=== ?!: Remember
The train led somewhere once.
Now it sat—useless and decrepit—at the crumbling, deserted station. There was no leaving the town for you anymore, no way out. There were ways in and, based on the light flickering in the castle up the mountain, a new group had found themselves in this desolate place.
You sighed, knowing the pain they would come to experience in later days. No one ever made it out alive. No one ever took the train home.
It disappeared sometimes, though. The word in the village said it was a ghost train. It used to run both ways, but now it only leads through, never looping back around. If you set foot on the train, you never come back. The ghost train, humble and dark, carries spirits through to the other side. Or to here, wherever here was. No one knew anymore. No one could say where here was.
Was it The Next Stop, the place before the Gate? The waiting room to the afterlife? Or was it the afterlife? The spirit world, the land inside the Gate? Was it still on Earth? Or a place far beyond?
You have touched the mist on the outskirts enough times to know that this place was otherworldly. Perhaps it was the spirit world. Not heaven, but close. Close enough for the restless wanderers that passed through the village every so often. The lost ones on their journey to other lands, other times, other lives. It wasn't like time was a feasible concept anymore, not after so many years...or were they years? Was it days? Months? A millennium? Time was meaningless; a human concept. A concept of a species in which you were unsure if you still belonged.
Funny, how the spirits could depart, but those in questionable states of animation were trapped.
You wondered where this new group was from, what vanished era in time? They only showed up from the blips in human history, like your era, an era of grease and steam. Eschaton brought them all together, every time that wasn't meant to exist. Like yours. Like theirs.
You reentered the tavern from the rain, thoroughly soaked and full of questions. Your group was inside, less wet but still cold and miserable. You lot stuck together these days, far more than you did when you were actually playing. Each other was all you had left, now that you had failed the final quest.
Wait. Someone was missing.
Your stomach dropped. Three of them were gone. The first two, fine, but the last one. Anyone but the last one.
You grabbed a lantern, a cloak, and a few concerned friends. You don't want to go, not even in the slightest, but you have to. This could get ugly.
=== Kanaya: Have a chat
Rose's eyes were big and full of curiosity, like they had been when she'd first met the charming, witty girl. She missed how they sparkled in the light, crackling when she learned something new—
Emotions came rushing to her, rupturing the cauterized wound in her heart, the wound she so desperately tried to seal, to allow to heal. It never had, it seemed, no matter how many layers of bandages and gauze she applied, it didn't quite mend properly. All those memories and lost dreams—
"Kanaya?"
"What?"
"I asked if we could talk?"
"Oh. Yes, of course."
Rose smiled, bright and lively. "Good. Follow me."
Shaking away her emotional turmoil, Kanaya fell in step next to the glaring reminder of her failed romance. Rose led her down an old, once-beautiful hallway to a balcony overlooking the floor below. The walls and floor were reddish in tint and pale, like a rosebud.
Rose leaned over the railing, gazing down at the abandoned room below. "You're a mess."
"That much is obvious."
"It doesn't need to be that way, though." She looked up at Kanaya, a weak smile on her face. "Do you think a day goes by where I'm not thinking over my decision? One day where I don't go over my choices and weigh my options and ask myself did I really pick the clueless idiot over the intelligent, caring woman?
"Sometimes I think I've made a terrible mistake. Some days I'm not sure of myself. But others...others I find it silly I've questioned my choice at all. And I—I feel terrible saying this, but I know my decision was the right one. I've looked back at what we had and I've been grateful for the experience, for the chance to get to know you as well as I did. Do you think we've made the right choice?"
Kanaya looked down. Had she? Had they?
"I—I do not know. I feel like I have lost a part of myself to some force unknown. I have become tangled in the darkness, a slave to my own ambition. Do you know how I met Gamzee?"
"The crazy one?"
She nodded. "I almost killed him in an alley after he ambushed me. Do I think I went right there? Not in the slightest."
