I’ve received a lot of requests for more Signal, and though I’m fresh out of ideas for the main canon, I thought I could do a bit of a prologue, from before they were with Doctors Crane and Sampson. An anon had the great idea of elaborating upon the mentioned wind tunnel from the ask game, so I went with that! I hope you enjoy!
(Putting all anon requests at the bottom of the post, as there’s a lot!)
There was a stark contrast between Signal’s kennel and the rest of the facility.
The facility itself was boundless– No matter how long they spend inside, how many treks through the blank halls they made, Signal had never seen the end of it. The hallways themselves were indistinguishable from one another, all blending together– Signal was never sure if they had been in the same hallway before, or if they were being led somewhere entirely new.
Knowing was impossible. The facility was impossible. Impossible to understand, and more than that, impossible to escape from.
Their kennel, on the other hand? Signal’s kennel was small, simple, comprehensible. Seven feet in one way, four in the other– They’d counted, making use of their curled fingers to measure inches, bit by tiny bit. They knew every last square inch of it. The inches where they curled up to sleep, where they backed away when the scientists came.
That was where they were, now– The very back of their kennel, spine pressed against the tile wall. The chain link structure provided minimal protection from outside prying eyes, providing a pixelated view of the scientist in a lab coat outside.
Which scientist? Signal hardly knew, and more than that, they hardly cared. Just like the hallways, there seemed to be infinite numbers of them. They were all the same, all threats in the same way.
Hell, they even spoke the same.
“Good morning, dear, time to come out, now.”
Dear. The word made Signal feel sick. They bristled as they pressed against the back of their kennel, ankles straining again the short length of chain that connected them and wings doing the same, struggling to break free from the straps keeping them folded.
Every day, they tried the same tactic to keep themself safe: A mixture of growling and swiping feebly at the air in front of them, trying in vain to scare away whoever had decided to target them. Never once did it work, but it felt far better than allowing themself to be taken with no fight at all.
With the clinking of a key in a lock, the chain link door of the kennel clattered open. The moment Signal felt blue-gloved hands upon their skin, heart-pounding panic set in, sending their limbs flailing and their jaws striking out at anything that they might’ve been able to find purchase on.
No purchase was found, and nothing was struck. Before they knew it, Signal’s wrists had been cinched behind their back, shoulders held in place by guiding hands, not allowing them to twist or spin.
Led down the hallway, Signal was not blindfolded, but they may as well have been. The towering ceilings and endless steel doors told them nothing of where they were– They wouldn’t have been able to figure it out, not even with a map. Other white coats shuffled past in either direction. At some point, one joined Signal’s captor, moving at their side with jovial words.
Signal had long since stopped listening to their conversations. They couldn’t care less.
They kept their head bowed, steps forced short by the hobbling strap between their ankles.
What would it be today? They had no way of knowing, they never did. Why would the scientists explain to them anything? After all, they were merely an animal, a lab rat, what would their understanding matter? Perhaps they would be having samples taken, or the opposite, having god-knows-what injected into their veins. A physical examination was always possible, or scans– Of their skin, their muscles, their bones, their organs.
They caught a scrap of conversation between the two scientists escorting them.
“I’m taking this one for some exercise. Its doctor is concerned that its wings are going to atrophy.”
“You’re taking it outside to fly?”
“Outside? No, no, just to the tunnel.”
The tunnel? It wasn’t something Signal had heard referred to before, something that made them balk and attempt to stop their constant march forward. Yet, it was in vain– A good shove and their feeble form was moving again.
Every last door in the endless hallway looked the same, and Signal fully expected to be shoved through any one of them, at any time.
Instead, they did not stop until the very end of the hallway, where an oversized, arc-shaped garage door was settled into the wall. There was no way they were going through there, r-
They were.
With a great rumbling, the door retracted upwards.
Signal understood at once why they called it the tunnel. Taking on the appearance of a giant, sideways half-cylinder, a metal-plated room stepped out in the distance. Immediately, their gaze was flitting about, searching for where exactly the pain would come in, where the torture would begin.
