Karkat Vantas peeked around the corner again and growled to himself in frustration.

He's still there. Does he seriously not have anything better to do than stand in one spot and stare off into space all day?

Cronus Ampora was at least as annoying as his dancestor. Well, probably. Eridan had driven Karkat up a wall most of the time—like pretty much everyone else he knew—but he had had his good moments. Well, before he completely flipped his shit and gone on a wand murder rampage.

Karkat's interactions with Ampora Senior, on the other hand, had been limited to flipping him off and yelling "No!" at the top of his lungs while running in the opposite direction as soon as the guy tried to talk to him, so he didn't really know that much about him.

Well, that strategy had worked before, so Karkat steeled himself and walked out from his hiding spot with as much purpose as he could put into his strides. The dead teen barely had a chance to look at Karkat before the mutant troll stuck up both middle fingers at him, still walking. Cronus nonchalantly returned the favor with one hand, the other occupied by a cell phone. He probably decided it wasn't worth bothering Karkat at all today, but fate wasn't about to let the young troll off that easily.

Kankri Vantas seemed to materialize out of nowhere, immediately launching into a lecture about offensive gestures and how they should talk out their problems respectfully like adults.

"Hey, Vwantas-lookalike," Cronus whispered, leaning a little closer to Karkat as Kankri droned on and on.

"No," Karkat whispered back before he could finish the statement, inching away.

"You didn't ewven listen to vwhat I vwas going to say."

"I don't care what you were going to say!"

"I vwas going to ask if you knew how to shut him up. He's your ancestor."

"Oh. Well, if I knew, I wouldn't be here right now, dumbass!"

"Are you two even listening?" Kankri frowned.

"Yes," they said at the same time.

"I can start from the beginning if you—"

"No!" the other two trolls cut him off again.

"I, uh, have to go do this thing, but I'm sure he'll be happy to hear everything you have to say about everything," Karkat assured his ancestor, sticking his thumb out at Cronus, who shot him a death glare.

Kankri opened his overactive mouth again, but at that moment Meenah Peixes rounded the very corner Karkat had been hiding behind, coming to his rescue.

"Hey, Shouty," she grinned, showing off her pointy teeth.

"Hi," Karkat said.

"Hey," Cronus greeted.

"No," she said before he had a chance to go on.

"I didn't ewven ask you anything," the purple-blooded troll frowned.

"Hello, Meenah, we were just talking about—" Kankri began, but Meenah cut him off as well.

"Don't care. Go tell it to Leijon; she's the only one that actually listens to you. Well, not with her ears, but you know what I mean. So, you ready to go, Shouty?"

"Yes," Karkat said emphatically.

"Vwhere are vwe going?" Cronus asked, clearly eager to get away from the talkative troll.

"You can stay right here," Meenah glared at him. "I'm sure Kankri has a lot to say to you. He has a lot to say in general."

"That's true," Karkat's dancestor agreed, "but I don't appreciate you implying that's a negative quality."

"Let's just go," Karkat said. Like pretty much everything else, the ancestors were just so annoying.

"So, are you going out on a date or…?" Cronus asked.

"That's none of your business, fish br—ow!" Karkat exclaimed as Meenah hit him in the shin with her trident, giving him a warning look and tipping her head toward Kankri just a little too late.

"I suggest you be more careful with your thoughts, since they can easily become words," Kankri began, launching into another monologue. "You came dangerously close to saying a racist and hurtful seadweller-specific slur—"

"We aren't offended, right Cronus? Now let's go krill some whales already!" Meenah urged.

"Wait, what?" Kankri and Cronus asked at the same time, but Meenah was already leaving and pulling Karkat along with her.

The plan was to hunt some dream whales. That was pretty much it. If anything, Karkat was pretty sure Meenah was making a big deal out of nothing, fussing over arranging a meeting time and trying to be all nonchalant about it at the same time, but it was nice to get away from the meteor, even though he was technically still lying curled in the corner of the lab sleeping like a wiggler.

The problem was that Rose and Kanaya were practically joint at the hip, which was romantic and Karkat was happy—well, as happy as the troll could be—for them, but it also kind of made them lousy company, especially since Rose was pretty much perpetually drunk or hungover these days. Terezi was always out on hate-dates with his ex-moirail and sinking deeper into the downward spiral her life was turning into, and Karkat didn't even know who Gamzee was anymore and hadn't even seen any trace of him in days and days. Everyone else was dead or out of reach except, of course, Strider, but there was only so much quality time Karkat could spend with the prick in one sitting before he started to feel the last of his sanity slipping away. Besides, Dave needed some alone time, too.

Basically, he wished he had time powers and could just speed up the days until the meteor reached its destination, because the journey was boring as hell. He'd asked Dave about it several times, but the other knight insisted he couldn't do anything like that and Karkat knew he didn't like to use his powers anymore for some reason.

They quickly reached the dream bubble ocean, and Karkat retrieved his sickle from his strife specibus, pulling his arm away from Meenah. Sure enough, there were several whales frolicking through the skies on the horizon.

Karkat looked at Meenah, and she looked at him.

"Fuck this shit. Let's do something(fin) else," they said at the same time.

Then, before they could continue the conversation, Karkat realized his vision was darkening, as though someone was turning down the screen brightness on the world. He waved a hand in the air, wondering if he was waking up. Waking up had never been like this before. Neither had changing dream bubbles.

"Hey, Vantas, you okay?" Meenah asked, eyeing him curiously. Her face was becoming obscure, and Karkat was getting worried.

"I… It's getting dark."

"…No it's not," she said, sounding confused.

"What the fuck is going on?" he demanded, starting to get a little freaked out. He almost couldn't see at all now.

"I don't know what you're talking ab—"

Suddenly, everything was dark and silent, and he was falling.