Being in prison sucked.
I ant that in general, of course. In my case it wasn't that bad… so long as we ignored the stale air. And the rather archaic plumbing situation. And being isolated from all my friends and loves ones, of course. Couldn't forget about that.
On the flip side though, it wasn't all bad. The food was decent, even if most of it was frozen ready-als, and I wasn't short on entertainnt. My future self left with a bookcase stuffed full of novels, comics, and other dia I encountered during my long nights of trope research. I shelved them all for a hypothetical 'later', when I'd have more free ti to peruse them in peace, so I was good on the diversion front. I even had pleasant company, though not always completely trouble-free.
"No, Ollie. I told you; you can't eat ice cream for lunch."
My words were t with a pair of indignant eyes peeking out from behind a mop of a dark-blue hairdo, and their owner puffed out his cheeks so hard his face was turning red.
"But Uncle Polemos! You said I can eat whatever I could find in the freezer!"
"No, I said you can pick a al, and I'll heat it up. Do you want to heat up your ice cream?"
The little Abyssal boy's eyes opened wide, and she hurriedly shook his head.
"N-No! I changed my mind!" He turned on his heel and rushed out of his cell.
One of the first things I'd done after getting stuck down here was to use my Phantom-limbs to temporarily-retcon our cell doors off their hinges and then throw them into a corner, so we could move in and out without any hassle. I followed after the kid, and by the ti I caught up with him, he was already standing on his tip-toes on top of a stool next to the freezer box in one of the unoccupied cells.
Future- brought sothing like six of these down here, all stocked to the brim, and I still couldn't fathom how he managed to get electricity all the way down here. But then again, looking at the absolute ss of tangled extension cords snaking on the floor and leading towards the main stairwell, I had a feeling it was going to be an absolute pain in the neck in my not-so-distant future.
anwhile, Éolienne returned to my side, holding two white plastic boxed als. Despite the young Ashur heir's current predicant, he was as hale and hearty as it got, with the kind of rosy chubby cheeks one would normally see on the cherubs populating those old-school Christmas postcards. Between his striped pyjamas, fluffy blue house coat, and fuzzy mouse slippers, he didn't look anything like a prisoner, let alone one trapped in an otherwise quite dieval underground dungeon.
But then again, neither did I, as I used one of my outfit slots in my Leoforr to give myself so comfy indoors clothes in the form of so loose beach pants, a sweatshirt, and a terry cloth bathrobe that matched Ollie's.
"These ones!" the little boy declared with gusto, so I took the frozen als from him and gave them a close look. Based on the packaging, these weren't store-bought, but from one of those ho-delivery companies. I was unfamiliar with the branding, but since I was going to be the one to get them in the past which is my future, I figured I would have to look into this one too.
"Macaroni and cheese," I read the label closely and was a touch surprised when I found that the second container was identical to the first one. "For both of us?"
"Yes!" Ollie declared with the kind of toothy grin that would've normally made rub his noggin, but since my hands were occupied, I just gestured for him to follow into my own cell. That's where the microwave oven was.
I put both packs into it and set it to defrost mode. According to the manual (which future- helpfully left right on top of the device), it had so fancy-shmancy internal sensor system that let it optimally cycle its power use for maximum defrosting performance… but I still set up a tir, just to be sure.
"Okay, that'll take a while. What now?"
I flashed a smirk at the little kid, and he imdiately threw his hands in the air with an ear-to-ear grin.
"Super Mareo Kart!"
"Again?" I asked, pretending to be reluctant. "Aren't you bored with that?"
"No! This ti, I'll beat Uncle Polemos!"
"Then I'll better bring my A-ga."
I winked at Ollie and headed to his cell, and he hurriedly followed behind . Our target was the TV, or rather the retro cartridge console sitting in front of it on the ground. It was the sa model that Angie had back at her place, with a whole lot of extra gas piled up next to it. Ollie's favourite, the colourful racing ga with the sa characters as Super Bash Siblings, was already in the machine, and as soon as he pressed the power button, the title screen showed up on the TV.
"Co on, Uncle Polemos!"
Ollie sat cross-legged on the fuzzy carpet strategically placed in front of the television set and patted the spot next to him. I followed suit and picked up the small controller attached to the system. It only had a D-pad, four buttons, and two shoulder buttons. No fancy thumbsticks here.
"Rember, no cheating," the little boy warned with a stern wagging of his forefinger, and I could barely stop myself from chuckling at the display.
"Turquoise Shells aren’t cheating." My reasonable response got a childish glare in return, so I soon anded, "But I won't use them anyway. Consider it a handicap."
"Deal!" he yelped, as if afraid that I would go back on my word if he didn't reply right away, and we entered the character select screen.