"Then why do it?"
"Because," she ran her hands through her hair, "because it takes away from the pain."
"Numbing something doesn't make it go away. You have to face this issue to overcome it. Tell me what hurts."
"What hurts?" She could feel an uncharacteristic fury building inside. How could she not know? "What hurts is that you left me after leading me to believe we had something ageless. Something tangible, some kind of anchor. That, even if I had lost every other person in my life, I would have you. My parents, my adoptive mother, my friends—I would still have you. But I don't."
"But you do."
"How can I have you? How can I have you if John has you? How can we both have you?" she snapped, rage and tears boiling over.
Rose glanced around guiltily. "I can't be there for you like that, Kanaya, but we can still be friends. You were—are a valuable person to me, and I still want to be friends with you. Being something more is completely out of the question."
"You have your life to live, and I have mine."
"So, are we friends, then?"
"I have to think about it." Kanaya turned on her heel, composed herself, and tried to forget.
=== Whoa, what happened between those two?
Wait...you're back!? Where did you go?! It's been more than two chapters!
=== Sorry, We haven't had any comments.
Oh. Sure. No comments. Eyeroll. Well then, what next?
=== Vriska: Try to pay attention
Kanaya was talking. Vriska wasn't paying attention, but she could see the other girl's lips moving. The meeting had been called about blah-di-blah at blah-blah time and was important because blah. Not worth her time.
"How do you expect us to get to the village?"
That voice piqued her interest. She turned to her right, where Tavros was uncomfortably seated in a tiny red chair with little rotted wooden legs. He looked so cute with that serious look on his face—
Stay focused, Vriska. Listen, don't gawk.
"The main entrance is completely blocked off, the only way out is through the cellars."
Vriska dragged her eyes away from Tavros to observe the mentally-distraught Kanaya, who was biting her lip. Gamzee had disappeared less than half an hour ago, which had set her on edge. This information about the door was doing a number on her friend's psyche, turning her face into a battleground of worry and uneasiness.
"I—I do not know. I suppose we shall have to traverse the cellars, then, if that is the only way out. I do doubt the windows can be used as exits; that would be too easy, and this is Game is anything but."
Vriska looked around the room. Sollux was slouching so much he nearly slid under the table while Aradia looked troubled. Karkat was furious, Terezi was annoyed, and Eridan and Feferi were across the room from each other, not making eye contact. Nepeta was trying not to care about something, Equius was—he was taking notes, the overachieving bastard, Gamzee was missing as previously stated, John and Rose were off doing something involving chemistry, and Dave and Jade were helping.
Huh, was that really everyone?
"The cellars are going to be much more dangerous now that someone's left their pet off its leash," Karkat huffed. Terezi elbowed him.
Kanaya, serious as ever, glowered. "Maybe next time you should make it clear it wasn't your turn to walk it."
"He is a pet, isn't 'e?" Sollux asked, a grin spreading on his face. "Can't really chain 'im up so well. We'll 'ave to go a' hunting, catch th' bloody oaf up in some trap or somefing."
"That sounds like a horrible idea," Aradia countered, grimacing from what Vriska understood to be the spirits of the dead rising around her.
"No, it does not." Kanaya turned so her back was to Karkat and his rude gestures. "Gamzee was able to ward of the spirits due to his declining mental state. If we managed to convince him—"
"But he's gone mental," Vriska interjected. "He's battier than my great-aunt Tessie. How do you expect to convince him of anything?"
"I have my ways."
"Got any ideas that don't involve your skirts?"
"Karkat!"
"OUCH! Jesus, Terezi, watch where you're swinging that thing!"
"Could you stop talking for all of two minutes?! Kanaya's trying to explain something!"
"Which wouldn't need to be explained if she hadn't lost Gamzee half an hour ago!"
"Do you think you could've done any better?"
"Um, yes. I do, and I would have if fish-face hadn't gone and lost his shit at four-eyes."
