Summary: Before Earth, before his change of heart and before his family, there had been a son he'd never wanted, made from Frieza's seed and born from his body. Then he was dead, and Vegeta made sure to forget he had ever been there at all. Only, he isn't dead. He is alive. Tormented and abused, but alive, and now Vegeta will do what he couldn't have done the first time. He will save him.
Warnings: Rated M for language, abuse, sexual violence, depictions of rape, mpreg, etc.
*This chapter includes violence and abuse against a child.*
Every Eye Will See
Chapter Fourteen: The Girl
The Past:
Neeila had been a little girl when she met Chill the first time.
She remembers the day, every detail, in fact. She remembers waking that morning and eating her breakfast of two small squares of hardtack—and a piece of her mother's—along with a lukewarm mug of tea. She remembers standing in the line for roll call. She remembers picking up the smallest axe she could find, still nearly as long as she was tall. She remembers being dragged down towards the end of the line with her brother, with other children or those the size of one, where the stone was softened from erosion and more easily destroyed but her childish strength.
Her brother had guessed they were digging for a new sewage line, though it was entirely possible that they were digging for no reason whatsoever. They did that sometimes, spent hours unearthing a plot of land just to refill it, or carrying stones on their backs and carrying them right back, simply because the guards needed a good laugh or couldn't think of anything better to do with the prisoners in their care for the day.
Neeila figured it didn't really matter. Neither reason made the work any easier.
Her mother was not too far and when she dared to look up, she could see her. Thin and pale, like what Neeila imagined the undead souls her brother used to talk about to scare her back when monsters weren't real, looked like. Her spine was permanently slumped, and her head had hardly any strands of brittle blonde left, her bald spots then so numerous she might as well not have had any hair at all.
Herio had thought she might have been growing sick. Neeila had not liked to think of it at all.
(Her mother had been sick.)
(Her mother had not been sick for long after that.)
It had been hours since she had first started by then. The softened stone had only been advantageous for a short while. It was better than working down in the mines, for sure, but not by a substantial amount. The work still had her arms growing numb and she could hardly see or breath from the sweat washing down her face.
Even so, at least there was light so she could see, and the heat was not quite so terrible in the open air.
Also, at least on the surface there was something of a view. From here she could see the grand building, only a couple hundred feet away. The building was dreadfully ugly: tall, built with thick bricks the color of cooled ashes, and a slanted roof painted several shades darker. On the top of the roof was something that looked as though it may be a clock, but Neeila could not yet decipher the Tene symbols. Additionally, there were several windows across the first and what must have been the second floor, but nothing could be seen from the outside looking in. The doors—two brass colored slabs—however, were in constant motion. Several times, already, had the doors swung open as the guards switched posts.
Perhaps it was not truly exciting in retrospect, but anything was better than staring at black stone walls for hours on end.
She remembers staring at that door like she always did when she had the chance, watching patiently for movement, because even waiting was keeping her mind off the sharp pain growing in her back and the numbness growing in her biceps as she swung over and over and over and over and—
The doors swung open and out stepped the Warden. She was surprised to see him, so much so that she froze. She had seen him enough times to recognize his face but not enough times to dull the anxiousness his presence induced.
He had been just as tall and scary as he always was, lips pulled back into their usual smirk, his eyes both wild and utterly dead at the same time. He looked like a predator waiting to snap at any moment, but at the same time could not be bothered to move in for the kill. Why would he need too? Surely his prey would come gladly to its death because why would it choose to do anything else, his eyes seemed to say.
She shivered at that, so unsettled by him that she had almost missed the boy by his side.
He was small, so small that she wondered idly where his mother was because surely, he must still be feeding from her breast. Hearty meals he must be getting from her too, because while he was small, he did not look at all sickly. That was to be expected though, she supposed, given that he was coming from inside the grand building.
Out here, not many women had babies. Neeila had heard that most mothers could not produce long lasting supplies of milk on their "standard issue" diets, and usually died trying, if their baby had not already perished from disease or from a particularly unfriendly guard deciding he was in a baby killing mood. Unless the mother somehow managed to get herself transferred to work inside the grand building, babies usually did not last long in the divisions. It was a miracle any survived at all.
