Be Rose
The transportorlizator dropped her a few blocks from her home the walk back to which was mundane, the path well wore under her soles. When she reached her apartment, a man in an ill fitting uniform held the door open for her. "Good evening Ms. Lalonde" the doorman greeted, Rose smiled at him and returned his greeting. The lobby was empty besides the two of them, it was rather late after all. On a whim, she decides to take the stairs instead of the elevator and walk up to the fifth floor. Her apartment was the last one at the end of the hall. There was a little light visible from her bedroom as she opened the door. Rose darted inside and closing the door as quickly and quietly as she could. She slipped her coat off, laid her keys down on the table next to the door, and approaches the door of her bedroom.
A troll sat on the edge of her bed, her back to the door, curled around a notebook that she wasn't supposed to read out of. Her light taken a green tint, the same color that was dusted across her cheeks. The bio-luminescence was not a trait unique to just this troll, but Rose always associated it with her. Rose approached her bed slowly before pouncing, wrapping her arms around the troll's throat . "You're not supposed to read that yet, Kanaya" Rose whispered in her ear. She jumped, turned, the green in her cheeks a little more pronounced. "Rose I...I'm sorry I couldn't help my self" she returned the embrace, the feel of her skin was not warm but the hug was still enjoyable. Rose pulled away to see her face "So how is it? Does it live up to your expectations so far?"
"It is really really good. When does your publisher want it?"
"By the end of February." Rose moved little closer, "I did not expected you tonight. Are you hungry?"
"No, not really. The Heiress has chosen a location for the meeting. I was asked to pass it on to you."
The location is on a little white sheet of paper, the coordinates written in honey colored ink. Rose tucked it away. Kanaya sat the notebook beside her and pulled Rose closer. They stayed like that for awhile, talking about the newest happening within Prospit, the brooding caverns, and the rebellion. Kanaya's voice sounds a little odd as the topic of the cravens comes into the conversion.
"Kanaya, is something wrong?" Rose asked.
Kanaya looked taken back, "No no no, nothing is wrong. Why do you ask?"
Rose did not respond, she just looked at Kanaya observing how her fangs pinched her bottom lip ever so slightly, how green her eyes were as they avoided contact with her own, how she stiffen when Rose leaned closer. Rose poised her lips to breath Kanaya's name when... "Oh alright, something is wrong." She took a deep, shaky breath and for a moment Rose thought she 'd made a critical error in pushing Kanaya.
"The cravens had gotten significantly worse. The patrols have increased because the empire is assured that the rebel has found their way into the tunnels. They are not wrong about that and the extra patrols would not be a problem..." She took another breath, "as no one knows every in and out of the tunnels. I mean they spread all over the world." Kanaya rambled, Rose did not interrupt. "Anyway, patrols would not be a problem were it not for the very public and painful punishments doled out to those who break the rules. The most recent happen this morning in my conglomerate. They forced us all out of our hives to watch" Rose took her hand with it's callous yet some how delicate fingers. Tears slid down her cheeks. "As she was turned into a rainbow drinker. Rose, they slit her open and took her horns. They let her die slowly. She wasn't even one of the traitors." She sobbed harder, rose pulled her closer.
"It is not your fault." She spoke softly "It is not your fault. You are not responsible for a broken system."
"Bu if the jades working under Feferi were to crease? Would it really make that much of a difference to the rebellion."
" Yes it would; the heiress' commutation network would be crippled. The punishments would continue and your sisters would continue suffering in vain." Kanaya didn't respond to that right away, but she did not pull away either. A few minutes later she added, "You are right of course. At this point ending our work besides, we are fighting for our freedom." She looked a lot more hopeful but then her face fall again. "I don't know how much longer I can risk coming to see you." Rose pressed herself further into the bed "I expected that would happen sooner or later. It is dangerous for you to traverse out of the cravens to see me for social visits." Kanya nodded, "Which is why we should enjoy the time we have together."
Much sooner than either of them would have liked Kanaya found herself sliding out Rose's bed, allowing her horns to phasing into her skull and as the grey of her skin became a more reddish- brown Kanaya slid on the jacket she had brought with her. Rose left the bed as well, "I forgot to ask, did your dancestor and her hive mate ever seek political asylum with Derse?" She asked as they approached the door. This question drew a heavy sigh. "No. They are both too stubborn and too assured of their safety in the cravens. They did, however, move much deeper underground into a more secure location. At least I hope it's more secure."