"We boff wear glasses, KK, an' so does the Lady in Blue over in th' corner."
"You're not helping my argument."
"Your argument wouldn't need help if you weren't so wrong and I wasn't so kicking your ass and—"
"I FOUND A BIG SEA MONSTER."
The room turned to stare at Feferi, who had turned pink after blurting out her absurd sentence. "Sorry. Everyone was getting all angry and I—"
"You found a Guide?" Kanaya asked, composing herself.
"Erm, I believe so. Her name is G'l—"
"Spare our eardrums," Eridan muttered across the table, averting his gaze from her stunned face.
"...She has a weird name."
"Tavros and I found one earlier, too," Vriska said in a bored tone. "That, and one of the other players. He kinda looked like the gilled-boy-wonder over there."
Eridan arched an eyebrow. "Like me?"
"Called himself the Prince of the Hapsburg Empire."
"Hapsburg as in the ruling family of Austria-Hungary? The empire disbanded after the Great War. That means we've gone back in time, doesn't it?" Nepeta asked.
"Not necessar'ly. Sees, this whole existence is strange business. It's where time comes to die, in a sense. Eras that don't 'appen back home 'appen 'ere. And theys run their course in this 'ole in the web o' fings. We're in a blip in reality, and it'll take some mighty strong forces to spirit us back the way we came." Sollux steepled his hands. The rest of the room screwed up their faces into a spectrum of confusion.
Karkat raised an eyebrow. "Once more in English?"
Sollux turned to Vriska, avoiding his friend's question. "Wot can you tell me 'bout hot-head's doppelgänger?"
How was she going to explain this? "He was—it was the strangest thing, really. Would you rather us show you to him?"
"Why not?"
"I'm coming too," Aradia added.
"Should we all split up?"
"I'll go with Terezi and Karkat," Eridan offered.
"Like fuck you're coming with me."
"Well I'm not letting him go with Sollux, so he's staying with us," Terezi snapped.
"Are they just constantly arguing?" Tavros whispered to Vriska.
She nodded. As long as she'd known the two of them, they were either at each other's throats...or clothes.
"That leaves Feferi to join Nepeta and Equius."
Karkat frowned. "Are you seriously thinking of going alone, Kanaya?"
"What do you care? Were you not just ridiculing me no more than ten minutes prior?"
"Yeah, but that doesn't mean I want you do get killed—"
"I can take care of myself," she said coldly and exited the room, leaving the rest of the occupants with open mouths.
Vriska sighed. This was getting too crazy. She was trying to lead her party back to the odd ballroom that wasn't far from one of the cellar entrances, but she couldn't find a single familiar landmark. This was bogus.
"I swear it was just around this corner."
"Perhaps it's moved? Isn't the castle...alive?" Aradia asked. She was looking worse than before, pale as a porcelain doll and stumbling over her own feet.
"I really, really hope not. Are you sure you're okay?"
"Yes." She smiled weakly. "I'm fine, don't worry about me."
Vriska wasn't buying it. She glanced at Sollux. He didn't believe her either. Tavros was ahead of the group, checking handles and fighting with locks. It looked like this was going to be an utterly pointless mission—
"I found it!"
"You what? This isn't even the right hallway!"
"Doesn't matter! Come look!"
The other three hurried to where Tavros stood beaming in front of a set of old wooden doors, the white paint peeling off like the dust on a moth's wing.
Vriska furrowed her brow. "These aren't the right doors."
"Are you sure?"
She nodded. "They were immaculately white with a golden trim."
"Perhaps they weren't, though," he said and pulled on one of the doors. It creaked horribly as it was forced open, showering the stained carpet in flakes of paint.
Inside was the ballroom.
But it was not the ballroom in which she had danced.
