fae! Come on, I can tell you want to sir! Come sate your curiosity, it's perfectly safe!"
The enterprising guard who dragged Iesin from cell to pole in the grey pre-dawn slaps a too-familiar hand down on Iesin's shoulder, grinning at Iesin's flinch and muffled hiss. Bound as he is, with his arms wrapped around the pole and his back presented to the world, there's little else he can do. His feet are shackled with iron, the short chain between his ankles hooked to the base of the pole. The muzzle stretched tight across his face abrades at his scars and at his awareness, sending skittering panic and the creeping dull reminder of hopelessness and unrelieved terror coursing through the hollows of his bones.
Metal clinks on metal, a sweeter chime in copper tones than iron's dull hate, and then a hand hesitantly strokes down his spine, sliding their fingers through short, soft feathers. Iesin's yelp dies inside the muzzle as he jerks against the pole, scraping his face across its rough wood in an effort to glare behind him at the human. Their hand yanks away, accompanied by the guard's laugh.
"It's safe, see? Can't speak, can't catch those talons in ya. Go on, try again."
No, don't- the human touches him again, this time running both hands over his wing, bound down by a harness of thin leather straps. Iesin shudders, and the human makes a sound of surprise at the way the feathers along his spine lift and bristle.
"Strange, an't it," the guard grins.
Iesin glares over his shoulder, scraping his talons against the post as the human, emboldened by his inability to escape, combs fingers through his hair. Iesin jerks his head, sounding off a muffled protest again. The guard snaps the end of his baton across the base of Iesin's spine, just under the edge of his wings, and Iesin arches away from the cracking pain, keening high and sudden.
"Be still!" the guard snaps. "Behave yourself, beast."
Around the post, passersby murmur, impressed by the show of dominance and Iesin's trapped helplessness. The guard resumes his call, selling moments of touch for the clink of copper into his palm, and another pair of hands descend onto Iesin. This time someone yanks his head back with a hand fisted in his hair, and Iesin's neck twinges as he's forced to gaze into slate-green eyes under lowering brows and a twisting, angry mouth.
"Beast," she spits. Flecks of saliva strike across his eyelids and the bridge of his nose. "Where's my child, hm? Where's my little one? Your kind took them, I saw. I saw, and couldn't move for the wicked song ye put on me. Where are they? Where's my babe?"
He doesn't know, but ignorance is no defense; the muzzle digs into his jaw, pinning his mouth closed and stifling any sound torn from him. Her hand tears at his hair, ripping strands free, and then she spits on him again and shoves his head away, knocking it against the pole. Iesin staggers, clinging onto the wood of the post for support as blackness spirals across his vision and his hearing rings with brief discordant panic.
He's dimly aware of the guard shooing the woman along, but it's only moments before another human takes her place, this one tugging at a handful of feathers, tearing them free with a laugh. Iesin shakes, pressing his body into the post with a gasping, stifled sob.
All around him, humans chatter and press past one another, intent on completing their day. They stare openly, devouring him with their eyes, and it sends humiliation and instinctive unease skittering under his skin, but it's far worse when they stop to exchange coin for touch and -- too often -- pain. Then, unease spikes into fear, ramping swiftly towards abject terror as the morning brightens and warms. They touch his wings, his back, his feet, his hands. They pull his head back and exclaim over his pupils, watching the way they tremble and contract to narrow slits as he is forced to gaze into the sun's rays. They pinch his hands against the post, stifling his efforts at scratching any who come within his meager reach, and twist his talons back and forth. One produces a short dagger and wedges the blade against the post, leaning down to sever the tip of one of his talons near his finger.
The guard beats him when he jerks away from their grasping, greedy fingers. They like that, and sometimes he beats Iesin for no other reason than to see him yelp and stagger, losing his footing and yanking his arms painfully in their sockets against the hook keeping his hands pinned to the opposite side of the post. His wings bleed and shiver, growing patchier as more feathers are claimed as trophies for those brave enough to come near the captive fae displayed in their marketplace.
The sun climbs, and with it Iesin's misery. His breath is stifled and hot against his skin, too shallow and too warm. A lull comes in the press of people wanting at him, and he tips his head against the post, leaning on it and rubbing the edge of his muzzle against the rough wood. The guard trades places with one of his fellows, and they take up the cry, pacing around Iesin's pinned, drooping form and encouraging the arriving afternoon crowds to come and touch the fae. Iesin listens dizzily, closing his eyes against the too-bright glare of the sun-warmed ground. Lost in his half-aware state, he doesn't hear the clink of coin on coin that signals another oncoming touch.
The hand that pins his neck is long and firm, descending too suddenly for him to do more than gasp and jerk before the fingers begin to squeeze, pinching air and thought away in a slow, remorseless vice. Iesin's body heaves, hands seizing uselessly in the iron shackles keeping them restrained. His head bucks against the post, knocking against it, and darkness begins creeping in at the edges of his vision. The hand is terrifyingly unmoved by his thrashing, not twitching in the slightest even as Iesin grows increasingly panicked. Through the dimness leaching the strength from his body, he hears words tossed above him at the guard.
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