[SOLO] And It All Comes Crumbling Down (Nictor)

[Taki-di]

 

[Taki-di]

The pressure didn’t go away.

Or, maybe it did? No, no it didn’t, it’s just that trying to pay attention to it made it harder to see. A trick where you knew someone was looking at you, but as soon as you try to catch them, no one is there. Yet the nagging sensation of being watched still persists.

Nictor could not grasp the feeling of his own accord. It seemed to come and go as it pleased, fading from a silent companion to a threatening drone, cotton blocking his ears or skull piercing ringing in equal measure. And yet. Even that was still muted to some degree. When the pressure closed in it threatened to break him, sending hairline fractures through the fragile fortress of his mind but had yet to press. He would feel it closing in, bearing down like shadowy troll shaped figures he so dreaded, but the claws didn’t sink in. Instead they held, they rested just above skin, a featherlight touch, and he had no way of knowing when it would go deeper.

Nothing felt right these days.

Nothing was the same.

Well, most things were the same. The moons still moved in the sky, the stars still glittered, day to night, the pollen dusting his furniture that ground into his skin and fabric of his clothing, the jars of honey, the stacks of books and journals and stray papers.

But it all felt different, it all felt strange, like he wasn’t there and yet he was at the same time.

It was moving through the day in a daze, his conscious numbed to the reality around him, a constant feeling like everything was slightly off balance. A lingering inability to actually feel the panic of apprehension or happiness or loss. It was there but smothered, silenced, merely something he saw through the window but did not interact with. He could not truly feel what he felt, however that worked. They were his emotions and reactions and yet, they weren’t. Sometimes they were, for brief periods, before the thick frosted glass slid back between them, before cottom muddled his hearing and pressed against his tongue and nostrils until that wasn’t him anymore.

His first time back home, Beehemoth was out. Nictor hadn’t really been able to keep Bee updated on when he’d be home, had had a hard time thinking about it, hadn’t gotten many clear answers on that subject and then once the flagship had appeared everything was a mess. After that, Nictor wasn’t really thinking about it. Had been waiting for the next thing to go wrong, felt emptied out and unsettled by the apparent sudden loss of the external pressure from the past month. So Nictor came back to an empty hive with shaking hands, but that was normal now. Twitchy fingers and shaky limbs had been a constant, and yet he’d stood there inside the doorway staring at them like he’d never seen them before. Like these hands were not his own, simply something borrowed that he was afraid to break. Looking around the room sedately as he worked these alien limbs, that same mild worry existed for this home.

Something fragile, something strange, something that didn’t feel his own anymore that he was nervous to interact with, to look to close at.

Nictor was called away from his blank stupor to a slightly active stupor by his two new pets. The strange gerbils (zombies, things that were dead and now they’re not, just like the others, just like the-) wiggled in his pockets and little paws pressed against his torso from within his jacket. Carefully, Nictor extricated the little creatures. His eyes felt gummy and stretched, like they do when they haven’t been rested right and there’s been too much strain. A vague sensation like his eyes were dry. Too dry. That feeling of maybe you should be crying but instead there’s nothing.

The gerbils squirmed in his hands, poking and nipping him, curious of their new environment. And rightly so, being so, so far from their old home. One of them began to wriggle, aiming to release itself from his hand and his breath caught, holding firm and crowding the critter to his body.

Panic, knee jerk momentary panic. Intense all consuming fear to let them down, to let them touch anything. They were as foreign as he now was, except they didn’t know better than to disturb the pristine and perfect home, so he had to watch out for all of them. Protect this place from the shadows following them. Their inherent nature a plague upon this place, domestic and cozy and welcoming.

He doesn’t belong here.

The emotion and clarity was brief, but poignant. And then it was gone, leaving him feeling smaller than he had in ages. A little lost, plenty confused, but just too strung out to even think about it, to question or consider anything beyond that.

Instead he stumbled to his couch on trembling limbs and curled into the far corner, the arm pressing into his ribs. As he moved to draw his legs up, to curl into a ball, his shoes caught and pressed on the cushions, making the motion clunky as he half heartedly struggled to shuck the things off without his hands that still cupped the gerbils close to his chest. And that was how Beehemoth found Nictor hours later; curled into the corner of the couch, staring at nothing, with a strange little gerbil doing what could only be described as standing guard.

The little thing had been puffing out its chest and wiggling multiple limbs and hissed when the large insect approached. Nictor hadn’t registered a thing, wrapped inside the fog in his brain, blocking everything out, but he was rousing at the aggravated motions the gerbil had been making and tensed abruptly at the aggressive noise.

He full body startled when in the corner of his vision he saw white, white, something big and white and approaching and he knew it wasn’t over he knew it but he’d stupidly sat there waiting for it to come and get him no no-

It should come as no surprise that Beehemoth was rather greatly concerned over his little grub. Nictor had managed to be startled by Beehemoth before, but, not quite like this. Not lurching upright with wild eyes and fingers scrabbling at his belt and legs, asleep from hours of motionlessness, giving way as he careened away from Bee.The gerbil had tumbled to the couch, luckily removing itself from the jittery disaster that was trying to gear up for some kind of confrontation. A confrontation that never came.

Nictor’s thinkpan struggled to process what it saw now, right in front of it, to brush off the hisses and groans that echoed in his head and shadowed corners he needed to focus on this one. The flash didn’t last long, but it was there, induced by panic, dragged to the forefront in an attempt to help him protect himself but instead just drained him further. There was just one but it was gigantic, blocked any possible escape it was coming closer.

His back hit the wall, a clammy hand pulling the collapsed bo staff free of his belt, his chest hurting as adrenaline forced him to move, move, but, but...but. This was his hive, he was home, why were they here, how were they here? Nictor didn’t notice the noise slipping from him, didn’t notice how he got louder and more desperate as it moved closer until it stilled and he couldn’t think why it did that just that it did.

Everything was muddled and distorted and he felt weak. He could feel the fight draining already, the panic muting itself, which really, should be more concerning than it was. But his body, his subconscious, knew what it was doing, his conscious brain lagging behind the realization the rest of him had already had. The pounding in his head, borne of fear and pulsing with his heartbeat, was just as loud and all consuming but he finally realized that that buzzing wasn’t just in his head. Painstakingly slow he came aware of the concerned chitters and low soothing hums that had made his limbs grow loose and limp, a hindbrain response to comfort and safety that he knew despite the high key clamoring in the front offices.

Bee.

It was Bee in front of him. And while irrational fear pulled at his skin and pressed against his skull, he also knew that there was no need of fear. He was in his hive, he was with Beehemoth, he was safe and okay.

But still the tingle remained, made his muscles pull with tension even as others hung useless as he slumped against the wall, staff eventually clatting to the ground, slipping from his clammy grip. A shot of fear ran through him, screaming to dive for the weapon, pick it up and defend himself, but his body was too sluggish, overpowering the conflict in his head. Some part of him knew he was okay; if only he could convince the rest of him.

