Right Back After This

Episode 13

It's hard to tell sometimes if the motivation for certain choices is to cut corners on the budget, or for the sake of content. It's probably both, and some cynical manager gets called a genius for coming up with shit like this.

Riz feels stupid for being angry when, as opposed to the small private quarters they've had on ships before, the room he goes to hide in, to avoid the endless darkness, is shared. Each of their beds is a pod in the wall, two beds on each opposing side, one above the other. While a curtain separates each bed from the main room, Riz can see from the doorway the red light indicating a camera hidden in his little pod.

He's not angry about the room sharing itself. It means little when everything is shared anyway. He can deal with Shia's snoring or the way Wrenley tosses and turns in her sleep. Even these pods are nice- there are shelves in the wall for a tablet, for water. The sheets are heavy and comforting and clean. It's none of that.

He was just low-key hoping that he'd have a private room, where Ares could turn off the cameras and he could finally get what he was promised. He's been imagining a legendary dicking down that will change his entire life, but he isn't that optimistic- because to be honest, anything he can get would feel that earth-shattering. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like he's going to get anything at all.

Ares isn't around for him to subtly glare at. The sheets are colour-coded, making it no question which bed is his- the one above Amello's. He stares at that setup for one moment, and he just wonders where Ares is. Wonders if he's going to get a chance to turn off his mic pack and demand a moment alone, wherever the managers have a modicum of privacy for themselves.

He steps back out into the hallway. This ship is at least a touch cosier than one might expect. Riz can reach up, medium-short that he is, and with only a small jump reach the metal roof of this hallway, although it extends forever in either direction. This would be a miserable hallway to be tall in. Being short makes you cute and friendly and approachable, so it works for him, and nobody has to know the cause was malnutrition.

He runs his fingers along the wall as he walks, tracing a path for himself like routing through a labyrinth. He wants to feel like his feet are on solid dirt. Artificial gravity, on a spaceship or on a moon like Arbo, is always tuned to an Earth constant that Riz has never actually experienced. Majadha had a slightly stronger gravity than any other planet he's been on, and he's never felt quite grounded since he left. Majadha was always haunted by the ghost of Earth- Mekha, in his mother's rolling tongue- but he didn't expect that planet to still be behind everything, all around the universe.

The doors down this hallway are nondescript, and that's how he can be certain he's headed the right way. He can hear the sounds of conversation from one direction, Shia's loud laugh, but it gets quieter as he walks. He turns, determining if he's being followed- and not by a member of Saccharine, he's not.

He raises a hand, smiling softly in a way the cameras might show, but can write off as the kindness that shines through his character. If he waves cheerily, overly so, at Colian, then it's Riz being the bubbly idiot he is, too oblivious to the seriousness of his guards. If Colian hadn't hugged him in the blind spots, Riz would take his blank-faced response as rejection.

But he did, and Riz is glad he's here.

He's ashamed, to some extent, that Colian is always witness to this. Does he hear every word, or just enough? Does he understand what Riz is really doing this for? Riz's whole life is laid out in front of the universe anyway- taking the number of witnesses down to one or two is still privacy. Would Colian judge him?

Riz turns from the thought. He finds a door that looks right, although he squints at the words for a moment, eyes focusing and unfocusing, before he concludes it probably reads managers. On the planets Saccharine is most popular on, literacy rates are almost absolute. On Deliquet, where Riz was officially born, they're over ninety percent. His wiki says he's dyslexic and it's played as part of his himbo identity. He doesn't think anyone but Sonja knows he didn't learn to read until a few years ago.