A Way Out (A Way Home)

by WinglessStripedOwl

Summary:

Technoblade was an average guy, he watched his college lessons, went to work and played video games. He was never into "There's life out there in space!!" kind of thing, he liked movies or games about aliens but otherwise it was whatever really.

Now, trapped behind a holographic energy field, he regrets it.

Maybe there was some information he could've gotten, some clue as to why they do this or some way to plead, to implore, for them to stop.

Notes:

• Inspired by A Myriad of Miscommunications by TheHappySpider
• Inspired by How Much Earth Do You Carry In Your Lungs? by Dragonire
• Inspired by Chance Encounters (are what keep us going) by Viokaea

Inspired by the Olympics.

More tags will be added in the future.

Chapter 1: The Undefeated Champion

Notes:

The olympics gave me a thirst for blood i cannot explain, and i was struck by the gods with motivation for an Alien au fic.
I wrote this watching the olympics.

Trigger Warnings: Blood, burns, uncon surgery.
Enjoy! : ]

The coliseum is filled with the excited screams of the audience. The announcer babbles on and on about something, with warbles and grunts making him sound like a drowning cat, getting the audience more hyped as he speaks. The language still unintelligible to his ears.

Techno hears a word he’s familiar with—his name, his title, or something—they started calling him ‘this’ after some time of him being here. He does not like it.

''Not that it matters.''

He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes as the dark purple wall in front of him slides down. He never did like attention.

''Not that it matters.''

He straightens his posture and stares straight ahead, he knows what's coming, he does not waver. Even if the collar around his neck feels like a noose. The noise that was muffled now hits Techno as a wave as he steps out into the arena.

Cream-white rocky-sand spread across the ground, dark purple stones line the entire wall, and the most surreal thing is when Techno lifts his head, a void sky lacking any clouds as the black sun beams down its heat. The air is hot and dry, and his throat already feels scratchy. The heat should be unbearable, but he finds it not enough to chase the chill off his bones.

His attention is brought back to his surroundings by the opposite wall sliding down. Three Xenomorph-faced dogs with a third pair of arms come out running and growling, it’s more like they only have a mouth over a smooth oval face.

Techno closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. The dogs begin circling him, snapping their teeth, and barking. “‘sigh’” He stands still, waiting for them to make the first move, they start circling him.

“i'm tired of this.” He mumbles to himself.

Everything goes quiet, the audience, the narrator, and Techno can hear his heart beating like a drum in his ears and feel the blood flowing faster in his veins.

The dog behind him charges with a howl, Techno turns to the side, and it passes straight through, crashing into the one in front, both dogs stumble to the ground. The dog to his left leaps at him, using the momentum to whirl kick the side of its head, the smooth surface of its face, bends like metal, and the creature lets out a high-pitched cry as it collapses to the ground, convulsing.

The crowd howls with cheers.

The dogs that had fallen get up, and both leap with their extra pair of limbs extended on the front, like a pouncing cat, he jumps back. They run laps around the arena.

Four laps in and his legs are getting wobbly, he glances back. The dogs are worse, panting and tripping on the air. He takes one more step and turns around. The closest dog jumps with its maw open. Techno shoves his forearm inside and it bites down. Its teeth bent back like fishhooks, sinking into his skin with ease.

Using the body of the dog, Techno body slams the other, pinned to the ground, it starts scratching at the one gnawing on his arm. He punches the thing stuck to his arm one, two, four, seven, twelve times, it goes limp.

He lifts the dead body and the dog that was pinned under it, he throws both to the side, tearing his arm where the thing still had it in its mouth.

The last dog quickly rolls to his feet, it seems dizzy as it tries to right itself. He gives it no chance as he charges and tackles it to the ground again. He grips its neck with both hands, his overgrown nails digging into its flesh. It shrieks high and desperate.

The thing tries using its pair of front paws to claw at Techno, but it only makes him put more pressure on it and tighten more and more. He feels the warm liquid as his fingers puncture its skin. Its cries turn into gurgle noises as its mouth fills with blood.

The more it struggles, the deeper his fingers dig. He touches the tips of his fingers with one another, and with all that's left in him, Techno rips out the dog’s windpipe. Green, murky blood sprays all over his shirt and face, his arms held on top of his head holding a chunk of bloody flesh.

He stares straight up and screams; screams for the pain he is in; screams for how tired he is of this; screams for being the winner once again, even if he tried—tries—not to.

He just screams, not for help, he knows that won’t come.

The audience erupts in complete glee, the narrator is saying something very quickly.

Closing his eyes, his arms fall to the side, the piece of meat hits the ground, Techno soaks up as much warmth as he can. It’s cold where he will be returned to.

“i'm tired of this.” He whispers to himself, to the black sun, and to the thousand stars he would never imagine seeing on earth.

He watches as the door/wall he walked in from slides open, he starts slowly walking towards it. Two stocky aliens get out from the opening, they have four crab-like legs, light purple plating all over their pale yellowish body, the top of their heads, a clam like helmet open in the middle to reveal beady black eyes and hide the rest of their faces, almost reaching up to Techno's shoulders.

They both carry a long metal staff, holding them up defensively as they approach. Techno stops moving and hunches his shoulders, he gently grabs his bitten arm and lowers his head, making his long, pink hair obscure most of his vision.

The crab aliens round him, and in a flash of movement, both staffs connect to the sides of the collar with force, like magnets. Techno’s bent down more and has to right his feet not to fall, his muscles protest the position, and he groans. They don’t like that, and they inform that by pulling him down more, it still hurts but now he bites his lip to not make any noise.

★｡+*+｡★｡+ﾟ☆ﾟ+｡★｡+*+｡★

The three of them walk back to the cage cell he has been calling his for… for about… how long has it been again?

He spent 9 months in that lab, an unspecified amount of time being handed around before getting sold to the alien that runs this place, and that was about 5 months ago. Not that his assumption is 100% accurate, he can't exactly look at a clock, if there even are clocks in space, he just add a number when he wakes up.

Techno’s train of thought was interrupted by the crabs yanking his collar, he unceremoniously falls down, face first and on top of his arm. He groans again, more angrily this time. Techno turns his face to the side to see one of the crab aliens kneeling, or the closest they get to kneeling having crab legs, the other is probably doing the same.

There’s that weird underwater cat noise, this made him stop. He shifts until he is kneeling, his gaze turning towards the ‘thing’ that made the noise.

It was the alien who bought Techno.

They are tall, twice Techno’s height and a little more, with jet black skin like the void with a few glimpses of shiny black scales, lanky legs and arms, and their hands and feet have long, sharp claws. The head has a pair of long, pointy ears and long horns growing from the forehead. The face has two sharp, predatory, purple eyes that feel like they are choking his soul. The mouth, which is almost never open even when speaking, is just nightmarish, unhinging from the jaw and opening way more than it should.

The alien always seems to be dressed luxuriously, with intricate fabrics and jewelry, and is always, always, wearing a dark metal crown that looks like it's made out of thin, long daggers; when it’s shining, shifts to a purple hue.

They stand a few centimeters in front of him, and Techno almost stares into their eyes before quickly turning his gaze to the ground. Nothing good comes out of looking at them. The scars on his neck itch at the thought.