Beehemoth hung back tensely, having never seen Nictor act like this. Fought the urge to surge forward and crowd his little grub and gather him up, if only because when he’d approached before Nictor had nearly started to scream. The strangled noise had hurt Bee. There was no other way to phrase the feelings that bloomed in him, the thrumming concern and trickling dread that had made itself known and did not plan to leave. It hurt to hear that noise, to see Nictor’s twisted expression as it ripped from him, like something had wrapped around his body and squeezed. It went against everything inside Beehemoth to not immediately gather Nictor up but the noise had halted him. Sometimes Nictor needed a second to gather himself, had to get the jump out of his system before he calmed but this was...horrible.

Finally, Nictor’s demeanor softened and Bee’s hackles raised further.

“Bee?”

Beehemoth wasn’t sure that he actually heard the word, if Nictor had truly managed to utter anything past a dry throat and bone deep exhaustion, but he saw a word shaped by his charge’s lips and saw the disoriented look in his eyes and couldn’t quite hold back any longer. Beehemoth was still chittering and approached hesitantly for a foot or so, but when he was met with no more terrible noises, quickly crowded in, pulling Nictor to him.

The small, broken noise did nothing to soothe Beehemoth, who could only try to gather Nictor closer. Bee shuffled around, pulling Nictor away from where he’d been caught against the wall and pulling blankets and cushions along with him until he’d made a makeshift pile and his charge was leaning into him, half buried in his fluff and surrounded by soft things. Curious and tempted by the pile, the two gerbils, who had regrouped somewhere under the kitchen table, eventually joined them, playing with each other amongst the folds of fabric.

Bee wanted to ask what was wrong at first, but after that initial outburst, it hardly seemed the time. Nictor was too shaken to answer anything and as much as it bothered Bee to not know what was wrong so he could fix it, Nictor needed comfort right now. And so Beehemoth lay there with his little grub, humming and chittering as the tension slowly left Nictor.

Sadly the state of affairs didn’t really seem to get much better after that.

Coming home from the space tower base, Nictor drew into himself even more than usual. He never seemed quite so emptied out as he did that first evening, but he wasn’t all there. Wasn’t quite the same. Spacier, flightier, reluctant to speak about certain things. Certain things being most of what happened this time around at the space tower.

Beehemoth was, of course, highly concerned for Nictor, but hardly knew what to do here.

The lusus tried to be there as much as possible, staying around the hive more, trying to spend more time with Nictor to hopefully soothe away whatever is was inside his head that was consuming him. There were new scars that hadn’t been there when Nictor had left. The faded muddled marks on his hands from cuts on rocks long ago were overshadowed now by longer harsher scars, leftover from something gouging into the meat of his palms, the scars heavy and prominent as though they’d been torn open multiple times. Similar marks marred the underside of his forearms, starting and ending at the edges of where the arm guards couldn’t cover. Knuckles were scraped and scratched in a way that spoke of punching something with edges, perhaps multiple things, and it worried Beehemoth deeply. Nictor was never one for violence, shying away from the notion of it, reluctant and scared to learn to defend himself.

And in every awful case, he’d been forced into doing so he left with something chipped away, something precious and delicate that he didn’t think his little grub could get back. And that something was shattering to bits on the floor, leaving Nictor in a haze, unsure of what to do now that it was gone. Whatever that something was.

Nictor was reluctant to share his experiences with Bee, his answers shaky and empty, not saying much of anything at all, and Beehemoth pushing only led to Nictor desperately changing the subject or worse, growing silent and retreating into himself. Bee wasn’t sure what it was Nictor was feeling in those moments other than he hated it, hated that he’d caused it, and the worry persisted, driving him to stop asking. He learned direct inquiries only led to nervous fumbling, tinged with not the lighthearted anxiety, the simple frantic scramble for an answer Nictor had, but a darker, tenser, held a genuine fear and apprehension.

But Beehemoth still wanted to know, so he tried to probe more gently, tried to give room, hoping it would let Nictor be comfortable enough to share. Nothing else had ever troubled Nictor so much to share with his lusus and Beehemoth was bad at remembering until he’d already started asking or a little to optimistic that maybe this time.

He went for something more general though, hoping that if that barrier could be breached, the others would come quickly, but as long as the open ended what happened was still met with a flinch, Beehemoth pulled away from the more sensitive questions.

So Bee didn’t ask, even if the healed over tears running down Nictor’s torso sent a protective and righteous rage humming through his blood. Didn’t ask, even though the scar embedded into Nictor’s left shoulder looked distinctly like a bite made with the proportions of a troll’s mouth and Bee wanted to know if that’s what Nictor was having nightmares about.

Nictor came home, but not all of him made it back. Beehemoth wasn’t sure what part that was and wasn’t sure that knowing would really make it better. Bee was never the best at resting and thinking. Instead he set about watching after Nictor with the same attentiveness as when Nictor was as a child, only taking off when it was an absolute must.

If nothing else, Bee was slightly optimistic. Even with bruises forming under Nictor’s eyes from tense, sleepless days and how he lost himself every so often, it wasn’t as bad as that initial encounter.

Like, it’s not that it was incredibly better or anything, but it wasn’t any worse. Besides, Nictor was resilient, he’d always had a nervous manner about him but he would eventually gather himself back up after he’d had a chance to rest. Bee believed that.
 

[Taki-di]

It was a bit messy.

A bit.

Maybe more than a bit messy.

And Nictor wasn’t sure how to fix it.

Well, that was sort of a lie. He knew how to fix some of it. That some of it being how riled up Bee was, how he watched carefully and pressed to know what had happened, who had hurt him, worked himself into a tizzy as Nictor’s arms curled around himself to try and hold the shaking inside. Beehemoth was just worried, he asked this questions out of love and concern and this need to know what had happened to Nictor.

Except it was like there was this giant chasm in his head, picketed off with tape and neon warning signs, an armed guard escorting anyone that wandered too close away. You weren’t allowed to look, you weren’t allowed to touch. It was dangerous and risky and split the world down the middle, making it impossible to ignore even as you were expressly told to forget about it and move along. Inside that menacing void is where the answers lurked.

Whenever Beehemoth asked, Nictor tried, even as his limbs went tense and phantom aches flared up. Tried to dredge up an answer, something, anything, struggled to tell Bee the truth. But Nictor could barely fathom the truth, was allowed to examine it about as much as he was allowed to speak of it. Clammy hands and dry mouth prevailed, forcing silence upon Nictor when he couldn’t come up with an excuse fast enough, caught up in how he was approaching that precipice, how the darkness flared and creeped up the edges, slinking towards him.

When Nictor didn’t feel hollow and disoriented, he felt awful. Awful that Beehemoth was so worried over him, awful that he couldn’t find some way to soothe that worry. He wished he could say something that could fix this and make it better but his thoughts were emptier than they’d ever been these days. The truth wouldn’t help. Sure, then Bee would know, but how does he articulate that all? Things that were eating at his edges that he was trying to block out, flashes of horror and daymares that roused him in a state of panic so intense his chest hurt after each one. How did telling Bee what happened make it any better. He could see what it had done to Nictor. It would just upset him further, make him more determined to hover and help and as much as a part of him clung to the comfort and safety, another felt a gross squirming sense of guilt.

