Well, here it is, the second chapter. I wanted this up a few days ago, but I want to keep updating "Coming to Terms" before I do this one. A note about this chapter: Meenah's talking style is really hard for me to convey, so if there's something I did wrong, please tell me (as respectfully as possible)!
Many thanks to obsessed01616, Bitblondetoday, Rand0mAn0nym0u2, SmileyFacesSmile, and one guest for your reviews to the last chapter!
The Princess
Feferi Peixes had been found by the Imperial Lusus when her sister, Her Imperious Condescension, was nearing her thirty-sixth wriggling day. The Condesce, as Feferi's sister was known, hadn't been ruler of Alternia long—just about twenty-two sweeps—but she already had the entire planet easily under her control. Feferi didn't remember much of her first sweep or two since she was still reeling from the trials and didn't say anything until she was nearly three, but by the time she realized who her sister ("I'm Meenah, girl, you don't call me 'The Condesce,' you ma' sista', got it?") was, she wished she was back facing her trials.
Meenah started teaching Feferi from an early age how to handle ruling an entire people. It wasn't easy, she said, but due to their fuchsia blood, they were the only ones capable of it. All other blood colors in the hemospectrum were below them—it was their duty to rule. To rule properly, she added, Feferi would have to understand the Alternian past, and Meenah brought in scores of blue-blooded tutors to teach her everything she would need to know.
Feferi learned early on that, hundreds of sweeps ago, the terms for siblings hadn't even been thought of. Once, lusii raised one grub at a time because more grubs were being culled in the trials and there were almost too many lusii compared to trolls, but gradually, a shift happened. The troll race strengthened and more grubs survived the trials and crawled out of the cave of the Mother Grub, while lusii began diminishing in number.
The first known case of troll siblings happened around a hundred sweeps before. Appropriately, it was a set of royal-blooded siblings (not fuchsia-bloods, but almost as high on the hemospectrum). Mediri Ofelso had been about seven sweeps old when, while walking with her lusus, they discovered a wiggler with the same body color as Mediri's blood, and at first, she thought it was some mistake.
But it wasn't, and the grub grew up to be Sorana Ofelso, a great adviser to the empress before Meenah. Mediri helped her lusus raise Sorana since she was essentially grown herself, less than a sweep away from being a full adult, but in many ways, they were still sisters.
Soon, more and more instances of troll siblings came about, grubs being raised in twos or even threes by their lusus, and they were mostly either all brothers or all sisters, but sometimes, mixed-gender siblings cropped up. Sometimes troll siblings would fight and there were one or two stories of siblings attempting to cull one another, but for the most part, it was a peaceful transition, especially for the lower-blooded trolls whose siblings were hatched within a sweep or two of them. It was also much easier for two trolls to handle one lusus together.
In fact, now the standard was for sibling trolls, and those few who were left without siblings were discovered to live for fewer sweeps than trolls who had a brother or sister. One hypothesis to explain this phenomenon was that trolls left alone didn't learn as early on how to interact with others and ended up getting culled, although there was nothing to prove it.
Another shift in regards to the concept of troll siblings came in the form of romantic quadrants—or, rather, a non-shift, because troll siblings had also become known to form relationships in all four quadrants with their sibling, although moirallegiance and auspiticism was far more common than matespritship and kismesissitude. Concupiscent relationships weren't uncommon, though.
Still, the more Feferi learned about the brutal history of Alternia, the more sure she became that she had to do something to change it. She couldn't do anything about it now since she was still The Princess and her sister was The Condesce (and unless her sister died early, Feferi wouldn't rule for very long before she, too, died), but she knew she had to do something.
But for now, at nine sweeps old, all she could do was smile and nod and learn her lessons and pretend for Meenah's sake that she was being a good little heiress because while Feferi found the blood caste system to be tiresome and ridiculous, Meenah put all her stock in it and believed eventually that the lower blood colors on the hemospectrum would die out, no matter what kind of crazy abilities developed in the lower strata. But Feferi wanted to learn about all her subjects, not just the high-bloods, so she'd proposed an idea to her sister.
When she originally approached Meenah with her suggestion, she'd expected resistance from The Condesce, but nothing quite like what she received.
"Sister," she said, crouching down next to Meenah's throne. "I min-now you've been preparing me to rule one day, so I thought it would be a reelly good op-perch-tuna-ty if I were to travel around and sea the other trolls in and world and get to glub with them. I bereef it would help me connet with them," she said as quickly and respectfully as possible. She sat back and waited as her sister appeared to think over her proposal, lightly tapping the bottom of her 2x3dent on the floor.
Finally, she turned her head in Feferi's direction, sending waves through her hair and the clinking of all her jewelry—necklaces, earrings, rings, and bracelets—through the nearly-empty Throne Room. A few blue-blooded Defenders paced the perimeter but otherwise paid no attention to the Peixeses' conversation.
"Uh-uh, girl," Meenah said quietly, and that alone was enough to make Feferi want to run—The Condesce only dropped her voice like that when she was really angry. "You ain't goin' anywharf, trust me. You still gotta lot to learn before you go swimmin' around an' mixin' with the low-bloods, so..." She got to her feet and Feferi immediately stood up, feeling her collapsing and expanding bladder-based aquatic vascular system begin to work overtime. Meenah was still a head taller than her and had thirty-six sweeps and far more combat experience than her, and Feferi suddenly remembered this all at once and wished she hadn't said anything. Her first instinct was to back away slowly, but that would probably only infuriate The Condesce further, and when Meenah turned toward her, she found that she was rooted to the spot anyway. "Why don't you go splash off before I make you splash off?"
