Kanaya and Rose were in the library alone. They were knee deep in ancient lore, occasionally scribbling down some notes in their big book of findings, though Rose did most of the writing.

Kanaya was particularly interested in one book that involved old tombs and hieroglyphs of an ancient language. She jumped slightly as Rose broke the long, concentrated silence. She had come across an old poem of sorts and was trying to make sense of it. Kanaya frowned after reading it once in her head, and read it out loud to try and make more sense of the strange nonsense written on the page. She instantly forgot what she had just said and couldn't seem to read the text again. The words now seemed like a huge jumbled mess of blurry symbols.

She turned to Rose. She was startled to find that Rose's eyes were changing in pigment and then in shade, from a slightly pinker purple, to a deep pink, to a stunning scarlet red. The color was terrifying but strangely captivating, the new color seeming to stare right into her soul.

Just as this thought struck her, Rose's skin started to glow intensely, noticeably increasing in temperature. Kanaya opened her mouth, about to ask if she was ok, chills coursing through her spine despite the heat radiating off of Rose's glowing body.

Rose was now pulsing red-hot energy. She was, to Kanaya's horror, laughing maniacally. Wait, no, she was laughing as if she enjoyed the experience, even pleasantly. Then, with a loud BOOM, Rose was gone.

Kanaya woke up gasping for breath, her body drenched with a cold sweat. It was only four in the morning, but Kanaya decided she couldn't sleep anymore.

She got up and started pacing around, realizing that she was shaking slightly. She was overwhelmed by the intense imagery that her sub-conscious had just displayed to her.

She wondered how her sleeping mind had ever come up with something as preposterous as this; she had basically killed her best friend, if indirectly, but she still felt terrible.

Kanaya shook her head, deciding to ask Rose about the meaning of this dream shit later. She was the one with freaky mind powers. Um... not freaky mind powers... more like amazing psychological intuition and talent. Yeah. That's what it was.

Kanaya took a quick shower and threw on some clothes, taking moderate care to make her choice reasonably good looking. She spent about 10 minutes carefully applying her elaborate make-up, choosing black lipstick to bring out some extra texture to her already black lips. (But hey, humans wear pink lipstick sometimes, and their lips are already pink.)

After applying her many layers of her daily make-up, Kanaya made her way down the hall and into the kitchen, where she prepared some coffee and into the huge living room that the trolls (and humans) liked to watch movies and TV in when they needed a break from whatever other fucking around they did on this flying piece of space junk.

She was surprised to find Karkat and Terezi fast asleep, huddled up on the sofa together. They must have fallen asleep while watching one of Karkat's rom-coms, Kanaya thought as she turned off the blue screen of the TV.

She smiled to herself. She was glad that Karkat and Terezi were getting along again. It had seemed like there was hostility between them for way too long; there had been months of cussing each other out, the tone of the room always becoming impossibly tense when they were near each other, especially when Dave was around.

Taking great care to be quiet, Kanaya exited the room and headed to the library to do some non-explosive studying for a few hours until everyone else started waking up.

Kanaya and Rose sat in Rose's room, eating lunch without much conversation. Kanaya had asked Rose about her dream earlier in the day. Rose had looked thoughtful. Kanaya had thought she had seen a tiny glint in her friend's eye, an emotion that she hadn't had time to analyze before it was gone, assuming it was even there in the first place.

Rose had taken some time to think about her answer before replying. "Some dreams can have a specific meaning, as you already know," she began, tapping her chin, "and others are just collective images and ideas from someone's active sub-conscious. There's no telling what this particular dream actually meant, I'm afraid. Some dreams are easier to understand after some time passes, and others end up being complete nonsense. This one could be of any cause, but it is nearly impossible to confirm an analysis of something so abstract as the dreaming mind."

She smiled and added, "I'm sure that if this dream is of important significance, you'll figure it out eventually."

