towerofanimus | (no subject)

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Characters: Signless & Ψiioniic, and if any of their roommates would like to be present or anyone else would like to drop in on them, feel free!
Setting: 2-8, backdated to shortly after this thread, so just after the Condesce arrives but before Dualscar does.
Format: Narrative please
Summary: After killing himself, the Signless & the Condesce, Ψiioniic wakes in their room.
Warnings: graphic imagery and slave issues, most likely

Ψiioniic woke in the grasp of the same sleep paralysis he'd experienced on first coming to the tower. He couldn't move or open his eyes, but his brain was working at full speed.

Since he'd never expected to wake again, this was disconcerting and somewhat terrifying. The last thing he remembered was sacrificing himself to try to stop the fight between Signless and the Condesce - and to prevent the Condesce from ordering him to kill Signless.

Why was he alive? Where was he? Who had won the battle?

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Still half panicked, Ψiioniic managed to turn on his side and curl up, protecting his vulnerable torso. That made him feel a little better, and the sight of Signless alive and well made him feel a lot better. "Thomebody must have carried us? But... I didn't expect to survive that."

"You wern't here last night." He told them, "I didn't hear anyone come in, but someone must have brought you up here." He turned to Signless, "You found him then?" And then back to Psiioniic with a polite nod, as he had never actually spoken to him before. "What happened?"

"Yeah, I found him," Signless growled, pulling back the blankets and getting up. He crossed to Psiioniic and sat down next to him on the sleeping rectangle, reaching out to put a hand on his shoulder. "He was pretty much where I expected, only I didn't know the Condesce was here. She's the ruler of the entire troll civilization, and Psi and I happen to be revolutionaries, so it wasn't a good thing."

He hesitated, glancing at Psiioniic. "I thought I was going to die..."

"Happen to be," Ψiioniic muttered, managing a shaky smile and a bit of humour. "You make it sound like it'th something we stumbled over and got into by accident. I'm pretty sure you killed her jutht now, but that's less reassuring than it should be since I'm altho pretty sure we both died as well."

He gave Suzaku a bit of a shy smile in response to the nod. "Thorry to worry you guys. She ordered me not to leave her side, so I couldn't come back."

Suzaku frowned, they had thought they had died? Also, ruler of their civilisation, revolutionaries. "So you're terrorists?" He didn't sound totally horrified, after all even if he had spent most of his life fighting terrorists he had recently turned against the emperor, joined with the leader of the terrorists and helped him to the throne, so he really can't judge.

"Ordered you?" And he was unable to resist, that sounded very much like Geass to Suzaku. "And you all died?"

"Terrorists?" Signless laughed. "Fuck no." He shifted up, facing Suzaku squarely. "The short version is, I'm the leader of a religious cult based on a philosophy of promoting peace and motherfucking harmony throughout the galaxy, eradicating the class system, and eliminating indiscriminate culling and slavery of the lower classes."

He jabbed a thumb at Psiioniic. "Psi here is one of my loyal followers, a member of my inner circle. He used to be a slave, too, which is why he runs into trouble when a highblood gets into hearing range."

He shrugged. "Anyway, the Condesce might call us terrorists for all I know, but we've never blown up a building. More accurately, we're heretics, and that's how the highbloods usually bill us in the propaganda."

Edited 2011-10-02 15:29 (UTC)

"Pretty sure the word 'terrorithts' has come up a few times in conjunction with our group, but hereticth is better," Ψiioniic agreed. "And more to the point, we've never hurt anyone who hathn't attacked us first. SS ith leaving out a few important details, but that'th the gist of it."

He hesitated, then shrugged and admitted, "I've been a thlave twice now. I broke free once to follow him, and when they caught me again they made ekthtra sure I wouldn't be able to break free again. And the Condesce is my owner. So, it's hard to ignore orders she giveth."

Religious cult? Heretics? It sounded like something from a history book. The only thing close to a religious cult Suzaku could think of from his world was the Geass users. But he was glad they were peaceful, and he knew nothing of their world. But it sounded even more brutal than his own if slavery was widespread.

"Because you are afraid she will hurt you, or because she is using a Gea... power on you that makes you unable to even if you wanted?"

"Using a what?" Signless asked calmly, watching Suzaku closely. He had less interest in talking about exactly how weak Psiioniic might be right now, than in learning a bit more about their hornless alien roommate.

"She doethn't have any special powers to force people to obey that I know of," Ψiioniic admitted, frowning. "Though she thertainly had the ability to punish us if she cared to, back on our world - she could wipe out an entire section of the hemothpectrum with a word to her lusus. That doesn't apply here, though."

"Geass," Suzaku said quietly to Signless, "The power of Kings, a power in my world, they come in different forms but the current emperor has a Geass that allows him to give each person a comand that cannot be disobeyed. I was wondering if it were similar." He thought back to what Psiioniic had just said, "What is the hemo...spectrum and lusus?"

