I Have What You Want
Terezi Pyrope had always prided herself on her adaptability. She prided herself on other things too; her intelligence, her dexterity, her unailing sense of justice. But the creed of her order was that those who can thrive in change survive, those who can drift seamlessly from chainmail and battle-cries in open fields to wine and red meat amongst courtiers to dust and debate in halls sequestered within universities and monastery's. And Terezi has always believed herself the embodiment that ideal.
But she never thought she'd have to adapt to being blind. She had, in fact, assumed that she'd be dead either before or not long after anything permanently affected what vision she still had after an unfortunate and deadly purge of the Pardoners Mount due to the disobedience of Terezi's favorite mentor. But here she was, her nose and shins getting increasingly swollen and sore respectively as she accidently banged into every stone surface around the shrine her and Sollux's new friends had dumped them at.
She was slowly but surely developing a mental map of the area, her spatial awareness evidently only slightly hampered by her ocular misfortune. And that was despite the naysaying of the grumpy sad sack nursing his arm over by the fire, the flames themselves a presence she found she could sense instinctively even without her eyes.
"I swear to the Lords, I'm not going say one fucking word if you get too close to the edge of the cliff. I will just watch your toe you way towards oblivion and laugh my ass off about later."
A grimace of pain was evident in his voice, and had been ever since he first began trying to talk Terezi out of wandering her blind ass straight into stone walls. Rather than reply with a witty remark however Terezi simply backed up and went sprinting head on with one of the barely standing walls ringing the incline between the bonfire and the ruins of actual buildings. Sollux rose as she did so, mouth open to shout out a genuinely concerned warning, but he was silenced when Terezi jumped up out of a handstand onto the wall and proceeded to cartwheel across its top. She sprung into the air before she could fall off once the chunk of wall she was on ran out, disappearing from Sollux's view momentarily before reappearing mid-jump, continuing her acrobatics display higher up the incline beyond Sollux's field of view. She returned to her original spot by flipping out of nowhere over the wall she'd started on, smiling in a vaguely predatory way towards Sollux, in a way that made his skin crawl, her empty eye sockets seeming to bore into his own. She began strutting towards him.
"Pretty impressive, right?"
Before Sollux could answer however Terezi's stride fell apart, her foot catching on the corner of a stray stone tile sticking up out of the dirt. She caught herself with both hands just before her face hit the ground, her ears filled with Sollux's scratchy laughter as she made a quick addendum to her mental map.
Sollux was moving towards her, probably to offer to help her up, and saying something in between chortles, but all of Terezi's attention was consumed by his leaving the presence of the bonfire. Because it was only after he'd moved away from it that she realized it wasn't just the fire she could sense.
She could sense him too.
~)
Rose was stalling.
And she was not beyond admitting that it was because she was scared.
The faded remnants of her last conversation with Kanaya sat along the floor behind her, elegant white script running back and forth next to Rose's own glowing blue, etched into the ground with concentrated bursts of magic. She was sorely tempted to answer Kanaya's closing query, to draw out their potential farewell just a few seconds more. But Rose would not give in. There was work to do, and though it was exceedingly dangerous she had no other choice. How exactly did Jade expect Rose to maneuver these twelve buffoons into position if she's going to maim them with unexplained newfound powers whenever they enter her territory?
Mostly, though, she wanted an explanation of how someone with Jade's limited sorcerous ability figured out a way to permanently injure Undead. And to find out whether or not the skill can be taught. Or appropriated.
And so it was with a racing heart and the knowledge that she was tempting fate that Rose Lalonde stepped out of her chamber beneath the Great Bridge at the height of her power, armed with lore and magic both sacred and profane, of a kind the lords of Vinheim could scarcely imagine. She stepped past her defensive barrier of runes carved with dust from the ground-up knuckles of inhuman beasts, past the gleaming evidence of her last panicked conversation with John and Dave, and broke out into a mad dash for the relative safety of the Undead Parish. She knew that any second could be her last and prayed she wasn't risking damnation just to end up facing a hollowed Jade.
