You all are so lucky. I actually finished this chapter on Sunday night, and since I couldn't sleep, I started on Chapter 15 (but I couldn't post this one since the internet is still out). Yesterday, I couldn't post this chapter since I couldn't leave the ship, but I finished Chapter 15 and started on 16. So... yeah, you get 14 and 15 within five minutes of each other (and I'll probably be able to finish 16 later tonight and post it, which is great because I want to get to Chapter 23—which is also already written—and because the first character dies in the next chapter).

Many thanks to TH4TON3GUY and FanficFinatic2 for your reviews to the last chapter!

The Signless

He never realized how absolutely boring wigglers were. All they did was roll around and eat. He had no idea how Porrim found Kankri so interesting, but Karkat couldn't wait until he wasn't a wiggler anymore. He'd be more fun to play with then.

So, not for the first time and almost definitely not for the last time, he went out in search of something else more exciting to do.

He wound up near the crater again, but this time, it was empty. He don't know what he would have done if he found another wiggler in it—probably left it, considering the results of the last grub he'd brought back to the hive—but as it was, he was relieved that there didn't appear to be anything new around. Giving up on finding anything interesting now, he went off, not back to his hive, but further away, toward a cave he'd found once, a long time ago. He knew he was going farther than Kanaya warned him to, but it wasn't like there were any culling drones around—he could hide from those anyway.

He got lost twice on the way there and had to go back and retrace his steps (it had been more than a sweep since he'd come here last and he couldn't quite remember the way), but he figured it out finally. To his surprise, though, he heard voices coming from inside the cave. After a minute or two, there was silence, but then a figure appeared at the entrance, more strange-looking than anything.

It looked like a regular troll male between seven and eight sweeps old, but he had pale hair, oddly pinkish-looking skin, dark glasses hiding his eyes, no horns to speak of, and he was dressed in red with what seemed to be a lighter-red gear on his chest. His arms and chest looked raked with cuts, and he appeared to be bleeding some kind of strange, bright-red blood, just like his. He stared until the strange being went back in, disappearing from Karkat's view, and he couldn't help his curiosity. He scrambled up and peered inside. "Hello?"

There were three of them in the cave—the first one he'd seen, a female who looked remarkably like the first male except Karkat could see her eyes and she wore in an orangish dress, and another male with darker, more brownish skin, black hair, glasses that didn't hide his eyes, and a blue outfit. None of them had horns.

They were all staring at him.

The male in blue—he was the highest on the hemospectrum, judging by his clothing. The one in red was obviously the lowest, plus his blood hinted that he was a mutant, too. Why the other two hadn't killed him already was a mystery, but maybe... just maybe, they wouldn't hurt him, either. Maybe they were different.

The male in blue was the first to react. His eyes widened and his face split into a huge grin. "Karkat! Is that you?"

He was stunned. The blue-blood knew him? How could he—?

"It's me, John!" he went on, scrambling toward Karkat. "Oh, my God, it's great to see you!"

The other male threw out his arm to catch the one called John around the middle. "John, just fucking look at him for a minute," he said, looking at Karkat still. "Look. He's little."

"Karkat?" the female called, getting to her feet. "How old are you?"

"Four and a half," he answered after a moment of quiet deliberation. They wouldn't hurt him. He could feel it.

"Nine and a half," she murmured softly, probably to herself. "See, John?" she asked the blue-blood, louder. "We knew Karkat when he was six sweeps old. This isn't the same one."

"You know me?"

The male in red shifted uncomfortably. "We knew you. A different version of you, if that makes sense. I'm Dave."

"I'm Rose," the female added.

"So what do we do?" the one called John said.

"Um," Dave said.

"Karkat." Rose crouched down a bit so she was level with him. "Which of the other trolls do you know? Gamzee? Gamzee Makara?"

Karkat blinked in confusion and shook his head.

"Okay." She turned around to face the other two. "Who were his friends?"

"Um... Sollux, Terezi, Kanaya...?" Dave offered.

