[Teal]

This one's set after "Pru"; I know I haven't finished Pru's yet, but... Hm.

“Snared”

One

It was a muggy evening in the height of summer, and nearly everyone and everything on the continent of Mudos was suffering under the unrelenting heat. High on a rocky outcrop overlooking a busy mudokon settlement, watching the sun dip below the horizon, a solitary young female slig sat, shoulders hunched, and longed for company.
It wasn’t that no-one liked her. It wasn’t that she, Aalu, was an outcast, because of what she was; after all, The Guardians – seven renegades who took it upon themselves to protect the village from unwanted guests – were all sligs. They trotted about and chatted and just generally mingled with the mudokon residents as happily as if it was the most natural thing to do in the whole of Oddworld. And to be fair the muds did try to help her settle in, but she was finding it hard all the same…
Aalu was something of a rarity on that world – most females were the huge population generating queens, and they were few and far between, and the small, sterile workers were almost invariably male. The worker females usually either failed to develop or died as infants – something to do with their genetics. She’d been hatched in Vykkers’ Labs; they’d used a whole cocktail of chemicals to keep her stable as an embryo, to see whether it was possible to get her to reach to maturity. It had worked, as was evident by her sitting here now, but… all those noxious drugs had had an adverse affect on her emotional stability, leaving her prone to frequent bouts of depression and moods that swung like a pendulum. She was easily startled, it didn’t take much to worry her about things, and she found it excruciatingly difficult to make friends…
Skan and Jas, two of the Guardians, had rescued her from the labs when she was only a few days old. Even as an infant she’d been tricky – hating being left alone, yet nervous and jumpy and often distant…
Everyone was a little surprised at how Aalu grew up. As she’d grown from a scrawny infant to a gangling, almost out-of-proportion adolescent, most never expected her to then turn into a lean, elegant young female, willow-slender and – for a slig – quite stunning. Vykker’s genetic tinkering had given her skin a rich blue-lavender hue, and her eyes were an intense, midnight-dark cobalt blue; it was supposedly to mark her out from the general populace, although now she was mature it wasn’t really needed. Her features were more refined than those of a male; her bone structure was more delicate, her hands were longer and her arms slenderer, and her frame, although not overtly female, had a more feminine air to it.
And Skan had taken quite a shine to her, which surprised everyone even more than the way Aalu had grown up. The young male slig had quite a reputation – hard-as-nails, an expert fighter, armed with a caustic, dryly-sarcastic wit and an unstable temper, and with almost as much energy in his wiry frame as four sligs put together. It was odd and very often amusing to watch all his self-control rapidly evaporate when near her, turning him, with his lazy self-assured attitude, into a stammering bundle of nerves.
On her part, she wasn’t entirely sure whether to be pleased at the attention she was getting or nervous of the known-to-be-volatile young male… Although… at the moment he seemed to be channelling all that surplus energy into sparring with Hak. The big soldier just laughed and managed in most cases to fend him off with one hand, but the end result was that Skan was infinitely calmer, less likely to fly off the handle at the slightest provocation, which lead Aalu to guess all the sparring may be for her benefit. After all, she did feel more at ease around him when she wasn’t expecting him to react violently to things… And he tried all the harder to keep his temper under a firm rein if it made her happy.
But… well, it didn’t make it any easier to feel she fitted in. Aalu sighed, faintly, and leaned her head on one hand, tiredly, propping her elbow against a rock. Now her see-sawing moods had swung back to ‘depressed’, the feelings of isolation were all the more pronounced. Right now she felt lonely, unwanted and unloved, and seeing all the activity down below – friends walking about together, helping each other with jobs, or just chatting amiably – made her long for a bit of company…
Almost as though having heard her thoughts, a hand dropped onto her shoulder, startling her out of her reverie, and a concerned face hove into view. “Aalu?”
She smiled, faintly. “Heya, Skan.”
He settled next to her and folded her free hand in his, looking worried. “Wha’s matter?”
“Oh… nothing. Nothing important.”
“Aww, come on, Aalu… yer know I don’ like seein’ yer miserable…”
She nudged his snout with hers. “I’d tell you if I knew,” she replied, softly. “I just… get like this sometimes. The world can be very heavy, especially when it feels like you’re trying to carry it on your shoulders…”
He gave her an odd little smile, “I’ll help yer carry it, if yer like…” he said, and flushed bright scarlet with embarrassment at realising how corny that sounded.
That made her laugh. She gave him a thankful smile. “Thank you, Skan. I might just take you up on that offer…”
He made a flustered noise and excused himself, before he got the chance to embarrass himself any more. She smiled and shook her head, watching as he scuttled away; yes, Skan might be a brilliant tactician, and would quite happily fight to his dying breath, but anything in which he was required to speak his feelings left him hopelessly befuddled…
The sun had set, by the time she decided to leave her hilltop, and the brilliant palette of gorgeous colours that was the sky had been replaced with a velvet blanket sprinkled with tiny diamonds. Aalu rose to her feet, and stretched, scenting the air; there was the tang of woodsmoke from the small fires she could see below, and the delicious scents of food being prepared… Night-flowering plants were beginning to open, as well, adding their own distinctive perfume to the night air.
She set off down the hill, something of a spring in her step for once. She liked walking after dark, even though it meant all her senses were alert for danger; the clean, crisp night breeze was far more refreshing than the often unbearably close, dusty daytime air, and the moonlight, falling soft on her face, was gentle on her eyes. Although she was quite a pretty little thing, and most of the mudokons didn’t mind her trotting about maskless, she still wore one, just to be on the safe side – some were very temperamental – which made her face feel suffocated and uncomfortable. The night air was like a balm to her delicate skin…
A huge arm suddenly lanced out of nowhere and caught her around the throat. She had time for one sharp squeak of fear before a massive hand pressed a damp cloth firmly over her face; she struggled, vainly… At least, until the pungent, nauseating smell made her head spin and her senses swim, and a thick blackness roared upon her, settling like a heavy blanket on her shoulders. With a faint sigh, her eyes rolled back in her skull and she went limp in the restraining arms.