~)~)
When Rose passed beneath the raised gate at the fore of the church overlooking the Undead Parish, she allowed herself a moments rest. Literal years of slaying beasts that could lay waste to the entirety of the civilized world with powers beyond most humans imagination, and she was still winded after what was basically just a short jog. She'd eaten countless souls in her time, yet the mysterious power of the bonfires had evidently refused to divert any of those energies towards fortifying her physical body. Not to say she didn't prefer her heightened mental and spiritual acumen, but still. She imagined it would be nice to be able to run for a few minutes without her lungs feeling like they were bursting into flames.
She didn't at all covet the others physical prowess. Most certainly not.
She checked behind herself to make sure the ash runes she'd placed around the entrance to the church hadn't been disturbed by her haste. The markings were all still intact, and Rose turned back towards the church and began climbing the stairs, running through her head where exactly Jade might be. She suspected the roof of the church itself, owing to Jades proven predilection for high roosts with good views, but wasn't going to rule out one of the many nooks and crannies dotting the second floor, or one of the long walkways winding through what chunk of the parish Rose was able to ward against before having to flee.
She ended up finding Jade tucked away in the corner of the very first room of the church, a wide open entranceway between the outside and the pews and altar. She'd shoved herself in the far back corner, covered in rags, sitting next to a single unlit lantern and a stack of books coming up to her knees. Rose didn't even notice her at first, and had Jade not recognized her short figure and striking silvery hair she'd have gotten a bolt through her back for all her trouble.
"Rose?"
Rose turned, startled, and saw a Jade Harley that was not quite hollow but close to it. One half of her face was leathery skin pulled tight over bone, and the skin around that patch was beginning to sag and rot. One eye was gone, replaced with an empty black socket with a tiny flame burning deep in its abyss. She was emaciated, and appeared to be naked under the rags, which Rose only just realized were the remnants of the leather outfit and brown cloak she used to wear. A large, crude wooden crossbow was pointed right at her, and it was only after they'd gotten a good look at each other that it was lowered.
Rose elected not to bring up her old comrades appearance. She couldn't yet be certain whether or not Jade knew.
"Jade. It's a pleasure to see you again." And it really was, Rose found to her surprise. She tried to remember the last time she'd used her voice to communicate with someone.
"You shouldn't be here." Jade said, her words and gaze unfocused, far away.
"I'm the last person you need to lecture on the dangers of wandering about, I assure you. But there are some extenuating circumstances that require a parlay."
"What?"
"We need to talk."
"Oh."
Rose stood for a second and waited, and when Jade made no move to further respond she went over to her friend and sat up against the corner next to her. Their proximity brought a light to Jades remaining green eye, and for the first time since they'd begun this interaction Jade looked at Rose as though she really recognized her. All their old intimacy came flooding back, Jade relaxing and resting her head on Rose's shoulder.
Rose pet her dried up, tangled mane and tried not to be too disappointed. Kanaya's report made it sound like Jade was still in the prime of her fighting strength, and Rose had let herself believe that Jade had managed to hold onto herself better. But while her limbs were still corded with muscle and her body reinforced with hundreds of thousands of souls, her mind was nearing the knife's edge. Rose was keenly aware that this apparent lethargy could shift into a violent dementia at any moment.
"Does this mean I can leave?"
"Not yet I'm afraid. I'm still working on a way around this newest threat." Jade's bony shoulder began to dig uncomfortably into Roses bicep.
"How much longer?"
"I don't know. But, it will not aid matters if you attack everyone I send this way. Especially not with any powers you've until now kept hidden from me."
Jade looked at her uncomprehendingly, one foggy eye narrowed as her brow scrunched up.
"Do not try to play innocent." Rose said. "I know damn well you made off with my cracked red eye orbs when we split. I had, in fact, assumed you'd burn them quickly satisfying your immediate feelings of rage, not ration them all this time. And develop devastating new abilities in the meantime."
