Fiction Friday - Green Eyes

Candice eyed the pie warily, cold with the awareness that Jerdy had not yet returned.

Candice had watched Jerdy depart unhappily, for his sake and hers but neither of them said anything. They were regularly taken from the cage floor, never for good, and the guards would ensure that both of them had a bad time, since she didn't have Jerdy's protection, or he hers.

Someone had ordered that they two of them share the cage, but it was not likely to be the guards, and the guards would not approve anything that made their prison time more bearable, especially cage time. Ruining rest, tormenting the wake time of prisoners with searches, demeaning behaviors (licking the guards' feet had been a recent favorite) and beatings. Yet Jerdy's presence had made their time more bareable even though it meant sleeping on the floor every other night (no bed had come with Jerdy's arrival and both had wondered if those arranging the sharing of the cage had intended that they should somehow find a way to mate. In the intervening weeks, they had discussed the possibility to pass the time but Candice was Earth standard and Jerdy was, to Candice's eyes, an overgrown spider with beautiful green eyes. He had occasionally rocked her to sleep after the scientists had finished some henious experiment, and she had massaged damaged limbs to sooth him to rest, always in the dark, when the guards couldn't see the comfort they offered each other, but no more was even possible.

Sometimes the pies were pleasant, intended as some sort of horrible looking thing that would be digusting to eat if it were real, but being based on alien horrors. Candice found those no more repulsive than the rest of the alien mush they served, and sometimes better. Other times, they looked delightful and proved revolting, though after the first few weeks, they were no longer toxic. The scientists had been appalled to have their test subject vomiting or doubling over in pain even before the experiments began, frustrated when she was so high on something with drug-like effects that she was unaware of anything they said or did, and had quickly enforced a more careful if no more pleasant diet. The worst ones were always after prisoners failed to return.

The last one had been the blue lady. She had finally secumbed to some experiment, or given up in despair when her beautiful songs faded, but eventually she failed to return and another pie had been served. it might have been just berries, cream boiled just enough to scum, and food die, but not a prisoner would touch the blue filling in the pastry, a perfect match to her soft skin.

She had been taken away for days at a time and so had Jerdy, so she didn't immediately worry. He would come back exhausted and battered as she had and she would comfort him when the lights went out, but the pie awaited and must be openned. That much the guards would insist on, though eating was not. She had seen them try once. Not a guard had come away clean of the foul brown goo that the prisoners had thrown happily. They were so filthy at all times, a little food on themselves was better than eating it. They guards were less than appreciative but they didn't try it again. The prisoners had little in common, no way to help each other beyond turning their backs for privacy and a hand jesture through the nearest bars, but they could throw food, or hum for the blue lady, or offer silence when Candice refused to do some humiliating thing by standing silent. A verbal refusal would bring a beating but as if she could forget words in a day, the guards assumed silent disaabedience was a failure to understand and would force the paces slowly, like giving a lesson, then eventually give up in bordom when she failed to learn. And Jerdy would sooth her tension afterwards, and or would rock her to sleep when the scientists did so much worse, stroking her and smiling with his beautiful green eyes into her face as if her mere existence cheered him.

The pie waited, and Jerdy's beautiful green eyes.