"Where am I?"
Llywelyn sighs, "We just told you."
"No. I mean." I gesture around us. "What is this place? I- I was in the prison camp! Then I was...I don't remember where I was..." There was. Water. Water and darkness and-
I shake my head.
"Mh, yeah, that's kind of impressive." Llywelyn nods. "Never saw anyone wake up from stasis on their own. Our Master was going to come and wake you, but he's quite busy at the moment. His guests get fussy if he leaves them alone."
"Guests...?" I look around.
"Yes. He has all kinds of people come by, you know? But they're not your concern."
I'm a slave. So by that logic, of course they're not. I don't know what I expected.
"I still don't...understand what you're telling me."
I push myself up to my feet, brushing past the statue woman with no sense of personal space. My legs... are not too wobbly. I think I can stand, maybe even walk with some concentration. That's good. I don't want to be trapped in one place, and also - I'm not sure my arms are strong enough to push me back up if I fall down again.
My clothes are gone. The roughspun uniform that I'd been wearing was removed at some point, apparently. In its place is a silky, flowing mauve nightgown of some sort. The long sleeves cover my arms to my wrists, and the skirt stops at about the middle of my shins. Either side has a slit that stretches up to the middle of my thighs. In the dim light of this room I can't tell if it's fully opaque or not, but it feels...
Is gossamer a feeling? It feels like I imagine gossamer feels.
It makes me... itch. It makes me feel strange. Everything I've worn since the moment I was enveloped in white light on Earth has been heavy, starchy, thick. Scratchy. Uncomfortable.
This feels as if I'm wearing a cloud.
The feeling makes me all the more uncomfortable, and I drag the skirt up as high as I can, not liking the way it flutters around my legs.
"What in the s'nilian wo' are you doing?!" Llywelyn snaps. A blue-ish purple light illuminates my exposed thigh and I look up sharply to see him averting his gaze, expression irritable, and... his collar appears to have glowing veins. Those are the source of the light? I don't know.
"I don't like this!" I pull at the skirt and frown. "I want something else!"
"Is it normal for humans to strip in public? You can wear something else shortly, I'm sure!" His voice is louder and harsher than it needs to be. "But you're not the only one here!"
I glance over my shoulder. The green girl is standing there with her hands on her cheeks, staring at me with wide eyes. "...what?" I feel my face grow hot and I drop the skirt again, crossing my arms over my chest. "I wasn't going to just take it off." I grumble.
Llywelyn sighs. "S'nilia."
"Actually!" The green girl rushes over to me. "We can take you to get something more appropriate for you!"
"...great." I mumble.
"Come on! Come on!" She grabs my wrist and pulls me along, dragging me bodily out of the room I woke up in by my wrist.
I stumble forward and then have to lift my free hand to block the sudden flood of light that meets my eyes in the hallway. It seems the dim lighting in the room I've just been in was intentional, not simply the default in this place.
Once my eyes adjust to the flood of light-blue light, my eyes are instantly assaulted by grandeur. The hallway around me is immense. I can't see the end of it, but it is...massive. High ceilings, dark blue walls, deep plum colored carpets, and golden fixtures adorn the hall. The light comes from small, intricate gold sconces. The walls are not just painted, they seem to be wallpapered with a golden filigree pattern. It is beautiful, elaborate, and unlike anything I've ever seen.
And there are doors everywhere. Dozens of them. I can't count them all. There are normal ones, like the door I exited, but also what appear to be horizontal doors, ones that are set higher in the hallway and have a dizzying drop, and tiny ones. It...
It looks like. A fever dream. A fever dream of a fancy hotel.
Mira - ugh, I hate this nickname - is still dragging me along by the wrist, so it's difficult to comprehend and take in what I'm seeing. I can hear that tinkling music more clearly now. There's also the distinct sound of voices, talking. Conversing. Maybe even laughing. I can't understand a word of it.
