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She didn’t remember how it really happened. Her many sweeps stuck in the hold of a ship as a Helmsgirl strongly affected the way her brain functioned, she would forget things easily if she didn't keep things that happened on her mind. So it was each time someone came down to the hold and used her as an object. She loathed that, and didn’t want to think of it, so the memories slipped away. But she was completely oblivious as to what this last one did to her, and how she would be further seen as an abnormality by her superiors.
Her psionics and the numbness they brought with them further delayed the signs; as she spent an awful lot of time using them to move the warship across space. But when the warship wasn't moving, she was more aware, if only just, of her surroundings. Such was the case one particular day when the warship was stationed on Alternia for repairs. Some of the signs had presented themselves to her, such as nausea and lethargy, but she had felt these feelings before; after over-using her psionics. And she wouldn't have known that the circumstance was different were it not for something else.
She felt something move inside of her, just the tiniest trace of movement. It almost felt like there was something alive, but she couldn't tell what it was. She freaked out. An attendant nearby heard her distressed cry and went to see what the matter was.
“I felt something…I felt something move inside of me!” Her voice was shrill and slightly cracked, since she didn’t speak much at all. The attendant merely looked at her with a funny look on his face, nodding slowly. The funny expression disappeared rather quickly, though, as if he had seen something she couldn’t see. The goggles on her face had darkened and obscured her vision, so it was very difficult to see.
“This is…unusual..” he said quietly.
“This normally doesn't happen with trolls, that’s not how it’s supposed to work.”
“How what’s supposed to work? What’s happening?”
The attendant moved closer to the Helmsgirl and looked at her with a very serious expression. “You’re pregnant.”
“What? What does that even mean?”
“It means that there is a wriggler developing inside of your body.” the attendant was a patient individual and spoke calmly to her. “Trolls are supposed to release the mixed genetic material after a period of time and place it in the drone pails. It seems as if you've actually forgotten there was any material there and you've held it in for a while. In a normal circumstance it would release by itself, but on extremely rare occasions the material will start to create a wriggler, without the use of a mother grub. The rare times it has happened it only happens to female trolls, like yourself.
“You’re not that far along with it, either. I can tell because your girth is a bit wider than it normally is, and that’s a sign of a developing wriggler.” He reached forward and placed a hand on her stomach. She felt his hand move across the curve that was forming. It was small, but noticeable.
The information was a bit much for her to take in. She was absolutely terrified at the thought of a wriggler growing and developing inside of her body. How was it supposed to come out of her body? Would this kill her? Questions of all sorts rushed through her head. The attendant gave her a kind smile and told her to relax.
“I’ll get some co-workers of mine to help you through this. You’ll need extra food, and the Emperor is eventually going to have to know about this…” He looked away for a moment, as if distracted by his thoughts. Then he left her alone in the darkness of the hold, alone with her troubled thoughts. She felt more movement, faint and almost unnoticeable. If she wasn’t stuck to where she was with the wires and the slime, she might have responded to these movements. In that moment she wasn’t really as scared as she had been; maybe a bit freaked out by the idea, but it was not as terrifying anymore. It was almost…mystifying.
***
True to his word, the attendant was able to talk to some of his fellow co-workers about the problem. They agreed not to tell the Emperor until they thought it would be appropriate to tell him. In the mean time, they would give her the extra food she needed to nourish herself and the unborn wriggler, and see to it that she was in proper health. She was afraid that the overuse of psionics would do something to the wriggler, but there didn’t seem to be any problems. Just in case, she had been careful not to overuse them, and this made the warship travel a bit slower than it normally did. The Emperor began to notice this after some time and made his way down into the hold to confront his troublesome Helmsgirl.
“You’re using less psionic energy than normal and that is making my ship travel slower. You know better than to go slow with this sort of thing!” He raised a whip, preparing to lash her as he often did in the past, and she snapped at him out of fear.
“Don’t! You’ll hurt them!” At these words the Emperor lowered his whip and looked at her, confused.
“Hurt who?”
Immediately she regretted saying anything, and she looked away in shame. “There is a wriggler developing inside of my body. I don’t remember who was involved in it, but something went wrong and now I’m carrying a wriggler.”
The Emperor put the whip away and considered this for a moment. “It’s an extremely unlikely story, as wriggler conception within a troll almost never happens…but I can tell that your story is true. I've noticed the attendants sneaking you extra food, and I see that your stomach is swelling up. Overweight trolls don’t have a perfectly round girth.” He had moved closer to her, but there was no indication that he was planning to hurt her. He placed a hand on her swollen belly. He felt a kick, and then he moved his hand away. “And I don’t think it’s just one wriggler that you’re carrying. It felt like there were two.”
“I thought so.” Somehow that was true, because it had seemed that there was actually two, and not just one, but she had never been sure about it. The Emperor continued to ponder the thoughts.
“You still aren't quite ready to deliver, but when you are I’ll make arrangements.” He said after some time.
“What kind of arrangements?”
“That’s for me to know and for you to find out.” He said in a strict tone of voice, before he placed his hands behind his back and began walking out. "I'll let the attendants continue bringing you extra rations on their shifts, you are going to need the nourishment. But I still expect you to at least try to move this warship around. To be honest, I couldn't care less about your condition. As Emperor, I have places to be and things to get done, and I'm not going to let an impregnated Helmsman stand in my way. I'm not letting you off the hook just yet. Understand?"
