You've been through those before, both times on those rare occasions when you slept off-grounds for a night. Drones came into the hivestem and collected all the residents straight in a line, and did a health inspection for blood abnormalities, any incurable communicative diseases.. anything that might warrant a culling so their apartment block could be freed for a new, healthier child.
At the time, it was terrifying. The air had been thick with fear pheromones, and the sound of children weeping: you had watched one child culled right in the middle of the line, and then cried when her moirail demanded the same.
(The drone had done it, under code five hundred and eighty two. You had looked it up, afterwards, and all of the rest of the culling qualifications, just in case, and you hadn't slept for the rest of the day.)
But now...
You're all healthy. No blood aberrations, no disease: you might wonder about Hinnom's health with the way that ze live in the sewer, but ze spends too much time with you. You'd have noticed if ze was sick, or sported any unusual mutations.
"Culling sweeps are a perfectly normal and routine part of the day," you say now, trying to sound soothing. Ze's practically vibrating with anxiety, and the way fear pheromones that are coming off of zim in waves is making your horns ache. "I've been in several, and come out fine. There's nothing to be worried about."
no subject
You've been through those before, both times on those rare occasions when you slept off-grounds for a night. Drones came into the hivestem and collected all the residents straight in a line, and did a health inspection for blood abnormalities, any incurable communicative diseases.. anything that might warrant a culling so their apartment block could be freed for a new, healthier child.
At the time, it was terrifying. The air had been thick with fear pheromones, and the sound of children weeping: you had watched one child culled right in the middle of the line, and then cried when her moirail demanded the same.
(The drone had done it, under code five hundred and eighty two. You had looked it up, afterwards, and all of the rest of the culling qualifications, just in case, and you hadn't slept for the rest of the day.)
But now...
You're all healthy. No blood aberrations, no disease: you might wonder about Hinnom's health with the way that ze live in the sewer, but ze spends too much time with you. You'd have noticed if ze was sick, or sported any unusual mutations.
"Culling sweeps are a perfectly normal and routine part of the day," you say now, trying to sound soothing. Ze's practically vibrating with anxiety, and the way fear pheromones that are coming off of zim in waves is making your horns ache. "I've been in several, and come out fine. There's nothing to be worried about."