My name is Sollat Van Captor. My parents are named Sollux and Karkat. Sounds familiar, right? This is another world. A world where the uh... well, where the "mom" and "dad" trolls make real babies, ones that receive traits from their parents. Our world is relatively peaceful.
This world doesn't exist. Or, at least, not anymore.
One of my parents, Sollux, died when I was very little. I asked Karkat about it, but he wouldn't tell me. All he would say was "He wasn't the only one..." to himself, and tell me that I shouldn't ask.
I actually remember Sollux. At least, a little. I remember this one time; we went to some kind of amusement park. The three of us, a family. Karkat stopped to talk to this tall guy with this kind of blank expression.
He was with another guy, who was sitting in a wheelchair. I thought he was pretty neat, he had a quiet voice and he let me touch his Mohawk. He had a kid hiding behind his chair. He peeked out at me and waved. This boy looked like a strange mixture of the two my parents were talking to, so I assumed he was their kid. He was soft spoken, much like the bemohawked adult in the wheelchair. Like their parent, he had a Mohawk, but it was shaggy like the tall one talking to Kar's hair. We talked until Sol told me we had to go.
I didn't see this boy again for a long while. Until...
One day, I was walking through the park, and I saw this tall boy picking on this strangely catlike kid. I went up to him and broke his nose with one punch. Then, in my usual angry, lisping tone, proceeded to tell him off for picking on someone smaller than he was. Which was odd, because I come from a short family. Kar's short, and Sol's not much bigger, but I digress. So I told this guy off – mind you, he's nearly twice my size! – and he just regarded me with this mildly interested expression. This guy's eyebrows were raised, and this goofy grin was spreading across his face as I ranted. Eventually he said in a strangely familiar voice, "Wow, you've, uh, got a lot to say, don'tcha?" It was drawling, slow, quiet, gravelly. I vaguely recognized his unkempt mane like Mohawk as well as the greenish over shirt and black and grey polka-dotted pants. This other guy was studying me, until he surprised me by saying my name.
"Sollat?" he drawled, grinning stupidly. He looked odd with his funny-looking blood flowing from his busted nose. He didn't even lift a hand to try to staunch the bleeding. I stood there, shaking my hand as a bruise rose to the surface of the skin on my knuckles. Aahhoww… I groaned inwardly. Who knew breaking noses would hurt me?! I kept looking at him suspiciously until it snapped into place.
"Tavvee is that you? You got big!" I laughed, my bi-colored eyes sparkling. "Sorry about the nose…." He waved away the apology with another dopey grin. "It's all good, bro-"he paused with a drawling chuckle, looking me up and down. "Uh, I mean sis."
I felt the usual self-conscious flush rise to my cheeks as my arms crossed over my exceptionally small chest. "I don't look like that much of a guy, do I?" I asked with a mildly annoyed tone. Tavvee lifted his hands to shoulder height in a grin-filled "I'm harmless" gesture.
I smelled ozone for a second, and realized my optics were reacting to my major mood. The surprised look on Tavvee's face helped me get to my conclusion that I should probably calm myself. I took a deep breath and asked him how his family was. He stated simply that his mother figure died.
"And that was…?" I asked slowly, my memory kind of fuzzy.
"You'd remember him better as the guy in the wheelchair," He replied, staring at me with the same dumb expression on his face as when I had first punched him.
"Mister Mohawk?" My voice showed my disappointment, which was subsequently reflected on my face. "Aw, no… I liked him…" Though I attempted to pursue the subject on how and why, he declined comment, almost in the same way Kar does. Although, his was a lot friendlier than Kar's.
We became fast friends and… even moirails. We hung out together a lot, sometimes at his hive, sometimes mine. Every once in a while he got mad about something, but I was there to calm him down, and vice versa. He was left much alone by Kar, but I did see the way he glanced furtively at Vee when he thought I wasn't looking. The look on his face was strange. It was nothing I'd seen on his face before. It was… fear. Kar, who's been my motherly and fatherly figure for a long time, on whom I'd never seen even a hint of being scared, looked absolutely petrified whenever Vee came over or I went over to Vee's. It was almost as though he was scared that Vee or his Father figure would do something to me.
Later on down the road, I finally learned from Vee why Kar looked at him with such fear. But I learned the hard way.
So, one time, Vee and I were hanging out in a warehouse, our warehouse that we were working on for the longest time. He got mad about something, I can't remember what, but something scratched his face up really bad. He was shouting. I used whatever little psionic power I'd had to float over and see what the matter was. But before I could get to him, Vee started to laugh. It started low and hitchy, and then rose to a hysteric howl of manic laughter.
He threw his shaggy head back to laugh, and I could see that my Tavvee wasn't in there. His eyes were… they were all wrong. That coupled with the copious amounts of blood he had streaming down his face as well as the laugh, terrified me. For a while, all he did was laugh. Then he turned his head toward me, looking over his shoulder with an insane giggle.
"T-Tavvee?" I stuttered, touching down. He got up and walked over, towering over me with this sick grin on his face. Tavvee put his hands, which he had been holding to his bleeding face not long ago, on my face, mushing my cheeks slightly with his big hands. "Are you okay?"
"hEy, My BeStEsT fUcKiNg FrIeNd," he said, his voice sounding just as manic as his laugh. He leered in my face, putting one of his thumbs near my eye. I glanced at it, my nervous fear causing my optics to crackle, and then turned my gaze back to him. "I dIsCoVeReD tHe SiNgLe BeSt ThInG nExT tO FaYgO. yOu WaNnA kNoW wHaT iT iS?"
My heart hammered fearfully against my chest. Tavvee moved his thumb to hover over my eye, moving under my glasses. "V-Vee, stop…." I breathed, fearful tears streaming down my face. "You're scaring m-me…." All he did was smile. His finger found the surface of my eye and began to press. I cried out, he laughed, and his thumb kept pressing. Slowly, painfully, his thumb pressed into my red eye.
"Stop!" I screamed, grabbing at his hands and trying to pull them away, off my face. "Tavvee stop!" It felt as if my eye were about to burst. He was stronger than I was, I couldn't pull them away from my face.
A pop, sickening in sound and sensation. Tavvee smiled… no, he didn't smile. That wasn't his smile. Some fiend leered at me, wearing my friend's face. He got closer and said in a voice thick with a sour smell, his nose pressed against mine. "YoU sTiLl WaNnA kNoW wHaT iT iS, bRo?" He grinned as the blood ran from my socket. Tavvee turned my head and whispered in my ear. "It'S tHe JoY oF pAiN." And with that, he closed his hands around my throat.
I let out a strangled scream. And then, a strong wave of the scent of ozone, a crackling like electricity, and a blue streak burst from my one remaining eye. It hit Tavvee full in the face, knocking him backward across the warehouse. I held a hand to my bleeding eye socket, falling with a dull thud on the floor. I was too numb to cry, all I could do was lay there and feel betrayed. I didn't hear any movement from where Tavvee landed, so I could only assume that my blast knocked him out cold. I remained on the ground for quite some time.
During the brief stint on the ground, I had time to think. After a while of thinking, which wasn't very productive, to say the least, I stood up and messaged Kar, telling him I needed to be picked up.