It had the same layout. The windows in the back let grey light flood onto the old, deteriorating floor. The long threadbare carpet that covered part of the floor had yellowed from age and mildew. Cobwebs were strung from the ceiling and the pillars, a thick layer of dust coating every surface. The chairs in the very back of the room were moth-eaten and seemed to have been out of use for years.
"I can just feels me allergies screaming," Sollux said, lifting a hand to his mouth.
"I don't understand," Tavros muttered.
"He wasn't kidding, was he?" She turned to her companions. "The Look-Alike Ampora boy, he said that time was occurring in the room through a stable loop. Once he left, time became unstable and reverted."
Aradia wandered in to the sad, empty space. "This is how it is now, and that is how it was then. It was a memory of his, living where it once flourished."
The group turned to look at her.
"Memories come alive in this castle, allowing one to see their past, and possibly unwillingly relive their past mistakes in a torturous, vicious cycle."
"How do you—"
"They say important things sometimes, the ghosts. It's not all moaning and pleading." She closed her eyes. "That's why the others don't like to come here. They can see everything that happened, the good and the bad. Their lives and their—"
"Shit!"
Startled, the four-person party flipped around to the source of the voice.
"Just missed them, didn't I? God dammit."
Vriska opened her mouth to speak, but instead made a confused noise.
A girl with long dark hair stood in the doorway. She was dressed in a fashion that Vriska didn't recognize; she wore a heavy metallic corset outside her blouse, knee-length men's trousers, and a pair of tall brown boots. Bizarre, to say the least. To top it off, she carried a strange sort of bladed implement of which Vriska did not want to be on the wrong side.
She squinted at the group. "You're the newbies, aren't you?"
"The whats?"
"The new sixteen. What are your names?"
"I'm Vriska, and these three are my teammates, Tavros, Aradia, and Sollux."
"Huh, you look a bit like Aranea." She cocked her head. "Has she gone by recently?"
"Who?"
"The other blue girl. Funny glasses, wears a dress, bookish, doesn't shut up?"
They shook their heads.
She grumbled. "Any sign of Cronus or Meenah?"
"We saw Cronus maybe an hour ago? But he was in this room."
The girl nodded. "He's always in this room. He hasn't let go of what happened yet, though it feels like it's been millennia since anything—nevermind. His business. Where could they have gotten off to? I forgot how big this castle was..."
"Excuse me, but who are you?"
"Porrim, The Jade Dragon."
"Jade...wait. We have a Jade Dragon. Kanaya."
"Is that what my parallel's called? Pretty name, I hope to meet her soon."
"What do you need to find the other ones for?"
"Oh, I don't care much about finding them. They've got their own business they're wrapped in. It's the Mime I'm after."
"The Mime?" they asked in collective confusion.
The one called Porrim scowled. "The Mime. Tall, scraggly hair, doesn't look too right in the head. Likes to hide in the shadows a lot."
"Erm—"
"No, then. You'd know immediately if you had seen him. Hard to miss. But the clever devil gets a gold star in hide-and-go-seek. Finding him is the challenge."
"Is he—"
The floor shook under their feet and Porrim swore. "Likes the weird creatures, sounds like someone found him."
=== Gamzee: Turn up in the worst possible place
"Nuts."
In his rush, he'd run down the wrong hallway. This wasn't whom he wanted to see at all.
"Sort of looks like that," the tall shapely girl said to Gamzee's fellow players.
Her appearance was suspiciously like—
"Where'd the green sister come from?"
His four teammates were struck dumb by the nonchalant behavior. Oh, this? This he could keep up. As long as he didn't laugh.
"Gamzee," Tavros said nervously, "you look, erm, okay."
"As do you, friends."
"Are you all right?"
"Never been better." Wink, cheeky smile.
He could see the green one and the Serket girl share a look. They were suspicious of him. Tut tut. Unacceptable. He was perfectly fine, as far as they needed to be aware.
