Karezi requests from my good bud Rustybirdcage on Tumblr, with the prompt: How about a karezi revolving around my headcanon that karkat sometimes joins in on her scalemate court games?
Also I thought it was a decent enough entry into Homestuck fanfic!
I played pretty fast and loose with some canon details here, for the sake of fluff, of precious Karezi feels, Signless-Karkat allusions, and whatever worked for the story. In particular, I did an alternate to the point that Karkat didn't actually know about his ancestor until they met the Beforus trolls in that particular dream bubble, and in fact didn't think ancestors seriously existed until that point, or for that matter the actual significance of his own sign.
(I would like to think that at least a few characters know or have an inkling, such as Vriska due to her ancestor's journal containing hints of the Signless' story, Aradia picking up a few things from her digs, among others, and most obviously an influence in this particular ficlet, Terezi.)
Disclaimer: I most certainly do not own Homestuck or any associated properties; this is solely a work of entertainment without monetary gain or profit.
In her mind, she imagines the whole scene as a great and silent crowd, hushed under the weight of the momentous occasion, because Terezi Pyrope is all about drama and playing the role you assigned yourself just as perfectly as you could (since what was even the point of putting yourself into a fun mindset and situation if you weren't going to mine it for all it was worth; it was letting something great pass you by, it was lazy and childish and a whole lot of other things she didn't have the patience to sum up but were basically pretty boring to do). Just pulling it all up, setting it up for the perfect moment coming to a hilt.
(In many ways, Terezi had been training herself for the Game, as she would later come to think of it when it became the end-all of their lives, pretty much all her life. She'd played a lot of roles all over her life for fun, and becoming the Seer of Mind was simply the most important one she'd ever played and pretty fun at first even if it was picked for her, not by her.
That is, of course, disregarding when her resolve breaks. Confidence withers away, little cracks like rust eating at metal that used to look so strong forever. And later, it makes her feel a little better when she thinks about things like that just sort of fade away and she gets better at putting herself into the role of the tough, wisecracking pain-in-the-thinkpan that never blinks or cries or feels anything besides a bit of fierce amusement. It's a role she got so good at, hardly anyone notices when she's trying so hard to keep it going, to pretend she's not crumbling at the seams. Because there's some things she decides she has to do; for the good of the team, to be strong and cool, to try to be as awesome as her ancestors whether on Alternia or Beforus, try to be that so hard it hurts because the alternative just feels like letting everyone down. And she is very good at playing that role.
She's so good at it, she's pretty sure that almost no one can see through it, and the irony is that she's glad when he does see through it, because then there's usually a grumbling plead to just talk straight dammit and stop messing your own head up, and then a grumpy face looking up at her with little nubby horns and he's just so right in every way. And the moment feels right, and she plays it as far as she can go, and she doesn't know if it's a real flushed romance with Karkat now that he's gotten honest about his feelings and quit the mixed signals, or them moving in the shape of one because it's expected of them at this point, or just something else that's ridiculous and childish obfuscation for the fact that they're scared and lonely and want to hold on to a little bit of something nice.
Whatever it is, she doesn't actually care about an answer anymore. It's nice to hold and be held, to be good and red, whatever the reason for it is.)
But here and now: she didn't see it as such in her imagination and 'seeing' was a bad word for it. It had been long enough after the accident that she'd adjusted, leaving behind the world defined by sights and shapes. She experienced the world in smells and textures (and she later gets reason to think that in the Pyrope bloodline, across worlds and universes, smell is important), scenting and tasting things better than when she had just saw them. So she did not imagine a visual scene, but she imagined a scene with ideas of what it ought to smell and taste like.
Her room, a roomy chamber making up the entirety of this particular level of her treehouse, was neatly organized into the setting piece. Little benches, surrounded the rim of a carpet and pungent chalk marks put down to establish where the courtroom was supposed to be, situated the audience: the little dragon plushies, her scalemate toys, squashing up against each other so that she was tempted to make her official scenario of it a more scandalous one (she dismissed it as an unnecessary complication, but she was tempted to throw it in if Equius ever was managed to get in on this, it'd be fun to watch him squirm).
