FICTION: riccin kayata, lusus trapping

[xihe]

 RICCIN KAYATA: 4 SWEEPS |  8 years old | 2723 words

 

“I’m sorry,” Canvio says, eyes as wide as moons, shoulders shaking like she’s a hound that’s been hit: “- I’m sorry, I can fix her. I promise!”

Here’s whatcha know about Canvio Storus, the worst girl in the whole, wide world:

One: her ears’re worse than yours, somehow! Long enough that they hang down to her elbows, but heavy enough that she can’t hold them straight, heavy enough they make your head ache just to look at ‘em. They swing every single time she steps, and they drag, drag, drag.

The very first night you were here, a few perigees back, the proctor hadn’t been careful about herding her through the door. It’d slammed down, right on her poor ear, and it was only in there for a second! But when they pulled it out, it was red all the way through, and she’d wept, and wept, and wept.

Two: she’s always weeping about /something./ You’re not sure how one girl can have so many feelings, honestly, 'cause you don’t have that many: you’ve only ever wept after they put your port in, and that was just 'cause it hurt, not because of some silly feels. But she’s full of the things. They’re always bubbling up in a froth, pouring out past the the snaggles of her teeth, setting her to shaking like a leaf. The only time she isn’t is when the proctors take a hold of her pan and run her testing. You’ve gotten to sit through a couple of them, when they were checking your psi, and if she’s still a little rheumy-eyed, well -

- at least the red’s staying in her eyes, where it belongs. And that’s only sometimes, anyway. Last test, she’d wept there, too.

The other time she really, really ain’t crying is when she’s holding her lusus.

And the third thing you know is that, apparently, that ain’t quite true anymore, either. Canvio’s got her fronds knit tight in the ruff of her jackaldad, but that’s still red rolling down her cheeks, staining her skin and the white of her uniform something awful.

“I’m sorry,” she snuffles, weak, /wet/: “I’m so sorry…”

And part of you wants to snap that she should be, but your mouth’s too dry for words, too dry for nothing ever since you heard a bark and caught her lusus with one paw pinned straight down on your lusus’s wing.

Mothmom doesn’t even buzz when you pick her up. She just flutters her wings, half-hearted, and you can see the moment when the motion touches the crumpled piece: a shudder runs all the way through her, antaennae to base, fur rippling like it just caught full of the wind, and then she deflates. Something in you aches at the sight. If you’d been there - if you’d paid any fucking attention -

- but nah, you’d been off trying to impress the little yellow with eyes as bright as yours, instead, and this is what fucking happened. She got hurt. Your lusus got hurt, and it’s all your fault.

“Riccin?” A hand brushes your sleeve. When you look up, Canvio draws back, fangs biting hard into her lip. She’s younger than you, you think: she’s got the rough skin of someone fresh from the cocoon, though you’ve never met a newly brooded kid this weak. How’d she survive the trials? How did she ever survive anything?

And the rest of her words are going too fast for you to keep track of. You don’t like Canvio, much, anymore than the rest of your crechemates: they always talk too much, and they talk too fast, like there’s a race and they’re all gonna lose it. You can’t keep up with nothing, when they start going like that. Standard’s a godless tongue in the first place, without 'em adding speed.

But you don’t have to understand her none to reply.

“Leave me alone,” you say, flat, and pull your lusus closer. If you put her on your shoulder and cradle an arm under her, her wing stays straight, and you can feel the air coming out of her sides, each time she breathes out.

It’s shallow, but she’s still breathing out. That’s good, you think.

Your job’s to make sure it stays that way.

Canvio follows you all the way to the medical bay. The residence hall for the Navigressors is so big! You’d been spooked something awful the first perigee you were here, set all aquiver with the way the ceiling hangs so low, the fact everything’s so fucking white. Your hive’s scarcely got a roof at all, it’s so high, and everything’s dark, dark, dark, from the stone to the floor to the shit you’ve buried in it. And so’s Li’s, and so’s Myrrha’s, and so’s probably Orpheo’s, though you ain’t seen it up close yet.

But you’ve gotten used to it. You know your whole way around this place, as good as you know the hills, as good as you know Li’s ship. You could find your way blind! And that’s good, 'cause mothmom keeps fluttering her good wing as she shifts on your shoulder, tries to find a position that doesn’t hurt her none at all. “Mama, sto~op,” you whine at her in your proper tongue, hissing it low, but that doesn’t matter none, when Canvio’s got ears like a bat behind you.

