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Waking up after being hit with several potions of weakness is never a fun experience. Techno has been unfortunate enough in his life to experience this more than once, but this time especially, waking up feels like an incredibly slow process. His body is so heavy, cheek pressed into warm obsidian, it feels like he could sink right into it.
Working slowly through the fog his mind has been consumed by, Techno steadily begins to remember that he had been splashed with weakness potions. And that this was not a normal way to wake up. And that meant that something was wrong.
Techno fights the urge to sink back into the suffocating darkness, and begrudgingly cracks open his eyes. One of them is still somewhere squashed into the obsidian floor, but the other stares across the room, adjusting until he makes out iron bars overlapping stone brick walls, stretching higher up than Techno can make out from his prone position.
Awareness floods his body, and all of a sudden Techno realizes how exposed he is, lying half-conscious on the ground like this, no clue who is around him. He can hear bodies moving, overlapping scents of other piglins and low, murmured conversation just out of earshot. As long as they think he's asleep, Techno gets the feeling he'll be left alone. But that window is closing, fast, which means Techno needs to get up, scan his surroundings, and make a plan.
Alright. Get up. That's the first step. He can do that. He just has to put his hand underneath him, and push up—
Gods, Techno hates weakness potions. They always make everything that's important and necessary, like moving, so much harder than it needed to be. He's never had a good experience with them, only ever getting splashed with them when someone is looking for a quick and dirty way to capture him. And, the more he thinks back to the events leading up to his awakening, he's pretty sure this experience here is no different.
There had been a pit. Gold, piles of it, dropped in the center of a netherrack hole. Techno had watched the sounder he had just traded with peel away from their bastions, one by one falling to the pit until nearly all of them had been successfully lured for gods-know-what reason.
Techno had tried to help them. Had tried to break the netherrack away into a rough set of stairs, fighting against every rushing instinct to join them in the hunt for gold as he tried to break them free. But he hadn't been fast enough. A push at his back, disgruntled snorts from other piglins as he had fallen on top of them, and then broken glass. And then a swift, overwhelming darkness.
Well, Techno is no longer lying on netherrack, and he can't sense any gold around, both of which are not exactly good things to realize. The other not-good thing he suddenly realizes is that all of his armor and tools were gone. His bag, too. He's been left in his simple clothes, a loose shirt tucked into dark pants, with strips of fabric winding around the material to keep them together and presentable. Techno has nothing else to call his own, save for an odd, pinching pressure in his ear.
Techno still doesn't think he has the strength to move his whole body, but he does find that he's able to lift his arm up near his ear, brushing the floppy ridge of it until his finger lightly close around a rectangular piece of metal, puncturing his ear sloppily at some odd angle that Techno definitely had not done himself. Techno runs the edge of his finger over the grooves within it. He's unable to discern what it's spelling, but the more Techno tugs at it, the more certain he is that it's some kind of tag.
Dark eyes open wide, and Techno finds himself scrambling to his feet before he's aware of his own sudden adrenaline, mouth dry as he keeps on hand to his ear and frantically scans the pit he's been dumped inside.
The immediate problem, upon doing so, is that it's caused every eye to turn towards Techno, which really isn't ideal. But what also isn't ideal is the identical tags, stuck to the ear of every piglin. Some stand similarly to him, hooved hands raised to their ear in a weak attempt to fiddle with the painful puncture, while others seem to be ignoring it effectively, or at the very least pretending to.
And, gods, there are a lot more piglin in here than there had been in the bastion Techno had visited. Quickly scanning the pit, Techno manages to make out two— no, three—distinct factions huddling in various corners. He also sees that there are iron bars lining every gray brick wall, and then, on one end of the pit, a set of wooden troughs.
Techno's stomach rolls, and he's grateful that the three sounders have bunched up in a way that leaves Techno a large expanse of wall to back himself up against, pressing his palms against the iron bars until they feel like they're cutting into his skin. His body isn't moving, then, frozen by fear and confusion and a mix of emotions Techno doesn't really want to process or put a name to. So he doesn't. Instead, he tries to figure out the facts of this place.
