Author's Notes: A bittersweet chapter for you. Figured if I gave you straight up sweet it would hurt your teeth. Ain't I nice to protect you?
Behind Blue Lies – Part 6
At Tavros's direction, and with the help of a fairybull Tavros fondly called Tinkerbull, Vriska found her way to a cabinet stocked with health supplies. She loaded an arm down with everything she needed and asked the fairybull hovering at her side—for she was certain Tavros was with it—where she could find horn plaster. The creature fluttered through the relaxation block, where Vriska left the things near Tavros and forbid him from touching them, and back out into the pale moonlight. Soon Vriska was returning from the stable with a container of the plaster, a handful of variously grained abrasion papers, and a small filling tool. With this she had everything she needed to set the brown to some degree of rights.
She found him where she'd left him, stretched out on the couch. What wasn't where she left it was a stool that now rested by the couch, and Vriska gave Tavros a hard look. Too bad the other troll excused innocence. Something other than her gift told Vriska there wasn't a deceitful bone in Tavro's body. He was purely, refreshingly, honest. It was a true pleasure to be around him. Everything he felt he seemed to feel without restrain. It was enviable.
"So, tell me what happened."
"What's there to tell?" Tavros asked as Vriska sat down on the stool, rolling up her sleeves. "I was walking the shore, listening for an injured cawbeast a seagoat friend of mine told me about. Suddenly there's a group of seatrolls all around me, and they were, uh, yelling at me for polluting their beach, and then they started hitting me. My friends, um, fought to help me, and drove them off. End of story."
"That isn't everything and we both know it," Vriska countered, carefully lifting Tavro's splinted leg and putting it on a pillow. She tugged her long dagger from its sheathe and carefully ct the loosely tied strips from the set-up so she could look over the break. "Could you send one of your friends for new branches? I want to cut them down and strip them as straight as possible for you."
Tavros zoned out for a moment, then let out a sigh, looking up at Vriska once more. "Why do you care?"
"Because I care," she responded, slowly easing one of the old sticks free. "Do you care overly much about the pants?"
"Uh, pleas don't," Tavros gasped, fear suddenly pouring from him so strong that Vriska's head snapped up, her eyes drawn to his warm brown ones in shock.
"What did they do, Tavros?"
"It's just a break..." he said, weakly. There was something in the way Vriska was looking at her that was worrying, but Vriska didn't care. "Just re-set it and..."
"Don't lie to me. You're bad at it and it wouldn't work on me anyway. Empaths can sense lies."
"Oh..."
Carefully Vriska slid her dagger under the edge of Tavros's pant leg, and with one quick cut she tore open the seam to halfway between his knee and hip. What she saw then was almost enough to make her sick. His skin from the knee down wasn't the same healthy gray as above, but a sickly, pasty gray-brown. Another swipe of her knife and the other side of the pant leg was cut open so she could roll back the cloth. The rage must have been clearly painted on her face because Tavros reached for her dagger-less hand and intertwined their fingers.
"Please don't, um, cry like that. It doesn't hurt."
Cry? Vriska carefully raised her dagger hand to her cheek, brushing her fingers against the skin, and sure enough they came back covered in watery cerulean. Suddenly she didn't feel so guilty about Calgor. Maybe she should have left him to Veruna. What foul creatures beat another for fun? Left them like this? It was more than clear that the bones, if nothing else, were broken in in several places. But for as bad as it looked, it was a hundred times worse if he couldn't feel pain. Nervously Vriska reached out and prodded his foot, and winced when his foot didn't flinch at all.
"How long have you been walking on this?" she asked, trying not to loose what little cool she had left.
"Um, if you count tonight.."
"I do."
"And the night of the attack, then about five nights."
"What for fuck's sake would drive you to do something so foolish? You could have gone to a healthmender nights ago! You should have!"
"I had a hoofbeast about to drop a foal, a barkbeast with eating problems, and a pair of coobeasts with broken wings needing tending. I couldn't just leave them."
"Does your life mean nothing to you? If the flesh rots, and I think it's starting to..."
"What happens, uh, happens for a reason."
"No!" Vriska snapped. "Don't even try to tell me that this had a reason. I knew Calgor, one of the trolls who did this to you. He deserved a worse death than I gave him for it."
Abruptly Vriska stopped talking, realizing what she had just admitted to. Someone as gentle as this Tavros would never understand why she'd done what she had.
"You killed him?"
"I didn't have a choice," she moaned, knowing he'd never believe it.
"Why?"
And there he went asking intelligent questions again.
"If I hadn't done it, he would have been tortured and killed by her."
"It would have driven you crazy."
When she looked up, Vriska saw as much as felt understanding in his eyes. It was almost painful to see, and at the same time it was comforting. Tavros's fingers tightened around her own, and when he spoke his voice was low and soothing.
"You've been blaming yourself, haven't you? I, uh, don't think you should do that. It was self defense. Not for another troll, but, uh, I'm pretty sure it was for you. Empaths and beasttalkers, we're, uh, similar. In a way. I can't stand around and let a beast suffer. And you can't stand by and let a troll. You share their emotions at every moment, don't you? Everything he felt you would have felt. It would have shattered your pan, right? You were well within your rights of self protection. I think."
