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"Do you think you will finish that?"

Ranboo blinked out of the dissociative stupor he had fallen into. Staring at the now lukewarm bowl of stew in front of himself, he shook his head and slid it across the table. Technoblade hummed appreciatively, picking it up to start eating. His own bowl had already been emptied a while ago.

The amount of fights Techno was forced to participate in had been steadily increasing over the past few days. Ranboo glanced at him, hoping to do it furtively enough that he wouldn't notice. Techno's knuckles were bruised – there had been a few matches without weapons lately – and more abrasions littered his arms and legs. Health potions were only to be used for injuries that were deemed serious enough to justify them. Anything short of a protruding bone or lethal stab wound wasn't worth wasting their limited supplies for, they said. Ranboo had been scolded for using one for something as silly as a broken nose.

But he knew food could help the recovery process along too. Food was good, valuable. Ranboo didn't mind skipping a couple of meals – a couple or almost all of them, was there even a difference? Techno probably needed them more. Yes, Techno surely needed it a lot more than Ranboo did, sitting cushy and safe backstage while somebody else risked their lives for him. He hated that.

Hated how much of a burden it made him feel like.

So he did what he could, slipping apples and other foods into his clothes when he worked in the kitchen. Keeping them in the chest under his bed. Once he had been bold enough to take a health potion from the cupboard in the infirmary and hide it in his sleeve.

Things they might need for later. Things Ranboo could get them.

And if his stomach had started to wring around emptiness while he lied on his cot at night, curled in on himself and trying to sleep but finding himself unable to over the hurting of his hunger cramps, then maybe he deserved that too. Just a little bit, Ranboo thought he did deserve it for how useless he was being.

He was powerless to do much of anything else. It only made sense he did what he could do.

Ranboo preferred working in the kitchen to the armory or the infirmary. Peeling potatoes or stirring soup was a lot less stressful than trying to keep somebody from bleeding out, generally.

And he was a good listener when people weren't yelling at him. The people working in the armory – Ranboo had been told their names but couldn't recall what they were – ran around in a frenzy and yelled at him a lot. They were always in a hurry. Clarissa never yelled at him, she only raised her voice when the kitchen was seconds away from catching fire. Which thankfully didn't happen too often. And when it did, it usually wasn't Ranboo's fault.

She always smiled at him and spoke very slowly, as if addressing a child. Ranboo wasn't a child but he had decided he liked her regardless, and he didn't want to cause her any trouble. That didn't change his mind about wanting to get out of the coliseum and with Techno in the ring more often than not these days it was still up to Ranboo to form an escape plan. Carefully, he'd started to try and overhear important information. He had asked a few questions, whenever the opportunity presented itself.

From what Ranboo could gather, getting out of the arena would not be the hard part. It wouldn't be easy either – the handlers were everywhere, most of them were armed. And not afraid to kill, not prone to hesitate. The gossip about punishment for previous escape attempts by other slaves was brutal. But even if they could manage to slip out unnoticed or overpower enough people to get out, they'd be stuck within the server. The hard part was that the cross-server portal wouldn't work without certain conditions being met.

The crowd screamed loudly from the stands, mingled cries of surprise and dismay. Ranboo looked through the grates, anxious to see if it was Technoblade on the pitch who evoked the reaction. He couldn't tell though. Sometimes they could view the match, while other times the fighters were too far across to see properly.

"Ranboo?" Clarissa tapped his shoulder. Ranboo didn't jump at the touch anymore, not as he used to on his first day. "Can you pop over to the pantry for me again, I need you to grab me more flour. A bag or two would do."

"Sure." He put the knife down, leaving a half-peeled potato on the counter. Peeling and fetching items had become his usual tasks, not that Ranboo minded. Clarissa had tried to teach him how to make bread once and Ranboo had spaced out due to the repetitiveness of kneading, with the dough becoming completely unusable and hard like a brick. She hadn't asked him to try again.

He got up from the stool he'd been using, knees aching at the strain of the seating arrangement. It wasn't the best for somebody with ridiculously long limbs, but Ranboo was good at folding himself to fit in places he shouldn't. Straightening his back made a wave of dizziness wash over him and he grabbed the counter to steady himself. He was lightheaded, maybe because he hadn't slept as much? It passed quickly though so Ranboo assumed it couldn't be very important.

