Synopsis: Like a bird of prey with its wings clipped. Still dangerous on the ground but no longer a predator of the sky. Fem!Slaine. Inaho x Slaine, Asseylum x Inaho
00
The Raven
She's living how a noble lady on Vers might live. Her bedroom is large and splendidly decorated with handcrafted antiques and gauzy white curtains that hang over her bed and drape the massive windows that line the eastern wall. Sunlight pours in from those windows, and although it is nice, it is too bright. The sky is too bright a blue for her to be comfortable looking at it, it reminds her of happy memories that she does not deserve to relive. She longs for the dark embrace of space, with nothing but the artificial lights of the space stations and tiny pinpricks that are stars to illuminate her existence.
Her body is heavy from the increased gravity of Earth. Months later and she still has not grown used to it, will probably never grow used to it. Her back aches but she keeps it to herself. She silently wishes to herself most nights that eventually her bones will cave to the weight of her own shoulders. If her retainers have noticed that her movement has been stiff, they have not said anything. When prompted by the physician as to whether or not she suffers any pain, she refuses to answer.
The food is excellent, or at least it would be if she were eating it. When they had first put her in this cage, she had begrudgingly eaten each meal as if it were her last, calmly awaiting her doubtless execution. But the days had turned to weeks to months and the looming threat of her last breath now seemed like it would never come. She stopped, and the threats of the guard that they might force feed her and the promise of a drip fastened to her arm only strengthen her resolve to starve herself faster. She goes days without eating, doesn't even glance at the plates they place hopefully in front of her until her hunger and instinct to live is so strong that she finally cracks. She always regrets it, always hates herself for it, and the cycle continues.
For the most part, she lives in unbearable silence. The quiet is deafening, only ever giving way to the soft shuffling of the guards' boots on the stone outside the bars or muffled whispers so that she might not hear them. Despite hating the stillness that is her life, she finds herself hating anyone who might dare disturb it. When the guards speak to her, she does not respond. When her doctor comes to ask her questions, she does not answer those either. She is not quiet all the time, however. Sometimes, when it has grown dark and the silence becomes absolutely intolerable, she screams until her voice can't carry anymore. Her captors no longer question this.
`They've given her several ways to pass her time. There are books; many, actually. She doesn't have any control over the titles, they just happen to show up on the heavy antique looking shelves built along the wall. She does not touch them. Doesn't even look at them. It had been a romance novel she'd picked up to examine, and in the days after picking it up, she had noticed 6 more just like it had popped up next to it. She stopped after that. There is a dressing table filled with cosmetics including make-up, a hairbrush along with an assortment of bobbles such as barrettes and hair bands. They've only provided her with dresses not unlike the ones she used to wear when she served as the Princess' handmaiden. Long and natural white linen that hug her waning feminine form to expose her arms and midriff. They provide her a fresh change every morning. Sometimes she even changes. She misses the stiff uniforms of the Orbital Knights. She feels almost naked, barefoot and thinly dressed. Like a virgin sacrifice.
She hasn't touched the contents of the vanity in a while. Why they even bothered with such a thing she hasn't the faintest idea. Do they think she desires to doll herself up for the prison staff? Or worse, Kaizuka? At first, she had kept her appearance prim, carefully running the brush through her hair before braiding it against her scalp military style. If she was going to die, she wanted to go respectably. Like she had planned to on the moon, and again in her Tharsis, alongside the people who had chosen to stand with her.
People who were dead now. Like she soon would be. Or at least had assumed she would. She wondered vaguely what had become of Lemrina and the rest of the non-combat staff, sometimes. She hopes to some higher power that she'd managed to at least save them from the fate that had befallen the rest of them.
Weeks later and even when brought to the bath she allowed herself to be stripped and forced into the shower stall but stands there resigned, arms at her sides till they drag her back out, grumbling about how she will start to smell if she does not take an active role in her hygiene and ripping a brush through her wet hair while she stands immodest with the towel thrown over her shoulders. She hopes she does smell. She hopes she smells like the corpse she knows she should be.
Kaizuka comes to visit weekly, though she does not exactly know which day of the week it is. She has no concept of time other than the rise and fall of the sun outside the massive window. She can always tell when he is about to make his appearance, however. The guards become fidgety and more forceful in their tactics and the shuffling is louder, until finally she is shackled and led to a large room down several flights of stairs that houses a glass observation chamber.