“What’d you say?”

“Nothing!”

“Nuh-uh, you said something!” There’s a trace of a whine working its way into her voice, throaty and unhappy, like it’s her lusus that’s gotten all mauled. You’re gonna ignore her, but then she adds, quavering, all accusing-like: “- and it was Common!”

You’re not allowed to speak nothing but Standard in the residence hall. It’d been strange, strange, strange when you’d first come up to the proctors and tried to say hello, introduce yourself like you were told, and they’d practically knocked the tongue out of your mouth over it. No one had minded Common when you’d signed up: you 'n Myrrha had joined with it, signed your name in fancy, blood-coloured pens in it, and the boys up front hadn’t been all mealy-mouthed like other folks from other districts always sounded, tryin’ to speak it.

But the Empire speaks Standard, is how Proper had explained it. They don’t want you signing, and they don’t want you speaking nothing they don’t understand, and you get that, you do! Li flusters if you keep secrets. Ain’t nobody like a secret, you least of all: way you figure it, it’s like a lie, and no one wants to lie to the Empire.

It’s just hard to remember, sometimes, when your lusus is hurt, and this’s the tongue she knows. She doesn’t understand you when you start off in Standard! Proper says she’ll pick it up, if you keep talkin’, but what’re you supposed to do in the meanwhile? Let her fret? Let her wonder why her baby’s speaking in tongues?

You know you ought to just let her wonder, let her figure it out, but you can’t. It’s not fair. She’s just a moth, and she does her job of keeping you in line just fine: it’s just up to you to do yours, of making it easy for her, of keeping her safe.

(Of not letting her get mauled, just because Kindra was chittering -)

“You didn’t hear nothing,” you snap, ears pinning back so they look like hers. When she opens her mouth like she’s gonna protest, you add, vicious: “- and if you tell anyone you did, I’m gonna put both of your ears in the door!”

She whines, falling back, but you can still hear the click of her pops nails on the ground behind you.
“We’re almost there,” you tell her, quiet, as you step around the corner. “Keep your wings down, mama!”

And Canvio hears that, too, but this time, at least, she doesn’t comment. She just scampers forward as soon as the lime symbol of the medical bays visible, and slams herself against the door. Her claws scuttle on the wood, againsnt the handle, but it’s not until her pops makes it up and leans against her that her grip gets steady.

Then she half-trips, tumbling out of your way as you head inside. You ignore the way she trills after you, appeasing, because she ought to. This is all her fault!

(This is all your fault. You should’ve been watching -)

“You gotta fix her,” you say, as soon as you see the mediculler. He’s half-slouched at his desk, head down, phone tucked away in the palm of his hand, but he jerks when you say that, like he wasn’t expecting no one.

Or maybe he just wasn’t expecting the two of you: Canvio, red-cheeked and red-eyed, and you, cradling your poor mum half on your back. His eyes flit between the two of you, and you wish you were one of the mindreaders right now, 'cause you dunno what he’s thinking.

You wish your voice was better. You wish your Standard was smoother, 'cause the words hitch even as you say 'em, and oh! Oh, you sound as weak and pupaish as Canvio: “- you gotta.”

“I’m not a vet,” he says, like that means anything. “Um. Oh, gosh. What is that? A bug? I don’t - I can’t -”

You’re not Canvio. She’s fresh out of the cavern, scarcely even two sweeps proper, with cocoon rough skin and ears that droop. She looks like a pupa, and she acts like a pupa, and you’re not a pupa, goddamnit: you’re four sweeps old, and you’re more than old enough to act proper.

But you don’t have to know what a vet is to know what his stuttering means.

And he’s only halfway through his can’t when you take a deep breath, and your protest comes out as one long sob instead.

He blanches, all at once. His hand flies up towards his mouth, and he says: “- oh, oh no,” like you just killed a man on his floor, and you ought to say something. You ought to do something, to tell him that he’s gotta fix her, he’s gotta.. but the world’s yellow and you can’t stop fucking crying instead, big, gulping breathes that rip straight out of your poor lungs and leave your chest aching.

Your mama’s panicking up on your shoulder, fur all ruffling, airholes closing and shutting like she wants to cry with you. You can feel the buzz of her, unhappy, and she’s twisting in your arms to try and get a proper look at you, like each move ain’t doing her wing more wrong. “Mama,” you rasp, but she doesn’t stop moving. “Mama!”

