i know that the sun is here with me | december catch-all

[terriblepurpose]

Who: Paul Atreides, Ortus Nigenad, and you
What: December catch-all, open and closed prompts
When: December
Where: Various
Content warnings: Grief over loss of a parent, eugenics, psychological horror, child abuse, child death

Comments

[hauntedsavior]

She knew long ago to always place her bets on Ortus Nigenad. She learned that his still waters run so, so much deeper than anyone can fathom—and she is seeing now just how deep they go. Silently, letting Ortus speak, letting him release his emotions in a torrent, she walks over to his father on the ground and steps down on his wounded temple.

Anna may look lightweight, but a little less than three hundred pounds of android metal do not come easily. She plants her other foot on the ground, out of range of the man who Ortus hates, who Ortus fucking hates.

"Fuck you, dad," she says, grinding her heel like she's smearing shit on the pavement. There is another cool one-liner she could say here, but she refuses to steal this moment from Ortus. "Leave your son alone. Let him do what he wants."

[noniad]

The toppled man bellows under Anna's foot, wrapping his hands around her ankle to pry her away - or he would, if Ortus let him raise them above his shoulder.

It's an ugly, sloppy struggle. Anything Ortus might have ever learned about grappling has vanished from his mind as surely as if he truly was this age again, his training gone slack in the absence of a bloodline heir. He only reacts, fumbling at his father's sleeves and hands as Gideon, startled by the clamour, wails over the sound of grunts and panting and the roaring thump of Ortus' heart.

Then she stops, and Ortus whips his head up in a panic worse than anything that came before. If his father was still moving, he would surely take a blow to the head or the belly for it, but Mortus has stopped too. Everything has stopped, stiller than graves, the hum and hiss of the House frozen in lightless time.

Behind Anna, the white stag huffs, shaking his heavy antlered head. He can hardly fit inside the room.

Ortus sits back on his father's belly with a shivering breath, then slides off him, dragging his knees up towards his chest and clasping his arms around them. He stares at the stag with blank misery, wiping his sleeve across his mouth and smearing his paint to its final ruin.

"It's done, now," he says, absently, not looking at Anna, "You can go."

[hauntedsavior]

Everything stops, and Anna suddenly remembers that she is in the middle of a memory. The adrenaline is still running deep within her, and the past few seconds feel like a blur. Inside her, there is something, some knot raveled oh so tightly that she feels slowly starting to come undone. But this is about Ortus, this is about her friend, this is about the only person on the Ninth she would trust to take care of a child.

She steps away from the frozen body of his father, and she turns to face Ortus Nigenad as he speaks, even if he's not doing the same. She breathes a few times, just shy of ragged, with her mouth open.

"I'm sorry, Ortus," she says, as though it's appropriate. It's the first thing she can think of to say. But this feels like not the right time to probe further. "I wish... he'd treated you better." So it wouldn't have led to this. So they wouldn't be here in this overcrowded room together. She keeps her hands to herself, crossing them over her body, holding her upper arms like she doesn't know what to do with anything anymore. She glances at the stag.

"You'll be okay if I go?" she asks. "We can talk about it more back home. If you want."