"I don't..."
"Then let me believe it," Tavros all but pleaded, knowing exactly what she was going to say.
His fingers were still entwined with hers, and when he gently squeezed her hand the warmth she found there—both literal and figurative—was enough to make the memories less painful. It was like a balm on her mind, a soothing pap in her bloodpusher.
"You can forgive me for the blood on my hands?"
"Well, uh, if your reason for being there was good. Not that I can think of a good reason to be among hierarchists."
"How else am I supposed to find people like you who need help? I'm not there because I like it. The press of their emotions hurts but..."
"Wait. The press of their minds? Can't you block, um, block out low levels of stuff a bit? Your training..."
Now Vriska untangled her fingers from his, a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Here was one secret she'd shared with no one—though now that Sollux had been in the psychic registry he might have figured it out on his own. The result of sweeps of hiding her gift made her something worse than just dishonest or an empath. It made her 100% illegal. Empaths, like psions, were considered highly dangerous trolls because of one of the applications of their gift. Strong empaths uncaring of who they hurt could bend their power to control the minds of other trolls. It was far easier to control a warm blood as their increased psychic potential also made them more susceptible to psychic attacks. For an empath to go unregistered, to knowingly go untrained and without ethical schoolfeeding meant she'd earned years in a prison hive, and only gained more the longer she hid.
But trained empaths were closely watched by the system, would be more closely watched by the hierarchists, would have their skills called upon by Veruna in terrible ways. As a wriggler she'd said nothing to her guardian for fear of what he would have done. Now she said nothing because of Veruna and the threat of prison. So she'd never been trained, never learned how to block things out, even though she'd learned how to direct her attentions towards one troll or another.
"I'm not trained."
Vriska let the words sink in, waited for the look of horror to cross Tavros's face. Instead all she was met with was pity. Such plain pity on his gentle face, and dancing through her mind thanks to her gift. It was a kind of pity she'd looked for over the sweeps, and feared to find.
"You're amazing," Tavros whispered, and she could feel he meant it. "You've taken this, uh, wonderful power, despite its cost to you, and you've struggled all these sweeps to bear that burden alone. And you've turned it towards such a goal, if I'm not, um, presuming wrong, of helping people the hierarchists hurt. You're fighting a group few trolls will admit exist in your own way. At great personal cost and risk. Yet for all the pain and cruelty you see, you still have the, um, pusher to feel when you see a guy with a messed up leg."
The world was a cruel place. Vriska had always known that. She'd known it ever since she'd first seen her guardian raise his hand against Karkat and Remium. And how, here she was, tending to this troll who hadn't deserved what he'd been dealt, and he thought she was good for doing it. And the worst part, the absolute worst part, was that after tonight she could never see him again. After all these sweeps, at the point she needed it most, she'd found her fated moirail and she couldn't risk seeing him again.
"Tavros," she started to say, and he shook his head in answer.
"Don't. It'll hurt worse if you say it out loud. Just take what we've got. Make it enough. This night has to last us, so stick to the important stuff, okay?"
"I'm not going to leave you hurt here just to give you a chance to pap my pusher calm."
"Then, uh, talk and mend."
So she did.
The arm wasn't in much better state than the busted leg, but this time she wasn't as horrified. Not that she wasn't furious. It was just that Tavros was already quite deft at calming her ass down. Unlike the leg, the arm might turn out to be salvageable, provided Tavros was willing to seek a professional healthmender and soon. Yet there wasn't much chance to argue that with him, what with her giving him an abbreviated rundown of her life as an illegal empath being raise by a hemohierarchist, then as a member of that same, loathed, organization. The whole time her attention was focused upon applying a poultice, sewing a deep cut, or wrapping some wound. As she finally approached the end of her story she finished re-wrapping his arm and turned her attention to the cracked horn.
"The worst part," she said as she leaned close to examine the horn, "is that the longer I spend among them, the more I have to find ways to act like one of them, the more I start to think like them. I don't' want to upset the system, but I think in terms of low and highblood. Better and worse. I'm afraid that someday I'm going to say it in front of my matesprit and I'll lose her. I'll leave a trail of trolls I pity and hurt in my wake."
"Can't you leave?" he asked. "Just stop attending?"
"She'd have them come after me as a traitor, take down my matesprit, my clade, her clade... It doesn't help that I'm connected to a mutant crimson blood. The leader, she wants him killed for an abomination outside of the spectrum. I've been able to beg off due to his position in my ashen quadrant, the emotional instability of his matesprit and the fact that said matesprit is moirail to my own matesprit."
"Why do this at all? What's the point? Hatred will always continue, as it always has. You can't chance the contents of a troll's heart against their will. The hierarchists will learn that in time. Why even try?"
"They hurt people, Tavros. All the trolls they hurt, shouldn't they be fought for? Shouldn't someone be there to help them? Shouldn't someone try to stop them? Who's in a better position to help them than me? I know when they're bluffing, I know when they're serious. No one could do what I can. I have to do this. No matter the price, the fight is worth it. I'll keep fighting, keep working because I can't just stand by."
