~I'm rapidly getting the hang of uploading and editing these as best I can. I'm used to working on Quizilla, so writing on here is a little odd to me. To those of you who are still reading after the first chapter, I promise it will (Probably) only get better from there. Pretty sure I set a low bar to go from, but hey. Everything will be fixed eventually.~
I awoke the next morning certain of three things. One, that these slime casket things trolls slept in were pretty comfortable, two, I still found it awkward that you had to sleep in your birthday suit if you wanted to avoid ruining good clothes, and three, that my huskbook had just pinged to tell me someone was pestering me.
Yawning, I emerged from my slime cocoon, stretching one arm out and then the other. I groped around and soon found the towel I always left by the edge of the pod, wrapping that around me as I slipped into the bathroom. I washed the slime off in a quick shower, not even really bothering to turn the heated water on. I stepped out to find a set of clothes identical to the ones I had been wearing yesterday sitting on the bathroom countertop. No, wait. those were gray jean shorts, not pants. meh, whatever. Nez must have chosen today.
Zen and Nez were my two Lususes. they were two identical foxes, but about the size of horses. the only difference was that Nez's left eye glowed black, and Zen's right eye glowed a silvery white. they would usually set out my clothes and other stuff when I wasn't looking, or at least Zen would. Nez kind of preffered to show up when I was goofing off instead.
I changed into the clean clothes, picking up my trusted black hat and pulling it over my eyes and effectively hiding my fins. It had been redish brown when I started this game, but I had changed the yarn's color on my way to this session. god I loved this hat.
even if it did bring back some particularly bad memories.
I wandered back into my room, my damp hair tucked within a ponytail as usual, aside from my bangs, which I twirled around my fingers absentmindedly, forming them into perfectly identical twin spirals. I picked up my huskbook and sat down, leaning against a wall as I brought up pesterchum to see who had been pestering me earlier.
falloutPrincess began pestering dazedDreamer at ?:?
FP: I know your there.
FP: Quit avoiding me.
Oh great. she'd managed to un-block herself again.
falloutPrincess began pestering dazedDreamer at ?:?
FP: I know your there.
FP: Quit avoiding me.
DD: ~I can only take a shower so fast.~
FP: Fucking exscuses, as UsUaL.
DD:~ You're not exactly someone I want to talk to you know. there's a reason I've banned you seven times~
FP: and there's a reason I keep coming back, you manipulative backstabbing bItCh.
DD: ~We've been over this. you tried to kill me. you talked the others into helping you in trying to kill me. How am I the manipulative one after everything that happened? ~
FP: We only did it to protect ourselves from your LiEs.
DD: ~ No. THEY did it to follow YOU. YOU did it because you thought I was doing something I wasn't, and never intended to do. It was your own paranoia that led you and them to your fate. Quit blaming everything on me and face up to your faults for once.~
FP: I never HaD any faults VoLpEs! yOu LiEd To Me, YoU bEtRaYeD uS, aNd So HeLp Me, I wIlL mOtHeRfUcKiNg MaKe YoU pAy.
DD:~ . . .Look. I'm done with this. Talk to me when you're ready to look at reason. In the mean time, just. . .leave me alone to my own life.~
DazedDreamer ceased pestering falloutPrincess at ?:?
dazedDreamer blocked falloutPrincess at ?:?
I sighed, rubbing my forehead. I was so tired of that. so many bad memories I wished would just. . .learn to leave me alone. For a while before, I actually began to wonder if she was right. Things like that could drive a person mad you know. but after a long time of self reflection, I knew who I was, and I knew what had happened to my three co-players wasn't my fault. they had chosen their own path. I had chosen mine.
I yawned, tilting my head up towards the black cieling of the room. white flecks that were meant to be stars peppered the midnight sky atmosphere. Closing the huskbook, I stood, captchalogging it in my Zodiac Modus, filing it under the 'rat'. The modus was pretty simple, yet fun. to pull things out of the chinese Zodiac section, I listed a year, got whatever was stored in the corresponding animal's log. Like, to get my huskbook, I would say '1996', a year of the rat. This gave me twelve spaces, but I had another twelve sections for western astrology, which got more complicated. I could store things under an exact date in there, and saying something like 'march 11' would release anything stored under the march 11th file. Okay, so it was actually pretty confusing. But I liked it.
