Getting a little more intense...
As we moved to a forum to continue, posts began to get longer and multiple paragraphs were used, making this read even more like a story. It is told by four different authors, however, so it's important to distinguish between them.
Seydas tilted his head momentarily at Tad's reaction, now realizing he must have been looking at him when he said what he did to Epsi. His smile was probably quite noticeable by now, too. Oops. Well, might as well go with it - it looked like he was in it with these two for the time being and conceivable escape-lacking future. Poor fellow probably needed a friend anyway, and though he wouldn't call himself the nicest of muds, he supposed he had already done something as nice as earn him a few-minute break from his work.
That line of thinking did not last long in the face of the suddenly three-part harmony of the song, which worked all the better for his purposes. He wasn't sure if he was imagining the slight movements of the slig or not, but the fact that they were being allowed to even continue such happy sounds was a significant enough result for him. Satisfied, he risked letting his voice rise to the volume of a soloist for one final, emphatic verse as he removed the last bits of both his own intentional splatters and any other disgusting messes in the general area, the song now practically jubilant with the layers of feeling added from the three of them in sync. Soon he was just scrubbing at anything to keep up the rhythm. He was certain this excess emotion was completely unnecessary and potentially more hazardous to him, but figured he might as well take advantage of it - the song was nearly over, anyway, and all three of them might not be able to hear such a fine rendition of this or any other song for quite some time. Given how easily he got them into it, he didn't doubt the song's sentiments had been communicated, probably even to that slig. Getting himself so into it made him feel a bit soft, though...did he already miss home this much?
Seydas finally brought the song into a peaceful finale with the help of Tad and Epsi, feeling quite pleased with himself until he looked down and around him and realized there was pretty much nothing to clean for several feet. There went the whole creating-work-to-appear-useful plan. His smile didn't fade though...and as he eyed the slig, still standing there, it even became a little smug.
He stood, stretched his legs, and returned the rag to Tad with a light pat on the shoulder, "That was good." Seydas turned enough to make eye contact with Epsi, as well, if the older mud would have it. "Great, even." He turned to face Riley, but remained at this relatively safe distance. "Which is a bit strange...considering sligs do not allow our kind to whistle here. Either you noticed how fast it made me work, and decided to allow it so long as I completed my task..." He gestured to the nearly sparkling floor around him. "...Or a private concert sounded good." If not silenced by now, he would attempt to get his entire point across. "Maybe you just love music, but the fact that you allowed it even at a time like this, entirely rules out an explanation so simple. There'd be no reason to let me get that carried away unless you enjoyed it every bit as much as we did." He felt he should qualify that a little, and would hold up his hands a moment. "Which I mean, thank you. Can't sing if the audience won't listen. But I don't guess your colleagues would be too happy if they found out you even bought a ticket." If he actually got this far without a reaction from Riley, he would simply fold his arms and wait. He no longer smiled or looked smug. He was, quite simply, interested.
Riley was so well into the song that he indeed remained still for its finish. He cocked his head to the side a little to see Sey once he realized he was the one being spoken to. The accusation was too much for him to take in right away... he had never had a mud confront him this way, let alone talk to him this much. He stood still for the entire speech, immobilized with the simple dilemma of how to react. Yes, it had gone well, and it had been a beautiful song... and now he was going to have to kill this mud. After a short pause, he finally turned to face him, taking one last drag from his cigarette before tossing it to the ground and stepping on it with a metal foot. "So, mud, which limb ya want me ta shoot?" he asked in a very serious tone with a voice slightly raspy from the smoke, uncocking his rifle in order to slip a couple of rounds in and then cocking it again. No, it hadn't been loaded, and yes, he was serious. Never had he been so reluctant to injure a mudokon, and in his unwell mind, that feeling manifested itself this way. He hadn't addressed or tried to deny anything Sey had said...
Epsimabe: Now that the whole thing was over, he noticed that the new mud was egging on the Slig again. He slapped his forehead once again, and grumbled "Quit that, you're going to get yourself horribly mangled." The floor, he now realized, was hopelessly shiny, in fact, he could see his reflection in it for once. He sighed at his hopelessly bleached feather upon seeing it. Apparently he had some issues. and wanted to chop the whole thing off, but that would solve nothing, it would grow back and look even more disfigured than it was before. He wasn't supposed to have this, this was for old mudokons, not him.
