badpirattitude | Prisonstuck X

"I think-" His words are cut off when he feels the girl shake even harder in his arms at the mention of the blueblood and he holds her closer, however miniscule the distance is. "Hey, it'sth going to be alright, we're getting the wireth out, no more thipth, no more powering thome mathine, alright?"

An idea and he looks up at Dualscar. "You tell her."

Him? What good could he do? He's the enemy, he's a seadweller, what could she possibly hear from him that the Psiioniic couldn't... tell her...

Dualscar remembers something then, a memory stirring from his long-forgotten past, and he strides in the room, approaching the two yellowbloods.

"Helmsgirl," he says, using his highblood voice, carrying all the weight and responsibility of his class with it, "my name is Orphaner Dualscar, and you are noww mine. I command you to listen to the Psiioniic, the older mustardblood, and let him help you. I am ordering a blueblood here to remove your wwires, but it might be a feww days until he arrives. Until then, you are to rest and regain your strength."

He glances at the Psiioniic. There, how was that?

There. That's what he'd been hoping the other would catch onto. They can't exactly remove Dualscar's blood and all the rank it carries with it, but they can use it for their own purposes, like this. Highbloods might lie a great deal of the time- to their equals as much as lowbloods- but an order was still an order. Another shake in his arms before she... well she still shakes but considering the state of her body, he can tell it's a more normal one.

God, this is fucked up, that he has to deduce her mental state from the way she shakes.

Letting the psionics wash over her back, Psiioniic raises an eyebrow. "I think thee getsth it. But we can't really call her a Helmth- that, fuck that word." A bare of his teeth before he calms down. "Thinthe thee'th no longer going to be one." A whisper, against his collarbone, and he falls silent, letting his head lean down. Another whisper, still painfully soft.

"Oh."

"Wwhat? Wwhat'd she say?"

"Thonica Adalt. That'sth her name." A weak nod against his chest. "Can you get uth thome water? I don't know what they fed her, if they did at all." His voice catches on that last word; Psiioniic doesn't know anything about the Helmsman systems besides the pain and the slavery. The more he thinks about it, the closer he gets to flipping his shit.

He really needs a distraction right about now.

Dualscar turns and barks a few quick orders to the drones lurking behind him and sends them scrambling to the kitchen. He, conversely, does know a bit about helmsmen systems, and knows that what the child--what Sonica--needs right now is fluids, fluids, and more fluids. Some weak broth won't hurt her either, if she's up to eating it.

He then walks further into the room, until he's standing behind the Psiioniic. Cautiously, he reaches out and puts one hand on his back, between his shoulder blades, before he addresses his attention back to Sonica. He gives the new commands in a much softer, gentler tone of voice.

"Sonica, I order you to not answer any longer to helmsman, helmswwoman, or helmsgirl. Henceforth, you will answer only to your name, Sonica Adalt." He pauses, considering. "Tell the Psiioniic wwhat happened to your lusus wwhen you wwere commissioned."

If her lusus is still alive, he'll send a drone out after it.

More miniscule shifting in his arms, and he lets the little troll practically crawl into his lap. He is now the filling of a very strange cuddle sandwich: the light weight of Sonica curled up against his chest and Dualscar's large hand steadying his back. It's strange and comforting as it is almost alarming. Psiioniic takes a deep breath and nudges one of his horns against hers as he listens to her. Her voice is raspy and hoarse, shaking with every syllable, and it takes him a few moments to piece it together.

"Thee thayth her guardian wath going to be culled but thee thinksth it might have ethcaped..." Idly, some of the webs of psionic energy begin to encircle and entwine around Dualscar's wrist.

Dualscar glances down at the bracelet of psionic light he's wearing, and one corner of his mouth quirks upward, like he's going to smile and then changes his mind.

"Wwhere wwould your lusus hide, Sonica? Wwhere wwould it go if it wwere separated from you?"

Silence. A shudder of a breath and her claws knead into his shirt. There's no real wonder why she's keeping quiet on that matter. 'Orphaner' Dualscar? Not the most reassuring person to want to speak to on the matter of a wayward lusus.

Kneading at the base of her horns and being careful not to catch the spiny protrusions, he lets more energy sink into her, trying to reassure her. "I'll bring him back to you. Don't worry. Everything will be alright." She makes a soft little snuffling noise and Psiioniic grins. He knows that noise: angry or nervous hedgehog.

"Tho... plain or foretht?" Another snuffle. "Underground." A hesitant pause and she raises her head. Nervousness, pain, and fear has her pupils nothing more than terrified slits amidst all the yellow.