Nictor loved Bee and having him around, but this felt bad. The ease and lightness that normally surrounded them, superficial drama caused by klutziness and overreactions was replaced with something heavier, something more serious, colored by concern.

Nictor didn’t like how he was affecting Bee.

But it was hard.

He wanted to be more cheerful, wanted to let go of this solemness that was trailing him. But it was hard. It was so much harder than it should have been.

Beehemoth had noticed the changes and had a proper amount of concern over the them. Nictor met the realizations with blank acceptance. He knew it was something that should worry him but he couldn’t seem to muster a reaction to it. Didn’t fight it.

Nictor spaced out more often, likely to lose himself any time he wasn’t engaged and half the time when he was. It was harder to pull him out of it and when and when he was, he was liable to still be semi unresponsive. It wasn’t that Nictor didn’t normally space out but like this, it was just a bit worse and so much quieter, so much more still, if you discount the constant shiver to his limbs. The pervasive numbness had taken hold and his interest in things waned, not really enjoying activities as he did before. Liable to just stop doing something entirely.

When he wasn’t tired, he was miserable. When he wasn’t miserable, he was empty. When he wasn’t empty, he was tired.

It was the worst when he was entirely alone. Without something to hold his attention, to switch the gear in his head over to a normal track, he withdraw into himself. The issue there was that that was his default state. His post stress response. He wanted to hide away and without anything to stop him, he was doing an admirable job. Even if going out helped distract him from the growing void, the strangely increasing shakiness, the pressure still building, he didn’t want to. It made him feel more tired, more strange, it was too normal and that normalness painted starkly against the not right gave him gooseflesh. Made him want to run and hide, made the pressure feel like it was pressing harder afterwards, even if it was distracting in the moment.

It was hard to parse and he honestly didn’t know what was going on and trying to think on it too deeply made a certain type of both sharp stinging too real too present and dulled simmering subtle distress clutch at him, so he didn’t.

It was basically bad. It was all bad and Nictor was muddling through it and doing a terrible job and maybe making it worse but he just didn’t know what to do.

Despite the barely contained festing disaster that was Nictor, he couldn’t just shut down and shut himself away. Well, okay, yes he did to a degree, and anything that was normal seemed to make him feel strange and distant, which, well, it happened often, being inside his hive among the normalcy and things that should mean comfort. And they did and it was nice but at the same time something quailed and shied away.

If there was anything to break up the fog in Nictor’s head, it was the new that now lived in his home. The two new somethings.

Nictor had never had pets before, and Beehemoth knew just about as much as Nictor. Which was basically nothing at all. So this promised to go great.

This change up of routine was actually what held Nictor’s attention most, could pull him out of himself the best it seemed. Didn’t send a strange trill of something through him that would halt him and leave him to do naught but stare emptily with a hand hovering where it stopped in reaching for something on a shelf. Set his insides twisting around each other and forced him to halt or else something awful might happen but for the life of him he didn’t know what. He didn’t know why he was scared to touch his own things, why they felt fragile and breakable and that touching them might just shatter him.

He didn’t want to shatter and he was so close to breaking.

And then the notion was shuffled away, somewhere dark, into the big fathomless abyss that opened up, leaving him unsure of what he was feeling or why or what to do except not that.

That same slurry of emotions that paralyzed him is also what sent him scrambling into motion after the two zombie gerbils he’d brought into his hive. If Nictor himself felt compelled to disturb as little of the place as possible, like changing the things already in place may cause some kind of disastrous consequence, he was frantic about these two little creatures that had no such compulsions to keep their little paws to themselves.

Not that they really knew any better. Or did they? Nictor really wasn’t sure. As said, he’d never owned a pet before, let alone a zombie gerbil. How do you take care of a zombie. What do they eat even (flesh, they eat flesh, living breathing flesh they want to rend and tear and his chest seizes for a moment and his shoulder burns-), how does he feed these guys? They seem content with the crackers and rice and honey and dried fruit Nictor has a decent stock of. Fresh produce was much more rare these days given how infrequently Nictor was going into town. When he did, he tried to keep the trips short, tried to avoid contact as much as he could because there was some inherent discomfort trailing him now. It wasn’t the same as it used to be. Something was distinctly absent. Well. A few things were distinctly absent, some of them what seemed to be the new norms such as feeling generally off beat and a head emptier than it used to be. But there was something else absent. Something that had been there for so long that the sudden lack of it left some part of him reeling, discomforted by his lack of discomfort. Even if his thoughts had been firing off at their normal rate, they would have been suspiciously mellow. The clerks and the pedestrians didn’t worry him the way they used to and it made his skin prickle because he wasn’t sure why, wasn’t sure how to feel about it, didn’t know what to do when he was faced with his own awkwardness unaccompanied by the high key nervous brain babble.

It wasn’t right. He wasn’t right anymore.

The difference already made it weird, but then there was also this creeping tension, this other feeling that flared up now and he just didn’t know how to handle it. So he didn’t.

It wasn’t too different from how outings used to go really, it was more that his perception, his reactions, his stalls and stutters came from something else this time. He went out with a list of tasks in mind, skirted the crowd, spaced out staring at price tags, bumbled through checkout, and hurried all the way home. There he’d realize how much he was shaking, that the pressure was worse, threatening to peak despite how exhausted and strung out he felt and he’d curl into his blankets and hide. If only it worked maybe he’d actually feel better.

It couldn’t last for long though, not with a nosy couple of gerbils and a very concerned lusus who tried to be considerate but at the same time was prone to forget things amidst the distress.

A less dire kind of distress and more superficial, normal kind of stress, excluding that this was a new situation and not normal at all yet, was trying to keep track of these dang gerbils. Aside from the piercing terror to preserve his hive, Nictor felt bits of worry bubbling past the veil of numbness at times, looking at the gerbils or more especially not looking at them and realizing he had no idea where they were. The first was actually fairly clever and collected, though he had a tendency to act out and nibble at Nictor’s fingers when he spaced for a little too long on the couch. The second one though, it wasn’t that she wasn’t equally intelligent but that she used it in the wrong way. Too curious for her own good and determined to get into things that it probably shouldn’t, the second was the one Nictor often lost track of and would spend up to an hour scouring the hive for only to find little wiggling legs sticking out of the sink drain. It was concerning.

What may have been more concerning to anyone else would be how unprepared Nictor was to look after these two gerbils. He was trying but, well, it was a lot of guessing on his and Bee’s part and perhaps more trips into town than Nictor would like buying dry snacks and little bowls and some toys for gerbils in hopes they’d play with those instead of trying to climbs shelves to get to the out of the way cacti he owned. Why was the one gerbil even interested in it? Was it just because it was so out of the way? That sure seemed her goal, to get to any and all hard to reach places and things she really oughtn’t.

It occurred to Nictor he should probably name them, but neither he or Bee had come up with something that stuck yet. So gerbil one and gerbil two.