"I know Kanaya!" Karkat said. "She's my lusus. Well, kind of. She's a troll, but her and Porrim are raising us."

"'Us'?" John asked. "Who's 'us'?"

"Me and Kankri. He's my brother."

Dave groaned. "What the almighty fuck is this? I thought trolls didn't have siblings!"

"They don't," Rose said. Something about what Karkat said clearly bothered her, but he didn't know what it was. "Something changed. He said Kanaya and Porrim are raising them." She turned back to Karkat. "Are Kanaya and Porrim sisters?"

Karkat nodded.

"Karkat. Why don't you and Kankri have real lusii?"

He rocked back on his heels for a minute. "I'm not supposed to say, but..." He glanced at the blood drying on Dave's arms. If they were letting him live...

"Your blood color?" she guessed. "You're a mutant, right?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Kanaya found me in a crater when I was a wiggler. And then a few days ago, I found Kankri, and he has the same blood color as me, so now Kanaya and Porrim are taking care of both of us. You're not gonna kill me, are you?"

"Of course not," Rose said kindly. She reached out and ruffled his hair, much like Kanaya did. It reassured him.

"Okay, so you don't know Gamzee, Terezi, or Sollux, but you know Kanaya," John said, counting off on his fingers. "So that leaves seven. Who else was there? Oh, right, Vriska. Know her?"

Karkat shook his head.

"The one with the bull—Tavros, that was it," Dave said. "Know him? Tavros Nitram?"

He shook his head again.

John snapped his fingers a few times. "Oh! Nepeta! Nepeta and Equius! You know either of them?"

At his negative answer, they all fell silent for a moment or two. "Aradia?" Rose ventured.

"No."

"Who were the other two—the swimmy ones?" John asked.

"Sea-dwellers?" Karkat asked, his eyes growing wide.

"Yeah, Douche-Fin and... fuck, who was the chick who wore all that pink?"

"It was fuchsia," Rose said patiently, but Karkat was already shaking his head no—violently, with terror in his eyes.

"I don't know any sea-dwellers. They'd kill me if they saw me."

"Not Feferi," Rose said. "She's really nice. Eridan on the other hand... yeah, he was an asshole."

"Hey, didn't Kanaya saw him in half?" John asked with the beginnings of another smile crossing his face.

Suddenly, Dave was laughing and trying not to, covering his mouth with his hand. "Yeah—but he deserved it."

Karkat was lost, but the other three seemed to know what was going on.

"Alright, that's enough," Rose said, but she was smiling, too. "We're getting off-topic here. Alright, Karkat. How old are Kanaya and Porrim?"

"Real old. Kanaya is twenty and Porrim is fifteen." He eyed them all. "Why? How old are you?"

"Sixt—" John started, but Rose cut him off.

"Seven and a half."

That looked about right—they looked like they were close to eight sweeps old. "Where did you come from? You're definitely not trolls."

"No, we're not. We're humans. Our planet is called Earth." She looked to be thinking of something else to say, but he asked another question.

"How did you get here then? I've never heard of Earth."

"That is a very good question," Rose said. "One that we unfortunately don't know the answer to."

"Yeah. We fell asleep on a ship, and when we woke up, we were in the middle of that forest out there," John added.

Forest. That was definitely a blue-blooded word. Most of the people in his hive cluster called it a nature assemblage. "That's really weird."

"Yeah," Dave said. "And the worst thing is, we're actually missing one of our teammates. Maybe you've seen her? Looks a little like us except also kind of like a... dog?"

"A what?"

"Oh, God, what was that word...?"

"A barkbeast," John volunteered. "I think that was it."

"Oh. No, I didn't see anyone who looks like a barkbeast."

"Shit." Rose sat down and ran her fingers through her hair. "Now what?"

"We could go talk to Kanaya," Dave suggested. "And by that, I mean, you could go talk to Kanaya."

Rose's cheeks turned a little more pink than normal. "What would be the point? She wouldn't remember me. And she's twenty sweeps old now."

"Yeah, how old is that in Earth years?" John asked.