He didn't even wait for a response and he left her alone in the darkness. Another terrifying thought came to her. What if, when they were born, he would raise them and force them to become Helmsman? At the thought she could have sworn the wrigglers quivered inside of her, as if they had somehow heard what had been said and were afraid. "It's going to be okay." She said soothingly and silently. "He's not going to hurt you." She definitely sounded much more certain that she felt, because the uncertainty clung to the back of her mind.
***
Time passed rather slowly. The movement of the wrigglers was becoming more noticeable; they seemed to be kicking harder with each passing day. And they were certainly growing every day as well. She felt very uncomfortable, and slightly congested. When the warship was moving, it felt as though her psionics were being messed with and they were limited even further.
The warship happened to be moving when she went into labor. A painful spasm passed through her and the psionics went on a fritz. She cried out and started panicking. The attendant had entered the room to see what was causing the strange surges in psionics, and he saw her screaming in pain. He left the room and came back with the Emperor, who told her to stop with the psionics and he began to cut her free of the wires, until she was completely free. He also removed the goggles from her face, and she had to close her eyes for a while because she wasn’t used to so much light.
She hadn’t walked in a very long time, so her legs wobbled under her weight and she fell to the ground. The attendant helped her up and he supported her. The Emperor pulled out a small phoning device and dialed a few buttons before speaking into it. “Bring a wheeling bed down with you into the hold. Our Helmsgirl needs to be moved to the medical facility. Quickly.” Two servants came shortly afterward with the bed, and the Helmsgirl was hoisted up onto it and rushed her to the medical facility.
It was obvious that the other members of the Emperor’s warship crew were told about the dilemma, because they didn’t seem too surprised when she had arrived at the medical facility, screaming in pain. A handful of nurses made their way towards her and helped her take off her helmsman garments and put on a loose-fitting gown in its place; it was meant for a larger troll and the neck-line had slipped below her shoulders. Then they had her lay down on one of the cots.
The spasms got worse and worse, to a point were it felt as though they were trying to force something out of her. This was much different from using psionics at full force to pilot a warship, and it hurt in a completely different place. She found herself wishing this had never happened to her. That monster who planted their genetic material into her was the reason she had to suffer for this. Even if she didn’t remember the slightest hint of an appearance, she was still angry at whoever they were. Please let this be over soon, she thought to herself, I don’t think I can take this much longer.
It was a very difficult birth, even for troll standards. The first twin had caused most of the difficulty. It had been turned around in the wrong direction, as one of the nurses discovered. They put on a pair of gloves and moved towards the Helmsgirl. In an attempt to distract her, another nurse went up to her and started dabbing her face with a damp cloth. It worked; she didn’t notice the other nurse place their hands in and pull out the wriggler, until it was too late to react. “We’ve got it” He said, holding a shape wrapped in a soft looking protective shell. He placed it down on the table on top of some blankets.
“There’s still another one in there.” Another nurse pointed out. “It looks like it’s just this other one, and then that should be it.” Fortunately, the second wriggler came out much easier than the first; it was facing the right direction and didn’t need to be pulled out with a nurse’s help. The first nurse caught the second shell-wrapped wriggler and placed it next to the first one. The one closest to the Helmsgirl smiled at her and patted her shoulder.
“You did it.” She told her. “We thought you weren't going to make it, but you did!”
Despite being extremely tired, she wanted to see the wrigglers, and they were brought to her. “They’re both girls.”
The soft shells had come apart, and they had been wrapped in blankets. They had yellow exoskeletons, indicating they were gold-bloods, just like she was. They had the binary set of horns and tufts of fluffy, jet-black hair on their heads. And their eyes, which weren't quite open all the way, were red and blue, just like hers. She remembered her worried thought about them being trained to pilot warships and the fear overcame her. She held her two daughters close to her chest, and they latched onto her in response. One of them let out a tiny squeak. “I can’t let you go. I don’t want to let you go. I love you.” she told them, nuzzling their faces.
The Emperor walked into the medical facility and watched the scene unfold. He himself had seen his own descendants born in the more traditional way with the mother grubs and drones, but he wasn’t as touched as some of the others were. He approached the Helmsgirl. “You can’t keep them. You know it’s forbidden for trolls to raise their offspring. They will be sent to Alternia where they can be brought up properly.” At these words, she shook her head no. “You’ve already become attached to them.” He turned angrily to the nurses. “You should have taken them away as soon as they had hatched.” He sighed and placed his face in his hand, frustrated. “I’ll give you a few moments to say goodbye, but then once that’s done, they’ll be sent away and you will spend a few days recovering until you can function again.”
She couldn’t have enough time. She kissed both of their foreheads and christened them. The older one had been named Mithra and the younger one was named Sollia. She simply held them in her arms and rocked them to sleep. The Emperor had two guards take them away from her. Sollia had awoken from the disturbance and started screaming in protest. Her mother reached for her until they guards had left, and they were gone. Grief overpowered her, and she spent several hours crying and screaming in agony and grief. She had been left alone for this, but she wished that someone was there to comfort her. For just one moment she had everything, and now it had been forced out of her hands.
I’m always alone. Why am I always alone? Why can't I find someone to be by my side?
***
It wasn't too long before the Emperor had placed her back in the hold and tied her back up with the wires. She didn't resist. There was nothing left for her to hold on to; her hope had been drained out of her in the last few days, and she didn't want to feel anything anymore. It was after that moment that she lost her wits entirely. After thousands of sweeps of fighting, she finally surrendered to insanity.
A few memories remained, however. But they were so faint she would have to stop concentrating on her psionics to recall them. She remembered the names of her children, the ones she herself gave birth to. The pleasant, bittersweet memories before and after their birth. In the end, that was really the one thing she really held on to. And that was enough.