#but pond did SUCH amazing job with Judo

[malepresentingleg]

Judo >>>> Palm and Ice >>>> Nueng

[skullchicken]

Blackout - Part 4

Info I Part 1 I Part 2 I Part 3

Hanne

Hanne had often thought that it would be nice to not have a body. Not to be dead. Just to not have anything that could be seen. When Hanne had been bullied, the wish had been simpler: to be invisible. The bullying was no longer a problem, but the desire remained. No matter when or where, the body was a prison. Even while online dating, where you didn't have to see each other, people wanted to know who he was right away. What do you do? Where are you from? M/F? Male or female. Problem number one.

The few non-trogs* he'd told about his past had been amazed: what, you were bullied? Yes, he grew up in a troll neighborhood. The concept wasn't that difficult. For a long time he had pondered why people had thrown forks on his back like arrows at a dart board during lunch break. What was he doing wrong? What was wrong with him? Did they smell something on him that he couldn't?

Maybe they had noticed, much earlier than him, that he didn't feel like a man. At least not always. But then a classmate in eighth grade came out as transgender. So that couldn't have been it. It had been a rough time. One day he had overheard him getting comforted by his friends two tables away. The parents did not understand him: ‘she had been such a pretty girl’. They could have been friends, Hanne and him. They had a lot in common, from what he had involuntarily overheard. That had just rubbed salt into the wounds.

He finally decided that the reason they shut him out, kicked him, and tormented him was a very simple one: because they could. Because he was smaller and weaker. And because putting others down was an easy way to feel powerful, to feel better. He also understood: the adults wouldn't do anything. It was just 'how trolls played'. Trolls were 'tough – and if you weren't, you should learn,' they'd said. The world wouldn't 'touch you with kid gloves either'. But scratches and bruises were not what hurt the most. And what killed you didn't necessarily make you stronger, but it often broke you. His father however was a good man. He did his best to comfort him. But he didn't understand that he couldn't make himself small enough that they would stop.

What followed was an arms race taking place over the course of several years. He started weight training; they picked up judo. He got into muay thai; they got themselves baseball bats. He got pistols; they got rifles. At that point, play-time was over. Before that, someone died accidentally. Now, someone accidentally didn't die. Cease-fire. But it never ceased in his mind. He couldn't stop. Prepping had become a habit. Armored clothing, more weights, then composite bones, muscle toning. Expensive as sin. All of that so he could finally, finally feel safe. But that never happened. And then, months after the last attack, his father sat at the kitchen table at two o'clock in the morning with glassy eyes and said:

"Son, that is no way to live.”

And he was right. He had to get out of there. He needed a bigger pond with smaller fish.

For the first time, Hanne could be herself. Admittedly only unobserved, in her first own apartment. But finally there was air to breathe. Her father hadn't known about it. She had lacked the words to make him understand. And she was ashamed. Hanne, a caricature of manliness. And she saw herself as a part-time woman.

It was a good, quiet life. But he was often alone. Unfortunately, he already knew most of the troll women his age in the plex**. And those he didn't know, those he was interested in, were interested in him for the wrong reasons. How wouldn't they be? He wasn't being completely honest. In his new job as a bouncer and girl Friday (hah) he certainly saw enough people being gender-queer on the open dance floor. But that was for small, pretty squishies. Then he did manage to get a girlfriend after all. He had really tried to please her. Until she passed out while choking. She had dismissed it with a laugh, that he shouldn't act like that – that's exactly how she wanted it. But after that he couldn't get it up anymore.

And then one night she found herself carrying a young human woman from the back entrance of the “Spiral” against her will.

"Wheee, I'm a princess!", she gurgled in her arms.

Half a minute ago she'd snatched her (half-undressed) out of the toilet cubicle. According to Benni, a visitor had seen a suspicious couple. A razorboy and a girl who was 'too drunk for this time of day'. And since Benni couldn't leave his spot, Hanne had to pick up the slack.

In the pale moonlight she set her down on the asphalt to give her a proper look over. Pinkish, glassy eyes. She didn't smell of alcohol, though. Hanne had soon gotten tired of wondering what exactly the blacked out man in the corner was tripping on this week (and if he would try to tear off her arm if she tried to wake him up). So she'd made it a habit to have some 5-minute tests with her. Hanne took her hand to give her a quick prick.

