Your name is KARKAT VANTAS, and you are logging onto trollian for the first time in three sweeps. You account is clogged with spam- it takes you an hour to dredge through it all.

"Is your blood too blue? Buy purple dye today!"

"The Empire's forces need you!"

"How to pack on muscle and stay limber."

As you reach the end of the spam, there are only real messages left.

"KaRkAt, WhErE aRe YoU, bRoThEr?"

"Karkat, fef's all upset because Nepeta said that Terezi misses you. Wwhere the fuck are you?"

"K4RK4T, WH3R3 AR3 YOU? TH4T NOT3 YOU L3FT W4S DUMB. YOU DON'T GET TO L34V3 W1TH TH4T 4S YOU GOODBY3. 'R3DD3R TH3N YOU KNOW' 1T'S L4ME, K4RKL3S."

"Where are you? Your loser girlfriend's all twisted up about it. Did you stand her up on a d8 or something?"

"Karkat, I'm Worried About Gamzee's Mental State. He Seems… Volatile. Contact Me Soon. As Much As I Hate The Stereotype of Violent Highbloods, You May Need To Pacify Him."

Message after message, saying 'where are you, we need you, I miss you, it's been a sweep, and you're still gone, what happened?'

You feel like a dick. You abandoned your friends with nothing but a quick farewell to Terezi, and left them to wonder if you where even alive, until after three sweeps they stopped trying to contact you. Forgot about you. Moved on. There's one person online.

carcinoGeneticist[CG] began trolling grimAuxiliatrix[GA]

GA: Karkat?

CG: HEY, FUCKASS.

GA: Karkat, You're Alive.

CG: HADN'T NOTICED, THANKS.

GA: Where Have You Been? You Disappeared Three Sweeps Ago. Everyone Assumed That You Were Dead.

CG: I'VE BEEN GOING TO SCHOOL IN THE DESERT.

GA: You're In The Wastes? Karkat, Is That A Joke? As Far As I Know, I Am The Only Troll In Our Group Who Can Stand The Sun. What Are You Doing Out Here?

CG: OH, I FORGOT. YOU LIVE IN THE DESERT TOO. I TOLD YOU, I'M GETTING MY SCHOOLFEED ON.

GA: Well, I'm Glad You Aren't Dead.

CG: ME TOO.

GA: …I Finished The Jacket I Was Making For You.

CG: WHAT JACKET?

GA: Before You Left, You Asked Me To Make A Coat For You. By The Time I Had Finished It, You Had Been Gone For A Week.

CG: I DON'T EVER REMEMBER ASKING YOU FOR A COAT.

GA: I Can Mail It To You.

CG: YOU DON'T KNOW MY ADRESS. IT PROBABLY WON'T FIT ANYWAY.

GA: I Could still Send It To You. Or Make You A New Coat.

CG: HOW WOULD YOU GET THE COAT TO ME? YOU DON'T KNOW WHERE I LIVE.

GA: So Send Me Your Address.

CG: I AM NOT SURE THAT'S A VERY GOOD IDEA.

GA: Why? Where Do You Live?

CG: UHHH

carcinoGeneticist [CG] ceased trolling grimAuxiliatrix [GA]

You are exceedingly, unforgivably stupid. What made you think contacting her was a good idea? Stupid Kanaya and her stupid helping you (which is probably some form of heavily veiled passive-aggression).

The PA system crackles to life.

"Vantas. You're giving a speech in an hour. Please make you was to the auditorium."

Oh, fuck. You'd forgotten about that. The bosses chose you as a role model for all the new trolls. You had to give a speech. It probably wouldn't go very well. You bang on the wall that connects to Terezi's room.

"I'm heading to the Auditorium, if you want to come."

"One second." You hear her door open after a beat, and the then sharp 'tap-tap-tap' of her cane on the steel.

"Yeah." You say, and enter the hallway, leading your old friend down the halls of your new home.

Your name is TEREZI PYROPE. Walking down the hall with Karkat is a strange experience. He gets a few

Yells along the lines of; "Hey Karcrab!"

A few shiny-red apples thrown; "HEY! KARCRAB! HAVE A CRAB APPLE."

But the strangest is the way that most trolls press themselves out of the way, folding into doorways like he carries a deadly weapon- a respect, a fear. A few trolls curtsy, bow, a few look like they're pants-shittingly terrified.

But your old Matesprit takes it all in stride. Doesn't say a word, doesn't flinch when apples hit him in the back and go rolling down the halls, doesn't even acknowledge the bowers and scrapers.

"I have to give a speech." He makes a face. "It's going to be fucking terrible."

"You won't be that bad, Karcrab." The nickname is infectious.

"Go get a seat. You'll see." He stalks off, this five-foot-nothing block of rough, indignant elegance.

The room smells. It reeks like nothing ever has before. It is a mix of tropical fruit and candy and ocean and springtime, a heady, over-powering mixture of colours that shouldn't exist. You sit near the front, because no one sits near the front, and you want some breathing room.