Instead, they were merely led into the massive tunnel, the garage door grinding closed behind them. Without thinking, they felt themself beginning to resist.
The structure of the thing was simple, all illuminated by great, shining bulbs, aligned in a straight row along the top of the tunnel. Inside the giant tunnel, settled in one corner, sat a metal control room, windows across the sides. The rest of the space was open, except for…
At one end of the half-cylinder, an oversized fan had been embedded behind an equally massive grate. Was that going to grind them up? It was the first thought that crossed Signal’s mind, though they quickly realized that it didn’t make much sense.
“Alright, buddy.” The scientist pushing them forward patted Signal on one shoulder. “Let’s stretch those wings a bit, huh?”
Signal did not much like the idea, but that was the case for any idea that the scientists had. Yet, it did have one positive– They nearly let out a sigh of relief as they felt the straps unbuckled from around their wings.
They wasted no time at all in unfurling them, feeling the stagnant air catch through their bent feathers. The two scientists stumbled backwards.
How long had it been, since they’d been able to fly? They didn’t remember, and, yet, the action came as naturally as breathing. A pair of powerful beats later, and they were up, halfway to the top of the cylinder. With a great cheer, they flew into a loop, before realizing how stupid the action was and halting.
The scientists on the ground looked up at them with a laugh, before moving to the control room, locking themselves in.
This was… This was amazing! Sure, it wasn’t as good as outside, as feeling the real wind in their wings, but it didn’t matter! They were flying !
Signal soon let go of their bashfulness, spinning over and over again in great arcs through the air. For the first time in ages, they could feel the blood pumping in their veins, the breath coursing through their lungs.
They did not so much as notice as the scientists below turned dials and pulled levers. Yet, they very much noticed when the massive fan churned to life.
The surprise alone was enough to find them falling out of a spin. Feeling like a deer in the headlights, they hovered, watching as the massive blades groaned and grumbled, beginning to move, then turn, then spin.
Even the first few rotations nearly knocked them back. What in the- What was this?!
Signal realized far too late.
By the time they understood the idea of the tunnel, the idea of exercise, they’d already been slammed back, against the far wall of the tunnel. Their head echoed hollowly with ripples of pain as they began beating their wings, struggling to free themself from the wall like a bug from an interstate windshield.
The fan was getting louder, louder, until they could no longer hear their own pounding, desperate thoughts, slamming against the inside of their skull. When they eventually freed themself from the wall, it was far from without difficulty– their lungs were overtaken by gasping as their wings beat the air in panic.
It felt like being behind a passenger jet.
Faster, faster, they urged their wings as the horrid gusts from in front slammed into their face, nipping their nose, tearing their breath from their lungs and tears from their eyes. They could sense the wall behind them, dreading slamming into it again, but did not dare turn around– a moment of lost concentration and they would fall again.
This was exercise? This was supposed to be good for their health?! Or was it merely another humiliation, another torture, like the thousands of others?
Signal had no spare mind with which to consider the matter. Instead, they could only beat their wings, could only gasp for what air they could get. They had long ago closed their eyes, focusing only on the wind, on fighting it with every movement.
The faster they beat their wings, however, it seemed that the fan matched their increase in speed.
Their lungs burned, the cold wind threatening to rip their feathers from their wings, their skin from their face and arms.
Signal had no way of keeping track of time in that hellish place. Only the scientists below knew that they lasted 5 minutes, 43 seconds before slamming into the back wall of the wind tunnel, and falling to the ground, unconscious.
All things considered, it was a good exercise routine. Efficient, quick, and great for their wings! That was what was recorded on Signal’s file, at least, alongside another line:
The people here are mild, and Iesin and Talvos have been reluctant to leave the welcome reprieve of being mostly ignored. The storms have been building, but they are manageable; they come, drenching the coastline, and then they break and the sun returns. So when the rain picks up again shortly after Iesin ventures out of the little cave they’ve been staying in to try to stock up on meat before another storm rolls in, he doesn’t turn back. He glances around, seeing low clouds piling up around him, and decides to try to fly above the storm. The clouds are gravid with rain; they’ll swing heavy and turgid over the land, and he’ll avoid the buffeting winds and sheeting water by soaring safely above it.
