so Freya how was your childhood did you grow up in the palace or did you spend your younger years somewhere else
At last. The Oktigi almost sighed with relief; waiting for someone to reach out through Freya’s number had become a game of silence that bothered her on a level she could not explain. Two months of waiting for her answering machine, which the wires in the Mudokon's landline had been rerouted to, to sound off.
She let the message play before tapping the button that turned on the microphone, her smile obvious in her tone but completely unevil.
“I secured the rights to her via auction,” she said, her voice slipping through the receiver like oil through water. “She was all anyone could talk about for weeks, being an Undomesticated with such . . .” She made her fingers comb through Freya's limp wings, dragging lightly along the long, heavy-with-texture feathers. They twitched. Their owner did not.
The price had been high, the interest insatiable. Whispers had swept through Nolybab like fire through dry grass. Eyes turned, wagers were made behind many scenes, theories spun in drawing rooms and laboratories alike. The breeders were anxious; the financiers were intrigued. And the scientists . . . VykkersLabs 16 had not wanted to make her known to anybody on Oddworld.
She remembered how, even after the auction, after the gavel fell and the ink dried, their claws clutched at the property no longer in their name. She could recall each battle, barely won with either words, legal documents, or Palace titles, where organization had fought with everything they had.
Freya had been too small then - barely more than a breath wrapped in down. They had singled her out among the Mudokons in their facility pantry. Prodded her. Poked her. Measured. Injected. Cleaned. And then she was laid, bare, on a metal table, beneath the glare of white-hot lights.
Gloved claws - they were afraid to touch her directly, for multiple reasons - traced the edges of her wings, pinched the delicate structure that would become something more one day. Mudokons did not have wings. Mudokons did not fly. And yet, she existed; she was right in front of them.
“A genetic fluke?” one Vykker mused, turning her over with the precision of a secret agent defusing a bomb. No matter how many times he saw them, he refused to believe his own eyes.
“Or something older,” another murmured. “Something dangerous and new."
“Vivisection,” one proposed. “It's risky, but we could just take some of her apart. See what makes her tick.”
“Implants,” the one beside that doctor countered. “If she can fly, imagine what we could make her do.”
“Sell her,” one not-so-nasally voice interjected. The room quieted, except for the infant's pin-drop inhales and exhales. Everyone's eyes faced the Vykker who looked like he had more years on his oblong head than his colleagues.
“That,” the youngest of the group hissed, “is an utterly idiotic notion. Do you have any idea what the Magog Cartel would do to us if they knew? The fact she's an intact Queen of Native lineage and has these-" He roughly yanked her right down into the air. She whimpered. "-makes her more valuable than anything on Odd! You want everyone and their mother on our backs about the greatest breakthrough in Mudokon biology ever seen?"
Silence, for a breath. Then a chuckle, dark and satisfied.
“They’d do nothing,” the elder continued, “if they thought she was purely our rarest commodity. An asset that needed little correction and would fit into any Industrialist life, thanks to her age.” The words dripped with promise, glutted with greed. “So we auction her. We take a cut for future 'business' funds, secure a deal with some middle-aged Glukkstar or whoever has enough money. And if they want her to stay Intact, we charge extra and majority of all future clutches - lose one, have the chance to study hundreds. Thousands, possibly.”
A murmur of assent; the scent of profit in the air made it too sweet. The calculations continued. The examinations resumed. Preparations were made.
Now, the Oktigi watched as her long-term investment slowly and lazily lifted her head. Her pupils were wide and glassed with something that turned clarity to syrup. Behind her right ear, a whisper of red light pulsed - faint, deliberate, present.
Her owner smiled, tilting Freya’s chin up with the press of two fingers.
“They should have asked for more,” she murmured, "for you are perfect now. No more pesky feelings, correct? No 'bad' thoughts? No more independence that could tarnish the name of the woman who saved you from a fate worse than death?"
"Yes, Ma'am." The Queen answered as best as she could; her mind had felt like soup for what seemed like an eternity.
2087
stormborns
yousharknotpass