The boy had come from the grand building, though, so his mother must have been healthy enough to in turn keep him healthy as well. Everyone inside there looked healthier. While their meals were not necessarily larger, their workloads were apparently drastically less taxing.
Neeila wondered again who his mother was. She must be quite pretty, to have been chosen to work inside the grand building. Neeila had heard that only people with pretty faces got to work inside, though why that was she was not entirely sure. Her own mother had been quite pretty apparently, back before starvation had eaten away at her muscles and sunken her skin. If it were not for the wounds her mother had all over her face from fighting to defend their home, she might have been taken inside as well.
Abruptly, Neeila stopped wondering about the boy's mother. She took in the blindfold wrapped around his face and knew exactly who he was.
Her whole body went cold.
His presence frightened her, but her eyes refused to look away. She had no choice but to take him in. His hair was black and looked full enough from where she was standing. His skin was alarmingly pale, like the sun had never so much as grazed it (a poor comparison, for while the sun's light and heat broke through the barrier of clouds across the sky, never did its rays, so really they were all probably as pale as fabled blood-suckers), but not sunken. His cheeks even held a hint of chubbiness to them. He was nothing at all like her, with brittle bones that poked through her paper skin, and limp hair that fell from her head and onto her makeshift pillow every night in clumps.
The crack of a whip assaulted first her ears then across her shoulder blades, the barbs tearing through her shirt and deep into her skin with equal ease. The blow knocked her to her knees, nearly had her face in the dirt. She did not notice the bite of the rocks beneath her, because the burning of the wound had begun to spread, guided by trails of her spilt hot blood, and it was more than enough pain to monopolize her attention.
She wailed, the sound tearing from her throat desperately, because there was only so much agony she could bear to hold inside.
"Werk!" A guard said behind her, the word she had by then learned meant 'work' in Tenego.
Her throat twisted into knots and tears pricked at her eyes. She wanted to leave that very moment, to go to the mess hall and eat the soup that was waiting there, then to go back to the barracks where her mother would cuddle her close to her chest on the bunk they and her brother shared with two other people and sing sweet, soothing songs in a language Neeila barely remembered but was hers all the same.
She really just wanted her mother mostly. Her mother always made everything better. She could not always take the pain away, but she would let Neeila cry if she needed too, would not yell at her for it like some other mothers would do. Sometimes her mother would even cry with her, like she could feel the pain too.
"Alzarsi," her brother hissed at her in their own language, low enough that the guard might not have heard. Get up, he said with terror in his voice, like he was about to watch his baby sister get her brains blown out right in front of him.
There had been a good chance he might have at that rate, so she got up and continued to work. She swallowed her tears for good measure, even though every swing of her arms felt as though it tore her wound further open each and every time. She did it because while Herio did not like to admit it, he already suffered from bad enough nightmares and watching her get shot or mauled or beaten to death would have probably put him off sleep for the rest of his life, and she was really looking forward to that soup later and it would have been very unfair if she died on a barren stomach.
(And really, she just had not wanted to die at all.)
By the time she had opened her eyes again, the Warden and the boy had already approached, so close she could see how dark the lines trailing down his cheeks were. Her heart had started to pound, but she did not stop swinging, even when some other prisoners did to take in the scene unfolding. The guards did not seem interested in reprimanding so many of them at once, but Neeila took no chances. Getting hit once was more than enough times for her.
Even so, she could not help but falter when she heard the empty chains next to her jangle, before they snapped around his skinny ankles. Right next to her.
"Here you are," Neeila heard the Warden say, and watched from the corner of her eye as he handed the boy an axe that nearly dwarfed him. "Now then. Do you see what the others are doing?"
Neeila had figured the Warden was being sarcastic, for obviously the boy could not see anything at all.
The boy had given an honest, negative shake of his head.
Neeila thought that the Warden would hit him. That was what any other guard would have done. By then Neeila knew that the correct answer was not always the right answer. The boy clearly had not learned that lesson yet.
The Warden surprised her with a loud, genuine laugh.