Looking at him like this, it was hard to believe that this was the heir of one of the Abyssal Noble Houses, raised in a treacherous aristocratic environnt until just a few months ago. He was just like any other kid his age; all he cared about were sweets, cartoons, and video gas. It wasn't hard to see why future- developed a soft spot for him… which led to developing a soft spot for him, so was this another ti-loop thing?
I shook my head to get the unpleasant question out of my mind and focused on the ga. At least until my previous train of thought returned, and I started to ponder again. Due to everything that happened to him and his family as of late, Ollie was completely thrown off his life's trajectory, but… what if he wasn't?
When it ca to the ages-old nature-versus-nurture question, I was mostly on the side of the latter. Take my Abyssal sister as an example: despite being a Seducer, whose power set revolved around manipulating people's emotions and making them fall head over heels for them, she was the sweetest, clumsiest cinnamon roll of a little sister one could ever ask for. However, if she remained with Crowy, would she have turned out differently? The answer was most likely yes.
So what about Ollie? If his Noble House wasn't destroyed and he lived out his life as an aristocrat of House Ashur, how would he have turned out in the future? Would he have ended up like Tracas otherwise? Would he now?
"Uh…"
Ollie was too imrsed in the race and didn't notice my soft grunt, but just his na made recall the mont the Ashur nobleman's lifeless body hit the ground, and it made feel… not quite ill, but sowhat disturbed.
I understood future-'s explanation on a logical level. I also understood that every single person, even the worst serial killers and war criminals, were at one point nothing but innocent little kids. Maybe it was irrational, but I deep down wanted to believe that there was a sliver of innocence in every single one of us. I wasn't just trying to avoid any and all deaths under my watch because of sothing as ta as maintaining a certain tone (though it certainly was a major consideration), but because I also genuinely believed that every human (or human-adjacent) life was priceless, and every death was a tragedy. Even the death of a backstabbing snake.
But then again, that's where rationality kicked in. Sure, every single tiger used to be an adorable little cub at one point, but when a giant grown-ass cat was trying to eat your face, it didn't really matter, now did it? I still wished things could've been resolved differently, but…
"Haha!"
… my cart was hit by a homing projectile, and I had to focus on the race again.
"A Turquoise Shell? Really?"
"Uncle said it wasn't cheating," Ollie responded between giggles, and while his self-satisfied grin was a bit annoying, I just couldn't get angry with him. Maybe the others were right and I really did have a soft spot for kids…
But where was I? Yeah, Tracas's death. It still left a bad aftertaste in my mouth, and I wished things could've gone differently, but there was no point crying over spilt milk. I just had to do my best with what I had. Which, in this case, ant babysitting Ollie and keeping tabs on everyone. Not at the sa ti, of course. Paying attention to more than one thing at a ti was usually a recipe for making a silly blunder that should've been entirely avoidable if I wasn't distracted.
"Woohoo!" anwhile, the race was over, and the little boy by my side was practically hopping with excitent. "I won!"
"You sure did, Beansprout."
I rubbed his head, and he accepted it with a silly grin. Of course, I totally let him win, because I was the (sorta) adult here, so it was completely natural to not take a silly video ga too seriously. I was also playing with a handicap. And even if I wasn't, those Turquoise Shells are bollocks, anyway.
"Best out of three?" Ollie proposed, but I shook my head.
"Maybe after lunch." I rose to my feet and pointed a thumb at my cell at the other end of the hallway. "I'll go check the food. I'll call you when it's ready."
"Ooo-kaaay…"
True to my words, I headed back to my temporary lodging, though not before picking up a bottle of mineral water from the multiple literal pallets' worth of six-packs piled up in yet another otherwise empty prison cell. Future- had us well-stocked, that's for sure.
First off, I checked the microwave oven and switched the containers around so that their contents would get defrosted evenly. I reckoned it would still take a while for them to be ready for proper reheating; maybe instead of picking our als in the morning, we should take the next day's servings out of the freezer the evening before, so they could thaw overnight. Of course, the concepts of 'morning' and 'evening' were pretty nebulous here; we had no access to natural sunlight, so the only way to tell the ti was through the wall clock in Ollie's room. I an, cell.
I imagined I would get used to living here after a few days, but for now, I was feeling a bit restless. Maybe because I couldn't et the girls since the day before. I figured they would be worried by now, since I promised that I would visit them as soon as I had the opportunity. That is unless future- had already inford them about the change of plans. He could connect to Judy's communicator artifact, so he didn't even need to tell them in person.
That reminded of sothing else, and I walked over to the desk in the corner of my cell. It was originally completely bare, but now it had Cal and Teeny lying on it, and based on the occasional gleams of light they let off, they were probably talking to each other even now. Or more likely, bickering, but I digress.