The pantry wasn't big but it wasn't small either. And it was a proper mess. People just grabbed whatever they needed from shelves or out of chests without caring if they displaced other things. Ranboo couldn't say he was any better at keeping things tidy – his chests at home were proof of that - but it did make fetching ingredients a pain for him. Then again, it made stealing food that much easier.

"Flour, flour, flour,..." His fingers hovered over the labeled bags, trying to read the messily scrawled text. The letters were too hazy to properly make out. Ranboo rubbed his eyes before trying again.

It hardly made a difference, his eyes were being stubborn.

The smell of food in the kitchen had made him even more aware of his growing hunger and he held a hand to his stomach. It felt like an empty pit, uncomfortable and oddly nauseating. "Could really do with some food," he told himself.

But he knew that when dinner arrived, he wouldn't be able to bring himself to eat it. Not with Technoblade right there. Not when he needed it so much more than Ranboo did. His head hurt too. This was turning out just great.

"Ah, here it is." Ranboo picked up one bag, shifting it against his hip. It was a lot heavier than he anticipated, bending him beneath its weight. "Oof!" He grabbed the second one too, stepping backward and almost falling over. He turned around, the motion sending his head spinning.

Then he was on the ground having no idea how he had got there.

One of the bags had landed on top of his arm, tearing in the process and spilling flour all over him. Which – yeah, it was just his luck for that to happen, right? How could Ranboo expect it not to? The small headache had exploded into an unbearable pounding, located between both temples. Ranboo whined, crawling onto his knees.

He hardly noticed how much noise he had made. "Oh dear!" Clarissa rushed to his side, a worried frown creasing her delicate features. She grabbed Ranboo's elbow to pull him upright, something made impossible by his height. With her help though, he got onto unsteady feet. The vertigo persisted as if his body only wanted to shut down again.

"Here, sit down. Don't move." For a woman as tiny as she was, it was almost comical how easily Clarissa manhandled him. She pushed him down onto a chest, making him lean back against the wall for support. "What happened, are you alright?"

"I'm great," Ranboo answered, but her prying eyes did not leave his face. "Just uh, neglected to eat this morning. Or last night. Or the night before that, come to think of it. Slipped my mind, you know how it is..." He shrugged, changing tactics at seeing her unamused expression. "Jokes aside, I just became very dizzy suddenly. I'm fine now."

He knew the lie had worked from how she laughed, brushing some flour from his hair. It was getting a bit too long for his liking, but he doubted asking for a haircut would go over well in this place.

"Stay here." She turned around, skirt swaying with the motion. Ranboo peeked over her shoulder to see what she was doing. Against the other wall was a large cupboard he had barely noticed as being there before since Ranboo had never needed anything from it. Retrieving a brass key from her apron pocket, Clarissa opened the lock keeping it closed.

With only the tiny glimpse he could catch, what was kept inside that cupboard made Ranboo's heart skip a beat.

There was a small handful of potions, not only the types he had seen in the infirmary but some others as well. Harming, speed, invisibility. Two baskets at the bottom were overflowing with golden carrots and gapples each, the aerate glow drawing in Ranboo's eyes. But what sat on the shelve above it caught his interest much more.

From where he was sitting, he could count three communicators at least. Not to mention several other mechanical-looking devices he didn't even know the use of.

Clarissa closed the door almost as quickly as she had opened it, locking the cupboard back up and putting away the key before doing anything else. She was holding one of the golden carrots in her hands. "Eat it," she said, reaching out to take his wrist and pull it towards her. She pressed the carrot into Ranboo's hands as if it was one of the most valuable treasures in the world. For all he knew it could be. "And be quick about it, wouldn't want any of them to see."

"Oh!" Ranboo nodded. He took a bite of the carrot and tried not to chirp in delight as the deliciously sweet taste flooded his mouth. Immediately, he felt better. Clarissa smiled at his reaction, pleased. When she turned to check the door and make sure nobody had caught them with this transgression, Ranboo quickly slipped the rest of the carrot into a pocket.

He knew how much Techno loved golden carrots. It wouldn't be right for him not to share, no matter if his mind still screamed for him to eat it. He could handle it, he knew how to handle it.

"Feeling better?" Clarissa asked on their way back to the kitchen.

Thinking of the cupboard full of secrets, Ranboo nodded. "Much better already." He felt a little guilty about betraying Clarissa's kindness. Not enough to change his mind though.

He finally had an escape plan in mind.