There are more warbles, and the crab alien responds with something akin to insect chittering. He is accustomed to the aliens talking around him and not waiting for a response from him. He only hopes this conversation ends soon, he is still bleeding. It’s then that Techno notices there’s a second pair of clawed feet to the side of his owner the King.

He looks up at this other alien, they seem to be the same type of alien as the King, dressed just as nicely too, a lot shorter, like a whole Techno shorter. They, too, are wearing a crown, a one that have a very human design, golden and shiny and made of gold and- their eyes meet, they have a green and a red eye. Instead of feeling like he’s being choked by their gaze, he feels calm, like sitting at the beach feeling the warmth of the sun, he almost feels relaxed.

Almost.

The Prince (they do have a crown) yelps in surprise and warbles something in distress. Techno’s eyes immediately snaps to the ground, finding the light purple tiles the most interesting thing he has ever seen. The King responds back with his own, much deeper, warble and seems to laugh at what the other is saying.

Techno feels it. His collar begins to warm up.

He quickly grabs the front of the collar to protect his throat, not that it does much. The back and sides of his neck burn, his fingers sizzle where they touch the inside part, and the smell of burnt flesh creeps up his nose.

He tried to bite at his lip to stop himself from screaming, but he fails. “Stop! Ple-ack please stop!” He sobs, he knows they can’t understand him, or worse yet, they just ignore him or find some kind of sick enjoyment from this.

Techno hunches his back, still on his knees, and touches his forehead to the ground, tears trailing down his face. His hair is draped over the floor, sobs escaping him. "I'msorry,I'msorry,I'msorry please." It hurts, I’m tired of this.

The heat turns off—not that it magically makes the metal collar turn cold—so he keeps holding it away from his throat, his head bowed. He doesn’t hear what is being said or who is saying what, not that it matters when he can’t understand.

The crab alien gets up and, almost gently, if you can call it that—you can't—pull the staff, jolting the collar, for him to get up. So he does and follows them.

He does not look up, doesn't lift his head, his last tears dropping to the ground. He just kept walking. If he heard a weird crooning noise when passing Prince, no, he didn’t.

★｡+*+｡★｡+ﾟ☆ﾟ+｡★｡+*+｡★

After walking through the corridors, they arrive at what Techno likes to call it, prison hall. Here, they keep mostly animals and creatures, including him.

The surrounding cells are empty, which makes his cell uncannily quiet and, at times, maddening.

They come to stand at the entrance; he rushes inside as soon as the electric energy field falls; the aliens almost don’t have time to retrieve the staffs; they make some clicking at him; he couldn’t care less. The energy field comes back up, and he is left alone.

It takes some time for his eyes to get used to the dim lighting, the small room only illuminated by the lilac force field door. It's just as he left it. A blanket lay crumpled in the back of the room, shiny trinkets and rocks tucked away under the blanket (yes, he checked them), and two rectangle bowls bolted to the floor by the door. The room is small and windowless, if Techno opened his arms in the middle of the room, he would just have to lean to the side to touch a wall, and stand on his toes to touch the ceiling.

Unlike the cells on the spaceships whit metal floors, walls and ceilings, here everything is just bricks, very sturdy, very hard, cream-white bricks from floor to ceiling. The floor outside his cell and the corridors are very pretty light purple tiles, so it's a deliberate decision to have this room looking like this.

The smell of iron is strong in the air, new and old, fresh and stale. The walls stained with his blood, some of the splatter were on purpose and other just him bleeding on it. And it is cold.

Techno basically crumples on top of his blanket. He looks at his hands, the skin on his fingers is peeling off, leaving pinkish-red, tender skin exposed underneath. It stings in contact with the air. He does not need to see his neck to know its worse, since he was pulling it away from his throat.

''This is fine, this isn’t the first time.'' He thinks.

''Definitely not the last.'' A crueler voice whispers, he ignores it.

He goes to the bowls, one is empty, and the other is filled with water. He puts his hand inside and flinches at the feeling. Techno uses the water to clean the burnt skin stuck to the metal collar, his face and his arms. Then he remembers about his injured arm.

“I hope there’s no space rabies, that would suck.” He jokes to no one, his voice hoarse as he sucks in a breath, and tears the bottom of his shirt. His fingers spark with pain, and he has to bite his lips to stop himself from whining. He has to be strong, he can’t break now.

Techno cleans the piece of fabric and the wound. Now that he takes a look, it’s a bit brutal, tying the fabric around the injured arm to the best of his abilities.

There’s no need to worry about his clothes, the King seems to like to dress him up and show him off in the arena, like the clothes he is wearing now; a poet shirt and pants. So they will have some new clothes delivered to his prized pet. Techno shakes his head to disperse the bad thoughts.

He looks down at the water, the face that stares back is not his. Techno doesn't have pink hair, Techno doesn't have dark red eyes, Techno doesn't have this many scars on his face, his arms, or his body. Yet, despite it all, it's still him, it's still his face, his eyes, his hands. He closes his hands as far as he dares, it's him, still alive.

The water ripples as he drops his hand inside. "sigh"

“Today was tiring, I washed my face and even my arms. Truly, the way a champion commemorates,” Techno shifts to the back of the cell, lying on the blanket, curling himself around his shiny hoard. “I deserve a little nap, bathing more than most gamers out there, heh.” He snorts at the joke, not at his tiny gold nugget, that seems to sooth his skin as he holds it in his hands. Prince's crown was made of gold, it must feel nice. He thinks of that new alien. Were they the child of the King? It looked like so, they had a crown and everything—another one to add to the ‘Don't look in the eye list’.

He closes hi eyes, he kept getting jolted awake by a feeling of falling or that someone is watching him, but eventually he does fall asleep.

★｡+*+｡★｡+ﾟ☆ﾟ+｡★｡+*+｡★

A blank white ceiling with too white, too bright lights.

Techno is strapped to the operation table—his arms, hands, leg, feet, and neck—but he is not giving in easily; he is thrashing, and the ‘things’ don’t like it; in fact, they hate it.

“Let me go! Get off me, you teddy bear-faced nerds!” There’s no bargain he can say, no plea he can shout, they don’t understand—they don’t care.

Two aliens are on top of him, and two more are holding his arms, a fifth one is approaching with a pen in one of their fingerless hands. When he gets close enough, he moves quickly and presses the pen on his neck, a syringe, it was a syringe, he feels the needle and the substance stuck to his neck like liquid ice. Seizing the muscles around his neck.

He squeezed his eyes close and started feeling tired, slow, his body heavy. ''Was it some kind of weird alien anesthesia?'' The syringe is pulled out, and the aliens get off him and start moving about the room.

He can’t open his eyelids; no, he can move them slowly, very slowly. They are heavy; his whole body feels heavy—too heavy—and even with his eyes closed, he feels dizzy.

Techno hears it first, a whirring noise, then he feels the pressure on his chest, and it presses down more and more. He feels pain flares up on his chest, but he can’t move, he can't scream, but he can feel everything. It was not anesthesia, they just wanted to immobilized him.

He feels it, whatever it is, getting closer to his sternum, digging through his flesh, it gets to his bone and then—

KA-BOOM!!

Techno wakes up with a jump-start, hearth racing and breathing heavily; he tries to quickly get up, which he regrets the moment he slams his hands on the floor and feels a flare of pain shoot up his arms. He falls back down onto his blanket, holding both hands to his chest.