Just don't hurt Tavros, the Good side of him muttered. Right. No hurting Tavros, Karkat, and Kanaya...okay, hurting Kanaya a teeny bit was fine as long as she begged for it on her—
Now was not fantasy time. That was earlier.
The floor rumbled again, the stones screaming with each little quake. Jesus, he was getting closer. What had happened down there? Everything was fine all of ten minutes ago. Lousy bastard can't even control himself for ten goddamn minutes—
"Where'd everyone else wander off to?"
"They went looking for you," Vriska snarled.
Gamzee watched as Tavros took Vriska's hand.
Oh?
He couldn't hurt his friend...but what about her?
Oh. Yes.
But...Maybe...oh yes. That was a much better idea.
Four birds with one stone.
Fuck this sane disguise.
He called to the monsters in the shadows. The screeched in reply, rupturing the stones and ripping open the floor, causing a huge gash to run through the hallway. Creatures made of nightmares and fear lifted themselves from the crack that led to the cellars. Beasts of blackness and void.
One, two, three.
=== Vriska: Do the worst possible thing
The screaming was the most rattling part of the whole scene. The...the...things crawling from the deepest pit of hell were shrieking in both high and low voices, a chorus of utter devilry and chaos. Next, Aradia was screaming.
"They're everywhere, everywhere. I can't stop them. Get out get out get out."
Souls, mutilated and tortured, erupted around the party. Cold seeped from their plasma bodies, sucking dry any sense of hope and joy from the space. Vriska shivered, feeling nothing but despair.
She leapt back as a pair of black tentacles raced to curl around her legs. Birds with leathery wings and human teeth circled above Aradia, calling in dissonant chords to one another. They dove.
A burst of red-and-blue light knocked them down.
Sollux was hovering over the fallen girl, eyes trained on the approaching monstrosities.
"I've got 'er covered. Go do somefing 'bout the wretched imp!"
Vriska nodded and ducked out of the way as an overgrown cat with two heads lunged. She ran by Porrim, who seemed to be doing all right with her rotary saw. Tavros was somehow turning the beasts against one another. Psychic powers, too? It wasn't so improbable, given the circumstances.
Gamzee was sitting on top of a huge black chimera, which was guarding the rip in the floor. Its top-half was a goat, but the bottom was all tentacles and suction cups. Human arms and legs stuck out of its body, its flanks oozing like a gelatinous substance. Globs of body parts were falling onto the floor like toxic slime as eyes and tongues emerged out of the flesh of its torso.
It opened the two mouths on its head, roaring at her with the rank breath of ammonia and decay.
Vriska felt sick.
"Up for a fight, Ser-ket? Or have you forgotten a weapon, hmm?" Gamzee asked with a malicious smile.
"Fuck you, Makara! I will clobber your sorry ass!"
...Yeah, she had forgotten a weapon.
A tentacle latched around her leg and threw her off balance.
It whipped her closer to the beast, dragging her upwards to its salivating mouths. She was a minute from being monster chow.
Her heartrate skyrocketed as she was carried nearer and nearer to the creature. She closed her eyes, focusing hard on her will to live. She needed to do something—anything—to break this monster's hold on her, release her from the chains that encased her.
A symbol arose in her mind. It wasn't something she recognized, but maybe, maybe—
A blood-curdling wail ripped from the chimera's lungs as it released Vriska. She fell hard, hitting the floor with a loud thud. The fall knocked the wind out of her, dizzying her already damaged mental process. She couldn't see straight—
The monstrous chimera howled in agony as the one tentacle she had control over tried to coil around its front legs. The beast was having none of it, curling three oversized tentacles around her, squeezing her body like a group of angry pythons.
Vriska tried to let her mind relax. This was getting tighter and tighter—both the chimera's grip on her and the situation. What was she to do? She reached out to anything controllable. Anything—
Oh. No. No. Oh god no. Not—no this wasn't the right—this was—no—
Red and blue sparked throughout the area, illuminating the darkness and blinding anything within visual range.