Terezi took a democratic approach to color shapes and saw to it that, having amassed her entire collection of scalemates except for the principal players in this scenario, there were many different colored ones all sitting together without discrimination, browns and yellows together with all the shades of green (from olive to jade without discrimination), but there was also blues, all the way from her own shade of teal to light cereulean to indigo. Even purples, slightly blue tinted highblood-colored purple, and a few violets. She'd even dared to include a fuchsia or two, and she wasn't entirely sure what the paint for that had come from. (Well, she knew where it came from but that was semantics.)
They were all put together without any particular order or preference for their color. Warm-bloods with cold-bloods, like it wasn't important how they were all sitting together, the hemospectrum just a superficial detail. It was sort of nice, them all together like that, the way she and her extended of friends did when they got together and started talking. It was delightfully scandalous, if honestly dangerous if word got out about her doing this. But she was nothing if not dedicated to the ideal scenario, the way the world could have been.
(She had certain extremely rare books, and she'd obsessed over them when it was easier for her to read; books that would have gotten her culled at once, it was all kinds of heretical censored. Which was probably why she sought them in the first place, she loved the law and fairness and justice and knew the difference between those things and what had happened ages ago. She could still pretend-smell the burning skin in the air, screams on the wind just behind the whips, and a furious voice that would not recant. The story – the history, it wasn't a story, not something for angry adults to work themselves up into for a reason to make Her Imperial Condescension fight them, it had really happened – had fascinated her and showed her ideas she'd never even known were there before.
She'd known what Karkat's sign meant the instant she first saw him in person. And she'd laughed so hard when she worked out he didn't have the slightest idea what he meant, what the forbidden blood pumping in his veins represented. He was the answer to the question of things being different, the beginning of the end of everything bad they knew. And he still didn't even know what he was.)
Terezi grinned, her mouth wide and her teeth curving slightly inwards, wide and slightly triangular; they fit together like puzzle pieces and she liked the snap they made when her teeth clicked into place. She paced in front of the centerpiece of the set: a particularly large high bench with a massive plushy nearly as big as Terezi sitting in it. Kanaya had thoughtfully stitched up and presented this representation of His Honorable Tyranny to her some time ago, voiding a need for chalk markings (unless Terezi really felt like drawing one up, and mostly just so she could lick that).
Next to this was a significantly smaller bench, with a single scalemate in it. Terezi had thought long and hard about this one, wondering if it was worth it just to do something so daring, and had ultimately decided to use one of her fuchsia scalemates to represent this particular defendant even though it was honestly kind of a bad idea. But on the other hand it was really perverse and therefore hilarious.
In her mind, Terezi imagined the tense stink of a vast crowd, all huddled together with tension and sweating pretty badly, the boundaries of castes forgotten and classes of troll dismissed in this most heinous of crimes, this most audacious of cases: it was a fuchsia-blood in the defendant block, and a mere teal-blood (lowest of the cool-bloods, such an affront to the order of things shattered the way the world worked and at least for a little while, trolls would forgot how it was supposed to go). The booming growl of His Honorable Tyranny as he permitted her to speak her part, and the defendant's smugness just slightly tinged by nervousness that put her bloodlust all up and bothered.
Terezi began to narrate, mostly to help her thus-far inactive partner get the mood set-up. "Legislacerator Pyrope surveys the the defendant," Terezi said, arms behind her and standing firm. The set smelled nicer than anything she'd made; Nepeta had carved them from the very trees in Terezi's forest, during a phase a few months ago when Nepeta's infrequent urges to invade other territories had brought her here. Some of the wood still had her claw marks and her friend-smell. It kept putting Terezi into good moods even when she was feeling distressed nowadays.
She could smell the fuchsia dyes on the scalemate; the perversity of this aspect of the scenario pleased Terezi mightily and she could just imagine Equius throwing a fit about the impropriety of this. (Or he might approve of her expending her aggressions against authority in a private manner of no consequence to stable governance, and then expound for like a couple hours on the importance of doing this without causing danger to yourself or the established order. You never knew, with Equius.) Terezi grinned. "She smells the fear on Senator Pinkypurp. It stinks of guilt! And a bit of overdone seasoning."
The scalemate, being an inanimate plush object, did nothing. By happy serendipity, or at least a sufficiently strong headwind against the big tree her house was built atop, the floor moved slightly (not enough to be concerned about), and Pinkypurp fell over. She smelled it happened, the shift in the smells of the room – and it was hard to focus on things other than the other smell in the room, a thick red smell and a tangible grumpiness like a perpetually cranky crab lurking in the shadows for the right moment - and grinned. "The defendant slips her footing, showing weakness before the crowd! His Honorable Tyranny glowers at such flagrant weakness, and the crowd mumbles with discontent."