I found a plate of toasted bagels, sasuage, and sliced fruits I didn't recognize sitting out for me on the kitchen counter. Glancing around, I saw no sight of my supposed Lususes though. shrugging, I picked up the plate of food and walked out to the back deck of my hive, looking out over the large, dark lake that opened up outside my hive. It would have been pretty if I wasn't pretty sure there was a giant, troll eating creature living in it.
I was about half way through the bagel when I heard shouting. . . and a lot of swear words.
"GOD FUCKING DAMN IT GAMZEE! NO, I DO NOT WANT TO GO FIND HER! I WANT YOU TO FUCKING TURN YOUR SHIT HIVE FAYGO DRINKING ASS AROUND AND I WANT TO FUCKING GO HOME!" A familiar snarling broke the silence. My ears pricked from under my hat. It was definetely Karkat, but did he say. . . Gamzee?
Grinning, I walked around the wrap around deck to the front , observing discreetly as two trolls walked towards my hive. Yes, that was in fact, and undenyiably Gamzee Makara, dragging Karkat along behind him as he grinned in his stoner-esk way, holding a plastic bag in his other hand.
"CoMe On MoThErFuCkEr, YoU kNoCkEd HeR oVeR yEsTeRdAy. BeSiDeS, ShE sOuNdS lIkE a CoOl SiS." Gamzee answered, trying to calm Karkat's obvious and violent rage in his own, odd and amusing way. My grin widened as I watched the two of them make their way towards my door. I perched on the railing of my second-level deck, waving down at them as they came into my yard. Karkat's rage turned to obvious horror as he realized I had probably been watching them the whole time.
"DAMN IT GAMZEE, LET ME GO!" he screamed, Finally thrashing free of the taller troll's grip. Gamzee looked up and grinned, waving at me in return.
"HeY tHeRe SiS! I'm GaMzEe! We WeRe WonDeRin' If YoU wAnTeD tO cOmE sLaM a CoUpLe Of FaYgOs WiTh Us!" He shouted up, lifting up the plastic bag in his other hand, which I realized was full of a bunch of different flavors of Faygo.
"uh. . .yeah, alright!" I called back, and then, for show, I leapt off of the balcony, landing with cat like grace a few yards in front of them. Gamzee's grin grew wider, if that was possible, and he muttered something about 'Motherfuckin' magic' as I walked over to them.
"so, Gamzee, right? Nice to meet you then. you must be Karkat's friend if you're with him." I said, nodding over to Karkat, who had fallen backwards when he escaped Gamzee's hold, and was still sitting on the ground, maybe a little shocked by my leap. He quickly recovered though, fixing me with another 'I hate you for no reason' glare. I grinned in return, offering a hand up, which he ignored again.
"The only fucking reason we're here is because Gamzee wanted to see your god damn hat after I had to explain how you fucking knocked me over yesterday." Growled Karkat angrily, glaring at me as if it was my fault he was an angsty, pissed off teenager.
Gamzee looked from Karkat to me and back again with a slightly confused look, but shrugged and grinned. I had a feeling there was a longer story involved, but I was too lazy to really persist. Instead, I reached over into the bag of Faygos and pulled out what i was guessing was an 'original' flavor, since it had no special title. I cracked open the cap and, sniffing it a bit first, downed a couple of gulps. It tasted like strawberry fanta, but with some other flavor in it too. Gamzee grinned as I nodded in approval, while Karkat shook his head, clearly wanting to be anywhere else at the moment.
I glanced back at my house, then shrugged to myself. "Hey, since you both came out here, do you want to come in? it's not like I get many guests out here." I offered. Karkat opened his mouth to shout what probably would have been a withering protest, if Gamzee hadn't cut in with "Sounds great motherfucker!" and begun walking inside. Karkat slowly closed his mouth, facepalming and stomping after him and into my house. I sighed, shaking my head at the pair's bi-polar antics as I followed after them.
