After months and months of harsh fighting, tough decisions, multiple family visits that everybody dragged, some things were made final about the upcoming ceremony. The wedding was going to be held outside, with flowers everywhere. Tress would have lights hung up in them to light up the dusk when it turned dark. The bridesmaids would wear a soft purple color, the combination of both of the humans' favorite colors. Feferi's hair would be curled slightly, but mostly wavey with some glitter sprayed into it. Equius would also be wearing a blue tie along with his best men. The ring bearer would be Karkat and the flower girl, of course, would be Nepeta. All the trolls they knew were coming, they would even have their own seat section if they wanted. All the invitations were sent, most replied they were in fact, coming to the wedding of a lifetime. The only problem was:

"Don't wanna!"

Nepeta.

"But Nepeta," Feferi held the dress in front of her in a mirror. "Look how cute it is!"

"No!"

Nepeta didn't like a list of things. Dogs were on the list, along with the color purple, girly clothes, not being able to rough house, and more that irritated the humans greatly. The dress was a small, purple dress that had flowers and jewels sewn into it, making it very girly. The fabric was also very shiny, making Nepeta just itch to wrestle in it. But that, of course, was not allowed. In total, the dress had at least three things on the list. Despite her love of the number three, this was far from okay.

Feferi sighed and ran her hand through Nepeta's long hair. She knew what was going to happen next when she spoke of it, but she had to say it anyway. "It matches what your makeup is going to be."

"Makeup too?" She whined and flopped her tail against the ground pathetically. "Whyyyyyy?" Her small voice carried out the 'y' that nearly drove Feferi to another sigh.

"Neppie, I thought you liked dress up."

She scrunched her eyebrows together. "Yeah when I can be me in it!" The green-blooded troll rolled her eyes. "Next you're gonna tell me they're gonna touch my hair."

Oh shit. Feferi huffed and closed her eyes, not wanting to see what the reaction would be. "Well, they have a few ideas."

Nepeta groaned louder and rolled her head back. "You gonna kill me!"

"That's 'you are' going to kill me, Nepeta." Equius walked into the room with a glass of milk in his hand.

"Why I have to do this?" She asked, ignoring his grammar rules for now.

"Because you're the flower girl and we have to get you prepared for the ceremony."

"But that's not fur a while!"

"In five days," Feferi groaned and stepped back with the dress still in hand. She hung it up and looked at Equius with a 'please help me' face on. "She doesn't like the dress or anything I've suggested."

"That's beclaws I hate it!"

"Nepeta," Equius sighed. "We are all on edge. Just bear through it and it'll be a nonpareil wedding." Nepeta tilted her head at the big word. "It'll be the best." He simplified.

She pouted and crossed her arms. "We don't even cut a hole fur my tail!"

"That would ruin your dress," Feferi chipped in. "And it was not on the cheap side."

"That's right. And speaking of not cheap," Equius turned to Feferi. "Do you know when they are arriving?"

"When are my parents getting here?" Feferi asked herself, pulling out her phone. "They said three, right?"

"My father and brother are going to the dinner tonight as well."

"What dinner?" Nepeta asked, jumping into her pile of pillows and blankets. "Are we gonna eat?"

"Oh yes. There will be a lot of delectable treats at the dinner. But," He cut in. "It is at a fancy restaurant." Equius smirked. "I don't know if a wild troll like you should go."

Nepeta furrowed her eyebrows. "I can go! I be good troll!"

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah!"

"I don't know, Equius." Feferi joined in. "What if the wild troll doesn't enjoy the food we are having? Steak is pretty expensive and I don't want to ruin it."

"Steak?" Nepeta's mouth began to drool at the thought of it. "I go! I go!"

"Can a feral olive blood go, Nepeta? Can she be on her very best behavior?"

Nepeta nodded enthusiastically. "I want the steak!"

Equius squatted down and held her shoulders gently. "That isn't what a civilized troll says."