"About forty-three."

"She and Porrim are Space players, though," Dave said. "Maybe they could figure out where Jade is."

"But we don't even..." Rose turned back to Karkat. "Hey, listen, do you guys have a video game here called Sgrub?"

"I don't think so," Karkat said, feeling more and more confused by the minute. "But I can't play video games anyway."

"Why not?"

"We can't afford a husktop." He sat down and looked at them. "How did you know me?"

"Through the game," John said. "On Earth, it was called Sburb. That was... well, for us, it was about three years ago. And when you guys first started contacting us, we thought you were humans who were just fucking with us since you called yourself 'trolls,' and on Earth, a troll is someone who just fucks with people. Also, you said you were six, and we thought you meant six years, not six sweeps. A six-year-old is... Rose, help me out here."

"Um, about two-point-seven sweeps?"

"Sure, sounds about right. So, like, a little kid. So we thought you were just fucking with us, only you weren't. Also, you were kind of mean at first."

"Oh."

"But the only person you actually know from your session is Kanaya, so... damn, I don't know what's happening anymore."

"Did you just get here?"

"No, we got here... Well, it didn't feel that long, but four sweeps ago."

"But you weren't here the last time I found this place."

Rose and John exchanged puzzled looks before they both looked at Dave.

"Time loop fuckery," he explained. "You two existed outside the time stream, so technically, twenty minutes ago, this cave was empty."

"Right. Dave is our Time player, so he set up a loop for us while he went to look for Jade. She's our Space player," Rose said.

"So what are you?"

"I'm a Light player. Seer of Light, to be specific. And John here is the Heir of Breath."

"What was I?"

They all looked at each other, puzzled, but it was John who finally answered. "I'm pretty sure you were Knight of Blood."

Knight of Blood. That somehow felt like it made sense. The Blood part especially, considering his blood color was nearly all Kanaya and Porrim focused on. But Dave was a Time player, wasn't he? "Why aren't you a Blood player?" he asked Dave.

"Why would it be?"

"You have mutant blood like me."

John smacked his forehead. "Crap, I remember that. Actually, Karkat, all humans have the same blood color. In fact, when we found out that trolls had different blood colors, that was really weird to us."

"So how do you decide who your leader is?"

"That depends on where you're from," Rose said. "Where we lived, the leader was decided on with a vote. Everyone chose who they wanted to lead, and the person who was picked most often became the leader. In other places, there's a line of royalty and the leader was an inherited position—I guess like The Condesce and The Grand Highblood. And in other places, there really isn't a leader. People live in anarchy. Those places are dangerous, though."

"Oh." That sounded crazy. "But what if someone isn't right to lead?"

"Well, in the places where we vote, the leader is only leader for four years before there's another vote. If we don't like them, we vote for the other person. If we like them, we vote to keep them in office. But eight years is the limit, so they couldn't be elected a third time."

"But, like, jobs and stuff—how do you decide that? Like, I couldn't be an E%ecutor because I'm not a blue-blood, and only certain castes can be legislacerators, and—"

"It's all based on ability," Rose explained. "For the most part, anyway. In a truly well-functioning society, the only thing that should prevent you from doing what you want is whether or not you can actually do it. There's no culling drones, and people who kill others just because they're weaker are punished."

That sounded amazing. Earth seemed like a great place—especially the part about there not being any culling drones. He tried to imagine what it would be like to not have to hide, to not fear for his life every time he left his hive. It was amazing.

"Are you guys gonna be here for awhile?"

Dave shrugged. "Until we find our Space player, we're basically stuck."

Karkat jumped up. "I gotta go back to my hive, but I'll be back. You guys are cool."

John grinned. "You're not so bad, either."

"But you probably shouldn't mention to anyone that we're here. Not even to Kanaya or Porrim or Kankri," Dave added. "Not everyone is going to be as thrilled that we're here."

Karkat paused and then nodded. "I won't tell anyone."

"Good. Come back soon, okay? We missed you a little."

Eeeep li'l Karkat SAH KYOOT.