Prisonstuck XI

[polariity]

[The invitation comes to the hive in drapings so rich, the Psiioniic knows it is worth more than the lives of some trolls. With it comes bad news.]

[Things up until this point have been... Well.]

[With her wiring removed, their little Helmsgirl has learned to move with her own limbs again in short time. She'd not been a Helmstroll long, after all, before they'd taken her away from it all. She clings to his side like he's a pillar or a shield, more often than not, only harder when Dualscar is about however muuch the Psiioniic tells her he's no threat to them, not right now at any rate. He stays patient best he can; it was a lesson he needed time to adjust to as well after all. There's the lusus too, fetched from its plains, and he's seen it poking its nose out from its den some nights to snuffle suspiciously at the smell of the sea.]

[Those same nights have him wishing he's not so used to it himself.]

[Yet he is, and only part of it is because he was raised in a port town where the smell of the ocean permeated even past the scent of blood and sweat in the factories. The other part is in the form of the handsome seadweller troll he takes to pail whenever he returns from his seas, that same scent flowing deep into the Psiioniic's lungs as he presses his mouth to Dualscar's throat as welcome.]

[Funny, he thought he'd have to worry about pain and humiliation only the first time he laid eyes on the lightning-horned troll who had stepped into his cell with a cold violent slash of a smirk and eyes that glittered malice. Some days as the two of them lay in the same recuperacoon and he's tracing literary quotes against Dualscar's spine, he wonders if maybe that weren't more preferable. Pain and humiliation from highbloods, he knows that well. All those in the slave caste do. It's being treated so carefully, so tenderly and with those violet eyes gazing at him in trust, that's new and he wonders if maybe this isn't a trap of its own.]

[Because he keeps making excuses. They both do. He pours through all of Dualscar's books and takes advantage of that royal station and blood to get access to information he'd have to work for if he were out and free, and he keeps telling himself This is all for when I leave, it'll be useful then. Except leaving never happens. He needs to make sure Sonica gets better, he needs to make sure the lusus is fine, he needs to make sure Dualscar will be fine when he inevitably sets off. He needs to do this, he needs to do that, and he knows it's just bullshit, so much bullshit, and it's terrifying.]

[Tomorrow. I'll leave tomorrow is what he's telling himself for perhaps the 52nd time when Dualscar enters the library with that envelope with its ocean purple seal and gold stationary and pretty handwriting probably written by a domestic slave whose life was worth less than the price of the ink used. It puts him on edge even without seeing the look on Dualscar's face.]

[It's an invitation to some fancy highblood party, which he would normally not even give two shits about save for the fact that he's mentioned. Politics amongst nobility aren't something he's care for but it's impossible to not see between the lines here. This is some reputation bullshit- to see that the great Orphaner Dualscar really has done his job correctly, to see that he's really broken the runaway-slave-turned-rebel. Maybe there's really some genuine curiosity there too. He'd known that taking a title like his was both a boast of power and also a pair of big middle fingers to the Empire where the word "psionic" also meant "battery". There has to be some vague interest in what sort of mouthy little lowblood would do something like that... and how far he's fallen.]

[Finishing the letter has his mind screaming at him leave leave right the fuck now because the prospect of being paraded (however acted out) like some glorified prize in a room full of highbloods and seadwellers with his only protection being Dualscar makes him want to vomit pure acid.]

[He says no and nearly refuses to budge on it at first. The entire affair nearly puts him on the tipping point of a manic swing, fingers jittering with energy and eyes bright. He comes around within the hour, reluctant and nervous, but what can he do? Highbloods and their goddamn reputations- failure to provide is humiliation on a best case scenario and culling on worst. He can't run away with that possibility weighing heavy. Logic says it's because Dualscar is their best link into the system, but really it's because the idea of him dying makes him want to set an entire fleet and maybe a few major cities on fire.]

[At least the invitation leaves plenty of forewarning, because fuck knows he needs to get into the act of being a slave again and also figure out how to act the part of a domestic slave. There are apparently a thousand and two utterly ridiculous rules a domestic slave needs to follow and know. They get into an argument about forks. Everything is ridiculous.]

[But he's clever and a goddamn genius, so it's not as hard as it could be. The night comes for the whole affair. Dualscar looks fucking resplendent, as they both know he should be, and him, well, he gets clothes good enough to not be an eyesore but drab enough that it's clear as moonlight he's property. He shakes, violently, when the seatroll pins his sign to his clothes to mark who he 'belongs' to. The quiet apologies can only help so much.]

[For blatantly obvious reasons, he's never been inside a proper highblood estate during one of their little get togethers. Read about them in books, seen glimpses of them in advertisements for movies he never had money to see, things like that, but nothing more. It's nothing like seeing it for real and even when they're still approaching, he's hit with the sudden painful feeling of being outclassed and surrounded. Thank god he's not in a manic swing- he gets the thought to jump out the window and haul ass the opposite direction and in a swing like that he'd probably do it.]

