#stop having two fucking titles motherglubber

[interrogatormentors]

Event Six: Golden Infidel

After perigees of trial and error, Eridan finally felt he’d gotten a handle on Head Admin duties. The stress never decreased, and more often than not Eridan found himself reaching for a drink at the end of the day to take the edge off, but having someone at the end of the worknight to talk to helped more than Eridan cared to admit. No matter the time, no matter what far reaches of space the Reichenbach found itself in, TA responded to each of Eridan’s various messages. Eridan had to wonder if TA actually liked talking to him, or if the capital-H-Helmsman was just bored. God, the idea that he may actually have stumbled onto the Imperial Helmsman, a veritable wiggler-tale creature, terrified Eridan to no end.

Still, he’d take support wherever he could get it, and right now he had bigger fish to fry. As Head Admin, he took responsibility for organizing any and all docking requests, maintenance queues, and inventory logging. The task weighing down his shoulders at the moment took the form of a simple email in his account which had exploded into a lurid, glittery graphic whose symbol seared itself into his eyelids.

“By decree of Her Imperial Condescension, Empress of the Alternian Empire, your ship is formally ordered to attend mandatory Fleet Inspection event. Ships of the invited will go through rigorous examination, while crews are encouraged to mingle aboard the HBC Condescension. Coordinates attached. This message designed and approved by the Department of Imperial Public Affairs.”

A computer generated tyrian-pink lipstick kiss signed the bottom of the invite or order or whatever this abomination of color actually was, along with the sign of the Empress herself. Eridan had tried to find an explanation for the sudden Fleet inspection as he scurried over the entire Reichenbach getting everything in order, and found none. Whisperings of rebellion crawled through the empire, but none of the rumors possessed any substance. They never mentioned names, and no descriptions of a certain secret heiress ever reached Eridan. Despite their tempestuous parting, Eridan couldn’t bring himself to look forward to Feferi’s inevitable culling once she finally surfaced.

Rebellions didn’t matter. Trolls didn’t matter. Only the health and safety of the Reichenbach mattered, and Eridan finally managed to get everything in its proper place by the time of the inspection. Even with the stress of the event, perhaps he could even make some connections aboard the HBC Condescension to make his life easier.

Two hours into the event, and Eridan had spoken to approximately two trolls, who spoke to him more out of a respect to his caste than to his actual position. This fact insulted him more than anything, considering how much time he’d spent taming his hair back and moisturizing. “So you weren’t expectin’ an inspection either, huh?”

The teal next to him wrinkled her nose. “You can say that. My bet’s on the Empress looking for rebellion ties. Why else would she call back an interrogatormentor ship?”

Eridan covered up his apprehension by taking a nervous sip from his drink. He’d noticed the interrogatormentors too-- a cerulean and an enormous seadweller cutting their way through the crowd in silent tandem. “Any ships in range got called back. They ain’t special.” His eyes met the cerulean’s, and his acidic digestive pouch twisted up in six different knots. “You think they’re lookin’ for rebels? In the fleet? Maybe you got a few flirtin’ with the idea in wigglerhood, but they’d be stupid to think rebels actually care about anybody past Ascension.” His lip twisted up into a half-snarl before he schooled his face back.

The teal laughed. “I like you. It’s too bad that naivety’s going to get slammed right out of you. What’d you say your name was?”

Eridan’s eyes hadn’t left the pair of interrogatormentors, who’d started to move towards them as casually as two sharks circling a baby dolphin. “I’m gonna get some air,” he said, ignoring the other troll’s derisive remark about recycled ship air.

The invitation to mingle aboard the Empress’ Imperial Battleship hadn’t explicitly forbidden wandering around, but Eridan couldn’t help but check over his shoulder every few seconds all the same. The interrogatormentors hadn’t followed him out either. Eridan tried to reassure himself that he needn’t worry about them. He had nothing to hide. Any ties to a rebellion now had severed themselves sweeps ago, and he harbored no treasonous leanings now. If they asked him anything, he could say with confidence he didn’t know what the rebellion was planning or who led the charge. Feferi’s name didn’t need to come up. So why did he feel so terrified of the prospect of investigation?

Eridan didn’t meet any other trolls as he wandered further and further, the walls losing their ornamental gilding and becoming more utilitarian as he walked on. The HBC Condescension had started out as nothing more than a personal cruiser according to legends, building itself up into elaborate palace halls around the ancient helmsman at the core.

Eridan jumped as he heard something up ahead of him, fins swiveling in an attempt to pinpoint the noise. He crept around the corner, still holding his drink glass in a shaking hand. It sounded like someone spoke off in the distance, a drone that almost held a melody in words he couldn’t quite parse. As Eridan walked onward, the sound became more distinct but no less identifiable as actual words. Eridan’s brow furrowed as he heard a word he almost understood, until it clicked.

As a devotee to history, especially military tactics, Eridan had amassed more than his fair share of old books and scrolls. At one point, Alternia had had two main languages, High and Low, with the Low comprised of dozens of lowblooded tongues all mashed together in the enslaved warm population. Over time High had become Common, with only a few dialects surviving while Low had faded away with time. Eridan had only seen Old Low Alternian written down once, in an ancient tome bound in clawbeast skin that he still hadn’t fully translated by the time he joined the Fleet. But he knew those words, written down in a column of shaky letters in a section of heretical hymns, although he’d never imagined he’d hear them sung aloud.

