Chapter Text
Creeping, crawling, clinging by the minutes drag along as you languish in your prison cell, waiting for your evening sustenance. Your rotting lungs bellow putrid air and your heart chokes one more beat, one more beat, to maintain your tiny life. Within the spiralling black loops and knots of your brain is a miniscule crevice that foolishly, uselessly, houses a dying hope, like a star slowly imploding, that your jailer carries a pardon from your eternal punishment, and saves you from your heinous Hell in both body and soul.
Your name is Daraya Jonjet, and you are bored to the point that you have gone to dramatic monologuing. To yourself. In your head. And now on paper, as you scribble the thoughts into your notebook.
In reality, it is late evening, and you are sitting at your desk with an open notebook and ragged pencil as you wait for Bronya to bring you your dinner. You have been hived for around two months now.
Could this fate have been avoided? Possibly. Unlikely, but possibly. But after returning home from your . . . excursion at the Chixie concert with Tyzias, you were in no shape physically or mentally to sneak back in. Whatever punishment you would get, you would begrudgingly take it. All you had wanted was your bed and an ice pack.
You had barely stepped foot back into the caverns when Bronya swooped in on you. First she was furious, scolding you for skipping classes and being out without permission. Then she took notice of your bruised and scratched body, and quickly fell into mother-cluckbeast mode, cupping your elbow gently as she led you to her bathroom to treat your wounds, voice whisper-soft as she apologized for how the medicines made you hiss like a kettle. Once you were cleaned and bandaged up, she drilled you about your day. Where were you? What happened? Was anyone else hurt? But despite your fragile state, you still had enough of your wits about you to obfuscate the truth with casual rudeness. None of your business. Some drones blew up a store I was in. You know how these things go.
Frustrated, she had sent you straight to bed, promising you two will talk more about it after you have slept. After sending a message to your friends that you made it home okay, you slept like the dead. The next night –– feeling physically better but mentally like you got hit by a truck –– Bronya confronted you again, with the same litany of questions. Again you answered in the most frustratingly nonchalant way possible, rimmed with annoyance and acid, which made Bronya flush green with anger. She announced that you were hived for the foreseeable future, with all privileges (with the exception of work duties and classes) confiscated until, in her words, “you become a bit more reasonable.”
You almost laughed out loud in her face when she had said that. Since when have you ever been reasonable?
The worst part of the punishment, hands down, was the boredom. Bronya had taken your palmhusk, your husktop, even your trashy boyband magazines that you had stolen from your hivemates first as pranks, but then out of small genuine interest (not that you would ever admit that to any of them) and hadn’t had time to hide properly. All you had for entertainment was the notebooks you bought for aesthetics but never actually used from the bargain bins at Grubmart.
Until now. You hunch over with terrible posture, staring down at the page you just filled. You bite your lip as you pick apart the monologue, circling words and phrases you like and rewriting them on a different page in patterns you find pleasing.
Creeping, crawling, clinging by
your heart chokes one more beat
Within the spiralling black loops and knots of your brain
a star
imploding
saves you from your heinous Hell
in both body and soul
Even you can recognize that you are trying your hand at poetry and even, mother grub help you, song-writing.
Before the concert, you would have never thought you would write, let alone POETRY. But you found yourself longing for anything that can give you a semblance of structure, and poetry (at least to you) was all about structure. And more than that, you needed something to serve as an outlet for the slow, lava-like anger that bubbled in the pit of you.
Because that’s all you had to grip onto –– anger. Anger at the drones and trolls who had decided who was worth bothering to keep alive. At your violent, desensitized culture, which was at best apathetic to the bloodlust and at worst celebratory of it. At the trolls who could, should, do something about it, but didn’t because of fear or pride or some other wall of excuses. At the people who had tipped the empress off about the Chixie concert and had sent the attack. At yourself and Mallek and Tyzias, for having made it out, but that Diemen had been left behind in that big pool of red. At yourself, for not being angry enough, for not being disturbed enough to be motivated to do more to help.
You clench your teeth together tight. You write faster, pressing so hard into the notebook you almost break your pencil. You will do more. You have to do more.
You are glaring at your notebook, debating on whether you should keep ‘Hell’ capitalized, despite it being of little to no consequence to the work itself and yet an extremely important decision at the same time, when the door opens. You immediately, and as discreetly as you can, close your notebook.
