"You stop noticing after awhile." He shrugged. "I can't remember not having a collar, Pratik. It just becomes a part of you after awhile."
"The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that." -Karis Nemik
Pratik nodded solemnly. "Well... I'm glad it's not a part of either of us anymore."
"u and rina are systematically watering down the grammar of yws" - Atticus "From the fish mother to the fish death god." - lehmanf "A fish stole my identity. I blame shady" - Omni [they/he]
(I was actually gonna ask if you wanted to since this centers around three of your characters arriving but I can set it up after this awesome documentary I'm watching if you like!)
"I suppose I am, too." He rubbed his throat again. "It was....frightening, at first. I felt like I was doing something wrong, that I'd be punished for taking it off. I would have been if I was still a slave. And I just didn't quite feel....secure. Does that make sense?"
"The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that." -Karis Nemik
(sure, I don't mind! Do we just wanna jump in the thick of it, like, intro post be my characters arriving at Serpent Keep starving and beaten silly? We can sprinkle in backstory and not have to re-do all the bit with Tarr... unless you wanna? I feel like it might be nice to jump right back into the action but I'm not opposed to starting from the very start if you'd rather)(what's the documentary?)
"I think so." Pratik nodded. "I certainly felt... well, I felt when she took it off... jubilant... felt free again, like my autonomy was returned to me. It was incredible for me... but... it was the first time you'd gotten even a taste of it, and you were dunked head-first into it. Makes sense it was overwhelming."
"u and rina are systematically watering down the grammar of yws" - Atticus "From the fish mother to the fish death god." - lehmanf "A fish stole my identity. I blame shady" - Omni [they/he]
(Sure we can jump to after their arrival! I definitely don't need to do all that exposition again. Anyone who reads these can just go to Two Crows Part One if they need.) (The documentary is Prehistoric Planet on Apple TV. It's a fascinating David Attenborough-narrated documentary that acts like a normal nature documentary except the subject is dinosaurs and prehistoric creatures with excellent computer generated animals!)
"I thought I might faint," he sighed. "But I'm glad to have it all off now."
(I just remembered he wears a nifty red scarf to hide the scars on his neck)
"The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that." -Karis Nemik
(haha true enough)(tho let's be real no one is reading this haha)(and neat!! That sounds super cool!)
Pratik nodded. "No doubt."
(aww that's really adorable)
"u and rina are systematically watering down the grammar of yws" - Atticus "From the fish mother to the fish death god." - lehmanf "A fish stole my identity. I blame shady" - Omni [they/he]
(Lehmanf is reading it I think? And there are a lot of views on each one, though that could just be us refreshing wildly) (It's super super good! I was blown away by the graphics; the first episode was marine life so we got some mosasaur action)
They were nearing the third floor. "And you'd never been a slave before, correct?"
"The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that." -Karis Nemik
(oh nice! yeah I think the views are just us obsessively refreshing haha but cool that someone else is enjoying the story too ^^)(and wow! that's awesome!)
"No... well..." Pratik hesitated. "I don't quite know what I was as a child, honestly. The fucker I was with made up all kinds of stories about my parents to hurt my feelings, ranging from them being dead to them abandoning me to them paying him money to take me because they were so desperate to be rid of me. I'd guess the abandonment version myself, though I choose to believe they're dead. It's easier to be charitable that way... but... I don't know. It was never explicitly said I couldn't leave, I guess. But he..." Pratik shook his head. "I don't know. I never had a collar, so I guess not? That's the part of my childhood that I don't quite remember. But... if I was then it hasn't been for a decade now. I definitely feel like a free man."
(not me, trying to make an aesthetic pic rather than just creating the stupid RP lol)
"u and rina are systematically watering down the grammar of yws" - Atticus "From the fish mother to the fish death god." - lehmanf "A fish stole my identity. I blame shady" - Omni [they/he]
Rickard stared at him. "That's terrible! Why would anyone do something that cruel to a child?"
"The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that." -Karis Nemik
(right? I think I'mma cut my losses and work on that another time. I'm just envisioning like a really dark ominous setting with like two dark crows representing Aleth and Gaius and a very small yellow canary -- potentially in a birdcage -- representing Ky, and placed in a subservient position... somehow)
"I mean..." Pratik shrugged, flushing a bit. He hadn't expected Rickard to ever be able to make him blush. "Who knows. I think he thought if he could make me hate myself as much as he hated me, then I'd be more compliant. I don't know. I never understood what was happening -- just a lot of yelling and dodging things he threw at me." He shrugged again. "I'm sure your masters weren't any kinder than Sir was to me."
"u and rina are systematically watering down the grammar of yws" - Atticus "From the fish mother to the fish death god." - lehmanf "A fish stole my identity. I blame shady" - Omni [they/he]
"They didn't tell me lies about my parents," Rickard said with a shake of his head. "They just made me forget who they were. I prefer that to believing terrible things about them."
"The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that." -Karis Nemik
"Oh." Pratik was quiet for a moment. That was a rather messed up thing to do to a preschooler, wasn't it? "I mean... that's fair. He just... I don't know. The word 'slave' was never mentioned. He just told me I should be grateful for him taking me in since my parents didn't love me." Pratik shrugged. "Turns out I didn't need any of them."
"u and rina are systematically watering down the grammar of yws" - Atticus "From the fish mother to the fish death god." - lehmanf "A fish stole my identity. I blame shady" - Omni [they/he]
"Sounds like you were still a slave. The word doesn't need to be used."
"The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that." -Karis Nemik
"Yeah... probably so." Pratik nodded. Rickard was right. He knew at his core that Rickard was right. And yet his pride bucked at the thought. No. He wasn't a slave. He was... he was who he was. An assassin. Not a slave. Never a slave. "Though I got away from him by accident, you know? We were in a region that kept changing hands what with the war and all, so they shuffled people up every few weeks -- make it impossible to organize a rebellion, I guess? I don't know. I just knew I got herded from place to place. One time they herded me one way and Sir another... I decided that meant the universe said it was time for me to be a man and take care of myself... anticlimatic escape, I guess."
"u and rina are systematically watering down the grammar of yws" - Atticus "From the fish mother to the fish death god." - lehmanf "A fish stole my identity. I blame shady" - Omni [they/he]
"An escape is an escape," he pointed out. "You got away and made a name for yourself, did you not?"
"The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that." -Karis Nemik
