ellipse

featuring humanstuck karkat vantas & nepeta leijon

Flocculent trails of airplane streams marred the bright blue firmament like a brush painting delicately and daintily across a smooth azure canvas, reflecting in Nepeta's wide, sienna eyes as she stared up at the simple, mundane sight, fascinated and enamored. Karkat sat awkwardly beside her on a creaky, uncomfortable wooden stool before the drawing desk the feline-loving female had placed in her room—the pure mass of it taking most of the space of her crammed, cluttered room. Every nook and cranny of her quarters was stuffed with used and wrinkled clothes and discarded sketches of what looked to be ships she supported. Others that she'd chosen to keep adorned her otherwise plain, off-white walls, a grand mixture of colors slapped carefully onto delicately drawn figures by the pencil she held tightly in her left hand.

"Beautiful," she purred quietly, leaning slightly forward over her escritoire, her gaze never stirring from its fixed position on the splotches of clouds dotting the afternoon sky.

"You see it everyday," Karkat pointed out bluntly, dully, his eyes slanted as he watched the younger girl fawn over the cirrus veils high up in the welkin, her enchantment with the banal scene. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" There was a long pause before the brunette chose to speak again, her amaranth lips parting gingerly.

"Humans take things for granted a lot," she began, her sun-tanned hands reaching up to fix the baby blue cat hat she had clasped loosely over her head of tangled chestnut hair. "And I've begun to notice it, bit by bit. There are gorgeous things all around us, as well as things we tend to ignore that are in dire need of immediate attention, and we all give it a cold-shoulder." She turned to face the boy, her umber orbs searching deep within his ones, covered by crimson-irised contacts. She brushed a loose lock of her wild hair behind her ear, her unreadable expression unchanging as she stared seemingly into his soul. His lips formed a pressed line and he leaned back a little as she lurched forward a bit, her thick eyelashes swinging up and down with every blink of her eyes.

"Ordinary things like a cloudy day have their own unspeakable pulchritudinous appeal, Karkitty," Nepeta continued. "I know we see them everyday, and it's something we've come to accept in life. Everyone knows there is a sky above us and that clouds make their rest point there. But, still…" She shifted in her swivel chair, tugging her olive jacket a bit further down her torso. "So…so much of the norm, yet it's so alluring," she sputtered. "Do you understand what I'm trying to say?" Karkat frowned.

"I'm really not so fucking sure," he replied blatantly.

"What if we woke up one day and everything was gone? Karkitty, what would you do? The swaying trees, the stunning flowers, the bright sky overhead, your life as you know it? You'd miss everything, wouldn't you?"

"…You're planning to kill yourself, aren't you?" Nepeta paled.

"What? N-no, of course not, silly!" she giggled, reverting back to her bubbly self faster than he could blink. "But just think about. Everything we take for granted could be gone one day, and I kind of want to appreciate everything I have lest it falls apart before me. Call it childish, but I wish to live life to the fullest." She sighed wistfully and propped her elbows on the desk again, a dreamy look plastered to her tanned face.

"I don't get you, Nepeta," Karkat grumbled, stretching back to relieve his spine of the uncomfortable slump he'd been positioned in for the past hour or so on the goddamned stool.

"Perhaps that's a good thing," the cat-loving girl chirped back, reaching over to crack open one of her squeaky-clean windows. "Aren't enigmas just more fascinating?"

"I wouldn't say you're a fucking mystery, but—"

"Shh," she suddenly hushed, her finger flying over and pressing gently down onto his chapped lips. "The chapel bells. They're ringing!"

"What does that have to do with anything? They ring just about every fucking day, Nepeta, goddammit!"

"I want my funeral to be there," she continued, ignoring his angered rant.

"So you are trying to kill yourself—"

"I never said I was going to commit suicide, Karkitty," Nepeta sighed. "Stop freaking out, okay? Though, I have to admit…it's kind of cute, seeing you all worried over me." She giggled shrilly as red spread quickly across Karkat's fair face, resulting in him turning away in an attempt to hide it.

"I'm not trying to kill myself, but it's true I won't be here much longer," she said emptily. "I may not even make it to November…"

"What the fuck are you talking about?" he screamed, already feeling a bit of panic rise up in him. But…Nepeta was beyond annoying. Her death would be a good thing for him, right?

"You'll know soon enough," she whispered in an uncharacteristically quiet voice, standing up off her chair and turning towards Karkat's direction. "I've always wanted to do this," she admitted sorrowfully. She leaned forward.

She left on a windy September day. Painfully sorrowful, melancholic-driven smiles embellished the crisp autumn air and spread a dejected, mournful feeling throughout the gentle rolling hills and down the small stream that snaked from the ocean through the middle part of the small, backwater town. The church bells rang casually in the distance as they always did at midday, sending meaningless echoes throughout the countless walls of Karkat's grievous mind, reflecting in his still, dark brown eyes as he stared at the new upraised mound in the local cemetery. People had come and passed and the ceremony was long finished, but the boy had yet to move from his spot as if he were a tree and his roots were firmly planted in the ground before the grave.

"See you, KK, Ara," Sollux called emotionlessly as he turned and trudged away slowly, Aradia watching him leave blankly as the zephyr tossed her chocolate curls around her shoulders and upper back. Karkat and the odd girl were the only two left there, but it didn't lessen the tense and wretched mood that resided there, most likely forever.

"You never got to tell her," said Aradia, stepping up next to Karkat. "I could sense it, though. I could have told you what was going to happen if you'd listened to me…" He felt a lump in his throat.

"…"

"I bet you think it wouldn't hurt as much as it does right now, right?" she continued as if reading his mind. "That's the downside to life, Karkat. I really thought you would now she would perish soon because she was out doing crazy things and taking in everything." No reply. She persisted.

"Sollux was like this when Feferi died, and Eridan, too," she pointed out. "But I guess your case is different…different from Sollux's, as least. He didn't like her like that, but she was still one of his closest friends. A sister, even. Funny how human-made objects can cause widespread death and woeful feelings, huh?" Her voice was still and unwavering as usual, never detecting a sway in her admittedly unstable emotions.

"I'll leave you two alone now. They say the soul still sojourns in the corpse for some time after passing away. She might be able to hear you…" She paused. "…As silly as that sounds." She patted his shoulder comfortingly before she turned and walked away, her feet crunching over the fallen, dead leaves in her departure. Karkat slowly knelt down, his hands brushing over the soil.

"Nepeta.." A bird screeched overhead. The sky was identical to that day, much to the teen's pain.

"…I think I loved you."

author's notes.

first homestuck fic ever. really really sorry for butchering their personalities.