Oftentimes in life, things are taken for granted. From a roof over one's head to the food graciously provided by their lusus. From something so simple as having a recooperacoon to something so complex and beautiful as having a friend. Another living, breathing being that would lay down even a moment of their life to simply be in your presence. They may not always be appreciative or loving, but they are there and that, in the end, is what truly matters.
Your name is Equius Zahhak, and this realization has just struck you.
You have spent the last three weeks in your hive. Your lusus has been actively cleaning despite nothing having happened between one round of vacuuming and the last, but you find yourself thankful simply to have the white noise to work to. You have also had frequent visits from your neighbor, one Vriska Serket.
Yes, you will admit that seeing her come walking through the front door like it is her own hive and having no reserves about marching right up to you to demand something does get you a bit hot under the collar, but the two of you work precariously set on the line between business and play. She is forever joking and complaining about one thing or the next, but her voice alone is enough to keep you seated silently and listening.
Lately her arm has been giving her trouble. You explain it was not meant for punching through walls and crushing boulders. She retaliates that that is all a robotic arm is good for. You predictably cave to her pouting and she declares that you are to upgrade it. And so you have set to work on just that.
This has lead to visits nigh daily from the cerulean blood. She knows she's the only one who ever shows up (how could she not? She's always there, it seems) to visit you and makes a point of it. You chuckle a deep baritone chuckle and thank her for her presence, but as you say it, you mean it only in good fun. She is your needy neighbor; you see her far too often and are far too comfortable with it to ever ponder over her ceased presence.
You have woken up more than once to find that she has "crashed" on your couch (once, even your bed, complaining that you should have given her the recooperacoon instead) and you merely smile and go to assist Aurthour in the nutritionblock. Vriska knows no shame just as well as she knows you do not mind it.
Sometimes you wonder if you are flushed for her. She is only vaguely lower in caste and she brings a certain light into your life that not even your dear Moirail, Nepeta Leijon, has ever exuded.
That is, until the modifications are complete.
She double and triple checks to make sure, fighting a few of your bots and utterly destroying them, before she salutes you in place of a thanks and goes loping out the door to gog knows where. You have grown accustomed to her random bouts of disappearing; she is so full of life that even between both of your hives there isn't nearly enough to keep her occupied. She goes on "adventures" under the title of Marquise Spinneret Mindfang, something she still takes very seriously, and you treat her as a lady of Marquise's standing is meant to be treated.
Though lately you have noticed a subtle quiet to your hive. Aurthour has taken to a dusting routine rather than vacuuming. This fact allows you to distract yourself from the looming, empty portion of your desk where Vriska usually seats herself when the two of you are in "cahoooooooots".
Another week has come and gone. You have finished rebuilding the robots she had destroyed and are now left with the head-scratching lack of new ones to fix. Vriska loves to destroy them and you suspected with her new bionic arm that she would be far more happy to do so, but.. you have yet to see horn nor hair of her.
Spidermom, her lusus, has been wailing angrily from the chasm between your hives. You had to steal your nerves as you brought her a few wandering lowbloods, bringing them to the edge and giving them a hard push down into the seductive lacing of iron-like webbing. She wasted little time devouring each, in turn.
You return to your hive with mixed emotions. While it is true that Spidermom is in a constant state of dissatisfaction, it is rare that she would call upon you to feed her. Vriska was never gone for that long without checking in. You tell yourself she is simply feeling empowered by her upgrade and she will return to life as usual soon.
Three weeks have since passed. You now feed Spidermom on a daily basis. Aurthour is frivilously cleaning the hive to keep any of the multiple shades of blood you wear from staining the floor. For someone of the upbringing perhaps casting fellow trolls to their doom would be easy. You were meant merely to look down on them; not to serve them on a silver platter. There is little else you can do without risking Spidermom simply climbing out of the valley and going to find her own meals.
There has still been no word from Vriska. Her place on your desk is now cluttered with wires and scrap metals. You had to make some sort of attempt to fill the gap left; though, much like her lusus, you will never be satisfied without her. The hive seems dark and suffocating, but leaving it is far more uninviting. You feel ill from lack of sleep, which Aurthour has scolded you over.