Jade's expression did not change, and for a moment Rose was afraid everything she'd just said had flown over the girls head. But the lines on her forehead deepened as she spoke, "I never attacked anyone."
The hand that wasn't resting on Rose's knee came out of its warren amongst the ruin of her cloak and opened, revealing the four little chunks of clear red stone Rose had salvaged from the sodden ruins of New Londo.
"I still watch the runes and listen for the bell like you taught me, but I haven't seen any of them." Jade said. "But if I ever do, I'll sure show them who they're fucking with!"
Jades voice returned to its familiar light cadence at the end, and though tainted with the furious anger that contorted her face into a grimace Rose thought made her look deceptively childlike. At least, on what portions of Jades face she could make out in the corner of her eyes. The good portions. It was an unfortunate illusion for anyone who ever became a target for her rage; Rose could confirm from the hand that squeezed her knee as Jade's voice rose that the girl still had a good bit of her inhuman strength.
"They claim they were attacked, Jade, here in your sanctuary. A black phantom with wild hair wielding Avelyn. With the power to permanently injure Undead."
Rose had been hoping for more of a reaction to that last part, but Jade either didn't hear her or was too concerned about her beloved crossbow to comment on it.
"Avelyn?"
"Yes Jade, your crossbow." Rose looked down at the shoddy thing on the floor in front of them, wondering for the first time where the lethal device was. It was unusual to see Jade without it. After the tragic events, and the gradual fraying of her mental state, that led to its acquisition she'd begun carrying it around more like a talisman than a weapon.
Rose noticed a second later that shallow tears had begun to well in Jades good eye, her hand again beginning to contract around Roses knee painfully.
"Somebody stole her." Jade said as she began to pant and sob.
"She stole Avelyn."
~)~)~)
Terezi could feel the tall one coming out of the side of the aqueduct long before she came into view, her form blazing like an inferno in the darkness that consumed the world around her. And a much closer fire passed over her head as she ducked another one of Sollux's blows. The cleric had proved himself to be a semi-competent boxer, though he was still so sluggish and clumsy that he couldn't so much as lay a finger on a blind girl, a fact Terezi was quick to remind him of.
Sollux merely grit his teeth in response and aimed another hook right for Terezi's wide smile, which she easily backstepped. What had begun as a pity exercise to help Terezi save face after her stumble had turned into a nightmare for Sollux, as he found himself the plaything of a diminutive fighter who he had to keep checking did indeed have no goddamn eyes.
"Okay, no!" Sollux said, putting down his arms and refusing to fight further. Internally he was a little thankful he had curiosity and frustration to give him an excuse for grimacing, since he'd be grimacing anyway from the pain radiating out of his bandaged arm. Terezi wasn't showing any sign of being bothered by the hole in her head though, so like hell was he going to be caught complaining about the ones in him. Even though he had three.
"You need to fucking explain what you're doing right now! Did your eye grow back under that bandage, or what?"
"Your just too hot for your own good, I guess." Terezi said, stepping much too far into Sollux's personal space. Every muscle in his body tensed, but he refused to step away, both for pride and because he was a little mystified by her answer.
"The fuck are you talking about?"
She spun on the balls of her right foot, swirling past Sollux and getting behind him with a speed that made his blood run cold. He felt her push the tip of the empty sheath her lost sword had been in up against his back, right between his shoulder blades.
"I mean, you've got a fire inside you."
Sollux spun and backhanded the sheath away, his voice rising to a yell.
"Are you even capable of talking like a human goddamn being!?"
Terezi's grin only grew wider, but before she could answer an admonishing voice rang out from behind him.
"Sollux! What do you think you are doing yelling at her?"
Sollux turned and, despite himself, was mortified by the judgement etching itself all over the tall womans features as she rounded the broken down corner of some ancient hallway and stalked toward them. For a split second Sollux thought she suddenly looked a little less ridiculous and a little more imposing in her mismatched cloth and rusted armor scavenged from centuries old Undead. But then he remembered that he didn't give a damn what some unarmed stranger thought about him yelling at anybody, and tried to wipe any surprise from his face.
