Soooooooo guess who forgot to update this! Sorry about that... Anyways, here's another chapter, this time with a young Dolorosa! I'm excited for the next chapter :D It's introducing my favorite characters.
Timewise: This goes first, obviously, considering the Dolorosa is just a kid in this one. This goes before chapter one (where the Dolorosa and Kankri bond).
Disclaimer: Andrew Hussie owns Homestuck.
Word count: 1,478
A young jadeblood leaped nimbly off of the narrow path carved midway up the wall of the cavernous tunnel. She landed on the bottom, narrowly missing a thin ribbon of water that twined lazily down the center of the large tunnel. Needle sharp stalagmites rose from the earth, all in varying shapes and sizes.
This was the first room in a series of tunnels where the newly hatched grubs had their Trials. Old blood of every color of the rainbow stained the floors and stalagmites, but the jadeblood paid that no mind. She wandered around one of the taller stalagmites, tracing a line along it with a finger. A voice called down, "Get out of there, girl!"
The young jadeblood looked up, dark lips twisted into a scowl. She glared at the older jadeblood standing on the path she had deserted only seconds ago. "I'm just looking!"
He was one of the few male jadebloods, and he shouted back, "Do you want to be eaten by some stray creature?!"
When she ignored him and wandered around a column, ducking underneath a stalactite, he snapped, "Porrim Maryam, get up here right this instant!"
Porrim growled under her breath but obeyed, vaulting off of multiple stalagmites to get up. "But, Greyol," she complained, "I was just looking."
Greyol glared at her. He was an older troll with streaks of grey in his hair. His horns were similar to Porrim's but more wavy and blunt. "We don't let wigglers like you down there because you might impale yourself on a stalagmite."
Porrim retorted, "I'm not a wiggler and I'm not stupid enough to die in such a dumb way."
Greyol rubbed his temples with his forefingers and kept walking. When a jadeblood became old enough (and responsible enough) to start learning how to take care of the Mother Grub, their lusus would bring them to the caverns. The Mother Grub would then pick a troll to mentor the young one and teach them how to work and live in the caverns until the young troll came of age and was allowed to do things independently. Porrim was Greyol's first apprentice, and he was sincerely glad that he had never had one before. He didn't know how other wigglers were, but Porrim was fiercely independent and all too willing to try new things. If anything, he would guess that she was trying to make enough of a fuss that they decided she was more trouble than she was worth and send her back where she came from. Unfortunately for the girl, there had never been a jadeblood who had ever not taken care of the Mother Grub.
On to the next room. Here, the water turned into a fast-moving river that split into several sections and careened wildly around tiny islands and peninsulas. In the previous room, the grubs had to get through the maze of stalagmites and avoid the grub-eating creatures that were spread throughout the entirety of the trial caverns. Here, they needed to learn how to swim — and quickly.
Once again, Porrim hopped down and leaped languidly from island to island. "Girl!" roared Greyol, "Get back up here before I flay you alive!"
She shouted over her shoulder, "I can swim, thank you very much!"
Greyol groaned. He was supposed to be giving her a tour of this side of the caverns, but she was choosing to become intimately familiar with the caves in more hands-on manner than was necessary. Irritably, because he had scolded her countless times already, he cried, "Porrim Maryam!"
The girl flinched, recognizing that she had finally gone too far. She still took her time returning, however, and scowled as she followed him meekly into the other rooms.
Perigrees later, and Greyol still wasn't sure if Porrim was worth the trouble. As they were both currently on running a patrol to make sure no beasts had managed to get into the caverns, he had plenty of time to reflect upon this. She wasn't even paying attention, choosing instead to play in the mud as if she'd never seen water before.
"Girl!" Greyol barked.
She retorted, "Elder!" After so much time in each other's company, she had learned to bite back. Every other jadeblood living in the caverns would be able to confirm that 90% of their time together was spent arguing. The other 10% was Greyol running after Porrim while she went about another hare-brained scheme.
"Get out of the mud before you get your dress dirty!"
Porrim scowled at him and dramatically stood, shaking off her jade green skirts. "Stop telling me what to do!" she shouted.
Greyol narrowed his eyes. He recognized that Porrim was an independent young troll and that he annoyed her more often than he didn't, but this time something was wrong with her tone. "Get out of that ditch," he ordered.
She swooped and scooped up a handful of dirt. Before he could realize what she was doing, she lobbed it at his face. He ducked, but the movement sent him tumbling into the ditch until he skidded to a stop at her feet. She crossed her arms, eyes stormy. "Serves you right," she declared.
Greyol staggered to his feet. He grumbled to himself, but he couldn't shake off the feeling that something was wrong. Porrim took off down the ditch despite the fact that it wound parallel to the actual road, and he hurried after her. Greyol was by no means a soft troll. In fact, he was considered one of the grumpiest trolls in the whole caverns. And yet he couldn't help but feel a twinge of remorse for snapping at her. "What's wrong?" he asked gruffly, refusing to meet her gaze.
She spun around to glare at him, her knee-length skirt flaring out around her. "Everyone keeps telling me what to do."
He opened his mouth, but she added, "Don't do that, Porrim, you might break your neck. Don't touch that, Porrim, you might cut yourself. Don't eat that Porrim, it might be poisonous. Don't walk, Porrim, you might trip and smash your skull. Don't breathe, Porrim, because you're a safety hazard to everyone here and you're better off dead anyways!" She spun on her heel and kept walking, steps stiff and angry. Greyol was speechless. He'd had no idea that he wasn't the only one constantly chasing after her in a useless effort to try and keep her (and the things around her) relatively safe.
"Porrim, I don't tell you that to spite you—" he began.
She turned around again and hissed, her dark eyes burning. He blinked. "Of course you don't," she snapped, "I'm beyond sick of being told not to do something because of something that might happen! I bet you don't know about all those carvings in the floors of the Trial caves! I bet you don't know that the rivers have fish in them! I bet you don't know that there are tons of other tunnels we've never mapped!"
He paled. "You went beyond the maps?!" he demanded. Did she have any idea how dangerous that was? Did she have any idea that the ground could give way before her feet at any given moment?
"See?" she said snidely, "You're thinking about everything that could've happened."
Greyol sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I only tell you those things to protect you."
Her glare grew fiercer. "As if," she snorted. "I'm sick of your shit. I'm sick of all of this. I can take care of myself. I know my limits. I know what's going beyond the line. I refuse to sit back and follow the rules merely because of something that might happen. And if it does happen, then it's my lesson to learn and mine alone. Do you understand?"
Greyol stared at her. He could have said so many things at that moment. He could have told her she was being a stubborn wiggler. But he didn't. He swallowed his pride and nodded, finally accepting that Porrim Maryam was far more than the sum of her parts. "I do." She blinked in surprise. He hesitantly added, swallowing hard, "But . . . you'll have to excuse me if I do slip up again. I've spent sweeps trying to keep idiots like you out of trouble."
She giggled. "No problem. As long as you accept that you've finally met an idiot who knows what she's doing."
"Agreed."
She continued walking, although there was a new bounce in her steps.
Greyol cleared his throat. "Er . . . what was that you said about tunnels beyond the maps?"
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