“He carries all our pain And one day his strife is forgotten However, we are forgiven.”

Eridan knew at this point, he’d gone too far into the ship. If someone spotted him at this point, he’d earn a trip to the interrogatormentor’s brig regardless of rebel ties, and yet he found himself entranced as he kept going. It took him time to translate the words in his head, but the process made itself easier as the disembodied singer repeated the droning mantra like a prayer, over and over. Eridan closed his eyes as he walked, picturing the words in front of his head, sounding them out and pairing them with the sounds he heard.

“Our kin are separated by color of blood. We are without love or virtue. However, we are forgiven.”

Eridan opened his eyes just in time to stop in front of a door, its frame reinforced in the characteristic manner of a helmsblock to seal moisture in to preserve biowires and living tissue. Eridan swallowed hard, grip tightening so hard on his glass he heard the glass creak. All highblood dinnerware needed reinforcement, but his apprehension definitely put the construction to the test. Despite every instinct screaming at Eridan to back away, to walk right back to the gathering of disgruntled ship captains and crew, Eridan placed his palm on the door’s scanner. The door opened.

The smell hit Eridan first, rotting flesh and damp that nearly had him retching as he looked up at the tangle of wires and remnant of troll strung up in the helming harness. The source of the song came from above, speakers connecting the Helmsman to the ship. Eridan couldn’t find a sign of life in the old psion’s face, silver-streaked hair hanging over his red and blue eyes glazed over like a corpse. Eridan wondered if the battery even had arms and legs at this point, considering the black, necrotic tissue creeping down from the forearms completely hidden in a snarl of devouring biowires.

As Eridan stood there, transfixed in horror and disgust, the speakers’ volume started to dim. The Helmsman stirred, head slowly rising from its slumped position as his lips began to sound out silent syllables. Over the next few seconds he managed to speak up, the speakers going silent as the Helmsman took over the song with a voice like shards of glass scraping up against each other. The psion blinked, first with his blue eye and then his right, and it took a few tries to blink moisture into his eyes like a normal troll. He stopped singing, and spoke.

“You took your time, Eridan.” The Helmsman took a heaving breath, and Eridan swore he could hear the creaking of his lungs. “Ah, I forgot how much I hate this meat sack.”

Eridan set down his glass on a console, swallowing back the bile rising in his throat. Despite the smell and the disgusting sight, he felt a twinge of something akin to pity in the back of his head. This really was the troll he’d played poker with and talked to for these past few perigees. “You were expectin’ me? Surprised you got two pan-cells to scrape together, lookin’ like that.”

The Helmsman laughed, a horrific grating sound that trailed off into wet coughs. “As am I,” he said, choking a bit. Yellow blood dribbled down his chin, and a biowire snaked across his face to clear it. “I asked for you. It was an idle request, but the Empress continues to surprise me in her benevolence.”

Eridan squinted at the Helmsman. “Seems like the most benevolent thin’ for you is a funeral pyre. Why’d you wanna see me?”

The Helmsman closed his eyes. “I do not want to die,” he said, and something about the strained tone to his voice didn’t ring as true. “I get to see the stars. I have been blessed with eternity and power beyond comprehension. But it is lonely, here. Speaking to someone, to you, has reminded me of this.”

Eridan felt his hand lifting outside his control, until he made contact with the decrepit troll’s cheek with a damp pap. He rotated his hand before the gesture could get misconstrued, grasping the old troll’s jaw as he looked him over. The Helmsman’s skin felt like damp sandpaper, threatening to flake off and peel away at any moment. “Eugh. I mean, I ain’t anythin’ special, but if you’re lonely I could stick around for a bit. I don’t think anyone’s gonna miss me for a bit. What was that song you were singin’ about, anyways?”

The Helmsman managed to open his eyes again, lips parting to speak. He looked behind Eridan’s shoulder, and his eyes went round just in time for someone else to announce themselves.

“Singing for your new buoy-toy already, battery?” The voice sent chills down Eridan’s spine, and he stayed frozen with his hand on the Helmsman’s face. “Hope you don’t mind bein’ an object lesson, guppy.”

A cool hand touched down on Eridan’s shoulder, and he glanced off to the side just long enough to see long, tyrian-painted nails that popped against the myriad of golden rings adorning the hand of none other than the Empress herself. He tried to come up with an explanation, a plea, anything, but gasped instead as the prongs of a golden trident pierced through him. An instinctive shriek of pain caught in his throat, his entire being paralyzed by pain he’d never experienced before.

He choked on his own blood as the trident lifted, sweeping him off his feet and tearing through his gut as the Empress lifted him with ease. As his vision went black Eridan remembered hunting freshwater shallows with Feferi, pulling crayfish from their murky dens and impaling them on his fingers. He’d watched them squirm, antennae wriggling and legs kicking as if they had any hope of surviving before popping them into his mouth and crunching through their chitinous shells with his teeth. Eridan’s right leg spasmed, kicking out once, and he saw nothing more.