Fact one: The abundance of iron and stone implies that whoever had made this pit was using resources from the overworld, not the nether. Techno dares a quick glance up, and spots, past the brightly flickering soul lanterns, a bumpy netherrack ceiling with holes where chunks of gold and quartz had been presumably mined out. Still in the nether, then. That was another fact, but not so significant that it could be deemed worth of it's own bullet point.
Fact two: The troughs. Techno could only assume they were feeding troughs, and if that was true, then that meant that the overseers of this pit were able and ready to keep them fed. For what purpose, Techno can only guess as it coincides with the tag stapled in his ear, but it's clear that at the very least, they don't want their prisoners going hungry. Which led onto fact three.
Fact three: There were distinct sounders clumping up along the walls of this pit, and Techno stood along opposite to them, constantly vigilant to the way so many pairs of eyes continue to linger on him even as he stands entirely still. Not only that, but without his weapons, and especially without his armor, Techno cannot help but be painfully aware of how small he is in comparison to every other piglin he is surrounded by.
Trading expeditions aside, it's been a long time since Techno had felt particularly small in the presence of others. He was taller than most overworlders, and specifically Phil by a good few inches, but there was a reason Phil tended to keep his own nether trips short and succinct. Compared to most other piglins, Techno was the one a few feet under average height. It varied, of course, but the most striking difference was the height difference between him and the brutes, their bulk pushing them two or three feet over Techno's head.
Techno swallows tightly, hoofs scuffing nervously over the glassy obsidian flooring. They were still staring at him, observing with tight and narrowed eyes—Techno could only guess they were waiting for him to join his sounder, to do anything other than exist as a single piglin with no protection.
But wandering over to a sounder that wasn't his was inviting death as much as staying here, alone, was. Techno could already see plenty of dirty glares from the sounder he had traded with at the bastion just before this had all went down, and he wouldn't be surprised if they had already decided among themselves to blame him for this capture, somehow.
None of the sounders had looked at him with any level of invitation. They all stood in a way that protected their own, a tight blockade forming that Techno already knew he'd have no shot at assimilating into.
Still trying to wrap his mind around this entire situation in the first place, Techno tries to come up with a plan, something beyond stating facts, something that could actually help him figure out how to survive here if he's not going to be able to get out of here.
He doesn't come up with much. After so long in the Overworld, he had gotten used to people looking at him with some level of fear and intimidation. To now reverse that on himself is not a concept that comes easily, especially when it becomes a matter of asking himself how much pride he is willing to give up to garner pity from the stronger piglins around him.
Instinctively, Techno's pride flares at the idea of it, stubborn in its resistance. But common sense follows quickly, reminding him that this is no longer a place where Phil can snap at someone for talking down to Techno. Techno can't just pick fights and know he's got a storage of potions to treat himself with later. He has to return to his roots for this, no matter how much he hates it, no matter how little he remembers, until he figures a way out.
So he tries to stay out of the way. Make himself as small of a target as possible, avoiding the large groups as much as he can. Their human captors throw down food to them daily - at least, Techno thinks they're running on the schedule of an overworlder here - and he's always the last one to the dehumanizing trough set up along the far wall. Sometimes there are scraps of skin and bone left for him to pick at. Sometimes there's not.
But even with all his attempts to stay out of the way, it's not enough.
The more days that pass, the more restless some of the piglins become. From something as little as irritation about the ear tag, to going stir crazy over this pit, the bigger piglins start to itch to find something to release their energy. Picking a fight with an entire sounder would never happen without threatening the vulnerable in their group, though Techno selfishly almost wishes that exact thing would happen.
Techno's wish had always been a pipe dream, but it's one that Techno effectively destroys himself.
Techno has picked up many habits from living in the overworld, from shaking hands to waltzing to learning how to prepare food with a variety of spices not available in the nether. These habits are mostly harmless, not that they'd even apply here to begin with unless Techno wanted to start dancing around the enclosure by himself. But that's not the issue here.
