Chapter Text
The newest prisoners in your cellblock are anomalies. Two of them, matesprits, tossed next to each other with a stone wall between them too thick to yell through. The walls themselves are bloodstained and painted, but neither of the trolls seem all that perturbed by the decor. The oliveblood paces around like a caged beast, agitated by the enclosure more than the gore, and the anonymous one...
He sits in silence in the middle of the floor, legs crossed, arms folded neatly in his lap, eyes closed. His lack of injuries is surprising in and of itself - usually trolls have cuts and bruises from running, broken bones from fighting back. Usually trolls are gaunt and hollowed-out or huge and scarred and angry, spitting bravado to hide how terrified they are.
But the expression on his face is serene. You watch him for the better part of two hours to see if he's putting on an act, rapping sharply on the door when it's time to give him his food. "Put your hands up."
He raises his hands above his head and doesn't move an inch. Neither he nor his matesprit have psychic powers that you know of, but that doesn't mean much. The prisoners in your cellblock are nearly always flight risks, which is why you get to deal with them. You've secured the appreciation of everyone who matters, so you get a hold of important cargo. People who managed to escape other prisons, people who have been on the run for so long they're experts at it, people who are ready and willing to kill to keep their freedom. You've been rushed by trolls with more distance and more unassuming posture before - you're easily underestimated, thanks to the scrawny pissblood stature - so you're very careful as you enter the cell.
"Stay where you are," you warn him. The mush on the tray in your hands looks like secretions from the inside of someone's throat. Doesn't taste much better. Livestock in pens closer to the surface tends to be fed better than the prisoners, or you.
He doesn't give you any trouble, allowing you to set the tray in his lap. The prisoners aren't allowed any sort of silverware, so he eats with his fingers, wrinkling his nose slightly at the taste.
"It's not much," you say. "But you do have to finish it."
"I know." He makes another face down at the food and then shakes his head, smiling. "Thank you for the meal, my friend."
You can't tell if he's being sarcastic or not, so you just wait for him to finish his food and take the tray, backing out of the room.
His matesprit is less gracious about the cuisine, though equally passive. Given her pacing, you're fully expecting her to try to make a break for it and grab the anonymous troll on the way, so you walk in tensed for a fight. She doesn't move toward you. She takes the tray with just as much tension as you and gags theatrically on every bite.
"Sorry. The food sucks." You rock back on your heels. "I won't hurt you as long as you don't do anything stupid, though. I'm just the guard."
"And you have to keep me alive?"
"Yeah," you say with a shrug.
"What's a skinny lowblood doing guarding a place like this?"
"That is a mystery you don't want to solve."
"Oh, right. 'I'm a big tough prison guard and I could kill you thirty-seven ways with my bare hands.'"
"Something like that."
"But you're not allowed to kill me."
You shrug again.
"Man of few words." She hands you the mostly-empty tray. "Here. I've had more than enough."
"The hungrier you get, the better it tastes." You back toward the door of the cell.
"You know from experience?"
Another shrug, and you leave her alone.
You discover the signless troll's blood color three nights later, when the medicullers come down to take samples from the prisoners. Things move slowly in the Court of Miracles, all the better to agitate the prisoners, which means that a stay in the prison blocks is more torture of waiting than straight-up torture. Still, you hold him down according to standard procedure, and he shows the first signs of discomfort you've seen since his imprisonment, as he shuts his eyes and turns his face away from the needle and hisses through his teeth.
You were beginning to think he wasn't capable of being uncomfortable, considering he never complains about the food and he never wakes screaming from day terrors and he meditates quietly in the middle of the cell when he's awake, but his muscles strain against the psionic bonds as the team takes the blood sample. You focus resolutely on the wall and hold him still, because he's just another troll, just an unfortunate meatsack, regardless of the freaky color and odd behavior.
The medical team has seen odder than an off-spectrum hue before, so they don't comment on it. They leave him be when they have his samples. His matesprit spits when they do hers, snarls and curses at you and at the team, but she's just as helpless against psionic strength as he was - as everyone is. You do your job and leave her alone.
When you return to bring her the evening meal, she's sitting down for the first time you can remember, her eyes closed. "He's dead, isn't he," she says, dully, without looking up.
"What?"
"My beloved. They took blood samples. He's dead."
