allawander:

((This is weirdly close to the plot of an omegaverse fanfic that exists only as notes on my hard drive. >.>))

-All commercially-produced space ships and stations come equipped with universal translators, but on galra slave ships, dampeners are installed in the walls of prison cells. This, combined with the Empire’s tendency to throw slaves together in mixed-species groups, makes it harder for them to work together and conspire to escape.

-But people adapt. The slaves of the Empire have their own limited pidgin language, based heavily on Galran and a few other common languages. Shiro’s been around long enough to learn the basics: “food”, “water”, “trade”, “guards”, “dirty”, “not safe”, “good”, “go away”, and so on.

-When one of the other prisoners says, “Guards coming!”, Shiro understands the words, but not the “why”. He knows their routes and rotations and meal schedules. Is it time for another match already?

-But instead of taking someone out, the guard shoves someone in. Someone… human?? A fine-featured boy with a lean build and his hands cuffed behind his back. The guard says the same phrase he says when dropping off meals, and Shiro recognizes the joke for what it is.

-He takes in the situation quickly:  At least half the prisoners in the cell won’t do anything. They’re here because they have no choice and want no part in the Empire’s cruelty. But there are other prisoners who have embraced the base circumstances of their captivity and the “might makes right” rule of the Arena. There are several sets of eyes that fall upon the dazed and frightened boy with cruel intent, and Shiro knows he’ll need to move fast.

-Shiro shoves his way to the front of the room and pulls the boy to his side.

“Mine,” he asserts in his limited slave pidgin. The boy tries to pull away from his grip, but Shiro just tugs him close and pins him to his side with his left arm. It’s not ideal, but right now the newcomer’s safety hinges on everyone in the cell understanding that he’s “Property of Champion”.

-Most of the interested aliens turn away, unwilling to risk a fight with the famous gladiator, but a few growl out objections. One - built like a red, bipedal crocodile - stalks closer and growls out a string of words Shiro doesn’t fully catch, though he does make out the word for “unfair” mixed in.

“Mine,” Shiro reiterates, refusing to back down from the larger alien. “Go away.”

-The red alien snarls at the refusal and reaches out to grab the boy away from him, but Shiro catches the alien’s wrist in his metal hand and squeezes. There’s a crack of bone, and the alien jerks back with a yowl. Shiro snarls. His command of the local language is limited at best, but the language of bared teeth is universal.

“No sharing,” he asserts, looking around the room and making pointed eye contact with each person he’d seen eyeing the other human with malicious intent. Satisfied that no one else will challenge his claim, Shiro - or, perhaps, Champion in this moment - herds his prize back to the corner of the cell he’s staked out for himself.

-The boy is understandably wary of him, pulling against his grip, but unable to do much with his arms bound. Once they’re away from the others, Shiro softens his manner, gentling his expression and asking soft, concerned questions. The boy looks at him without comprehension but stares at Shiro’s face with a kind of cautious awe that makes Shiro wonder how long it’s been since he saw another human.

-Shiro tries English and Japanese and a handful of words from other languages, but nothing seems to ring a bell. He tries slave pidgin, and there’s a small flicker of recognition at that. But when the boy finally opens his mouth to speak, the words that come out are Galran, and Shiro can only catch a few of them.

-It all leaves Shiro with more questions than answers. How had the boy gotten out here? Had the galra conquered Earth already? But if he’d been taken as a prize of recent conquest, the boy would still speak his native language and not the language of his captors. Maybe some other species had abducted him at a young age and sold him to the Empire as a slave?

Even after all his time as a prisoner, Shiro doesn’t know enough about how the Empire actually functions to make an educated guess.

-Whatever the circumstances, the important thing is that Shiro’s no longer the only human on the ship. And, even more importantly, he has someone to protect.

-Shiro gently turns the boy around so he can examine the cuffs binding his hands. Resistance is minimal. (The boy seems to be coming around to the idea that Shiro isn’t going to hurt him.) Unfortunately, Shiro recognizes the cuffs as a kind of electrified restraint that can inflict serious pain and injury - even death - if removed incorrectly.

-Shiro turns the boy back around with an apologetic grimace. They’ll have to live with the cuffs for now. Until the guards decide to remove them, Shiro will have to stay with the other human as much as possible. Without his hands, he won’t be able to defend himself. He can tell by the guarded tension in the boy’s frame that he’s come to the same conclusion.

-Shiro tries to be reassuring, helping his new protectee get settled comfortably in the corner (well, as comfortably as possible given the circumstances) and making a wall of himself between him and the other inhabitants of the cell. He shoots warning glares at anyone whose gazes linger too long and tries not to think about the fact that he’s probably doomed the alien whose wrist he broke to die in the Arena.

-Shiro’s contemplating the logistics of mealtimes and whether he’ll be able to persuade the guards to keep him and the new human in the same cell permanently when the power suddenly cuts out.

-The cell door opens and several galran figures step in wearing strange glowing masks. Shiro nudges his boy further back in the corner and takes a defensive stance, but the other human just pushes past him, speaking excitedly to the newcomers. He offers them his hands, and the cuffs fall from his wrists.

-A few of the prisoners near the door are taking their chance to slip through it, and Shiro’s boy is grabbing his hands and tugging him in the same direction, talking insistently to the skeptical-sounding galra who freed him. Slowly, it’s sinking in that this is a jailbreak, and Shiro allows himself to be pulled out into the hall.

-There’s a feeling like coming up from underwater as everyone’s speech suddenly becomes comprehensible.

“-protected me. He’s coming with us.”

“On your word, cub.”

“Cub?” Shiro echoes, confused. “Can someone tell me what’s going on? Who are you?”

The boy looks at him, apparently startled to hear him speaking coherently.

“My name’s Keith,” he states simply, “and we’re escaping.”

“Quickly,” one of the masked galra urges, handing Keith a knife. “We have little time.”

“There are a lot of guards that way,” Shiro cautions, glancing down the hall ahead of them.

“Don’t worry.” Keith holds out his knife as it transforms into a full-length sword. “This time, I’ll protect you.”