Trip To Maalos Island 8: Interlude With Grub Pics

8: Interlude With Grub Pics

(More time shenanigans and artposts)

Bel: Remember that you have an inbox.

Eventually, you run out of things to do. All the laundry’s clean and folded. The flight suit’s as mended as it’s going to get. It’s great poeting weather outside, clouds racing across the moons and waves breaking against the ship, but you aren’t in the mood for it. Not that you’re not so full of feelings they’re coming out your ears, but they’re not the kind of feelings that ought to be expressed in rhyme unless one is a pop singer.

You sprawl on your stomach across the laundry machines and have a look at your trollmblr, toying with the idea of vagueblogging about Galley without mentioning him by name. Oh yeah, that’s right, messages. Messages are a thing. You’ve been neglecting them shamefully. Maybe you could have a go at them.

LL: HEY BELBRO how are you? How are things? Do you know how to make salsa flavored cheezygrubs? Are these little sand flea fuckers biting the shit out of you as much as they are me? Do you ever wonder what the moons are tasting like? I can’t wait to fix the fuck outta your boat, man, she’s all kinds of pathetic looking.

Well, that’s been in there a while. How drunk even was she when she sent that?

CH: * No, I have no idea how they’re made. Is it even a thing you make. I thought they came in bags from some factory somewhere.

CH: * Nor have I wondered what the moons taste like. But I have imagined what they would be like if they were trolls.

CH: * Theirs is a tragic story of forbidden pity.

CH: * And orbital resonance.

CH: * They never meet, poor things.

CH: * Although I suppose that is lucky for us. Falling debris is not made more survivable by a romantic origin.

With any luck, she will have forgotten she asked the question, and the answer will completely baffle her. She’d probably enjoy that.

LL: Shit how drunk even was I when I sent that hahaha

LL: wow i dont remember this for fuck

LL: anyway i dunno if cheezygrubs are a thing you can make. i figure the factory must makem so why cant I? all I know is i think I might die if I don’t get some, no lie

LL: awww thats sad as hell

LL: poor moon ladies

LL: pretty though

LL:maybe i’ll paint that next

---

anon: Bel! Do you have any grub photos of yourself to share with us?

CH: * My lusus isn’t very good at operating a camera, so I don’t have many pictures from before I learned to use a webcam.

CH: * That said, I did turn out to have one in my files.

CH: * Apparently I somehow formed the impression he wanted to steal my favorite book, and guarded it jealously at all times.

CH: * Wow, it looks nearly pristine there.

CH: * I still have it. It is essentially a slab of gnawed pulp glued together with dried drool.

CH: * I was very good at drool.

BC: X DON’T KNOW WHY THXS MAKES ME SO ANGRY. XT’S LXKE… HOW DOES SOMETHXNG SO SMALL LXVE LONG ENOUGH TO GROW UP?

BC: YOU WERE SO FUCKXNG TXNY. X FEEL LXKE X WANT GO BACK AND KXLL ANYBODY WHO CAME TOO CLOSE TO YOU, XN CASE YOUR LUSUS WASN’T ALWAYS THERE.

BC: XS THAT AN ABNORMAL RESPONSE TO GRUB PORTRAXTS?

BC: DO X FUCKXNG CARE XF XT’S NOT?

BC: »:\

CH: * I just made a bizarre gurgling joy noise.

CH: * I don’t know whether it’s abnormal, but I know it makes me happy.

CH: * If you had a grub picture we could expand our sample size.

CH: * With regard to reactions.

LL: Oh my fuckin gawd, Bel. How were you even that cute. Look at you, all cuddlin’ that little boat with all them bitty legs. Your noggin looks like a sweet lil’ blueberry, awwwww.

LL: Shit, man, I could straight up die.

CH: * I was very fond of my boat book. I think the entire theme, plot, and summary of the story was as follows: There Exists A Boat. That was sufficient for me.

CH: * I also resisted sleeping in sopor during that period because it would ruin my book. I much preferred to sleep under my lusus’s wing. I spent the vast majority of my grubhood with feathers in my hair.

