Act One: Prospit's Side
A1S1: Back-and-Forth
Featuring: Vriska Serket, John Egbert, David Andrew, Jade Harley, Roxy Seers, Ellen Jade (Italicized characters are minor characters in the chapter)
Hey guys! Welcome to This is War, in which Derse and Prospit are countries, John and Dave are princes, every betakid has a sprite, and I may be a little biased toward my Davesprite chapters.
He deserves love okay.
Anyways, here. Prospit. Have fun with this awesome AU I came up with.
DISCLAIMER: Hussie owns Homestuck. Bless you Hussie, you created my life.
Back-and-Forth
Dave walked into Castle Pristia and was promptly ambushed by a small murder of crows. The black birds flew out the open door after attacking his clothes.
David Andrew laughed to himself and kept walking. How the prankster had managed to get the crows to do that, he wasn't sure, but happenings like that were quite common in the Castle.
Castle Pristia was the home of Prospit's royal family as well as the vast majority of its staff. Said staff included David, his best friend Jaden, and his good friends Vriska and John. Except John wasn't part of the castle staff, not by a long shot. John Egbert was next in line for the throne of Prospit, a duty which he tried to take seriously and often failed at doing so. He tried, though, so David didn't mind. Plus it meant pranks galore, and that was one of the reasons he even still hung around this place.
Speaking of which.
"Daaaaave! You're back!" Vriska shouted, pushing through the thin crowd of Prospitian and trollish servants. "You made it back alive!"
"Of course I did," Dave answered back, "They couldn't kill me if they tried." He pushed his shades up on top of his head and smiled. "What is new here?"
Vriska was the resident castle messenger - she was called on to send messages from the King to his servants, vice versa, from servants to other servants, and every other type of relay someone in the castle needed. She was really good at multitasking and about as good at that as she was at pranking and snarking people. Passive-aggressive snarking, which was even better. She had bright, yellow-blonde hair with two electric blue streaks (showing her blood type), thin wire-rimmed glasses that covered her left eye, and a black jacket that she wore practically everywhere. Under it she wore either bright cerulean or dark navy shirts and black or gray jeans, which really didn't go with the electric blue two-inch heels she ran around in. Despite her apparent insanity, though, Vriska was a pretty nice and peppy girl.
David had a similar job, except his messenging reached not across a castle but across kingdoms - he wasn't native to either Derse or Prospit, and both countries had made a peace treaty over him so he could pass between kingdoms without being accused of treason. Not that it was necessary, because both kingdoms had been at peace for a long while. He was easily mistaken for a Prospitian while in the Purple Kingdom, though, simply because of his dark orange-blond hair and generally orange-ness. He had pale skin, an orange shirt he almost always wore, blue jeans, orange sneakers, and a white-and-yellow jacket that was currently tied around his waist. His eyes were sometimes covered by semi-transparent sunglasses, but his bright, nearly-glowing blue eyes were just as exposed to the world.
As a response to his question, Vriska giggled, making the servant nearest her jump and jostle her basket of laundry. "Oh, not much. John's playing as many pranks as always, Jade's still making visits and Jaden's still waiting for you to get back. The usual."
"Nice to know no one else went clinically insane while I play solo relay tag," David laughed, fixing his shades on his head. Vriska wrapped her arms around his right one, grinning.
Normally, physical contact anywhere from arm-grabbing to poking was frowned upon in trollciety, but Vriska was the type of person who didn't give a frick about rules. She grabbed every guy's arm and put her arm around every girl's shoulder because she was just that adorably insane. David knew he and the others should be scared of her insanity, but honestly no one really noticed after a while. Besides, she was easy to open up to, and got along with pretty much everyone.
"By the way, John asked me to ask you if you liked his prank."
David looked down at her with a raised eyebrow. "Yes, actually. Sending a murder of birds straight at my face was quite effectively startling, as well as a good pun."
The blonde frowned and mirrored his eyebrow placement. "Pun, eh?"
"Murder of crows. Inside joke."
"Ah, I see." Vriska let go of the orange-haired boy's arm and grinned, showing pointy troll teeth. "Inside jokes. I'll just leave you to that, then. Don't tell me. I'll just bide my time until dear John explains."
The taller boy shrugged as the pair reached the fork in the hall that lead in four directions. He'd entered through the west entrance, and the area the King and Prince usually were in was to his left. Vriska finger-waved at him as she skipped down the South Hall, a gesture which David replied to with a raised hand and a flick of his shades. The world looked a couple shades darker, but his eyes hurt from staring at the bright world. Everything in Pristia was either made of white marble, white stone, gold, or painted gold, with black, silver and gray accents. At least, Town Street and the Castle were - he knew other places had normal-colored stuff, but the King liked keeping the Castle and the main street like they had in the older days.
David didn't bother looking at the plaques next to the gray doors as he walked down the hall. While his brain was lost in thought, his body went on autopilot down to the tenth door on the right side of the hall and knocked on the door twice. Pulling himself out of his thoughts, the blue-eyed boy said loudly, "Hey, John. Royal messenger here."
A muffled, "One sec!" was heard through the thick gray wood before the door unlocked and opened. Behind it was the one and only John Egbert, and sitting at a desk at the back of the room, Jade Harley.
John Egbert (better known as Prince John) was the heir to the Prospitian Throne. His dad the previous king had died when John was young, and his uncle was holding the throne for now until the boy turned eighteen. He didn't look much like a Prince besides the tiny gold crown in his extremely messy black hair, and the small line of gold stones that ran along the sides of his rectangular glasses. He had bright blue eyes - not the nearly-glowy electric blue like David's, but a nearly generic sky-blue color - and very slight buck teeth, which he was trying to get rid of. Today he wore a dark blue tee with two lighter blue stripes crossing the top part, blue jeans, and black sneakers with yellow-gold laces. Despite being the prince of a kingdom that highly respected the olden ways, he sure dressed in the times. John liked studying to be King, but he liked spending time with his friends even more. He was also a bit of a nerd.