"There are people who can control others with their minds, in our world," Signless said softly. "Though they can't implant commands forever, usually. They can take over a mind and control the person so long as they're concentrating on them. To my knowledge, the Condesce doesn't have that power, anyway."

He gestured. "But what she can do is tell her lusus - a huge sea monsters that raised her since she was a grub - to kill off anyone, say, with yellow blood." He tapped Psiioniic's shoulder. "Or green, or red. Such power keeps the lower masses in line."

"I think she can kill everyone up to the blood colour she wantth... like, to kill off the yellow-bloods like me, she'd have to kill the rust-bloods and brown-bloods too," Ψiioniic corrected him, shivering. "That'th not really an improvement. It's a powerful threat - and she's not afraid to use it. She's already wiped out all the rust-bloods onthe since I've been her Helmsman."

Suzaku blinked, a huge sea monster? Grub. Then his eyebrow raised further, different colour blood. That threw him off, what did they mean different colour blood. "Only one command, one command for each person," he corrected though he was still trying to understand what they were telling him.

"What do you mean different colour blood, and why... up to... is it..." He didn't really know how to say what his mind was telling him, "The colour of your blood is... your place in society?" Because he had heard of sayings like "blue blooded Britanians," but that wasn't literal...

Signless nodded at Psiioniic's correction. He would know better than Signless did, exactly what the Condesce could do. Either way, it was a horrific possibility, and one that kept him up at nights, sometimes, when they'd tangled with threshecutioners one too many times.

"Trolls have different colours of blood. It's called the hemospectrum," he explained. "The rustbloods are the lowest, with the shortest lifespan, and the most numerous. The highest are the purple-blooded sea dwellers. The Condesce has the highest blood of all, and has lived for hundreds of sweeps, maybe thousands." He shrugged. "So yeah, the colour of our blood determines our place in society. The highbloods rule, and can cull lowbloods any time they want."

From things the Condesce had said in his hearing, Ψiioniic was pretty certain the only reason she hadn't wiped out every low-blood up to green to rid herself of Signless' rebellion was because she hadn't been certain it would kill Signless. He was outside the hemospectrum, after all. Probably he'd die with the rust-bloods, but who knew? She hadn't wanted to destroy so much of her power base on a possibility.

Her Imperial Condescension was nothing if not calculating.

"Becauthe there's so many low-bloods hatched every breeding cycle, and we die so fatht anyway, we're pretty disposable as far ath the high-bloods are concerned," Ψiioniic agreed. "Plus, the vast majority of psychicth are low-bloods, so it's easier to take us into thlavery." He dug a claw into his palm until yellow blood welled up around it, then turned his hand to show it to Suzaku. "I'm a yellow-blood. High end of the low-bloods, not quite green enough to be a mid-blood. Not that it matterth, with powers as strong ath mine. I'd have been a thlave even if I wath a blue-blood."

"Sounds about right." Suzaku felt a well of anger. It seemed that worlds wern't that different after all. He looked at Psiiniic's hand and sure enough the blood was yellow.

"Where I come from everyone has the same colour blood, red. But it doesn't stop them opressing others, they just go on other factors like the bit of land you were born on and who your parent's were." Because it was easy to understand in his own terms, the Blue and Purple bloods being the Britannian nobility, the low bloods being the numbers. Slavery didn't exist in his world but he thought of Rolo, as much as he had disliked the boy, the training he had gone through to turn him into a Geass using assassin and wondered if that was really true.

"Those higher in society always seek to oppress those they see lower than themselves."

"Shit," Signless said, sighing. "Really? I heard that you humans were better...that you do something called elections, asking everyone to choose your leaders and things."

"I think however they get in power, there will alwayth be some who want to stay there desperately enough to exploit the lower classeth," Ψiioniic said with a sigh. He reached out and touched Signless' arm. "But it wath different, wasn't it? In your visionth. There was no hemospectrum and no slavery. Tho we must be able to do it, if we just try hard enough."

Suzaku shrugged, "I heard from some people here that their world was completely democratic, with elections and such. In my world the EU has elections but Britannia..." He shrugged, "They took over half the world, took away even the names of the countries, calling them by numbers."

He nodded when Psiioniic spoke, ""Our new emperor, he is working at changing things, changing Britannia. Stopping the war, making a peaceful world. I am his knight... hopefully we will suceed and so will you." He didn't mention how they were going to suceed, they didn't need to know the details of Zero Requiem. Their world was different, hopefully they wouldn't need to be so... extreme.

Signless sat back, looking at Suzaku curiously. "Sounds like we're on the same side, even if it's on different worlds. Good luck, Suzaku."

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Suzaku hasn't yet learnt to not judge other cultures based on his own

Re: Suzaku hasn't yet learnt to not judge other cultures based on his own

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