This was originally on my personal account, but my friend and I decided to move this here so we could both work on it. We definitely do not own Homestuck. Capice? Capice.

Death is a thing that never quite goes away.

You sit in a private room on your ship, the one that's taking you to wherever you're going. Whichever planet the Empress decided she needed you on, you would go to. You run your hands through your unnaturally long hair, wishing you'd had the guts to ask your friend for one last haircut before you left.

You are an adult troll. This is proven by the fact that your eyes are completely filled in with your blood colour, the land-dwelling purple that makes you a perfect fit for the role of Subjugglator. The role you hope to fill wonderfully.

"Excuse me." Your head snaps up – you would recognize that voice anywhere. It was your matesprit's voice. Was, before he died, shortly after you arrived at your first designated area. You miss him terribly. "Seveny Turann?" Unfortunately, it seems your mind is playing tricks on you this time, and it's simply one of the sparse crew of the ship.

This one is an olive blood: He smiles at you tremulously, reminding you of old friends. You had known an olive blood back on Alternia, but she had her own preoccupations now. You sigh and attempt to smile back, instead managing something like a frightening grimace.

"Yes?" you ask, standing up. That is probably a bad move, you think, as the olive blood's eyes widen and he takes a step back. You loom over everyone you know, but you hardly know anyone now.

"We, er, are about to land, sir," the olive blood stutters, and you nod, ducking your head to brush past him out into the hallway of the ship. "Where are you going?" he asks, and you hesitate for a second before answering.

"Someplace I can think," you say. You miss your matesprit, and the olive blood's fumbling demeanour reminds you of just how cute he could get whenever you confronted him even jokingly about anything. He was, perhaps, not the only person you could pity, but the only one you pitied to that extent.

You are nearly twenty sweeps old now. This is going to be your third designation. You have hundreds upon hundreds more sweeps to struggle through this existence. This is what you get for being one of the most long-lived trolls, while your matesprit was, perhaps, poorly chosen as one of the most short-lived. He was a butterfly compared to you.

You stride into the communal dining room. No one usually comes here: Community is for suckers. A lucky rustblood glances up at you, and you grit your teeth. It is their first designation, you would guess from how their eyes are still filling in. It infuriates you.

Many things infuriate you. Many of these things are also the wide differences between different trolls on the haemospectrum. The rustbloods, the highbloods, everyone – they are all too strange for you.

"Can I help you?" the rustblood asks, and you freeze. It is not her voice which clues you in; it is her tone. "Or should I just sit here and die quietly?"

"Tereah," you growl, looking back at her. Her blood is brown, the second-lowest, and this cannot be her first designation. You know this for a fact, because she is only three sweeps younger than you.

"Lilira," she corrects. "Do I... know you?" She stands and steps closer, apparently unafraid of your appearance. "After all, you seem to know me. What designation is this for you?"

"My third. And you know me," you reply, rolling your eyes. "You simply don't want to recognise me."

"So it's Seveny, then. You smile less." Lilira has always teased you about how lively you are. She is, somewhat oddly, obsessed with the concepts of death and killing, and she appears to believe life after death is much better for trolls than life itself.

"I know I do. Aslion is dead," you say shortly. She frowns and shrugs.

"And? Our lives are short," she says. It's almost like she doesn't care. "I've got a few more sweeps on me, though. We all knew he'd die quick."

You curl one of your hands into a fist and shake your head. "That's not the point," you mutter before changing the subject. "What are you here for, anyway?"

Lilira looks at you like you're crazy. Maybe you are. "A612 is a prison encampment, Turann. I'm being imprisoned, of course. They'd cull me, but I think I could get the best of them. So instead, they'll just lock me up until I die." She is inordinately cheery about this fact, and briefly you wonder when she became considerate about herself dying as well. Perhaps it's because she only has a few more sweeps left, as well.

It strikes you that most of your friends will be dead by your tenth designation. At least, it seems that way.

"So I've got to aid in presiding over an encampment where an old friend is imprisoned," you say, deadpan.

"Don't sound so dull about it! You're almost like Branet," she teases. You wince at the name; Tyrius Branet is not someone you need to remember right now.

"Hello, landing?" The olive-blooded crew member has followed you, and he waves a hand between the two of you. "It would be good if you hung onto something or went back to your rooms. Now. Especially you, Tereah." Lilira glances at the crew member with a smile on her face and shrugs.

You feel a gravitational pull start tugging at you, the one that's not simulated by the ship, and you almost stumble. The other two seem oblivious to it, but you have to sit at one of the tables in the dining room. It strikes you that the ship is rather empty, and the colours start to bleed together in front of your eyes. Nothing will happen to you, you try to convince yourself. Nothing...

You wake with a start to find you had fallen asleep outside of your recuperacoon. You are ten sweeps old. You will be sent off the planet in a week. Your name is Seveny Turann.

You stumble to your respiteblock and open your husktop. Your hands are shaking tremendously, and they fumble with the keys as you open your chat client and attempt to get a hold of your matesprit.

- definitivePyrotechnics [DP] started trolling insaneTormentor [IT] -

DP: Aslion? ;;))

DP: Asli, please tell me you're there. ;;))

IT: y-yeah? what is it, 7y? _i.T.

DP: Good. ;;))

- definitivePyrotechnics [DP] ceased trolling insaneTormentor [IT] -

You close your husktop, and your eyes. You try not to think about your dream. You don't think about how confused your matesprit must be after your short and especially cryptic messages just now. You'll tell him about your dream at a later point.

Maybe.