thecapitol | (no subject)

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(no subject)

WHO | Adel, Some, and OPEN
WHAT | Adel runs into Some on the rooftop of the training center.
WHEN | Shortly after her death.
WHERE | Training center.
WARNINGS / NOTES | Talk of death, talk of eating people.

She'd awoken to a lab-like environment, alive and intact. The humans had needed to sedate her soon after. The next time she woke it was in the quarters of her suite. The room was built for a human, not an andalite. What purpose could she possibly have for a closet? A shower? A bed? She had left once and only once, and that was when she saw part of the video playback from the most recent Games.

A familiar eight-legged creature was bearing down on a human woman, tearing into her. Consuming.

She'd rushed back to her quarters and there she had stayed since. But hunger was beckoning now. The rooftop was a quiet place that promised both peace and food by way of it's lush gardens full of grass, and so that's where she headed.

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Some had gone up there, well after dark, to get away from the constant light and bustle of the Eighth Floor. And, if he was honest with himself, to avoid Lottie. He'd failed her, in more ways than she knew. And he knew that was irrational, that he'd never owed her his oath. She wasn't Jim, or anything like him. But he felt that way all the same.

So he was on the roof, draped along one edge of it like a cat, chin resting on the cross of his arms when he heard Adel, and moved his head only enough to see her.

The andalite came to an abrupt halt when she saw Some, her hearts leaping. She'd planned to graze for a while and return to her quarters. Simple. Quiet. She hadn't expected anyone to be up here. Not at this hour.

Of all the people she could run into.

<Some...> She says quietly, remaining where she is, several feet away.

He lifted his head a little, tipping it to the side as he tried to interpret her sudden stillness. It was the obvious answer that leapt to mind, of course.

"... Are you all right?"

... But he wasn't ready to face the obvious answer just yet.

<No.> She answers honestly. For the first time in her life, she's fought for her life. And she's lost. She knows the pain of death and she knows the pain of killing.

She doesn't come any closer to Some. She knows, creatures with mouths, the ones with teeth. They must take in food through them. But...

<The humans are sapient.> She says, as if it weren't already apparent.

He didn't need to ask what she meant.

"I know," he said soberly. "But I don't have the choice. They're all- Are you religious, Adel?"

She had learned in school that some sapient species followed an organized 'religion'. Humans seemed to follow many.

<Andalites do not follow an organized religion.> She replies. Was he saying it had something to do with his religion? She watches him uneasily from where she is, one stalk eye turned back towards the entrance to the roof.

"Grues do," he said seriously. "My god, she says we have to eat the humans because they are made from the part of Light that he held back from the rest of the married gods. When we've taken all that they are into all that we are, the gods will be whole again." He looked aside, rubbing his knuckles across his mouths.

"And practically," he added, not wanting to look back to see if the idea was laughable to her, as it had been to many. "Nothing else feeds me. That bite was the first nourishment I've had since I was brought here. And that was my third Arena."

The idea is laughable to her, or would be if the it didn't make her stomach churn. But what he says abut nourishment is another story.

<You're of a kind that consumes...> She grimaces. <Flesh.> Her second stalk eye swivels to look down as she grinds a hoof in the lush grass of the garden. <...Surely a non-sapient creature would feed you?>

He shook his head. "Mostly, anything else makes me sick. Especially anything that feeds on grass. Plants can kill me," he added candidly, only thinking a moment late that perhaps that was not the best thing to tell another player in these games.

She isn't sure whether to believe him or not. Both that anything other than human flesh makes him ill and so he must eat humans and that this especially applies to herbivorous creatures like herself. Was he trying to lull her into a false sense of security?

<I see...> She says, though she does not. She turns and steps across the grass, moving horizontally to Some, never closer, a stalk eye still fixed on him.

"They feed me- something. They would not tell me what it is. A paste." He made an unconscious face, a flicker of grimace. "It keeps me from going made with the hunger, but it does not kill it, and I can always feel myself getting weaker and more tired. It only gets better when- when I die in the Arena. I feel so good when I wake up."

Adel looks deeply disturbed when she looks up. <They keep you starved.> It's a statement, not a question. Of course they do. What else could they do, feed him their citizens? And she would imagine a hungry, human eating creature made for good entertainment in the arena. She looks disgusted.

He nodded, with a wistful look at the snack bar always available to those with more appropriate diets.

"What else can they do? Feed me their own dead?"

It dawns on her suddenly. The technology here is much more advanced than Earth's technology back in her dimension. <With the technology available here, surely growing human flesh artificially would not be difficult.> All of her eyes fix on Some for a moment. <They are keeping you starved purposefully.>

Some shook his head, leaning away from her to fix her with a look. "I do not know that. How could you grow flesh without growing the animal?"

<It's simple, you harvest the cells of the animal's desired muscle group and then grow new muscle in a lab environment.> She looks at him like this should be obvious.

"... Like cloning, but just part-way?"

<...Yes.> She replies. She misses being among her own kind where concepts like this would be so simple, even a child would know them.

He grimaced, looking out over the edge of the roof.

"I tried to find someone to do that in the last city. But no one would. I do not know if they were further along in science or not, though it was less... sleek. Less clean."

Edited 2013-02-28 08:23 (UTC)

She isn't sure what he means by less 'clean', but she isn't sure she wants to either. <I would be surprised if they were incapable of it here. But I would also be surprised if they obliged a request for it.>. A starved, man eating monster was much more entertaining in the arena.

He shrugged, a complex gesture with four shoulders. "I would be happy if I could go to their morgue. Even just every second or third week, or once before an Arena."

Adel suppressed a disturbed shudder. The deceased were not something to be fed to other beings. They deserved more respect than that. <I doubt that is something they would allow either...> She couldn't blame them for that one.

Edited 2013-03-01 07:34 (UTC)

He chewed his lip, raking it with sharp teeth that left little red lines. "It's what the last city did. I had to buy them, though. Had to work."

<The deceased deserve more respect than to be fed to other beings.> She finally says bluntly. She can't keep the disgust out of her voice this time.

He gave her a long, black look, both mouths pressing thin, and then turned away from her, lowering his head back onto his crossed forelegs and looking out across the glowing city.

She watches him for several moments before turning and, reluctantly, returning indoors.

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