The issue is that in his time in the overworld, Techno had unleaned what he had been taught in the nether. In the overworld, eye contact is something that's expected. It's a sign of respect, and acknowledgment. Not meeting someone's gaze is more than suspicious. Techno's aversion has been tied to him potentially hiding something from the person he's speaking to, or he comes off as distracted, disinterested, any number of negative connotations that Techno had to work to keep from applying to him. So he learned how to meet peoples' eyes. Learned how not to flinch back when they glared at him, learned how to keep his expression empty and neutral so to not be seen as a threat by the overworlders, if they ever took it as such. Few did, and so over time, Techno got much more comfortable with maintaining eye contact.
He hadn't realized how comfortable he had gotten in it until, as he's looking out vaguely across the enclosure, his eyes fall upon a snarling piglin brute, and Techno doesn't look away. It isn't that he means to hold the gaze, but in this weary stupor, exhaustion holds his gaze steadier than it should until a threatening rumble snaps Techno out of it, and his eyes fall to the floor immediately. He tries to think of anything he can possibly say to get them to back down, and finds very few words in the vocabulary of his native tongue.
"Hey," Techno snorts when the first few stagger over, one last ditch attempt at something, anything. He's still weighing his options between fight or flight, except there's nowhere to run here, and fighting back will only do him in worse than he's already done to himself. "Hey, look, you don't need to, uh— I'm not tryin' to cause trouble." His piglin is rustier than he expected it to be. He knew he'd be at some disadvantage from years of speaking Common combined with his filed-down tusks, but the other piglins don't even give any indication of understanding him.
Ears pinned flat against their head, snout lifted with tusks bared, the piglins close in. There's no negotiations, no issuing of a challenge, because there's no one to protect Techno here. No one able to fight for him. He's alone.
Which means they waste no time in beating him to the ground. Heavy fists in his face, pummeling his chest. Once he's on the ground, it's all Techno can do to wrap his arms around his skull, pressing his snout to his chest to guard his neck as hooves slam into his chest and stomach and legs, bruising half the tough, scarred skin on his body. Blood streams from his mouth where one punch caused him to bite down on his tongue, and there are more sluggishly bleeding spots on his body from where various hits managed to split skin.
He loses track of time in that space. For a while, all he knows is the painful blows exploding like fireworks across his skin, and he knows desperation. He doesn't know begging yet, though. Techno has enough of himself intact to keep from begging, so far.
Eventually they're satiated. Maybe the threat of what the humans could do if they kill one of them is what gets them to back off, or maybe they think it's just not worth the time. Maybe they think Techno will somehow bleed out and die here without any extra help, left facedown in the center of the pit to tuck his snout near his chest while the various sounders go and grab food from the troughs.
But Techno doesn't die. There's a familiar, bitter catchphrase to be spoken here, but Techno doesn't dare issues a challenge like that around these groups.
It does mean that these beatings begin to become a routine, though. Techno has long since lost his ability to measure time in the nether, but about every two feedings — and End, he hates referring to them as that, but he doesn't have very much choice when he's practically at the mercy of everything around him — they return with the same desperate cruelty in their eyes. And all Techno can do is protect himself the best he can, no real way to stop anything that's happening.
That is, until another sounder is dropped into the makeshift pen.
Techno's the only one to actually watch it happen. The food put in the trough and water lines had been laced with weakness that night, but Techno's meager portions allow him to stay awake enough to watch what happens. He's a little too out of it to be anywhere near mobile and alert, but he does get to see another sounder of piglins get dumped into the pit. And it's there that Techno manages to actually learn something:
One of the walls is a redstone passageway. Techno watches, exhaustion thankfully muting a snort of surprise as the stone brick walls give way, then a small portion of the iron bars lower into the ground. It's what allows the humans to dump a cart full of unconscious piglins into the pen, clearly another sounder they've managed to capture and tag. With a disappointed groan that Techno doesn't stifle quite as well, he realizes pretty quick that most of the piglins brought this time are big, a possible wandering patrol of brutes that had been ambushed by the human's traps. There were a few others who stood out as something other than brutes, but Techno knew just from a first glance that his status as the pen's resident punching bag was not going away anytime soon.