"My nam's... Tec-Technoblade, im... im huma' im not.. not an a-animal." He takes a deep breath and holds it, he forces himself to breath slowly. "I'm from planet Earth, American continent... United States of America." He looks at the wall, the numbers 162 and 496 are written in blood on it. "It's day one hundred sixty-three in the Coliseum, and approximately... four hundred ninety-seven days away from Earth."

He prods at the bite wound, which needs more than a rag over it to close, with the blood he writes 163 and 497 on the wall, wiping the old numbers.

There's a explosion that sound far above him, that shakes the walls, making dust fall from the ceiling. "Do these aliens never sleep or what? at least they could bring me breakfast first."

Techno wonders if it's the dragon that is fighting this early; yes, the dragon, four legs, tail, snaking neck, horns and two big dragon wings—kind of dragon. He never fought it, neither does he want to, and it's probably because the King "likes" them, preferring to show them off as if they are exotic pets or guard dogs, the latter being the most probable.

The hurried tapping of crab legs on tiled floors echo down the hall, before he could think anything, they were already opening the door and shouting at him. Techno gets up with the help of the wall, seeing black spots on the corner of his vision (it may be cause he hasn't eaten in 2 days), he has enough time to walk to the middle of the room before they find him too slow and just step in and pull him by the collar, using the staffs.

''I'm not fighting in this state right... right?'' He thinks, knowing his speaking is seen as a threat and not wanting fresh scars, he just stay silent. The crabs seem in a hurry as they basically drag him down the hall. While walking he notices that the noise he thought was from the arena was instead from all around above.

They skitter around the corner to a dead-end, Techno is stunned by what he sees. Prince has their jaw unhinged, purple smoke slowly rising from their open mouth, hissing at two other crab aliens, these are stockier than the ones that hold his collar, both armed with spears. The crabs holding him shout something in a weird insect way and release their hold on the collar.

Now, Technoblade isn't stupid, he knows what they want him to do, he doesn't like—no, he hates it. He hates the idea of being treated as a mindless animal, he doesn't really care about killing the beast in the arena or killing to defend himself when aliens come at him, claws drawn. But he just doesn't understand why the King would want him to hurt their “child”.

Prince's clothes are torn in some places, and light purple, almost pink, blood stains his clothes and trails lazily from his wounds. Why is he even here? Why is Prince here?

Prince makes a sad sound and Techno feels his heart squeeze tight. His and Prince's gazes meet one another, he sees the fear in their eyes, so human yet so alien at the same time. Techno has a growing, bubbling anxiety in his chest, it makes him hear his hearth beat and feel it pumping in his chest. At that moment, he doesn't understand why, but he made his resolve. He let a smile form on his face, which seems to not get across to Prince as something good (as all his gestures seem to) by the way their ears pin back. He doesn't care.

“Let's have one final fight, shall we?" He takes a step forward and falls to one knee, quickly turning to the aliens behind him. They get caught off guard as he sweeps their legs, tripping them. They both fall on their backs, dropping the staffs to the ground, which Techno swiftly takes. Prince lets out a startled yelp at the whole scene. The sturdy aliens glance back and yell something to each other.

He gets up, adjusting his hold on both the staffs, and before the sturdy aliens can move towards him, he pierces the crabs on the chest, rooting them to the ground. They let out an indescribable scream and clawed uselessly at the metal staff.

Techno turns around to face the three other aliens. Just in time to evade a spear to the head, Prince and the other sturdy one seem frozen in shock. As the holographic blue blade whooshes past him, he grabs the rod. The alien panics for a moment before twisting and pulling the spear back, but it didn't budge under the sheer grip strength he has on it.

Instead, Techno grabs the rod with his other hand and jabs the spear back at their collarbone. The alien stumbles back, letting go of the spear. He yells in protest, but is interrupted by the corpse of their friend falling to the ground. While they are distracted by it, Techno pierces in between their beady eyes and yanks the spear back, letting the lifeless body drop.

Both of them are breathing heavily, watching each other's movements. Prince has their mouth closed now, and the warbles are nonstop but quieter. Prince has a sword, he notices it now, and it's pointed at him, ready. Techno doesn't want to scare them, so he slowly drops the spear, bending his body so that it doesn't fall too hard. The sword is still pointed at him. He kicks the spear to the side, as far as it can go in the corridor, the sword lowers sightly.

The ground shakes as the muffled sound of an explosion sounds.

Prince holds the sword in one hand, as the other goes up to touch his left ear, they begin talking quickly and stumbling the warbles and clicks. A communicator of some kind for sure, the conversation picks up and he seems to be arguing with whoever it is, the sword is practically all down turned.

Techno glances back at where he came from, there was no sound—yet. They should go somewhere else, here is... too incriminating. "Hey buddy, we should get going." Prince's eyes snap back to him, and the sword is pointed right back at him. He beats himself for talking, nothing good comes when he speaks.

An idea pops in his head. He stares at Prince's torso, not his eyes, never the eyes, he kneels and he stares at the sword. He isn't afraid of being hurt, not that Prince can hurt him, he can't, and even if they do hurt him, they are not the King, Prince won't torture him with a slow death.

"Whatever it is that comes out of this is the best outcome." Techno closes his eyes and touches his forehead to the ground. His aching muscles scream in protest at the position, his whole body tight and sore. Prince has exactly 2 minutes to make a choice before he passes out.

As the silence stretches, Techno begins questioning his decision. The touch of a cold scaly hand presses on his neck. Like pouring salt on his wound, the pain spreads through his neck and shakes his entire body. He presses himself closer to the ground. Who said Prince was different? Who said they couldn't be worse than the King? How could he be different from any of the others? He was stupid for hoping for an easy way out, if they spared him,what would stop them from making him a dog again? They will grab him and break him a hundred times over-

KA-BOOM!!

A booming explosion cuts his spiraling thoughts, his ears are ringing as he opens his eyes to a wall of smoke. He is in a sitting position now as he coughs as the dust assaults his lungs. Something grabs his arm, pulling him to his feet. Techno has no mind to question it. After a single step, his legs give out, and whoever it is hefts him up.

The footsteps turn from the tap of tiled floor to the thud of metal plating, the buzzing of spaceship propellers picking up, and the sound of thick metal clashing against each other sound behind him-them, behind them. Techno doesn't need to look up to know that who is "helping" him is Prince, he can see the nice clothes and the cuts on their arms. If he was right this time, it was too early to say.

This spaceship seems to be moving by the way it shakes and lurches. It's a very small spaceship—a scout, most likely. They arrive at the front of the ship, and before he can see anything, Techno is seated and strapped to a chair, very far from the window by the control panel. This spaceship is being targeted by a fleet of the King's ships; this ship's pilot must be the best pilot, as not a single shot seems to land.

Prince leaves his side and sits in the right chair by the control panel, the chair failing to support their shoulders as they are way too tall. The other two chairs to their left seemed empty, which was definitely not true. The ship can't run itself, but the other alien must be shorter, as Techno just can not get a look at them.

With the drawback of the scenery in the window and the blur of images, the spaceship lurches to outer space. The feeling of being stretched like a rubber band ties his stomach, Techno never liked moving vehicles. The vast expansive ring of stars greets them.