Kanaya kissed her before leaving: it was always odd not having to kiss around fangs. Once the door was closed and locked, Rose turned to her apartment, with it's pale creams and much darker accents, deciding what to do with the rest of her night. She had barely taken a step away from the door when her vision went dark and everything went silent. Rose felt her body hit the floor and realized with a sort of resigned horror that this vision was going to be painful. The vacuum of sensation was filled a voice, accented and garbled, she could not make sense of what was said. Rose felt her own mouth begin to move before there was a flash of white light and pain. Lots of pain; a wet searing heat that spread from just under her breast to her belly button.
There was a pool of blood forming under her. And she could hear one more disembodied voice, still completely incomprehensible, more lights, adding red and blue to the now hazy white. She was passing out, no the person in vision was, the voices getting farther away. The lights were being consumed by the darkness, but the pain was still vivid and searing. New, only slightly more coherent, voices were replacing the garbled ones. They were all speaking at once, thousands of little voices all at once, the force of them hurt.
'One at a time!' Rose screamed, she was never sure if that particular bellow was out loud or just a thought. It was ignored eveytime she said it.
After an eternity of listening to the storm of voice, she could finally make sense of something being repeated over and over again. "The one who honors their blood yet abhors it must be wary of threats within as well as without." Rose woke up so after that, greeted by the blindingly bright morning sun shining thought her balcony doors. She groaned into the carpet metally praising it for it's softness. She would have continued to lay there, were it not for the aforementioned sun. Rose definitely needed the blackout curtains hanging in her bedroom, but need the bathroom more.
Standing after a vision was always a spectacle, walking was even worse , but over the years Rose had managed to learn to stay upright most of the time and usually only fall once on her way to the bathroom, she hadn't fallen once this time, she was ever improving. Once assured the contents of her stomach would stay such, Rose went over to sink to stare in the mirror. She was, as always a horrifying sight, crying, the tears emitting a white light as they made tracks over her round cheeks, and her pale blonde hair standing on end. Her headband was missing, probably abandon on her living room floor. Her eyes were still miscolored, the white of her eyes having swallowed the iris and pupil whole. Rose blinked; once, twice, three times before her eyes went back to normal and the tears stopped. She didn't bother with her hair. Rose walked out of her bathroom and straight into her bedroom, kicking off the boots that had been on for hours, she slid underneath her covers and stared into the darkness. She closed her eyes, letting the vision's details bounce around the inside of her skull and deciding not to tell Doctor Scratch about this vision.
Be The )(eiress
"Meehah please, you don't .. you don't have to go." she said, standng in the doorway of the bedroom Meehah shared with Aranea. Fuchsia slid down her cheeks. Meehah turned to her,sitting the trident and the cloth she had been using to shine it down. "Whale you stop your blabbin'", that made Feferi cry harder. Meehah signed, walked until she could touch the young troll, and kneel. It didn't make much of a difference, Meehah still towered over her.
"I do gotta go" Meehah said softy, "If I dont no one will and Condy will come and kill you. And I need you alive. Who else gonna rule the empire. Shore as hell aint gonna be me." Meehah laid a hand on her shoulder, "When this is over the empire's gonna need a lot of fixin so you gotta be tough, lright suckerfish?" Feferi wiped her tears away, bobbing her head up and down. Meehah smiled, all her jagged shark teeth on display, the hug she pulled Feferi into surprised her. Meehaeh let go quickly and stood, "Meehah, Cronus is here." Aranea said, from the hall. Meehah nodded, picked up her double sided trident and walked out of the room. She didn't say goodbye.
The grubloaf sat half eaten on a bed of rice and mixed vegetables, well mostly lima beans now that Feferi had picked out all the carrots and corn. Eridan sat next to her, his plate was almost clean and a text book larger than he was in front of him. It was about magic and both of them were supposed to be reading it. The lights dimmed over their heads; it wasn't an odd occurrence in the small hive Aranea and Meehah shared, still Feferi looked up, watching as dust fell into her plate from the trembling roof. Another regular ourrcurce. Aranea ran into the room: a very visible flush of cerulean across her cheeks. Her eyes showed too much yellow. She moved to the closet door, held it open, the hive shook again. "Get in" She spoken quickly and clearly, before either of them could speak. "T8 everthing w8 you and stay q8. You must NOT m8 a sound or come out 8efore I say so. I don't say so: es8pe though the tunnel just like we practiced. Do NOT come 8ack for m8. Do you underst8?"
Feferi nodded, clearing the table of both sets of dining ware while Eridan carried the text book. The door closed behind him, leaving them in almost darkness. The old wooden door had a few cracks in it just large enough to see out of. Eridan crawls passed her, passed piles of Meehah's and Araena's belongings, to a little trap door not to much wider than she was. Feferi planted herself by in front of the cracks to watch Araena move about the room . She watched her push the chairs under the table, watched Araena something from a canister which she promptly tucked back into the folds of her blight blue dress, heard the sound of boots hitting the wooden floors approaching the sitting room. Araena kneeled in the center of the room, her horns to the floor. Two unknown trolls entered the room- land dwelling highbloods-sweeping the room like deep purple waves.
