"I had a dream, once," the peg-leg one pipes up. Everyone turns their heads towards him.
"Me, too," hook-hand interrupts. "Hi, remember me? I'm Vriska." She put her hook over her chest as she said that.
"Hi, Vriska," everyone else seems to say simultaneously, monotonously, and rolling their eyes.
"And my dream was to become the most feared pirate queen in the seven seas." What is even going on. "I know it's not the greatest dream to have since I don't even own a boat, but someday…"
"Mine was to be her first mate, but uh…" he trails off, looking at his pegs. Why. "I've got a new dream now-"
"I've got a dream to be a world-famous hunter," the cat-looking one adds. It keeps happening. She shows off her collection of pelts on her person, naming off the animals she killed so far. "This one was a ferocious bun-beast, with sharp claws and a vicious grin…" She goes on, but others join in, giving Jade a turn about the room and all the dreams that he never noticed were in the room before. Had they even been in here the whole time?
"I've got a dream that I could be a lawyer, but I can't read," one with a walking stick says. Dave is pretty sure she's blind, too. "And if one person says I can't do it because I can't see, you just wait!" Jade just warily nods in approval. "I can still kick butt!" She waves her stick, but she's facing a wall. It's comical, to say the least.
One-by-one, the thugs start letting go of Dave as they join in the conversation about dreams. He has to give her credit for that one, he thinks as he smiles to himself.
"Kanaya over there does clothes and interior design," the raspy-voiced one says, pointing to a regal-looking lady waving back in the corner. One of the ruffians collapses across the room from Kanaya and makes one of the paintings behind her tilt. She immediately turns and fixes it. Someone's stingy.
Dave is freed when the big, one-red-eyed one lets go and approaches Jade. "Gamzee over there…" He points to a half-naked man with wild hair and a spacey grin. His staring kind of gives Dave the creeps. He glances at Jade, who feels the same way. "We're not really sure what his dream is."
"So don't just write us off for being thugs-" Vriska is interrupted.
"-and ruffians!" adds the lawyer one.
"-and ruffians," Vriska says, rolling her eyes. "Because we are all like you: people with unattainable dreams." She snuck a glance at her pegleg friend as she said that.
Dave speaks up. "That's cool and all, but we really have to skedaddle-"
"What's your dream, outlaw?" Vriska interrupts. Both she and Jade turn towards him, and then all of them turn.
"Outlaw?!" the lawyer one repeats excitedly with a toothy grin.
"Down, Terezi," Vriska commands. "The day will come." She turns her attention to Dave again. "So shades, what's your dream?"
"I'm not telling," he deadpans.
The reaction is immediate: swords threatening to skewer him alive if he didn't spill.
"Yeah, I got a dream, but first it goes a little like this: This is the story all about how/My life got flip-turned upside-down/Now y'all had better sit/It'll only take a minute/I'll tell you how I got to be mixed up in long hair." All they do is blink, even Jade. "In the castle I was hangin', strung up by my bros/Got a crown, escaped some clowns/With my shades, lookin' cool./ When all of a sudden this crazy horse, yo/Musta gotten some vendetta for me, who knows?/I hid in a cave who knew where it led/I got smart and found a-" Jade waves her arms and shakes her head quickly, as if to not say where he found her, and he pauses. "-a girl/She said, 'You take me to the clouds, or face the wrath of my hair!' / So I tell her, like, clouds? What, are you daft?/And she said 'cuz it's her birthday, she should at least get that/So as soon as we're done and I take her home/I turn tail and go, 'and now to the tropics!'/So, hello lotsa money, and goodbye snow!" He adds a smirk and a nod after he finishes, despite knowing that that was probably the worst freestyle he's ever done, and the intense want to crawl under a rock until everyone in this room dies and everyone forgets this incredible debacle.
"That was pretty, uh… anti-climactic," the one with the fake legs says.
"I have to agree with Tavros." Vriska shrugs. "Kinda sucks, to be honest."
"Hey, it may not be as touchy feely, but it's still my dream," Dave growls. He's getting really tired of people shitting on him all the time.
Karkat sputters again, losing the trail yet again. How the hell can a human disappear like that?! Is he losing his sense of smell in his old age? This constant cat-and-mouse game through the forest, going around in circles, is really making Karkat dizzier than he would like. So far, he has seen zero humans besides David Strider, and he's also picked up some very, very long black strands, which is strange because his target has short, blond hair. Is he traveling with an accomplice?