Even as he decides, he’s banking, catching an updraft and then beating his wings fast and strong as it tapers out, climbing even further. The flight muscles along his back and chest stretch, and he revels in the light burn of it. He belongs to the sky; here, high above the earth, nothing can touch him, grab him, hurt him, pin him. He’s free and he’s safe, and his body exults in it.
He’s flying inland; Iesin doesn’t see the way the clouds pile up abruptly behind him, stacking higher than any fae has ever flown, their malignant grey deepening to night-dark void. Iesin levels off, sure he’s above where he last saw the clouds, and tips into a wide looping circle, prepared to see the storm below him and clear sun above.
A string of curses poured from his mouth as he brushed dirt and torn up grass off his chest. Looking up to the sky where he’d just been flying above the trees and now, now his stupid wing had broken on him again. He hated it, hated the faulty technology and shit design that allowed him to fly again. He stretched out his real wing to inspect it for damages, the webbing and bones seemed to be fine.
Next he turned his attention to the fake one, a prototype and technical marvel in its own right. He stretched it out too, the webbing between the metal ‘bones’ was ripped again and the main support seemed to be frozen up again. His hands wrapped around the metal and fabric, shoving it away from his body in frustration and immediately regretted it. The mechanical wing pulled at his muscles and skin, with it being broken it was dead weight hanging from his back.
His sharp canines dug into his lip until the foul taste of metal reached his taste buds. Finally the pain seemed to dull, if only from a sharp pain to a throbbing one to give him a chance at folding the faulty tech up. A few straps from his bag and the piece of junk that could barely be called a wing was folded safely against his back. He looked skyward, toward where he’d come from and started walking. It’d be a long few miles.
————–
“Ah you’re back, Myr. I was beginning to think you got lost.” A voice said with a laugh as he opened the front door.
“Don’t act all friendly Bjorn, you fucked up my wing again. Now fix it.” He snapped.
“Polite today, aren’t we?… fine, on the bench with you.” The man said and patted a steel table he’d been working at.
Myr winced as he manually moved his false wing behind him to sit, the sharp pain returning in full force. His fingers gripped the table, squeezing what ounce of life it may have had out of it as Bjorn undid the straps holding it closed.
“Must you be so rough?!” Myr snapped.
“I haven’t even started, relax.” Bjorn bit back and purposely jostled the defective wing.
His sharp teeth grit from the pain, it made his muscles strain and pull. Every little movement, adjustment, and touch only brought more discomfort as the man behind him fixed his wing.
“Looks like you shredded the hinges and snapped a cable…. Again. You do realize this thing isn’t easy to fix and you go around breaking it every chance you get.”
“If you made it sturdy, like I’ve asked you to… multiple times, it wouldn’t be a problem. It’s not like a piece of art, Bjorn. It’s meant to be a part of my body.”
“I can rip it off, leave you completely vulnerable and useless. Is that what you’d rather, Myr?!” He snapped back and to prove his point, yanked on the tender base of the wing.
Myr muffled his scream, biting deep into his fist until he tasted blood. Tears welled up in his eyes, blurring his vision until they became heavy and rolled down his cheeks. Everything hurt, he almost wished he had never asked for the wing to be made. It would’ve saved him hours upon hours of ache had he just lived without a wing.
CW: Restraints, stress position (brief), vague threats, bruises, hypersensitivity
Nicholas returned about a half an hour after Killian left. He took his time in Nicholas the chains and finding the keys to the cuffs.
“You been crying?” Nicholas asked as he started to unlock Shea’s wrists.
“… Yes, sir.” It was obvious. Even if Shea denied it, Nicholas would find out momentarily anyway.
“Did anything happen after the group left?”
Shea’s heart started to race. So it had been a test? Had he passed? “S-sir, one of the guests came back and tried to convince me to run away.”
Nicholas paused unlocking the cuffs on Shea’s ankles. “… Excuse me?” His voice sounded tense.
Was it not a test then? Shea was confused. “O-one of… of the guests came back and took the chains off. H-he… he tried to get me to leave with him, sir.”