It hadn't taken long to passify Karkat as it turned out. I had rented a bunch of troll movies to watch last week, and half of them were romcoms. as soon as Karkat saw those he at least slowed the cussing streak, he almost seemed to be content when I told him we could have a marathon of romcoms, and he could choose the line up. Gamzee didn't care, as long as he had his faygo and I let him explore my house. It was only about halfway through our marathon that Gamzee started to notice a few things.
"Hey Sis, I was wondering. . . where are you from? I mean, I don't see anything with your motherfuckin' blood color on it, and no one was livin' anywhere motherfuckin' near here last sweep. Your hive just kind of. . . showed up." He asked between gulps of his fourth bottle of faygo. I figured it was going to be Karkat asking this shit, not Gamzee, but I had answers anyway. Karkat had definetely been interested though. I noticed him glancing over, looking for any sign of color and realizing Gamzee was right.
"Well, I moved here from another city a couple of months ago. My last hive. . .got destroyed in a funny way. a meteor hit it and pretty much destroyed it while I was gone with my lususes." I lied, but as usual Karkat cut in.
"A fucking Meteor blew up your hive? what the hell kind of bullshit is that? do we look like wrigglers to you? and what the fuck do you mean Lususes? you were supposed to fucking explain that." He shouted, pausing the movie that had been playing. I shrugged while grinning a bit.
"oh yeah motherfucker. . . how can you see under that hat?"Gamzee threw in, causing Karkat to perform another face palm. My grin widened.
"Well, in order. . . You can look it up yourself, it was in some papers that my hive got destroyed. Yes, I have more than one Lusus, I've got two foxes, and they're brothers. and, as for seeing, I look through gaps in the knitting of the hat, it's actually not too hard." I explained (and or lied) calmly, stretching a little. this seemed to annoy Karkat even more, so he threw me another question.
"Alright, what about what Gamzee said earlier about your blood?" he snapped. I paused, shrugging again, feeling the knitted wool of my hat brush against my sensitive fins.
"I don't really care about the hemospectrum, so I never bothered getting anything the color of my blood. I could ask you the same thing if I gave a fuck you know." I replied, which actually shut Karkat up pretty fast. he recoiled almost, turning back and glaring at the TV screen and turning the movie back on, showing that the discussion was closed now.
The day faded into evening, and then late in the night before the two trolls finally decided it might be a good idea to go, but At that point I couldn't agree.
"You guys should probably spend the night at this point I said, yawning as they got ready to leave.
"What? no! FUCK no! Why in the fuck would we want to spend the night here?" Karkat shouted, loud as ever. I rubbed my forehead under my hat, pointing outside.
"Because the woods out there are full of pretty nasty things, and I'm not completely sure shit doesn't come crawling out of that lake at night either." I explained. Gamzee glanced outside, nodding and then shrugged at karkat with another goofy grin.
" Sis has got a point, motherfuckin' best friend. Let's just crash out here tonight and go home tomorrow."
"FUCK YOU GAMZEE. No, I do NOT want to crash here! We don't even have fucking recupracoons, and even though YOUR drugged ass doesn't need one, I fucking DO!" Karkat snarled, leaning in and glaring at Gamzee. I stood, starting to pick up my living room as I offered my solution.
"Karkat, just use mine. I can crash on the couch, it doesn't matter. trust me, I'm going to have trouble sleeping anyways, might as well let you get a decent amount of sleep. Fuck, I'll even make you guys breakfast tomorrow and lend you any of the romcoms you want when you go if it will calm you down." I tossed another empty faygo bottle and a smashed bag of chips into my shopping trash bag, watching Karkat glare from me to Gamzee and back, as if we had planned to make his night miserable.
"Fine." He finally snapped, storming upstairs to my room, where I had shown him and Gamzee earlier. Gamzee grinned, sighing contentedly.
