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Post by [Admin] tiniBopper [TB] on Feb 12, 2013 20:28:14 GMT -5
The world seemed like a different place after the sun went down. Even though enough time had passed that the trolls were nearly equally diurnal as nocturnal, everything still seemed a bit more dangerous with the sun gone, when most of the trolls were out and about and doing their business. Humans were still mostly diurnal, without the eyesight necessary to brave the darkness. On nights with new moons, in particular, it seemed like the worst possible time to be awake.
It was a new moon, and it was midnight. The initial bustle of night's visitors to the cages were gone, and a bustle would happen again later, but for now everything was quiet. Most humans were sneaking in as much sleep as they could manage, curled up on themselves and trying to ignore the darkness around them. With no moon, the cells were nearly pitch black, inconsistent light from the stars filtering in through bars and windows.
And in the dark near-silence, one human was humming a discordant tune under her breath. Three short lengths of ribbon were in her hands, and she was braiding and unbraiding them over and over again. The notes didn't have any sort of distinctive melody to them but they masked what would otherwise be the overall shakiness of her person. She hated this time of night, when the darkness settled in and everyone else was silent.
Evie Martin had a small cage near the corner of the warehouse they were kept in, a singular cage while some other humans might have a cage with two of them in it. She was the farthest from the door, and usually trolls never got back to her to look at her. She'd more or less gotten used to being overlooked, alone, but it didn't stop her from getting shaky about it.
"One day, one night, some wrong, some right..." she murmured to the wandering tune she had started up. "Eventually something's gonna change..."
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Post by exemplarity on Feb 12, 2013 21:18:05 GMT -5
Roxy lay back, forcing herself to take deep breaths through her nose. It was dark enough that if she used her imagination, she could pretend that she was somewhere else. Somewhere that was definitely not this tiny, confined cage. She felt her chest tighten at the thought of not being able to move, not being able to run if she needed to. She couldn't protect herself.
Interrupted in the midst of her rising panic, she heard a single note. It rang out, sustained and clear through the quiet room. It was followed by others and despite the fact that Roxy had heard plenty of melodies in her life (and many far more beautiful) this one made her feel.. Exposed. She missed her old life with a force so potent it seemed that all air had vacated the room.
Making a quiet noise of distress she inhaled shakily, masked by the flow of words that had begun shortly before. Hit with sudden recognition, it dawned on her that there she was not alone in wakefulness. Someone was singing near her. She steeled herself and grinned in the darkness, though she knew it could not be seen.
"Hello?"
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Post by [Admin] tiniBopper [TB] on Feb 12, 2013 21:55:27 GMT -5
The second voice speaking made Evie pause, a chill running down her spine even as her mouth snapped shut. A quick analysis of the voice returned that it was female, and ever-so-slightly shaky, so it was probably another human. Another human was talking to her. It must have been the near pitch blackness around them since she had more or less gotten used to pointed stares and being ignored by other humans in the daylight.
Thoughts of helplessness often plagued her as well, though she had long come to master the ability not to let it show outwardly. No matter how cold her gut would get, how terror would inch and pick at her mind, she wouldn't let her breakdowns surface.
She inched toward the edge of her cage (not that hard, considering how small it was) nearest to where the voice had come from in the darkness, and wrapped her hands around the bars. "Hello?" she parroted the question back out, voice small and unsure, "Is someone else awake?"
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Post by exemplarity on Feb 13, 2013 14:48:25 GMT -5
The voice was coming from directly across from her.
Snickering a little at the silly question she answered, "Yeah that would be me! M'names Roxy... Normally I'd shake your hand and introduce myself all nice an' stuff, but for now you'll have to just accept the fact that I am wavin' at you." True to her word, she lifted her hand and wiggled her fingers towards the other girl, laughing with an impish grin.
"Nice singing, bee-tee-dubs."
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Post by [Admin] tiniBopper [TB] on Feb 13, 2013 15:25:53 GMT -5
Evie gave a small, unsure smile, "Well, it's nice to meet you Roxy. My name's Evie, and... thanks." She twisted the last bit of the ribbons into a braid and bit her lip, thinking for a minute, "I guess all I can do is kind of wave back." She gave a short, jerky sort of wave with her hand, shifting her weight to be more comfortably sitting next to the bars.
"How long have you been here?" it was a two-purpose question -- one, to get an idea of how long ago the other had 'completed' training, and two, to find out if the other knew about her. The longer someone was around the more they usually noticed that the girl in the corner was 'tame' and someone to avoid.
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Post by exemplarity on Feb 13, 2013 19:08:48 GMT -5
Thinking hard about the question an counting backwards, Roxy let silence fall as she tried to remember. Ticking off the weeks on her fingers, she got to four and made to reply before furrowing her brow in shock. How could she not know this? Maybe she was getting (and the thought made her want to retch), comfortable.
This was not a place to get complacent. With its locked doors, locked cages. The single tiny window was barred. Roxy almost laughed as she pondered the chances of the bars on the window being locked in place as well. Worst of all was the locked mouths. People who had given up, voiced no opinion aloud. People who had allowed themselves to be made into pets. No more significant than a dog, and marginally more useful.
Letting her head fall back to hit the bars behind her she sighed deeply, "A lil' under a month I guess, and you?"
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Post by [Admin] tiniBopper [TB] on Feb 13, 2013 19:35:53 GMT -5
Evie gave a weak, humorless laugh and rested her forehead against the bars of her cage. "I was born here in the training grounds, so..." her voice was small, toneless. Her fingers spasmodically began untangling the ribbon in her hands again. She knew how long it had been, to the day. "Fifteen years, four months, and three days." A part of her knew that her tenancy was part of the reason she was avoided -- anyone who survived that long in captivity was never someone to trust -- but it didn't change the one fact she was proud of.