Nicholas moved in front of Shea and grabbed his face, forcing Shea to look at him. “Who?” His voice was like ice and it made the blood freeze in Shea’s veins.
“I… I-I’m sorry, sir— I don’t remember his name.”
“Then what did he look like?”
“I-I… ah, I-I didn’t see his face.” Shea lied. Nicholas hadn’t set this up and Shea wasn’t about to get Killian in trouble. What Nicholas did to him was admissible by nature of what Shea was, but he feared Nicholas wouldn’t restrain his anger against a human any more than he did against Shea.
Nicholas’s expression changed. “Why are you such a fucking liar? You don’t know his name or his face? And you expect me to believe that one of my friends was in here, trying to rescue you?” Nicholas laughed.
Shea felt relief calm his heart as Nicholas went back to uncuffing him. “Sorry, sir.”
“You know I’m gonna have to punish you for that, though.”
“Yes, sir.”
Nicholas ran his hand up Shea’s back once he finished unlocking the cuffs, pressing his fingers onto some of the bruises he passed, then stroked a hand down Shea’s wing.
Shea gasped involuntarily as a shudder ran down his spine.
What on earth??
“Did you just try to pull away from me?” Nicholas asked, his voice bordering on snapping.
“N-no— no, sir— I don't—” Shea trailed off. What was that? He tried to think back to when the last time someone touched his wings was.
He couldn’t remember. Master Wilson never really touched him unless it was to slap him across the face or pull him by the arm. Nicholas was never allowed to touch his wings or hurt him before Master Wilson died. Since Master Wilson’s death, Nicholas had been much more interested in beating the hell out of Shea’s face and torso than anything to do with his wings.
Nicholas took a fistful of Shea’s feathers and pulled him back. Shea screamed.
Shea hadn’t screamed in years. Had he ever screamed? He didn’t know. He’d never felt pain this bad before. It was like every sensation in his wings was multiplied tenfold— he knew it wasn’t like this normally.
If Shea touched his own wings or if they brushed up against a wall, it just felt normal. He started to cry aloud as Nicholas finally released his wing.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Nicholas asked, pulling Shea’s hair so his head tipped backwards to look at him. “You’re not usually such a crybaby.”
“I-I-I’m sorry, sir— I’ll sto-stop…”
If Nicholas decided to pull Shea’s feathers again, however, Shea doubted he could keep that promise.
Nicholas didn’t pull Shea’s wing again, but he did draw his hand slowly down the length of the wing. At first, Shea reflexively jerked away, but he consciously focused on not moving, knowing it would only irritate Nicholas. Shea shivered, whimpering quietly.
“Your wings aren’t just delicate, are they? They’re also hypersensitive.” Shea could hear the smirk in Nicholas’s voice. “You’re going to regret that I found out about this.”
A winged whumpee whose legs are weak because they’ve flown places their whole life and barely use them. Until one day they’re in a situation where they have to use them.
oooo imagine them trying to stay strong for their winged partner and saying funny/sarcastic things to avoid the emotions they really feel.
Imagine them looking at themselves in the mirror, seeing the ugly scars where their wings used to be and just punching the mirror thereby shattering it.
Them falling to the ground and for a while they just stare at their hands but then they start uncontrollably sobbing and screaming. Just rocking themselves back and forth because they not only does it hurt to see themselves without wings but, they remember.
They remember how it felt to lose them, they remember the unbearable pain, the hopelessness, the emptiness. They remember how their captors laughed at them, how their hands felt on their wings.
Imagine their winged partner finding them surrounded by broken glass crying on the floor and not saying anything, just going down on the floor to hold them in their arms.
The winged partner not exactly knowing what to say or do, just knowing that they have to be there for them.
The winged partner crying on their own once the wingless one is asleep because “oh god why them”
OR their winged partner leaving them the moment they see that they have no wings bc they could never be with someone who was wingless.
A winged whumpee whose legs are weak because they’ve flown places their whole life and barely use them. Until one day they’re in a situation where they have to use them.
oooo imagine them trying to stay strong for their winged partner and saying funny/sarcastic things to avoid the emotions they really feel.