You bite the inside of your cheek and taste blood, debating. Well. You haven't been forbidden from speaking the truth. "No," you say. "His fate is up to the high subjuggulators. So is yours. Ironically, this is one of the safest places he could be. Until they decide it isn't."
"And when does that happen, usually?"
"A few days, weeks, perigrees. It varies case to case."
"And does anyone leave here alive?"
"Finish your food."
"That's what I thought." She pushes the tray at you. "I'm not hungry."
You nudge it back at her. "Please eat. I'm just trying to do my job."
"I'm not hungry."
"Please."
She glares at you for a few seconds and then shovels the mush into her mouth, swallowing it as quickly as possible and kicking the empty tray at you.
"Thank you," you say quietly.
---
"What's your story?" the mutant asks, pushing his food around the edges of the tray.
You shrug.
He smiles. "No, really, I've been starved for new stories lately. The boredom is killing me. What are you doing here?"
"Guarding your cell."
"And how did you come to guard cells?"
"By doing what I'm told."
His smile falters. "You guard yourself just as closely as these cells, my friend."
"We aren't friends."
"You're kinder than the other guards."
"I'm not kind. I do my job."
"You also don't appear to take pleasure in your job."
"Eat your food."
He pops a fingerful of sludge in his mouth. "You're the only guard I've met with a property tag."
Your ears flatten. "Eat your food."
He looks up from the tray, his brows drawn together, face the picture of concern. He's a liar. Trying to get something from you, trying to get a hold of his matesprit, trying to...
"I didn't mean to offend you," he says softly. "I'm sorry. Are they hurting you?"
"No. I'm fine. I'm just doing my fucking job."
"Are you hungry?" He nudges the tray toward you. "You might need this more than me."
"What is your fucking problem?"
"My problem? You mean beyond being trapped here?"
"You have no right to make assumptions about me. Just because I have a property tag doesn't make me a common gutter rat."
"No. But it does make you property, which means that regardless of whether or not you enjoy your job - which you don't seem to - your consent to be here is compromised."
"Stop talking and eat your food."
"I was just wondering. A lot of trolls are victims of this cult. Even ones who may not appear to be on the surface."
"I'm not a victim!" you snap, and bite your tongue to keep yourself from taking more bait. "I'm a warrior. You don't know anything about me. Stop assuming you do."
"Okay," he says. "I'm sorry."
You hover in awkward silence as he finishes his food, and when you take the tray back you resolve not to speak to him for a few days. Silence grates on a troll, particularly trolls who seem to thrive on the misfortune of other people. No - not misfortune, fuck. The stories of other people. Whatever misguided conclusions they've drawn about other people.
His matesprit is easier to talk to. As time passes, she gets bored with her sullenness and peppers you with renewed questions instead. Where are you, what's going to happen to them, when will they be properly interrogated, when will they be executed. She's much more interested in concrete facts than in... whatever the fuck the mutant was trying to pull out of you. Concrete facts you can give. The information will only help her if she gets out of the cellblock, which she won't. You've got too much riding on doing your job right.
"Okay, so I have a question for you," you tell her.
Her guard goes up almost immediately. "What."
"What makes you two so high risk? Neither of you has jumped me yet."
"We're high risk?"
"Yeah."
"Hmm." She tilts her head, appearing to consider the question, like it's never been posed before. "I'm secretly the most powerful psychic alive. I'm just biding my time because I like damp-ass cells and the smell of old blood."
"Okay, but really."
"Sign talks his way out of trouble."
You snort. "I find that hard to believe."
"He hasn't preached at you yet?"
You glance at the door of the cell. "Oh, that's what he was doing when he was being an asshole?"
She laughs, so at odds with her earlier defensiveness that it throws you off. "Take it up with him."
---
"So," you tell the mutant when you bring him his evening meal, "you're a preacher."
"They didn't tell you that?"
"My job is just to keep you in your cells. The reason you're here isn't relevant. But heresy, really? How fucking stupid are you?"
"You sound awfully defensive." He holds his hands out for the tray.
"Defensive," you repeat, handing it over.
"Taunting people seems more common with blueblood guards. And even then, only when they're tired and bored. For someone so invested in 'doing your job', you sure do seem insulted by this."
"Yeah. Stupid people offend me on a base level."
"Would you like to sit down?"
"No."
"You seem upset."
"I'm not upset, I'm fucking insulted. You come in here talking shit about my religion because you think somehow I've been victimized?"