[But he's stable, he's stable and he can do this, and he does his best to remember all the bullshit he's had to stuff into his mind on the short amount of time they've had. He does his best to act a good slave for all he wants to scream at it all, obeys Dualscar's curt orders and follows quietly just behind him with his head bowed. Living with the seadweller, he thought he'd be used to riches but the sight of just the entrance hall is... Shit. Holy shit. He just barely catches himself before he can swear that sentiment out loud. It's obnoxious extravagance, that's what it is, and he can't properly articular why it terrifies him.]

[Good thing no one wants him to fucking talk. He just sticks to Dualscar's side, or at least as close as he can manage under this farce of theirs, and tries not to scream at being surrounded by so many hues ten times as high as his.]

[No one touches him, is the good thing, or at least no one touches him much, Dualscar the protective bastard he is, but there's enough words and actions that Psii knows it's only because of his immediate presence there that it hasn't happened yet. It's both a relief and a worry when he's finally dismissed to go assist the other slaves, and he hopes his hurry is seen more as an eagerness to please. At least he can do the other thing that had encouraged him to attend: put a finger to the pulse of the collective slaves here, see if there's any trustworthy, see if there's any other followers amongst the collection.]

[It keeps him busy for most of the night, doing what work he can and getting a feel for the other lowbloods here. But eventually, inevitably, he's regulated to simply standing at the side and trying to play invisible while something deep inside him won't stop trembling. He's left hoping that another lowblood will have him work and keep his hands (and his mind) busy, or that Dualscar will give him some form of a break from all this.]

[He tries his best not to think about what he might have to do if another highblood comes to fetch him for whatever reason first.]

Comments

[badpirattitude]

[To be a seadweller is to be lonely.]

[This is something Dualscar knows, deep in his bones. He knows, that from the first moment he awoke in the Brooding Caverns and blinked up at the cave ceiling with violent eyes, that he was destined to be lonely. It's as much a part of him as the gills on his ribs, and the fins on his face. Seadwellers can spend days, months, even entire lunar sweeps, without seeing another troll, when they're far off, deep in the ocean. It is the price for privilege and prestige, for a life of ease and luxury. Loneliness is just the price they all have to pay, and Dualscar thought he had cast it all behind him.]

[So why, when he comes back from a voyage and has someone waiting for him, does it feel like he can breathe for the first time?]

[What they're doing is wrong, and they both know it. It's a perversion of their roles in life, a laughing defiance of the fates. Every time he gathers Psii into his arms, every time he loses himself in mismatched red and blue eyes, he thinks to himself, this will be the last time. They can't keep going on like this, not when they both know their quadrant is doomed. But every time Dualscar thinks he'll be able to break it off, that he'll be able to let Psii go and return back to his mission, to his little rebellion that's surely as doomed as their pity, he balks, and they end up in each other's arms again.]

[He knows every scar on Psii's back now, and the story behind each one. It's not a comfort, knowing these things.]

[Dualscar is almost relieved when the invitation arrives. Surely this, this will be the straw that breaks the humpbeast's back. Surely Psii won't let his dignity stoop so low, and let himself play the role of a slave. He'll leave, and Dualscar can get back to cloaking himself in the misery and isolation that is his birthright.]

[But Psii says yes, much to Dualscar's amazement, and they begin a whirlwind course of everything he was supposed to have been learning, all the things Dualscar should have taught himself instead of where his gills are the most sensitive, and how to say I love you using only the fins on his face.]

[It hurts, at the gala, playing his role, but Dualscar plays it well, knowing that their lives depend on it. He ignores Psii, lets him trail along behind him like the broken slave he's supposed to be, and Dualscar fights down the urge to sweep him into his cape and carry him away when he sees the other highbloods looking at him appreciatively. He knows those looks, knows what they mean, and although the fins on his face stay still and placid, the ones on his sides bristle aggressively. Fortunately, no one is fool enough to make a blatant grab for a slave that clearly belongs to Dualscar, that is wearing his sign, and Dualscar hopes Psii realizes that the two wavy lines pinned on his chest are just as much a shield as they are an indignity.]

[After an appropriate amount of schmoozing, Dualscar dismisses Psii to go and help with the other slaves, and he's proud of himself for not watching him go, for just letting him retreat. He knows he'll be relatively safe with the slaves, that they'll protect him from the worst of everything, and Dualscar devotes the next few hours to networking and making a grand show of his wealth and position. As the party starts to wind down, though, he slips away, searching out Psii.]

[Slaves scatter before him as he descends into the bowels of the hive, and Dualscar feels an uncharacteristic stab of guilt when he curtly demands that they find his slave. He doesn't want to bark at them, but knows that if word gets round that the mighty Orphaner Dualscar has gone soft, it could be his undoing. And so he barks orders, and stands glowering in a hallway, waiting for them to bring Psii back to him.]