Disclaimer: I do not own Homestuck! : ) It belongs to Andrew Hussie, who must have an immense coffee and aspirin budget.
Warnings: Spoilers!
Pairings: Canonical allusions to Eridan/Feferi (unrequited).
***Drabble warning!***
Before aiming the wand toward her - before the haunting wet melody of her torn and seared flesh became a typical daymare - you made a choice; a series of decisions. They sparked in your mind with a vibrant, lurid clarity - each scenario a feverish delusion steeped in regret.
It was a contemplative process at first; but soon became involuntary.
In this direful moment, you're reliving every defining decision you've made. What brought you to this level of intensity - this boiling madness? What can be used to justify each misguided action?
You think of your false moiraillegiance, illustrated by memories of self-isolation, pity, and airgonautical obligation.
She's staring at you with hatred and resentment. This brief period of time feels endless. It's both exhausting and invigorating. You're going to kill her - but before the inevitable compulsion is exacted - you're thinking of a way to touch her, to be closer. The acidic fury in her expression is fuel for cheerless, wintry love. Caliginous affection.
These thoughts are your most despicable.
Even as you murder her, you're trying to possess her. In addition to that, you know, if she lives, that the contention born of this event will ruin you. Yes. That's why she needs to die. You can't permit her bleak hatred - because you could never genuinely hate her.
The alliance - you don't like to use their relationship's true term - she formed with Sollux will always disturb you. It's not because you didn't expect it; but because you might have been able to prevent it. Feferi never considered the possibility of having you for a matesprit. If you had been less focused on your supposed personal war against the land-dwellers; if you'd spent a moment listening to her feelings, instead of constantly obsessing over your own - maybe she'd have felt different.
A glittering trace of gold is mirrored in scintillating irises. That's right. Feferi has raised her culling fork against you. You'd almost forgotten. That settles it. There's no way to prevent her death now; she's restricted your options. Forced your hand.
Except you still have a choice. Even now.
For a moment, you actually consider dropping the wand. At the speed she's attacking you, Feferi would not have the chance to still her weapon. You'd be killed.
Death means failure. That's what it's always meant.
The trolls whose lusii you easily murdered for the purpose of sustaining Gl'bgolyb were failures. Their ill-fated guardians were failures. The weak die in your world. It's how leaders are distinguished from common, susceptible low-bloods and gutless high-bloods.
You're different. What would Feferi see if she succeeded in killing you? A pathetic, lifeless, immature boy. She probably wouldn't even grieve your death.
It's fine that she hates you in this moment, as an equal - instead of a burden - but you cannot die a shallow, fleeting regret.
Sea before land. Death before life. Competition before friendship. Cowardice before hope.
In the future, when circumstances are different; you will show her something new - you will show her that you're capable of making all the right decisions.
It's an impossible aspiration; but it's what you're dreaming of as you deploy a fatal attack.
When you murder Feferi, it's out of selfishness; the path you never managed to transcend.