She always arrives first, the guards cuff one of her ankles to the chair that is bolted to the ground as like always. She often wonders why they are so careful with their security. She has always been a girl of slight standing and now that she has turned to starvation tactics in hopes of shortening her life she is both slight and frail. To the massive men that make up the majority of her staff, she would appear beyond easy to subdue. She finds this mostly humorous, that the terrans would assume that despite her appearance she may be capable of taking one or more of them down. They are wrong, of course, she was assuredly harmless now, having lost all her muscle tone by this point. Sometimes she'd see lights when she stood. And besides that, she has always hidden behind guns and kataphracts. She had been a pilot first, afterall, and an excellent shot second. Against anyone in the room, she is harmless. She hopes that Kaizuka remembers, though. She thinks about it sometimes when she listlessly observes his face without really focusing on it. She hopes he looks at her and remembers that once in a far off memory she'd put a bullet in his skull. She hopes he remembers that they used to be on a more equal playing field.
Kaizuka always takes his sweet time in coming to meet her in the observation chamber. Even when he does finally enter, he spends a good 10 to 15 minutes first accessing her appearance and then conversing with the members of her staff. Her staff. On the roster are a rotation of 5 guards, a physician and a person that she could only guess was meant to be a psychologist. It was after his introduction that she'd fully decided to stop eating the food. The questions he asked were clearly designed to assess her mental state so the possibility that they may begin to drug her had become apparent. The chamber is sound proof, she's noticed. She can't hear a thing through the glass. At first she had tried to read their lips as they spoke, but she has learned to keep her gaze controlled and feign disinterest at most everything. From what she can tell, they are discussing her condition. It gives her some satisfaction that despite their efforts, her health and wellbeing are on a general decline. That was another of the benefits of refusing their food. Eventually, she'd die for real like she had been supposed to.
Then Kaizuka enters the observation chamber and takes his place in the opposite chair. He essentially holds these conversations with himself, as she had already decided long ago not to speak with the terran boy. Even if she had, she doubts the conversations would be very fruitful. Kaizuka does not seem to be very capable of social interaction.
The first time he had come, she had assumed that he had come to gloat before she was finally executed. But he just talks and she tunes him out after a while. Between her silence and his dribble, they say about the same amount. When he finally leaves, she is relieved to never have to look at stupid Orange ever again. But then he's back the next week, and the week after that.
He talks about the weather, scientific studies, and asks after her condition. He seems unperturbed by her silence. Sometimes she wonders if he finds this entertaining and hates him more for it. Maybe she's like some sort of war prize or trophy or pet that he enjoys spending time with. The idea makes her stomach roll.
When he's finally run out of dribble and pleasantries to cycle through, he finally has a chess board arranged on the metal table that stands between them so that these visits can be made in a more comfortable silence. Though he seemed to expect her to participate in the game, she does not. He plays by himself, just like their conversations, one sided.
A pretty marble chess set is moved into her chamber and the guards peer in at her with curiosity, wondering if she will touch it. She does not, but she does fantasize about choking herself to death on one of the little marble figures. A queen perhaps, in white of course. She had thought that to be her token piece during the war.
She dismisses the thought and returns to sleep.
She sleeps a lot nowadays.
xx
"You've become emaciated." Kaizuka observes. She stares back emptily, blinking once. Twice. She likes to think she is making a mockery of his own blankness though she doubts he has the social aptitude to notice such things.
He moves her knight. He plays against himself, as always. He's rather good, not that she'd admit it outloud. In fact, she can't remember the last time she'd spoke. But he is bad at talking anyway.
"Are you uncomfortable here? I'm willing to address your complaints." She feels her eyebrow jerk before she can control it. She wants to scream bloody murder, to sweep his chess set to the ground. Instead she hardens the mask and imagines a blue sky. He'd been looking for a reaction for weeks and he'd finally gotten one. Every time this happened, every time she allowed her thoughts to hit surface level something would change. She does not care for subtle comforts. She was dead already and this was her purgatory.
Kaizuka moved his bishop. It was not lost on her that her pieces were black. She had been on the losing side she supposed. The white chess pieces write the history books. She finds herself forcing herself to not clench her jaw. Knowing Kaizuka, he'd notice that too.
"If you don't start eating, you will become weaker. Forcing you to eat isn't something I want to do, but if your condition worsens it might have to become a reality."
She is having an off day. Usually it is easy to disassociate from this place and the boy across from her. She likes to vary her daydreams, but they are usually decidedly violent. She imagines Kaizuka's kataphract exploding in dazzling lights and sparkles. She tries to remember the feel of a handgun in her palm-
She twitches a finger. She'll have plenty of time to dream when she is actually dead. She tries not to think of the princess- it only stirs up feelings of both guilt and betrayal.