He was also, however, unable to stop himself from coming to his own defense.
"Oh hell no, listen!" He said, standing to the side and pointing towards Terezi. "She can fucking see!"
Terezi just shrugged while Kanaya's frown deepened. Sollux debated whether or not he should take another shot at Terezi to prove his point, deciding eventually that based on what he'd seen so far she'd be the type to take a bruise just to fuck with him some more. Thankfully, after a few horrifyingly awkward seconds, Terezi spoke up.
"He's right though. While it is no excuse to go screaming at a defenseless impaired girl…"
Sollux tried to control the annoyance seething out of his pores.
"…I can apparently sense you. All of you."
Kanaya's brows came together. "What do you mean?"
Sollux felt his own frustration melt away, curiosity consuming him as he wondered exactly how this woman had been able to tell were Sollux was. "Yeah. What do you mean you can sense us. Can you hear our footsteps, or our breathing, or something like that?"
"Of course not. That would be ridiculous. Clearly it is because you three are all on fire."
Both Sollux and Kanaya took a minute to process that.
"…on fire?"
"Yes. Incredibly so."
"Wait," Kanaya said, interrupting Sollux's own train of confused thought with the urgency in her voice.
"What do you mean three of us?"
"The little short yelling one. He's been sulking down there by whoever that is under the bonfire ever since you left to go talk to our mysterious friend."
Kanaya abruptly started walking that way. Terezi, finally caught off guard, turned with her, calling out, "Hey, wait! What did your friend say about my eyes?"
Sollux, in turn, called out to Terezi. "The fuck do you mean about me being on fire!?"
~)~)~)~)
When they gathered beneath in the dusty chamber beneath the bridge, Terezi made sure she was close to the door. The room was awash with a glow that was definitely not fire. It stunk like curdled milk, the fumes seeping up out of lettering she could feel on the ground in the middle of the room where the tall woman, Kanaya, knelt clutching a white stone glowing with the same energy that coated the room. Sollux stood between her and Kanaya, close enough to see what was being written on the floor. The small one squatted across from Kanaya with a grimace on his face, his eyes flitting up briefly towards Terezi as his scowl deepened.
"And how precisely do you expect to see any of this shit from back there?"
"I'll manage, shortstack."
Even on edge as she was she had to suppress a grin at the reaction that got out of him. Or almost got out of him anyway, since Kanaya mumbled something to him that had him grumbling and staring back down at the ground before he could properly get himself worked up. Terezi filed that observation away for future shenanigans.
The glow of the stones etchings, while not what she would call 'visible', were as apparent to her as everybody else was, and that was including the lone hollow wandering around up above them and what she assumed were dogs prowling around down below. The letters carved themselves into her mind just as sure as they were carved into the stone in front of Kanaya.
"I've gathered them both as you requested. Karkat is also present albeit begrudgingly. I suggest you hurry and say whatever it is you have to say before he storms off."
And to Terezi's surprise, someone responded. Stinking blue letters appeared on the ground next to Kanaya's looping scrawl, sliding into the air above the ground out of nowhere. Sollux seemed surprised as well, and Terezi noted how the fire inside him, easily the brightest in the room, flickered and shifted away in response. But she only noticed it for a second, because as the mysterious appearing words gathered they became harder and harder not to focus on, drawing Terezi's attention by shining brighter in her mind than anything else in the room.
"Good. And don't worry about Karkat, he's not going anywhere. You've both been very helpful, between his sad desperation and your misplaced gratitude. You're a very promising iteration. But now it's time we got real, so to speak."
Kanaya hesitated in her response, the stone hovering for a few seconds above the ground. Sollux, it seemed, couldn't help but speak up.
"Okay, what the hell is this?"