Imagine them looking at themselves in the mirror, seeing the ugly scars where their wings used to be and just punching the mirror thereby shattering it.
Them falling to the ground and for a while they just stare at their hands but then they start uncontrollably sobbing and screaming. Just rocking themselves back and forth because they not only does it hurt to see themselves without wings but, they remember.
They remember how it felt to lose them, they remember the unbearable pain, the hopelessness, the emptiness. They remember how their captors laughed at them, how their hands felt on their wings.
Imagine their winged partner finding them surrounded by broken glass crying on the floor and not saying anything, just going down on the floor to hold them in their arms.
The winged partner not exactly knowing what to say or do, just knowing that they have to be there for them.
The winged partner crying on their own once the wingless one is asleep because “oh god why them”
OR their winged partner leaving them the moment they see that they have no wings bc they could never be with someone who was wingless.
This…is amazing.
OKAY THAT LAST LINE WAS UNCALLED FOR
I love it
OK BUT
Think about it: they’re captured, treated poorly, their wings painfully removed, and then discarded.
They make it home (finally, painstakingly) only to be rejected by their partner, friends, family, for no longer having wings.
They continue to suffer - legs always achy from now always having to walk when they never used to. Feet all cut and blistered from not having shoes. Back still bleeding and hurting from the removal. Nowhere to go. Caught in storms. Cold. Hungry. Tired. Alone. No place in the world.
Andthen.
They find or are found by other former winged beings who were also rejected. And are accepted and tended to and cared for and given a place to live and a fresh start. Happy ending + comfort + found family.❤
omg but what if prejudice against wingless people was like, a really big problem. (racism but instead wingism?)
It doesn’t matter if they were taken from you or you weren’t born with them, if you had no wings, there were people who absolutely hated you, who were disgusted by you.
Families who bore wingless children often hid them from the world or abandoned them.
in some places wingless people were hunted for sport, in others they were executed
in more developed places they were experimented on to see if they could reattach wings to make them “normal” (they can’t and it results in a lot of false hope and many deaths)
sometimes, if there’s enough of them, they would stage the occasional protest, often labeled by the media as violent with radical views
Wingless people banding together along with winged allies to tell the rest of the world that they have as much a right to life as the winged ones do.
Civil war! Family against family! Angst! Death! No happy ending in sight!
Idk applying real life stuff (racism) to relate to prejudice against winged people seems really interesting.
CWs are in the tags so you can choose to look at them or not as they are spoilers
-
Si woke.
He was in his hammock at home. The room stank of sweat - it did no matter what you did to it after years of close-packed kids sneaking into adulthood here. Sunlight poked its fingers through the dirty window. Squinting, he lifted his head. The collection of hammocks and sofas and pallets and blanket nests were empty other than a few sleeping teenagers. They must have been on a job late last night. All being well, he snuggled back under his blankets, and shut his eyes tight.
A sharp kick jolted him from below.
“What was that for?” he groaned.
“Uncle’s pissed you slept in!” He couldn’t work out which of the little kids it was.
He tumbled from his hammock to the floor, and patted the backs of his shoulders. Nothing there. No wings, no tears, not even any pain. He grabbed his pack of cards from his breast pocket and flicked through them. The Ace of Hearts was missing.
31 days of drawings ! Here we go ! All whumpees and caretakers are either OCs, recurring nameless characters or one time characters
Content contains : whumpees; caretakers; lot of blood, bruises, scars and various injuries, unconscious whumpees, drowning, guns, wing whump, hurt/comfort
One time characters :
Day 2 - Choking ✦ Day 3 - “Who did this to you” ✦ Day 4 - Taken hostage ✦ Day 9 - tears ✦ Day 11 - Drowning ✦ Day 14 - Beaten ✦ Day 17 - Field care, “Please don’t move!”, hemorrhage, dread ✦ Day 19 - Bleeding, stabbing ✦ Day 20 - Alt. Head injury ✦ Day 21 - Bleeding through the bandages ✦ Day 22 - Cursed ✦ Day 25 - Escape, hiding ✦ Day 31 - Disaster zone
