#I have more important things to do but alas self-indulgent drabble time

[cloudbattrolls]

[TW for: worms (nothing graphic but still), implied attempted assault mention (again nothing graphic but still)]

The fuchsia looks up at the big annoying mansion and squints. Okay, sure, she has a skyscraper for her stuff, but she rents out most of the floors anyway, and that’s for work. Her biggest estate is for her ducks anyway.

God, she sounds like such a typical highblood just thinking that. But then, that’s why she’s here at this door that has a golden dang doorbell and intricately carved engravings on the metal door of -

- of something that got just a little bit damaged. Chipped. Barely noticeable. Because someone has clearly tried to cover it up by trying to bend it back in place with what has to be at least blueblood strength.

A proud highblood with a fancy door would just call a repair drone. They don’t need to cover anything up.

Great.

She rings the doorbell three times out of due diligence to convention and waits, but when she takes out her lockcracker, she’s not surprised to find the security system’s already been compromised and it clicks open in seconds.

Chimer walks through the definitely not suspiciously dark lobby, into the entry room and her boots hit something hard.

She looks down, squinting in the low light - trolls might be nocturnal but it’s seriously dark in here and -

- oh that’s bones.

That’s...scattered bones.

That’s a whole ass skeleton.

She sniffs. Oh yup that’s definitely the scent of remains, fresh ones, and - fuck it, she’s using her phone as a flashlight - are those tiny teethmarks?

She wouldn’t call them that but what else can be they be, little sharp divots into cracked marrow and bones with barely even scraps of flesh clinging to them? What the fuck did this? A school of piranhas, maybe, but do land piranhas exist? Is that a thing?

Fuck it, that’s probably a thing and also probably a taken band name, which sucks because she wants that band name now.

Well, that explains why he didn’t answer the door.

“Is this all coffee? I’m disappointed.”

“I’ll keep if you don’t want it, mate.”

She freezes at the sound of voices and then realizes they sound familiar, even if one is harder to place.

Oh you have got to be kidding.

“Allele, get out here, and get explaining because I have two questions and they are what, and also, the fuck.”

There’s some whispers and muffled noises she can’t quite make out and she realizes the other speaker has an accent too, a higher, stranger voice that reminds her of...

It’s her tealblood friend who steps into the room first, looking slightly guilty. Her voice is a little more hoarse than usual - almost like she has a cold.

“Oh shit, was he one of yours?”

The fuchsia rolls her eyes.

“Kinda? Not really. I was hoping he would be, but those sure were the yesternights when he had like, a face he could talk with. He seemed okay; background checks came back clean-ish, which is better than I can say for eighty percent of every other blueblood in power in this city.”

The kangaroo-moth troll winces and scratches her neck - which looks like it has some weird dark patch on it - eyes flicking from side to side. Her coat, the fuchsia notes, is clean. And there wasn’t any blood on the carpet either. Or much of anything besides bones.

“Uhhh...yeah. ‘Bout that. Not so much.”

Chimer sucks in a breath.

“How bad was it.”

Allele opens her mouth but gets interrupted by -

“Let’s just say we took a peek at his hard drive and my goodness, I think anyone who possessed even the dullest, most broken moral compass, no matter where it pointed, would agree it pointed far away from him.”

Them.

Etuuya Vannyn steps into the room, sprightly as a mountain goat, eyes practically beacons in the dark with how bright they shine yellow and green and everything makes sense now.

Chimer looks at Allele.

“Girl. Please. Higher standards? Maybe? A little? A crumb, for your good pal Chimer?”

Allele starts, head swiveling like a hootbeast’s as she looks back and forth between the pair of trolls, one nearly a foot taller with crossed arms and pressed back fins and the other, well.

The other isn’t really a troll at all.

“You two - what - how”

Her friend waves a hand.

“I’ll explain later, you explain now. Not you.” She adds, pointing at the fake jade, who mimes zipping their lips with the utmost wide-eyed innocent look. “Allele. Start talking.”

“Ok, so, we think we might’ve found the resistance - “

The taller woman raises a hand.

“Hold up. This place is clean, right? Clean as we can reasonably get it?”

Allele nods.

“Guy had his own hardcore blockers and boy do we know why now, plus we set our own background noise creator and waffler too. Couple’a more organic bugs running around as a distraction just so anyone peeking finds something, cos that’s less eye-catchy than a void.”