The irony here is that the title Orphaner was given to him as part of a cruel joke, but that's neither here nor there. Dualscar does realize, though, how such a thing could make the little troll nervous, and he takes a step backwards, his hand still on the Psiioniic's back.

"Tell her I have no intention of hurting her lusus, only of retrieving it. The sooner she tells us wwhere it is, the sooner she can have it back, if it's still alive."

Still more silence before she ducks her head down again. Finally, after waiting for what feels like forever- Psiioniic's ears twitch as he listens to her carefully.

"...You know Reticulum, right?" City on a river that leads to the ocean, a trader city more than anything. If he had to guess, he'd say she was a domestic slave before being commissioned. Also with a lot of expansive plains at its back. From what he's heard, lots of highblood bickering over there. "Thould be around there, might be underground."

Dualscar nods, and turns to the drones who have just re-entered the room, carrying a tray with a pitcher of water, a bowl of soup with steam wafting off the top... and an orange. Great, all the drones have caught the meme now, they'll think lowbloods get oranges until the end of time.

"You." He points at the largest, most fit drone. "Go to Reticulum. Wwear my standard and take the fastest land-speeder in the armory. Check the plains around the city, and find a yellowwblooded lusus wwithout a charge. Bring it back here at once."

The drone chirps in acknowledgement and hurries off.

"It hath thpineth!" he yells helpfully after it before settling back down. His own psionics can feel Sonica's reaching out, just barely, connected through the wires that are stuck in her skin. But with no power source hooked up, there's nowhere for them to go.

He really needs that orange right now.

Snagging it with his own psionics, he tears into it, skin and all, as he adjusts Sonica in his lap until her back is resting against his chest. "Alright, get over here, bring the water- water firtht, thoup later."

Wait, what?

"You... you wwant me to help feed her?" Come on, Psiioniic, you were a slave once, you should know that highbloods bearing gifts tend to not get a very good reception. Instead, Dualscar snaps his fingers at the drones, and the Psiioniic's rushes forward, chirping excitedly and eager to please. It offers Sonica a glass of water.

"Well, I didn't know if you wanted to thtand there, pretending to be a really thitty chair." A snort, and the Psiioniic watches carefully as his drone brings the glass up to her lips. There's a bit of fumbling, and sloshing, but most of it manages to get in her mouth.

After a minute, most of it also gets thrown up onto the floor in front of them. Okay. Too much, too soon. Still patting and rubbing at her shoulders as she fairly hacks her lungs out, Psii grits his teeth. Of course, Helmstroll- they wouldn't have their stomachs filled in ages. Something actually getting put inside would make any troll vomit.

"We might need a straw." Right now, he doesn't trust either the drones or Sonica to be exactly... careful.

"I'll go get one."

Dualscar turns and almost runs out of the room, blindly making his way to the kitchen. Once he's there, he grips the countertop with both hands, leaning over it and gritting his teeth. God... they're going to turn the Psiioniic into that. All his brilliance, all his personality, ripped away from him and consumed by creeping biowires. Dualscar can feel bile rising in the back of his throat, and he turns towards the sink, almost retching...

...until the kitchen drone tugs at his cape and offers him an orange.

He stares at the fruit for a moment, hardly recognizing it, before taking it with numb fingers. "A straww," he tells the drone, using his claws to pierce the orange's skin. "Find me a straww."

In the room left behind, he's doing his best not to think about his fate. Because the Psiioniic knows that if he starts, he won't be able to stop. He'll be locked inside his own head, useless to anyone and everyone and trying not to just scream from the thought of it all. Even when he was nothing more than a slave, paranoid and a coward, he still had at least a little freedom. But as a Helmsman, as Her Helmsman...

Sonica wouldn't be the only one sick on the floor.

So the Psiioniic tries to occupy himself. He remembers her homecity, remembers visiting with Signless to spread the word, to try and see if there were any higherblooded traders who might be interested in helping the cause. It wasn't that strange, really; Signless could talk the moons down from the sky, really, if it so pleases him. Psiioniic is certain of this, as certain as his own two eyes. So he whispers to her, telling her about the traders, the river, who he saw and if she recognized any of the names- things to make her think. Things to keep his mind busy.

Dualscar returns a few moments later, armed with a straw and another orange. He plunks the straw in the glass and refills it with water, then kneels in front of Sonica, holding it to her lips.