A short woman with gills and pronged ears hops onstage.

"Welcome to the Signless's Training Shelter." She says, with no hint of a seadweller accent.

"I am Samudra, but you're going to call me officer Vermundee."

Vur-mun-daee. There's the seadweller drawl you're expecting. The e is long and the V is clipped, the R is trilled, like the woman is trying to sing her name.

The woman has four horns, the front two are curved and long, the back two round nubs like Karkat's. If you ignore her head, they look like question marks.

"I usually give the opening speech, but this year, we're changing things up. Please welcome Kartkat Vantas to the stage!"

Banners drop- dripping candy red in the two swooping circles that you recognize as Karkat's symbol. The red stands out sharply against the grey of the banner, and you feel unsettled. Red Stitching and red symbols and grey fabric.

You reach for you neck, unconsciously seeking something, but it is not there.

Karkat takes the stage. He's (Grudgingly) wearing this cloak that pulls up over his head, with holes for his tiny horns to poke through. It's the same grey as the banners.

"You look dumb, Karkat!" You yell.

He gives you the finger. "You can't even see me!"

Karkat turns away from you, staring out over the crowd, and he seems taller, bigger, then he is, in his grey cloak and black leggings.

"As this member of the crowd so helpfully pointed out," He begins, shooting you a glare.

"I am dressed in a way that I wouldn't normally be dressed. I do, as she also pointed out, look dumb." There is a flash of sharp steel at his belt.

"I am dressed like someone none of you will recognize, because none of you had a proper education." He says, and slips his sickle easily from his waist.

"But allow me to tell you the story of the Sufferer, the Signless." He nicks his palm along a long, vivid scar, and bright red rolls down his hand and onto the stage. "The mutant."

Karkat tells a much-abridged version of the Sufferer's tale, with more expletives then are usually in the story. You, of course, already know this story. Vriska and you and Aradia had shared ancient legends, Aradia for the history, Vriska for the blood, and you for the whispers of Redglare that were tucked into the dead stories.

"And I know you may not believe in legends." Blood drips, unnoticed, from his palm, splashing onto the stage.

"In your short, cruel lives, what reason were you even given to believe in something? Your sweeps have been haunted by cruelty and fear, every moment of your lives since you first got into a strife and let someone see your blood."

He slides his sickle back into his belt. Once again, he seems taller, bigger, older, then he is.

"Why would you, trolls who have never even had the hubris to believe in another meal, believe in fairy tales?"

He sighs, and the gesture is so not-Karkat, so pleading, polite, empathetic, that it doesn't seem like him on stage anymore.

"But the fairy tales are true." He says. "And now, now you are safe here. Safe from hunters and drones and the fear of culling. Safe from starvation and sleepless, soporless nights. And now, you can believe."

He holds his hand up high, waving the mutant blood for all to see.

"The sufferer shared my blood." He says. "He had the same fear and doubt that you all have, and he didn't hide himself away. He fought. He fought for a new world where blood was just blood. Where this red line on my hand would require a bandage, not a hanging!"

"Where we could walk amongst those of pure blood and know that we belong. The Sufferer is my ancestor." He smiles wryly.

"And I thought ancestors were just grub tales too. But now I know. Tell me you didn't feel something when I walked on stage. Tell me you don't know that there is something in my blood that is not in any other blood in the universe." He flexes his hand, and fresh red oozes from his palm.

"Tell me that when you saw these clothes, you didn't feel a change coming. They tried to erase the Sufferer's legacy, they tried to blot him from our society, but you cannot stop change, and the hope of this change has been passed down through the genetics of our race. So when you see me in these clothes, when you see my blood, you know that change is coming."

You frown. He's leaving a lot out of the myth.

"I have in me the genetic disposition for change. And it is in all of you, too. In the Low-blood seadwellers, in the neon-bloods, the black-bloods, the pastels, the psychics. In each of you there is the hope for change."

The trolls were listening hard. Sweeps of desperation where pouring out of them, replaced by a fervent belief of what Karkat says.

"Together, we can change the world. No more culling laws, no more trolls like us ending up as exotic paint, or lipstick. You have fought your way here, you will fight your way to the moons and back before we have won, and that determination, the power and hunger for change that I see in so many of you- that makes you ten times the person of any pureblood."

He presses his hand into the wall, leaving a red smudge, bright as the sun.

"When you feel that there is no hope, when you think that there is nothing more you can do, remember that the Sufferer died signless, swearing, struggling, because he wanted to create a future. And remember that he nearly succeeded, and he was one troll. And remember, you are the future of Alternia. You are the ones who will carve the path to greatness, and through you, the true glory of our race will shine."

His speech is hauntingly familiar, and the fervor he's whipped up reminds you of nothing more then the frantic desire of the subjugglators after a sermon.

You stare at the mutants around you, and they are wrong. You stare at your wiggler-hood friend on the stage; dressed up in big-boy clothes, and that cloak, those leggings… you do not know whether to worship him of hang him.