Chimer nods; in Civitrecce it’s always less suspicious to have a few spies running around - any absence of them will just draw others like moths to flame. So anyone smart will have their own bugs in the area looking like outside eavesdroppers to discourage or fight off the others if it becomes necessary. Of course, even your own spies can be hacked, controlled by some beastspeaker if they’re bio enough - but that’s just the risk everyone takes.

“Okay, so, you think you found the resistance. The one I have tried, and failed, to track down for half my life. My life that is way longer than yours, sport.”

Allele snorts.

“Yer also a great bleedin’ political figure, you dumbarse. They know how to hide from you, wouldn’t be very good at their jobs if they didn’t, huh?”

“Wow, I never thought of that.” Retorts the seadweller. “Yeah that’s why I totally went looking for them as myself, and also never had anyone else on the case. I am the dumbest pair of fins that ever flopped on land, ya got me, show’s over.”

Allele shakes her head.

“You don’t get it. Everything you do, just by existin’, makes some kinda impact in the data stream. They can always feel you comin’ even if you try to be quiet cos you’re like a carp in a pond of minnows. Sure the other carp won’t notice you, but the minnows will even if you swim slow. Folks you set on the case got that connection too. You’re just proper fucked, not your fault really.”

Chimer grinds her teeth, fins ruffling in disappointment. It makes sense and she hates it. It’s just - if she could find them and help them, they could achieve so much. It’s risky, but if even half the rumors she’s heard about the kind of psiionics they have are true...

“Right. Fine. Spiffy. So what does the resistance have to do with this guy?”

Allele brightens up, but lowers her voice.

“Cause we think we found one of ‘em and they offered us a reward for taking him out and retrieving his data.”

“What kind of reward?”

“Info, what else. Not like they have a ton of cash to throw around. Not legit stuff anyway.”

Chimer considers this. From the very little she’s been able to pin down about the resistance - and their mode of operations has changed throughout the sweeps anyway, though always with an obvious emphasis on secrecy - that does match up.

They rarely rob their victims directly, or else no one’s been able to catch them at it, because electronic fund thefts are too easy to trace in the city - there’s a whole legislacerator branch dedicated to it.

They’ve ripped caegers away from highbloods before to expose them for corruption and let their fellows swoop in and tear them apart, or ruined businesses by crashing their stock, but their tack is usually redistributing the wealth to the city’s lowbloods en masse. Generous, also makes it basically impossible to track to its source when divided up so small.

“Wait. ‘We?’ Just how long have you two been up to murdershenanigans? I mean - dumbass question, you’re both murdershenanigans types, but like, together. As an unholy duo.”

Allele looks guilty and then defensive, her muscular, scarred arms crossing to mirror the fuchsia’s own.

“Some perigees. What’s it to you? I didn’t know you knew ‘em. Besides, they’re good at it and they know a lot, s’nice to work with an older troll and pick things up.”

The fuchsia groans.

“Allele. I mean this in the nicest possible way, but you’re off your goddang rocker. Do you actually know anything about what you’re standing next to? They’re imperial.”

“Were.” She insists. “Just like me! They told me and I looked some stuff up. M’not stupid, Chimer.”

The teal’s tone is resentful and ugh, she guesses she should be nicer but why them.

Especially with the fucking skeleton on the floor.

The rainbowdrinker is apparently so unconcerned by the conversation that they have...pulled out a swap and are playing lusus passing.

All right then.

“Fine. Cool. What did this guy do? What data did they want you to get?”

“Lists of bribes.” Allele says, much more somber now. “Trolls he bribed to ignore his shit.” She shudders. “There were a lot.”

“Bribes for -“

“Lowblood fighting rings. And worse.” Interjects the drinker, looking up. “Much worse. He trafficked in everything if someone was selling along his shipping routes. Even had deals with the Neishis.”

They must know. They must know what that name means to her, but there’s no smug satisfaction or knowing smile. Their face is deathly serious, all former levity gone.

Do they...care? Actually care?

If what they’re saying is true - and Allele believes them - then they technically did her a favor by stopping her before she could reach out to him, and it sounds like...

No, she’s got to be sane. This isn’t how things should be handled. She can’t let her own feelings get in the way; that’s what all her enemies expect from her.