And indeed, when everyone woke up the next morning, the energy in the pen had hit a new degree of desperate restlessness. The reconfiguration of the sounders had left Techno even more exposed than before, with now every wall controlled in some part by one of the sounders, Techno had nowhere to go. The only space left for him was the center of the whole room, with no way to guard his back, and nowhere to retreat to like he had done after his previous beatings.
Even the mechanical wall, which Techno desperately wanted to get to so he could try and figure out how to get out of here, was being unintentionally guarded by the newest sounder. Techno didn't dare even inch over there, not when the leader of the bunch looked to be the biggest brute Techno had ever seen in all his life. Two sets of tusks jut from his mouth, the larger pair curving pretty far up along his face. A rough, heavy scar splits down his jaw, the fur unable to grow back in there quite yet. His glinting yellow eyes are something Techno only gets a glimpse at, when he's absolutely certain the piglin is looking away from him. The last thing he needs is to seem like he's issuing a challenge to this piglin after how hard he's tried to keep from seeming like a threat.
And then the brutes come for him again. Techno isn't surprised by that so much as he's surprised by their synchronicity. It almost seems like they planned it, the way the piglins from various sounders exchange glances, tilting their heads toward the center and snorting a short call to action before they stand and begin to lumber toward Techno.
And then, even after one of the brutes has grabbed Techno by the main, they direct an invitation toward the newest sounder, because more brutes punching him is exactly what Techno had hoped would happen today.
"Come on," he mutters, for the first time in a while squirming against the grip of the piglins, making sure to continue averting his gaze from their sharp, hungry, desperate eyes. "Come on, you had to go and invite more guys? I was just startin' to get used to you all, why'd you have to go and change it up—"
He doesn't really get any more chances to speak after that. Between the kicks to the face and the punches of unclipped hooves, their hits have started cutting into Techno's skin, causing blood to drip down his bare chest in several places, not to mention the bruises that have started forming on top of bruises.
For the first time since he had arrived here, panic genuinely begins to set in for Techno. The hits don't stop coming, and there's so many of the brutes around him. His cheeks is throbbing and wet from a brand new gash, his vision has started blurring with stars. Somewhere in there, Techno thinks he might stifle a sob against the bloody fur on his arm. Gods, he misses the stars. He misses the sky of the overworld, he misses Phil, and he hates this place. Hates all the intricacies of piglin culture that he had tried so hard to escape from for good. One simple mistake, and he had ended up right back where he had started all those years ago, except now he was fully at the mercy of the overworlders and piglins alike, and there was nothing Techno could do to help protect himself.
And then, somewhere in the muddle of grunts and snorts and Techno's pained, muffled squeals, a new sound breaks through. Heavier footsteps, a rumbling sound that Techno hears to be a warning. He shrinks away, but finds he doesn't have the strength to actually stand up and move. All he can do is shift his head toward the sound, immediately ducking it as low as it can go when he sees that the one approaching, the one issuing those warnings, was none other than the newest, largest brute to enter this pen.
As Techno presses his snout into the ground, lying on his side, he notices something else. All of the hitting has stopped. He's been left almost entirely alone, all other brutes scattered from his field of vision. Eyes fluttering shut, Techno prepares for the inevitable blows that are sure to follow. This brute clearly demanded a turn from the other piglins, and he's way too large for any of the other brutes to even dare challenge otherwise.
But no such blows come raining down on him. There are no tusks attempting to gore into his sides, no hooves bashing and trying to break bone. Instead, a large hand with touch, ragged nails slides under him, careful but not painless in the movements to turn Techno around. Techno gasps as his skin is squeezed and prodded, a half-second away from mumbling out a question before the two hands underneath him tighten and then lift, picking Techno clean off the ground so that he is held in the arms of the massive brute that had just approached him.
