Risks and Rewards (Of a Life so Simple)

Star-Marked Limb

Meep laid her head back, leaning against her girlfriend's shoulder, wringing her hands. "It's...weird, I guess. On one hand it's not like I expected them to be around forever, and on the other it's not like they're going to be gone for good. But...it'll take some adjusting."

The Inkling nodded. Meep had invited her over, because they hadn't done that in a while. The last time had been when she'd shared the news of her promotion.

"Do you think you'll be ok?" Annabel inquired.

"Yeah, I'll be fine. I've got Benny and Deco here, and they're allowed out of their wing now so we've basically got the whole house to ourselves aside from the staff." She gestured to the two of them, seated on a different couch, trying to play some kind of card game. Deco appeared to be winning, and seemed perplexed by this fact.

Benny was manipulating his cards with his feet, and doing that part well at least. Didn't change the fact that he was losing. He took a moment to look up from the game, turning towards Meep. "I'm...wishing we could leave the house too." He commented, frowning. His Inkling was slowly getting better. "But I'm fine even so. There is enough here that it is not feeling like I am trapped." He played a card.

Deco tilted his head. "Benny sure bout card? Give Deco opening."

Benny made a noise of confusion, squinting at the board. "Oh, wait, it does..."

The Inkling smiled. "It's pretty quaint here, I'll give you that. At least you won't get too lonely."

She paused then, eyes narrowing. "Y'know, I've been looking into stuff around Splatsville. Since the NSS'll probably be operating out of there soon."

"Yeah?"

"I was looking through Winkipedia, right? About the history of the Splatlands and all that. Seems like there's already a large Octoling presence there. Like, way larger there is here in Inkadia."

Meep sat up at that. "Wait, really? How? Octarians have only been leaving the mountains recently."

"That's what I thought too, so I did some digging. I'm thinking...the brainwashing thing has to have been recent, right? I'm guessing that any Octolings that left before the brainwashing went to the Splatlands to put distance between them and Octavio. Either that or the ones over there have just...been building their own little population in hiding since the Great Turf War. It's statistically unlikely that every single one of them got stuck underground, right? By now there probably would be a lot of them."

Meep hummed in thought. "Y'know, I don't actually have an answer about the brainwashing thing. That's not a memory I still have." She turned to the Octocopter. "Benny? Do you know when Octavio first started brainwashing everyone by chance?"

Benny frowned, thoughtful. "Gosh, I don't know. I feel like...my dad might've not been brainwashed his whole life? But he definitely was for mine."

"So it's only a generation or two." Meep mused aloud. "That's a better rough estimate than I was expecting. So plenty might've had free enough thought to leave before then."

She paused again as an awful thought hit her. "Wait, you...you don't think that's why, is it? Why he was brainwashing people in the first place?"

The Inkling's eyes widened at the idea. "Because people were leaving and he was scared?"

"He'd said he was getting desperate." She recalled. "If that's what was making him desperate, then..."