wastedcreation | open post

[ooc: Blanket CWs in this whole thread for medical horror, unethical human experimentation, cult propaganda, racism/xenophobia, concubines, forced breeding/noncon, torture, gore, and probably much more.]

Tox is excited and nervous in equal measure for his first trip to the surface. He's excited because it means he's starting on the path of a spy and assassin in earnest; at the tender age of twelve, this is a promising lifelong career. He's nervous because the picture of the surface and its people that has been painted for him is terrifying and grim. A violent, savage people with no respect for science or innovation, or perhaps too dumb for it; a brutish enemy.

The job is simple, boring and low stakes: perfect for a 12-year-old and one of his mentors, Damian, to take on. Busywork, just to give him an idea of what they do and what the surface is like, without putting him in too dangerous a situation. Of course, he is still cautioned excessively to stay with Damian and not to interact with the surface dwellers, not to even be seen or heard by them. He is cloaked in all-black, with a face covering to match: only his toxic green eyes are visible beneath. He hasn't mastered disguise magic yet, but when he does, he will disguise himself to look more like a surface-dweller. To that end, and to his own curiosity's end, he does want to see what they look like.

But they're out in the woods, mapping pathways and elevation, making note of any signs of civilization they find. There aren't many. Damian says that only loggers and lumberjacks come out this way, for the high-quality wood. He says this casually enough, but Tox himself has never seen a tree, or grass, or the sky. He's never felt the wind on his face like this, drying his eyes strangely, or heard the rustle of leaves and the strange animals singing and chittering in the branches (birds? He's only heard of them). It's a veritable sensory smorgasbord, and he finds it overwhelming. He can't stop looking around and listening in pure awe.

After Damian shows him how to log the details of the landscape on the map, he gives Tox instructions: they'll split up to cover more ground, then come back to one another using specialized navigation devices. Or rather, Tox will stay where he is and his mentor will come back to him, so he doesn't get lost.

He sets out, determined to make himself useful here despite how foreign and somewhat frightening the landscape is. He observes carefully and loses himself in thought as he marks things down. That there- is that type of tree uncommon? Or is it nothing of note? Is that a man-made path, or just a clearing? He barely knows what he's looking at, so he doesn't know what he's looking for. No wonder they wanted him up here so young; it'll take forever to get used to the place enough to be able to navigate it with any effectiveness.

After a while on his solo hike, he hears something strange. It's different from the rest of the forest noises, he thinks. Something melodic, maybe? At first it's hard to catch between the other sounds, but as he moves further, it becomes clearer.

Someone is singing. Not an animal; a person.

Singing is certainly not what he expected to hear from a surface-dweller, and his curiosity burns. It sounds like a girl. The melody is oddly... nice. What does she look like? Maybe he could get a glimpse without being noticed, if he's quiet.

Creeping up slowly, he tries not to step on twigs that might snap, but he is not skilled at forest stealth yet in the slightest. His footfalls can absolutely be heard, as can the small yelp he lets out as netting whips up around him, hoisting him into the air.

He flails and flounders, panicked. They've already captured him! Surely they'll find out he's from underground and kill him! This is not good- he tries to find his navigator to alert Damian, but he's tangled and wrapped tightly in the netting.

"May as well be speakin' to a brick wall with you, sprout." That is what Juno's father, Solanus, had said when he found her hot on his heels during his trek to his worksite for the day. It was a rare sight for his daughter not to be beside him, eager to explore the forest while he tore trees from the earth with his bare hands and chopped them down for processing in town. The massive man was built, in simple terms, like a brick shithouse — all muscle and broad shoulders, eight feet tall, with a hearty belly that spoke of a fondness for drink and skin tanned by the sun. His daughter, though young, already stood over six feet — small, he said, for a half-giant, but she still had time to grow.

Juno laughed. "And you keep doing it, Pa! I'm not going far anyway, so don't worry. I just gotta see if any of my traps sprung." She had set a few out in the woods — simple rope snares and leaf covered pitfalls meant to catch rabbits, or if she was lucky, a deer.

Solanus waved a gloved hand as he disappeared into the brush, fitting his leather gloves tighter as he went. "Be careful, Juno. If anything happens, your mother'll have my head on a pike outside the shop."

