Kaprao Ocimum (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
deadpanlife) wrote2012-04-13 06:04 am
deadpanlife) wrote2012-04-13 06:04 am
does growing up mean being able to become strong?
I
You are two, and you love flowers.
You think it could be attributed to psychic powers because your lusus seems to think it isn't normal, but you frankly don't really care. The book you found a few weeks ago probably didn't help either, with its wordless yellow pages and drawings of flowers and herbs, symbols drawn next to them, faded but still legible. You hadn't realized there were so many different kinds of plants until then.
There is something about flowers that makes you inexplicably, deeply and intensely happy and content. You don't even have to try, you simply feel them; the way they take root in the soil and absorb the moonlight and sway in the breeze. It's hard to describe in words, because it's not as if they have words for anything. The feedback you get from them when you concentrate hard enough is incomprehensible, to say the least. But you are connected to them, one way or another.
It's a wonderful feeling.
II
You are three, and you are deeply regretting ever approaching this group.
The forest where your cavehive is happens to be so far out of the way that you rarely ever get any visitors, so when this group in outlandish clothes showed up you thought to take a look. You've never met another troll before, let alone trolls with fins and gills, and curiosity gets the better of you. They are all at least a sweep or two older than you are, or it might just be that you're really small. Or both. You're too distracted to decide for sure because one of them just plucked the carnation tucked into your hair away. She's examining it with a look on her face while crushing it between her fingers, and you can't help but cringe as you feel its life get snuffed out just like that. A few them have noticed it at least, because you can hear a snicker and you start backing away, this was a bad idea --
You feel yourself knock into something solid, and you look up to stare into a greasy white skull face painted on gray skin. Instantly you scamper to the front with a yelp, and you realize at some point they've surrounded you. There are whispers, both conspiratorial and mocking, before the one who killed your flower asks if you'd like to join them in for a game. You are too afraid to say no, so you answer with the exact opposite of what you mean.
There's a sudden sharp pain in your shoulder before you realize it. And you scream and you scream and you scream as you see bright red flowing right out and staining your clothes and the ground. They're laughing now, and you think you can feel the blade piercing through you entirely and you can only keep screaming louder it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts --
There are footsteps like thunder, heavy and loud and only growing louder. You know those footsteps.
There are more screams. They are not yours.
III
You are still three, and you are deeply regretting ever leaving your hive. Once again.
Your lusus is sick of your isolation and has shoved you out to get some fresh air after nights of staying inside. You tell yourself it's only because he's worried, but it makes this no better. You want to stay inside with your flowers and safe away from everything else, but he's parked himself by the entrance and refuses to let you back in until you've made your rounds.
Okay, fine. You can do that. Or at least that's what you thought until you passed by where that happened (you can still see the stains --). You would have moved on, except there's a seadweller girl there, looking terribly focused and a touch wild, searching for something from what you can see -- you recognize her and try to leave immediately.
But no, you are not quiet enough, and her head snaps up to look at you and the look on her face is something terrible to behold. You can't react in time, because in two wide strides she's managed to close the distance between the two of you, cold hands around your neck and raising you up to look at you eye-to-eye. There is nothing but rage and a desire to watch your life extinguish right before her.
The screaming was, perhaps, the most awful thing of all, in between you gasping for air and trying to loosen her grip.
(How dare you show yourself she's dead because of you give her back give her back GIVE HER BACK YOU WORTHLESS PIECE OF SHIT quadrant killer)
There are footsteps like thunder, heavy and loud and only growing louder. You know those footsteps.
You were hoping you'd never have to go through this ever again. This is what you get for leaving.
IV
You are three and a half, and you are sick of waking up in the middle of the day like this.
For all that the sopor slime manages to quell the nightmares that haunt the troll subconscious, it doesn't seem to do much for anything else. Too often have you found yourself scrambling out of your recuperacoon shaking with terror, thinking the sopor slime is blue or violet or indigo or some other cool colour and running into the abulation block to wash off the not-blood. You haven't been able to sleep well, lately.
