galratech | (no subject)

Geez! Shouldn't we just knock the human out? It'll save us a lot of trouble!

[another chuffs.]

Ugh, but Lord Darc says he wants them as lively as possible...

[a sigh.]

Well, if we're lucky, it'll just make itself pass out. Heh heh. Look at this thing! It's like a breeze will knock it over.

[sharp, with an animalistic hiss to pronunciate their scolding]

Come on! Our lord has been down in the dumps lately. Maybe if we bring him an injured human, he'll cheer up.

[a more dubious voice]

You think so? I mean, they kinda all look the same to me... I can't tell who Lord Darc's type is at all.

[Shiro wishes he would pass out. It's terrifying how quickly numb acceptance steals over him once he realizes that there's nothing he can do to get free. It frees his mind up to think a little more rationally, comfort himself that he just needs to bide his time. They're not killing him, yet. He can almost block out the part of him that says it might just be better to make them.]

I'll go, [He says hoarsely, after one last, weak attempt to buck.

At least he'll probably black out as soon as they get him up.]

Hey! Hear that? Maybe you're not so stupid after all, human!

Come on, get up! Ergh, humans are so dainty... do we have to carry you or something?

[a Deimos enthusiastically yanks him up by his robot arm.]

Huh? Whoa, check this out...

[Oh great, they're interested in his arm!! That prospect is also so potentially horrifying that Shiro offers a weak, incoherent defense.] It's n-not... mine.

[As if that statement could actually separate him from it and whatever they want to do to it.

And then, mercifully, he does pass out.]

[What the heck!! Good thing they are taking him to Darc, Darc will know whatever THAT means and how a human could have an arm with magic in it.

When Shiro wakes up next...

Good news: Shiro isn't dead, he isn't in much pain at all, he's in a floor-level bed of nice soft miscellany pelts and feathers. It smells nice?? Very floral.

Possibly bad news: he's naked, his injuries are smeared with unknown substances, he's DEFINITELY drugged.

The room itself has iron walls, and it looks worn and overgrown and repurposed, draped and decorated with skins and bones. It's lit by torchlight. Incense is burning, there are many MANY types of plants growing in pots and out of the ground... and there's distinctly deliberately-placed tool-looking items lined up next to Shiro's "bed."

A man is in the room with him, sitting floor-level with him, wearing a weathered red sarong and gladiator sandals and nothing else. He's covered in scars and weathered horns protrude from his half-human features. He looks like the battered, hardened combatants Shiro has met in the worst of places, and yet absolutely nothing like any alien race he's seen due to his distinctly chimeric figure.

He appears to be studying a tablet. Like, a stone one. There's a few others piled near him.]

[Due to the drugs Shiro's not sure if he spends ten seconds being too scared to move or ten minutes. Either way, he eventually flexes a wrist and realizes he's not bound. A flood of relief hits him like a second drug and he lets his eyes drift shut, briefly. Small victories. Sluggishly, he pulls the rest of his perceptions together. The warmth, the softness surrounding him... His body feels useless and heavy and he's a little concerned he's not more concerned about that but his instincts are telling him he's safe.

As for the figure... Shiro's not getting the vibe that he's a guard, despite the fact that he's obviously a fighter. Maybe it's that he seems to be reading, such a weirdly normal thing to be doing by someone's... hospital bed?]

Uh... Hi?

[Darc looks up with an immediate, animal-speed alert, with the same fixated stillness of a startled lizard.]

Hnh... You're finally awake.

[Shiro blinks.

There is nothing speedy about his response.]

Was I... out long?

[Darc's voice sounds way older than his face looks, like he has been gargling rocks. He leans forward, studying INTENTLY, his set of red, slit eyes still completely fixated on Shiro with an open, raw stare.]

If you can call that being out... you've been thrashing around and half-conscious for two days. Coalesk poison will do that.

Poison? I don't remember...