Nepeta paused in her jumping spree to think for a second before she smiled. "Purrlease?"

Equius nodded. "There you go."

Later, Nepeta was on her pile, she was too busy with her sketchbook to notice that new people were now in her territory. She didn't hear the doorbell ring, now was she aware of Feferi's high pitched squeal, but her ear did twitch slightly. She felt rather than heard Equius's heavy footsteps going down the stairs. The young huntress was totally oblivious to everything until she went to the kitchen to fetch her kitty she had left on the counter. The toy's presents was required for her to teach it to hunt the small dust bunnies she found.

She had heard strange voices when she went downstairs, a weird laughter and some unfamiliar voices. She stopped walking towards the kitchen, raised her head and took a very deep breath in through her nostrils. Nepeta smelt an strange new scent that she couldn't quite place and slowly followed it, cautious just like in one of her hunts. After all, you could be killed if you stuck your neck out too far without knowing what was going to be around the corner.

She slowly approached the island in the middle of the kitchen, trying to avoid being seen. The key to being a great huntress was to not be seen and to always be silent. She was still working on being silent, but not being seen was her specialty. She had even got onto her tip toes to retrieve the animal in view that she wanted. Nepeta didn't want the strange people in her house to know that she was here, it was a secret where the mighty huntress in training lived and she didn't need her fans to come and praise her just yet.

Equius was dragging talking to all their relatives, especially the ones he had no idea existed. But Feferi had wanted all in her family to come, so they shall. He was mainly staring off into space and not paying any attention at all to what was going on. That stopped when the tips of a grey hand reached up over the counter. They weren't able to reach fully over and he could hear the grunts of a trying troll behind the counter. It warmed his heart to see Nepeta trying so hard.

He silently got up off of the counter across the island he was leaning on and padded over to the tips of the grey fingers. He guessed what she was trying to get and poked her kitty toy closer to her. She continued to reach for it, still not being tall enough to grab it off the counter. He had to push it slightly every few seconds so she wouldn't know that he helped her out. A troll, especially young ones, would want to do it on it's own.

Eventually Nepeta was able to grab the cat and drag it out of Equius's hands. She brought it back down to herself and hugged it tightly, glad she could do it all on her own. The soft white hair of the toy made her arms feel super soft and relaxed. She purred, thinking of how the dust bunnies were going I die very soon at the hands of-

"Gotcha!" Equius said.

Strong arms wrapped themselves around Nepeta and lifted her off the ground. Nepeta squealed and laughed at the same time, kicking and throwing her limbs around playfully. A smile showed itself on her small face in pure joy that couldn't be taken off when Equius began to carefully fly her around by tossing her up gently. Her laughter paused the two ladies' conversation and instead they looked upon the scene before them with a grin of their own.

"N-noooooo," Nepeta laughed loudly. "Lemme go!"

Equius set her down softly onto the ground and kneeled down. His face was showing a smirk that only showed he had a mischievous plan coming for the troll. His hands quickly sprung upon her and tickled her sides. She began to howl with laughter and pure absolute joy. Her feet danced in the air to try and hit their target, whatever that might be, but wouldn't really ever hit it, tail swishing around uncontrollably, green shading hinting in her grey cheeks. Her body emitted the feeling of happiness that could brighten anyone's day.

He smiled to himself, that was why. That was only one of the thousands of reasons that they had to save the trolls from being treated like they were only animals. Trolls were very much like humans, in fact some areas began to hire trolls as well as regular humans. They were after all, practically identical. They were many things, but they were definitely not animals and Equius prayed to whatever God was listening that Nepeta would never be treated as one.

She eventually had escaped his playful hands and absconded back to her room with her let her play for a bit, but eventually he had reminded her that she needed to dress nicely for the dinner that night. They were leaving soon as well, which meant that she would have to get dressed soon. Equius helped her with this of course, he saw what had happened when she dressed herself and knew it was far from a good image.