In your dreams are broken bodies and broken bones, mangled in ways that should not be possible. In your dreams are things that go squelch and screams that echo on and on, filled with horror and pain and interrupted pleas for help. And you are standing in the middle of it all, covered in the upper spectrum of blood and bits that you would rather not think too hard about what they used to be.
(And underneath all those screams, there was another. Accusatory. Grieved. Enraged. Completely right.)
You used to cry uncontrollably, back when you first started having them, and your lusus had to nudge you with his horns to make you get a hold of yourself. Your reserves of tears have long since dried up, and you are only tired now.
You drag yourself over to your garden, beautiful and flourishing, and curl up among the flowers, let the sensations that feed straight into your thinkpan calm you down.
The nightmares that haunt your species' subconscious would be preferable to what you've been dealing with, you think.
V
You are five, and you are standing at the edge of the forest.
You're not sure why you're doing this, since you've figured that if your forest is dangerous, what does that say about the rest of Alternia? You already spend most of your days running from murderbeasts while gathering, you don't need more on your plate.
And yet. And yet you are here, because you have heard things on Trollian and you are curious. The trolls who have pestered you have talked about the kind of places they live in, and you cannot help but wonder what they're really like and what kind of flowers you may be able to find there. The forest runs deep in your bloodpusher, but you want to know more, and maybe, just maybe, you'll meet those decent trolls you've spoken to and --
(The condescending smiles they had. The mocking laughter. The blade sticking out of your shoulder.
Crack.
Crack crack crack
Crack crack crack crack
That terrible sound. The cold fingers pressing into your windpipe.
MURDERER MURDERER MURDERER)
-- and you turn your back to the rest of the world and head straight back to your hive. You walk to your garden, your beautiful precious garden, and you sit there among the flowers. Just for a while, you pretend the connection you felt with them was instead with something that could actually talk back, something that could feel in ways you could put into words and care in ways you could understand. Just for a while. You hide your face in your hands and try not to make a sound.
You are so fucking pathetic.
You are two, and you love flowers.
You think it could be attributed to psychic powers because your lusus seems to think it isn't normal, but you frankly don't really care. The book you found a few weeks ago probably didn't help either, with its wordless yellow pages and drawings of flowers and herbs, symbols drawn next to them, faded but still legible. You hadn't realized there were so many different kinds of plants until then.
There is something about flowers that makes you inexplicably, deeply and intensely happy and content. You don't even have to try, you simply feel them; the way they take root in the soil and absorb the moonlight and sway in the breeze. It's hard to describe in words, because it's not as if they have words for anything. The feedback you get from them when you concentrate hard enough is incomprehensible, to say the least. But you are connected to them, one way or another.
It's a wonderful feeling.
II
You are three, and you are deeply regretting ever approaching this group.
The forest where your cavehive is happens to be so far out of the way that you rarely ever get any visitors, so when this group in outlandish clothes showed up you thought to take a look. You've never met another troll before, let alone trolls with fins and gills, and curiosity gets the better of you. They are all at least a sweep or two older than you are, or it might just be that you're really small. Or both. You're too distracted to decide for sure because one of them just plucked the carnation tucked into your hair away. She's examining it with a look on her face while crushing it between her fingers, and you can't help but cringe as you feel its life get snuffed out just like that. A few them have noticed it at least, because you can hear a snicker and you start backing away, this was a bad idea --
You feel yourself knock into something solid, and you look up to stare into a greasy white skull face painted on gray skin. Instantly you scamper to the front with a yelp, and you realize at some point they've surrounded you. There are whispers, both conspiratorial and mocking, before the one who killed your flower asks if you'd like to join them in for a game. You are too afraid to say no, so you answer with the exact opposite of what you mean.