“So the solution was not coming to me but eating him. Yeah, that sounds legit.”

“Didn’t even leave me anything for jerky.” Complains the teal.

Chimer gives her a look that speaks volumes and all of them are punctuated five exclamation points deep.

“Hey, it’s my thing.” Mumbles the teal defensively, looking down. “Waste not, all that shit.”

“You’ve got no good excuse for your power trip cannibalism, you weirdo. At least they don’t have a choice. But...”

The seadweller’s voice trails off as she looks at the empty sockets of the skeleton, the picked-clean vertebrae. This was a whole troll, not a small one, and now he’s just...remains.

“How, and why, did he wind up like this. Don’t you only drink blood?”

“Mmhmhm...technically. But given I am...unusual, I can also pulp flesh into liquid and drink it if I want to. It’s often not worth the effort, but I was hungry...and mad.”

Their little laugh creeps her out, and how do they do that. Just what type of drinker are they?

She knows they were designed as some kind of spy system, but she never knew the details of Rhomox’s project - hardly wanted to spend more time talking to the guy than she had to, he was insufferable, and the caverns weren’t releasing anything at the time.

“Allele. Come on. I don’t care if you wanna kill random clowns or legis or whatever but this is gonna have consequences and leave a power vacuum. He could well get replaced by someone worse.”

She shakes her head.

“Almost no one as bad as him even among highbloods. And we know cause he took...he took so many photos. I was almost sick.”

Her old friend does look ill at the very thought, and the drinker simply looks unreadable, watchful.

The seadweller sighs and puts two fingers to her forehead.

“Fine. I’ll accept he maybe deserved this but did you have to kill him in his own hive, his hive I was last seen entering and my staff knew I was going to visit, so there are records? This is gonna look really fucking bad for me.”

Allele’s mouth opens in surprise and then she shuts it, looking chastened.

“No. I made sure I was caught by a delayed camera drone, but that miss Yorkyt was not. This is just an unfortunate drinker attack you stumbled on.”

The teal spins to face her companion.

“What! You didn’t tell me that.”

“We were a little busy disabling all the guard droids, hmm? You’re welcome.”

She looks a bit thrown, but nods.

Chimer snorts.

“Yeah, drinker attack. What kind of drinker does this? Sure you’re not a really chatty zombie?”

They look at her, head tilted, and then hold up their arm, sleeve falling down so their slim wrist is exposed.

Something wriggling pokes out of the skin, one, two, several of them gleaming white and as she leans closer to look she sees they have...fangs.

Then they all go back in, and her eyebrows have climbed into hairline.

“Huh.”

So that’s what Epsilo is so afraid of. That’s what attacked Amdzah...but he only had two bite marks in his neck, the standard drinker punctures. Nothing like this.

That’s what Claire keeps around.

That’s what Allele is insane enough to ally with.

“Well that’s a thing. Hey, Allele.”

“Yeah?”

“Where did you misplace your mind, maybe we can claim it at the lost and found.”

The assassin scowls, her long angular face twisted in a frown.

“Aren’t ya supposed to be accepting and all that junk?”

“Sure, and I’m also supposed to use my thinkpan.”

“They’re right here, don’t be fuckin’ rude.”

She rolls her eyes.

“All right. Shoot. Sell me on why this is actually smart and they’re not just going to eat us too.”

Allele makes an offended noise, then coughs, but the drinker simply looks at her with amusement.

“Well, I’m full at the moment for one thing. And for another, I happen to respect you and miss Yorkyt. You don’t deserve what I did to him. Though it was rather fun.”

Morbid curiosity pushes her onward, even though the fuchsia knows she might well regret it.

“...what happened.”

“We disabled his systems and his droids, Allele knocked out the few troll staff and got them away via transportalizer. He tried to attack her and she fended him off a perfectly decent blast, but he was clearly on some sort of steroids and even a sonic wail didn’t do much to him. He got his hands round her neck and was about to tear her coat off...and that’s when I tackled him down.”

Their eyes glow brightly again and they smile, long needle teeth showing.

“I swarmed out into his body and it’s funny, how even the biggest most muscular troll will writhe when their innards are being devoured.” They say in a soft voice.

“It’s funny how they’ll scream and beg and curse, being at the mercy of someone else, when they get such a kick out of doing it to others. Of course, when I ate his tongue he couldn’t curse anymore, though his eyes were certainly enough to get the message across, and when I ate his throat...mmhmhm. And then I ate his hateful eyes, and the rest of him followed.”