In the few weeks Nictor had been home, things had settled into a rhythm. Not that it was a good or bad one, simply that it was the current balance within the hive. A lot of sleepless days and shuffling small pawsteps as gerbils got up to things. During the night, Beehemoth would try to coax Nictor into doing something he normally enjoys only to be met with spotty results as Nictor spaced out or went about the action with a forced kind of interest which wasn't at all what they wanted. But Nictor was trying and Bee was trying and it was getting to them. Half eaten meals that gerbils one and two would get into and at least once every two days there was some sort of gerbil two emergency where Nictor realized he hadn’t see the critter in upwards of three hour oh no no no what did she get into-

For all the trouble that came with owning them, it’s not like Nictor was sure what else to do with them but try to care for them. It didn’t really even occur to him to try and pass them off or find them a new home. It was odd how even for all the bad that had come from space, he still clung to the stars, even if he could feel something clawing up his throat if he looked too long. How he kept that sturdy holographic sleeved jacket even though he got it from the trolls that had cast this turmoil upon him by sending him up into space. It was at the edge of the room, bolstered among a few blankets as a makeshift bed for the two zombified creatures he now held in his care.

What even was he doing.

The moments of clarity came on occasion and slipped away just as quickly but the insecurity that cloyed to his brain after made him so tired and made him want to dig his fingers into his face but instead he’d just press his palms into his eyes until the feeling went away. He didn’t know what he was doing anymore. He’d never really known what he was doing. But the sensation, free of the frenetic anxiety just felt like a crushing weight that was going to pull him under.

He wanted to do better by his new pets, but he felt too strange at times, too spacey, too tired, too much of something at any given moment and a growing upset was building in him at his inability to just do this better. Only when it wasn’t being drowned out by every too much that plagued him.

It hadn’t occurred to Nictor at first, instead he and Bee were blindly attempting to figure out what needed to be done for the gerbils. It wasn’t until a couple weeks in that it clicked that Nictor should buy a book. If that didn’t make him feel dumb for not thinking of, it left him feeling dumber when it took more time than it should have to push through the first chapter of “Gerbils & You.”

His eyes didn’t used to cross that much when reading, making him stall and reread passages as he tried to retain the information. And yet here he was.
 

[Taki-di]

Finally, one night, things began to change.

It was inevitable, really, for such an unsteady equilibrium to finally tip. Something like this would only be put off for so long.

Okay no, so, it could be put off indefinitely. Repress and ignore and let the pressure hold him down until he changes into something else, and by then nothing could fix the damage. In all fairness, it would seem some of that process already started.

But in the case of Nictor, it was inevitable. He had been teetering on a highwire, had accidentally set foot on the thing the moment he signed up for space and now he was paralyzed in the middle, starting to slip with every jounce of the thread. Being around trolls was conjuring up reactions it never used to, bombarding him with too much even as his thinkpan tried to resist. His hive felt wrong, going outside felt wrong; it was pervasive and never ending and he couldn’t get away from it no matter how much he was turning a blind eye.

It was going to catch up, it was just a matter of when.

The when came about a week after the, uh, incident. Accident. Mistake.

So, good news: the gerbils had names now. Wasn’t that great?

Uh, bad news: one of them drowned in honey.

Okay but see, it’s a zombie gerbil right? So. Well. It’s already dead. Undead? The logic of it was a little lost on Nictor. What happened though was that while Nictor was trying to be more careful around his hive, Nictor was also spacier than he used to be. So despite preventative efforts, he was still prone to forget. In this unfortunate case, it was closing up the large jar of honey he’d used close to dawn for some tea.

It was an accident. The concern of the second gerbil trying to sneak upstairs and get into the honey up there had seemed much more pressing, so the jars downstairs didn’t register as a problem. As it was, it was just a little bit underwhelming that she went and drowned in a jar of honey on the counter after being denied the playground of the upstairs honeycombs. Get into the wrong compartment up there and she could have been lost and crystallized for months before she got found.

Instead, Nictor, when he roused the next night, found a gerbil squeaking and shimmying frantically on the rim of his recuperacoon. It was a heck of a night getting lead to the kitchen by an upset gerbil to find the other one sluggishly moving around at the bottom of the honey that got left on the counter.

At first Nictor was horrified and struck that his gerbil was dead. Then he was horrified and struck that it was still alive and still in the honey.

It was indeed a heck of a night.

Back to that good news, the now honey infused zombie gerbil was named Mead. Other bad news, the honey didn’t really...come out? Nictor really didn’t know how long Mead was in there or how much of the honey she ate, but for all that Nictor tried to wipe her down and clean her, it was like her short fur was still honey-thick and sticky. Maybe it would wear off after a while? He had no idea, but by the end of the night Nictor had gone and bought a tank,a wire cage, and other amenities needed to set up the enclosure because it was rather obvious that Mead could and would hurt herself getting into things and it needed to stop now. For safety, the other gerbil, Bjorn, by the by, got set up with the wire cage. It was mostly for when Nictor wasn’t around or able to keep an eye on him that he gets put away, but Mead spends most time in her enclosure or inside a gerbil ball now. And if she got loose, well, she was a lot easier to track now with the honey trail. But also it was preferable not to get honey on anything, or for her to get herself into anything worse.

Mead was equipped with a neck cone after Nictor caught her sucking her own paws and got worried she might try to bite them off. She got out of the device three or four times before Nictor gave up. He left a little tub of honey in her tank for her in hopes if she likes the stuff that much, she’d eat it regular and not from her paws. Seems she had a taste for it now and Nictor’s not sure but she keeps bathing in the stuff?

She may want more honey in her tank and he’s not sure how to feel about that.

Luckily they took to the new housing fairly well, though Bjorn would get fussy about being let out when Nictor was awake and about, and given his good behavior, Nictor usually obliged. Meanwhile, Mead seemed okay examining and rexamining her enclosure as long as she has toys and structures to climb on. She got bored if they weren’t not changed out every couple days, but otherwise? Not the worst.

Except it was also sort of awful and Nictor spent the day scrambling to get them set up properly and froze up no less than three times in reaction to multiple things. He felt almost normal for a brief stint there as the need to take care of this and anxious thoughts crowded in, sending him scrambling for his book he’d been using, caught between relief that Mead was alive but still horrified by it. Just for a little bit though. Just until it sunk in and sent his hands shaking hard enough he nearly dropped Mead when trying to clean her.

Nictor had managed to fumble through the rest of the day and the pressing worry of just how badly he had been attending to Mead and Bjorn up until now managed to eke some more action out of him, but a gross gnawing guilt had taken up residence, felt something quaver when he looked around his hive and saw the growing changes that he’d tried to hide from, felt the crack widen.

It wouldn’t be long now.

And it wasn’t.
 

[Taki-di]

It was a week later, about a month after returning from volunteer duty.

For a long while now, Nictor didn’t leave the hive without his arm guards and his bo staff, or at least, he tried not to. He’d felt a scared sort of reluctance to handle the staff, sometimes forgot the guards and then felt vaguely exposed when he realized they weren’t there half way through shopping. They were his protection, but the fact he owned and carried them as all made him want to hug himself. He wasn’t good with violence, and it was even worse when he could remember the occasions he’d had to wield the staff. But still he brought the, even when they caused him to shrink away, because it made Bee feel better and it made him feel better and worse in equal measure. Felt worse because it made him feel better.