Terezi noticed Karkat's flame crackle and flare up, and she expected him to launch into some sort of tirade, but surprisingly he kept his peace, his flame looking more smaller by the second. Kanaya began to write.
"I am confused. You told me that you were going to answer my, um, our questions…what do you mean by 'get real?'"
"Feferi."
Sollux practically exploded, though his only outward reaction was to reach out one hand towards Kanaya and say, "give me the stone."
More words appeared. "Give him the soapstone, Kanaya. I know he's asking for it"
Terezi could tell Kanaya was wavering between writing some more and handing over the stone, but in the end she chose the latter. Sollux knelt down next to her and began writing himself, large messy letters that betrayed his frustration.
"Answer me right the fuck now. Who are you and how do you know that name?"
Kanaya appeared to come to her senses, her thin flame shooting upright and brightening as she snatched the stone from Sollux hand and pushed him aside with deceptive strength before writing some more.
"Rose what is going on? You've been needling us with cagey hints and backhanded suggestions about all sorts of things that despite your less than friendly tone I assumed meant you were going to be helpful. Was that all just some sort of ruse?"
Any response this Rose person may have given was blocked out from Terezi's view as Sollux and Kanaya's flames expanded, burning so loud and big she could swear she could feel the heat. For a second she thought they were about to come to blows, Sollux demanding the stone back and Kanaya steadfastly refusing. Karkat was rising with a hand on his sword when a blinding white light shot out from Rose's next word, freezing everyone in place momentarily and directing their attention back towards the ground.
"Oh I'll answer all your questions Kanaya. All of them. But before we do anything I believe it' time we established a few ground rules. Namely, that every single person in this room right now is henceforth my bitch."
"…Excuse me?"
"I have what you want. All of you. Sollux, if you haven't been knocked out by Karkat by the time this reaches you, I know where you can find Feferi and Eridan. Karkat and I have already had our little talk. And you, Kanaya, you're not just going to walk away from someone who can help that poor girl trapped beneath the bonfire, are you? And don't think I've forgotten you miss, over there in the back I bet."
All eyes turned on Terezi, who felt her blood boil and her fingers twitch at the name appearing on the ground.
"Dirk Strider. And I think that's all I need to say on that matter."
Terezi turned her face towards Kanaya. "Ask her what she wants."
"Terezi is asking what you want."
"I bet. I want a few things, actually, but first and foremost I want you all to sit here and pay attention. I have a story I want to tell."
~)~)~)~)~)
Dave's not above admitting he's made a few bad choices in his life, and as he plummets down to his demise beneath the still waters submersing ancient underground ruins with a ghostly sickle sliding its way back out of his perforated guts, he feels safe in including following the advice of mysterious writing on the ground among the worst.
Not the worst however, because of course he's not actually about to die.
Beams of woods stand tall down both sides of the thin walkway, eerie blue torches glowing strapped to their tops, and he's able to brace both outstretched arms against a beam on either side, which despite groaning from Dave's armored weight still manages to prevent him from falling into the black water the walkway just sits right on and drowning. The ghost is still a problem though, and since the blood rushing out of the hole right above his intestines proves that a shield isn't going to be of much help, Dave has no choice but to let the Crest Shield slip from his grasp and thud down onto the walkway, freeing up his hand so that he can grasp the beam that arm is leaning against.
He swings in a tight arc around that beam, his body hanging over the still waters for one perilous second before his feet thud against the walkway a few inches to the left of the space the ghost's jagged daggers now occupy. He's tense for one second, thinking about diving for the shield while the ghost is retracting its freakish long arms, but the moment passes and by then Dave has turned and ran, the walkway shaking slightly beneath him, his free hand pressing up against his wound to keep anything important from leaking out. He turns only when his boots connect with the soggy, damp soil that had accumulated over the top of laid stones forming the ruin of a sizable tower reaching up out of the water.