Vriska was dropped once again, this time from a lower height. She stood up at once but froze. She needed to run into the ballroom—her mind was screaming at her to run—but she couldn't move. The monsters around her fled back down into the crevice in the floor, but she didn't budge.
Shock settled in and she shivered, her body both hotter than the sun and colder than liquid nitrogen. She was a statue, her limbs made of lead. It wasn't until she heard the scream that she could comprehend what happened. Slowly, her feet made of clay, she approached the doors.
The first thing she saw was the blood.
Red and candy-colored, it spread far across the wooden floor, filling up the cracks and rushing in all directions at once. It was splattered on the walls, on the pillars, on the windows.
Aradia's lifeless body lay in the center, burned and bleeding. She looked so miniscule in a pool of her own blood.
Sollux was sitting beside her, almost as soaked as she was. Her blood speckled his cheeks, stained his hands, and drenched his sleeves. He held her in his arms, clutching a vial to the wound through her chest with his shaking hands. He was trying hard to steady them in an attempt to catch a silvery liquid trickling out of her damaged heart.
"Of course this only 'appens to the people I care about," Sollux muttered, his voice breaking. "Only ever those I care about."
Vriska opened her mouth—to speak, to apologize, to say something—but no words came out. What could she possibly say in this situation? What could possibly make things better?"
She swallowed hard and fought back her emotions. "Sollux, I—"
"I do not want to hear anyfing from you," he snapped, importance rising back into his tone. "You lot need t' find Equius and bring 'im 'ere immediately. And you need to go fast, or else she'll be lost for good."
"Where—"
"GO!"
Vriska once again stood motionless. Tavros grabbed her by the hand and dragged her out as Porrim approached the emotionally-injured Sollux and the former body of Aradia, whose skin had such a pallor she now matched tone with the ghosts that used to haunt her.
They began down the hall from which they came, hoping to possibly catch Equius' group on a similar trail.
"Vriska, what happened back there?"
"I don't want to talk about it."
"What do you—"
"I don't want to talk about it!" she hissed, confusion welling up inside. "I don't know what happened or how it happened or why. And I don't want to think about it too much, okay?"
"Did you—"
"Of COURSE NOT!" She whipped around to face Tavros head-on. "Why would I purposely do that? What point would there be?"
Tavros was quiet a moment. "That wasn't even the question I intended to ask." They turned a corner. "So you know how it happened, or—"
"No, not exactly! I just...I was strung up by that damn monster of Gamzee's and I was looking for something to—I was looking for a way to fight back." She sighed and it all came flowing out. "So I took hold of the nearest mind, I guess, I don't know what happened to be completely honest, or how it occurred, I just know I somehow got ahold of Sollux, who was charging a psychic beam and I—I don't know. It sort of...went down hill from there."
She hiccuped. Oh goddamn—fuck. Her throat was tightening. She was still in shock. She was still attempting to grasp the fact that she, Vriska Serket, had murdered a childhood friend via that friend's object of affection. And now here she was, on the verge of tears. She never cried in front of anyone. Ever.
Vriska took off down the hall, racing as fast as her legs would carry her. Unacceptable, unacceptable, unacceptable. What would her mother say?
Her mother. Oh god. Her face grew hot. How was her mother? Would she ever see her again? Hear her voice? Would they ever make it out of this mess of a game?
She flew into an open room—a library—and curled up at the base of a bookcase. This was so unlike her. The crying, these emotions, this doubt. This couldn't be Vriska Serket, the Marquise's daughter. They must have switched her out with a double earlier. This wasn't her, this couldn't be her. She would never—she could never—she wasn't a pansy. She was strong. She was confident.
And she was also small, and so alone, and so frightened.
"Vriska?"
She glanced up to see Tavros in the threshold, out-of-breath and worried.
"Go away," she mumbled.
"What?"
"I said go away. I don't want you to see me like this."
