See too little, see too much
Just keep playing Double Dutch
Wait till the rope stops going round
Wait till you crash into the ground
== Rose: Work
You hardly cease work these days. People come for magic nearly every day and you can barely keep up. Your costs are both money and devotion to the cause. The plan is to create an army of everyone who wants to rebel and rise up. Phase one is gathering the army. Phase two is drawing up the plans and retrieving more supplies. Phase three is controlling the resources. Phase four is the out-and-out rebellion, a war on the armies of the nobility. You are currently a third of the way into phase one, and so far, no one has died. But Duke Scratch is on your trail and that alone is more concerning than any of the other worries you can see when you close your eyes to sleep.
You haven't been sleeping much lately.
Kanaya tries to reassure you, but it never works. Your Light means that you catch glimpses of the future, or of other places, or of completely other times. You have only told Kanaya of the time you see in which women walk around in trousers and tight shirts and the men have long hair and nobody minds, when metal birds and bus take people to distant lands not to trade, but to vacation. You long for that time more than anything else, except maybe your own marriage. Both goal are equally impossible, as you know the land of metal and comfortable clothes is farther in the future than you will live and no priest would ever marry two women. You don't even know how the ceremony would go, and you don't care. You're on the verge of just buying two rings and saying to hell with it and getting married in the woods in a lovely clearing like Meulin and Kurloz.
Maybe today will be the day.
You make a good amount of money, because you can see the future if you force it. Your true strength is in watching the dice lands when it is tossed into the field at random, which also wins you betting games. Although you dislike how dishonest it is to cheat in those games, you do need money, and there's only so much you can do. You will do what you have to.
The duke has been wandering the market much more often recently. Sometimes, you think that he is staring right at you. You never wear your seer's clothes out anymore, despite the fact that they are infinitely more comfortable because you don't have to wear a corset or a bodice. Kanaya came up with something called a bra that is not great, but it's much better than a corset.
The duke is walking by and you stiffen, because he may come here and ask for magic and you don't want to have to go through that a second time. It was unpleasant enough the first time, when Jade and Aranea and Feferi and Damara and your girlfriend's lives on your shoulders.
And dammit, he stops by your stand. "Hello, sir," you say politely. You're actually a pretty decent actress, or so you've been told, and if you've got the skills you're going to use them.
"I would like to speak to the one who sees the light."
Shit.
"I'm sorry, what?" you ask with polite confusion.
"The one who sees the light," he persists. He's not like the men who chased the witches and the sylphs through the market, then.
"I don't know who you mean," you say, but carefully. Not slowly enough that it shows in your voice, but enough that you sound confused. "We sell hand-fitted clothing here, sir, if that's what you would like?" You grab a random color of fabric off the pile and hold it out. It's a shade of yellow-orange that you love. "We call this color 'Light'."
"I see," he says, examining the fabric. There's actually nothing special about it, no magic at all. You confine magic to back rooms and secret meetings.
He hands the fabric back to you and you stack it as if it is your greatest care in the world. "This is not what I am looking for. I would like to see the woman who can see the light as none other."
"None of us see especially well, sir. Do you need eyeglasses? They are available at the doctor-barber's. Pardon me for asking, but are you new in this area?"
"I am not. I am your duke."
"Duke Scratch! It is such an honor to meet you, sir."
"Thank you, miss. I am here to investigate the kingdom and I would like to see those who see." He's sounding angrier and you're starting to sweat. If he discovers who and what you really are…you don't normally snap under pressure, but this is a different sort of pressure. Questions, you can handle with snark and sass that makes most back off. These lies are the sort that make your cover crack.
"I'm very sorry, Duke Scratch, but there is no one here who might fit that description."
"Are you very sure?"
"I'm sorry, sir, but I am."
"I can have you taken in for questioning and tortured," he hisses so only you can hear. So what? "I can torture the ones you love." Your mind jumps immediately to Kanaya and you think that you must get yourself out of this. You don't want to admit it, but you need backup. Your usual cynicism and sarcasm will not suit your right now. You need someone who won't shut up.
"Kankri!" you call.