"Woah," Techno slurs, voice thick with blood and exhaustion. Panic bubbles underneath his skin, but it's a kind of terror he can't communicate. His breaths, which have already become fast and frantic due to exertion, continue to rapidly push at his chest, which only makes the injured parts of him ache further.
Out of the corner of his eye, Techno can see the wall that they're approaching, and around him the newest sounder to be forced into the pen. They're all looking at him with some levels of suspicion and curiosity for a few moments, but then the one holding Techno barks out another warning, mine-runt-ours, and the sounder dispel to their own smaller groups, forcing their gazes away from Techno's injured form.
Techno groans again, as the possessive warning had been accompanied by another tight squeeze against Techno's overlapping bruises. His head brushes against the arm of the brute, eyes squeeze shut until a snout and two curved tusks pressed against his stomach, hot air blowing against his blood-streaked wounds. It's some kind of reassurance, Techno thinks, though it's been a long time since he's felt something like that from another piglin. It feels oddly comforting, even if the fur on the back of Techno's neck won't stop prickling
But his comfort level hardly matters, because even if Techno had the means of running from this brute, he wouldn't dare. He's set back down, still on his back, staring up at the dark red ceiling of netherrack so far above. When he tries to sit up further, a large hand against his chest or his shoulder stills him, and Techno only needs to here a single warning to register what he's being told, loud and clear. So rather than trying to roll over to sit up, Techno focuses on getting his feet underneath him, still feeling the curve of his spine press painfully against the rough obsidian floor.
By the time he manages that, propping himself up on his good hand, the brute has returned. Techno can see him looking Techno over through his peripheral vision, yellow eyes glinting as they trail down the scrapes and cuts and bruises Techno has amassed in recent days. Then his hand reaches out, straightforward in his movement toward Techno's face, gripping his jaw carefully, but tightly, before turning Techno's head up to him. Techno stares at the brute's tucks, and tries to shrink away from his grip, but the brute refuses to let him. That grip on his jaw increases to a painful degree, only relenting once Techno leans forward, forcing himself to sink into the touch, rather than resist it.
The brute chuffs praise to Techno, lips curling before he reaches forward with his other hand. This hand holds a damp cloth, clearly brought to him by someone else in the sounder and made from torn clothing. Techno shudders, but makes sure to stay still and pliant as the cloth is brought to each of his bleeding injuries, wiping away grime and sticky blood with every pass of the cloth. The brute purrs as he works, layers of praise and adoration that one might pass onto a piglet... or a runt, Techno realizes with growing embarrassment a moment later.
Efforts for Techno to clean himself are met with sharp refusal, and even the start of a growl that has Techno shrinking away entirely, eyes flicking to the piglin and barely managing to pull away before their eyes meet. The cloth grows stained with his blood, and it is quickly wringed out for another pass.
And then, at some point, it's done. Techno's eyes flicker open from the hazy, pained state he had been rocked into by the brute's caretaking, gaze briefly flickering to the brute's out of habit before falling away. Terror laces through him as the brute's chest shakes with a warning rumble, and Techno suddenly finds himself very desperate to stay in this brute's favor. Comfort is secondary to not wanting to die here, and that's a mantra he finds himself repeating in his head, over and over, right until the brute grips his chin with his large hand.
Pressing one bruised hand underneath him, Techno starts to sit up and turn away as his chin is pulled up and toward the brute looming above him. Heartbeat thudding loudly in his ears, Techno bites back another groan of pain, twisting his head to the side. He can feel how his breaths are starting to stutter in his throat, panic keeping him from taking full breaths.
The hand squeezes tighter, almost yanking Techno forward when he makes the foolish decision to continue turning his head away. So slowly, fearing every movement might mean the end of him, Techno leans into the brute's hand and turns his head to face forward again. Instinct and habit clash awkwardly in him as he struggles to lift his eyes again, but he finally manages to look straight ahead of him, meeting the brute's gleaming yellow eyes. His throat catches, squeezing around a whimper that thankfully doesn't make any further noise as the brute huffs. Hot air once again blows against Techno's face, making him flinch and squeeze his eyes shut before he realizes that the brute is not angry.
