taxonomites | 009 ||[ Location: Sanctuary] || Nine Princes in Amber

Waking up in a place he had definitely not gone to sleep was a rather large blow to Corwin’s soldiers’ instincts. He’d come awake all at once, tense and ready to strike with his hand on his blade—

—but nothing had happened. Typical. Get him worked up over nothing…

Everything felt too…medical. Stifling. Too many reminders of a certain Greenwood Private Hospital and nights spent over-narcotized and memoryless. Dreamless, even. They hadn’t even given him that luxury.

He could at least change that, dammit. He’d lost his cloak in the suddenness of the move (not so much as a warning to grab at least a few things, hm?), but it wasn’t the worst thing that could have vanished. He still had something sharp with him, the sword his best and most trusted companion, that one piece of the Pattern that he still had access to.

It was, understandably, a surprise when he ran face-first into…something keeping him inside the building. First holding him inside the city, now…caging him in here? This place was getting to be more a prison every day he stayed.

Experience here told him that anger was useless, but it should have been frightening. He’d done terrible things to people for less than this—he should have been an unstoppable force—

—only he wasn’t. And that only made him angrier.

After several more attempts at leaving, he finally gave up with an oath and turned to stalk the halls instead, all dark and silver, restlessness hardly abated.

Someone else had to be in here.

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That look got one of his own right back--more disapproving than pouty, though--as he watched her expression change when things started to dawn on her. Maybe it was a bad idea to be telling her all of this, but where he was from, ignorance was worse.

"Starting to figure it out?"

Her dad had been here, for a few days, and had gone again. If the aliens had really gotten bored and... And Kate... Horror was definitely starting to win out and Alexis took an involuntary step away from Corwin, her shoulders slumping as if she was trying to draw into herself.

A long moment, at least for her, as she blinked rapidly. No tears fell, even if there was a watery brightness in her eyes for a moment before she spoke again, more subdued this time, younger sounding. "But if they did, then they'd leave the bodies as a warning. To scare us."

Corwin shrugged, shaking his head. He didn't actually expect that that was what was going on, but it was a possibility. They had been captured, sure, but their captors had been nice enough to give them a city to roam around in, a nice big cage to play with each other. At least they kept them mostly safe, even if there were occasional zombies.

"Maybe that's not it, then."

The implications (of both sides of the equation) sunk in slowly, and Alexis furrowed her brow as she tried to get the initial reaction under control. "Then what makes you think it's a cage instead of a maze?"

"It sounds nicer." But he knew that was only part of it. And despite trying not to continue, he kept right on going. "Because a maze implies that there's a way out that we can find. A cage has only the door that the collectors can open when they want to play. I'm not entirely convinced that anything we do will get us out of here."

She frowned at that. "Have you tried?" she couldn't help but ask. It wasn't in Alexis' nature to not try everything she found interesting. "There's an awful lot here. I haven't even finished trying to break my tablet."

"...you haven't finished trying to break it?" That didn't really make any sense, but then it had seemed particularly hardy, even standing up to his best efforts to smash it into pieces when no one was looking and he couldn't stand the cage's bars any longer.

"Of course not. It's an experiment," she answered, as if there was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary about the idea. She ticked things off on her fingers as she spoke. "I've tried dropping it off a couple of buildings, but that didn't work. Then I tried a hammer. And soaking it in the bathtub. And boiling it."

Alexis gestured to the Sanctuary. "I had planned on freezing it next, but then we got stuck here."

Corwin gave a low whistle at that. The kid was nothing if not thorough at least. That was almost to the point of impressive and he'd been lacking for that lately. There was little enough to be impressed with around here that didn't have anger and frustration attached just as firmly to it. He could be impressed with what they'd done to stick him here, sure, but, sure enough, the rage with it would follow.

"Sounds like you've got it pretty well-covered."

It was obvious by the smile on Alexis' face that she was pleased by the reaction she got. "Not really," she answered. "I've only covered what I think might break it, and the aliens probably thought of those too, since they're pretty simple. I should ask on the network about other ideas."

A pause, and her pleased smile grew thoughtful. "Maybe I can ask someone to shoot at it. Or blow it up."

"At this point, I doubt that there's much left." Or that any of it woud have any effect, but as long as he was at least pretending to be encouraging, she didn't need to know that part. No need to spoil anything she was keeping herself occupied with.

"Good luck with those experiments of yours."

She nodded, thoughtful despite the smile. "Thank you. It keeps me busy." She used to say that it helped keep her caught up with her classes back home, but... she'd stopped thinking about that a while ago.

She turned away to continue her exploration, then stopped and turned back. "I hope you're wrong, you know. About this being a cage."

That sigh was, perhaps, just a little too much on the side of obvious, but he couldn't exactly help it, either. His expression grew distant as he looked away from her, fighting back the nostalgia that always came with thinking of Amber.

"Me too, kid."

009 ||[ Location: Sanctuary] || Nine Princes in Amber

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