Techno rests his head back and closes his eyes. "It's day 496 away from earth, first day on the Coup d'état." He can feel a headache coming.

Notes:

Humans have been documented to be somewhat resistant to electricity.
Studies also show that they are weak to fire.

: ]
Also it's going to take a while before i upload a new chapter, kind of busy with college and stuff.

Chapter 2: A Purpose

Notes:

Being gone for 3 months? i would never.
I updated the tags so if you want a surprise don't read 'em, im still not 100% happy with the fics name but i have ideas for the fic going foward.
Updates may be slow but i'll get there trust. :,)

Hey! The chapter has been updated 06/12. Originally posted on 01/12. I changed some things in the end.

Anyway, here's the chapter guys. Enjoy!! :]

The light of the stars outside the big window passes by in a blur as the ship quickly traverses space. The aliens sitting in front seem to be talking with each other, even if he can only really hear Prince warbles, maybe they are not talking at all. Who knows.

There is a whirring sound that reverberates through the walls as blue hexagonal holograms cover the windshield like a blanket, tinting the view in a blue hue.

Techno feels something akin to when an elevator comes to an abrupt stop, making him feel weightless. As the artificial gravity turns off, it seems like the whole ship kind of really turns off; the air turns cold, the lights turn dim, and the ship slows to a stop, moving only with the momentum it had.

All the hair in the back of his neck spikes up at the idea of the ship just shutting down and being stranded in the void of space.“wah- what, whats-” A fleet of seven small spaceships zip past where they were previously heading to. Ok, yeah, ok, that explains it, kinda.

The spaceship stays like still for some time, how much is uncertain, but it is long enough for black spots to cloud his vision, and they’re still not moving.

Techno lowers his head to look at his hands; he is gripping the armchair way too tight, his hands are (surprisingly) not tied or restrained to the chair, and he lets go of his hold. A jolt of pain takes his vision to his other arm; it’s bleeding sluggish; that’s not good. The almost zero gravity makes his blood trail slowly down his arm, into the air, and a bit down the chair's arm.

The black spots obscure his vision, and he feels more and more lightheaded. “Tha's… not good.” Is the last thing he thinks before passing out.

.

.

.

His body feels too heavy, gravity is pulling him down.

Something is touching him —his shoulders, arms, hands—he is being moved-

His uninjured arm is over this person’s shoulder; they have one hand holding said arm and the other holding his side. His injured arm is trapped in something held close to his chest. Feet barely leaving the floor; he is basically being dragged, as whoever it isn’t strong enough to carry his weight fully.

This position doesn’t help his neck; the burns at the back of his neck sting as the collar pushes down on the wound, and his fingers aren’t feeling any better, when they brush fabric, they burn.

Slowly, Techno opens his eyes to the metal ground moving at his feet. The collar, a damming weight ever present on his neck, makes him too tired to lift his head to look around, so he just lets it hang limp as they walk. Looking at his side, at who is carrying him, he's met with Prince’s clothes. Prince is taking him somewhere.

Techno takes a closer look at his injured arm; it’s enveloped in what he can only guess is wax.

The pale yellow "wax" is glued to his shirt and to the skin of his arm. He tries to force it out of it, but has no strength. Techno's weak right now; he’s beginning to feel lightheaded again, and he’s hungry.

Thinking about it now, he has not eaten in two days, maybe three?. Almost like it was on cue, his stomach growls at him for remembering it exists.

Techno is thrown to the ground so quickly that he only has time to turn, so he hits his side instead of his arm—it's already hurting enough.

Techno crawls away from the pain—from the one that is most certainly going to kick him while he’s down.

His back hits the wall, and he looks up at Prince. This corridor is quite narrow, he notices now. Prince is trying to become one with the wall across from him; their ears are pinned to their head, and their eyes are wide open. Both of them freeze when they lock eyes.

Techno’s afraid.

He doesn’t fear the pain; no, he’s used to it now; he fears death. His neck is too hurt, he is too hurt to endure another burn, but…

They don’t care

Techno lifts a shaky hand to the collar; he’s ready.

He stares intently into Prince’s eyes; he feels a wave of anxiety, fear, and guilt? What. Nonsense! There’s nothing for him to be feeling guilty about. Techno glares at them. Both of Prince’s ears flap up and down anxiously—how does he know that?—before pinning back to his head.

He maintains eye contact. It’s not like he can do much apart from staring; they can literally melt his head right off his neck, and they don’t need to do much right now to achieve that.

"…"

"…"

Ok, this is getting awkward now. They have been sitting here, having a staring contest with each other for like 6 minutes.

Techno goes to open his mouth but clicks it shut. What is he even trying to do? Argument against Prince? An alien that doesn't even understand him. What does he even get from that? Getting thrown back to King suuure seems like the best idea. He mentally rolls his eyes.

He sighs, getting a last look at Prince. Techno closes his eyes and turns his face to the side, making it obvious to bare his neck to them, and then he waits.

First there's silence, they warble something, then there’s the sound of clothes shifting. Techno does not move.

“⍑ᒷ|| ꖎ╎ℸ ̣ℸ ̣ ꖎᒷ. ⊣⚍||_ ╎ ᔑᒲ リ𝙹ℸ ̣ ⊣𝙹╎リ⊣ .ℸ ̣ 𝙹 ⍑⚍∷ℸ ̣ ||𝙹⚍” They say it again, slowly. He feels something touch his head and flinches, the hand is retrieved quickly, but he stays still.

Prince is in front of him; he's sure of it, he doesn't need to open his eyes to know that; they had three chances to hurt him and didn’t (yet). He cautiously opens his eyes. Prince is hunched to look at him, their eyes seem to be sparkling in an odd way, their ears are pointing down, and one of their hands is extended to him.

Techno’s stomach growls again, and now he knows what freaked them out. Prince’s attitude does a complete 180, their ears point up, their eyes widen and lose that sparkle, as they respond with a sharp hiss, the extended hand shots at him.

Techno shuts his eyes, not wanting to see the gruesome outcome of his decision to trust an alien. He feels their hand hit the wall behind him, he hears a whooshing sound before falling backwards.

He opens his eyes in a panic. Techno has fallen inside a room, Prince is at the door, looking down at him, and they are quick to shut it before he can even comprehend what happened. The door comes down like a guillotine, killing all the light that was coming from the corridor.

Techno is immediately engulfed in darkness. He blinks and blinks, but there is no difference, pitch black. For a second, he wonders if he went blind as the terrifying reality sinks in. Techno’s trapped inside a pitch black room again.

The darkness tendrils surrounds him, trapping him in the box, the darkness is trapping him, they wrap around his neck and his chest, choking him of air, his breathing quickens, and he’s dizzy. “i can’t- i can’t-”

He can’t move, he is tied inside the box, he will die, he can’t move, the walls are closing in, the dark is choking him, he can’t breathe, he can’t breathe.

A faint orange light blinks from somewhere in the room. The light briefly illuminates the room before it dies out, but it's enough to burn the darkness tendrils away from him. Techno quickly stands on shaky legs. “It’ll blink again, it’ll blink again, it has to.” He says with a shaky voice, his face feels wet but that doesn’t matter now, he holds his breath, waiting… then…

The faint orange light blinks again, and Techno is stumbling on his feet to get to it.

