Oh, hey. The girl from the swamp.Adamaz had been strolling through Chittentown’s backroads, as he often did, while on his way to the Fluid Redistribution Station. He called it the ‘scenic route,’ when to most it was anything but. In truth, he liked to think about how cool it would be to live here, even if it meant a lack of quiet, while touring the streets. Today, there was a disruption to that schedule. In the middle of the street, he’d almost walked right into the last person he’d ever have expected to see.
Familiar curly hair and spiral horns gasped at him and dashed into an alleyway. The apron, too, was unmistakable. For a moment, Adamaz stood there and blinked, unsure of how to proceed. After a moment, he decided it was best to move on – best to let that lie – but Papa Roach tittered from his hair that he at least should say hi. Perhaps offer an explanation. At least, an apology? Remember your manners, young man.
Adamaz scowled. What he’d been remembering, rather, was how he’d escaped with the shellbeast lusus into the swamp with the girl trapped inside. He’d made a lot of distance before slowing down. He had continued in step behind the lusus, taking in the busy tranquility of the swamp around him, before realizing how relaxed he was. There he was, as he was wont to do: walking. His favorite pastime. Whether that particular walk followed any kind of trauma or stressful situation no longer mattered. His fear for his safety. His worry for the drones. His anxiety around highbloods, around Chiara, and particularly his fear of Tamiya. The rush to flee the attack. All free from his thoughts, for a time. He might as well have been home, at the dump, or in the Fluid Redistribution Center.
He’d looked at the shellbeast and wondered: was this the price he wanted to pay for survival? It was the price he was told he had to pay. That he had to pay. It was the price he had signed up for. There were much greater prices for failure, he’d imagined. Were
those ones he was willing to accept? He’d felt ridiculous. These were not the kind of questions he was supposed to be answering. He was a kid. Yet his duty was to the crown, and everything. So this
was what he was supposed to be doing. It was the girl who was not doing what she was told.
It was then that he’d felt a cool, crystalline resolve push away the pain in his gut. The resolve to say no to everything. To push back – refuse the status quo. Papa Roach thought he was bonkers, the way he pulled a muck-covered buckle off the lusus’ roller-skate and stomped away from his prize. The way he made his way back to a troll, someone important, someone on his side, to tell them what he did.
He’d reported that he’d killed a rebel captive by drowning her and her lusus in the swampy mire.
It wasn’t a full lie – perhaps by leaving them there, he had done exactly that. But he’d left the girl to her devices; if she had the chops to survive, than she would. If she didn’t, it would be her own undoing. Wasn’t that the lesson he’d been learning? The status quo he had to know so deep down, it had become more solid than steel?
At least this way, Adamaz’s conscience was clear as crystal.
Papa Roach’s hisses scolded Adamaz for dilly-daddling. The scuttlebeast-lusus regretted giving him those meditation books – it was because of those that his boy, sweet boy, could easily he could block out the world around him like that. Adamaz had basically kept walking after stopping, briefly, and now started, turned around, and started running back towards the alleyway where he had last seen her. The last part, the report at least, she deserved to know.
Doutei
At long last. Pardon the diamond puns.
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