"Oh, of course you can't, my boy. My mistake," the Warden said like a father who had forgotten his son was not yet tall enough to reach the top shelf. "Here, I shall show you then."
The Warden shifted behind him, then. He took the boy's arms, molded them into position, and together, they swung forward. They did it again and again, the Warden guiding the motions like a parent would do. Yet there was something about it that made it distinctly not paternal at all. It could have been the way he held the boy, or the look in his eyes. Whatever it was, it made Neeila uncomfortable enough to look away.
Eventually, she could hear the crunch of pebbles as the Warden stood to his feet. "I trust you can manage from here. I shall see you at role call and assign you a barrack. Be good for me until then, yes?"
She peeked and saw the boy nod, not even faltering in the swing of his little arms as he did so.
"Go easy on him, boys," the Warden said to the guards, though the one that had struck Neeila had been a woman, "It's his first assignment, after all."
They all shared a laugh after that, and at the time, Neeila had not understood why it was funny.
Just as soon as he had appeared, the Warden was gone, taking some the tension Neeila had not even known she was feeling along with him. Not all of it though. After all, how could she truly relax when there was a demon with an axe right next to her? Even worse, it was the end of the line, so no one else had to stand next to him, only her. No one else had to experience the terror she was.
He was so close to her, too. He was close enough that she could hear his every exhale as his arms swung. She could even smell him—no dirt, no grime, not even a trace of old sweat. He smelled remarkably clean.
She could not remember the last time she bathed. It was supposed to be once a week with just water, and with soap every other, but when everyday was the same as the one before, it was rather fruitless to try and follow the passage of time. A more accurate schedule was whenever the guards could no longer stand their smell.
She wondered who had taken care of the boy up until then. Someone must have—babies could not take care of themselves and it would explain the soft air surrounding his little body. He did not look as though he knew the sting of sweat in your eyes, or the gnaws of hunger in your stomach. He looked like a well-kept toddler playing at prisoner.
That angered her. She spent every single one of her hours fighting to see another day and that bastard son of the universe's most ruthless tyrant looked as though he had never so much as gone to bed without a full stomach and a soft place to rest his head.
Even so, despite the boldness of her thoughts, he still terrified her. With every second that passed, her anxiety grew. She began to feel lightheaded, nauseated, completely and utterly terrif—
The tip of her axe struck a rock too hard to break. The resounding vibration felt like earthquakes on her hands, and she instinctively dropped it.
Her whole body froze, even more frigid then before. She did not move a muscle, her body wound tight as she waited for another whip to tear into her skin, because surely, she would be punished.
Long seconds went by with no such assault. She only just realized that the guard who had been standing over her was gone, halfway down the line by then, when the boy bent down and picked up her axe. Before she could even properly react, he was already rising back up. Then, with his face still turned forward, he held it out to her.
She gaped at his outstretched arm, completely speechless.
Her brother had not been, however. Over her shoulder she heard her brother hiss, as if he were in any position to attack from his spot two spaces away from his target.
To her astonishment the boy actually cringed despite that, and immediately let go of the axe. She darted out quickly and grabbed a hold of it before it could clamber to the ground again. The boy did not even seem to notice, too busy hacking away at his rocks once more. Neeila could not be sure if it were all in her head or not, but the boy seems far tenser than he had a moment ago.
Her brother reached over and nudged her with his elbow. "Work," he said.
She did, willing her arms to recapture the rhythm she had before. At that point though, her curiosity had been peaked. Why had the boy done that, she wondered? Why would a monster risk punishment just to help her?
She had thought long and hard over her questions but try as she might she could not figure out the answers. She started to watch him then from the corner of her eyes, as if maybe the answers she sought would be written there on his little face.
They were not. She noticed, though, that he was just as small up close as he was afar. The top of his head barely reached her shoulder and Neeila was not a tall girl. She noticed a lot of things, in fact. From that close she could see that the two dark lines that trailed from underneath the blindfold to underneath his chin were both too perfectly straight to be scars. She could see that his skin was nearly pale enough to be white, but still warmed enough by the shades of ivory to look more like flesh than the skin of a monster.
