Riddik's Story: Escape

"Oof!"

A small, wiry whirlwind of limbs, tassels, and short-cropped hair hit Riddik in the stomach with a heavy thud against his sparse, padded armor. He'd seen it coming, of course, even with the goggles on-- Twenty-Eight saw him brace himself right before they passed the stairwell she was hiding in, and he didn't even stagger when she hit him-- but for some reason he always let the little ones take advantage of him.

"Gotcha!"

Especially that one.

"Didn't your mother ever teach you not to jump out at people?" Riddik said, looking both tolerant and amused, as he grabbed young Jay'tiel, who insisted that Riddik call her "Jay" when he called her anything at all, by the back of her formal robes and actually lifted her into the air. She-- hardly a baby anymore, almost at the age of graduating from general schooling to full apprenticeship, but still a lot smaller than Riddik-- kicked and squirmed and glowered at him, but there was a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

"You think you're quite a little monster, don't you," Riddik smirked at her. Her brown hair was defiantly frizzy and free of the oil that most people used to slick it down, her robes disheveled and dirty despite their richness, and she was missing a sandal.

"I'm working on it," Jay grinned, back, giving up on even the pretense of struggling.

"Work on it someplace else," Riddik suggested, putting her down. His deep, rough voice contrasted sharply with her young, high, boyish one.

"Can't I tail you for a while?" Jay demanded. "You're a great example!"

"Not unless you want a taste of Riddik's usual medicine," Twenty-Eight spoke up casually, then yawned widely. "I despise hyperactive, noisy children, you know."

"You wouldn't dare," Jay sniffed, sticking her nose in the air. Little heathen or not, she was nobility, and she knew it.

"Would you like to try me?" Twenty-Eight purred.

Looking less certain, Jay looked between his casual threat and Riddik's amused expression. "He wouldn't, would he?" she asked Riddik.

"I dunno," Riddik said with exaggerated doubt. "He might."

"What's it like, anyway?" she frowned.

Riddik sighed theatrically. "Very. Very. Boring."

"Jay'tiel!"

Jay's mother came flapping down the hall, sounding scandalized and looking outraged, her own formal robes-- much more elaborate, and better cared for, than Jay's-- bouncing ridiculously with each jogging step. Jay'tiel glared at her unhappily, but didn't pull away when the older woman grabbed her arm. "How many times have I told you not to talk to the constructs?" the lady hissed.

"Riddik's not--"

"Hush! This thing has no name!" She glared at Riddik-- looking rather strikingly like her daughter, in that moment-- who merely smiled pleasantly, back. He even kept his teeth in. "If you laid hands on my daughter, you-- you beast--"

Riddik held up his empty hands peaceably, but his pointed words were anything but: "Maybe if she laid off the hands on me...."

Jay's mother let out a squeal of fury, but after a quick glance at Twenty-Eight-- who was enjoying the show far too much to put a damper on anything-- she decided against further displays of it. She merely clamped her hand more firmly around her daughter's arm and marched off, dragging Jay after her. Jay looked over her shoulder, waving forlornly. Riddik, radiating amusement, waved back and she actually broke into a little smile. Then she was gone, turned a corner after her mother.

"Why do you tolerate that brat, anyway?" Twenty-Eight asked as they continued their trek through the city palace.

"Because she's a brat," Riddik answered with a shrug. Seeing Twenty-Eight's glance, he elaborated, "She's a brat because of me." He smiled widely. "One more little revenge, right?"

"Ah." That, Twenty-Eight could understand. He didn't feel much anymore, not after a lifetime-- more than a lifetime-- of suppressing and repressing, but when he did feel, one of his feelings was hatred.

Well, all right, that was probably a bit too dramatic. Very little in Twenty-Eight's life was strong enough to warrant a word like "hatred". Perhaps it was more like... resentment. Isolation. Confinement and chafing at the walls that did the confining. Definitely dislike, definitely unhappiness. Only at very rare times did he think he could feel something as strong as hate, or love, or joy. Sometimes he wondered if he'd ever felt them, at all. Not that it mattered; not having strong emotions made it easier to not care about them.

Still... the sense that he was missing something important never quite left him. Perhaps that would change when they left this world for good. But perhaps not. It could just have been the way he was made. He could be content just to no longer feel trapped and used, if that's all he got.