And that was before.

Now? Now the idea of leaving the hive sans these objects set his entire being on edge. Unfathomable. Felt like his lungs were constricting and his vision was crossing when he stared down his staff and tried to reach for the door, intent on leaving it behind to try and, what, prove to himself he didn’t need it? It didn’t work. It did the exact opposite.

He did need it. He needed it because you never knew what could happen, never knew who or what was there. Even though he didn’t seem afraid of the trolls around him the way he was before, he constantly felt this tension lingering in him, plucking at his every last nerve. The same panic that sent him into a mindless scramble when the thing went clattering to the ground on a ship in space made him incapable of leaving without it. Honestly, it was normally close at hand now, attached to his belt by pure habit, a vital piece to soothing the upset that lived inside him, fostered by death bearing down on him, making him crave the comforts of things he never wanted to take comfort in.

The issue here also being that you have someone naturally jumpy and nervous, whose always embodied a flight reaction but has proven when threatened to react on instinct and self preservation. Someone that had been coping rather poorly but there was no one to guide him and he wasn’t reaching out and he’d been alone with his thoughts that he didn’t have for a month now, feeling something start to crawl up his spine, slowly slowly clawing its way up. Or had it been there for longer. Had it been wrapped around his throat this whole time but he hadn’t noticed past the blinders over his eyes.

As said, it all finally came to a head.

He was out at the time, getting...uh. Getting. Something. He didn’t remember and he wouldn’t remember for a while what it was, not until it was nearly dawn and by then, well. The point was, Nictor was inside, nearly done getting groceries, a much blander mix of dry goods than usual. It was when he was picking up some grapes, something fresh and sweet for Bjorn and Mead. Not that they needed more sweet, Nictor had a rather abundant supply of honey in his hive. He was blinking a little blearily at the fruit, taking a few moments to work past the tremulous ever present tension in his body, the weak feeling in his knees and wrists to tell himself to pick up a bag of grapes.

Do it. Come on.

As Nictor’s hand not holding a grocery basket finally responded, it should be noted that up until this point, the venture into Chittentown proper had been about as average as can be. Average as per the current state of affairs anyway. Thoughts a little empty and spacy? Check. A fumbling sort of confused curiosity and reticence at noticing the abstract lack of fear at the inherent existence of other trolls? Checkers. A creeping, uncomfortable feeling that nothing is safe? Checkerino. Jumpy, hyper aware of loud noises, and aborted motions that made his stomach turn? Double checkity check.

A high stress shot of adrenaline and raw fear that shot straight through him and made his head hurt that inevitably left him feeling like a limp puppet when he registered that it was nothing? Yeah. Uh, check.

Average. Totally average.

Right up until that exact moment.

The precise order of what happened was hardly important. Within the span of a few seconds though, a few things occurred. There was a clattering sound, metal striking linoleum followed by a resounding crash, the grating sound of metal and other objects scattering managing to reach through the entire store. A rather loud exclamation which may have been “********!” mixed into the previous noise, going a little screechy halfway through. And half the store went dark.

Nictor’s breath caught. For a second he could not move.

He was in the grocery store, he was buying foo...h…..he was…

In the dark hallway of a ship, inky eerie black was surrounding him, closing in on him. There was an inkling of light from somewhere, from the not entirely dead monitors of the still structure. The uncomfortable dead feeling of the ship was not as he expected; instead it was more populated, more teeming than any of the others but he couldn’t see them, he couldn’t see any of them, his headlamp wasn’t there so he was left in darkness. A cacophony of groans and hisses were garbled, mixing into real voices because they used to have those. They weren’t supposed to have those after they were dead but they did now because they were dead not dead trolls not trolls monsters monsters monsters-

Nictor sucked a breath in like it’d be his last, uneven, desperate, a high pitched noise rattling the intake. It was dark, it was so dark, and there were things everywhere, daywalkers looking for flesh and blood, something fresh to try and wash away the rot of their own fetid corpse but in turn it would all become foul.

Why was this happening?

He was supposed to be home, he was supposed to be rid of this, but it was here, he was there. Where was Bee? Where was anyone? He was here alone, and nothing was okay, he was going to die the daywalkers were everywhere where was Bee?

Through all the ships, he had remained...steady? No, not quite, but, he’d gotten through it. He’d reacted, past the initial freezes. He’d started associating the the living breathing trolls with clear orange hued eyes and weapons in hand pointed away from him with safety but there were none now. No Hifumi or Static or Tevini to offer him a spare kindness, no Hemera who’d lost her legs or Mahmud who’d been crushed under debris.

He was devoid of any comfort or security in that moment, any possible safety net, anything to fall back on. It was like the flagship except there he’d had to walk face first into danger, had lost his staff and was left with only his hands he had to live, had to live, but now, now, despite the hyper vigilance that had kept him strung out and exhausted that meant he should be ready for this, he knew it was coming, he knew it-

A desperate hopeless keening inside him cried that this wasn’t right, this shouldn’t be happening where was Bee, where was Bee where was Bee.

The keen spilled from his heart and out of his mouth, a rough sob that that wrenched his chest and his throat was tight, choking on his own torrent of emotion and adrenaline he couldn’t move, he was caught and he knew this was bad, he knew he needed to move but his body had seized and it burned and ached and yelled to move move move even as another part of him pulled the opposite direction. A pitchy whine was filling his ears, stringing together the groans and footsteps and words that his thinkpan could not parse, just that they were speaking.

They were speaking, they could speak, they were trolls, someone like Kolako or Mahmud but terrifying and coming to kill him so he’d k-

There was a noise like a squeak on footwear against the floor and the rustle shuffle of clothing as legs lamely brushed against each other in an uneven gait as it approached. It was all he could hear for a moment, the whine and the voices fading into pure white noise, the shuffle step closer, closer, closer-

All it took was one squeak too close and the tension snapped, a wire stretched and stretched that hold under the pressed until it snaps, almost when you least expect it but there’s no stopping it when it does.

A sharp intake of air and Nictor is spinning, eyes wildly searching in the dark and the voice is so close why did he let it get this close, one hand swinging wide to try and fend off the something that felt like it was closing in and the other going for his belt. He hand struck something and any possibility of this being calmed was lost. He felt it, the something moving in the dark that he couldn’t see, the kind of horrible hair raising sensation digging into his skin screaming to get away.

Nictor’s feet kicked out, striking something solid and sending it and its contents scattering. His muscles were jerky, rigid with tension but kicking into motion, figuratively and literally as he half tripped and scrambled half upright. His bo staff was secured in his hand now, extending with a shunk that gave the panic direction, an out, a way to keep it away and he gripped hard with both hands, the metal giving some kind of grounding within the fear haze. He had to get away but the too close voice was rising and following no NO.

Nictor recoiled and swung, his muscles jumping when contact was made, a voice cried out and oh that soft beaten thing inside of him that had been trembling and bleeding since the first ship gave in and cried too.