"Ouch!" She pulled her fingers out her loose grip – and toppled down into the bushes to the left. Giggling. With both hands, Hanne lifted her back up by the coat.

“Listen, shorty. You have something in your system. And from how that softhead back there was acting, he's not going to leave you alone today. You don't have to go home, but you shouldn't stay here."

"Oh, okay."

"Can you make it home?"

"Yep," she assured her... while trying and failing to pluck twigs out of her hair.

At the bus stop, Hanne sent a hopeful glance towards the quick test. Some long, familiar-sounding name that had appeared in the field. 'P1nk', revealed the matrix search. Aw, shit. Roofie two point zero. No alcohol needed for the memory gap anymore, just a good dose of sleep. And before that, the victim stayed awake, gullible and in a good mood. And disoriented. The designer drug for all those wanting to imagine that they 'wanted it, actually'. Sighing, she sent Benni a message. This was going to take some time.

"Why are you here?"

The girl eyed her with uncertainty as she squeezed into the back row of the bus.

"I'll take you home."

"Oh?" She smiled widely. "Okey-dokey."

"You live here?"

The girl was leaning her head against the entrance's glass double-doors and smiled tipsily.

"Hm-hm."

"Alright then. Remember to drink enough water. Good-b-” She raised her hand to wave – and was interrupted.

"Mh, I think the elevator is broken."

"The elevator," Hanne exhaled.

The other one nodded mechanically and then fluttered her eyelashes.

"And I live aaaall the way up on the fourteenth floor."

She giggled the whole way upstairs until she placed her down in front of her appartment door. The blonde looked up at her.

"Than-kiiieees."

She held onto her, swaying. Only then did Hanne notice little fingers tampering with her waistband. She snatched both slender wrists with one hand.

"What-?", Hanne began.

The eyes of the human woman were large and glossy. The thin lips were parted slightly in surprise.

"No?" She asked.

‘No’ what? Oh. Ohhh.

"Don't you think I'm a size too large for you?"

She twisted her mouth and shrugged. Then she wiggled her fingers as if it was funny to her.

"Wouldn't you like to at least, like, come in for a moment and then we'll see what happens?", she cooed.

"I told you earlier, that softhead slipped you something."

All of sudden, she frowned.

"So what? That can be fun, too, right?” She spitefully tried to withdraw her hands from her grip. Hanne let her. "First you pulled me away from Tarnopol and now you don't wanna do anything either – what gives?"

He stared at her, stunned. So the situation had been very different from what he had thought. And thinking himself to be Prince charming he’d climbed up the high rise like King Kong with the white woman.

"Oh."

"No- no, sorry." She held her head in her hand.

His was warming up.

"You really could have said something earlier."

“No – it wasn't like that at all – I'm sorry for what I said. It wasn't like that. Can't we just go in and forget it?” She smiled hopefully.

What should he say? No, you're not right in the head right now? Didn't work before. No, squishies look like kids to me? That might just get her to try harder. No, women only want me because of my strength and you are no exception? Was none of her damn business.

He saw her swallow hard.

"Nah… nah, it's okay. I get it. You don't want me. Because I'm trash. Guys like Tarno, I can get those. ‘cause they're trash, too.” She hid her face in her hands. A sob escaped her. "But if you have a spark of decency, you just have to be able smell it a mile away.”

Turns out P1nk wasn't that mood-elevating after all. He looked around the hallway with a tinge of concern. Blonde young human woman, crying, alone with a troll. Very bad look. And who knew what she would say tomorrow? Then he remembered – by tomorrow she would have forgotten everything anyways.

He looked down at her. A small, pale, soft thing, defenseless and begging for his attention. The kind of girl who wouldn't even look at him in school. One of those who boozed up every weekend because otherwise she’d have no personality. One who made out with any bastard because she thought cruelty to be the same as power or a sense of humor. She was just as desperate as he had always hoped in the darkest crevices of his soul. And nothing he did to her tonight would have any consequences.

So he made her a lemon cake.

* = Trog: (vulgar) derogatory term for orcs or trolls.

** = Plex: Short for „Metroplex“, big city complex.