Even more of a nerd, however, was Jade Harley, the Prospitian Witch. Well, she really wasn't, that was her tutor, Roxy Seers, but Roxy ended up more drunk than working. Jade was seventeen and a half, the oldest of the three, and had chocolate brown hair that was more straight then curly and reached nearly to her waist. She refused to cut it because John and Roxy said it looked good on her, and it helped her look more witchey. She had thick black circle glasses and big green eyes, which, paired with her buck teeth and shortness, made her look adorable. It also helped that she wore mostly skirts, like today, where her outfit was a black shirt, light gray skirt that reached her knees, and darker gray leggings. She had her beloved green jacket on though, and she was grinning at David in a way that suggested pure innocence and cuteness. Despite her cuteness she was actually very smart, probably smarter than John, if not more forgetful and prone to falling asleep at random times.
David stepped into the room and looked at the contents of the desk Jade was sitting at (and John too, if the empty seat next to her was anything to go by). There were two jars full of questionable green stuff, one labeled 'Ap.A 29 Par' and the other 'Ap.A 45 Par,' with a bit of each jar poured into two test tubes that lay on their sides, sealed (AA29 and AA45). There was also a small pile of notes and other assorted witchey equipment.
"What is going on here?" He asked, running his hand along the papers and tubes. David's fingers were really thin and really sensitive, and he ran them over a lot of stuff. Most people thought it was just a weird quirk. "Witchey froggy stuff?"
"Witchey froggy stuff indeed, Dave," Jade laughed, leaning into the back of her chair as she giggled. "I'm seeing if John's studies gave him insight to mine and Roxy's frog breeding. She's been too... absent to work on anything with me lately."
David knew what that meant. Roxy had had a drinking problem even before Jade showed up to be her apprentice, and it just got worse every time the older girl failed an experiment or messed up. Either the Majyycian had been out of her senses today, or she was off around town doing whatever she does when she's trying not to get too drunk.
The Prince coughed, directing both teens' attention to him. "Dave, I think you have a message for me?"
"Oh. Yeah," the blonde said, ducking his head and staring at his feet. "Right." He looked back up, putting his hands in his pockets. "The royal family of Derse wants to thank you for your previous message, and the Prince would like you to have this." He handed the black-haired Prince an envelope that he'd procured from somewhere in his jacket. "Your reply is not required."
"Thanks, Dave," John said, a hint of laughter in his voice.
Jade put her hands on the edge of the desk and leaned her chair back so she could see David's face. "You can leave now."
"Huh?" The blue-eyed male looked down at her.
"Jaden. I know you want to see her, you've been antsy since you got here." The black-haired girl said sincerely, before glancing at John. "If the Prince says it's okay, that is."
John looked at David's sunglasses, but didn't bother trying to look through them. He knew that was impossible. "Go ahead, Dave. I won't keep you."
The messenger bowed his head in respect and thanks before running out of the room, shutting the door behind him. John sat back down next to Jade, saying, "Where were we?"
"At the part where I tell you what kind of frogs these were," Jade said, smiling. She looked at her fingers, where various colored bands sat. They were just tight enough to never fall off, but they never turned her fingers blue either. John didn't know where she got them. "Let's see, Number 29 was from the Wilderlands, in the deep south. Roxy went out and hunted it down last week even though we Paradoxified it a while ago. And Number 45 is a rare breed from the outskirts of Derse near the ocean, which was killed by a fisherman a day after we made its slime. We didn't have to go kill it ourselves, though, so that's nice."
"Why a rare breed? Doesn't that mean, you know, it's endangered and you want to keep it safe? From extinction or something?" John asked, tapping the bottles of slime with his fingers.
"I can just make it again with the paradox slime," Jade explained, fixing her shirt as she spoke. "Anyways, endangered species of frogs aside, I need you insight. You do have a better general education than me."
"Heck yes I do," John laughed, smiling. "I'm the prince of a whole country."
The two teens stayed up working on frog breeding and slime experiments until the late hours of the night, at which point Jade had to return home.
Outside the Castle, across the Wilderlands, and inside another kingdom, sat an agent, making plans to rip the kingdoms' peace apart.
Wow, over two thousand words! Woot woot!
By the way, David is NOT Dave (Strider). David is Davesprite, but human. I wanted to put the sprites in here, but that extended to putting in 'sprite versions' of all four Beta kids. David Andrew is Davesprite, the one referred to as Jaden here is Jadesprite, the one later referred to as Rosie is a Rosesprite, and the one later referred to as J is what Johnsprite would be. And... stuff. Yeah.
I ship Davesprite/Jadesprite, okay? It's underloved and I think it needs some stuff to its name. I also ship Dave/Karkat, John/Jade (who aren't related in any way here), and Rose/Kanaya in this. I even used their ship names (About Bloody Time is for Davekat, Do the Spacey Thing is for JohnJade, Rainbow Drinker is RoseMary, and Sprites of a Tail Feather is Davesprite/Jadesprite {I made that one up myself, I'm pretty freaking proud of it}) and will continue to use them in A/Ns. :)
Also, reviews are appreciated! Tell me stuff you're confused on, things I could elaborate on, and cool plot points or ships you would like to see in this story. All the Beta kids and trolls are in here, the Alpha kids, and possibly some of the older trolls. But don't count on it too much. It helps the story get better when you review!
See you all later.
-An Overly Happy Kara