Random story fragment cos I'm bored

ReverendDan

"Leikos, Kember - don't touch it!"
Their hands stopped a finger's bredth away. They shook as they tried to ignore the command, but still they couldn't take it.
Kail squeezed their heartstones in his left hand and they screamed. Normally he wasn't so crude, but this was important.
"Foolish, my friends. You think you deserve something like that? You forget yourselves. You forget why you still exist."
Leikos and Kember wavered and flickered as he tightened his grip on their heartstones. Their screams faded into unimaginable distance. He loosened his grip and dropped the small crystals back into his pouch while the pair collapsed to the floor.
Leikos had been a rapist and a murderer, Kember... Kember had been a man of singularly "exotic" interests in what could be done to a person without them actually dying. Both had been executed at Kerii and were now kept from their eternal punishment by the heartstones Kail had stowed in his pouch.
He strode past them and the bodies of the men they had slain, picked up the gently shining globe. Magic orbs, for Sai's Sake. This was a job for some strapping idiot with a sword, backed up by a hedgewizard and a pointy-eared fop with a bow. He hadn't approved of the risk of taking shades anywhere near it, that was certain. But orders were orders. Time to get the thing under lock and key, as it were.
"Kember, hold out your arm."
Kember raised his arm obediently, staring at Kail with a flat, measuring hatred. No doubt he was thinking of all the things he would do to him, if he ever got the chance. By all accounts that covered a lot of ground - Kember had been quite the expert in his field. Which was what he was about to pay for once again.
Kail pulled out his dagger with one hand, held the globe beneath Kember's arm with the other. He slashed open Kember's arm and let the blood wash over the globe as Kember growled soft threats to himself. Shade blood looked more or less normal, barring a strange mottling that glistened black. It was highly valued for it's ability to nullify magic, although Kail was certain the shades held little appreciation for this. A couple of Controllors had gone to quite extreme lengths to extract the stuff from their shades, and while it was generally agreed that shades deserved to be punished for their crimes in their life, this was considered beyond the compact and the Controllors had their liscences revoked.
The globe slowly lost it's warm glow as the blood slid across it's surface, drying almost instantly. Even now Kember's arm was knitting itself back together and the flow was slowing to a drip.

ReverendDan

And another. I'm not sure if the Kail in this one is the same person.

Pressure… darkness… then light. Gone again. If only he could remember…
"Throw it in with the others. It's no good to us."
Hands, hands on him, couldn't remember, but something stirred. Blurred shapes all around, arms around his neck, couldn't see, had to breathe... moved an arm, feeling wrong, reached up and twisted, something tore like paper, but then wet and warm. A scream came from far away, right by his ear.
"It's live! The thing's live!"
More shapes, more hands, brush them aside, no heavier than shadows, screams like wind sighing in the trees, where was he?
"Stop!"
Then crushing pain, and with it clarity.
On his knees in agony, everything slammed in to focus; the rough stone of the floor, the copper tang of blood on the air, and the gore on his misshapen talons. Talons? No... He raised his head slowly to a familiar face with empty eyes. A stone glowed softly in the figure's hand, a sickly yellow that jaundiced his skin. Just looking at it made him yelp in with fear.
"My mistake, I see." The man reached out his other hand.
Grab it, bite it, tear it - pain! He couldn't move, couldn't even snap as the man roughly cupped his jaw and looked deep into his eyes.
"Good enough. Welcome back to the fold, my friend." A smile flickered and died. "I've missed you."

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.
"Where am I?"
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Memories surfaced slowly, dreams, pain, a yellow light and-
"Kail!"
Taegar snapped upright at the memory, looked at his hands, and screamed.
Tap. Tap. Tap.

Taegar fell back, sobbing with exhaustion and clutching at his bloodied hands. He'd left deep gouges in the stone door, but he couldn't break through. He loped back to the straw pallet in the corner and hunched down.
His body felt so wrong, everything was a strange size and shape. His tail still twitched at every movement, the spines knocking against the wall of his cell.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
He had to think. What could he remember? There had been a war, but he couldn't remember who between, or even what side he'd been on. He knew the man who'd hurt him, Kail, but didn't know why. And he knew that he had once been a man, like Kail, and that he wasn’t any more.