His hair though, remained an anomaly, and if at all possible, was even darker from this view. The spiky strands were swept over to the right side of his face and pointed more downwards than up. One strand rested down the center of his forehead, the ends splitting into two points, brushing gently against his blindfold with every move of his body. His hair was not dirty and scraggly like hers. Every strand looked soft to the touch.
She blinked and had felt abruptly embarrassed by her observations. Even so, she could not deny that he was a cute little thing. Adorable, even, in the way all babies were, before they inevitably started to look weathered and beat down like her.
She wondered how long the boy had until he reached that point.
She was not the only one taking him in, it seemed. Some ignored him, but others did not. Several pair of eyes darted over towards him, and none of them were friendly. The looks were probably as far from friendly as they could get. They looked like they wanted to stop piercing their axes into the rocks and into the boy's head instead.
Neeila had thought that the looks were very scary, and she was not even on the receiving end.
There was no way the boy could see the looks with the blindfold covering his eyes, but he still drew within himself as if he had, like he believed that simply making himself smaller would make him disappear altogether.
It all confused Neeila even more. This frightened, small, pathetic boy was supposed to be the spawn of the demon who murdered millions, she thought, yet simple glares had him nearly shaking in his boots. None of it made any sense.
One thing was clear—he was not at all what she expected him to be. She felt... disappointed? She did not know if that was the right word to describe how she had felt then. She ought to have been pleased that he was not so terrible as she had thought, but rather she felt a bit annoyed that she had wasted so much energy being scared in the first place.
The evaporating fear had made room for rational thought to return. It would have been very rude of her to ignore his efforts, she had thought. Living on Tene'mareen had swiftly taught her the true meaning of gratitude. Be grateful for the pieces of meat that found its way into your broth. Be grateful every time you are assigned anywhere but the mines and the graveyard. Be grateful for every morning you live to see.
Be grateful for assistance, even from a monster.
She took a deep breath, and willed steel to replace the areas within her still plagued with fear. She would be fine, she told herself. She would be fine; she would be fine...
She leaned towards him and whispered lowly, "Thank you."
All of his muscles stiffened. He said nothing.
"For picking up my axe," she clarified, in case he had not understood what she meant. "I'd be in a lot of trouble right now if they had noticed, so thank you."
After a long moment, he mumbled, "Welcome."
His voice was soft, like a toddler's. It had surprised her, despite acknowledging that he was, in fact, the size of one. Surely a monster would have a scarier voice than that, even a little one like him.
The conversation, such as it was, could have ended there. She could not really say why she did not let it.
"Your name is Chill," she said, and it was only after the words left her mouth did she realize how stupid they were. Of course he knew what his own name was. She doubted he would actually call her an idiot, but she was certain he was thinking it.
Or maybe he was not thinking something so harsh, because all he did was nod stiffly.
In an effort to recover from her idiotic question, she asked one with more substance. "So, you're old enough to work out here now?"
Another rigid nod.
"Do you know how old you are, then?" She asked, trying not to sound too eager. She had really wanted to know the answer. After all, if she knew how old he was, she might have been able to guess how old she was.
She did not know why it mattered to her, because really, it didn't at all, but she wanted to know.
Unfortunately, the boy did not know. Or at least, that was what she had surmised from the furious shaking of his head and the overt trembling of his body. "I... I... I don't—"
"Alright, alright, it's not that big of a deal," she lied. She looked quickly down the line, but no guards seemed to have noticed.
Her brother had, though, and he leaned around her once more to give the boy a piercing glare. She wanted to roll her eyes because the boy was blinded; what exactly was Herio trying to accomplish?
She elbowed Herio, who grunted and gave her a sharp gaze of her own. She returned it obstinately, and after a moment, Herio conceded and returned to his work.
"So," she started again, and tried not to feel guilty at the way the boy tensed up again. "I bet you did all kinds of easy work in there, huh?"
She belatedly realized he could be offended by her words. Her mother told her that, no matter how right they probably were, assumptions were rude to make. It was not as if she could take back words that had already left her mouth, though.
She waited a long while for a response. It became apparent that one would not be coming.
Annoyed, she finally broke. "Are you gonna answer me, or what?"