“You’ve ever heard of knocking?” you say as you twist around. The only part of you happy is your stomach as it perks up at the smell of food.
Bronya walks in with a bowl of grubghetti and grubballs. Normally, she would announce herself, announce the dish (as though you would not be able to tell what it was. Besides, it was Tuesday, for mother grub’s sake; Tuesday was always grubghetti night), and then quietly leave. She places the tray on top of your dresser and turns to face you. You shift your gaze from the bowl, mouth already starting to salivate a bit, to look at her as she stays behind.
“Good evening Daraya,” she says. She stands as she does before teaching a classroom lesson, posture poised and perfect, her hands interlocked in front of her above her stomach. “I hope I am not interrupting anything, but there were some things I wanted to discuss this evening.”
You snort. “Like you left me anything to do for you to interrupt.”
Bronya sighs and shakes her head. There is only one chair in the room so she continues to stand. She talks to you from across the room, and you feel like you should be in your full Jade education uniform and taking notes.
“As you know Daraya, the cavern rules set up by myself and our hivemates dictate that a Jade blood can only be hived for a maximum of 10 to 12 sweeps at a time, a limit which you will be reaching soon. At that time you will be given back your confiscated goods and be able to roam around the caverns as you please. Of course, leaving the caverns is still prohibited, with the exception of Jade approved field trips ––”
You dramatically sigh to interrupt. “God, what do you WANT Bronya? Do you have anything actually useful to say, or did you come here to bore me to death with stuff literally everyone already knows?”
Bronya pauses. Her careful, neutral expression cracks for a moment, and there is a brief flash of hurt on her face. You feel a pang of guilt at this, but it quickly passes.
Bronya clears her throat. “Right,” She takes a moment to smooth her skirt. “What I wanted to say is, that while I know you will not tell me what happened that night you came to the hive so late, or about the events that you foolishly thought warranted putting yourself in danger, I wanted to let you know that I . . . I am here if you ever need to talk. About anything. I know these types of things can be hard to process, but that is what makes communication so crucial. I am responsible for all of your wellbeings, and it is part of my job to make sure that you ––”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Feel ‘supported’ and ‘part of the group’ and all that.” You roll your eyes. “Don’t worry, I won’t sport a hate boner for you or anything after this. You’re just doing your job, even if it sucks major ass. Are you finally finished yet? I would like to go back to my sulking in peace.”
Bronya takes a deep breath. You notice her hands squeeze tighter together. Then she reaches into her skirt pocket and takes out your palmhusk, the little Lapras charm dangling, and places it on the dresser next to your dinner.
You . . . you’re speechless. You have never known Bronya to bend the rules. You stare at her, wide-eyed and mouth slightly agape, waiting for her to explain.
Bronya sighs again. “I know this seems out of character for me. But I am giving this to you early because:
1). As stated in the Jade rules, good behavior needs to be awarded in order to encourage discipline, obedience, and foster a sense of community. As your behavior during this period has been surprisingly exemplary, despite your frustratingly ridiculous refusal to share whatever the hell is going on with you, I believe you have earned this privilege back early.
2). It has grown increasingly difficult to keep the other Jades out of the Reprimand Cupboard to rifle through your belongings for black-mail material and I am tired of buying new locks to replace the ones they keep damaging. I am also growing increasingly worried at their skill at this, particularly Wanshi’s. I believe giving you the phone will improve this situation by removing some of the temptation.
3). Your health and mood will be improved by the opportunity to reach out to your colleagues, as well as allow you to catch you up on planetary news and news of the friends you have outside of the caverns.”
“I hope that this was all “useful” enough for you to warrant my lecture. Have a good rest of your night.” And then she leaves, closing the door behind her.
As soon as the door is closed, you bolt out of your chair and snatch your palmhusk, hugging it close to your chest, hunger momentarily forgotten. Yes. HELL YES. You have missed this thing so much, you feel your eyes start to water a little.
The moment is soured slightly when you feel another pang of guilt. Bronya annoys the living hell out of you. She was pretentious, and nosey, and more than a little bossy, and she followed the rules to a T always. Why the sudden softening, the whole ‘I’m here for you’ fluff?
You look at your palmhusk screen with its welcoming glow as you turn it on and grin again. You will have time to explore the complicated relationship dynamics you have with the Head Jade of the caverns later. You start to type out Chittr handles. You have some friends to reach out to.
Your stomach makes a loud rumbling sound.
After dinner.