They weren't the reason why I walked over though. Sitting next to them was a simple tal disk one could mistake for a dallion or an oversized coin. It was, in fact, my storage artifact patterned after Raven Boy's sabretache which I normally carried inside my Leoforr's belt buckle. I took it out not only because I wasn't using it at the mont, with my weapons staying in the open for the foreseeable future, but because it was the only other piece of enchanted gear I had on , and I couldn't ss with either my Leoforr's or my swords' enchantnts.
As for why I was trying to do with it… let's just say that I wasn't planning to sit still just because future- said so. It was… not quite a contingency plan per se, but sothing I was working on 'just in case'. I an, future- was , and so he knew what I would do in this situation, and he didn't explicitly tell not to do this, therefore it was as good as giving the green light.
That was only half the reason though; the other half being that I found enchanting to be rather therapeutic. It was tricky to do it here, due to the mana-syphoning effect of this whole underground dungeon complex making all magics a bit unstable, but it was but a small hurdle to overco in exchange for so peace and quiet. Speaking of which, I plunged a phantom limb into the tal disk, and a long yet short mont later I was inside the topsy-turvy enchantnt space, surrounded by abstract representations of the various arrays, their functions ordered into neat three-dinsional rows that could be individually pulled out like a series of long drawers.
What could I say? When it was about enchanting, I was a stickler for elegant simplicity. I spent so ti tinkering, and while not all of my ideas could be implented yet, I figured that with so ti and elbow grease, I could work out the kinks. Or maybe I should use so references, I mused as another segnt of the enchantnt unfolded like a river of linked stars and I began to rearrange them.
It wasn't until a peculiar sensation made withdraw from enchantnt space that I realized I spent way more ti in there than planned, and the tir on the microwave finished its countdown. I checked the food, but while it wasn't frozen, it wasn't exactly warm either, so I shook the containers a little before sticking them back in, this ti on high power.
"Ollie! Lunch's ready in five minutes!"
"Okay!"
While saying that I 'set the table' would've been an overstatent, I prepared so clean forks and filled a pair of disposable plastic cups in preparation, and as soon as the ping of the tir sounded again, my little flatmate (dungeon-mate?) was already on his chair and waiting. I served (again, by a very generous definition of the term) our mac and cheese and we dug in. It didn't take Ollie long to break the silence.
"Uncle Polemos? Did Uncle Antonio get this food from outside?"
"Do you an the dungeon or the Abyss?"
The kid gave a deadpan look that would've made Judy proud and poked his pasta with his fork.
"The Abyss, of course!"
"Why do you think that? Does it taste funny?"
"… A little?" he admitted, but it didn't stop him from scarfing down his share, only stopping to talk. "It's spicy!"
That wouldn't have been the word I'd have chosen to describe the taste, but considering the Abyss' situation, it wasn't that surprising. What they could grow here was limited, and they couldn't just send soone out for grocery shopping into the outside world, so I figured even the chefs of the Noble Houses would've had to be economical with their use of spices. It would've also explained why Snowy was so enamoured with simple apple pies.
"When's Uncle Antonio coming back?" ca the next question, and that was one I couldn't readily answer.
"I don't know. Are you missing him?"
"A little," he admitted in a mousy voice that made realize sothing I should've thought of much earlier.
He probably wasn't missing future-, but his family. Except… most of them were killed by Crowy right at the beginning of the civil war. Sure, it happened 'off-screen' from my perspective, unlike what happened with Tracas (who was technically also Ollie's family), but the fact remained the sa: people were dying here, and this was a situation that future- fostered. aning, it was my fault. Maybe it was all necessary, but it still made feel like crap.
My mood must've shown on my face, because Ollie hurriedly wiped his mouth and gave a big smile. "But Uncle Polemos is here, so I'm not lonely."
"… You're a good kid, Beansprout."
I reached out to tousle his hair and then we continued our lunch in a slightly more sombre tone. Neither of them lasted long, and once I cleaned up the dishes, it was ti for Ollie's afternoon nap. It wasn't just because he was a growing boy, but because the little rascal had stayed up late last night and he'd been a bundle of energy all morning. Despite that, it took only a minute for him to fall asleep after I tucked him in. Little kids were weird and fascinating creatures, weren't they?
Once I was sure he was sleeping like a log, I quietly slipped out of the cell and returned to mine, then I threw myself onto my bed and closed my eyes. Not to sleep, of course, just to think. This was my life for the foreseeable future; rest, read, play with a cute kid, and occasionally work on my theoretical contingency plans. It wasn't half as bad as I feared, but it wasn't a quarter as exciting as I hoped.
Maybe I could've been satisfied with this break from the usual routine, put everything out of my mind, and let future- take care of everything. That wasn't my style though, and if there was nothing interesting to see here… well, my eyes weren't exactly confined here, now were they?
And so I whispered, "Let's see what everyone else's up to," as I closed my eyes again and cast my viewpoint across the Simulacrum…
User Comments
0 comments from readers