towerofanimus | [Open Log]

Characters: Signless and open, but hopefully Romano as well!
Setting: Anywhere and everywhere. He's exploring the tower.
Format: Either is fine
Summary: Signless woke up with a leash on. He's going to find out where it goes, and run into shenanigans on the way.
Warnings: Nothing yet except Signless' language o/

Yesterday had been... busy. Between waking up in a strange place and getting lost, running into a couple of troll kids, and then saving Psiioniic from a creepy dickwad, he was pretty tired. Thankfully, Psiioniic had apparently been given the same room as him, so he could keep an eye on him as he slept.

He'd always suffered from insomnia, particularly when he had visions. So it took for fucking ever to fall asleep, and when he woke up that morning to find a weird orange and violet leash type thing attached to the collar at his throat, Psiioniic was still asleep.

But he didn't want to just sit around with this stupid leash thing on. It was pissing him off. At least Psiioniic didn't seem to have one - that would probably freak him the fuck out, given how messed up he already was.

He ripped a page out of his dream diary and scrawled a quick note on it I'M JUST OUT FOR A BIT. DON'T PANIC. DON'T LET ANYONE FUCK WITH YOU UNTIL I GET BACK, IF YOU CAN POSSIBLY MANAGE A FEAT OF THAT EXTRAORDINARY DIFFICULTY. and then left, following the leash as best he could to try to figure out where it led.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Meanwhile, Romano is sitting by the pool on the seventh floor, dipping his feet into the cold water. He'd wondered about the leash appearing on his neck earlier, but when he found it disappearing into a wall, he gave up. Probably just a trick the tower workers had chocked up.

And for some reason or another, Romano had woken up with a niggling annoyance clawing the back of his mind, the emotion growing over time, even. That's why he was here, by the pool, to try and ease his mind a little. Sure had a rep for being constantly bitchy, but this was just different.

Signless was also finding it especially irritating, like an itch in his mind that he couldn't get rid of. He kept running into walls, but the leash was trending down, and once he got to the staircase it was almost straight down until he reached the 7th floor.

Then he could easily follow it with his eyes, right to a hornless alien sitting by the pool. The hornless alien didn't look like much of a threat - in fact, the leash was attached to ITS collar, too, rather than being held in its hand. So maybe they were both victims here.

"Hey," he said, struggling to control his temper as he marched up to Romano. "What's the deal with this?"

Romano turned to see one of those troll things, just like the others except much taller. Visibly, the nation paled at the sight and the tone he was addressed with, before looking down at the shortening distance between them where the leash hung.

It occurred to him that this scary monster might be angry at him for whatever this situation is, and he didn't want to die for it.

"I didn't do this, I swear! I just woke up and that chain or leash or whatever was there like that!" This would be the point in the surrendering where he'd claim he had family in the other's country to earn sympathy or mercy, but he was pretty sure he wasn't related to any trolls. That lie wouldn't get him very far.

Signless felt a strange rush of nervousness as the alien looked at him, but he was distracted by the sight of the way he paled, growing even more pasty and less pink than before. It didn't look healthy at all.

The sight of it calmed him considerably, and he recalled that he was supposed to be the troll messiah of calm and non-violence.

"Yeah, I figured that out, eventually." He offered Romano a sheepish smile - which given the sharp teeth he had might not be that reassuring - and hunkered down near him. "So what do you think is the point?"

The toothy smile should've been much less reassuring, but as it turned out, Romano had felt just a bit calmer from the sight of it. At least, that's what he would assume was the cause. He hadn't been flayed yet, that was a good start.

"I don't know." He admitted, and took a moment to focus on the water he'd gone back to staring at. "We've had these damn things since we woke up in this place, but there were never weird glowy ropes coming from them before."

"Yeah, they really piss me off, actually," Signless said with feeling. The collars were really fucking with his best friend's head, since he'd been kept as a slave and traumatized so badly. Signless just tried to ignore his own, usually, but it was tough to do that when there was a big stupid leash extending off of it.

He sat down and pulled off his shoes, revealing grey feet with yellow claws, rolled up the bottoms of his Righteous Leggings, and stuck his feet in the water.

"I'm Signless," he said.

"I can't imagine anyone but weirdos liking them..." Romano could only imagine what people like France or Germany must think about the collars, but he was sure it was awful. Spain probably had the biggest problem with collars out of anyone Romano knew, but he hasn't seen him around lately.

The Italian saw the yellow of claws on toes and immediately mistook them for something disgusting, and it showed on his face. He said nothing, and looked back down at his own feet and rolled up pants.

"I'm Romano."

Signless had no idea why Romano had just looked at his feet as if there were fungus growing on them. But he was pretty used to people looking at him with disgust - usually for his blood colour, rather than his feet, but maybe the human had some issue with feet.

He ignored the look and examined Romano's feet instead. Weird pink nubby things.

"Yeah, weirdos," he agreed, smirking. "Like the people who put them on us in the first place. Creepy fucks."

Feet were weird in general okay, but the gray skin and orange colored nails were icing on the bizarre toe-shaped cake. Romano was still getting used to trolls being a thing that existed, somewhere out there. Being initially afraid of them on instinct didn't help his opinion, but slowly, he discovered that they weren't all bad. Just weird.

"Yeah, stupid bastards. I'd like to see how they like being humiliated and collared." He frowned and tugged at his collar a little. "What is even the point of these dumb things, other than to color-code us like some stupid tagged labrats."

Weird is right. Signless scowled and tugged on his own collar. "Yeah, it's not cool. I can't even figure out how to break the damn thing, though you would think the weird coloured bits would be pretty fragile. They probably are having to do with some kind of experiment!"

The thought of being experimented on made his stomach drop, along with all the other horrible things that have happened, on top of apparently losing his world. He flicked the colored bits on his collar after Signless mentioned it, and chewed the inside of his mouth out of habit. He recalled America's very first attempt at removing his collar.

"A strong guy I know tried to break his when we first woke up with them. He broke his bedpost instead."

"Doesn't surprise me," Signless said. "Psi and I tried using his psionics to do it. He can level buildings with his powers, but couldn't put a scratch on these. He could probably cut off my head to remove it, but I don't think that's a good idea."

Romano made this expression of horror and curiosity at Signless's description of his friend's powers. And just a sickened look when he'd mentioned the beheading. "I don't think I'd be desperate enough to chop my damn head off..." And then Romano remembered something. "When you die here, you don't stay dead. You'd just wake up the next day with another fucking collar."

"Huh?" Signless stared at Romano in confusion. "Well even if that's true, I don't think it's something I'd actually do."

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