You are Aradia Megido, and you made enemies with a gang and friends with a few nobles in less than twelve hours, but you didn't get to see Nepeta and Tavros as long as you would've liked. You missed them so much, so you mentioned your feelings to Kanaya. She said she had no idea where they could have been, but you already had an idea. They probably took the wrong turn back at the two-way split you encountered during the chase. You frown, wondering why Nepeta and Tavros couldn't have found you instead of some obnoxious tall idiot and his short angry friend. You puff out you cheeks in discontent when you feel two bony fingers poke your bloated cheeks, forcing the air out of your mouth. You look up to see Gamzee, whom you were formally introduced to on the way to Kanaya's hive. He was smiling, the right corner of his mouth higher than the left, making his smile crooked and charming in its own way.

"Come on sis, don't look so angry! You look so much nicer when you're happy!" he said, pulling his fingers away from your face.

You smiled at him, and he smiled an even wider smile back, revealing his sharp teeth that didn't seem so menacing due to his sheer happiness.

You glanced behind you and saw Eridan and Equius were bringing up the rear. Equius seemed to have an air of confidence while walking the streets, his posture upright and dignified, opposed to Eridan who was hunched over and staring at the ground, his face in deep concentration.

You almost stopped in the middle of the road when you realized he had changes clothes. Upon looking for a little longer, you noticed that he had really just thrown a black cloak over his body, his cape and fancy clothes now covered. You briefly wandered why he would do that until your thoughts stopped when he looked up and made eye contact with you. You made some sort of squeak and turned back around to face the front.

For the rest of the time until reaching Kanaya's hive, life seemed a bit void; you were very silent and marched in step with the rest of the group to what seemed to be an invisible metronome clicking to an unknown tempo. In fact, time itself had seemed to slow down for everyone around your small pod of trolls, making everything seem so… out of reach from reality. 'Maybe it's the blood loss?' you had wondered, looking down at your knees.

Your knees were still bleeding a little even though they had already scabbed over the wounds, and you dismissed that as a possibility. You looked at the sky and squinted at the sun, quickly looking back down due to its brightness and the increased sense of nostalgia it brought you.

"It's not the sun…" you muttered under your breath. 'Well, until now that is.' A bitter thought came, causing you to sneer at how weak you felt.

Looking forward again, you continued to march behind Kanaya, tilting your head up a few degrees to see where you were headed. One shop in particular caught your attention when you were scanning the road ahead: a white shop accented with bright green, and a dark jade clock tower sitting on the far left corner of the establishment. It seemed to be calling out to anyone who would listen and struck each second with some sort of inanimate purpose.

You guess you had stopped walking sometime during you thought process, and Kanaya was shaking your shoulder.

"Dear? Are you okay? You've gotten very pale…"

You turned to her and smiled, cursing yourself for causing yourself to attract this type of attention. "I'm fine Kanaya, thank you." You brushed her hand off your shoulder and stood a little straighter, trying to prove that you were okay. She gave you a look of concern but nodded anyways, despite a stern frown being plastered on her face.

"If you say so… Well, come come, we're almost there." She said after a seemingly long pause, waving for the rest of them to follow. You stood there for a few more seconds, glancing back at the shop before jogging to catch up to them. When you caught up, you ended up walking next to Equius. You eyed him from the corner of your eye, trying to not seem obvious about it, but he quickly caught your gaze. Flustered, you tried to explain yourself.

"I-I'm sorry, I was just, well, not really, but I just trying to-"

"No, it's okay, I get that a lot." He said quietly, his voice a lot different from before.

"What?"

"I'm saying people usually stare me is all…" he said, coughing a bit to clear his throat. He smiled nervously and patted your head softly. "You are okay, right?" he asked kindly, a little bit of sweat starting to accumulate on the side of his face.

You smiled kindly back at him and nodded. "Yeah, I'm alright. Thank you for your concern."

He nodded back at you and turned his attention back to the front, pulling a towel out and wiping the side of his face.

After that, the trip seemed to be in a much more relaxed atmosphere.

"And here we are!" Kanaya chirped proudly, placing her hands on her hips as you stared at the hive in front of you. It was, to say the least, interesting. But interesting was good.

The hive was shaped with elegant curves and was low to the ground with a few exceptional towers jutting out from random places with varied heights. Small pale stones made up the building and multi-colored banners draped from the towers, making the hive look like it had a tented rooftop.

"It's so… fantastic…" you breathed in awe, causing Kanaya to look back at you.

"Why thank you! I decorated it myself!"

"You did?!" you asked in surprised, turning away from the brilliantly colored hive.

"Er, well, not all by myself, I had help with making the curtains…" she mumbled, her face flushing slightly as she looked down at the ground.

"Why so modest Lady Maryam? You did a lot of the work yourself did you not?" Gamzee said, feeling the texture of one of the low hanging curtains as he said so.

"Ah yes, but my mother helped with the process much more than you think-"

"You have a mom?!" you asked excitedly, accidently interrupting Kanaya. You were going to ask more questions when an elegant woman who looked like an older version of Kanaya walked out of the hive's door, her pose that of a queen.

"Kanaya dear, is this a new friend of yours?" she asked, smiling in your direction.

"Mom!" Kanaya said happily, a bright smile crossing her face. She walked over to her mother to hug her as a look of surprise crossed your face.

When the moment passed and mother and daughter had chatted for a bit, Kanaya's mother walked over to you, a gentle smile on her face.

"I've heard you've went through a lot today, so please, come inside and I'll get you fix right up. And while I'm doing that," she continued, looking back at the two boys who snapped their heads up when they heard her pause, meeting her gaze with surprised faces, "I'll treat you all to some treats. Does that sound good?"

Equius gave a solemn nod as Eridan looked sideways at the brick building next to him, kicking a rock off to the side and watching it roll of into the shadow of the wall.

"I see then, well, it's settled! Come on dear, let's get you inside alright?" she said, tugging on your arm, half dragging half leading you towards the entrance to the hive.

You got inside to be greeted by bright colors again, but this time there was more jade than anything else in the room. You were sat at a high bar stool while the others proceeded to take a seat in bean bag chairs, all except for Equius. While Kanaya's mom was away, you turned to Equius.

"Why don't you take a seat Equius? You must be tired from today." You urged, a bit of worry laced in your voice as he started to lightly sweat again.

"I am fine, really. Do worry more about yourself though, that would make me feel better." He said back, taking out his towel again to dab his face. "Oh, there is Ms. Dolorosa!"

"Dolorosa?" you ask, turning to where he was looking to only see Kanaya's mom.

'Oh, must be her name then!' you thought to yourself, looking down at your knees to only discover that they had reopened. Cursing under your breath you realized you had been picking at the scab subconsciously.

"Oh dear, well, we'll have to get temporary bandages for those." You heard the Dolorosa's voice say, all the words very fuzzy and distant.

"Yeah," you mumble back, lifting your face to look for something to concentrate on.

"Oi, Ara, snap out o' it!" you heard Eridan's voice say, but that too became like a dream.

You managed to find a window to only see that outside the clouds had accumulated once again over the city.

"Those are really fast clouds…" you commented before falling out of consciousness.


EXTRA INFO!: It was not an uncommon practice to try and find your ancestor as a young troll and to end up living with them in order to have the "family structure" most of the humans on the island had.