Feferi nodded quickly and absconded from the Throne Room as quickly as possible, ashamed of herself for the fear she felt. Her sister had engaged the previous Alternian empress in combat and wrested the crown away from her, an old custom, but Feferi knew she couldn't win against her sister, and Meenah knew it, too, which was why she kept her close. Feferi wouldn't be able to take down Meenah—she would only inherit the throne after Meenah died, whether by natural causes or someone else's hand.
She didn't stop running until she arrived in front of her blocks. She pushed open the entrance portal, shoved it closed behind her, and sank to a limp pile on the floor. Still trembling from terror, she drew her knees up to her chest and bit her lip, trying not to cry. She'd witnessed her sister impaling trolls on her 2x3dent for frankly stupid reasons, but she didn't honestly believe Meenah would try to kill her over something so trivial. Despite this, she wasn't convinced that one day Meenah wouldn't try to kill her. If she ever attempted it, she would probably succeed. Feferi's only defense was to remain of more use to her alive than dead, and right now, it seemed she was.
Meenah would send her as an emissary in her stead to quell very minor issues that some of the high-bloods had or as a representative at openings of museums or schools or stores. Meenah always went to the bakery openings herself, though—for reasons Feferi could never fathom, Meenah loved baking.
But for pretty much all of her life, Feferi's only companion had been Meenah. She would sometimes log onto Trollian and chat with strangers on the internet, but she never bonded with any of them. Trolls were supposed to have had a matesprit or a kismesis or even a moirail by now, but all of Feferi's quadrants had always remained unfilled, and she was incredibly lonely. She'd never even had a real friend—even excluding potential moirallegiances. She had a feeling that, if she had someone else who could soothe her, her sister wouldn't intimidate her so much.
She climbed into her recuperacoon, and even after she heard through her shellphone that Meenah had departed to call on The Grand Highblood, Feferi didn't bother getting out until she was summoned for supper. She ate alone since Meenah hadn't returned.
The Condesce didn't return until two nights later, shortly after nightbreak. Feferi got an update on her shellphone—as did everyone in the palace—informing her that Her Imperious Condescension had arrived back from visiting The Grand Highblood, and Feferi knew that her first stop would be the ingestion block, where Feferi currently was, for breakfast. She wolfed down two more bites of food before she heard her sister approaching and immediately stood up, waiting for Meenah's entrance. A few moments later, the entrance portal blew open and The Condesce strode in, tapping her 2x3dent on the floor as she crossed the block, heading right for Feferi. "Girl, come here an' give yo' sista' some suga'!" she called, flinging her arms wide.
Feferi was used to these moods, too. Meenah was clearly a lot more cheerful than she had been two nights before, and she knew that the only way to keep her happy was to give her what she wanted, so she dutifully approached and kissed her sister on both cheeks. "Good evening, Meenah," she said. "Did you have a good trip to sea The Grand Highblood?"
"Oh, that bitch? She great an' all, but it's fintastic to be back here! I missed ma' little sista'!"
"Me, too," Feferi lied. "I'm glad you're back as whale."
"Exshellent! Water we eatin' today?"
It took nearly an hour for Meenah to stop talking about what a beach The Grand Highblood was (Feferi had never met her, so she reserved judgment) and what issues The Grand Highblood was having with the low-bloods (Feferi had a suspicion that Meenah and The Grand Highblood had a kismesissitude going, but she knew better than to openly surmise on her sister's love life) and bring the conversation around to what she'd probably intended to tell Feferi in the first place.
"Oh, so while I was glubbin' with The Grand Highbitch, I may a' mentioned yo' little suggestion about tourin' Alternia."
Feferi wanted to drop her head to the nutrition platform and groan. She knew already that it was a mistake—she didn't need Meenah telling The Grand Highblood about it, too. "I sea," she said quietly instead, forcing herself to keep looking at Meenah.
"Yeah, an' The Grand Highboob actually fins it a halfway decent idea," Meenah went on. "She glubbed me into seein' yo' point a' view on the whole fuckin' idea, an' I think I'ma let you do it."
Feferi couldn't believe it—Meenah had actually changed her mind on something. Meenah was actually letting Feferi do something! For a second, she was frozen, unsure if Meenah was playing an elaborate prank, but her sister seemed to be looking at her expectantly, so she asked, "R-reelly?"
"Yeah, reelly. Yo' right, you min-now. You gotta go out an' see the trolls you gonna rule eventually. Might as whale do it now. Besides, it's about time you got outta the palace here—you been cooped up here for sweeps."
Still in shock, Feferi managed to choke out a thank you. Suddenly, she was swept by the nearly-overwhelming urge to run right out of the block and out of the palace and swim as far as she could. The air had a strange taste to it that almost seemed like freedom, and she just knew that this would be the start of something great. "So, when will I go?" she asked.
"Tomarlin," Meenah said simply. "You gonna meet up with The Grand Highblood's brother, The Young Highblood, an' he's gonna show you around Alternia since he been out there before. So you should go pack pretty quick."
Feferi nodded quickly, took one last bite—joy had filled her stomach far better than food—and absconded from the ingestion block in a much better mood than the last time she'd left her sister.
She hoped she would like The Young Highblood. Who knew? She might even find a moirail out of this whole situation.
Oh, my cod, so many fish puns. HOW THE FUCK DO I FISH PUNS HELP.
Next chapter will focus on Eridan and Cronus, so that should be fun. (And in case you missed the cast list in the previous chapter, The Grand Highblood is a genderbent Kurloz. I mostly just wanted to call her The Grand Highboob a few thousand times, because my headcanon Kurlas has an impressive rack. Even Meenah notices it.)