CH: * Now I believe you’re obligated by social convention to share grubhood pictures or stories of your own.

CH: * Cough ‘em up.

---

PERIGEES IN THE PAST (but not many):

Your boat is a disaster and there’s a yellowblooded adult troll out cold in your food prep block.

After you hauled your new guest aboard and made him comfortable, you spent the rest of the afternoon picking his ship clean. If it hadn’t blown up like something out of a shitty action adventure vid during the time it took for you to drag its kicking, screaming helmsman onto the Carla, you figured it wasn’t gonna send you to the deeps any time soon.

An hour’s rummaging later, you determined the useful parts of the ship must have broken up and landed elsewhere. No food, no water, but the fire extinguisher and the pair of first aid kits were in good enough condition that your efforts weren’t a total loss.

You had no idea what to make of the electronics—a lot of it was already waterlogged to shit, but you grabbed what you could, stuffing random memory grubs and hiveports and detachable consoles into your modus. You were able to gut a couple of the consoles you couldn’t move, pulling out pieces of things you couldn’t name, but you figured at the very least you could pluck out the precious metal bits and sell them for scrap.

Many of the slimy tentacle garland things were torn to pieces, (and twitching, ew) but you untangled and the few that still looked in working condition and added them to your stash. You figured if you didn’t make use of them, your new friend might.

The last thing you took was the Captain’s chair. By then your modus was full and you almost strained your back carrying that fucker aboard, but that thing was so plush it was like sitting in a god’s palm and you always did have a weakness for chairs with wheels on them.

Now it’s dusk and your insomnia shows no signs of abating. You’re miles and miles from the crash, you’ve tidied up what you could of the mess you and him made earlier, and you’ve got fuck all to do except stare at this emancipated scarecrow sprawled out all limp on your table.

It’s hard to believe this is the same creature who bit the shit out of your neck and shoulder not too long ago. Trying to hold onto him was next to impossible—he thrashed hard enough that you almost dropped him in the ocean twice. His struggles were full of false stops where he’d go limp and pant angrily, only to start kicking and bucking the second your grip relaxed. The moment he realized there was shit on your ship that wasn’t bolted down, he proceeded to make every effort to throw everything he could directly at your head.

Squirrelly-ass little fuck.

After you put a stop to that nonsense, you gave him a quick look over before you left to go scavenge. Miraculously, he had no broken bones that you could see. He was covered in scrapes and it was pretty likely he was gonna be bruised all to hell tomorrow, but otherwise he seemed more or less whole.

Now, looking at him close up, you’re not so sure.

He’s got weird holes all over him you didn’t notice before. The bigger ones on his arms have metal plugs on them, but the smaller ones on the backs of his hands are just ugly craters without any kind of cover. They look like they hurt.

His suit is ripped up. You can see another metal plug peeking out just under his collarbone. You peel back the fabric and hiss; he is covered in gooey cuts and scrapes.

“Damn.”

For all his arms and torso look pretty banged up, though, his face is the worst. His lips are bitten all bloody and he’s lost one of the teeth from the row that sticks out between them. There’s a gash going down his face that starts under his right eye and ends almost at his chin—that’s gonna need some stitching for sure.

You bite your lower lip. God, the poor asshole. His cheeks and ears are flushed an angry yellow that means burns. It’s nothing that’ll scar, you think, but you’ve been burned enough times fucking around with welding equipment that you have a pretty good idea of how much that shit must sting.

His goggles are cracked across both lenses. Gently, so gently, you pull them off—and oh holy fucking hell one of his eyeballs is popped out, oh gods, oh shitting squittering fuck, your fingers spasm and you drop the goggles on his chest and cover your mouth with both hands.

It takes a second or two for it to click that it isn’t a real eyeball. It’s some kind of metal thing, a fake one they must have put in him. It occurs to you that you don’t know shit about helmsman or why this one would have a fake eyeball. All you know is this is gross as fuck; you were never good at dealing with eye squick.