There's a sudden sharp pain in your shoulder before you realize it. And you scream and you scream and you scream as you see bright red flowing right out and staining your clothes and the ground. They're laughing now, and you think you can feel the blade piercing through you entirely and you can only keep screaming louder it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts --
There are footsteps like thunder, heavy and loud and only growing louder. You know those footsteps.
There are more screams. They are not yours.
III
You are still three, and you are deeply regretting ever leaving your hive. Once again.
Your lusus is sick of your isolation and has shoved you out to get some fresh air after nights of staying inside. You tell yourself it's only because he's worried, but it makes this no better. You want to stay inside with your flowers and safe away from everything else, but he's parked himself by the entrance and refuses to let you back in until you've made your rounds.
Okay, fine. You can do that. Or at least that's what you thought until you passed by where that happened (you can still see the stains --). You would have moved on, except there's a seadweller girl there, looking terribly focused and a touch wild, searching for something from what you can see -- you recognize her and try to leave immediately.
But no, you are not quiet enough, and her head snaps up to look at you and the look on her face is something terrible to behold. You can't react in time, because in two wide strides she's managed to close the distance between the two of you, cold hands around your neck and raising you up to look at you eye-to-eye. There is nothing but rage and a desire to watch your life extinguish right before her.
The screaming was, perhaps, the most awful thing of all, in between you gasping for air and trying to loosen her grip.
(How dare you show yourself she's dead because of you give her back give her back GIVE HER BACK YOU WORTHLESS PIECE OF SHIT quadrant killer)
There are footsteps like thunder, heavy and loud and only growing louder. You know those footsteps.
You were hoping you'd never have to go through this ever again. This is what you get for leaving.
IV
You are three and a half, and you are sick of waking up in the middle of the day like this.
For all that the sopor slime manages to quell the nightmares that haunt the troll subconscious, it doesn't seem to do much for anything else. Too often have you found yourself scrambling out of your recuperacoon shaking with terror, thinking the sopor slime is blue or violet or indigo or some other cool colour and running into the abulation block to wash off the not-blood. You haven't been able to sleep well, lately.
In your dreams are broken bodies and broken bones, mangled in ways that should not be possible. In your dreams are things that go squelch and screams that echo on and on, filled with horror and pain and interrupted pleas for help. And you are standing in the middle of it all, covered in the upper spectrum of blood and bits that you would rather not think too hard about what they used to be.
(And underneath all those screams, there was another. Accusatory. Grieved. Enraged. Completely right.)
You used to cry uncontrollably, back when you first started having them, and your lusus had to nudge you with his horns to make you get a hold of yourself. Your reserves of tears have long since dried up, and you are only tired now.
You drag yourself over to your garden, beautiful and flourishing, and curl up among the flowers, let the sensations that feed straight into your thinkpan calm you down.
The nightmares that haunt your species' subconscious would be preferable to what you've been dealing with, you think.
V
You are five, and you are standing at the edge of the forest.
You're not sure why you're doing this, since you've figured that if your forest is dangerous, what does that say about the rest of Alternia? You already spend most of your days running from murderbeasts while gathering, you don't need more on your plate.
And yet. And yet you are here, because you have heard things on Trollian and you are curious. The trolls who have pestered you have talked about the kind of places they live in, and you cannot help but wonder what they're really like and what kind of flowers you may be able to find there. The forest runs deep in your bloodpusher, but you want to know more, and maybe, just maybe, you'll meet those decent trolls you've spoken to and --
(The condescending smiles they had. The mocking laughter. The blade sticking out of your shoulder.
Crack.
Crack crack crack
Crack crack crack crack
That terrible sound. The cold fingers pressing into your windpipe.
MURDERER MURDERER MURDERER)
-- and you turn your back to the rest of the world and head straight back to your hive. You walk to your garden, your beautiful precious garden, and you sit there among the flowers. Just for a while, you pretend the connection you felt with them was instead with something that could actually talk back, something that could feel in ways you could put into words and care in ways you could understand. Just for a while. You hide your face in your hands and try not to make a sound.
You are so fucking pathetic.