Perhaps there were a few nights you slept better. Nights such that Vriska did find herself shoving you over so she could somehow manuever her body into the sopor beside you; more often than not it meant laying back to front with her and where else to put your strong arm but around her waist? Surely she understood there was nowhere left to place it.
Those were the nights you slept best.
You know not what has become of her. Is she well? Is she in trouble? Has she gotten herself into a situation and is waiting for rescue? Is your sitting here detrimental to her- is she relying on you? You heavily doubt it. Vriska has always been incredibly independent. The only thing she has that relies on you is her arm.
Sometimes you are able to convince yourself otherwise. You are never quite sure what she thinks towards you, but you wonder if she notices the little things. There are some days she comes in for her check-up and she is legitimately upset. She sits on your desk and goes on and on and on about it.
You wonder if she has ever noted that those are the days you hold her hand rather than her wrist. They are also the days you give a true, sincere response as opposed to your usual comments that are neither here nor there about her ventures. She would always give you a snide laugh for them, claiming there was a far more gracious audience out there just waiting for her.
There is a sinking feeling in your nutrientsack as you realize you have proved her right. You were never gracious enough- you took her overexaggerative stories for granted. Her spontaneous slumber parties and her constant impeding into your personal life.
You have taken it all for granted and now, a sweep down the road, you still cannot comprehend how you could have done such a thing. Miss Serket was a treasure in a manure heap; a little sapphire in the midst of a coal mine. She made your life worth living and now that you have taken on the bidding of two lusii and occasionally clean up her abandoned hive, you realize just how much she meant to you. You also realize you have begun referring to her in the past tense.
A sweep is quite a large gap of time between appearances. She is yet to return and you lie awake at night wondering where she has gone, who she has met, what sort of stories she's told. Has she ever mentioned you? How has her arm served her in your maintainance's absence? Has it failed her? Has she found someone else- someone who could make her the sort of destructive appendage she wanted?
Has she forgotten you?
You would be worthy of nothing more. What attempts have you made to regain contact? To right the wrongs of indifference toward her presence when now you clamber for it? Is there more you could be doing while still juggling the upkeep of two hives and two lusii? Was this her final test to see just how far you would be willing to go for her? If it were, then you have obviously failed. There would be no further reason for her to stay home, not now that you are caring for her lusus and her home. You have taken the heaviest irons from her fire and now she is a free to burn elsewhere.
Mulling it over now, you have led to your own downfall. She was your neighbor. She was not your Moirail, nor your Matesprit- not even your Kismesis. You were acquaintances who happened to share adjacent plots of land on opposite sides of a chasm and you so happened to serve into her master plan. Now that your portion has been fulfilled, you are of little service.
You still wish she would come home. You miss her so dearly... Was this what it took to finally admit it? That you are hopelessly head-over-bulge flushed for her? It was far too late now. There was no point in the revelation but further self-harm. Aurthour has pleaded with you to simply let go of it; to have a long, long talk with Nepeta (you have never so much as mentioned Vriska to her, though you question it in retrospect) and get it all off of your chest. But every time you go out to feed her lusus you feel the blow of loneliness all over again.
No matter how hard any troll on the face of Alternia tried, they would never be a sufficient replacement. While Vriska was around you liked to tell yourself you wanted her out. At least, to begin with. Such a ruffian, such a disgrace to her caste, but as you grew to understand her and her ways, you craved her attention. It was given to you without question or answer.
You have never had to ask before, and now that it is necessary, you do not even know where to begin. You are on your knees, fists laying in indents against the floor as you watch the thick blue sweat dripping into small puddles on the ground beneath you. It has been building and building for the last sweep and a half, possibly longer, and you can no longer contain it.
You walk out to the edge of your lawnring, right at the cliff's edge, and you scream her name for as long and as loud as you can; every ounce of air leaving your chest as it was expelled into a desperate, baritone scream.
Somewhere, deep in the bottom of your expanding and collapsing four chambered bloodpump, you believe she has heard you and is finally coming home.