Vriska wasn't sure when exactly she drifted off, but she was quite certain that she was asleep again when she heard Trollian chime a few more times. It was time for another annoyance. She forced herself out of her cocoon and (paying a bit more attention to getting the slime off of her clothes this time) shuffled over to her computer. The messages she found this time were significantly more polite.

-grimAuxiliatrix [GA] began trolling arachnidsGrip [AG]-

GA: Its Time For You To Get Up Again

GA: I Think Ive Given You Enough Time To Recover From Your Encounter With Karkat Anyway

GA: After Navigating The Obstacle Course That Is Your Room I Trust You Can Also Make Your Way Downstairs And Outside

GA: Dont Worry About The Sun

-grimAuxiliatrix [GA] ceased trolling arachnidsGrip [AG]-

In retrospect, Vriska couldn't imagine Kanaya not being involved in all of this. It was characteristically fussy of her. As she ambled downstairs, she attempted to formulate a witty opening remark. Hey, Fussyfangs! I should have known you'd be the mastermind behind this! No, that was too direct. Kanayaaaaaaaa, can't a girl get her rest? No, that wasn't right either somehow. I guess not even death can stop you from meddling with everyone you know! Yeah, that sounded good.

As Vriska stepped out the front door of her hive, however, all this was forgotten in a blinding flash of sunlight. She attempted to shield her face with her arms and closed her eye, as if that would do much good. She was so convinced that the light was going to blind and possibly incinerate her that it took her several moments to realize that it wasn't hurting her at all. She tentatively dropped her arms and opened her eye. After a moment or two, it adjusted to the light.

And the adjustment revealed that Vriska was no longer standing outside her hive, but outside of a very different one. Her ostentatious castle had been replaced by a strange structure with spires and orb-shaped rooms, and a volcano stood where Equius's hive was supposed to be. The ground was covered in snow and sheets, which seemed to be protecting various bushes, trees, and flowers from the frost. Really, it was entirely too cold in this dream. Fortunately, however, she was quickly granted a reprieve from one of the towers.

"Apologies for making you walk outside like that, but I needed some time to prepare!" A rather precise voice shouted from above. "You can come back up now."

A brightly dressed figure retreated to the other side of the window. Vriska rolled her eye. In the end, this probably wasn't going to be any better than a battle of insults with Karkat. She opened the door to the unfamiliar hive (which she correctly assumed was Kanaya's) and made her way back upstairs, to the tower room where she had seen her new guide.

Kanaya's hive was deathly quiet. Vriska wasn't sure if that was an unfortunate or a perfect choice of words, and she knew her hive was frequently just as silent, but it was still extremely unnerving to hear nothing but the sound of her own footsteps as she ascended the stairs. Fortunately, the soft sound of a measured voice interrupted Vriska's thoughts of dread before she reached Kanaya's respiteblock.

Vriska quietly opened the door at the end of the stairs and entered the room. Inside was Kanaya, curled up against her virgin mother grub lusus with a book in her lap. She finished the sentence she was reading before closing the book and looking up at Vriska. "It's good to see you," she said, "looking so alive. Sorry about the wait, but it takes a lot of effort to keep spaces like this together for any length of time."

She placed the book at her side and stood up. At first glance, she looked much more normal than Karkat. She had the same, jarring blank eyes, but was dressed more or less normally. Her dress flowed loosely over her form in vibrant greens and pinks. Sure, she was still dressed like a weirdo, but it was at least a Maryam-specific style of weird.

It started out as a Maryam-specific weird anyway. Soon enough, her dress morphed into a sleeveless black… thing with some rather baggy pants and a white swirl over the chest. Apparently, wherever they made clothing in the afterlife primarily dealt in FLARP-related pajamas or something. Still, Vriska was less interested in mocking Kanaya's outfit than Karkat's. There was also the matter of wings, which Kanaya seemed to have for some reason. A dream was a dream, Vriska supposed.

"Well, hopefully I stay that way for a long time! I mean, of course I will, because really, I'm too tough to die." Vriska laughed. "And even if I weren't, it's not like you'd let me, with all your worrying and fussing."

Kanaya did not seem wholly amused by Vriska's light-hearted response. "We should get started. As Karkat was charged with showing you images of Twelfth Perigees Past, my job today is to show you images of the Twelfth Perigee Present… or Twelfth Perigee Immediate Future, I suppose, but that's neither here nor there. You've entered my part of the scene. I spent… am spending… will spend? You'll have to forgive me, I'm dealing with three different tenses at once between my perspective and yours. Really, I do not envy Aradia's position. It may not be overly complicated, but it is unwieldy.

"I am spending this Twelfth Perigee at home with my lusus. In the coming days, it will serve as a peaceful memory to reflect upon during dark times, but that's the next troll's job. There's honestly not much to see here, so follow me."

