[She raises her head just high enough to look up at Rei, acknowledging the squeeze and the whisper. She's not sure what to say in response, but she appreciates it. She tries to convey that appreciation through her gaze, but she's not sure she manages it, since it is mostly lost in her otherwise tense and upset expression. After a moment, she just continues her story.]
They took us far from the village and locked the ones who survived the trip in a dungeon, underground. The soldiers there were...experimenting on Ferines.
[The word "experimenting" is said with great reluctance. That experience is why she always refers to what the Malnosso do as shifts rather than experiments. The ones done by the soldiers in red were done with what were identified as instruments of torture -- much more horrifying than what at least the usual Malnosso do.]
Not that they ever told us. All I knew was that they were taking people from the cells to torture, and no one survived more than a few sessions. There didn't seem to be a reason, but..."because we're Ferines and they're Orerines" -- I didn't think they needed any other reason.
[The words she's quoting come almost automatically -- it was something she'd said and thought many times as she tried to make sense of what was happening. She's only used the word Orerines a couple of times with Rei, back when she'd told her that she wasn't human, having explained then that that was what the Ferines called humans. She lowers her head again, not able to bring herself to look Rei in the eyes as she continues.]
The brave ones -- the ones who tried to escape, or the ones who let themselves be chosen so the soldiers wouldn't take someone else -- they were some of the first ones to die. I wasn't one of them. All I wanted to do was live. Even though there was almost no hope of rescue. Even though I knew that, if they didn't pick me, they would pick someone else. They would pick one of my friends. Even though I could hear what happened to the one they'd choose instead from my cell.
[She shudders. Her cell had been down the hall from the room where the soldiers had conducted the experiments, with only a few other cells between them. She couldn't avoid hearing some of it.]
But I wanted to live, so I kept my head down, and I stayed in the back of my cell, and I was -- lucky.
[The word's said with contempt, as she's not sure she can consider anything about that time lucky.]
So I survived even after I stopped hearing about anyone from my village, and then I still survived until the Ferines they brought in after me were all gone, too. And then I was the only one left, so I couldn't hide any longer. That's where I got the -- scars.
[She couldn't wrap her mind around thinking of them as a mark of triumph. Even if she didn't blame herself for her friends' deaths, not really, she'd kept from drawing the attention of the soldiers even as she knew they could easily choose one of her friends instead and she'd only gotten most of them after she couldn't run away from it any more.]
no subject
They took us far from the village and locked the ones who survived the trip in a dungeon, underground. The soldiers there were...experimenting on Ferines.
[The word "experimenting" is said with great reluctance. That experience is why she always refers to what the Malnosso do as shifts rather than experiments. The ones done by the soldiers in red were done with what were identified as instruments of torture -- much more horrifying than what at least the usual Malnosso do.]
Not that they ever told us. All I knew was that they were taking people from the cells to torture, and no one survived more than a few sessions. There didn't seem to be a reason, but..."because we're Ferines and they're Orerines" -- I didn't think they needed any other reason.
[The words she's quoting come almost automatically -- it was something she'd said and thought many times as she tried to make sense of what was happening. She's only used the word Orerines a couple of times with Rei, back when she'd told her that she wasn't human, having explained then that that was what the Ferines called humans. She lowers her head again, not able to bring herself to look Rei in the eyes as she continues.]
The brave ones -- the ones who tried to escape, or the ones who let themselves be chosen so the soldiers wouldn't take someone else -- they were some of the first ones to die. I wasn't one of them. All I wanted to do was live. Even though there was almost no hope of rescue. Even though I knew that, if they didn't pick me, they would pick someone else. They would pick one of my friends. Even though I could hear what happened to the one they'd choose instead from my cell.
[She shudders. Her cell had been down the hall from the room where the soldiers had conducted the experiments, with only a few other cells between them. She couldn't avoid hearing some of it.]
But I wanted to live, so I kept my head down, and I stayed in the back of my cell, and I was -- lucky.
[The word's said with contempt, as she's not sure she can consider anything about that time lucky.]
So I survived even after I stopped hearing about anyone from my village, and then I still survived until the Ferines they brought in after me were all gone, too. And then I was the only one left, so I couldn't hide any longer. That's where I got the -- scars.
[She couldn't wrap her mind around thinking of them as a mark of triumph. Even if she didn't blame herself for her friends' deaths, not really, she'd kept from drawing the attention of the soldiers even as she knew they could easily choose one of her friends instead and she'd only gotten most of them after she couldn't run away from it any more.]