In fact, he's purring.
Cracking open his eyes again, Techno's stomach flips nauseatingly as he realizes that the brute is speaking, a low look-runt-protect that Techno can just barely make out. He pushes himself up a little further on both hands as he meets the brute's gaze more steadily this time, squeezing his hands into tight fists to hide the tremors.
Learned habits prompt him to thank the brute for pulling him away from the others, but gratitude would be useless here. To Techno, gratitude is a promise. It's saying thank you for helping me. Next time, I'll help you. It's a promise to be treated with the same kindness in the future, a way to keep both parties out of debts with each other. It's a cultural habit of the overworld that Techno adopted readily, always with his eagerness to prove himself and stand tall above anyone who might oppose him, while still maintaining kindness towards those who had offered it to him to begin with.
But expressing anything like gratitude would be useless here. The concept for that hardly exists, especially in this situation Techno has wound up trapped in. He couldn't thank this brute even if he wanted to, because there would be no way to ever repay this kindness. Techno wouldn't ever be given the opportunity.
And besides, it's hardly a kindness. This realization falls upon Techno when the brute reaches out to grab his bruised arm and drag Techno forward again, until he's turned around with an arm laying heavy over his shoulder. A snout and two curved tusks press into the top of his head, and there's nowhere for Techno to shrink to when the brute snuffles out a damning promise of mine-runt-mine.
It's another trap, one laid within the one Techno has already been dropped into. This isn't any kind of budding friendship, this is a brute deciding that Techno can't survive on his own, and so now Techno's every moment will be watched over by a stranger who has his own motives beyond simple caretaking.
And true, Techno doesn't think he would have made it that much longer in here alone, but that doesn't mean he's helpless. He's never considered himself to be helpless, not since he made it to the overworld, not since he had someone to rely on as his equal, not just an all-encompassing, smothering protector.
But it is the lesser of two evils. Techno unfortunately cannot deny that fact. So he doesn't sa anything at all when the brute repeats that possessive murmur, he merely continues to sit still in hopes that maybe this time, his bruises will get to heal.
Time marches onward, and gradually, Techno does heal. It's in part because he is able to eat more, almost forced to by the brute shoving more food in his hands while the rest of the sounder glares on greedily. Techno doesn't ever protest, he wouldn't dare to refuse a gift that's both crucial to his survival and also from a piglin who could easily rip his arm off if Techno isn't careful. So he eats, listening to the brute purr with reassurance, and he sleeps with the piglin's arm tight around hi, keeping him from moving an inch if he tried. And for a few brief cycles of waking, eating, and sleeping again. It isn't all that bad, until things start to change again.
It starts when he's left alone.
When the brute gets up, Techno moves to follow, as he's been all but trained to do by habit — and out of fear. He hasn't been blind to the looks from the brute's sounder, as well as the looks from across the enclosure. Sticking with the brute is crucial to his survival, and yet, when he goes to follow this time, he's pressed back against the wall and told to stay-runt-wait. Feeling shamefully like a trained dog, Techno lifts his chin lightly in silent acknowledgment and stays put, gripping the iron bars with his hands tightly as he watches the brute leave him alone for the first time in a few cycles, now.
This goes exactly as he expected.
The second the brute is fully turned away from him, on the other side of the enclosure, Techno is being dragged away from the bars by some members of the brute's sounder who have never even tried to hide their hatred of him. Techno's gaze flinches away from the cruel stare of one of them, uselessly struggling as he's dragged to the center of the pit and shoved down there, knees smashing into the floor just before a heavy hoofed foot slams into his side. He goes sprawling, gagging on the lack of air in his lungs, and as he falls on his back his head turns toward the direction of the brute who had left him behind. He doesn't call out to him, but the second his eyes turn that direction he knows he doesn't need to.