I can't see any windows here, but that may simply be because it is so huge that there are barely any outside walls. The air here is crisp and cool, just as in the other room. I'm not sure where the breeze is coming from, but there is the faintest scent of flowers on it, now that I think to really smell it.
The walls that aren't covered by something appear to be made from stone. I think. Not adobe like the processing camp, but something like marble, and there is... an excessive amount of gold filigree. Everywhere.
Llywelyn is a step behind us, somehow managing to walk in a way that suggests he's slouching, hands shoved into the pockets of his dark blue pants. He has simple but expensive looking clothes on, himself. He wears a high collard black coat that falls to his thighs, an a ruffled cream collared dress shirt underneath it. Or it would be, if it weren't for the fact that he seems to have decided to wear it halfway unbuttoned, exposing an excessive expanse of blue chest to the light. He wears some kind of loose dress slacks, and some kind of black loafers. The only jewelry I see is an earring on his right ear.
And his face is... nothing at all like any of the other aliens I've seen. His eyes aren't fish-like. They're much more human-like than any I've seen before. He has black sclera, with a distinct golden iris, but the shape is... just normal. Long lashes. Defined, sharp features.
I'd say he looks almost human, but he got offended by the implication for just his name,so that seems. Unwise.
As for Mira, she looks... dazzling. Every light in the hallway is caught in her translucent body and reflected back out in endless prisms, just as I might expect a human-shaped cut gem to be. She isn't wearing anything, but the shape of her gem body seems to indicate clothing? I can see that there's definition and even texture to what I'm seeing as clothing, but it is as if her skin simply is what I'm seeing as fabric. She wears the shape of a loose and flowing purple tunic, and pants that hug her hips and hang loose. It reminds me a little of... genies. Which is. Weird. To think about.
But I'm hardly able to think about anything else, as this woman-statue drags me by the wrist to the end of the hall and opens a grand wooden door that seems to stand out from the others, being of dark, deep wood, with intricate whorls and patterns engraved in it. The knob is shaped like a snarling cat's head.
My eyes grow wide and I have to stop in my tracks because we are entering...
A room. A massive, sprawling room, with countless shelves, all made of that same dark wood. There are clothes everywhere. There are racks of clothing, shelves of clothing, tall and thin drawers which are open and also full of clothing. The room seems to be bigger than the basement of my house, back home. And it's just full of clothes.
I'm stunned, standing in the doorway. There's a circular table near the entrance and a number of seats around it. Sitting in one of them is a creature I've never seen before. It looks like a... a deer. A bipedal deer. Its fur is a copper brown, and it has small antlers that seem more decorative than functional. Its face is long, and its fingers are slender. It's wearing a white tunic and black pants, and appears to be knitting something. It looks up at me with dark eyes and says a series of clicking sounds that I don't understand in the slightest.
Mira, however, responds with a series of similar clicks. A conversation begins and it goes on for some time, with both of them making a variety of sounds and gestures with their hands that seem to have something to do with the conversation.
"Why..." I murmur. Why is it clicking when-
"Not everything translates to Constant." Llywelyn says, appearing at my side. "Some sub-sapient species communicate more in feelings than words. At that point, communication in words itself is mostly useless anyway."
"Mm-Mira..." I hate. I don't like it. It's just Mia with an extra letter. But I can't say her real name, and I'm absolutely not using Mia. And I don't. Have the emotional or mental bandwidth to call her anything else. "She's communicating...?"
"Well she's quite sub-sapient herself." He seems to think he's very funny. The way he's grinning is enough to tell me that, even if I don't understand the joke. His canines are a bit too long for his mouth, even when he's not smiling like this. I think they'd stick out even if he wasn't. He nods toward the deer-person. "She's of the Sh'kethch species. Amaiyanghnew - Mira-"
"I know what her name is, even if I can't say it."
"-Learned to speak it because she was bored and much too curious. But they have a different language of sorts that she can communicate with them in."
That seems... impossible?
But I barely even... understand the concept of Constant. So... I guess anything is possible.