He jumped, and the axe in his hands wavered so badly it was a wonder he had not dropped it all together. "I s-sorry. I-I not know... you want-wan-wanted me t-to answer."
She had not called him out on his rather atrocious grammar—it was normal for toddlers to talk weird, right?—and instead focused on the content of the sentence. "Why wouldn't I want you to answer? I asked you a question."
She watched the way his brow quirked, like he was mentally picking apart her words letter by letter and still not comprehending.
She huffed. "Okay, I didn't word it like a question, but I'm pretty sure the way I said it made it sound like a question."
He, again, did not reply.
"So, are you going to answer, or...?"
For long moments he did not, then, "I he-helped with di-i-shes. I helped with la-laun-laundry. I helped clean guardses rooms."
"So easy stuff," she said.
Predictably, he said nothing.
"I bet it's not so hot in there, huh?" She looked at him, then amended, "That was a question."
"It-it's—" he cut himself off. Then, "Why you want for me to answer?"
She blinked. "Why would I ask a question if I didn't want you to answer?"
"No, no—" he shook his head, frustrated. "—why you talking t-to me?"
She asked genuinely, "Am I not allowed to?" It had not dawned on her that she could be punished for associating with him. Her eyes darted to the guards again, feeling very uneasy.
"I'm bad," he said simply, like that was supposed to mean something. She supposed it would, for someone like him.
"But is there a rule against talking to you?" she pressed.
He hesitated, then answered in a voice that sounded almost reluctant, "Don't know."
"Well you're not being bad now. You're doing everything everyone else is doing, so talk."
"Don't wanna..."
Her eyebrows rose. "You don't want to?"
He cringed, but plowed on, "Don't wanna be in trouble..."
"Fine," she huffed, feeling very annoyed and unable to explain why. She took out her feelings on the rocks before her, hacking with the axe with even more strength. It had not been a smart move. There were blisters already forming on her hands and the day was not even half over yet. Exhaustion had long since begun to take over her muscles. She should have been conserving all the energy she could have, but she was a little girl with hurt little feelings, and every lesson that she had ever been taught flew from her mind.
Not that it would have mattered. She had abruptly begun to sway on her feet, and it was then that she realized that blood was still pouring from the wound on her back.
"Oh no," she could not help but to say. Herio looked over, and she saw her own thoughts written all over his face. Tears filled her eyes and fell down her face. Bleeding this badly, she would not make it to the end of the day.
She had not felt the numb acceptance that others described when faced with her own death. She had not felt acceptance at all. She was scared. She did not want to die. She did not want to—
She felt a touch on her shoulder. She would have jumped away, but even just the thought of moving the barbells her feet had become made her almost want to pass out. It was Chill, she could see out the corner of her eye. His face was turned away, but his arm was outstretched, his hand crawling purposefully across her back. When his fingers brushed her wound, she hissed. He did not pull away, though. Rather, he spread his hand out over it, covering as much as his little palm would allow.
"Ow, stop—" she bit down on her lip before more could spill out, flinching as far away as she could. He was not deterred, however, keeping his hand pressed firmly against her. Then, somehow, she felt her skin moving, pulling together, and it hurt and—
He pulled away.
She immediately reached her hand back. "What did you do?" she demanded, as her fingers found the spot. It still hurt, but it was... closed? Not quite healed, more like he had stitched it together with nothing but his touch.
"Don't know... h-how long... can... hold," he said, his voice sounding beyond strained. "Try... until... we done. You get... f-fi-fixed then."
He stopped talking then, and Neeila had no idea what to say. She had never known that the spawn of Frieza had such a power. She could not believe that he was using it on her.
In the end, he could not hold her skin together for long. He only lasted about an hour, before whatever connection he had maintained suddenly snapped. He nearly collapsed when that happened, and it was only her hand around his arm that kept him on his feet.
The last thing he said to her that day had been an apology, for being unable to hold the connection for longer. She told him that it was fine, and it truly was. He had held it together long enough that the gushing stream had lessened to a slow trickle.
It was hard to tell from the blankness of his face, but he seemed pleased at that. He nodded at her a final time, before returning to his work. He did not look back at her once after that.