The ghost had stupid range, which Dave made sure to establish he was out of before stopping. Luckily, as he looked over his shoulder he saw the ghost fucking off back over to its side of the walkway, a misty forest of stone arches and broken pillars beneath a larger structure rising up into the gloom of the cave. Dave stops in his tracks, leaning up against the jagged remnant of a wall to swill some estus. The orange juice, whatever the hell it was, burned like hard liquor down his throat and settled heavy in his limbs for a second, lessening the pain in his stomach. And then the feeling was gone, and where before there had been a bloody puncture wound was now bare flesh and intact metal.
Yeah, Dave wishes he'd stayed the hell away from this place. It was much nicer up top, with the bonfire and the open air and the distinct lack of anything penetrating his innards. He's definitely learned his lesson about listening to mysterious instructions painted with magic on the ground-
Instructions painted with magic appear before him on the ground.
They weren't really instructions, just one word, and Dave would have just walked away, was turning on his heel to do just so as a matter of fact, if that one word hadn't been his name. Spelled with like thirteen a's. What the fuck.
"Daaaaaaaaaaaaave!"
More letters followed, glowing a pale teal that shone bright in the dim cave.
"I know you're reading this Dave. Now reply to me. You were lucky enough to stumble across the red soapstone so it's your duty to use it as often as possible. Dave? Dave use the fucking stone. If I don't get to use I at least get to see it, Dave."
Dave just walks away, turns on his heel and pretends he didn't see a damn thing. Or he would have, if he didn't slip on a little grey box camouflaged in the muck.
Dave Strider does not fall face first into mud, irregardless of whether or not anyone can see him. This is true, because Dave did not fall into mud; he fell onto a stone protruding from the mud, breaking his nose wide open. The pain he fixes with another sip from his estus flask. The mud splattered on his surcoat will be a different matter entirely.
He looks back at what he's tripped on and briefly contemplates chucking the damn thing out into the water, only just barely stifling the urge because Striders do not lose their cool…
…but. Nobody's watching, and the person who taught him that maxim is lost in the wind. So fuck it, Dave decides, and he abruptly crawls to his feet and lifts the box up out of the ground. It comes up out of the mud with a squelch, and when its bottom is pulled open by gravity Dave realizes that it's a box. More noteworthy however is the thick, pointed red stone that falls to the ground from within the box, glowing slightly even as it sinks a bit down into the impression the box left. Dave looks back over at the teal writing, and holds back a long sigh.
He kneels in the muck and begins running the tip of the stone through the thin layer of dirt and across the rock below, leaving a track of glowing red magic in its wake. He gives it a few more experimental swipes before setting to work.
A few minutes later, more teal lettering appears ahead of him.
"Dave? Why are you drawing pictures of genitalia? That's not very mature, Dave."
"Who the fuck are you and why do you know my name? Also what the fuck? What the fuck is this?"
"This is a soapstone. They were made by a huge bitch a long time ago, and because she was a huge bitch you get the red one. They allow people like you and me, normally shut off from one another, to communicate across Lordrans fractured time and space. I know your name because I know you, Dave, and my name is Terezi Pyrope."
"Okay well you just became the most helpful person I've ever met."
"Your welcome. I can't even begin to imagine why more people don't share that sentiment."
"Yeah I didn't thank you. The last person who talked to me through glowing letters on the floor led me to down to a goddamn ghost infested cave city and locked me the fuck in. Just because you're actually answering questions doesn't mean I'm going to believe anything you say."
"Oh but Dave, you really should believe me, if no one else! I might be the only person here with your best interests at heart."
"And why is that?"
"Because a long time ago, or maybe later on, you can never tell with you, you save my life. And I'm looking to return the favor."
"Oh is that all?"
"Don't get me wrong, saving my life isn't really all that big a deal. We're both Undead after all, it's more a matter of convenience really. But, a favor's a favor. And I figured you'd fall into that sadistic little witch's trap eventually, so I thought I'd give you hand. The least I can do is get you out of this cave."
"You know a way out?"
"Oh so you believe me now, hmm?"
"No. But it's not like I've got anything better to do."