Two
oOo
The next time you see Latula, her back rests against the strange pink-brown trunk of the plant that you have come to think of as the brain tree, her legs are stretched out, her arms limp on either side of her slender torso: the picture of lazy contentment.
Mituna is sprawled on the ground next to her, his helmet lying forgotten to one side, apparently fast asleep. You allow yourself a sideways glance at his face, obscured by his tumbly hair as always, and wonder if you could possibly be any more different.
You wonder if you could possibly feel any more pained and weary. You wonder if you could possibly hate yourself any more than you do now.
You move on.
oOo
Damara is standing with Rufioh and you do not understand a word of her speech.
"Ah, I'm sorry, doll." Fragments of their conversation float over to you, stripped of all meaning by the distance. "No, I don't think..." "Atashi wa anata no me no mae ni—!" "Damara, you need to—"
At least she is no longer crying. That's a change. It's still something.
You sigh, unnoticed, and move on.
oOo
The forest you stumbled upon a few—days? Hours?—ago is deserted, and the trees stand tall in the low light streaming into your glade, stately and steadfast. Nothing's changed.
Nothing ever changes.
And yet, you know something has changed.
Your heart has changed. Where you previously found anger, you now find nothing but bitterness; where there was hope—no matter how little—there is but despair; where there was inescapable longing, you find only, only a liquid fatigue that seeps through your bones from the base of your ankles to the very tips of your horns.
Am I going to be like this forever? Dull and jaded and full of blunt resentment?
Your thoughts have died, leaving a hollow ache in their place. You have all the peace and quiet you have ever wished for. For the first time, it is dead silent in your head, and you would be lying if you said it didn't frighten you.
The grass is still soft and ungrudging against your body. You could have first found this place a sweep ago. You could have found it yesterday. You could have found it at any time and it would be the same and that is precisely why time has lost all meaning for you.
That is precisely why you feel your sanity beginning to slip...
And, to your sudden, utter astonishment and delight, your mouth opens wide of its own accord in what can only be a yawn.
I'm...
I'm sleepy..?
When was the last time you could sleep, Kankri Vantas?
I don't seem to recall sleeping since—since I was last alive, you think, hazily registering that you have begun to slide further down the tree trunk until your head is nestled among its roots. I just never needed to...
My mind was so wild, so untamed...
Where has it gone all of a sudden, and why am I left with only this emptiness?
You try to remember the last time you felt that familiar desperation for some peace, but the impossibility of time and perception in the afterlife makes it a frustrating and enormously futile task; you give up soon, choosing instead to enjoy your doze while it lasts, surrounded by quiet beauty and green-tinted, marvelously unscorching sunlight.
Green...
Your eyelids are getting heavier and you are weak with relief.
That tree cover...
You need sleep and you are going to get some.
...Karkat came out of that gap in the trees, didn't he? Emerging from the greenish darkness with that scowl and his thoughtless words and his displeasure at finding Kankri there and—
"Pyrope."
"Pyrope, fucker."
Your eyes drift shut; you are asleep within minutes, sinking into the black slumber of those who have been dead for aeons. And somewhere in the recesses of your numb, sedated mind, it stirs.
"Pyrope."
I know when I began feeling like this.
It stirs, and it sleeps, and you are lost to the world under the benevolent canopy of your first forest.
oOo
Karkat is sitting beside you. You sense, more than see, his twitch of annoyance and discomfort as he sees you watching him through your drowsy, uncomprehending gaze. Something about it feels strange; surreal, almost, and you know you are dreaming.
Why am I dreaming of Karkat?
"Well, at least you're not ghost dead", the younger troll mutters, as ornery as ever. If he has any recollection of their last meeting, he does not show it. How long ago was it for him? How long has it been for me? "You've been out for ages."
"Pyrope, fucker."
"Why are you here?" you ask dazedly.
"What do you mean?" Karkat's face is sulky. "I like this place. I'm not about to stop coming here just because of you."
Well, it is only a dream, so...
Awake, your response would probably have differed, but you are warm and surprisingly comfortable in your layers of fresh sleep and there are no reasons you can think of to not speak your mind. So you allow yourself a smile that turns into a grimace halfway through and mumble, "I'm glad."
Karkat casts you a sharp glance. "Why the fuck that would make someone happy is beyond me."