She had survived where others hadn't. She had survived, and somehow she hadn't lost herself while doing it. It took a spectacular amount of lying, of false cheer and fake smiles, of self control and fear and careful, careful proceeding, and more than one night crying herself to sleep, but she had learned the system and had learned how to play it like a harp.
It was a lonely road, but it was working.
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Post by exemplarity on Feb 13, 2013 23:48:17 GMT -5
Roxy leaned back, putting more weight on her hands. Her eyes widened in intruige, "If you've been here your whole life.. You've never been to a place where you weren't a slave? But.." She let her voice trail off. It was a horrifying thought, that of spending all her time here. There was no room here for dancing or laughing or being a goof. Being a kid.
She thought fondly of her childhood, full of running and fear but also of great times. Like laundry day, the children played in the river while their parents watched with smiles from upstream. It was one of her most cherished memories. It was a revelation to her that there were people who had no pleasant times like that. Nothing to revisit in a dream when things felt hopeless.
It was disheartening to say the least. To say slightly less than the least, "..Dude."
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Post by [Admin] tiniBopper [TB] on Feb 14, 2013 0:09:04 GMT -5
"Mm." Evie made a small sound of agreement, biting her lip and turning her eyes down to the ribbons she couldn't even see. They were half a foot from her nose but the blackness was so complete that night. She braided them by feel alone, by feel and muscle memory.
"It's... hard, I guess." her voice had automatically taken on a cheerful, nothing's bothering me why would you think that tone -- a habit she couldn't afford to break, even when it tainted confessions, because of its invaluable nature of making her seem happy with her situation and truly tame. "Especially on nights like these. When everyone else is asleep." She pressed her forehead more firmly against the bars, knowing that they would leave visible indents. "When it's quiet and feels..." like you're trapped "...feels like you're..." helpless. She fell silent, curling her knees up to her chin and biting her lip more fiercely.
"...alone." her voice was small, barely a breath, when she finally mumbled the last word, and it shook violently despite her efforts to mask it.
It was dark, and it was quiet, and she was talking about her biggest fears with someone she couldn't even see, and who she couldn't be sure would even be there in the morning.
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Post by exemplarity on Feb 14, 2013 0:36:28 GMT -5
Feeling a surge of protectiveness overwhelm her, Roxy chuckled darkly. It would seem the two had something in common, darn abandonment issues! Since apparently her companion was born here.. That equales a mom, and someone fucking the mom. Where were they if not in here with the rest? Roxy wasn't even sure if they were both human. It must be at least slightly risque to copulate with your slaves (and god knows what strange biological abomination the pairing would make). Is sexing up your little pet equivalent to bestiality? She resited the temptation to make a cat noise.
Brightening up her tone from her morbid thoughts she replied cheerily, "I can totes dig that, feelin' alone is aaaall kinds a shitty." The only thing more shitty than feeling completely alone in the world were these fucking cages.
"You ever think about, I dunno.. Fuckin' off right outta here forever?" Roxy had thought about it one hell of a lot. She asked the question as a show of faith that Evie wouldn't rat on her. She didn't appear to be the special kind of sewer cunt that would do that.
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Post by [Admin] tiniBopper [TB] on Feb 14, 2013 11:38:38 GMT -5
The question was taken as what it was meant to be, and for a second Evie was quiet and her breathing sped up. Someone was trusting her with that kind of question. Trusting that the tame little bred-pet in the corner wouldn't tell to save her own skin, that she wasn't as tame as she appeared. It had almost never happened to her before, and a weak part of her knew that there was a part of her that would break if the conditions were right.
But the rest of her felt a surge of determination. She wouldn't break this new-found trust, not unless the rest of her was utterly broken. "I've... thought about it. A lot." her voice was stilted, full of held back emotions as she fought down the awe of being trusted, the awe and terror of it. "But I don't..." she shook her head, back and forth, back and forth, metronomic. "I don't have anywhere to go."
That was the big problem with leaving, in her eyes. What could she do? She could run out to the wilderness and likely die anyway. She could run off and join the floundering rebellion and be of no use. She could openly rebel, seemingly lose her mind in front of their captors and be thrown into the Fights to die. Her only path that led to survival, her one goal in life, was to submit, keep her head down, and try not to lose too many pieces along the way.
"I couldn't survive on my own, and there'd be no one out there to help me." she began untangling the ribbon again, fingers moving more quickly than before in anxiety. "I can't leave, literally can't, because if I try to leave that'll only resort in death for me and... that's the one thing I can't let happen. Not when I have the ability to survive. Not while I've still got my mind and will..." by the end of it, she was mumbling to herself, trying to convince herself of it all. There was a small part of her that admitted it was afraid of being something other than what it had been its entire life, something other than a slave, a pet, a worthless human.
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Post by exemplarity on Feb 15, 2013 9:24:28 GMT -5
To be honest Roxy hadn't thought much of the risk. As far as she was concerned it was a small leap to take as no one in their right mind would want to stay in this place. And thank goodness that her new friend appeared to be in her right mind! Though Evie seemed a little bit on edge. Under the wave of relief was an understanding that if her friend didnt calm the fuck down soon, they would wake someone. There was a reason Roxy hadn't made any friends here thus far. Bitches, bitches everywhere.
Raising her hand, she took a deep breath before speaking, "Shhhh, s'ok. Relax, you're fine. Just do the inhale-exhale thing and imagine me pettin' your hair." Aware of the fact that her words could be interpreted as overtly pale, she remained uncaring. She let them sit in silence for a time, hoping that she was not mistaken in the thought that she could hear Evie relaxing.
"I got somethin' to say, but I really can't if this place is bugged."
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