They had both stopped talking after that, lost in thought. Kanaya didn't have a clue what Rose was thinking, but she wasn't really worried about that at the time. She was mostly thinking about the dream she had. She knew it was probably really stupid and she was over-thinking the whole thing, but there was just something about that red-hot glowing, pulsing light radiation from Rose's skin, her frightening yet deeply captivating, even hypnotic eyes, and her laugh. She especially thought of that laugh. Something about that laugh was simply intriguing; there was just something about it that completely and utterly stumped Kanaya. She was rarely stumped, being bright as she was.

Eventually her thoughts changed course and focused on Karkat and Terezi. Kanaya decided she would have to speak to one of them about this situation. She wasn't totally sure that their couch cuddling was enough to revive their relationship, and she wanted to help.

Carried away in her thoughts, Kanaya didn't realize that she was smiling softly to herself. Rose did.

"What's on your mind, Maryam?" Kanaya jumped at the sudden interruption.

"Oh, nothing, I'm just a bit worried about Karkat and Terezi. I think I'm going to see if I can help them out somehow."

Rose smiled, her clean white teeth shining in the well-lit room. Her smile was quite pretty.

"Ok, you should probably go check on them. I think I'll knit Strider a nice ironic scarf. He seems like he needs one." Now it was Kanaya's turn to smile again.

"Yeah, I think I'll go do that. Have fun knitting your scarf." She nodded and left the room, closing the door behind her.

Kanaya ended up finding Karkat in the same room he had been sleeping in early that morning. He was spaced out on the couch with a dazed and slightly dreamy expression. Yup, there was definitely something going on.

He snapped back to reality upon Kanaya's entrance, trying to play it off like he had been concentrating on the TV. Unfortunately for him, his attempt was pathetic in Kanaya's mind, because he still didn't seem very focused and probably didn't even know what was on the screen. It was something about a confusing auspistice quadrant relationship where the auspistice was moirails with one of his subjects and matesprites with another, some shit like that. Karkat's shows are often difficult to comprehend for someone who doesn't spend half the time Karkat spends watching dramas and romance movies that almost nobody else had heard of. Including Kanaya.

"What... the fuck you want...?" He asked halfheartedly, still in a daze.

Kanaya was slightly surprised by his uncharacteristic lack of anger. She decided to approach the topic as casually as she could, trying not to be over-casual.

"I just wanted to see how you were doing . You seem like there's something assailing your think-pan of late, and I was concerned for your well being." Eh, casual enough.

Karkat didn't seem to want to talk about his feelings. At full attention now, he replied with the expected curt answer of "nothing". Sensing that his statement hardly sounded sincere, he added, "Nothing's bothering me, Kanaya. Fuck off."

Kanaya felt satisfied that he was at least ok by the slight growl in his voice. It was quite amusing, actually. But that answer wasn't good enough for her. The answer she desired was right in front of her. Kanaya continued, smoothly and calmly. "How are things going with Terezi?"

Karkat's facial expression changed then from somewhat irritated to suspicious and wary. "It's complicated," he started, "it's impossible to put into words how we feel about each other, especially with Strider around."

Kanaya noticed the venom he put in to "Strider" when he said this.

"But you should know. I guess if you think about it, our situations aren't that different, at least in the complicated respect." He shrugged.

Kanaya's eyes widened in surprise. What was he talking about? She wasn't in a situation at all! She wasn't even in one quadrant with anyone! After assuring Karkat that she had no idea what he was talking about, Kanaya retreated to her room to get some sewing done.

She was working on a new dress for a casual occasion. It was purple and simple with some fringe to touch it up a little. Kanaya enjoyed and admired the beauty in simplicity, and felt intense pride working on something that could turn out so pretty.

Several hours later, Kanaya finished. She was starving. It felt like forever since she and Rose had eaten lunch, and she had worked up an appetite making her dress. She decided to make a sandwich and then go visit her friend for a while before retiring to her room for some sleep after another long day of fucking around.