In the darkness, a smaller nubby-horned figure under a blanket bounced over to an audience box with a lot of scalemates and, to fill a gap in the numbers, a couple plush trolls loosely inspired by her friends (only used as characters in these games when they were there so she could freak them out). The blanket troll moved a couple of the stand-ins and rasped, "Booooo, booooo!"
Terezi put the side of one hand to her mouth. "I said mumbling, don't over play it!"
The blanket writhed with muted frustration, restraining itself after a few tangles. After a moment of careful thought: "Mutter mutter. Continuous disapproving chatter, just low enough not to count as disorder in the court!"
That was more than a little needlessly sarcastic but he was trying. That was good enough for her. Terezi gave a thumb's-up and the smaller troll in the blanket, red-tinted eyes gleaming and little nubby horns poking the blanket up, clumsily gave one back.
Terezi flourished; around her shoulders was her dragon cloak, worn over the uniform of her ancestor, candy-red mixing with teal undertones in elegant layers.
(Bright candy mutant red, mixing with teal in elegance and smooth contrast, balancing each other out and existing harmoniously. She had no idea why her ancestor had worn these specific colors, given how incredibly heretical even the slightest association with the symbols favored by the followers of the Signless Sufferer, and it seemed to her that Pyropes just didn't do subtle. Terezi knew what it symbolized for her, and thought if she was anymore obvious about her feelings she'd be constantly screaming them in Karkat's face. If he wanted to fake being oblivious about it that was his business, but if he was sincerely unaware of it... well, then Karkat was spectacularly obtuse about it and the increasingly obvious fact that she knew perfectly well what his oh-so-secret blood color was and didn't care about him being a mutant. Having flushed feelings for Karkat was a penance unto itself.)
The climax of the scenario was fast approaching: Terezi leaned down and dramatically pointed at the scalemate, with her freehand pulling out a small bag. "And what is this, the prosecution wonders!" Terezi said with a truly wicked grin. "Indeed it is!
She hoisted the bag up high. In her imagination, the crowd was gasping, his Honorably Tyranny was bristling his carapace all over, and there was also a good soundtrack playing. Something nice and dramatic. She made a note to herself to get albums made to play for specific scenarios.
Terezi opened the bag and turned it out onto the floor; important looking papers came spilling out onto the floor. She wished she had a little trap door to make Senator Pinkypurp wiggle in shame and (or) fear; as it was, the wind wasn't being cooperative. She settled for imagining, as hard as she could, the senator trembling and thus embarassing herself before the entire crowd, losing much credibility in the here and right now. "The mystery bag is filled with signed and notarized confessions to the crimes, with credible witnesses listed!" Terezi grinned slightly wider (an enviable accomplishment). "A shame, the prosecutor notes, that the list of crimes is far too long to recount here." She pointed at a very large pile of print-out in the corner of the pile; if examined carefully, it would be clear that it was actually one single paper, so long that it was folded into a pile taller than Terezi herself was, complete with a list of crimes plucked directly out of FLARPing Law Scenarios 215th Edition, Volume 32-L. "Behold the off-screen recited tower of infringement to the law! BEHOLD IT I SAY."
(The trolls of Alternia are a proud people with a fine roleplaying tradition. They take their gaming rulebooks comprehensiveness really quite seriously.)
"Whoo?" The blanket troll said, speaking for the audience. Terezi gestured flamboyantly, and after a moment so did the other troll, catching on to the theme she had going and sort of getting into it (though he'd probably never admit it out loud in mixed company). "Shame! Debauchery! Not even properly notarized crime permits!"
"Indeed! But the bureaucrats blood gardens will need to be watered another day, and the highblood's walls will be painted some other time." Terezi gestured. "Except that's bad wording. That day and time is NOW!" She stuffed the papers back into the bag and lifted that up, preparing to deliver the contents to His Honorable Tyranny and reveal the certain proof...
And the troll grabbed a random stuff animal (a cholera-bear) and tossed it at the bag, knocking it right out of her hands. "Shock and zounds!" He said. "Some fiend got a trained frickin' terror-beast to destroy the evidence!"