And so there it was - that terrible calm of the Sligs as they loaded their guns and approached for the inevitable beating. Tad's color re-darkened instantly, like a storm cloud forming in the distance, as Riley cocked his gun, flinching with every harsh, mechanical sound. He couldn't do that, not after he'd been so nice... Not after he'd made a friend...
Tad's knees weakened, and he collapsed onto the shining floor, his eyes fixed on Riley's unforgiving glowing eyes. What could he do...? In a trembling voice, he spoke up - defiant, but the tone itself was so pathetic that it was as if he hadn't said anything against his overseer at all.
"... Please, don't hurt him..."
Seydas braced a little at the eventual reaction, the sound of the rounds being loaded making him take a slight step back. He hadn't shown any aggression or defiance, but he should have expected this. His speaking up at all was probably enough to warrant punishment. "Just because I recognized it doesn't mean they will - and do you think I'm gonna be stupid enough to tell another slig? You'd just be replaced with someone who would have killed me and probably rendered both of them useless by now." He doubted anything he said now would lessen his punishment. He felt sure, however, that if this slig was willing to listen to their entire song and all of his logic, certainly he could be made to see reason somehow. "What purpose would it serve to waste shots on me?" He was trying very hard to keep a cool head and not seem to be pleading, but it was difficult to remain as calm now that he was out of logic and had to resort to the rhetorical question he himself had no answer to, other than "to serve a slig's vanity." Tad's whimper combined with the idea of getting shot had put a slight quiver into his own voice. He had never been shot before. Having seen gunshot wounds, not to mention deaths, it wasn't something he had ever hoped to experience.
Riley grinned, actually laughing a little at Tad's pleas as he paced back over to the mudokons and came to a stop before Sey. Act like a slig and you'll believe it... Pretend to laugh and you'll find it funny... The almost psychotic, out-of-place laughter was actually the voice of his reluctance to harm anything; the degree to which his reactions were misguided was astounding. "Who tha fack do ya think yer talkin' to? Yer tryin' ta threaten me? If yer keeps yappin' nonsense, I'm'a report yer as messed in the head." His voice suddenly became dangerous, although it wavered slightly at first, as though he had frightened even himself: "I'm shootin' yer cause I wants ter, cause I fuckin' can, cause yer a mud, and I'm a slig!" he shouted, turning his gun on its butt and attempting to ram it into Sey's gut [god I wish that didn't rhyme]. He wanted to wind him, or at least bring him down. "And mud, yer worth less than a bullet 'n I buy these in bulk."
Epsi knew this would happen, and yet, he couldn't help but feel a small bit of small satisfaction with these proceedings. He didn't screw up for once, and he wasn't the one getting beat, it gave him such a sense of relief, as well as a very well hidden "I told you so" expression. But he then looked to Tad, and began to feel a little bad for the newcomer, but not so much. He had asked for it, pretty much demanded it even, and he got it. What it was was a nice big helping of Rifle-butt. He moved on to the next patch of dirt, scrubbing it intently, though it would never reach the same level of luster as his last job. It was times like this he wished he had a mop.
Tad's heart dropped into his stomach as Riley grew closer. He didn't want his new friend to get hurt, but the aspect of getting reported as being crazy... He knew better than to speak out, and he knew nothing he could ever do would improve the situation... He sensed that Riley was about to strike and simply covered up his eyes, another whimper rising from him, then dying in his throat. He hated this helpless feeling, hated it so much...
"I t-t-trusted you, s-sir," he whimpered into his palms, more to himself than to his overseer. He'd been so nice, so gentle, and he'd even listened to their song... Tad had never felt so betrayed before in all of his young life.
Seydas shook his head incredulously at those words - that had been anything but a threat - but dared not interrupt an armed and apparently crazed slig. His mind was already formulating replies when he realized he should probably get out of the way of the incoming strike. He managed to turn himself and slightly deflect the butt of the gun, but with his complete lack of combat training, he had no idea how to absorb the brunt of the blow when it still connected. The way it struck his abdomen, he was flung down onto his side with a solid thud of bone against metal and a heavy cough, being winded quite effectively. Gasping a little, he held an arm over his head, looking up. "I...don't get it. That was...the exact opposite of a threat." He wheezed. Never been hit quite like that. It made him feel flimsy. "So...suddenly...because we are what we are...this is what I get?" He wondered why this slig, now acting as he was for the sake of his race, wasn't doing this forty seconds ago during the music. From down here, with a nice view of that firearm, a large part of him was disappointed to find himself not at all eager to point out that bit of hypocrisy in detail. Another part of him wondered what he thought he'd accomplish with this. Where are all your ideals and logic now, fool?