"I am rather busy, Rose. I am in the middle of fitting a suit. If you would kindly wait until I have finished this complex task, rather than distracting me in the middle—"
"The duke is here!"
He shuts up and walks to the front and holds out his right hand to shake. He's on high alert, then, because he's a lefty. "It's so nice to meet you, sir. It's a great pleasure. This is my coworker Rose. Our other coworker, Terezi, is sorting fabric in the back."
Lowering your voice, you add, "She's blind, you see, so we take care of her."
"I see. Is she your legal ward?"
"No, sir. Her parents are dead and she has no husband," you answer. It's only half a lie; Terezi's father is dead. You notice that Kankri's glaring at you, but not speaking, and you gather that he's annoyed that you're pretending to diminish Terezi for her blindness. You're only doing it because Terezi is worse than you when it comes to diplomacy. You do what you must.
"I am looking for those who can see," Duke Scratch says, cryptic-sounding as ever.
"We can see very well, sir. None of us need eyeglasses. Unless you're referring to Miss Pyrope, because she in fact cannot see. This would be grossly insensitive, but since you are a duke I presume you have more dignity than that! However, I cannot assume and I must wonder if you are insulting my coworker and orphaned friend. If so, you should know that she currently has no suitors because of her disability and she spends much time very upset over the matter." Does he ever shut up? He's now completely making stuff up, and he must hate it, but at least he's got a sense of what must be done for the sake of the revolution. Also, would it kill him to not insult the man who could expose your whole plan in five minutes?
Scratch changes the subject. "I have heard of you, miss," he says, giving you a look that would turn a woman less used to this turn to ash. "Holding hands in the village with another woman."
People talk, and they talk about you and Kanaya. You haven't been allowed to be seen with her while you're both in the village in a month or so. "That's horrible, sir! I'd never do such a thing!" Yes you would.
"Interesting."
"With all due respect, that sounds like gossip the womenfolk exchange in the village," Kankri says
"Hm."
"Sir, if you're not going to purchase an item, I must ask you to leave," you say.
"I am not finished with you, Rose Lalonde," he warns.
You say the only thing you can think of. "Good day, sir."
"Good day, sir and miss."
What is he planning?
You don't share a room with Kanaya (because you both have sisters who live here), so you must tell her before Kankri makes everyone put out the candles. You wait until everyone's gone upstairs before facing her squarely and wearing your most sympathetic face.
"Scratch knows," you say. "He can't prove it, but he knows about us."
She sighs heavily, and you remember that she carries the weight of the world on her shoulders far too often. "If he knows, it's a reason to arrest. You know the law as well as I do. We may have to kill him," she says frankly.
You nod. "I don't know how we can possibly pull off something so ambitious, but he knows. English and Condesce don't know, but they have power. That we can defeat. It's knowledge."
" 'The course of true love never did run smooth'," Kanaya quotes.
"Who said that?"
"Shakespeare, in A Midsummer Night's Dream."
"Oh, so you have been going to see the plays!"
She blushes and shrugs. "What can I say? The lure of the theater is impossible to resist."
You laugh. But it's late and you're exhausted. You need a drink. There's a stash stored in the back of Kankri's obsessively organized vegetable cabinet.
"Goodnight, Kanaya," you say, kissing her softly.
"Goodnight, Rose."
She walks upstairs and leaves you alone. You've seen what alcohol did to your sister, but you're also so…you don't know what. You need a drink.
You pull out a beer and down the entire thing in three gulps. The liquid burns your throat and mouth but you don't care, it numbs your mind and that's all that matters. You new job is to tell your practically pacifist friends that it is now your mission to hunt down and kill a man, Duke Scratch no less. You grab and consume a second bottle. As the alcohol finds its way into your blood, you start laughing at the idea. It all seems so hilariously out-of-proportion and bizarre. Even though some part of you is insisting that the beer is doing horrible things to your body, you love this feeling and you can't get enough. You reach for a third bottle.
You laugh louder, loud enough to wake Kanaya. You see a glow on the stairs and you try to hide the bottles, but you're clumsy and disoriented and you start laughing again, this time at the fact that you can't seem to walk without tripping over your own two feet.
"Rose? Is that you?"
"Kanaya?" you slur.