"Well too bad, because I'm not going to just leave you here."
"I. Do not. Like it. When people. See me cry," she choked out in her most menacing voice, which sounded utterly pathetic in her shaken state.
He disregarded her warning and stepped into the room. Vriska shuffled backwards, not liking this invasion of her space, space that she desperately needed.
"No closer," she hissed.
"Vriska—"
"I repeat. I do not like it when people see me cry. I don't like it when anyone sees me broken and torn up and emotionally volatile. Not even my family. So please, just leave me alone."
"Nope." He held his hand out for her, which she accepted reluctantly, and pulled her to her feet, taking her shoulders in his hands. He was so much taller than her, and it upset her further. "Look at me, please."
"Why?"
"Because I want to talk to you and I'd rather talk to your pretty face, not the top of your head." He nudged her chin up gently. She scowled. "Which is equally as pretty."
"Idiot," she muttered.
"Whatever happened, I trust it wasn't your fault, okay? I believe you. Don't beat yourself up about it, please? I know you're probably feeling a bit...delicate, right now, from the shock and all. I'm not saying you are delicate, though! You're a strong girl, one of the toughest I know—"
"You must know a lot of gelatin women," Vriska chuckled humorlessly.
"I'm telling you the truth. You're a strong, brave girl and you'll be okay. Everything will be okay. Have some faith in whatever Sollux is planning, all right?"
"I don't think I'll ever have faith in his zany schemes—"
Tavros pulled her into a firm hug. She didn't like hugs, she didn't like hugs, she didn't—
"Stop squirming so much!" he said with a laugh, dropping a small kiss on her forehead.
Fine. Maybe she did like hugs. Just a little.
"We still have to find Equius," Vriska said into Tavros' chest.
"We should do that, then." He let released her slowly, bending to kiss her cheek.
"And don't ever, ever mention—" she gesticulated wildly, "—this to anyone ever, got it?"
"I got it."
"Or there will be serious consequences."
"Understood." He took her hand. "Is this okay?"
"It's fine until you start skipping and humming nursery rhymes."
"Any idea where we'll find Equius?"
Vriska stuck her head out the door and looked around. "Not even a slight—"
"VRISKA!"
Nepeta came barreling down the hall, far too agile for a nineteen-year-old girl in shoes. "We heard a lot of crashes earlier! Do you have any idea what happened?"
"How convenient," Tavros whispered.
She elbowed him. "Yes, we were there not long ago. We ran into Gamzee," she said with a sneer.
Nepeta's face twisted in horror. "You're not—not hurt, are you?"
"No, we are fine, but the rest of our group is not. Where's Equius?"
On cue, the Titan-strong stoic rounded the corner, Feferi close behind.
"What seems to be the matter?" he asked in that deep, rugged voice Vriska had nearly forgotten, he spoke so infrequently.
"It's Aradia. She's—"
"Take me to her."
A/N: Updating on time? JOKES.
Writer's block is an evil monster and applying to college sucks. Sorry.
So. Haha. Fun chapter, right?
(I am so so sorry oh my god this is such a depressing chapter augh I can't write happy things sorry)
AHAHA GAMZEE, SANE, YEAH RIGHT. NEVER.
But yeah. Some actual fluffy Tavris because we ARE SAILING FOR THE TIME BEING PARTY HARDY EVERYONE.
Such an inappropriate time holy crap. That and Vriska's actual breakdown. Any idea how hard it is to make out-of-character behavior seem in-character? Hard. VERY HARD.
Phrase of the Chapter: Hamaxostichus Qui Euolat Duobus Modis: Latin, roughly meaning "The Train that Travels Two Ways"
Trivia: Hamaxostichus is New Latin for train.
Thank you to everyone who's actually sticking with me through these AWFUL, BARREN, NO-GOOD WEEKS. Love you all, thank you EVERYONE who reviews and reads and just—all of you. Thank you!