That made her laugh harder. He wasn't wrong — Diana, for all her small human frame, would absolutely find a way to make good on that threat if anything happened to their only child. Luckily, Juno knew what she was doing — and Solanus knew it too.

With her father set to work, Juno wandered deeper into the woods. At first she walked in silence, but the birdsong and chipmunk chatter started to bore her fast. So, she began to sing — a tale of a girl lost in the forest, hunted by a wolf. Of how it tricked her, how she outsmarted it, and how, despite her bravery, the beast still devoured her grandmother in the end. Odd choice of song in the middle of the woods, but Juno had never been afraid of wolves.

The snapping of twigs didn't alarm her — but the sudden yelp did. She spun, blonde hair whipping over her shoulder, and bolted toward the sound. It had been loud, maybe even big — a deer, perhaps? They always made strange noises when caught.

Imagine her surprise when she stumbled into a clearing to find not a deer, but a man in black tangled in her trap. Juno stopped a few feet away, a small handaxe hanging loosely at her side.

"Uh..." she snorted. "Never caught a man before. You good?" Clearly, he was not. And she was definitely laughing.

Tox flopped around like a fish, twisting until he could see the girl below him. Blonde, tall, standing near, holding an axe. And-- laughing?

"D-Don't kill me, please," he begs breathlessly. His accent is quite different from hers, and his hood has now been tousled off of his head some to reveal green hair and stark black tattoos on his face. It's... Probably pretty clear he's not from around here.

Her brows lifted. "Kill you?" She repeated, absolutely baffled by the suggestion. Juno had never heard anyone speak in that particular tone before — maybe he was from the mainland and had somehow gotten lost? It would not surprise her, if that were the case.

She stepped closer, reaching up with her free hand to grasp the bottom of the net. "Stay still. I can cut you down, but if you squirm too much, I'll end up cutting a leg off." It would take a minute for her to saw through the rope with her axe, but if he listened to her, he would be fine. "You're lucky I don't use metal traps, friend."

He panics more as she approaches and reaches for him, talking about cutting a leg off- he's still certain this is how he'll die. He grabs at the netting above him, trying to pull himself up and away from her axe.

"Please don't--"

She oddly seems more confused than angry or violent, and she's calling him friend for some baffling reason, but that doesn't mean she's not about to take him back to her tribe or clan or whatever and kill him.

"Don't what? Release you from the trap? If you want, I can just leave you here, but you'll be awfully cold come dusk." She grasped the netting harder to try and keep it as still as possible with all his squirming, axeblade sawing into one of the thickly wound fiber. "But dad'll have my head for that. Now stay still so we can get you out and you can head back to... wherever you came from. You've got a weird accent."

Oh, so... She doesn't know where he came from? Good, that's good, he should just keep his mouth shut so he doesn't blow his cover. It seems like she's trying to help him, maybe? Unclear. For now, he just grips the ropes and waits, trembling slightly with adrenaline, as though he's waiting for her axe to cut into his thigh.

Juno knew how to handle weaponry, and even as a 13-year-old girl, she had the strength most men could only hope to achieve with a lot of effort. She cut through the bottom of the net to make an opening big enough for him to stick his leg through, then dropped her axe so it stuck into the dirt.

"I'm gonna open this up and you're gonna want to jump. I can catch you so you don't go breaking your legs." and if her strength was not terrifying enough, she grasped the frayed edges of the netting and pulled until the hole was big enough for him to slide through; her muscles twitching with the effort.

In turn, Tox clings harder to the netting as his leg is freed, with an unnatural grip strength for a 12-year-old. He's able to hold himself up as she- oh god- she tears through the final rope with her bare hands. And now he's supposed to jump down into her arms? Forgive him a little hesitation, here, giant surface girl...

He hangs there, looking down at her warily for a few long moments. He almost tells her to just stand aside-- he knows how to tuck and roll, and is agile enough not to break his legs from a fall like this. Then again, this is the forest, and he doesn't know what the terrain beneath him is like. To fall on his ankle wrong on the uneven forest floor could put him out of training for weeks, and he can't afford that.

He lets go, allowing her to catch him. He's not overly big for his age, but he is oddly muscular. Still, he should be no problem for her to catch.

and white men who kill god

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