"Oh my, a steed!" a woman's voice calls from behind him. He jumps straight up in the air, startled greatly, and lets out a short whinny. He turns and faces her head-on, and sees that the curly-haired woman is unarmed, except with a basket. "Where is ya' rider?" she asks with amusement. Then when she glances down, her expression turns into pure terror, and some of her hair actually turns white in front of his very eyes. "Where is your rider?"
He blinks and cocks his head, unsure of what he just saw. Then again, he's a mostly-sentient horse, so this really shouldn't surprise him in the slightest.
"Jade!" she suddenly exclaims, and then makes a complete turnaround and takes off running.
What a strange woman, Karkat thinks to himself. However, thanks to that strange woman, he has found a path with a sign that reads, "The Cuddly Grubling 2 km", and gallops forth.
As he gets closer to the building (rather, a tree that looked like someone froze a tornado in time after it destroyed an entire neighborhood), his senses start to go off, indicating that David Strider was inside. Karkat frowns and charges on, not noticing his owner approach the door at the same time.
"Karkat!" Roxy cries. He turns to see his rider, covered in dirt no less, and visually unharmed, fast-walking towards him.
"Am I glad to see you!" he whinnies.
"I'm okay, now," she says, stroking the side of his neck and patting it. She runs her nails through his coat, too. He huffs, letting her know she should stop before he starts acting like a spoiled canine, and motions to the entrance to The Cuddly Grubling. "Do you smell them in there?" she asks. Them? "Good horse! We have reinforcements en route, so we have to wait a little bit." She sighs and looks out to the forest, the sun ready to set in about an hour or two. Karkat is impatient, but does the same. "I really underestimated the guards that were supposed to take the two felons to jail. They apparently knocked out both guards, took their clothes and one of the horses and got away. Can't find good help nowadays, huh KK?"
Typical, he agrees. He huffs in response.
Soon after, they hear the inside go quiet and then a rhythmic speech. He can't hear the specifics, but it's an incredibly annoying-sounding voice, and based on the crowd's silent response, he can tell it wasn't good.
Then five minutes later, the cavalry arrives.
"Show time," Roxy says to Karkat with a wink.
"Let's get this over with," he neighs.
Before they could even get a refreshment, the doors burst open suddenly, making Jade jump. She looks around and sees that nobody else has jumped, so she assumes that it happens all the time. She looks to the door and sees some people in uniforms led by a yellow-haired woman and a horse walk in. Are horses even allowed in he-
As she rounds the bar, she is suddenly yanked down and a hand clamps over her mouth. She struggles, but then recognizes Dave's signature red trousers and stops.
"Don't talk," Dave whispers in her ear. She nods and he lets go. With her eyes, she follows the trail of hair coming from her head and sees that most of it is in a pile by the bar, like it's been moved so many times it became a hassle.
"Where is Dave Strider?" demands the woman. "By the order of the royal guard, we need to find him and arrest him."
Jade shoots Dave a look. So he really is a criminal! That'll teach Jade to trust her instincts against people who she can't even see their eyes, particularly behind dark shades!
"I told you," he mutters. "How do we get out of here?"
"Who?" asks Vriska.
"Dave Strider: wanted criminal in two kingdoms, most likely traveling with two other companions, who may or may not be lovers, and he is armed," Roxy says.
"Ah yes, Dave Strider." Jade's heart almost stops. Is she going to betray them just like that? What if they're both arrested? What if they go to jail and find out that her hair is magical and try to kill her for it?! Mother's never going to forgive her if she comes back without saying goodbye to begin with. "He's right over there by the impeccable paintings, sitting on the broken accordion." Jade resists all urges to peer over the counter and see what's going on. "It's a good thing they didn't find the loose boards behind the counter, right Tavros?"
"Yeah! We uh, knew so we kept him away," Tavros adds.
What is happening? Jade thinks to herself. She shifts her weight from her squatting to cross-legged, and the floor creaks softly. Oh, now she gets it!
"Last time I checked, that's where your office is, right Nepeta?"
"Yup!" she chirps. "Very messy and smelly." She mumbles something after that, but all Jade could understand was "blood" and decided to just let it go. She nudges Dave and gestures to the floor. He nods with understanding.