Kaizuka moves a white pawn. Her eyes sweep the board. Winning or losing this game didn't matter. That's why she didn't play.
She'd already lost.
xx
Her cell is less of a cell and more of a bedroom with bars separating the hallway instead of a wall. There is a massive window that faces a garden, 3 stories up on the building. Flowers and carefully groomed lawn. She never sees anybody in it but the gardeners. This isn't a compound or a prison- it's weird.
The bed is too big. Three pillows to each side that she has thrown off to the side with soft white sheets. They change them only while she is gone for her Orange visits. They smell like lavender- a scent known for its calming effects. It does nothing to calm her.
She still doesn't know why she's still here. She's cycled through all possible motives- impending trial, trophy prisoner. She hadn't been allowed any access to the outside since she'd been taken into custody. For a while she'd assumed she'd end up some sort of concubine due to the cosmetics provided to her. But no one came to touch her like some of the more… unsavory Vers nobles she'd been placed under the care of. It had been too long for a trial now, she thinks, despite having given up on keeping up with her amount of days in captivity. If she was a trophy prisoner, wouldn't there be some more fanfare behind it all? Broadcasts or some sort of display? Unless the camera in her cell was less for monitoring her behavior and more for recording her despair? Was that it? A 24 hour live stream of the last time she'd silently cried in bed because half the people she'd cared for had abandoned her and the other half had ended up dead out of loyalty to her?
She resolves to be as despondent as ever.
If they are toying with her, they would eventually grow bored and end it, wouldn't they? And if there is some sort of legal obstacle in the way of her demise, eventually it would be attended to. Terrans were not like Versians, as it were. They were cooperative and their politics had far more red tape than the vigilante Orbital Knights.
She misses Harklight. He never abandoned her, at least, even at the end. God, she wishes it had been the end. It felt like a betrayal of her own to still draw breath while he did not. Was it not she who had chosen to stay behind to die? If she had gone with them, would he have fled with her?
She tries hard not to think of the Princess.
Her heart aches. She sleeps like she's dead most of the time, only waking briefly to stare at the ceiling and realize she's still there.
xx
Kaizuka visits her the next day in her cell, standing just outside the bars like an unwelcome voyeur. He'd never been upstairs to this place as far as she knew. She is lying prone on her side, but she can see him observing with those empty crimson eyes. She shuts her own. He can watch her from wherever he likes, whether that be the security camera in the corner or from close range. It didn't matter.
"I know you're awake." He says after a while.
She doesn't bother answering. What does that change whether she's awake or not? She wants to scream, but recently she's even been able to control that bad habit.
"Troyard, we're heading out today." That gets her attention. She takes care not to jerk up. She'd just have her vision go spotty anyway. Her eyes slowly open as the steel barred door swings open with the same blood wrenching screech it always produces. She hates the sound. Is this it then?
Was this the death march she'd been waiting for? She wants to feel relief. If it ends here, all the better. But instead what grips her is fear. She feels her empty stomach drop as Kaizuka steps through the threshold. She had at least felt safe from him here. They'd never met in the safety of the confines of her cell. This place was pure isolation and she had been grateful for it.
She thinks him bold for being so brave for having entered without backup. When she is removed for their weekly meetings, three guards come to drag her from the soft sheets of her bed. She doesn't think it's trust that she won't fight back. Perhaps it's confidence that she won't be able to overwhelm him. She wants to scramble back to the corner like a terrified animal. She wouldn't have been able to even if she attempted, however. Her muscles had atrophied from going unused for so long.
He was getting closer to the bed. She kept her breathing controlled- it wouldn't do her any good for Kaizuka to know she was afraid of him. He stopped a few feet short of the bed, sizing her up. She struggles to sit up, muscles trembling in her arms and shoulders as she pulls herself into an upright position. Neither of them say anything for a beat.
"I'll be right back." He exits back out of the room, carefully clicking the door back into place as he went. She almost flopped back, but after having expended so much energy into sitting up in the first place she forces herself to remain against the headboard. Why had he gone so suddenly?
Her question is easily answered when Kaizuka did in fact return, several minutes after his first exit, pushing a wheelchair made of steel and leather.
She eyes it suspiciously.
"You wouldn't be able to make the walk." He says offhandedly before he pushes it close to the bed. She doesn't offer much in lieu of resistance when he lifts her from the bed and into the wheelchair, hands looped supportively behind her shoulders and under her knees. She expects a cuff, but does not receive one. The guards watch dumbfounded as Kaizuka wheels her through the observation hall that provides access to her cell.