Coming closer, he sees a dog bed, a huge dog bed, it’s fluffy and soft as he pets it with his free hand. Inside, taking half the dog bed, there's two very, very big eggs. The bigger one seems to be a normal, plain, very big chicken egg trapped inside layers of glass, this is what is faintly glowing orange, and it's also emanating some heat; the other egg is black with lavender veins lining its shell, they pulse and glow but very dimly, both eggs emit a quiet hum.

Are these… babies? Did they leave "babies" here alone in a cold room? Isn’t it common sense that live eggs need to be kept warm? Unless aliens are fucked up like that, and they hatch from cold eggs. Can they be considered babies if they're not born yet?

The glass egg gently nudges the other egg, glowing bright again and warm. When it stops, the other egg tries to glow but fails. Maybe they do need to be warm. If they left both eggs here, they wouldn’t care what he does with them, right?

Techno carefully climbs inside the bed, both eggs turn quiet, their lights turning dimmer. ” I'm sure this means nothing.”

Techno reaches out his hand to the eggs—it’s dirty with his blood, from where he was clawing at his neck to breathe— he comes close but doesn’t touch them. Glass backs away, Lavender hesitates for a moment, it lightly touches his hand before rolling straight into his chest. “Oof”

He wasn’t expecting that it would roll straight at him like that; it hurt his arm a little but it’s fine. Techno awkwardly hugs the egg with one arm, it has the exact same feeling as Prince’s and King’s skin, it’s cold and scaly like a snake, but weirdly fuzzy, like the static you get from old tvs. He brushes his hands on the shell over one of the veins—there’s a crack, made from the outside in, a clear dent on the shell.

He hugs it closer. “How, how could they…” Techno searches the entire egg; there are a few scratches scattered around the shell.

Human history proves that it’s not because we are the same species that we are going to be kind to each other. It doesn’t matter how little or big the difference is, children or otherwise, there is no exception to human cruelty. But even aliens? How cruel of the universe to be filled with such pain and despair.

Techno hunches down the egg with his whole body; he puts it under his neck, hugging it with one arm and his chin. Why does this affect him so much? It really shouldn’t. The egg burrows into the hug, the gesture makes his heart tight, he feels like a criminal, dirty, guilty.

How many has he killed? What right does he have to feel like he is better than anyone?

Techno is startled out of his thoughts by something hot touching his arm. He looked over and saw Glass quickly backing away; right, there was another. He secures Lavender under his chin and reaches his hand to Glass.

Glass hesitates before slowly touching his hand; it's hot. Techno withdraws his hands with a hiss. He’s not sure if the egg is warm or just melting, or if he totally overreacted for no reason. “Sorry, sorry, don’t go away.”

The egg backs away but stops, its light dims down, and it approaches him. Techno slowly lifts his hand again and touches Glass; surprisingly, it’s cooler. Carefully, he scoops Glass into his arm. It’s nice and warm, he has been cold for so long, he wishes he could hug them.

He really should see how to get this wax-thing off his arm. Techno sits cross-legged, placing the eggs on his lap; he reaches his arm and tries to chip off the wax; it’s rock solid when he forces it but turns softer when he’s not applying as much pressure. “Ugh stupid thing.” He mutters under his breath. Glass bumps him.

“huh? Want something, little guy?” Techno stops fiddling with the wax. Glass comes closer to his trapped arm, it touches the wax and glows brighter, he can feel the heat under the wax, and it starts to melt away. This is cool and terrifying at the same time.

With his now-free arm, he notices the wound is mostly sealed and not bleeding. “huh…” He must have been more seriously injured than he thought for them to have treated him.

The whole ship shakes. He's familiar with this motion. The ship must have docked in some space station or just crashed. Fun fun.

Techno looks down at the eggs in his lap, they have returned to the humming they were doing when he entered, except now it’s louder and more melodic, it’s nice, calming.

There’s a sound of thundering footsteps that echo through the corridor outside, the sound of nails hitting the floor. He can hear what he assumes are shouts from right outside the door. Techno hides the eggs behind him and under some blanket/wall of the dog bed.

Suddenly, the door opens; he turns around and stares down whoever opened the door.

The thing standing at the door is some kind of nightmare bird, it’s humanoid enough to be uncanny, it's covered in feathers from head to literal tail, except it's face that is featherless, small eyes and a short beak; it has three pairs of wings, each one a mix of a manta ray fin and see through feathers, it had a pair of big wings from his back and two smaller from his upper and lower back; both arms and leg are ‘bird legs’, sharp talons glint in the light flowing in from the corridor.

Techno has never seen an alien like this, making everything even more terrifying. It's like coming face-to-face with a wild animal; you're as unsure about It as It is about you, it all comes down to who thinks faster, and this time, Techno lost.

In a flash, the thing uses one of his larger wings to launch him to the other side of the room; he collides with force against the wall, and in the time he takes to get his footing, the thing is on him, arms spread along with its wings, their feet are reaching out to grip his throat. This bird is quick, he has no time to react as its talons grip his collar with a scraping sound.

Techno falls backwards with the momentum, it puts its weight on the feet grasping his collar. It hunches to look at him, the bird's neck being way longer than he expected, its eyes cold and deadly, shining in the low light. The bird opens its beak and screeches at him, a high pitch that make his ears hurt.

He can feel the pressure of it trying to squeeze, and for the first time, Techno was glad to have this collar around his neck.

Notes:

QSMP eggs were always baby to me, you can't change my mind.

The collar is quite thicc, he can't touch his chin to his chest.

Chapter 3: First Meeting

Notes:

Hii guuuuys, please put ur pitchforks down, thank you. As said before the chapters can take some time bc i have the procrastination disease, but i keeo fightin.
i edited the half to last part of the chapter :3
Anyways hope ya like the chapter! :]

Techno is pinned down by this bird-alien-thing; the noises it makes reminds him of an angry possum. With the limited light coming in from outside, he can vaguely see it staring down at him; it has cold, light blue eyes. Bird glances behind at the dog bed. Good thing he hid the eggs; even the light they emit isn’t visible from here.

It seems distracted as the weight and pressure on his neck lessen. “HEY! Focus on me, bird brain.” Techno grabs the leg at his neck, sweeps the other leg, making it lose balance, and uses the opportunity to lift himself off the ground.

Bird flailed its wings as it fell, trying to grab at the hand locking its feet up. Techno swings and throws it at the door. It hits the door frame with a squawk.

Techno runs to get between it and the dog bed; he looks down as it is trying to get up. They lock eyes, and Bird screeches at him again, much louder, so loud he gets dizzy, he slaps his hands over his ears and closes his eyes.

All he could hear was muffled ringing; it aggravated the headache he was feeling. Techno opens his eyes. Bird is using the wall to get up but is leaning too much to its right; he notices the bigger right wing bent in an awkward angle.

Techno widens his stance and spreads his arms out, like trying to scare an animal; Techno shows his teeth and growls like a dog. Bird falls back to the floor, crawling backwards, trying to open its own wings; it fails as the right bigger wing twitches but doesn’t move. Techno walks towards it, and Bird scrambles further away; he does this until it is at the wall on the other side of the corridor. He does not break eye contact with it, and he does not leave the room.