Riley leaned his head down towards Sey to bring his glowing eyes even closer to the fallen mud, turning his gun back around and covertly aiming it at Sey's leg. "Exactly," he said, his voice lower than before, as though he was sharing a secret that was between friends. "And it's about time ya learned yer place as what... you... are..." There was a pause of a few seconds during which he stared motionlessly down at Sey. He had heard Tad's pleas but managed to push them to the side for the moment with frightening skill. Part of him was annoyed with Seydas to the bone, part of him admired the thing for being a piece of a native world he would never see... None of him wanted to injure it. However, in Riley's mind, any reservations for doing any harm meant he would turn around and do lots of it, so he pulled the trigger and was unfazed by the sharp sound would follow.
For the first time, Seydas felt truly afraid. Sure, it had sucked to get captured, but he was captured intact. Now he was going to be shot, and he had seen enough mudokons die from this simple point and click. He didn't want to look at where the gun was being pointed, but for the few long seconds Riley delayed, he was given ample time to get bored of looking up at that unfeeling mask, and finally look down at his leg in time for the muzzle flash. He didn't even see what broke the skin and splattered some of his blood onto the slig, only felt the heavy jolt in his thigh, which shook through the rest of him in the same instant he realized how painful it was. His cry of pain was loud and frightened-sounding, but breathless as he still was, it was certainly short. Had it been any longer, he'd have simply blacked out. He writhed on the floor, hands grasping frantically at his leg, knowing only that he needed to keep pressure on it to contain the bleeding. Vaguely aware of the tears streaming from his eyes from the pain, he hoped he wouldn't pass out and bleed to death. He felt sure it was too painful to lose consciousness during, but he had seen that before, too. Naturally, none of these thoughts were very comforting.
"MOTHER OF ODD!" yelped Epsi as he jumped back in surprise. He had absolutely no idea that anyone was going to get shot. The sight of blood began to disgust him, and he held onto his head as Seydas began to yell in pain. He felt ill, extremely ill, as he turned an incredibly sickening shade of green. He bent over the side of a bucket, thinking he might end up throwing up, but he didn't. It seemed like he could feel his hair turning a brighter shade of white with stress. He heaved heavily, visibly rising and falling with every breath. "Wha...What....what...what...." he ended up repeating to himself as he clutched his chest, still heaving.
Tad had sensed it coming, some way or another, and he was now reduced to a trembling mass of blue on the floor. He let out a sharp yelp as the gunshot was issued, like a puppy being kicked, but he couldn’t bear to look up, instead curled into an impossibly tight ball on the floor with his forehead against the now shining ground. What else was there to do? A Slig that had managed to make him feel a bit more comfortable with his life had just turned around at shot his brand new friend. Nothing else existed now, not Seydas’s bleeding torment or Riley’s confused madness or Epsi’s panting horror; there was nothing but his own spiraling misery and helplessness, a vortex that he couldn’t fight and merely sank into. He was bawling hysterically on the floor, trembling with his lumpy back to the ceiling and his face pressed into the ground. He was scared and he didn’t want to move, not now, not ever again - there was no love in this place, no justice or friendship, just work, work and death and bloodshed, and this was what his life was, and what it would be from now on.
He was eerily motionless, only moving with the great and terrible heaves of his sobbing. He wouldn’t get up, he’d resolved. Even if it meant he was going to get hit, he wouldn’t get up. He’d found something that made him happy - for about five seconds, and then it was gone again, and he’d practically felt it slip through his stumpy fingers. What else was there?
Through his sobs, he whistled - probably not on purpose. Maybe that was how he calmed himself down, and it was automatic. Nevertheless, there was a low, trembling sound that accompanied his hallowed mourning, similar to the coo of the Mourning Dove of Earth. Gradually the sobbing grew softer and the whistling grew louder, and he began to shake violently, curling tighter in an attempt to disappear once and for all. No such luck.
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