"Rose!" she exclaims. She wrenches the third (wait—maybe it's the fourth?) bottle out of your grasp and you grab at it, but she empties the liquid down the drain and rinses the bottle twice. "Are you drunk? How many?"
"Three, I think."
"Rose Lalonde, how could you?"
"S'just some beer, Kanaya. Doesn't matter."
"Yes it does. I'm moving this tomorrow. Come on, upstairs."
"But…"
"But nothing. You need sleep if you're drunk and I can't let you stay down here. Come on, dear."
You stumble up the steps with her supporting you and you think she leads you to your room, but you can't count the stairs anymore. You stumble to one of the beds, you think it's yours, and collapse into a fit of giggles again. Kanaya sighs, but she doesn't leave. She is still standing in the doorway with a brightly burning candle when you fall asleep.
"We have to take out Scratch."
"WHAT?" Kankri shouts in response to your dramatic statement at breakfast.
"He knows about Roxy, Dave, and Kanaya and I." You're hung over as all hell, but this thought is clear in your mind. Scratch cannot continue to be involved in the plans at all, as far as you are concerned. He knows too much.
"We decided that we would not kill until the final battle," Kankri states.
"Yeah. If we kill him, we're no better than them," Feferi says. "I mean, we're all people! Just because my mother is the Condesce, would you kill me?"
"It's not that," Kanaya says. "It's that he is going to cause the plan to fail unless we assassinate him."
There is a long pause before someone else speaks up. It's Damara. "We don't have to…kill him. We could just…send him away…or something? Sorry."
"No, it's okay," Jade says. "I think that's a good idea. What do you guys say?"
You have no problem doing unsavory things if you must for your cause. But…it does seem that everyone else is extremely averse to said activity. Maybe there is a way to get him without…killing. You admit to yourself it's murder and the thought makes you hesitate. Unsavory, yes; murder, no. That is the most basic way you can say this to yourself and it's true. Murder is not something you can stand to abide by after…after a certain event in your life.
Kanaya takes your hand and you grip tightly. Even if the plan is not to…kill anyone, you must find a way to block his memories and relocate him. Memories…you and Terezi could do that.
"I have an idea," you begin. "Terezi and I could block his memories, then we could have the rogues or the thieves or some other group take him to one of the trading ships and tell them to drop him off at the farthest destination, saying it's important. They will if we pay them, and a magical memory block should cause his brain to invent memories to reconcile his personality with what he'll remember without anyone real getting in the way or any proper reason to return."
Terezi tilts her head slightly to the side, considering. "Sounds feasible," she says. Her mouth curls into a devious smile. "Can I be the one to kidnap him?"
"You're blind," Sollux says matter-of-factly.
"I can see perfectly well with my nose. You're wearing a red shirt today, probably Aradia's. She lent you a shirt last time she was here because we can't afford new clothes and your others must be pretty ripped up because you'd never wear a girl's shirt to breakfast on a normal day, or choose red over blue or vice versa. I think I've got this."
Sollux blushes (his childhood friend did indeed lend him a shirt) and glares at her.
"We'll need to plan this carefully," Kankri says. He is too cautious. "And we need to make choices. Thieves are the best to infiltrate the castle and kidnap the duke, but…Terezi may be of assistance. Additionally, the rogues will be needed to render him unconscious and transport him to the port. That is a two-week journey round-trip, therefore we must complete the plot this month, or it may interfere with the Underground."
"How do you mean?" Aranea asks. She must be ill; she's barely spoken since last night.
"Nepeta is to be married in a month and a half, remember?" Meulin answers. Of course she remembers this; it is her sister, after all.
Aranea nods, closing her eyes for a brief second. She's definitely ill. "Right. That is correct. Okay. So, if we can execute this sub-plan in the next week or so, we should be able to, quote, 'get rid of', unquote, Scratch. Excellent."
"So," Feferi says. "We can scratch him out?"
There's a long pause, but everyone gives the weak sort of laugh that says fondly, "Not again." Feferi does have a fondness for puns.
"Yes, Feferi. Precisely," Kankri says. He has very little sense of humor when he gets serious about something like this. "In that case, let us begin planning."