There are quick footsteps from down the corridor; they are approaching fast. Techno glances to see what is approaching—a stupid mistake, really; the second he takes his eyes off it, he’s being tackled. Both of them fall to the ground; they roll, and Techno is on top of it. He gets scratched anywhere it reaches its talons; he finds a way to pin its arms down; it then uses its wings to slap his sides. ”Stay still… fuckn’ bird.”

Abruptly, he feels a sharp, piercing pain in his bicep. Techno jumps up, stepping on some feathers as he stumbles away. There’s a… fork? Edged deep into his arm. He's pretty sure he has seen one of these before, but it was bigger than this, the turquoise handle and three sharp white blades, which he cannot see as they are inside his arm.

Techno can’t help the scream that escapes him as the fork is aggressively pulled out by some unknown force; it floats back towards the door. Prince is standing there; in their hands is an enormous white bug, two bulky legs, and a torso with two sets of bulky arms. The upper left hand is reaching out, its three claw-fingers open, to grab the fork as it levitates back to it. It wears a flat breastplate with the symbol of an indigo blue spade and a dark blue cape that shadows its face; the only thing visible is two antennae and its mandibles poking out from under the hood.

Techno grips his injured arm, blood coating his fingers, as he slowly backs up, not taking his sight off of the three, his heel bumps into the edge of the dog bed, and he stops. Prince bolted into the room as soon as they deemed he had backed up enough to help Bird. The fork guy was beside them, staring (at least he thinks it has eyes) right at him, as if to keep him from coming closer. “Good! I don't want you coming closer, either.” He glared back at the bug.

They talk with clicks, whistles, and grumbles, nothing making sense as usual; it’s frustrating. Prince helps Bird get up; its big wing is unmoving and limp. They gently carry Bird out of the room; the bug stayed; it was just standing still, looking at him. Prince said something from outside, and it began to slowly back away. When it was outside, the door closed, drowning the room in darkness.

Techno stared at the door for a moment, listening to footsteps moving away, until he no longer heard it. He crumbles by the edge of the bed and rests his head on the soft material. “Siiigh…” What a shitty hand he's been given; he didn’t even do anything this time.

The bed is shaking, oh right. Techno moved closer to the spot he buried them and started unfolding pieces of cloth and fur. When he reached them, the glass egg shot out, illuminating the room as it rolled around the bed; the purple one needed help getting out. He carefully grabs it with both hands and puts it on his lap.

There seems to have more cracks; he gently traces them. Here, at this moment, it hit him—the eggs, the weird bed, was this… was this that bird’s nest? Well, it’s an alien bird, maybe they're different.

He notices his dirty fingers leave a trail of blood on the egg; he tries cleaning it with his shirt, only to see it is very dirty and bloody. “Crap.” Techno lifts the egg from his lap to place it back on the bed when—light.

Very bright, blinding light from the cracks of the egg he was holding. “Heh?"

CRACK CRUNCH CRACK.

An explosion of light shot from it; he closed his eyes and turned his head. Techno wanted to shield his eyes with his hands, but didn’t want to drop the egg; whatever this was seemed to be very important and maybe dangerous.

As the light dimmed, he opened his eyes; his vision was a bit blurry, but he was able to see a little child where the egg was. He couldn’t think. A child? Human? What? How?

Then he looked closer, it- she looked like a child no older than 5, with chubby cheeks and long black curly hair; her eyes are closed; she has a simple black dress with purple polka dots. As reality has yet to set in for Techno, the glass egg comes closer and starts to hum.

The humming makes the girl stir; she rubs her eyes then starts crying, which brings Techno out of his mind. “Hey, hey, what’s wrong?” He hugs the girl closer to his chest, and she clings to him.

Her crying sends a spike of anxiety right through him. He didn’t even have a chance to calm down, and he's on edge again. Is she in pain? What even is she a copy of a human, an actual human? (Yes, she just popped from an egg, but he’s seen weirder) Maybe she’s just hungry; he is too, so he can’t help with that.

He can’t help her anyway, he can’t, he can’t help her, he can’t even help himself. When those things come in here again, wanting to take him somewhere or to take her, there’s nothing he can do, nothing to stop them from putting a thick iron collar around her neck, nothing nothing nothi-.

Small hands hold his face, they are soft and warm, it brings him back to his body, and Techno looks at her. She’s looking at him, her eyes startle him, a spiral of purples and pinks takes the entire space in her, it’s mesmerizing. His muscles start to relax, he can’t think what was making him feel bad; he just feels sleepy.

His eyelids are heavy, and he wants to just close them and sleep, but he has this bad feeling. He glances at the door, the girl taps his cheeks and gains his attention back, she hums a melody. It’s slow and makes him hunch forward. He’ll just rest his eyes for a bit... just a little.…

★｡+*+｡★｡+ﾟ☆ﾟ+｡★｡+*+｡★

It’s a cold autumn day and Techno is tucked in his bed, he’s sore from… gym class from the day before, of course, it was dodge ball, and he was a turtle, it seems; his little sister must have sneaked into his room, he feels small hands poking his face.

Without even opening his eyes, he grabs her and hugs her close, more sleep for him if the gremlin is contained. She’s saying something. “ ey leme slep sum more..”

Mumbles mumbles She starts trying to get free from the hug; he lets her. As soon as she’s free, she shakes him. “uuugh, what do you-” He opens his eyes...this- this isn’t his bed; this isn’t his home. "-want." All the memories come rushing back—the abduction, aliens, the lab, he’s not home and hasn’t been for a long time.

He hasn’t had a dream about home in a long time, he wished he stopped having them; to forget a home he doesn’t have, even if he went back.

There's moving in the corner of his eye, he turns to see the girl–it's not his sister, it couldn’t be–, she’s standing outside the bed with something in her hands and smiles at him. “Papa, buenos días!” She giggles.

Well, now he finally is in a room with something that speaks anything he could understand, problem being that he could not understand. “Fuck me..” The girl looked confused, she tilted her head to the side, such a human gesture he flinched. "C-can you understand me?" She nodded, he didn't have time to think about the 'papa', she offered him something in her hands.

"Here Papa, para ti!" He looked confused at her hands, it looked like a rock covered in dirt, she seemed frustrated that he didn't grab it immediately. "Papa hungry? come comida!" She was almost force feeding him, so before that happened Techno just took it and gave it a little bite, potato, it was a steamed potato; it was the best thing he ate in a while. Yes, it tasted like starch but it's much better than the kibble they fed him. He gulped it down in one breath.

When he looked up she was happily watching him, looking at her now, her eyes are human, still weirdly purple but human. She gets in the bed and sits beside him(when did he get in the bed), they stare at each other for a bit."Soooo can you speak english?" She nodded. "Ho- Why do you speak spanish?"

"Me gusta." Techno sighed and pitched his brows, when he looked back at her she looked shy and dejected. "Do you not like spanish?" she asked shyly.

"No, no that's not it, it's just..." He pauses and he looks away at the wall, his eyes are looking at something that isn’t there. "It's just... it's just been so long since I've seen-" Techno shakes his head. "Since I've had the opportunity to-to talk with anyone." His hands are trembling as visions of people in cages next to him, the last time he saw any human, even if he couldn't understand them. "What if i couldn't understand you?" His eyes are unfocused, gentle hands grab his own through the bars, they may not understand each other, but here they share a moment's comfort. The girl put her hands on his, they are shaking. "H-how, I don't even know. How can you talk to me?" He looked back at her.

