Shades of Purple

From the Frying Pan

**SoP**

Tenn started stirring awake. Damn it, who turned on the lights? Tenn covered her head with a pillow, groaning.

"Wake up, sleepyhead!"

Tenn sat up, straightening up her lekku. That voice. It couldn't be! How did he...? Then she remembered what happened last night. Purple appearing in GIR's pizza party, him dragging her home, their argument, and how he knocked her out. Damn it, she had been hoping it was just a nightmare.

Tenn took a deep breath. The only good thing about her being pregnant was that Purple wouldn't lay a hand on her as long as she was carrying his smeet. She just had to put up with it until she either managed to escape again or until she gave birth to the smeet. Hopefully, the deal they'd made was still valid; if she gave him a smeet, he'd let her go.

There was a pleasant smell in the air. It smelt of cinnamon and plookesian honey. Tenn's squeedly-spooch growled. Guess the smeet must be hungry.

As Tenn got dressed into a robe, she noticed two metallic mauve bands in her forearms. She poked one with a finger; it was cold. As she tried to slip it out of her arm, however, the band tightened considerably to the point her arm started feeling numb. When she released the band, it went back to normal. How did these get into her arms? It must be Purple's doing.

She found her husband in the kitchen cooking. Cooking. Tallest Purple, the laziest of the two rulers of the Irken Empire. The one who asked navigators in the bridge to pass him his donuts when they were a few inches away from reach, was cooking. Tenn rubbed her eyes in case she was still dreaming. Sure, he had cooked for her a few times, but now she had expected him to force her to cook.

"Good morning, my dear!" Purple said, oddly cheerful. "I hope you had sweet dreams."

"What are you doing?" Tenn asked.

"Breakfast, I'm hungry."

"I can see that. But I didn't imagine I'd find you cooking."

"Come on, you've seen me cooking before."

"Yeah, but you'd rather have someone else do everything for you."

"Indeed, but sadly there's no one else here to make the food, and I'm not letting my smeet starve to death!"

You mean you can't let your wife carrying the smeet starve to death, Tenn thought bitterly. He was doing it again, acting as if the smeet was a separate entity from her when it was, in fact, inside her body.

"Sit down, my dear, I'll join you in a moment."

Tenn warily made her way towards the table. What was Purple doing? Why is he all sweet and affectionate out of sudden? He was pissed at her yesterday, but now he was acting as if nothing had happened. It must be a trick; she was kind of used to them already.

Purple joined her at the table soon after, placing a plate right in the middle. Tenn recognized the wapcakes covered in Plookesian maple syrup and pink whipped cream. Her lekku twitched at the pleasant smell. Hunger and cravings overruled caution, and she reached out to grab one.

"No, no, my dear, there's no need for you to move your arms," Purple said suddenly. Tenn felt a shiver down her spine.

"W-What do you mean?" she stuttered unintentionally. 

Purple snapped his fingers. Tenn felt a tingling sensation in her arms. When she tried to move them away from the table, however, she found herself unable to. She tried again, but she couldn't even feel her arms. She remembered the bands.