Terezi gasped again. 'Ooh! I didn't even see that coming! Hella improv!' "A new twist; with the evidence gone, Senator Pinkypurb may yet escape the cold and hard jaws of justice!"
In her mind, the senator relaxed, full of smugness and evil and a lot of snacks. They liked to overfeed the suspects in order to get them nice and fat for afterwards.
And Terezi pointed into the crowd. "But what is this! The righteous legislacerator calls in A SURPRISE WITNESS!"
The troll in the blanket leaped dramatically beside Terezi, whipping off his cloak, or at least trying to, he stumbled halfway down and had to shake out of it; Karkat stood it with a grumble and a fuss, wearing another cloak with little holes for his little horns, just over black body-pants that went all the way up to his chest, mysterious designs as red as his blood going all over it. Upon his front was no sign at all, and the omission was deliberately spooky.
"Surprise, unjust box-sitter! The Signless Sufferer is here to wreck all the shit!" Karkat bellowed, and no one could bellow like Karkat when he really got into it. He coughed into his fist, getting into character. "And by that I mean do all the justice. Wreck it good and hard!"
Terezi tilted her head. She contemplated whether or not that could be taken as an innuendo and, more importantly, whether Karkat was aware of it or not. (Or if, as was likely, she was overanalyzing a more innocent comment.) Deciding that it was a matter for another time for her own ends, she pointed with her dragon-headed cane. "His Honorable Tyranny is surprised at the involvement of a heretic and revolutionary in a house of justice. He demands that the witness explain himself!"
Karkat frowned, peering up at the plushy of His Honorable Tyranny; nearly as big as Terezi, it was a good deal bigger than Karkat. Having expected to be put into this position at some point in his life, he faltered a bit at the uncomfortable aspects of the situation but, as Terezi was debating whether or not she'd put him in a bad position, he rallied back.
Karkat put a hand to his snout and considered it thoughtfully, reasoning what the Sufferer (who he had based his roleplay persona on, at least from what little Terezi had been able to dig up on him and Aradia's findings from various ancient dig sites) would most likely have done. True, he didn't need to portray him a hundred percent accurately, but Karkat had a thing about sticking to a plan.
"If his Honorably Tyranny disapproves, he can bite me!" Karkat declared. "Seriously! Come on, I dare you."
Terezi gasped, speaking for the imaginary crowd. "His Honorable Tyranny recoils in shock! His many fangs gnash in thought; he lowers himself and growls out his approval and the crowd tentatively offers thumbs in approval. The Sufferer's bravado has earned him much respect from the judiciary monster branch."
(Through sheer dumb luck, Karkat had actually neatly encompassed the real Signless Sufferer's responses in a similar situation. The real Sufferer had put it a bit more eloquently and, perhaps, with a bit more low-key swearing and controlled rage-fits, ironically. At least, that's what Aradia would later suggest, causing Karkat to throw a fit about how of course he screwed up even that mild interpretation. He felt a bit better when Terezi told him that roleplaying wasn't about getting it right, it was about having fun just doing it and fitting into the role as you went along. He didn't let it on, but that made Karkat feel better. Terezi knew it, too.)
Karkat reached into his cloak, a reasonable replication of the Sufferer's own despite the radically different textile standards, and pulled out another bag. "Guess what's in here!"
Terezi took it and gasped again. "Why! It is perfect copies of the records of the crimes!" She stomped on the floor hard as another strong wind blew; this time, the fuchsia scalemate flopped over with a squeak, curiously like a pratfall. "The senator wheels in terror! She demands to know how such a thing could happen."
Karkat crossed his arms and tried to look as fierce as possible. He just looked pouty and adorable. "It's called 'making copies just in case and not assuming things will go all right like a total twerp'." He paused, the skin around his horns wrinkling as he tried to think of a good insult that also wouldn't be out of character for the Sufferer. "I'd say something about 'better luck next time' but that's, not really an option. I'd say sorry but that'd be insincere."
"But wait!" Terezi said. In her imagination, there was a terrible bear-like creature looming behind them, shaking the ground with every step. In reality, the chlolera-bear plushy was still sitting behind them. If Karkat had thought Terezi had forgotten it, she was wrong; it hadn't stopped being a thing or anything like that. "The cholera-bear returns, still seeking to obey its orders! Which, while admittedly totally unknown to the noble legislacerator and her candy-smelling associate, are probably pretty bad. A quick resolution is a must-have!" She drew her cane-sword...
