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Sometimes when the Battleship Condescension is docked planetside or is cruising along at a comfortable speed her Helmsman does something that he suspects is dreaming of other places. From his tangled bed of wires he sees the new youth of the world he hated. He sees the “games” they play, the abuse drilled into the cold end of the hemospectrum as being “right,” the warmblooded children that hang their heads in the hopelessness of a life they know inevitably ends in culling. He sees the same things that happened before happening again and it makes him want to scream with enough force to make it the second coming of the Vast Expletive. He wants to burst the bloodpusher of every highblood with the cruelty to let the stupidity continue season after season, sweep after sweep. He wants to end everything in red and blue, or to at least be able to stop “dreaming.”
Until he finds them. Or they find him. He isn’t sure who finds who, only that someone is found and it’s wonderful. Glorious children have emerged from the caves and survived to be whole and healthy to their sixth sweep. He’s so filled with emotion that he would cry if his tear ducts still worked, because watching them is like watching two of the trolls he loved best. A tiny olive huntress records her thoughts upon cave walls and hides her loneliness behind a smile. A slender jade artist creates sunlit worlds of color and joy for herself even though she knows trouble is brewing. When he is with them he almost forgets that he is now a piece of hardware and that he will be until he is finally allowed to die. Almost. There are others he sees too, the ghost of a maroon blood, a blinded teal, a gentle but crippled brown, even the Condesce’s new heiress. They defy their castes and it gives him a little bit of hope.
Then he finds the Cancer.
Contrary to popular belief, the Helmsman still retains his sanity despite his enslavement. He is all of the troll he used to be so long as his wasted body is ignored. He is brilliant and witty and powerful. He has stayed so by keeping his greatest joy and deepest regret locked away. He doesn’t think about Him anymore. He doesn’t dwell over stolen moments or secret smiles, touches in the day and banter in the night. He has intentionally forgotten His voice for the sake of his own sanity, because drowning in the misery of losing him was too much to bear after the first hundred sweeps or so.
Then he finds the Cancer, and when he smiles it looks just like the beautiful candy red mutant he lost. His symbol is His shackles and he is the exact replica of Him, down to the last curl of wild woolbeast hair. Something breaks inside of the troll that was once free and he curls into himself in torment.
The Helmsman continues to dream and never realizes that he’s screaming until he’s dead.