"Technically a sewer," Vriska adds.
"What about the other two?" Roxy asks.
"Dunno about them. They probably went to use the john outside. Together."
After a short pause, Roxy orders, "You four, out," and the sound of two pairs of feet on the wood floors head outside. "Karkat, with me." One human set of two clicking boots and one set of four hooves start to walk away.
"Rum, anyone?" Vriska calls. A flurry of large ruffians and thugs huddle by the counter and start shouting out exotic sounding drink names. This is their chance to open the door and get out! "Coming right up!" She joins them behind the counter, pulling a weird-looking lever, and simply lifts the loose wood panel up to reveal a tunnel, not a messy office. "Go, follow your dream."
Jade smiles. She is eternally grateful to her now. Maybe thugs and ruffians aren't so bad after all! That's two things now that mother was wrong about.
"Yes, ma'am," Dave answers.
"Your dream sucks," Vriska spits. "I was talking about hers. Oh, and I grabbed your hair for you, and damn, was it heavy. You must have one heck of a neck."
Jade shrugs. "It's not so bad. I must have gotten used to it." She's really only had it in one long section, and never in a haphazard pile she can't brush through in more than a day. It has happened a few times though, where she left her hair in such a mess that it took mother twelve hours to get through it all.
"Let's go," Dave says, grabbing half of the huge clump with one arm. "After you," he says, gesturing to the big hole in the floor.
"Thanks," Jade says, slowly lifting herself to a crouch. She guesses that the nearest place to land on is about three feet away, so she hops right in.
"Wait a minute," Roxy mumbles. "I knew I recognized every single face in here!" This is about the same time that Karkat sees it, too. They are currently in the midst of the most notorious gang in the kingdom. They don't have an established name, because every village and town she had come across investigating them has a different name for them. Roxy refers to them as trolls, because trolls live under bridges and annoy you with silly riddles that she has no time to solve. The same with the gang itself, they are so indirectly involved in the crimes, it's hard to pinpoint what they've done and convict them for it. Karkat just refers to them as buttmunches.
"You can't prove a thing!" one thug shouts to the thug next to her. The one next to her shifts her gaze from the wall to Roxy and Karkat's general area. Is she blind? "Where's your warrant?"
"We're the royal guard, we don't need one," she snarls, annoyed. He's never seen her this impatient, even when he was acting like an ass in his colt days. "Karkat, show 'em how it's done!"
Karkat cracks his neck and gives her his version of a salute: a nod and a snort. He leans way down and starts sniffing the ground for a trail. He circles the room, narrowing down the path. Two medium-sized thugs are in his way, so he shoves them aside easily. He tracks the trail down until he gets behind the bar. As he suspected, there is a secret room underneath the loose board. He rises up, and some of those very long strands of black hair he picked up along the way stuck to his snout came with him. He shakes them off and stomps on the loose floorboard. It splinters under his strength, but doesn't break.
"Good job, Karkat!" Roxy leaps over the bar with one hand. "Now how do you work this thing?" She bends down and tries to pry the board up to no avail. With one huge grunt, she falls backward. "Damn!"
Karkat rolls his eyes and glances around, looking for a lever or button of some kind. Sometimes his rider just needs a little guidance. It's not that she's stupid, she just acts like a moron sometimes. He finds a lever with a picture of the animal on the sign in front (which he can only assume is a "grubling"), wraps his hoof around it, and pulls down. Miraculously, the floor opens to reveal a dark tunnel.
"Nice," Roxy mutters. She addresses the rest of the room. Before she can talk, one of the guards approaches her.
"Captain Lalonde, this guy claims to be Dave Strider," he says, holding an outlaw by his collar to present him to Roxy. This is the same one that was sitting on the accordion. By this time, the four guards she sent outside had come back in, shaking their heads.
"Ya got me!" the crazy-haired exclaims, holding up his arms like he was going to be arrested.
Roxy just rolls her eyes and says, "Just toss him aside. The posters I drew should be enough evidence to prove that this isn't him." She sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose and turning back to the tunnel. "You're mine now, Strider," she says to herself quietly. "Men! Let's go!" she commands, jumping into the tunnel.
Like the amazing partner he is, Karkat follows close behind.