Allele’s hoarseness. That dark spot has to be a bruise.

Chimer clenches her fists.

“That’s not...for fuck’s sake. We can’t just eat and kill who we want because they’re bastards. Look I get it, this guy was absolutely evil and creeping Sufferer I would’ve wanted to kill him myself but this wasn’t the way to solve it. If you’d brought me evidence I could’ve - ”

“ - had him in front of a legislacerator court, miss Latrai? I guarantee he would’ve already had bribes or blackmail on half the jury. Or would you give him to the lowbloods whose quadrants he and his trolls abused? Poetic justice, certainly, but they would be culled for it if they were found out, and everything gets found out here.”

She hisses, fins fluffed out in sheer irritation. It makes sense, it all makes shitty annoying sense.

“An’ you couldn’t have locked him up yourself,” Allele chips in, “cause you would’ve been discovered too.”

“Yeah, thanks, brah. Really what I need to hear right now.”

She fixes the - whatever they are - with a glare.

“I don’t see why I shouldn’t just kill you.”

Tuuya tilts their head again, their wavy hair bobbing.

“No reason, really. Would you like to? I have a weapon that can do it.”

She blinks.

“Are you serious.”

“Of course. Being killed by you would be a decent way to go.”

“No! What? You can’t! Why?”

Allele winces and rubs her throat after her cry, but looks at them confused and hurt.

They look back at her calmly.

“I deserve this, miss Yorkyt. I am no hypocrite. I tried to end my own undead existence long ago, but being what I am, it is impossible. My worms will always stop me. So I need someone else to do it, someone who deserves to kill me, and miss Latrai is perfect for the job. The fuchsia who tries so hard to see justice done in a fundamentally unjust world, moirail of Sevenn Tarann. She kills a monster and the world is a little better for it. That’s nice, isn’t it?”

This is weird. This is so weird. She expected them to fight her. To protest. But they really are willing? Unless it’s some kind of trick.

They pull out a long knife and hand it to her.

“It gets superheated.” They advise her. “The casing and guard will protect you from the worst of the convection. Be careful to get every last worm, or I could come back.”

They stand patiently, hands clasped.

Allele looks...upset. Somehow. Is that how Claire would feel? Do they have other people who care about them? They’re creepy, but...Margol seems to like them too.

Stupid. She should just...do it. Get it over with. Get rid of the threat not only to trolls in general but mutants and limes if the empire ever got their hands on them again. Eliminate the risk.

Aren’t ya supposed to be accepting and all that junk?

There are limits, right? No one can complain about her killing a worm swarm. It’s not like killing a mutant or a lime or anyone else the empire has decided is too weak to be allowed to live. And they’re sadistic. Killing that blueblood was a delight for them, not an unfortunate duty.

She doubts they always restrict themselves to morally bankrupt victims either. They’ve probably drank from plenty of lowbloods who can’t afford to be weakened that way.

Claire would be better off without them. So would Allele. Look what they did to Amdzah; they could snap any time.

But Amdzah only had the one wound, and even Epsilo said he turned up with it bandaged...

UGH.

“I can’t.” She growls. “I’d get too much flack for it. I don’t need more problems right now, dealing with this is enough. You two realize it’s not just him, right? You wanna do this properly, you’re gonna have to take down his whole network.”

“Duh.” Says the teal, rolling her eyes. “What did you think we were gonna do?”

She looks not a little bit relieved.

The drinker’s face is unreadable.

“So you won’t, then?”

“Nope, sorry.”

The fuchsia hands the knife back. They put it away in their sylladex.

“If you change your mind, you are welcome to.” They state.

“Cooool. Anyway, we should all make ourselves scarce. Tell me how it goes with your maybe-a-resistance contact.”

With that the politician turns and leaves, back out the damaged door into the moonlight. She sighs, running a hand through her hair.

Nothing’s ever simple, is it. Nothing’s ever easy, doing it her way. Sometimes she envies her teal friend and her uncomplicated morals.

But someone has to believe in a better way, no matter how unrealistic it is. No matter how hard it is to get there.

Whatever Cherie says, it’s not just because of how she was made, whose soul she got. She chose it. She’ll keep choosing it.

No matter what.