He hurt it and a part of him said good. The rest began to weep.

There was no time, no help, no space. He felt like he was struggling to suck air in, like the atmosphere was thin and his face wet and his limbs didn’t want to work at all but they had to, they had too.

Nictor fled.

He was running, or as well as he could run at the moment. It looked more like a drunken and frantic stumble. He did not care or mind how he bumped into things, just had to get away. The darkness was broken, softly lit in places ambient light, and he went after it like it was the only thing that could save him. There was no crew, he didn’t know how he got here or how to get out, there was a pod somewhere right, there had to be a way out?

What if there wasn’t?

His flight towards the light ws ungainly and graceless, fingers tightened on the staff like a vice even as it caught and struck on objects that had no business in a hallway but it seemed to stretch forever and the light was coming from something in the walls he wasn’t sure. There were no questions in his head, there was no room for them. The information itself was taking up precious little space, crowding and overwhelming as that pressure, that pressure was here, it was inside the precious protective barrier of his mind and stirring everything around. He did not feel the tears on his face or hear the words being called after him both concerned and frustrated. His skin was crawling, his heart was pounding his chest hurt and it felt like his limbs weren’t quite real, like he’d listed out of his body and slightly to the left even as he was too aware of everything he felt, the input overload drowning him.

Nictor burst out into starlight, and he could see them, trolls everywhere, white shapes of different sizes, all creatures that had been left to float alone in the depths of space. There were so many and his chest jumped, his vision still a smear of colors he knew. Albeit a better lit smear, but they were just colors, colors he could associate with things, enough to assume they were threats, dangers, but something was wrong. What was wrong he couldn’t tell but something was wrong there was too much open space and light and the smell, the strange rot and stale air was ebbing into something else, too fresh and crisp for a ship. It was...too much light, too much space. Even as a frenzied panic was running amok at all the threats, everywhere, they were everywhere, confusion was setting in, enough to stumble and halt him. That and the sinking horror of there being nowhere to run.

Something was starting to sink in under the light, the layer over his vision swimming with threatening shadows had receded and he was left reeling when the distress lost its direction. These were zombies except that was….something was wrong but he was having trouble putting it together. Less of the raw fear and more of the jittery nerves called for him to get away from them, to breathe, just breathe, maybe then he could see.

It never got to that though.

Instead something sounded behind him and the confusion that was tempering him was completely superseded in a second when something came close, he heard the step the intake of air and the start of a voice.

It happened without thinking, driven by by the abrupt crushing sensation around his throat, the blaring terror that reared back in less than half a second, the newly shaped instinct to strike the threat when it got too close and he could not move fast enough.

The impact was fleshy and the target gave, throwing the troll that had been reaching for his back to the sidewalk, a wheezing pained noise trailing them on their way down.

Nictor saw not the unforgiving steel halls of a ship, the swinging headlamp lights and scarily still air between one doorway and the next with undead trolls shuffling in the darkened edges of his vision and monsters waiting for you to stumble upon them. He saw a storefront that registered familiarity, somewhere he’d been many a time, a niggling sense that told him this was very much not a spaceship floating in the vacuum above. He saw glass and an automatic sliding door and inside the lights had gone out on the half of the store closest to the door, the lights from the other half casting a glow across it. At his feet was not a monster with sunken eyes and rotted flesh, carved out chest and dripping jaws. At his feet was not a monster.

It was a troll.

It was another troll, with a pinched expression and spittle and blood wetting their lips as hands covered their throat as though that would help them regain ease of breathing. They coughed slightly before they coughed again, rougher, wetter, could hear the chest in the sound and Nictor felt his own cringe in response, even as he stared. He stared, wide eyed at the downed troll. Just a troll.

He had no reason to think they were violent. It was just a troll. Just another troll.

Face colored with an upset flush, eyes blown wide and tears tracking down his cheeks, Nictor stared down at his victim, his breathing hitching but he couldn’t breath past the lump that had taken up residence.

He was staring at the downed troll, could see him, an uncomfortable clarity after losing sight of reality for a second but nothing in his thinkpan wanted to process. There were too many things firing off at once and he’d been trying to cover his ears from all of this for the past month. Turned away and unseeing and carefully hiding, closing his eyes even as hot terrifying breath of reality fanned over his face.

The chase had started again in that store, but this time, Nictor didn’t manage to close his ears and eyes fast enough not to be slapped with the cold unforgiving truth. Instead he was caught red handed.

There was no hiding. There was no ignoring. And still his brain was trying, scrambling, frantically looking for anything to make this not real, like those halls and daymares that had just swamped him. Except those halls had been real, just like this.

Nictor tried to speak. He opened his mouth, the rushing too real and too muted panic taking a shot of icy dread like a drop of ink to water, except nothing was diluting, instead it was consuming, encompassing, the darkness was spilling out of that chasm he tried not to look at. Nothing came out but a shaky exhale, too much air to really be a whine. He tried again but it was worse, pitchier and louder and felt like he had to heave his chest to make the noise.

Nothing.

He had nothing. There was no explanation, no excuse, there was nothing to make this better as he froze over for a second. This was the moment before the wire snapped, the final moment of the calm before the storm, watching the last straw come to rest, seeing something fragile and important drop and this was the impact, the moment of shattering on the ground into a thousand pieces that could never be fixed. His chest hitched a final time.
 

[Taki-di]

He ran.

He ran all the way back to his hive, breaths heaving thick and ragged, vision blurred at the edges and too sharp in the center when the tears weren’t forcing a distortion that blew out any lightsource.

It felt like his head was about to explode and the urge to run, hide, you’re not safe sent him fleeing for home even as his sense felt like they were on fire, felt like existing in this moment was too much, being where he was was too much so he had to move. He had to get away, get somewhere safe as his parts shook apart, trying to unfasten and drop to the ground as he ran, sending him skidding and tripping and sand bit into his eyes and he tried to blink it away as he couldn’t stop moving, he had to get out out out-

There was no getting out. The distraught feeling of wishing he could phase out of reality, somehow get away, make this not real wouldn’t happen and it just made it worse because he was trying, stupidly still trying.

Nictor arrived home except it hadn’t felt rightly like home but it was safe and familiar even if some gross feeling told him it wasn’t right because he wasn’t safe, not any more, maybe he’d never been-

That emptiness that had taken up residence in his head? It wasn’t empty. The space cumbled and gave way under the pressure, compressing and splintering as it filled, everything wrecking in its wake. Nothing was clear or discernable, just a roaring that drowned him, filled and held him hostage, too much, too much. He stumbled through the doorway, eyes wild and frantic, still burning from grit though most had been washed out. The burn remained in the rest of his body, his chest heaving for air, his throat still feeling like something was wrapped around it, too tight, too tight, muscles wound tight, too tight, aching with no sign of relief.

He swayed as he slowed after entry, looking around like he’d never seen the place before, casing the place as though both his damnation and salvation was lurking somewhere in the room and a tremulous teary call inside him might have just been looking for the guardian he’d desperately called for in his mind not long ago.