::I am going to have to dampen you while we're before the prince,:: he warned Riddik silently as they approached their destination. Technically, he should have been subdued for the entire trek, but Twenty-Eight was a lenient keeper, especially once he realized that working with Riddik would benefit him far more than working against him. There would be mages and warlords in with the prince, however, not to mention the royal family's protective constructs, who would know if he were not doing his duty to protect the court.

::Thanks for the warning.::

Riddik's deep, chronically amused voice was even more overpowering in one's mind, which was saying something, considering he was overpowering enough outside one's mind. Visually, he was big and imposing-looking, for all his possession of fur made him automatically less in the eyes of anyone else with a name rather than a designation. His rumbling voice was more impressive than any mage, warlord, or noble's. And his attitude was not one of subservience, reluctant or otherwise, unless he was empathically drugged into it.

No one knew exactly what to make of Riddik, nor did they know why he was the only one of his kind to come out of the mage labs. It seemed that the construction mages had never managed to create another quite like him. Really, no one was entirely sure why they even made him to begin with: Riddik blurred the lines between masters and slaves, mages and constructs, by being bipedal, by resisting magic, by daring to name himself. Despite his vague resemblance to the ursine constructs, he picked up training faster than any dull soldier-- and usually more than just what instructors meant to be training, for that matter-- and, against all laws of mage-crafting creatures anyone else seemed to have discerned, his wings worked and he could fly. The mages had never before and never since managed to produce anything flight-worthy that actually breathed. He was light-sensitive, though he could see in pitch blackness, and he fought like a demon. He was, in all aspects, nothing but trouble despite the revenue he brought in.

So, of course, he was reserved for special battles, definitive wars, and important deaths. He was wasted as a general soldier or even a messenger, excelling instead at both command positions and lone attacks. Because of him, whatever faction who had ownership of him at any given time usually won whatever they threw him at. In any other world, he might have been famous, or infamous. In a world where warfare was considered beneath the general population, so far beneath that they would create other beings to do their fighting for them, he was merely the best of the worst.

But even the best of the worst got to come before royalty now and then, and when before royalty even the best of the worst must be properly shackled. Twenty-Eight summoned and settled into his usual working apathy without effort, then took it and spun it outwards, encompassing anyone close enough to feel it, as well. The guards to either side of the door both relaxed their rigid stances and their expressions went flat and uninterested, going from bristling with importance to dull and uncaring. The other petitioners waiting for their turn in court looked away, their impatience and excitement fading to a faint, resigned expectation, and any interest, disgust, or fear they might have felt at the sight of the two constructs disappeared into a well of boredom. And, most importantly, Riddik's quick eyes lost their sharpness, his posture lost its edge, and his mind went from making its endless observations and odd connections to passively waiting for whatever happened to happen.

It was a shame, really. Even Twenty-Eight could admire a mind like that, for all he didn't trust it at all. There wasn't any pleasure at being able to so easily subdue a mind like that, though of course there should have been-- there was, when he wasn't actually doing it. But right now, there was... nothing. Nothing except the knowledge of what was expected.

The doors opened to admit them, and they padded in. Uninterested, Twenty-Eight didn't bother to look around. He'd been to court before, several times, and he still didn't really know what it looked like. What did it matter, after all? They came up the central isle, along the deep blue carpet that led to the throne, and stopped where the blue turned to black-- just outside the field of anti-apathy that the two court constructs provided for the prince and his small entourage. Twenty-Eight dipped his head in acknowledgement of Feline Constructs Eighteen, red-marked, and Twenty-Two, blue-marked like Twenty-Eight himself: one for ampliphying, one for dampening, mirrored protection for the royal family and close friends. They each inclined their heads, in return.

There was conversation. What, exactly, it was about went over Twenty-Eight's head, because he didn't care. Something about one of Riddik's missions, perhaps, and definitely something about showing off their best construct for an important guest. But it didn't matter.

One of the visiting nobles actually came down off the dais to investigate him: a foreign princess with skin and eyes lighter than the local coloring, and hair darker. Eighteen followed her down, wrapping her in a skin-tight field of awareness and interest, to keep her safe from Twenty-Eight's aura. So did one of the mages, wearing the cross-faction, cross-country insignia of the House wen Delanau, the Binders. The princess touched Riddik's folded wing with subdued wonder, stood up on her toes to peer into his face, one hand on his armored chest.

At the brief touch, in the slight transfer of protection, Riddik met her eyes and smiled his lazy, toothy smile. Because she, though she didn't know it yet, was going to be his deliverance.

All unaware, she even smiled, back.