The brute is looking this direction, and Techno has no doubt he knows exactly what's going on. His heart sinks in his stomach as he catches the upturned curve of the brute's lips before he turns away again, before Techno's ear is grabbed and he's yanked across the floor once more by something so much stronger than him. As he tumbles across the warm, solid ground again, Techno falls back into familiar defensive stances. He raises his arms up to cover his face and neck again. He curls his legs in on himself to keep his stomach protected. He ducks his head to press his chin to his chest, fighting as much as he can against the yanking and pulling from the piglins circling all around him.
It does very little to keep him from getting injured, though. Within minutes, his gut is a throbbing mess of budding bruises, and his back and arms are cut up in every direction from his attacker's sharp hooves. Techno muffles shouts of pain into the crook of his arm, breathing ragged as he twists away from the next hand to grab his mane of hair. He's dragged upright, gaze flinching to the piglin gripping him before immediately darting away upon hearing a budding snarl.
He's thrown back against the ground, right into the path of another foot waiting to slam into his now-unprotected chest. Techno chokes out an audible groan, the cut on his cheek stinging as it smacks against the glassy ground. Kicked onto his back again, Techno realizes suddenly how unsteady his vision has become. He can barely make out the face of the piglin looming over him, and only barely has the coherency to drag his eyes away and up to the hazy fog that the ceiling has become.
A low whine squeaks past his mouth as Techno attempts and subsequently fails to curl in around himself again, beaten right back down to the ground without a second to breathe through it. His thrashing has subsided entirely at this point, because all he can spare the thoughts to focus on is his own breathing, that desperation for pure survival over anything else that's winning out right now.
And then, just as it happened last time, everything abruptly stops. Huffing triumphantly, the piglins suddenly step back and away, leaving Techno cowering in the middle of the floor, unable to move until a large hand grasps the back of his neck and does the work for Techno's beaten body, pulling his head up until Techno is lying right in the palm of the brute who had abandoned him just a little while ago.
Techno manages to hold eye contact with him for a little while longer before flinching away this time. Not out of fear of issuing a challenge to this piglin, but because what he sees instead is more horrifying than any challenge he could have otherwise accidentally initiated. There is nothing but pure satisfaction in the brute piglin's eyes as he squeezes the back of Techno's neck firmly, purring words to his runt with a pleased reassurance Techno doesn't have the awareness to translate right now. All he can understand, with the few flitting thoughts that are breezing by him, is that there had been no accidental part of this latest stretch of time.
Once more, he is taken care of by the brute, but it only serves to cement his intentions for Techno in a devastating way. It marks the start of a pattern, one that will keep Techno from truly building up any strength, something that will keep him entirely reliant on this brute as long as he manages to keep entertaining him in this way.
Techno shudders when the arm next falls around his bruised shoulders, pulling him in close against the piglin's side once the blood has been wiped from his face and hands. There's a few sluggishly bleeding cuts on his back and arms, but Techno concludes that either the brute didn't realize they were still bleeding, or he simply doesn't care.
A stinging squeeze around his bicep proves the former, something that makes Techno want to sink into an impossible hole in the ground and never return, or perhaps kill every last piglin and human within a fifty block radius and escape from here at any cost. But he has no chance at either of those. Instead, Techno finds himself slipping back into habits he had considered long-buried at one point in time, falling further into a place he hates every single day, always in the same spot tucked beside the brute except for the times where he isn't.
Techno is sure that one day, he'll get out of here. Whether it's through an escape of this stupid pit, or a trade to the overworld that he's able to escape from, or a chance encounter with Phil, Techno knows this can't possibly be his future forever. It doesn't make the present situation any less awful, though. Techno's proverbial glass is barely half-full on a good day, and with every passing day his cup runs even drier.
He just has to survive. It's what he tells himself when he watches the brute step away from him on another day, it's what he tells himself when he's handed food that only keeps him alive because the brute wants him alive. He curls himself into the side of the brute, shutting his eyes from the glares of piglins who would have a crossbow bolt buried in between his eyes the instant they were handed a weapon, and survives.