"Thats a silly question, i can talk because youre my papa." She beams, with the confidence only a 5 yo can have when saying the most absurd thing, because that's what she was doing, saying something absurd.

He scoffs, she reminds him of his sister, she liked to play pretend and always said the wildest thing with her whole chest. "Ok, How exactly am i your father?"

"Well..." She pouts. "you were here when i woke up, so you are my papa, ob.vius.ilyly."

Techno stared at her for a second. "That's it!? That's not how it works tho."

She glances at him, teary eyed. "Are-are you not my papa? Do-do you not want me?" Her bottom lip trembles.

FUUUCK, why did he have to open his mouth, Techno was never good with kids. "No no no no no, that's not it, I-i just wanted to know." He smiles at her, sweat dripping from his forehead, pleeease don't cry.

"So… you're my papa?" She looks at him with unshed tears in her big puppy eyes. He bites his cheek.

Can he… say yes? Can he really? Techno's barely surviving on his own, this could be a bad idea, maybe she still has time to turn into an alien and she'll abandon him or their parents will just dispose of him themselves- "Papa!" He looks at her, startled; She looks determined. "Don't be scared, Estoy aquí contigo." Maybe he can try trusting her, what else is left for them, she'll probably be treated as an anomaly or just as an actual human is treated, he shivers at what they might do to her if she's deemed ‘human’.

He pats her head. "Ok, but you have to listen to me alright?" She beams, her smile is wide and she hugs him, he sighs fondly. He feels a warmth near his heart and a dim glow in his chest, she smiles at him. "You're my papa ahora!"

The feeling of not just his emotions but something else settles in his chest, something he can’t understand.

He places a hand on his chest and feels his breathing and his heartbeat but… there's something else, he closes his eyes and concentrates. His chest expands with a breath, his heart pumps blood and something buzzes. Something bumps his knee and Techno almost jumps to the ceiling.

Glass is looking (?) at him and the girl is running somewhere in the room, he can hear her giggling. Is Glass going to explode in light like purple? wait, calling her ‘purple’ is weird now. “Hey… err… egg, what can i do for you?”

Techno allows himself to feel a little stupid, but just a little, for speaking to an alien egg that clearly has no way of responding back. It rolled closer and he felt the buzz in his chest swirl; oh how great, another thing changed in his body, he wonders if he can still be considered human after everything, maybe he's like spiderman or something.

The girl appeared back from the darkness, how she's not afraid of it he doesn’t know, holding an armful of things that she drops on the bed. “What’cha got there?” He looks over the things: A steel ball, a blue comb(surprisingly normal), a book? now that's interesting.

”where did you find all this?” He picks up the book, the cover is some kind of leather he opens the book like one would a normal one and is not surprised when he doesn’t understand a single letter, there’s only five and a half page of text so is mostly blank pages.

”I was exploring!” She picks up a statue of a red frog and shows it to him.“Whats this?”

He takes a closer look, it’s body is fat and chunky like a frog but unlike a frog it has two long legs and tiny front arms—is this an actual animal or did someone get bored?— the main body is red and fades to black at the legs.”Ugly that's what that is.” He jokes, he has no clue what that is.

“Ugly?” She parrots and looks at the weird frog. “why?”

Why? why what? “I… i don’t really know, it’s just weird that it looks kind of like a frog but so unlike a frog, like it didn’t know if it wanted to be an animal or a mix of an ostrich and a frog.“ the girl nods accepting his answer.

”Whats that?” She points to the book. Is she really doing this to him right now? Right after that bug thing– He looks at his arm that was pierced with the weapon, its not injured anymore as in there is no wound. “Do you not know?” Techno looks back at her, she is looking at him with her head tilted and a smile on her face.

”This–” He hands it to her. “--is a book, it has many uses you can write or draw, you can read what other people write for fun or to learn something.” Her eyes are full of wonder as she takes the book and opens it. He lets her mess with it before talking again.”Can i ask you something?” She nods. “What happened to my wound?”

”I healed it!” She smiles excitedly. “I was so sad my papa was hurt so i healed it! You went to sleep after but now youre all better!”

This he actually doesn’t know how to respond. This little girl somehow managed to close a wound and not leave not even a scar behind? “oh wow did you really? Thank you.” He said in mock surprise and patted her head, his little sister was like this too, except he knew his sister didn't actually do the absurd things she was bragging about. “How did you do that?”

The looks so happy at being praised she is beaming with pride.”I did this–” She holds her hand out and close her eyes, when she opens them her iris is spinning making the purple overtake almost the entire sclera, in her palm a purple smoke swirl and fizzles out in a spark. “--then poof! healed.”

Now was Technos turn to. “What!t?”

Notes:

Damm bro didn't even give her a name, bad father for real

Chapter 4: Discoveries

Notes:

Hello my scarabs, its me ya gurl.
Coming here to say to check the previous chapter, as always I was not very happy whit the middle/end part so I rewrote some things. :3
This one is a short chapter but I hope ya Enjoy!!! :]

Techno is sure that his mind has not been right for some time now. Sometimes he hears voices or sees shadows in his peripheral vision, but what he just saw was not his mind playing tricks on him; she really just did magic in front of him. He was shocked.

He’s seen things huge spaceships, creatures he never even imagined, a fucking dragon—but magic? How is THAT possible? She must have explained it but he was so shocked that he must have dissociated and didn't listen.

She was unbothered by his silence as she continued to search through the things on the bed; she held something to her face to inspect it closer and Glass approached her. The girl showed what she was holding to the egg and it hummed a tune.

Right, the other egg. “hey-” A name, he needs to give her a name. “Do I give you a name?” Dammit that was not what he wanted to say. “I-i mean-”

”I have a name!” She said excitedly, turning to him full of energy. “I’m Tallulah! What is your?”

”Tallulah… nice to meet you, Tallulah. My name is… Techno;” It feels wrong, that's not his name, his name feels wrong. He smiles at her weakly. “the… egg-” He gestures to Glass. “-will it be a human like you?” He sweats at the thought of having to deal with two children.

She shakes her head. “My brother is already attuned, his name is Chayanne.” Glass blinks twice and does a spin, whatever that means. “He said we have to pu-peprare because everyone thinks you hurt me.” She rolls her eyes and pouts. “Thats just silly, they are being dummies you would never hurt me.”

”They? Who is they? The huge bug, Prince and the… the bird?” He felt panic crawling up his throat. It’s happening, they'll take her and get rid of him. His head snaps to the door trying to listen if anyone is coming. Nobody, for now.

He feels hands tugging at his arm he looks back at her, Tallulah, her head is tilted and is looking at him, puppy dog eyes staring straight at him. “What's wrong?”

Techno pats her head, more as a way to take her eyes off him and to calm himself. He doesn't admit it, but her not flinching at him helps alot. “Remember that I said that you have to listen to me?” She nods, he thinks for a bit before speaking, he doesn’t want to make her feel like the problem. “When… they come in I want you to stay near me ok?” He still has his hand on her head. “When they see you they may get spooked, and if you don’t like how they react, you can hide behind me and I’ll protect you, ok?”

She grabs his wrist with both hands, he was unconsciously messing her hair. “Am I spooky?” She says with a sad face.