For that whole hour, she rolled the situation around in her head, but she still could not make sense of it. That was the second time in one meeting that he had helped her. That time at the expense of his own health, it seemed.
She had thought a lot of things that day. She thought, how did the son of a murderous tyrant become so quiet, so timid, so mindful? She thought, how could so many people look at him and feel fear and the hatred that comes from fear? She thought, what would people think if they bothered to try and understand more about him than who his father was?
She thought, how could this boy bear the weight of a monster's sins, and not feel so terribly alone?
He couldn't. No one could.
She did not think, but rather knew in that moment that the boy had done those things for her because he wanted her to like him. He would not say it, he would not ask for it, he might not have even known it himself, but she knew.
She thought, what if I bothered to try and understand?
She said, quietly, "My name is Neeila. Don't forget it."
She had only caught a glimpse so she would never truly know, but she thought that the twitch at the corner of his lip might have been a smile.
The Present:
There was still a scar on her shoulder from that day.
She had never seen the whole of it, only the very end of it was ever in her sight when she strained her head back, but Herio insisted that it was ugly. While Herio, the very mature older brother that he was, seemed to be under the impression that every part of her was ugly, she was sure that he was telling the truth about the scar. After all, while she could not see it, she could touch it. The skin was thick and fibrous underneath her fingers, bumpy where her mother later threaded the stitches, and smooth almost everywhere else.
The scar no longer hurt, but the skin was still tight even after so long. She could feel it tug underneath Chill's weight as his body shifted ever so slightly with every step she took. She could feel the heaviness of his head while he slept on her. He fell asleep nearly the exact moment he had laid his head down and had not so much as stirred since.
The Chill of now was nothing at all like the little boy she had met that day. His chubby cheeks and the radiant sheen of his hair had not lasted long under the full force of the Tene'mareen workload. He was all scars and sunken skin like the rest of them now.
She stumbled for the umpteenth time and paused to regain her bearings. Chill weighed next to nothing, but so did she. He was nearly a head smaller than her, but her height did not give her any real advantages in strength. Despite her bravado, he had started to grow heavy very quickly. Her skinny arms were steadily pushing into numbness territory by now. She had stumbled more than once during the journey.
And a journey it was. She had found Chill sprawled out just by the steps of the grand building—a very far distance from the Northwest Cliff. Even so, she did not complain. She trudged past the grand building. She trudged past the cafeteria where they ate. She trudged with the mine entrances in the distance.
She trudged past the very pit she and Chill had met each other in. By now, it had long since been cleared, the stone giving way to a patch of imported soil, filled with tall stalks of cereal grains. Division I was responsible for supplying the entire planet with food, but every Division had caches of food stocks as extra precautions. She liked being assigned there the best. The paranoia was nearly nauseating, but was worth it for all the grains she was able to sneak away. Chill was always too frightened to even try, so she always made sure to sneak some away for him too.
Any attempted gentleness of her walking did not seem to affect him one way or the other—she firmly believed that nothing short of a miracle would wake the boy at this point—so she quickly decided not to bother, dragging herself along like a cane-less old man. She did not care. It was not like there was anyone to see her.
(Neeila wondered how, with every guard off drinking themself into a stupor, Chill could begrudge her for feeling optimistic about the plan for escape.)
She trudged and trudged until she reached the entrance of the barrack camp and did not stop. It was not so quiet here. In fact, there were plenty of prisoners out. It was not an abnormal sight, the workday had ended after all, but usually they were not so loud. She supposed things like reasonable volume went out the window when there were no guards around to punish you for it.
Many of their eyes fell on her as she walked by. She held no illusions that she was truly pretty, but underneath the emaciation and scars it was clear she might have been, and thus many of the stares on her face were appreciative. Some were simply curious, for surely, she made quite a spectacle stumbling under the weight of a boy not much smaller than her. When recognition took hold, every one of the looks darkened.
She ignored them all. She had gotten rather good at that over the years.