What you've seen tonight is grounds for a culling, but you cannot bring yourself to contact the Legislacerators just yet. You stand in the auditorium hours after everyone else has left, staring at the red smear on the wall. Without knowing what you are doing, you trace the Sufferer's symbol in Karkat's blood.

Then you are on the floor, false pastel tears leaking from your ruined eyes, the burning, unnatural scent of cherry blood filling your nose.

"Terezi." He says, gently, and puts a warm hand on your back. "Go home."

The warm-hand-warm-voice leads you back to your room, and when you turn around to see your escort, you see a short, tee-shirt wearing, distressingly normal Karkat.

"My Speech was that fucking moving, huh?" He asks, and you laugh a wet, gross laugh, and you ache to feel the easy proximity you had with him when you were six sweeps.

Instead, you unsheathe your cane-sword and swish it through the air.

"Let's go, miracle man." You say, because fighting is easier then the awkward shoosh-pap you know is coming. He slides the sickle from his belt, fluidly, easily, and you stare at his arms.

You have never seen Karkat Vantas in a tee-shirt before, and whatever he's been doing for the past three sweeps had given him the kind of muscles a highblood would droll over. His arms are knotted with pink-white scars, and the knobs of healed fractures, and the thrum of blood and strength under his skin.

You take a swipe at his cheek, lazily, and stumble forwards when your blade meets neither cheek nor parry, but open air. Karkat is standing in the exact same spot her was before, looking smug.

You jag at his chest, and he sways to the side on loose knees, sickle arm relaxed at his side.

Huh. He's better then you remember him. If Karkat hadn't been a mutant, he would have made a phenomenal Threshecutioner.

You feint, and then change direction mid-stroke, rewarded by a clang of steel-on-steel as Karkat's weapon meets yours. You lusus lets out a murmuring growl of warning.

Don't hurt her. The growl says, and you turn to give her a look. Steel meets the flesh of your neck, pressing but not biting.

"Dead."

"Cheating!" You protest, and Karkat grins.

"Like you never did that to me."

You shrug, and the hook of the sickle parts from your neck. The two of you swing and jab and hook, gently at first, testing, trying, then there's a clashing, roaring, sweating fight. You are formal and legal and proper, jabbing and flicking and trying to disarm, the way you were taught. Honorably, politely.

Karkat fights like a feral lowblood, biting and rolling and tripping and kicking, hooking the sickle around your leg and pulling you to the ground with a grunt and a snarl and a thud.

You are taller them him, you have longer reach, but Karkat stays close and fights dirty, and you were not trained for this. You are good, but for the first time, someone else is just a little bit better.

You stagger, head swimming, as he hooks his sickle around your horn and tugs, and you trip over his waiting foot, and your blade clatters across the room, and he's got his own at your neck for the second time that night.

You grin. "Karkat, that was very impressive, but you forgot something."

"What?" He pants, sweaty and tired and covered in tiny, bright-red nicks. Your lusus flows over the ground and knocks him off you, all smooth lines and easy grace. Your lusus has her claws at his throat, and her teeth bared in a grimace.

"I have a dragon." You say, and said dragon falls onto of Karkat, jaws clicking shut with an audible crack, grunting, rumbling coughs wracking her.

"Are you trying to actually kill me?" He asks, indignant and flustered and familiar. You pull him from under your lusus- Christ; he's warm- and sit on the floor next to him,watching as your mother fights for breath with reptilian coughs.

"Terezi, I'm no Tavros, but even I can tell that your lusus is sick as shit."

You wince.

"Why? I thought dragons were supposed to be like, perpetual badasses."

"It's the blood." You say, and Karkat stared from you, to the lusus, then back again.

"The blood-dye made her sick? Terezi, are you okay?"

You smile, and you feel the catch in your throat as you say, "Yes, I'm fine." But your Lusus's coughing always sets off your own, and you are on your knees, hacking like you don't need your lungs.

Karkat's fever-hot hand rests on your back, and is somehow soothing. He whispers 'Shh, It's okay," to you, like you are a grub with a nightmare, and you have forgotten how good he is at this. You calm right down, and the heat of his hand leaves you, and the motherfucker shoosh-paps your lusus.

It works, too. And when dragon mom is sleeping peacefully, he stares up at you, concern and anger and indigence.

"What are you doing here? Terezi?" He asks, and you press your blade against his chest and tear his shirt. Neon red beads the cut and slides down his chest, and you fix you eyes on where the blood is, and you both sit in silence, staring as the sufferer's blood slides down Karkat's chest.

AN: WOW. You are Fantastic. The support I've gotten for this fic so far is phenomenal. Thanks to everyone whose read/favorited/followed my story or me. This fic is in it's early stages, but damn, I will write as fast as I can because you guys deserve it.

If you have any Questions/criticisms, don't hesitate to give 'em to me.

-Frogs.