At the End of the Rainbow 3&4/30
Rating: R for arsekicking and smoochies
Characters & Parings: OC, Cain/Glitch, Jeb's in there, mention of just about everyone.
Story Summary: When the story keeps going, heroes fall.
Chapter Summary: What do you do when you find a man called 'Glitch' in a stasis tank?
Obligatory Author Drivel: Moar! Here it is to those who've shown interest... I finished a bit early thanks to the supreme boringness of my internship projects. Though I just figured out what happens to Cain in the later chapters. *claps*
CONFUSION
It had taken her a long time time figure out what to do. She'd settled in the corner farthest from the man, the 'Glitch' and wrapped her arms around her knees, thinking. Was he a prisoner? Why was he...? Like this? Instead of in a cell? Prisons were for murders and madmen and traitors and... anyone the Queen didn't like... He didn't look harmful. Was his name Glitch? It didn't sound like a name a mother would give a son. Maybe he was one of those horrible experiments that the Alchemists used to make... He didn't look like the creatures she'd seen. The nasty twisted monsters that still haunted the grounds of Finaqua. Those rotted things that would pop out of the water and... She'd been traveling with a caravan last year and watched some of the horses get dragged under.
She closed her eyes and shook her head. No. This was a man and he didn't look like an experiment gone wrong.
Finally she'd stood, crossing over to the whirring consoles to stare long and hard at levers and buttons and a screen that glowed with a dim light. It took a few tries but then a long beep sounded and the screen flashed.
Commence activation procedures? y/n?
The keystroke clicked under her hand and then everything seemed to happen at once.
It sounded like everything that still worked in the prison came alive. She stumbled back as the man twitched and the tubes shuddered as the liquid slid out of the glass like water down a drain. Quickly, she was back in the corner with her hands over her eyes and her bottom lip between her teeth waiting for something to turn into a very terrible mistake.
There was one final painfully loud grinding noise and then it was silent. The whirring had ceased and the beeping was absent. Just a quiet drip, drip, drip...
She opened her eyes and swallowed.
The man was lying in a crumpled heap on the floor, the glass tube had risen halfway into the ceiling, spilling him out wires and all. The only part of the machine that seemed to be working now was the soft green light that glowed from underneath the grating. Gingerly she took a few steps forward. Was he dead? She wasn't sure she pressed the right buttons or if he'd been alive to begin with. Carefully she reached forward and brushed her fingers over damp curls before bolting back quickly and looking for any sign of movement.
There wasn't any for a long time and she had just about decided to give him another poking when his hand twitched. The girl froze, slowly backing up as he stirred. His shoulder slumped and he made a sort of gagging noise as he started to cough. A splatter of liquid hit the grating and he groaned, flopping over onto his back while tangling himself in his wires like a wet fish in a net.
He was still then and she shuffled forward a bit, lifting her tattered skirts out of the puddles of Gods-knew-what. She bent over a little to peer at his face which was scrunched up it seemed more out of annoyance then pain. He frowned and then opened his eyes. She willed herself to stay put since she'd reasoned that he couldn't come after her very fast all tangled up like that.
He cleared his throat as he focused on her and then a small wiry smile crossed his lips,
“Hello! Do I know you?”
NAKED
There was a distinct pause as she blinked.
“Um, n-n-no. I-I don't think s-so.”
Her voice was soft and quiet, just above a whisper and he frowned again.
“Oh. Pity. I thought you looked familiar but now I think I'm mistaken,” he grunted as he pushed himself into a sitting position and she danced back as to not get wet, “Though now I can't recall what about you was familiar. Maybe the eyes? No, I think it was the hair. Perhaps I knew someone with long dark hair like yours... Say, do you have a name?”
The girl blinked, she hadn't heard anyone speak that much in the last year or so. Most everyone traveled in silence nowadays.
“Poppy.”
“Poppy? Like the flower?”
She nodded and he frowned before he apparently decided that he liked whatever she had said and grinned, “Pleased to meet you, Poppy. I'd return a name but I've seem to forgotten it.”
Poppy blinked. Not at what he'd said but at the way he'd said it. Like he forgot important things like that all the time.
“W-well, your sign says 'Glitch'.”
He blinked and then peered to where she had gestured, “So it does. Glitch. It's not a very promising name, now is it? Of course this hasn't been a very promising way to wake up. Do you know where we are, Poppy?”
She nibbled on her bottom lip as he tugged experimentally on a wire that came out of the back of his hand, “I think were in the Southern Prison, just outside of what used to be Southlinch.”
“Used to be? I remember a Southlinch. It wasn't very structurally sound, they built it on a swamp.”
“I-i-it got destroyed w-when the Tiktoks came through. The p-prison sank into the swamp last year.”
“Tiktoks?”
“Yeah. The a-army...”
Poppy gasped as he simply pinched the wire and yanked it out seeming without a thought as to what it was attached to.
He paused and looked up, “Sorry. It didn't hurt, though I probably should have warned you,” he frowned again as he looked back over the array of wires that were attached to him, “perhaps, if you could look around for some... coverings of some sort? I appear to be rather naked.”
She nodded, thankfully scurrying out of the room as she heard the noise of wire scraping on the grate.