"I wwant you to drink, but only a little. You haven't had anything in your stomach for awwhile, so only one sip." It makes his stomach churn, ordering her around like this, even though he's trying hard to be nice about it, but he gets the feeling that if she doesn't have strict orders to the contrary, she'll try to gorge herself again and make herself sick.

Sonica shrinks back against Psiioniic's chest, her eyes flickering from Dualscar's face down to the cup he holds. Psiioniic just rubs her shoulder reassuringly. "He'th a big moothball, don't worry, you're thafe here." He's said this probably a hundred times already, but he can't stop saying it. He knows how hard it is to believe, after all. Taking care about the biowires, he guides her hands to press around the cup and she tentatively leans in to obediently take just the one sip. In the meantime, the Psiioniic reaches towards Dualscar and begins to stroke along the bottom of one fin.

"I am not a big mooshball!" Dualscar snaps, his fins flaring up in irritation. Wow, totally not helping the whole 'he's not a scary highblood' cause here, Psiioniic.

Sonica recoils against the Psiioniic's chest, her eyes wide and a dribble of water spilling out the corner of her mouth, but then the Psiioniic reaches out and touches one of Dualscar's fins, and that gesture calms her down. She keeps her eyes downcast, for the most part, occasionally sneaking glances up at Dualscar's face.

Dualscar watches her, and when it seems like she's going to keep that swallow of water down, he offers her the straw again. "One more sip."

The defensive words earn a snort. "If you're not a moothball, then I don't like orangeth. And, fun fact, it ith a clinical fact that they are the motht amathing thingth on thith entire planet and you are a lying dick." Briefly, his other hand makes a small gesture. "The more you know." But then it's right back to holding Sonica close and stroking Dualscar's fin over and over.

He's pretty sure, he thinks, the key here is to make both of them more comfortable. Dualscar is an idiot, there's no denying that, and the girl is scared out of her mind even now.

Yes, but now he's your idiot, Psiioniic. You're stuck with him.

Dualscar grumbles under his breath, but he doesn't pull his fin away. Quite the opposite: he fans it out under the Psiioniic's fingers, curling it towards the gentle touches.

Sonica takes another sip of water, a slightly longer one this time, and it makes her cough. She winces and presses back against the Psiioniic, away from Dualscar with her eyes screwed shut, and it occurs to Dualscar that she expects him to hit her. The muscles in his face tense a little, then relax entirely, and he pulls away, trying to untangle his fin and hand the cup to the Psiioniic.

"Here. She'll be more comfortable if I'm not here. I'll be in the library."

A part of him wants to push, but Signless' words echo in his mind. Some things took time, and he knew better than anyone that it took a long goddamn time to get over how you'd been treated by the highbloods. Reluctantly, he pulls his hand away from the fin so that he can take the cup.

"I'll come to vithit you when I'm done."

"Yeah, okay."

Dualscar leaves without looking back, and retreats to the library. He brushes the drones aside as they try to pester him, and hides in the room behind the shelves. Once there, he pulls out a very old, very tattered and well-loved book, curls into a ball on a pile of cushions in the corner, and starts reading.

Once the sound of footsteps has faded from their aurals, Psii feels Sonica relax in his arms. There's so many questions he can tell she wants to ask him, but her throat won't stand for it right now. So he just has her sip water in intervals and murmurs to her. Reassurances, mostly. The occasional sermon from Signless, and she always seems to stir most at those before realizing that moving hurts because the biowires are still in her skin. The hours pass, and his psionics keep on buzzing. He could do this for ages, he knows it, it's just a low sinking of power into another and nothing like what he's really capable of.

Eventually, he cranes his neck around to look at her face and he realizes she's asleep. Gently, he gathers his clothes and makes a right pile of them for her to lay down in. She'll be tormented by nightmares, no doubt, but they can't put her into the sopor slime. At least, Psii thinks they can't. He's not sure what would happen if sopor and wiring mixed. So he just lays her down, keeping his psionics around her as he leaves.

"Tell me if thee waketh up or thtartsth moving about a lot, you got it?" he tells one of the drones before he strides right into the library. There's just a cursory glance through the rows of books to make sure that Dualscar isn't there before he heads to the hidden room. Carefully, he knocks before opening it up and sticking his head in. He looks a bit tired, but it's a more emotional kind of weariness.

"Hey."

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her name should be Sonica, I think

all the sonic the hedgehog jokes

gotta go fast, gotta stay ahead of the highbloods!

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and suddenly they were a pair of dads

alright who gave Dualscar a parenthood license, fess up

sob, how does he always end up with kids flocking around him?

miracles

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