Chpt. 4
"Who's 'Spiderbitch'?" Hermione asked.
Karkat sighed and rolled his eyes, but Harry saw how confused he looked. Harry wondered why.
"'Spiderbitch'," he said, "Is a name Terezi uses for one of our friends."
"Why?" Hermione asked.
"Well," Karkat started, "She's kind of a huge bitch." Terezi laughed at him, and Karkat scowled. "Her real name's Vriska."
"Why did you turn the computer away from us?" Harry asked.
"Because there are some things in my f***ed up life that I would prefer to keep away from the eyes of prying wigglers."
Karkat captalogued his computer and sat down on one of the armchairs. He looked like he was deep in thought. Even Terezi had stopped grinning and looked unusually serious.
"What's going on?" Harry asked.
"Shit so f***ed up, you cannot begin to comprehend in your subpar think pans."
"What Nubby means," Terezi said, "Is that it's complicated."
"So, do you guys know how you got here?" Hermione pressed on with the questions.
"No. One moment I'm just sitting in my Respiteblock, and the next, poof. I'm getting kidnapped by hu-" He was cut off as Terezi punched him in the back of his head, "people," he continued as though nothing had happened. Harry figured that he must get punched a lot.
"Yeah, sorry about that," Harry said sheepishly. Karkat grunted in acceptance, but continued to scowl. Harry thought he must do that a lot.
"So, Terezi, what are we going to do about Vriska?" He asked a simple question, but he put a lot of hidden meaning into it.
"I don't know. Wait and see how it plays out? Paradox Space probably lead us here for some reason."
Karkat nodded, and Harry wondered what 'Paradox Space' was.
Hermione, eager to get some more information asked, "So, what's your life been like?" Karkat growled buried his face in his hands.
"So f***ed up I can't even begin to start." Terezi nodded.
"I can't argue with that one."
"Start from the beginning," Hermione suggested.
"No f***ing way," Karkat said.
"I'll tell you about my life since Nubby is being stubborn. I was chosen by a lusus that I never met."
"Chosen? Aren't lusus your parents?" Hermione asked.
"No," Terezi said not explaining more. "Anyways, this was before I was blind. I lived in a forest in a treehouse."
"All by yourself?" Ron asked, and Terezi nodded. "That must have been lonely."
"No, not really. I had eleven friends that I talked to online, Shouty being one of them."
"I used to FLARP with a few of my other friends. Vriska was my partner on Team Scourge. We used to be really good friends," she added looking at Hermione's expression. "Anyway, there was this one FLARPING session, we were playing against our other friends, Tavros and Aradia, and they were on Team Charge." Ginny, who had been pretending to not pay attention earlier, was now staring at Terezi. "So Vriska cornered Tavros and," she paused as though looking for the right word, "pushed him off a cliff."
Hermione gasped, and Harry felt slightly nauseated. His expression was mirrored on Ron's face. Karkat looked bored.
"Did he die?" she asked.
"Oh no, he was just paralyzed from the waist down. He was supposed to die though." Hermione looked horrified, by Terezi continued on with her gruesome story, "Anyways, Aradia tried to get revenge on Vriska. She's kinda got this thing going on where she can here the voices of the dead." Terezi looked absolutely serious as she said this, "She set some of Vriska's vic-" she sounded like she was going to say victims, but paused halfway, "She set some of the ghosts to haunt Vriska. Vriska in turn, manipulated Aradia's matespirit to- to do some pretty horrible things to her. He felt so bad afterwards. He had no idea what he was doing at the time."
"Then it was my turn to get revenge. I was more strategic in getting my revenge. Vriska had something she shouldn't have had. I contacted the owner, and he freaked the f*** out. When Vriska went to go pick it up, it blew up. She lost her eye." Hermione looked horrified at all the violence and maiming Terezi had been talking about.
"So, Vriska decided to get revenge on me by making my lusus tell me to look into the sun. I probably would have died if not for dumb luck." She spat the word luck as though it were the worst insult she could think of.
"So, I was blind, my lusus taught me how to survive while blind, blah blah blah. The cycle of revenge ended when Aradia made Vriska pay." Terezi smiled evilly.
"Oh my God, that's horrible."
"It's pretty f***ing normal where we come from," Karkat said, and he sounded unconcerned.
"Normal!?"Harry exclaimed.
Karkat nodded, "Our culture is pretty f***ed up. I was never one for all that shit. I prefer to watch romcoms."
Ron laughed thinking he was joking, but Karkat looked dead serious. Terezi cackled, and he ignored it.
"So, what happened to Vriska?" Hermione asked.
"From what I heard, Aradia beat her up pretty badly. Almost died," Terezi said nonchalantly, as though it were a normal part of life. There was a sort of awkward silence between the kids, and Hermione, desperate to break it asked;
"So, what was your life like Karkat?"
Karkat gave her a glare that would have made his lusus proud. "F*** you and f*** my life."
Hermione, who was having trouble getting used to Karkat's exceptionally foul mouth, let her mouth dangle open for a few seconds until she realized what she was doing and closed it, blushing profusely. Terezi cackled, and Ron joined her after a second, and soon everyone was laughing except Karkat.
"You'll have to get used to what come's out of Karkat's foul mouth," Terezi said, still laughing.
"Your mom won't like that very much, will she Ron?" Harry asked with a hint of amusement in his voice.
"No, I don't think she will!" Ron laughed again.
Hahaha. Crappy ending place, but whatever. Review!
Homestuck © Hussie
Harry Potter © J.K. Rowling