Why wasn’t Bee here?

Nictor could not see his own features to say what he looked like right then, but the pull on his face, the tension, he was sure he didn’t look anywhere near okay.

Nictor reeled, even as his heart hurt and was begging him to do something, he didn’t know what. More prevalent was the panic, the sensation that drove him all the way to his hive, that sent him stumbling back towards the door, clumsily slamming it shut with hands fisted tight around his bo staff.

His bo staff.

Finally away from eyes, given the space, his attention was drawn back to the pressing matters that only took back seat so long as the screaming panic could drown them out and without the presence of anything else to force him outside of himself, there was nothing to stop him now.

Now, now he stood in place, tremors wracking his whole body as he stared at the harsh unforgiving metal in his hands. He’d had the staff for a long time and had a rather awful idea of how to utilize it for most of that time. Frankly, he still didn’t know the finesse and method of using it but he could find results apparently.

He’d never liked the thing.

Its mere existence had always been upsetting in some way, something he flinched away from, tried to avoid if he could but was inevitably forced to keep on him. Something he wielded both gingerly and awkwardly. It was upsetting for many reasons, but perhaps the easiest way to understand the inherent unsettled feeling it left him with would be to know that Nictor was not a violent troll. In the least. He never had been.

Maybe he was soft or weak or a coward. Maybe he was all three.

It was never something he quite had the stomach for. Never something he desired, never something he liked, never something he sought. Nictor was uncoordinated, he was nervous, he was awkward and maybe not cut out quite right for Alternia. If he truly had his way, he’d never have had to touch the staff, to never raise it against another.

Except he had. He had, and the first time had been….it….it had been at Kolako. His first friend. Someone that gave him flowers because she saw him look longingly after them but knew him to be to nervous get them himself. It had left him feeling exposed, had scattered the fear of her as a troll when he cradled the delicate petals.Replaced it with a breathless sort of awe.

And she had been the first person he’d drawn his bo staff on.

The noise he made was small and choked as he stared at his hands, gripping this thing as though they’d never let go again.

He’d fought Kolako and he never quite felt okay about it but he just didn’t think about it. The same way he didn’t think about Toothy, who tried to teach him how to fight and it it ended...not well. Nictor felt awful about every time he’d pulled out the staff, a squirming guilt that dug at him saying he shouldn’t have, he should have never, some sort of existential dread that he’d done something irredeemable. And he’d just shunted the thought away.

He couldn’t handle it.

Except there was no choice now, no way to ignore it, he’d been trying for a month and it hadn’t been properly silenced, instead sitting impatiently, waiting for him to acknowledge and then it came to this.

His hand were shaking, fine tremors eching through his whole body. Let go. Let go.

The staff was something he feared, in a way. Something that struck on something deep deep within him, left him feeling discomfited in the most conflicting way. It was never something he liked, never something he chose or wanted attached to his person.

It wasn’t supposed to be something he needed.

But here he was. Here he was with his own conceptualization of security and stability dependent on this weapon being by his side. Dependant on him being able to wield violence against someone else.

Dependent on his ability to strike down someone that had never done anything to him.

The whine was worse, something approaching a sob but not quite as he pushed his hands away and tried to shake them out but the staff remained.

Because now, now the idea of losing it was paralyzing. Not having it send part of his brain into a frenzy, it was a comfort in a place he didn’t want it, left him feeling sick that without it he was set adrift into mind bending fear, that losing it would send him scrambling to the floor because without it he had no way to stave off death.

Let go.

LET GO.

He shook his hands again, harder this time, and the staff struck against the base of shelf next to the door. The sound, amongst the quiet of the hive was jarring and Nictor winced, stumbling back a step but the staff followed and he wanted it gone. He wanted it lost in space, far far away, somewhere he’d never see or think or speak of it again, he wished it could just disappear, or for him to be able to disappear from it because it was everything that was wrong.

Nictor wanted to pry his own fingers from the staff but his own body was adamantly refusing to relinquish the awful thing, the screaming upset in his head growing sharper with each passing second. And the sharper the feeling got, the more some part of him curled and tried to pull away from it, getting worse and worse. The two feelings kept rebounding off each other until the drowning fuzz of silence and nothing filled his head but it did not quiet his turmoil.

Part of him yelled to throw it, throw it as hard as he good, get rid of it, throw it off a cliff and be rid of it. Another part of him, the quailing tremulous cracked open and raw well of emotions wretchedly dove after the mental conceptualization and at the same time cried that throwing it at all was just as violent, there it was, there it was the thing he’s hiding from, pulling him into action, no longer hidden and secret and something he thought didn’t exist but it was right there.

It had hurt Kolako, it made Nictor learn violence, it had killed things-

His vision was blurry again.

He had killed things.

The staff fell, softly thumping into the carpeted floor and Nictor fell back with a halting whine. Soft, broken noise came with every breath, desperate for air and some piece of him wishing the air would stop coming at all. He stumbled backwards, away from the staff, the jittery nerves pricking up at the loss, of knowing it was not on his person and it just made him grow louder.

Why did this have to happen?

Finally, the back of his legs hit the edge of the couch and that shouldn’t have made him jump, but it did, even as he crumpled back into the sofa. He couldn’t look away from the staff on the floor. Tension that had never left his frame from over a month was tightening, worsening, making limbs curl and tendons stretch against skin and for the love of anything he had no idea what to do, what he was going to do.

He didn’t know what this was, where this would lead, and he’d already done so many things that weren’t...they weren’t him, they weren’t things he thought he’d ever do, that he even could do but he had and there was no taking them back, even as his brain pushed them away, weakly batted them but they would not leave they could not they were him.

His hands clutched at the cushions, digging into the worn fabric, pulling slightly, slowly scratching over the surface as his body pressed further and further into the back, trying to retreat but there was nowhere else to go. There was no getting away.

Not from what had happened. Not from what he’d done. And least of all from himself.

One hand hit a cushion, plush and soft, pollen ground into its surface like every other object within the hive, familiar and comforting, speaking of innocence. Of a boy who was scared and flighty and unsure, who’d wrapped himself up with a loving guardian, coddled in comfort and kindness to keep him safe from every darkness that lurked outside his home. A boy who would never kill. But that boy had. That boy had taken a staff and broken bones, swung hard enough to crumple the monsters who lurked around him but in the process, was he not one of them now.

His hand clawed into the cushion, his vision blurring, waiting to see what he would do, half paralyzed, feeling like he was watching something he couldn't control and, and-

He was scared. He was so ******** scared. His hands were going to dig into the cushion, he’d take it between two hands and rend it in half and the tear of fabric would echo inside himself, pulling apart the soft pliant exterior and leave something dark and horrid in its wake, something that would destroy the clumsily preserved hive that represented everything he wasn’t and didn’t deserve because he had killed. He’d killed trolls. Trolls with thoughts and feelings that were dead not dead maybe dead and he’d attacked the regular not dead ones too, he’d taken the face of Maages Ourles and broken open their skull with his own two hands it wasn’t the staff it was him.