It’s gonna have to come out, though. It’s too far out to put back in right, and the eye itself is missing some of its outer plating. You think replacing it shouldn’t be too hard—you’re pretty sure you saw someone with a bowl of these bionic eye things the last time you were at market.

You’re glad he’s still out cold so he doesn’t have to see you turn your back to him and do a shuddery grossed out dance right there in the food prep block. Euuuuggghh.

Okay. Deep breaths. The sooner this shit got done, the sooner you could patch the rest of him up and then go fix yourself a motherfucking drink.

You stare at your hands until they stop shaking, and then you pull open a drawer and take out a pair of pliers. Maybe if you were lucky it would all come out in one piece and you wouldn’t have to worry about random wires or metal bits causing an infection somewhere you couldn’t reach.

You fit the pliers at the base of the eyeball and pull carefully. Nothing.

“Fuuuuuuuuuck—”

You grimace and make yourself pull a bit more. There is a smooth, slick giving sensation and you’re aware that your hand doesn’t feel like it’s your hand anymore. You’re floating, dizzy, and your fingertips are tingling.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck—”

Then rest of it slides out with a faint wet sound and all at once you’re holding a mechanical eyeball and its stem. You stare at it stupidly. You won the prize, it’s you!

You’re gonna be sick.

You drop the eyeball and the pliers into the trash bin and spend the next few minutes hunched over the sink until you’re sure your legs can hold you up. Boy, wouldn’t it be funny if he woke up now, with you spitting curses and shuddering all over.

You’re relieved to find he’s still out cold when you approach the table again, that bruised, empty socket looking all sad and droopy.

That won’t do. But it’s not like you have an eye patch or anything to cover it up with.

Inspiration strikes. Dialing up your modus, you remove an impulse purchase from the last time you were at market: a small plastic bag of small rubber balls you meant to give to your lusus as ablution toys.

You pick one out and wash it first with rubbing alcohol, then with water, before easing it into the empty socket. You are surprised and delighted to find it’s a perfect fit.

You picked this one specifically because it’s orange, which you think complements his natural eye color. There’s also a tiny smiley face where his pupil should be.

That ought to cheer him up some.

You take in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Being a docterrorist was fuckin’ hard, and you still have so much more to do.

You notice one of his smaller horns is chipped and wince, awww, that’s gonna hurt like fuck when he wakes up. Your brows furrow. Did that happen during the crash or when you clocked him with the cookbook? You can’t remember.

Either way, it’s a damn shame. The longer you look at it, the sadder you become. Poor skinny fuck, he’s all lopsided now. There’s something downright tragic about seeing that little nubbin with the tip all jagged and the crack down the middle; it would never match its tiny rightways brother again.

He’s just a bundle of bones, really. It’s easy to see that now, with him being all still and quiet. Frail as anything. You watch his narrow chest rise and fall and remember how you could feel him hyperventilating when you carried him over. The way he carried on, you would’ve thought he thought you planned to serve him with salad and eat him raw.

Poor thing must have been scared shitless.

The thought makes your chest tight. Even though he’s taller than you, the urge to fold up his long, bony limbs and cradle him against you is so strong it aches. You want to tuck him away somewhere dark and secret so the universe can’t shit on him no more. You want him to tell you everything, purge his little heart clean, and when he’s done you’ll wrap his soul up in so many bandages he’ll forget what it’s like to hurt.

In short, you’re so pale for this troll it’s stupid.

Snickering at yourself, you remove the first aid kit from your modus and rummage around. Inside you find disinfectant, wet wipes, burn cream, bandages, gauze, needles, painkillers, and a precious six ounce bottle of horn cream. You’re going to have to make that shit last until you can find more, or you might have to get creative with engine putty and epoxy tape.

You crack your knuckles and smile down at your new diamond bro.

You have work to do.

Some hours later, you’re putting a kettle on the stove when your buddy finally stirs. By now he resembles a scrawny mummy where you got a bit thorough with the gauze, but at least you’re pretty certain your stitching is decent. He emits a thin, hoarse groan and squints at you.

“Hey brother,” you say. “Grubcake?”

---

[misc artposts!]