"Thanks for letting us crash here sis. you sure it's alright for Karkat to use your Recoupracoon? I know most trolls have some wicked nasty nightmares when they don't sleep in those." I paused for a moment, remembering my dream from the previous night. I stiffled a shudder and looked up, shaking my head.
"Nah, it's alright."
Gamzee went to bed upstairs with some extra blankets I had lying around, and crashed in my room with Karkat, who I hadn't seen since he went storming upstairs in the first place. Yawning, I changed into a black tanktop and a pair of black gym shorts, loose and breathable material that was motherfuckin' comfortable. I crawled onto the couch and under my own blankets, still wearing my hat as I drifted into sleep.
I wish I could say they had been pleasant dreams.
skulls being smashed in. a scream. the white queen's mangled body being sliced in half. my house exploding in a fiery blaze. and screaming. all the screaming. . .
I woke up in a cold sweat, breathing hard and sitting bolt upright.
"Fuck!" I heard the clatter of plastic hitting the floor and glanced into my kitchen a few feet away to see Karkat staring back at me. He was shirtless, wearing black boxers, and his hair seemed to still be damp from the slime. water was all over the floor, so he must have been grabbing a drink when I woke up, and I had scared the fuck out of him and he dropped the cup. Taking a shaky breath, I slid off the couch and walked over towards the kitchen. Karkat seemed to recover quickly and become pissed, fumbling for something to dry the mess up with.
"What the fuck is your problem?" He snapped as I stepped into the kitchen. I didn't bother answering as I grabbed a hand towel and knelt to soak up the water. I think Karkat realized what he was wearing then, because I heard him mutter another quieter "Oh fuck. . ." and he quickly found his way to the other end of the kitchen. after a couple more seconds, I answered him.
"I didn't mind you taking the recoupracoon because I new I wasn't going to sleep well anyways. I always have nightmares." I said calmly, picking up the now cracked plastic cup. Karkat remained silent for a few more seconds, probably unsure of how to answer. When I glanced over at him he looked both uncomfortable and irritated, as well as maybe. . . a little sympathetic?
"Why the fuck would you have night-. . ." He began to mutter, but he froze in mid sentence as his eyes locked with mine in the pale light of the moon streaming through my window.
"You're eyes. . . you're not wearing that fucking hat. ." He pieced together. and he was right. my yellow eyes glowed back at him, but my pupils were different from his. one was the color of the golden prospit, the other the color of the purple derse. both glowed ever so slightly, projecting calm and gentle rays of purple and gold across my gaze. I had once been told the lights in my eyes lulled people into wanting to sleep, though I had never tested it. And then they followed up to where my ears had once been, and I would have laughed at his face if I wasn't so tired. He looked from the fins to my eyes and to the fins again, his jaw slightly hanging.
"Yeah, I know. I think I can trust you not to go shouting to Gamzee that my eyes have fucked up pupils and I have nightmares, right? Or, you know, the fins." I asked tiredly, breaking our staring contest as I refilled the water in the cup and offered it to Karkat again. As he reached for it he seemed to remember his lack of clothes, and I sensed he was blushing. I hid a weak smile as he took the cup, and then I sat myself on the counter top.
"So, I guess you couldn't sleep either?" I asked, if nothing than to make him less uncomfortable.
"Not when Gamzee sounds like a fucking giant bear coming to slash my face off in his sleep." Karkat muttered angrilly. I nodded, yawning.
"Well, you can hang out with me if you want to. I'm probaby not going to go back to sleep for a while." I offered, which was true. I glanced over and noticed Karkat's annoyed and maybe a little embaressed glare, and I broke into a small grin.
"Oh calm the fuck down Vantas. I am in no way interested in putting you in a redrom or blackrom quadrant, and something tells me the stoner clown upstairs is already you're moirail. Would it kill you to hang out down here until your tired again and watch whatever romantic comedy they have running on TV right now? or hell, you can just explain a few of them to me. I haven't watched many of them, about half of what I have, I watched tonight with you two." Karkat seemed to relax a little and then, sighing, he shrugged.
"Fuck it. yeah, alright, but give me a blanket. it's fucking cold down here." He growled.