He sighs, but he sounds more sad than exasperated. "I don't understand how you can be so loyal to a belief system that depends on destroying you."
"Your matesprit told me about how you escape prisons. How you whore yourself so hard at the guards that they pity you and let you go. It's not going to work on me."
"Oh. You think I'm using you." He frowns, a distressed little crease appearing between his eyebrows. "I'm not. I mean, I won't lie, it would be excellent if you let us out of here. But I don't expect you to. I'm just concerned about you."
"Fuck you. Just because I'm tagged doesn't mean my loyalty is compromised."
"I believe you." He pushes the partially-empty tray away and folds his hands in his lap. "A property-tagged yellowblood doesn't guard the same cells as bluebloods without a reason. But whatever happened to you to make you like this should not have happened, and I'm sorry."
Your chest hurts with something that burns like rage and stings like pity. "To make me like this? Like what. Not prone to buying into your bullshit?"
"Angry and defensive and volatile." He's looking at you with an intensity that makes you feel picked-apart, dissected under a microscope. "It's painfully obvious that your masters hurt you. Why do you stay? You're a psionic. Probably a powerful one, more than capable of leaving this place."
"You don't know anything about me."
"Then tell me." His eyes narrow and the gaze's intensity strengthens, like he's trying to peel you apart with nonexistent psionics. "What do I not know about you?"
You're still hurting with the anger-pity bile, and he's still staring at you, and you could end this interaction right now by leaving the cell until he finishes his food, but that would be giving him the last word. And your hands are itching and your throat clicks and before you can stop yourself, you shove him up against the wall.
You lock him in tight bands of red and blue, careful not to burn or leave marks. He's afraid anyway, despite himself, because objectively he knows you can't hurt him but every instinct in a troll screams to get away from the freaky pissbloods who flash red and blue, because your species at least evolved to get the fuck away from the worst dangers and...
"I'll hazard a guess, heretic, that you don't know much about the goings-on in the Court. So let me tell you. Clowns like to be entertained and ritual slaughter is so much fun, but it also gets so boring after a time, because why grind bones into dust of those who can't fight back? Eventually all the screams sound the same and the bodies are only good for paint. You get your entertainment from other places. Gutterbloods are only good for paint but they don't know that, do they? They want to live so badly, don't they?"
The mutant's eyes widen, red red red, open the veins and pour it out, and a swooping part of you realizes this isn't you at all, he's down here, he's fucking with your pan. The rest of you feels too good spilling your poison to stop.
"So what happens if the gutterbloods kill each other instead? What happens if you dump a few dozen of them together and say that the last one standing gets to live another night? What happens then?"
The mutant chokes on air. "You--"
"I'm a powerful psionic. I'm their reigning motherfucking champion, and when the trials are over this sweep and they have a new champion, I'll fight them, and kill them, and get to live another sweep. I don't know how many fucking people I've killed. I don't care. I guard your prison cells because it's easy and this is as good a place as any to store me before they take me out for a last night of entertainment."
You're bearing down on him, your ears pressed flat against your head, fueled by anger and murder-rage that feels good, isn't your own. "So, pretty mutant, tell me about how concerned you are for me, how fucking pale, how worried you are about my compromised consent. Is there anything else you want to hear? How it feels to separate a limb from its joint? How the fibers of the muscle part and the bones crack?"
You expect him to wilt. At the very most, you expect him to try to present reason like you're not in a position to crush all of his internal organs, considering only someone with a broken fear sense stays so calm in a place like this.
You do not expect him to say, "Mituna."
The Grand Highblood's hold on your mind pops like a soap bubble. You stumble back, wholly your own again, dizzy and light and sick. "What?"
The mutant drops to his knees, coughing. "Mituna," he says. "I remember you."
"What the fuck!"
"We were friends." He reaches toward you, coughing again. "I know you, I remember you, I -- we're friends, give me a moment to catch my breath, I swear I can explain."
You don't give him a moment. You back out of the cell before the fog can descend, slamming the door shut and locking it, leaving the tray of food in there with him. All against protocol, but your blood sings and you don't care, you don't -
You break into a sprint and leave your shift early, damn the prisoners, they'll stay sequestered in their cells for one fucking hour, and find your moirail laughing like you're the punchline to the funniest joke he's ever heard.