She trudged on and on, until even the barracks were behind her. She went all the way back to until the electric fence enclosing the Division would let her go no further. The walls of the Northwest Cliff were left from this spot, and so left she went. There was no one to hide from, so she did not bother to crouch into the shadows. She was sure that if she had to go to the ground in that moment, she would probably never get up again.
She just reached the wall when she felt him stir. She had honestly expected him to sleep for longer, and it probably would have been better for him if he had. Still, with him awake, he could now actually hold on as she climbed. Carrying a boy nearly her size and unconscious up an already dangerous cliff sounds like a well enough way to kill them both, and that would naturally be unsatisfactory. Neeila did not have "meet an untimely death" on her itinerary for the day.
He was exhausted, still barely free from the clutches of sleep when she said, "Hold on to me so we don't fall to our doom."
His body stiffened at her words, and she remembered that Chill usually found her death jokes to be particularly unfunny. She felt him start to pull away.
"Ah, ah, ah," she admonished, leaning forward so his exhausted body had no choice but to fall back down onto hers. "Don't even try it. Just think about me putting you down right now, and the way you would crumble like a sack of potatoes. Got that image in your head? Good, now imagine you climbing this cliff. How well do you think you'll manage that?"
His answer was sulky silence.
"That's what I thought. I'm carrying you up this cliff and that's that. You're welcome to try and fight me and ensure we both die, or you could just hold on like a good boy and increase our chances of survival to 'slightly more likely'."
We are going to die, she practically heard him say. Very reluctantly, his legs curled around her abdomen, his ankles hooked together, and his arms tightened until she was nearly choking.
"You know, I heard on some planets, people do this for sport? Climb cliffs for fun, that is, like you," she said as she started to climb, trying very hard to ignore the way her arms shook, and the undeniable fear in her heart. "I can't imagine why. This is probably the most terrible activity ever. I mean, don't get me wrong—apparently, we Mangelins were very good climbers. I was told it was usually trees with leafy branches to grab onto or with ropes when they didn't. We might even tackle a particularly tall hill. But a cliff? Absolutely not. Perish the thought, I say to that."
He very much so wanted her to stop talking, and after her left foot nearly slipped, sending a shower of pebbles to the ground countless yards below, she decided to for once just do as was desired of her. Luckily when she looked up, she saw that the closest ledge was only a dozen or so feet ahead.
When she was a child, she used to think that she and the others who were dared to climb this were being so clever and rebellious. In actuality, the guards were not at all threatened. The sentry towers were taller than the ledge, and any higher the rocks were essentially unclimbable. Some species were able to reach the top, but apparently, all that was on the other side was a sea of hot, bubbling acid.
Not that it would matter if the other side could be crossed. All they would find was another division, and if not that, then a village or city or whatever the hell Tena civilians lived in, and both were just as unwelcoming.
The entire planet was a prison. As long as her feet stood on Tene'mareen soil, she would never know freedom.
As it were, all she could see from here was the sky, and it looked as it always did. The blockade of clouds was thick and dark, colored like the flesh of a blood orange. One part glowed from the outline of something gold—maybe another planet, maybe the sun, maybe she would never know.
She would like to know, at least, if somewhere past the barrier of smog, did the stars still exist.
She had forgotten so much, but she remembered enough to feel longing. She remembered only praying at night, because it was then that Goddess heard their voices best. She remembered burying her grandfather, then her grandmother after the sun had set, because only the light of the stars would lead them back to Goddess's arms. She remembered being that person so long ago, that child who only had the sky and stars and Goddess above her and nothing else.
She would give a whole lot, she thought, if she could only see the stars one last time.
The stone beneath her hand crumbled and fell away, nearly taking her whole body with it. Fear made her cling to the wall for a long while after that. Chill, likewise, tightened his hold around her until she was sure she would never breathe right again.
If it had been Herio she had nearly just gotten killed, her ears would already be ringing from the sound of his incessant yelling. It was Chill though, and he said nothing about the undeniable terror she just put him through.
Not that she had expected him to. She had not heard Chill's voice in a long, long time.
Chill had never seen stars before. She wondered what Chill's face would look like if he could see them, just one time with her. She would give a whole lot, she thought, to see what the red of his eyes would look like with the light of her sky inside of them.
TBC