Kanaya left her respiteblock, forcibly dragging Vriska behind her by the robotic hand, unwilling to let her be left alone. And it was a good thing that Kanaya was such a conscientious moirail, because the room they entered certainly wasn't the stairwell from Kanaya's hive. It seemed like the main block of a lowblood's hive, evidently Karkat's, as he was pacing on the other side of the block, pausing every few moments to look out the window.

"His lusus has been missing for a few days now. You wouldn't know because he's not speaking to you in this timeframe, but he's been worried sick," Kanaya explained. "And he has every reason to be. You can guess what his chances of survival would be if he suddenly didn't have a lusus."

A knock sounded at the door and Kanaya pushed Vriska out of the ghostly Karkat's way so he could see who it was. His face of dread gave way to relief when he found his crustacean lusus rather than an imperial drone. The reek of the behemoth leaving that the beast brought with it wafted through the dream, particularly pungent. Karkat ushered his lusus inside and began to tackle the task of transporting the leaving inside.

"I guess even that crab celebrates the holidays," Vriska mused.

"Of course he does." Kanaya shrugged. "We all do, I think. Except for you, maybe. I took the liberty of looking through the memories of my timeline's iteration of you once, and I don't believe you even had a small, symbolic leaving to decorate."

"Well, it's not like my lusus can leave the hive to go find one!" Vriska protested. "And I've been busy with other things. Irons in the fire, you know!"

"Fair enough." Kanaya rolled her eyes. "Well, it certainly smells like the Twelfth Perigee in this bubble now. Let's get going again." She closed the door on Karkat and the leaving, which was entirely too big for him to bring in by himself, and opened it again. This was apparently enough to completely change the location on the other side. Instead of Karkat's lawnring, Vriska found herself staring into a cramped respiteblock in a state of disarray. Kanaya beckoned Vriska to enter.

The place was filled with shoddily built ramps and scattered Fiduspawn paraphernalia. A FLARP manual lay in a corner by the computer, looking as if it hadn't been touched in some time. The owner of the respiteblock, Tavros Nitram, sat in his wheelchair by the window, watching the snow fall as his lusus rested in his lap.

"Tavros had a nice, quiet Twelfth, just like I did," Kanaya said. "He, however, had to deal with the very real possibility that this might be his last."

Wheelchair aside, Tavros looked no different than he usually did when he was calm. Vriska, of course, was assuming she knew what Tavros looked like when he was calm, but she suspected Kanaya of playing up a mundane incident into a profound moment. It was, however, an excellently attempted maneuver, if a bit poorly executed, so Vriska decided to play along.

"Because of what I did?"

"Yes, because of what you did. There's practically no chance that he'll survive the sweep, much less to adulthood," Kanaya said. "I hope you're satisfied with your decision to drop him off a cliff and doom him to a needlessly short existence."

And for a moment, Vriska almost genuinely regretted her actions. She hadn't meant to put a death sentence on Tavros. She just wanted to hurt him and assert her dominance. Or did she? As the event grew more distant, she was increasingly less certain what she meant to do that night.

"You've essentially doomed Terezi too, with your pointless cycle of vengeance. As if her odds weren't low enough growing up without a lusus." Kanaya took a seat on Tavros's floor. "I'd show her to you, but I'm getting tired and there's still one more set of memories that needs to be put together, even if I'm not guiding you through them. I'll just tell you, she's the only other one without a behemoth leaving somewhere. She's completely forgotten about the Twelfth Perigee, in favor of adjusting to her new condition.

"Still, for the most part, this was a nice holiday for our group, impending culling for two aside. Quiet, peaceful, almost actually joyous. It's really all you can ask of a final perigee."

And with that Kanaya was gone, but the setting remained unchanged. Evidently, Vriska hadn't woken up yet. She turned back to look at Tavros, in hopes that he would just cut to the chase about whatever there was left to say and let her be. Instead, an empty wheelchair sat in front of the window.

The Trollian chime sent a chill down Vriska's spine. The screen had been off before, but Vriska had picked up by now that that didn't mean a thing in this dream. She stepped over to Tavros's computer check the new messages, ready to accept whatever hand she was dealt.

-gallowsCalibrator [GC] began trolling arachnidsGrip [AG]-

-gallowsCalibrator [GC] ceased trolling arachnidsGrip [AG]-

"I should have known." Vriska snorted. "Of course you'd be back to haunt me somehow, Scourge Sister." She wheeled around, but was confronted with a whole lot of nothing.

Truly nothing. Tavros's respiteblock was gone, leaving only a barren wasteland behind. There were no signs of life, much less a familiar face. It was hardly a reassuring sight, but perhaps a sign of the end of this dream. If whatever force was holding these sights together had deteriorated and begun showing empty spaces like this, then an awakening would not be far off. Still, she couldn't shake the feeling that Terezi's pester hadn't been for nothing, that she wasn't alone.

An icy hand gripped Vriska's shoulder from behind.