She sees him in the early moments of dusk when his armor is still strewn across the floor of his block instead of on his body, when he is naked in the shower and washing the mats of his hair, when he sits in his underwear at their kitchen table with a bowl of squirming meal worms and reads the lowblood paper through the little crescent lenses of his reading glasses as he eats. Coffee; black. The little classic radio sits on the counter blaring the quiet static crackle of troll C-SPAN.
She has been up for an hour already, perched on the tidy end of her recooperacoon reading her daily passage of scripture, doing her devotions. The table is strewn with papers and the ancient law books that only her connection to him allows her to have access to. The restricted stacks, half the text blotted out in black marker. The law is a lovely thing, but it is twisted and warped and she sees the warps now, sees them and traces them in the contours of her mind, incubating she dare not voice until it's ready.
She sits across from him, fully dressed. She has a steak, raw, with candied fruit on the side. Coffee; black. She spreads an ancient forbidden scroll on the table and half reads it, half watches him over the brim of her shades.
The radio tells of a lowblood insurrection on the other side of the planet, a city looted and all but razed, the population marching on the loading docks of a backwater spaceport to gain access to its jumpships, to orbit, to snuggle little neutron explosives into the bellies of the Imperial fleetships and fly away again before they exploded. The propaganda is all doom and gloom and condemnation, and across the table he sets his newspaper down on top of her scroll and circles one article in indigo ink, catching her eye.
"Something's brewing. I think Her Royal Fishtits is planning something and trying to stick this on the lowbloods again to distract."
"They killed thousands," Redglare intones, bored and skeptical. The Highblood siding with the lowbloods; rarely anything but a devil's advocate meant to ensnare her. Although she has learned that 80% of what he says is the same tactic. She matches in kind.
"She kills more," he says around a disgusting grin, his teeth full of food.
"You kill more."
He laughs. "That I do, and I got plans and schemes for miles just like she does, but at least I don't try to be motherfucking nice about it. Try to play the leader instead of a tyrant." He pens words over his circled article in jaunty scrawl. "It would be cute to see her fall. We're gonna plan it. You don't get a choice."
Yes. She will plan his rebellion. And when the plan is in place, Redglare will be the one calling the shots, though he thinks otherwise.
FILL: TEAM DIRK<3JAKE<3JANE<3ROXY
She sees him in the early moments of dusk when his armor is still strewn across the floor of his block instead of on his body, when he is naked in the shower and washing the mats of his hair, when he sits in his underwear at their kitchen table with a bowl of squirming meal worms and reads the lowblood paper through the little crescent lenses of his reading glasses as he eats. Coffee; black. The little classic radio sits on the counter blaring the quiet static crackle of troll C-SPAN.
She has been up for an hour already, perched on the tidy end of her recooperacoon reading her daily passage of scripture, doing her devotions. The table is strewn with papers and the ancient law books that only her connection to him allows her to have access to. The restricted stacks, half the text blotted out in black marker. The law is a lovely thing, but it is twisted and warped and she sees the warps now, sees them and traces them in the contours of her mind, incubating she dare not voice until it's ready.
She sits across from him, fully dressed. She has a steak, raw, with candied fruit on the side. Coffee; black. She spreads an ancient forbidden scroll on the table and half reads it, half watches him over the brim of her shades.
The radio tells of a lowblood insurrection on the other side of the planet, a city looted and all but razed, the population marching on the loading docks of a backwater spaceport to gain access to its jumpships, to orbit, to snuggle little neutron explosives into the bellies of the Imperial fleetships and fly away again before they exploded. The propaganda is all doom and gloom and condemnation, and across the table he sets his newspaper down on top of her scroll and circles one article in indigo ink, catching her eye.
"Something's brewing. I think Her Royal Fishtits is planning something and trying to stick this on the lowbloods again to distract."
"They killed thousands," Redglare intones, bored and skeptical. The Highblood siding with the lowbloods; rarely anything but a devil's advocate meant to ensnare her. Although she has learned that 80% of what he says is the same tactic. She matches in kind.
"She kills more," he says around a disgusting grin, his teeth full of food.
"You kill more."
He laughs. "That I do, and I got plans and schemes for miles just like she does, but at least I don't try to be motherfucking nice about it. Try to play the leader instead of a tyrant." He pens words over his circled article in jaunty scrawl. "It would be cute to see her fall. We're gonna plan it. You don't get a choice."
Yes. She will plan his rebellion. And when the plan is in place, Redglare will be the one calling the shots, though he thinks otherwise.