The two followed Eridan's predecessor, a troll she only knew as Dualscar, walked into the room and out of her line of sight. "Araena, wwhere is Eridan. Cronus was suppose to bring him here!" Araena did not lift her head, "I have not seen him, Lord Ampora." Araena said calmly. Dualscar growled, then went silent as more foot steps abused the well worn wood floor of the underground hive, heels this time. The wearer of those heels, fuchsia stilettos to be exact made fefei's collapsing and expanding vascular system stop working. )(er Imperious Condescension had just entered the room. "Fef wwhats goin on?" Eridan whispered beside her, Feferi didn't respond, just watched as the Condesce glides in and out of her line of sight: all gold jewelry and black hair that looked more like tentacles than hair, as she surveying the room carrying a golden trident that matched Meehah's.
"I like what you've done with the place, Araena." the Condesce purred.
"Thank you, your Cond..."
"Remind me, W)(O gave you this hive in the first place, Araena? Better yet, tell me who let you live after your predecessor's part in that weakass of rebellion. Who let you and meehah live?"
"You did, your impe..."
"So why did that BITCH try and cull me tonight hm? After I so graciously let her live!" She paced into Feferi's line of vision around Araena like a predator.
"I do not kn..."
"But you do know, tell me why did I let Meehah live?" the Condesce prodded Araena's head up with the edge the trident until she was looking at the Condesce.
"Meehah renouced the throne and proved herself useful to you by proving information.."
"None of that includes hiding the heir to ma throne Araena." Feferi took notice of the shakng in Araena shoulder. The Condescension saw it too.
"I swear to you I have no knowlege of another tyanart troll besides yourself and Meehah, my lady."
The Condesce took a deep breath "Then what was your morail doing tonight?"
"I do not know" The Empress made a sound deep in her throat that Feferi could not describe but she moved the trident away from Araena's throat which had to be a good thing.
"I do not know whether or not you are telling the truth, but either way you are useless."
The trident moved and then cerulean was all Feferi could see. Distantly, she heard Araena's body slumped to the floor. Eridan pulled her away from the door and she realized her own hand covered her mouth. "Fef,wwe need to go." She felt her body shake, the weight of the hand on her shoulder didn't seem to be coming from Eridan. ""Fef,wwe need to go." Eridan's mouth was moving, but the voice was not coming from him.
Her body jerked into a sitting position, eyes opening to see the dusty rafters of a warehouse instead of the low ceiling of Araena's closet. The warehouse was brightened with the coming dawn and the light was burning her unadjusted eyes. Eridan leaned over her face, full of concerned; older now, his eyes were almost finished taking in the violet color of his blood or they would be the color of his blood if he wasn't already in his human appearance. Gog, she felt foolish, dawn was already here and she was still in her bed..sleeping bag. "Sorry Eridan, I overslept." well that sounded pathetic as soon as it left her lips. Eridan sat back on his hunches,"it's ok fef but wwe really should be moving on. Sol was suppose to meet us so."And he did not sound happy about it as he stood.
She stood too; bending back down to roll up the sleeping, the denim short chafing her thighs, they were getting too small. Feferi allowed her horns to slip back into her skull and her skin to darken to brown rather than the grey of a young troll. All trolls could perform this magic despite their aptitude in the art. She tucked her very few belonging into her knapsack and slid the straps over her shoulders before pulling her trident from her strife specibus. Eridan had been ready to leave for a while now and stood by the door that would be leaving out of- Ahab's Crosshairs in his hands, armed and ready- he was the first out the door sweeping their surroundings for enemies. They looked silly as they crept about the property but who cares about looking silly. It wouldn't have been the first time empire soldiers were waiting to ambush them outside of their camp.
The industrial area of this town was pretty much abandoned, so they didn't run into anyone as they walked the streets. A few cars pass them, morning commuters on their way to work, when they reached the more populated parts of the city, they moved though alleyways. Sollux waited near an opera house of all places: standing on the street hunched over, wear a black hoodie too thick for today's warm weather. When he saw them he dropped his knapsack and pulled Feferi into a tight hug. "Missed you FF" His voice was low. it made her smile, "Missed you too." she murmured against his shoulder. Eridan cleared his throat. Sollux growled in response, but they pulled away from one another.
"Wwhere are wwe headed to next, Fef?"
Feferi smiled, "We're heading to the base in Mozambique to check on progress there."