Tighter, tighter, he was on the brink, careening over the edge of the cliff in slow motion, at the base of a valley watching the sky press down to smother him and it was the moment before impact, the last second of anticipation before-

The cushion was between both of his hand and he felt something moving and this was it.

His breath hitched once, twice.

Nictor sobbed.

Oh.

It ripped out of his chest like someone reached inside of him, grabbed ahold of his lungs, and wrenched them, all of the air leaving him in a rush as he crushed the pillow to his face but the noise would not be muffled. It was loud, it was wretched, and every iota of his being trembled with every motion. The dam had broken, the crushing haunting everything had finally caught up and he was curling into himself like a dying animal, knowing there was no getting away but he was driven to try to protect himself despite it.

He’d moved through the past month strangely absent of the fear he’d come to know because he didn’t fear the normal troll anymore. It was absurd, unthinkable right up until this point in his life, but no less true.

They paled in comparison to fear that was lingering under his skin, that had never left.

He was so, so scared.

Everything was too warm, half felt like he was burning from the inside out as everything he’d tried to lock inside because he didn’t know what to do came flooding out and he curled tighter around the cushion, bent in half and tried to disappear into himself, the heaving cries dragging out longer and rougher and sounding like each and every one of them was being punched out of him.

The monsters were real. Every daymare he’d ever had, every stray thought and terror, it was real and it was the daywalkers in space and the decomposing lusii. It was facsimiles of what they used to be, the long forgotten corpses of creatures that had once been something else, reduced to beasts of hunger and desecration.

They were real and he’d seen them and he’d lost.

Nictor made it out alive but he lost.

There were marks marring his skin where they’d caught him, across his palms and arms and torso, he’d had teeth sink into his skin and try to tear. He could still feel them. Nictor could still see the swinging shadows, the gaping rotted mouths and teeth, the mutations leaking pus and black fetid discharge, the empty torso cavity his hands had dug into, the bite of teeth into his palms and knuckles, the give of skin and bone under his hands as he beat a skull into metal until it gave and then some more until is spilled and then some more until it was emptying.

He was so, so scared. Of everything except some things and he didn't know how to phrase that or understand it and just because he didn’t know what or how didn’t make it any less real.

He had always carried fear with him but this, this had dug under his skin and into his bones, polluted his blood until it was inseparable. Nictor’s whole body shook and heaved, ribs too tight around his lungs as he dragged air in and expelled it with too much spit and sound and pressed the pillow too his face and let his fingers press, press until he felt them through the fabric because that was better than digging into scalp.

He was terrified of the monsters that lurked in his head, that were real, that would never leave him, branded into his skin for him to carry for the rest of his life.

He was terrified of himself, and what he could do.

What he would do.

What he did.

What he could do again.

It was this awful irreconcilable conflict in his head, running into two ends of reality that had struck him from opposite sides. Two branching trains of thought that exist within him but inherently do not line up and leave anything they encounter in shambles.

And it’s stupid, it’s foolish, it’s blind and ignorant and how did he manage to get by with not understanding this for so long? Is there a way to go back to not understanding?

Nictor had always thought trolls were the scariest thing in the world. Trolls were inherently bad, something fearful and vicious. They would trick you and hurt you if given half a chance and this preconceived notion had clung to Nictor his whole life. He was scared of wild naturae sure, but trolls were especially scary for that potential, how he had to walk among them and know that someone could turn on him at any moment.

It was just a fundamental fact that he’d learned and clung to.

And when he met Kolako, when they became friends, it was like the concept of the troll slid off of her, she was not subject to the mindless fear, just as Hemera or Mahmud or Polair. They had shown a kindness that was so incongruous with a troll that they shed the tinted lens entirely. They were trolls obviously but they weren’t trolls, as though that made sense, as though that was okay, as though that system worked. That there were trolls who he did not know and they were bad but the ones he knew were good.

They were trolls but they weren’t but they were. Just like the daywalkers in the dead ships that used to be trolls and now they were monsters, real monsters, whey were stills trolls but not trolls and it all made his head hurt but there was an important realization here that meant he couldn’t just scrub it all into obscurity.

Trolls were bad. Except the ones that were good. Except, he really didn’t know if a troll was bad or good and just being a troll didn’t actually make them bad. They could still hurt and that was scary but Nictor had seen the real terrors they could be molded into and they weren’t it. And even those daywalkers, they were trolls, once upon a time, they thought and felt and could have been anyone. Absolutely anyone.

And he’d killed them.

It came back to that simple fact, that simple fact that wasn’t simple it was earth shattering and had torn Nictor’s veil of innocence asunder. Pulled that bleeding, beaten creature from inside the cocoon of his heart and thrown it into the open for all to see and it perished under the light. And it left Nictor so very small and alone.

Somehow, through it all, he’d never really thought about it. His friends, the trolls he cared about, the notion had been disconnected from them, wrong to be applied. In this case, for the first time in his life, he was faced with the unignorable fact that he was a troll. It was mind bending to try to wrap his head around, the conscious understanding that he was a troll, a fact that he knew and yet wrenching crumbling horror accompanied it, a cold shock that sent a crash of thunder and lingering oppressive quiet in its wake.

While others had come to be set free of that judgement, he was coming under its scrutiny.

He’d killed things. Things didn’t do it justice though, he killed trolls, he’d killed people. People that may have no longer been people but they use to be and it hurt to know, hurt to do but he did it anyway.

He’d been so scared.

Was still so so scared. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t gone looking for the fight, that he’d dreaded it, that he didn’t want to be a part of any of it. It didn’t change that he had been there and he’d killed those trolls alongside his teammates. It didn’t matter if it was to protect himself because he never wanted to raise a hand against someone but it happened and space hadn’t been the first time.

The reason would never matter. All that did was what he had done. There was no more escaping that.

He knew...he knew that Beehemoth had fought things off of him before, had protected Nictor. He knew that Kolako had fought and killed things, Polair and Hemera and Mahmud had all been on ships and killed the daywalkers too. And yet, that, that was okay. The same flighty tremulous emotions inside of him that were pulling themselves apart over the fact that he had killed recoiled from condemning them in the same way.

They were okay, they were good. Not like him.

He knew that there was something wrong here, the way he was thinking about this wasn’t right, but he couldn’t shut it down, couldn’t stop the roaring circles of thoughts that pressed into him and held him into a tight ball on his couch as he cried and cried and his throat was already hoarse but it didn’t stop.

What if this was just the start. Psykgi and Buffel had complimented him, telling him he was good at the killing, and by that point in the runs he was starting to pick things up and just that thought in and of himself pulled another distraught noise from him.

He didn’t know. He didn’t know what to do with this, he didn’t know how to be okay with this or if he even could be.

Nictor didn’t know the answer to this. He didn’t know. He didn’t know.

Because what if there was something hidden in his heart. What if he was the monster he’d always been so very very scared of. What if he was becoming something empty and vicious that would strike out without reason and murder.

He was so, so, scared.






And when Beehemoth returned home later that night, he found his poor, broken little grub still hoarsely crying on the couch. Beehemoth got his answers.

Nictor had been right though.

It didn’t make it any better.