She chirrs at you, desperate, then butts her head against yours. When your grip loosens, she tries to wriggle free. And that, at least, stops your sobbing, because she can’t.

“Stop,” you cry, and the language’s all wrong, wrong, wrong, but she doesn’t understand you if you don’t. Canvio chirps behind you, startled, but you keep going, wretched, even as the mediculler stares: “- stop, stop, stop - you’re gonna hurt yourself!”

She stills, but you can feel the tension in her, like she’s just waiting for you to relax. It’s the same way she gets whenever you’re doing something you oughtn’t, and you grab her up to keep her from protesting. “You can’t keep moving,” you try anyway: “- you’re gonna hurt yourself! Gonna hurt yourself worse! And you could rip off your wing, and then you’ll die, and - and - and -”

“Here,” the mediculler says, and there’s cold hands brushing past your cheek as he reaches down. It’s all you can do not to bite him as her feet scrape against your shirt, but when she chirrs at you, you have the sense to chirp back.

She holds still, this time, as he takes her up. He’s bigger than you by over two heads, and she looks small in his arms, smaller than she ever really ought. “I can’t help her,” he says, gentle, “but. Um. We’ll take her to someone that can, okay? Do you speak Standard?”

“Proper standard?” he adds, worried. “I.. can’t do the lahs. Just nod if you understand.”

You nod. When Canvio sidles up to you and latches onto your arm, burying her face in your shirt, you don’t even shrug her off. He’s holding your mama. You can’t pay attention to anything else, right now, 'cause you don’t let people do that: you don’t let them even look at her long, usually, in case they get any ideas.

She’s just a moth! She’s just a fluffy, helpless moth, and it’s your job to keep her safe.

.. and it’s his job to fix her. It’s just harder to remember that, when he’s actually touching her.

“Good! I take it there was a little scrap, huh?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. He’s turning on his heel and walking away, the little klick of his shoes loud in the quiet of the bay, and it’s up to you to follow, half-dragging Canvio in the process. “This happens so much. I don’t know why they let you keep her outside of the cages,” he admits, a little disapproving, and you can hear the pause of Canvio’s lusus behind you, the sudden stop of his nails.

It doesn’t start back up again. When you glance back, he’s retreated back to the doorway, and Canvio makes a little sound, distressed, then lets go of your arm, all at once. Her ears flap behind her as she turns tail to follow him, and.. fine. Fine! You don’t care.

When you fold your arms around yourself, it almost feels the same.

(You hope she gets both of her ears stuck in the door.)

The little hallway he leads you down is long, long, long, but it’s getting dimmer with each step. The paint fades to gray. The lights go a little darker. It feels more like a hive than the rest of the buildings combined, and in the dark, your mama stands out like a beacon.

He takes you down another hall, and then into a little room, and then he turns to look at you.

“Where’d the little one go? With the barkbeast? Oh - never mind,” he says, dismissive, “someone else can deal with that. Here, look at this. This is where your lusus should’ve been.”

The room’s filled with glass on the walls, as high as the ceiling, and inside each little cage is a lusus.

It takes you a second to realise that! They all look sleepy, tucked away like that, and they don’t quite look real; if it weren’t for the rise and fall of the rabbit closest to you, you’d have thought they were dead. Their eyes are shut, and they’re curled up like they’re asleep, but you’ve never quite seem a lusus as limp as these.

But there’s all sorts of lusus here, too. There’s a fox curled up, napping, in the cage above the rabbits. There’s an actual lion in the kennel on the ground, her tail tucked tight over her nose, and none of them are bothered at all by the others around them.

None of these are trying to eat each other, like Canvio’s went after yours.

The mediculler’s been fiddling with one of the empty glasses as you watch. Something hisses, then it slides open, just like that. There’s a towel on the inside, and a little pillow under it, to make it soft.

“We’re going to keep her in here,” he says, tapping his claw againsnt the glass, and then he sets her in, careful as anything. There’s just enough room for her to have her wings all the way out, so the rumpled part is even as the rest, and she snuggles into the towel as soon as she touches it, little feet hooking right in.

She doesn’t stir when he drops the lid on top and seals it shut. “There you go! She’ll be safe in there. Safer than she was outside.” Your lusus doesn’t so much as chirp as the glass seals shut: she just watches you, eyes wide.

When you place your hand against the glass, you can’t touch her. And above her, all around her, the other lususes don’t so much as stir.