"I don't know", you say plaintively. "It's a nice change." Let's just leave it at that.
"Is it really that boring out here?" he snorts, clumps of grass bent out of shape in his clenched fists. "Is it so boring that you're prepared to put a lid on your lectures to keep someone like me around?"
Dream or not, you do not have to think twice. "Yes. Very much." A pause. "I do not lecture."
"Yeah, and I piss Faygo." His nostrils flare for a second. "Has no one actually talked to you about this at all? I find it near impossible to believe that you and your teammates spent almost eight fucking sweeps on a planet like Beforus and no one got it into their think pans to just try and stop—" he shakes his head, seemingly lost in his own sentences; he does have rather creative sentence structures, you think amusedly. When he resumes, his voice is tighter, more distant.
"It's a wonder", he says to the trees, "that nobody ever told you this, but you are downright insufferable."
Oh.
The tight cold bud in your stomach, lying dormant for you know not how long, bursts into bloom.
"They've told me."
"Eh?"
"I said", you hedge out without looking at him, "they've told me." You turn away and onto your side, drawing your knees up to your chest, blinking wearily at the grass that weaves through your line of vision in deep green blurs. This weariness follows me even into my dreams...
"It's their nickname for me. The Insufferable."
Even with your disoriented sense of time, you know that the pause that follows is very long.
Then there is a hand on you, not poking, just resting on your arm with unexpected caution; you can feel it through your sweater, the uncertainty, the readiness to spring away at the slightest sign of objection, the humming of bones and veins and mutant candy red blood in your descendant's hand that is so similar to your own. And you do not have the heart to resist its touch.
You wait for the spoken apology. It doesn't come. You find that you no longer care.
"Tag your triggers, Karkat", you murmur, and this time you wait for the snap. The second storming off. The outburst that this isn't fucking Bubblr or whatever stupid website you picked up your tagging and triggers and outlandish notions of social justice from, this is the real world, this is—
"I will", Karkat says quietly.
When did the dream fade away? When did you wake up to realize that you had been awake all along? In your distorted, memory-haunted version of reality in the afterlife, does it even matter?
It wasn't a dream...
And my response is still the same. "I'm glad", you say. Another pause swells between the two of you, fragile, punctuated by the sound of your heartbeat. "You're not going to go, are you?"
He's looking at you now. You look back from your position at the base of the tree that he sits against and he holds your gaze for some time, his hair falling about his face in a jumble that mirrors yours, his eyes warm and bemused and flashing you a thousand different answers.
I don't want you to go. I've been losing my mind.
"No", he says at last. "I'll stay. I've been bored too."
Some unknown language of red makes itself known in your chest; before you can even wonder at what this impossibly new sense of happiness is, it has melted the shard of cold in your gut altogether and you are left with a shaky delight, cracked down the middle like a thaw. Unable to say much, you whisper your thanks.
"I'm telling you, it's nothing to be thankful for", he says sullenly. "I've already been an ass to you twice in the brief amount of time we've known each other, there's nothing to say that this won't keep happening."
"Well", you manage to say, "you tag your triggers and I'll tag mine."
"What if we have the same trigger, though?" His gaze is keen on your skin but not wholly repugnant. "What do we do then?"
"Pyrope, fucker", he'd said that day. "At least we have that in common."
You stifle a sigh that is equal parts fatigue and bewilderment at yourself. "We talk."
"I don't want to talk", Karkat says immediately. "Not about that."
"Neither do I", you reply, fighting to keep your voice steady. "But it should help. I—it should help us both." You push yourself into a sitting position and the hand on your arm falls away at last, leaving a tingling tepidness in its wake. "Let's talk about Pyrope." Our triggers. Your Pyrope, my Pyrope...
She was never mine in any way.
And what about you? Was your Pyrope ever truly yours?
The forest feels large, all-encompassing; your tree is but a speck in this ocean of jade and olive, your voices the chirping of insects, your footfalls the tracks of marchbugs on grass blades. It would swallow your words whole. You know this and are glad again.
"Tell me", you mutter. "Tell me about yours and I'll tell you about—about mine."
Is this the first of many changes? Or am I still alone?
Karkat lowers his eyes to the ground, offers a tiny nod, and starts talking.