[Shiro can't really retreat from the scrutiny but after a moment it occurs to him that the guy seems worried, an absurdly cheering thought. He attempts a smile, wane with exhaustion.]

You took care of me this whole time? Thank you.

[He startles. Staring perhaps even wider at Shiro.]

... Not the whole time! I only handled some of it.

[he seems to STEEL HIMSELF]

Do you have any idea how lucky you are to be alive? I have a lot I want to ask you.

Still. I feel like I didn't almost die at all. So you must have done a great job.

[Shiro chuckles weakly, because he's pretty sure this guy has no idea about the actual extent to which he is lucky to be alive. When you add in not being in pain and not being a prisoner, this whole situation was a miracle. He wonders if the giddiness is the drugs.]

I could try to answer some things now?

[?!?!!?!]

You're... laughing?

[dammit how much drugs did camillia put him on]

[The poor guy looks so distressed it just makes Shiro laugh more, though he can see where the concern might be coming from. It's possible he feels a little hysterical, if it's possible to feel hysterical and relieved at the same time.]

Sorry. I'm just... still pretty out of it, I guess. But I feel fine, you can ask me things.

Edited 2017-01-22 10:59 (UTC)

Hmph... you're supposed to be floating for a bit longer.

Very well. Who are you? What is a human doing so far past the border? And how the hell do I sense spiritual energy in you?

My name's Shiro and... [He skips over being a Paladin, recognizing on some level that he's drugged and should still maybe exercise some caution.] I don't really know how I got here, as strange as that seems. And I, uh, don't know anything about spiritual energy.

[... Repeats, solemnly digesting it.]

Shiro...

[scowls.]

You don't remember? Your arm. Did Diezweld do that to you? I thought we'd shut down their despicable experimentation.

... No. A people called the Galra did that. Have you heard of them?

[Darc frowns, drumming his scaled claw.]

There's no group I know by that name... Humans?

No, they're not.

[He supposes he should be relieved. The Galra were unlikely to be starting any new conquests just now...

He focuses a little more on Darc. Not human, but much more human than any of the others he had seen. Had Shiro been rescued from them....? He would have expected to wake up in a cell, not bed.]

Can you tell me your name? And what your people are called?

[Darc startles, shocked.

He knows Shiro is drugged, but surely no human he doesn't know already could be so drugged that they would start assuming Deimos have names and are people right off the bat?? He knows Kharg was talking big about teaching broader acceptance but what the FUCK? He's been asked for his name so genuinely like, NEVER, without the presumption that he's some thing first]

... My name is Darc. King of the Deimos.

[Uh.

Shiro runs that back through his drugged brain to make sure he heard that correctly, and think about whether or not Darc is using the word 'king' in some particularly weird alien way. But no, King of the Deimos sounds pretty unmistakable. No wonder the guy looks so surprised that Shiro doesn't recognize him.]

Sorry, I'm... not from around here, obviously. So those people who found me were your subjects?

[WHAT THE FUCK MAN.]

That's right. They found you in the Coalept forest, about to get eaten or worse.

You're telling me you have no idea how you got there? It's no place for humans. It's practically no place for Deimos. You're lucky you were found!

I know. ... I can't thank you and your people enough, King Darc.

[He meets Darc's eyes as best he can, trying to blink away some of the heavy pleasantness of the drug.]

It's complicated. I was in a battle, there was an explosion. I really don't know what happened after that.

[But if it was the Black Lion who teleported him, he sent Shiro somewhere safe. Or so it seemed right now. Shiro wanted to believe that.]

[whfhbn this gratefulness and being thanked]

You're... thanking us? Hah... you really are drugged. You say you were in combat, but I've never met a human warrior like you.

[he shoves aside the OBVIOUS FLUSTER for steel instead, agitated by this whole situation]

There shouldn't be any battles on this continent, not since the treaty. Who are these Galra that they dare disobey my decree, and dare toy with despicable experimentation? Tell me where they are and I'll rip them limb from limb.