Techno pauses. “No, you aren’t ‘spooky’, it’s more like what you– what we are.” He drops his hand and she holds it in both of hers. ”I don’t know, I really don’t, all of them are scared or fascinated by humans. Prized pets, test subjects or food. It’s hard to know what they think we are.” or what they want us for.

He sighs and drags his other hand down his face. “And you–” He looks at her, Tallulah doesn’t seem scared but she seems to be thinking very hard staring at their hands intently, he softens. “--you weren’t meant to become like me.” The buzz in his chest expands up his neck and down his chest, he feels an immense sadness and fear.

She looks up wide eyed, gripping his hand, he keeps his voice even. “I won’t leave you, they can try to take you from me but they’ll have to kill me first, I promise.” Techno meets her eyes, despite the sudden fear that's spreading inside his chest, despite the tremble in his hand and in his voice, he hopes this comes as comforting to her.

She jumps into his chest and hugs him, he hugs her, back the buzz of dread slowly melts away. Techno hugs her closer and rests his face on her hair, the collar touching the top of her head, and she snuggles more into his arms. “They won’t take you from me.”

In the now quiet room, Techno could hear faint footsteps outsside, he didn’t say anything, just picked her up and sat facing the door. With her in his arms he can't hide her like before, Chayane was humming by his side where Tallulah's face was tucked into his arm.

Now he waits.

Techno hears whoever it is make their way down the corridor and stop at the door. It was quiet, then they began murmuring outside before the lights in the room turned on dimly, Tallulah tensed at that and he held her a bit tighter. “It’s fine, you’re fine, I got you.” He whispered.

The door opens and Prince slowly walks in but doesn’t get too far away from the door, they stare at him and before Techno can give him a death glare they turn around and run.

Techno sits there for a moment trying to understand just what was that when Tallulah stirs. “Are they gone?”

”i’m not… sure...” Was this a test or did they remember that he could crush their throat if he wanted to (less likely). She turns around to look and points at the door. “Papa, it's open!”

Lucky for him, she doesn’t just bolt the moment she notices the open door. ”Yeah, but we can’t leave.” He takes a look around now that there's actual light. The room is big; or just normal size, he doesn’t remember what the normal size of a room is. It has a desk with some drawers with a weird looking chair, at least seven potted plants (two pots are a mess of dirt and grass), a door on the back of the room and some built in shelves with random things he can’t identify.

Techno gets up, still carrying her, to examine things on the desk. There is an open box with some pens(?) and marbles inside, polaroids-esque are glued to the wall on top the desk but they are blank. He grabs one pen, the girl is looking. “You can use this to write on the book” Her eyes sparkle and she seems really excited.

He sits her back on the bed and get the book to her, opening on a blank page. Hopefully she gets distracted, he really doesn’t want her to be scared. She start scribbling while he sits beside her to stare at the door.

It doesn’t take long for footsteps to sound again, this time they are quick, they have a scratchy sound to them, Tallulah seems to notice too as she stopped drawing to stare at the door too. He tenses and pulls Tallulah into his arms again and she hides her face on his chest.

The bird is at the door.

Its feathers that now look black, void like, instead of see-through are all fluffed up, its breathing seems fast and irregular. The thing was staring right at him, then at Tallulah and its gaze stays there. Techno turns so to shield her from its eyes, showing his teeth and glaring at it; This snaps the bird out of it and it takes a step back, its feathers smoothing and turning a bit greyish-black instead of the dark black it was before.

Chayanne was bumping his side and blinking, the girl in his arms reached her hand out to touch the egg. “Chay said he’s not going to hurt us.” She whispers.

He takes a glance at her and the egg, the girl is looking at him, she’s not scared, just a straight face looking at him. Of course…. He rolls his eyes and huffs, closing his mouth and looking back at the alien bird, it was now staring at the egg, not even minding his presence. …

Techno adjusts his hold on the girl and slowly gets up. The bird snaps its head at the movement, he continues to slowly move away from the bed not daring to turn his back to it again, he backs away to the far end of the room.

The bird moves quickly into the room, and on reflex Techno growls at it; it stops moving immediately, and Tallulah pats his arms. “It’s ok, Papa.” Now that it’s close, he notices that its right big wing is covered in some kind of cloth. It made a low whining whistle and began moving again, this time slower.

Chayanne moves to the side closer to the bird and it reaches its left wing to cover him, it starts chirping and the girl in his arms giggles. “Chay is embarrassed.”

Out in the corridor there's the sound of footsteps again, this time Prince appears at the door. They too seem to have run here, they stand outside grumbling and Bird responds quietly, slowly; both turn their eyes to him. He hugs Tallulah close and fights the urge to just shrink and hide in a corner; he has to do it; he has to stand tall and scary, if not for himself, then for her.

”They won’t take you, I won't let ‘em.” He whispers; his palms sweaty. If Prince wants to melt his head right off his neck they can go ahead and do it; if Bird wants to claw his eyes out, go ahead; he won’t give her up–he will not.

He must have done something, if the way the two aliens flinch is anything. They stop looking at him and start whispering.

”Papa...?” Tallulah pulls his shirt but he can’t look at her, he needs to keep them in his line of sight. Chayanne shines bright, even in the lit room his orange light beams; the girl goes still, clutching his shirt, she turns to the aliens. “what?” She whispers. He felt the buzz turn ice cold in his chest, like drinking cold water after a run.

”What’s wrong?” The girl didn’t respond, she was still like a statue just staring at the aliens. He got scared by this, she was so quiet; He gently turned her around to look at him, he spoke softly. “Tallulah, what’s wrong?”

The girl met his eyes and tears started rolling down her cheeks, Techno hugged her to his chest. “I’m-m all broken—” She started hiccuping. “—i’m all wro-wrong.”

”No, you’re not, you’re not” He patted her back. Chayanne was shining a red light, rolling side to side—Techno thinks if he could, the egg would be jumping—the aliens seemed shocked(?), Bird’s beak was open it’s feathers all fluffed up and Prince's ears were pointed up. “You are a precious girl, you’re not broken.”

Bird spoke to Chayanne while he tried to console Tallulah. Still keeping them on his line of sight.

It turns to him its wing slightly raised, their uncanny features focusing in on him; He glared at it and the Bird opened its beak. “Taluola…” He flinched–no he jumped back, it said her name,its voice exactly like those videos of crows saying words, just recognizable enough for you to understand but whu-what wha-WHAT— “Tallulah.” It said again, this time perfectly right.

Technos jaw was on the floor, how, wha-why do things keep getting more confusing, can anybody ANYBODY please explain what is happening to him?

”I don-dont want!! to-to ta-ta-talk to him!” She buries her face on his shirt, Chayanne—somehow—managed to launch himself at Bird and was immediately grabbed him, their feathers turned all white, prince said something quickly, sounding like an autotuned cat, then theirs ears glued to their heads.

Techno tried again, carefully. “Llulah, what’s wrong?” He swinged her a little. “If you don’t tell me, I can't help you.”

She sniffled, cleaning her eyes. “yu-you wont be angry?” He shook his head. “At you, no. Them? maybe.” She giggled, still hiccuping, maybe she thought he was joking.

Tallulah played with a lace in the front of her dress. “They sai-said th-tha-–” He waited for her to control her hiccups. “Chay said they we-were going to ki-ki-kill me.”

Notes:

DAaamm what the hell.