One of her guards, a young man with dark eyes and hair who towers over Kaizuka almost as much as he seemed to her follows them anxiously. He always seems to enjoy manhandling her more than the others and he pipes up as they pass, "Major, Troyard is dangerous. Please allow one of us to accompany you."
"She can barely stand, Lieutenant. I think I'll manage." She wants to scowl at his confidence, but he is right nonetheless. She'd need a weapon first, and Kaizuka was far too careful to ever allow her in range of one. She refrains from childishly sticking her tongue out at the guard. She did not like any of them, but particularly that one she had become wary of. There was just a way that he'd grip her wrists when dragging her up and out that made him seem less human than the others. Most of the other guards regarded her with a mixture of both pity and fear. Like a bird of prey with its wings clipped. Still dangerous on the ground but no longer a predator of the sky. This man did not fear her even slightly. She could sense the covetousness of his gaze.
Now unaccompanied, with only Kaizuka as witness in the long empty hallway, Slaine finds her voice bubbling up against her will. He is the only familiar face after all, even though he is an unwelcome one.
"Quite a bit of faculty you've accumulated, Major Orange." It's the first time she's spoken since she's arrived and she can hear the raspiness of her unuse. The wheelchair slows for only a second, but just that is enough to expose Kaizuka's surprise. She is surprised herself, but it no longer matters. She is finally going to be freed from this torment, the least she can do is get a couple more swipes in at her rival.
"I've been elected to be your representative." Kaizuka explains after a brief moment, wheeling them into the elevator and hitting the ground floor button. They truly are leaving, then. Her shoulders feel heavy but she is not sure which gravity is weighting them down.
"By who?" She rasps again, barely audible against the whirring of the elevator.
"The UFE and Vers." It's the most she's managed to get out of him in months, "You're a transfer prisoner, still legally a citizen of Vers."
So even the Vers prison's hadn't wanted to claim her. Figured. She leaned her head back on the headrest.
It takes a few minutes to make it to the compound doors. No one makes eye contact with her even as she searches faces for any clue as to what is to come. There is a lot of security. Guards, checkpoints, metal detectors. Kaizuka scans his clearance badge at each one and does little to acknowledge the soldiers whose shoulders square at the sight of him.
They reach the last door, and she can see the light of day dancing outside the small square windows. Kaizuka scans his badge a final time and the door buzzes as it opens. He again ignores a saluting soldier as the door is held open for them both.
She hadn't known what to expect. A transport? A helicopter? She can hear ocean sounds. Gulls cawing in the distance. She thinks… she can smell the sea. Her eyes have gone wide despite herself. It's the garden from the view of her room. She'd almost convinced herself it was just a projection designed to help her feel less caged. But here it was, a rose garden spilling with other more indigenous plants. The sun instantly warmed her skin and she struggled to stare up into it.
"Don't look at it directly." Kaizuka chides behind her, and her mouth that had been hanging open like a fish slams shut at his words. He's still walking, pushing the wheelchair forward through the garden.
"What would you like to see first? The garden or the beach?"
She sits in stunned silence before beginning to shuffle uncomfortably in her seat. She feels her eyes prickle uncomfortably as her vision blurs. She doesn't dare go to wipe her eyes.
"The water." She croaks, "Take me to the water."
XX
Kaizuka offers to help her out of the wheelchair to dip her feet in one of the rocky pools that scatter the deserted stretch of sand but she pulls her arm from his grip as firmly as she can manage. He settles beside her on a rock so that they are level with each other. The blue expanse before them is overwhelming. Blue sky meeting blue sea. She still wants to cry, but the warmth she can feel beating down on her is enough to keep her calm.
"Troyard, I'd like to offer you an apology-" Her blood boils at his words. She wants no apology from Orange.
"Your eyepatch." She cuts him off, lazily pointing up at her own left eye and sliding her gaze to observe him, "That's from when I shot you, correct?" Her voice is still hoarse to the point that she cannot recognize it.
If he is startled, he does not show it.
"Yes." He says with little fanfare. As unshakable as ever. She smiles, she can't help it.
"Do you remember the first time-" She pauses to cough, rattling her frail body enough to bring on a headache, "We looked over the sea together?"
"The first time?" Kaizuka questions in his ever steady tone, "When we went down from the moon?"