When she met his eyes again, he was smiling, softly, approvingly, proud of her.
"Then the risk is worth it?"
"Absolutely."
"Then don't stop fighting. Never give up. It isn't, um, like you to do so, Vriska. So don't start now. Don't ever start. I'm sure your matesprit would understand if she knew."
"She can't know."
Tavros wrapped his good fingers in hers now, and Vriska lifted his hand to her lips, pressing a gentle, pale kiss to the back of it. His smile went sad then, and when his hand was free, he wrapped it around the back of her head and pulled her down to place an equally pale kiss upon her brow. With the traditional pale kisses their moirallegience was sealed, and Vriska could feel the pain in him at the realization. They shouldn't have, but wasn't that the story of her life? Full of shouldn't haves and never woulds? With a sigh she pulled away and reached for the tools needed to deal with the cracked horn.
"Tell me about your own life. We've got a bit of time still."
"I, uh, don't think that would be the best use of it."
"I've talked enough. Your turn."
"Vriska, I..."
"I can't talk and deal with the crack at the same time. I need to pay attention, you addlepan."
Tavros was silent for a moment a Vriska started to mix water into the plaster powder and stir the material into a proper consistency.
"Well, uh, I... Um... I'm kind of not normal."
"Now he tells me," she teased, still stirring.
"No. I mean, I wasn't, um, assigned to my guardian from the hatching caves."
"You were reassigned young?"
"Not that either. I... he found me. I was the latest in this odd string of grubs found in the wild the night of a meteor strike. I wasn't support to, um, know, but my guardian wasn't the best at keeping secrets from me. One perigee we were out wandering, him teaching me about beasts, and we came across where he found me. So he told me everything. Said it was better that I know."
Vriska nodded, resisting the impulse to freeze at his revelation as that would have stopped the stirring and would have let the plaster start to set. Soon there was nothing she could do but slather plaster across the crack, using the tool to pack it in deep enough to help hold the horn stable but not so much that it would inhibit healing. The plaster was the special sort that broke down as the horn healed, so she had to make sure it was anchored enough to protect delicate tissue, but not so hard as to put strain on the regrowth. Still, the damage would cost him several perigees of growth. Not that he needed it with how large his horns already were. They were enough to almost make Vriska envious.
"So you're a mystery grub. And a pretty tough one too to make it to the surface and survive long enough to be found."
"In my defense, it was the dark season," Tavros laughed, then shuddered as Vriska blew on his horn to encourage the creamy orange plaster to set. "That, well, it feels weird."
"Tickles in the psychics?" Vriska asked, knowing it was true. The sensation was awkward at best from her memory.
"Pretty much. But keep going. The sooner you get this done..." he trailed off, and Vriska frowned. She didn't need reminded. Didn't want it either. Her departure loomed over them like a doom, and even thinking about it was painful.
Instead of rolling it over in her pan, Vriska reached for a piece of coarse abrasion paper, checked the firmness of the plaster, and threw herself into the slow process of smoothing the material down to horn level.
"Does this really have to...?" Tavros started to ask, and Vriska nodded.
"We're pretty sure she watches me. Not always, but often enough that returning here is a risk I can't afford. If anyone asks, I was here to offer you a job consulting with my production facility designing home supplies for pets. You refused and sent me on my way after a long debate."
"I wouldn't do it anyway," Tavros said, his voice quiet. "I like it out here with all my friends."
"Friends?"
"The beasts. They're gentle. They help me whenever they can."
"Well, they better make sure to keep you safe in the future. I can't come out here hand help you like this again."
"What about Trollian?"
"I'll give you mine, and I expect yours for emergencies, but that's it. Just the most absolute of emergencies."
"Like, uh, what kinds? Fire? Flood? Empty chill box?"
"All of that plus earth shaking and wind storm all put together in one. All of the disasters in one. All of them."
"Hierarchists at my door..."
It was too real a possibility to ignore, even though she wanted to.
"Contact me immediately then. Doesn't matter if I'm on or not. Someone will be there to help."
"What about...?"
"Stop. Just stop, okay? I am tired of this. I don't even want to fucking think about it. This is hard enough as it is, Tavros. Please. Just... Stop, okay?"
"I will if you promise me one thing."
"What's that?"
"Believe in yourself. Because I do."
"I will."
"Promise?"
"I promise. Now have one of these critters fetch some paper and a writing thing. Gotta swap handles, and there's another I want you to contact first thing this morning..."
arachnidsGrip [AG] began trolling twinArmageddons [TA]
AG: I don't care what it takes. I don't care what I will have to owe you.
AG: Lay claim to my first 8orn gru8s. Demand my whoooooooole collection of 8adass hats.
AG: Anything at all.
AG: Just do one thing for me, Sollux.
AG: Protect adiosToreador.
arachnidsGrip [AG] ceased trolling twinArmageddons [TA]
twinArmageddons [TA] began trolling arachnidsGrip [AG]
TA: what the fuck ii2 goiing on here 2ekret?