Karkat gave the little plushie a kick. "Boof. Away with ye!" It flopped into the wall.
Terezi paused. She swallowed the swell of displeasure at having her awesome bear-slaying moment foiled and went for approval instead, waving her cane around like she had to fan her face. "Swoon! The Sufferer has slain the terrible beast with a single blow; the court is in awe of such martial might! The prosecutor judges her surprise witness guilty... of stealing her affections!"
Karkat tugged at his collar. "OH. Um. Um!" He giggled, nervously. "Uh, uh! Holy shit."
(Again, this was also surprisingly in keeping with the historical Sufferer's behavior, at least when he had been Karkat's age. At the age when he did his famous deeds, the Sufferer would have been more straightforward about the seducing. Chastity was not among the various sacrifices he chose to make for his people.)
She scooted over to him and leaned down all the way, her mouth pecking a kiss against his cheek. "The witness' words distract the defendant, and the prosecution rests... her hands a bit, to ready THE NOOSE OF JUSTICE! " She tossed the evidence bag to the plushy representing His Honorable Tyranny and, after a suitable length of time, she crossed her arms and grinned fiendishly as she hoped to one day do to the truly guilty.
So spake the legislacerator, "His Honorable Tyranny judges the verdict, and that justice only flows with BLOOD!" She paused, rethinking that line. "Wait, not strictly accurate. It flows with AIR! Or... uh. A lack thereof. Air, I mean." Another pause.
Karkat awkwardly said, "You mean strangulation?"
Terezi fidgeted. "Um, yep." She shook herself and reached to her hip. "Aha! Oh no, the noose has vanished! What fresh spoor of trickery is this?!"
Karkat patted his side, noticing something that he was pretty sure hadn't been there before. He pulled out the noose and tried to get into character again. "The revolutionary provides the beauteous legislacerator with the noose."
She grinned at him. "'Beauteous', eh?"
Karkat flushed so violently, it ought to have made steam. (And make it pretty obvious what his blood color was.) "I-I'm just reading from your script!"
"Ain't no script hereabouts!" Terezi turned to the set and gave the defendant's block a mighty kick that somehow launched it into the air. Karkat pulled the loop of the noose back and the plushy neatly landed through it. "WE'RE IN PYROPE LAND NOW, SUCKA!"
They ran to the nearest window. "Was that in-character or not?" Karkat said, helping to secure the noose around a branch.
"Eh." Terezi shrugged, shoulders rolling and her hands neatly tying the knot firm. "I don't worry too much about it and neither should you." She switched mental gears and said, "The legislacerator offers the honor of executing the shameless criminal to the revolutionary!"
He knew when to take a cue, at least if you put booming sirens and flashing colors on it. "TO THE VENGEFUL LANDS OF THE DEAD WITH THEE!" Karkat bellowed, giving it a kick and sending it swinging into the air. Terezi insisted on graphically narrating it's descent and resultant execution. Karkat denied, afterwards, of getting the dry heaves while Terezi got him a drink for that.
The wind blew hard as they went back in, the scenario complete. The many, many stuffed animals hanging from the branchs moved slightly in the wind with a pretty nice noise from all the movement. (And it was terribly creepy, with all the hanged stuffed animals. And yet cute. But also really creepy. Then again, adorably creepy was sort of Terezi's thing.)
Inside, over a small snack, Terezi clapped Karkat on the back and fully dropped character. "So, how'd it go?" She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. "Don't you lie. You had fun."
"That was... um." Karkat rubbed his shoulder. "Pretty fun, actually. DON'T YOU EVER DARE TELL ANYONE I SAID THAT."
Terezi giggled. "Hey, depends on what I get out of it, eh?"
"Wait, what?"
Terezi faltered a bit. "Uh, y'know." She nudged him, grinning hopefully. "Feel brave enough to bribe a law enforcement officer? The only currency she accepts is... uh, dang it. I forgot where I was going with that."
Karkat tapped his claws together awkwardly. "Uh, I think I have a pretty good idea, to be honest..."
Terezi grinned anew. "Ya don't say?" She leaned down and, daringly, kissed his cheek. "Like that?"
Karkat lowered his head, grinning bashfully. "Yeah, like that."