After a few minutes, the deer stands and does something that I think is a bow, and then walks over to one of the racks and pulls something off of it. It brings it over to me and holds it out. It's a royal blue dress, with wide sleeves and a loose skirt. There's golden embroidery on the sleeves and hem, and it seems to be the appropriate size for a human woman.
"Try it on!" Mira encourages.
"Uh..." I look around. "Here?"
"Why not? You have a nice body, I'm sure it will look great!" She beams.
I... did not expect compliments from a living jewel. And the last thing I want is to undress in front of her. Or Llywelyn.
"Please. Use. The changing room." Llywelyn grits out, pointing toward a door on the far end of the room.
"Oooh, of course!" Mira claps her hands and runs toward the door, opening it for me. "He is shy! So you can't surprise him with nudity."
"S'nilian wo'! It isn't shyness, it's basic decency, you dented gem!" Llywelyn snaps at her.
She sticks her tongue out at him. "How rude!"
He turns his nose up at her and then his eyes fall on me. "Go. Change. I'm tired of this conversation."
I hesitate, but-
But the dress I'm wearing. In better lighting, I can tell it is slightly translucent. So... fine. I'm not going to argue. I step into the room and close the door behind me. It's a rather simple room, just a small closet with a mirror on the inside of the door.
I pull the dress off and stare at myself in the mirror for the first time since I was... since the Tidal base. My cheeks are a bit thinner than I remember. My hair, which has grown in two years, falls in long, blond waves now past my shoulders. There are dark circles under my eyes, but at least they aren't too...sunk in. I look...
Older.
When I last stood in a room like this, a changing room with a full length mirror, I was sixteen. Just a little girl trying to figure out whether I'd look good in skinny jeans and catastrophizing over the slight pudge I'd built up over the holidays.
I swallow. There's almost no fat left on me. My ribs stick out a little, and even my thighs, which have always been fairly thick, are much thinner than I remember.
My chest - my breasts - are still the same size as always. There was never much to see there, and after two years of only eating enough to keep myself alive, they certainly aren't any bigger. Not that I'm... bothered by that. It's just... I didn't realize how much my body changed until now.
My hand reaches out to touch the mirror.
A woman who isn't me moves in the mirror.
I recognize my hand, but not my face.
Somehow... at some time... The seventeen year old walking home...
She's become a twenty year old who I don't recognize.
The burn from the toxic water is still white and visible on my shoulder, and beneath it the black brand seems...more stark than it did on the processing base. I turn my arm and look at it. It's stark, impossible to miss on pale skin. My fingers move from the mirror to touch the slightly raised skin.
The memory of Alistair running the branding pen against my skin, the pain of it, flares in my mind. I think I'd cry, if I had tears. But I just feel numb, now.
This body isn't mine. It feels... I don't know. But I don't think I like it. I don't know if I'm supposed to.
But I'm not going to stand here and stare at it forever. So I pull on the dress and watch the woman in the mirror do the same. It's... It's really nice. It fits perfectly. It feels soft. And it covers me completely. I like this a lot more than the last thing.
I open the door and step out of it. Llywelyn is sitting on one of the chairs. When he looks up at me he stills for a moment, and his veins glow a purple-pinkish light.
Mira fills my vision a moment later. "Oh! It looks so good on you! I knew it would! You're so pretty!" Her hands reach out and she runs her fingertips down the sleeve.
I step away from her, uncomfortable, and pull the dress tighter around myself. "It's not like it's... good to run in..."
Llywelyn coughs, drawing my attention. He's standing, brow arched. "Why would you be running in it?" He asks, as if I've said something stupid.
"Shouldn't I? You... don't think we're just going to sit around, do you?"
"Why in the world would we be running?" He makes a face, scrunching up his forehead and curling his lip. "I absolutely won't be running anywhere." His hands tuck into his pockets.
"But... what about..." I swallow and look around. "We could. Escape."
He looks at me like I'm stupid. "Why?"
"Because...we're captives. Don't you want to be free?"
He watches me for a moment, and then he laughs.
And?? Walks out?!