Her smile humbles itself, "No." She's gotten so tired, sitting out here in the sun, "Before that. You called me 'Bat' then."
He is quiet, so she continues, "I shot down the hand of a mechanical god to cover you and your kind. You did the same for me. For a second, I trusted you, Orange."
"There is no trust in war." Kaizuka replies amicably, but has the grace to look as abashed as his deadened expressions would allow him to. The slight furrow of an eyebrow, a downturn of the corner of the mouth.
"You reached your hand up to signal me, and I… didn't even hesitate. I was too trusting then, too ready to believe that you'd be on my side." She pauses, it's hard to keep her eyes open in the balmy weather. She wants Kaizuka to go away. She wants to close her eyes.
"In the end, you shot me out of the sky. I learned some lessons that day." She forces her eyes open and fully turns her head, "The next time we met, I made sure it was my finger on the trigger first."
In the horizon, the sky bleeds orange with sunset. It turns the oceans dark with it's reddish hue.
"I hate you, Kaizuka Inaho." She finishes, lolling her head back over to tap her fingers restlessly on the armrest of the wheelchair, "I just wanted to let you know."
"That all sounds reasonable enough." Orange is still as unaffected as ever but she's glad she's finally laid that out for him.
An eye for an eye. In your case, literally.
"I'm willing to answer some of your questions if you eat today." Kaizuka reaches under the wheelchair unexpectedly, causing her to jump as if he is about to flip it, "And if this proves effective, I'm willing to continue taking you out here."
"And if I don't?" She fires back before she can help herself. She's broken her pledge to stay mute throughout captivity. Kaizuka produces a small basket from beneath the wheelchair. A picnic? How quaint for a war criminal and their nemesis to share at dusk on the beach. Her stomach rolls with nausea.
"If you become weaker, I'll be forced to drip you. An induced coma is also in your future to maintain your immediate health if you continue to hinder our efforts. She bites the inside of her cheek so hard she draws blood. This garden… The sea, the massive building behind them with it's glass cages. If they put her to sleep, she'd be just like the Princess in the tube up in space, then. Perhaps it's what she deserves.
"Fine." She relents. Seemingly satisfied with her answer, Kaizuka reaches into the basket to produce what looks more like homemade food than the gourmet meals provided upstairs.
"I'll give you 3 questions. They must be specific and I'm not guaranteed to answer. But only after you eat everything in your bento."
She nods.
It's only after 15 minutes of attempting to eat the rolled omelette and white rice that she realizes she's going to throw up. He seems to notice as she does, but it doesn't stop her from shoveling another fork full of rice and egg into her mouth. She has questions she needs answered and this may well be her only chance of getting Kaizuka to tell her anything.
"You can stop. You're green." He gently pulls the bento away from her fingers, "It was rash of me to say you needed to eat the whole thing, you'll make yourself ill."
"As long as you answer me."
"Of course." He settles their bentos by his feet.
"When is the trial going to start?" She begins, immediately going for the guts of the situation. He looks thoughtful for a moment, before looking back at her with inquisitive eyes.
"The next round of trials start in the coming week." She bites her lip. That soon, huh? She wouldn't have expected to have been left this long. But a sudden realization washes over her and she shoots Kaizuka a withering glare. One she might've shot across the battlefield once.
"When does my trial start?" She reiterates in a hiss, suddenly aware of his game. She's tempted to swat at his head but thinks better of it. She needs to remain calm and collected. She still feels like throwing up her dinner.
"Your trial has already concluded. That is two questions." Kaizuka warns, still looking out towards the sea and not at her.
Two questions. She had to be prudent here- she hadn't had any other opportunity to gain insight on the situation and here Orange was, offering it up on a silver platter. She listens to the waves crashing in the background, it's begun to get dark and cold. No doubt he'd bring her back into the compound soon. It had already been close to an hour and a half.
"Why did you spare me?" The question is not specific enough, she knows, but it's all she can muster at the time. She's sat in the dark for so long that she hopes he'll be kind enough to shed some light onto why she isn't dead yet.
"It wasn't me." He could've left it at that. That was technically an answer after all, but he didn't, "Seylum asked me to save you."
xx
It isn't until later when she lays back out in the darkness of her cell on that too soft bed with a full belly that she realizes Orange had played her.
(A/N)
hey guys. im perfectly aware that this is a dead fandom, but i had some short little things saved up. i will be first to admit that i was well inspired by several existing fanfics, most notably "my soul to take" by ryoku1. fortunately all similarities end in the first few paragraphs but i recommend reading it. its very good.