The dinner was a fancy one, as they had expected. Nepeta was very nervous around such nice things and it really didn't help that Equius's father kept glaring at her. She shifted multiple times throughout the meal, this was very awkward for a young troll and she just wanted to go play with something, anything. She even kept quiet, which made Equius worry immensely. He wanted to make sure she was okay, to help her, so badly it made his chest squeeze. It nearly drove him insane (he really honestly could care less about whatever color something was, it didn't matter anyway), but before he could voice anything, her eyes opened and she jumped from her chair.

Nepeta ran around the table and jumped into the lap of a man sitting at a table not too far from their own. She wrapped her arms around the man and smiled man seemed very surprised and a bit flustered at the sudden appearance from the troll that popped up, but hugged her back nonetheless. By this time, Equius had already chased her down and was beginning to sweat out of nerves already.

"I am so sorry, sir. Nepeta, what do you think you are doing?" He asked as he pulled her off of the man.

"I know, I know!" She smiled and hugged her guardian instead.

"It's okay. It's nice to see you again, Nepeta." The man smiled in a...weird way. "My name is James, I found Nepeta a while back."

"I beg your pardon, you found her?" Equius scrunched his eyebrows.

"She was lost and I brought her to a local shelter." James explained and wiped his mouth off with a napkin. "Are you her owner?"

"No." Equius did Easter Island impression instantly. "I am her caretaker."

James continued to look at Nepeta in the most creepiest of ways. His mouth was twitching up at the corner and his eyes had a glint of suspicion in them. Equius now knew what parents felt like when they felt their instinct screaming at them to get their children away from this scary bad person.

Nepeta reached forward with her hand, a gesture she often used when she would like to play. Equius gently lowered her hand down back to her side. "Nepeta, I believe it is time for us to go back to our table. Don't you?"

"Eqqy, I wanna purrlay!" She whined in a tone that only urged his instincts to get away.

"Yeah, Eqqy," James spoke up. "Let her play."

Equius glared at him through his glasses and stepped away. "Come on, Nepeta. Let us return to dinner. We might even go to the store after for something."

Nepeta whined, but let herself be carried away. She didn't say anything about the man for the rest of the meal, which Equius found himself to be very thankful for. He never escaped the feeling of being watched until he was carrying a sleeping Nepeta out of the store. She had bits of food in her hair, which Equius knew he was going to have to take out later. But all he cared about was getting her out of there. The sooner, the better.

Feferi and her mother went to go back to her own establishment, Equius bid his father a goodbye, without the good part of it, and returned to his own home. Nepeta was still asleep when he pulled the car up, but woke up when he picked her up out of the car. She muttered under her breath and leaned into his shoulder, yawning softly.

He changed her out of her small dress and into some pajamas with a cat paw print on them, chosen by Nepeta. They were her favorite thing to wear, day or nighttime. She always felt so much more comfortable while wearing them and almost immediately went to sleep. Her soft smile complimented her long hair that was now almost down her entire back. He suppose he should get it cut sometime, but she loved it. Why take away that pleasure from her? She was so cute and so innocent of the evil of the world it made his heart hurt. He just wanted to protect her...

Memories from earlier replayed in his mind. Mainly the ones about what was his name? Jack? James? Something along the lines of that. The man creeped him out. He watched her for a few moments before deciding. Like a child needing a toy to be able to sleep, he needed to know she was safe. He wouldn't be able to sleep if she wasn't there anyway. He would just be up all night being worried and checking on her.

He carried the young troll into his bedroom and gently closed the door behind him. He made his way into his bed and got under the covers with her. He put her right next to him, within arm reach in case something happened, and made sure she was comfortable. Equius reached over and pulled some of her hair out of her face.

"You've changed me, little troll." He sighed to himself. "I love you." He kissed her forehead briefly before resigning himself back into his bed to sleep. Sometime during the night, he felt a weight on his chest. He opened his eyes a crack to inspect whatever was the reason, and found Nepeta curling up on him. He smiled and stroked her hair until he completely went into the dark abyss of sleep.