A/N: I lied, it isn't a short chapter. I really like this chapter for some odd reason. Two of my favorite pairings are in this, so if I got carried away at any point, sorry. This chapter is sort of fluffy-ish, mostly talking about a normal day for the trolls.

I hope you enjoy. :)

Part 3: We're Making This Happen

It was an hour after the sun set on Alternia, and in a few more hours the trolls would gather together for breakfast. Ever since Sburb had ended they had moved into one huge hive, saying it would be easier and more convenient. Everyone kept their silent, unspoken secret that it wasn't for that reason alone. Solitude . . . was an unsavory option after everything they were put through.

As usual, Karkat was the first to sit at the table. It would be a while until any others woke up, so he put his feet on the edge and leaned back, snatching his sickle and a block of wood from his sylladex. They fell easily into his hands and he began widdling away on the wood block. It was a strange hobby he had learned from John, who had told him about it. These damn blocks of wood were impossible to work with but he was determined to finish one, though every project before this had ended up smashed against a wall.

He growled at the memory and slashed too hard at the wood, nicely decapitating the Scalemate he had been making, and also creating a horrible gash down the inside of his hand. For a moment he stared at the wound, his candy red blood already running along his arm, staining the circuitry. When the artificial pain sensors began going off, his mind clouded and he dropped the rest of the wood and his sickle, not bothering to captchalogue them.

He raced upwards through the gigantic hive until he reached Equius's room. Instead of knocking, Karkat barged in and strode over to where the blue blood was sleeping peacefully in his recuperacoon. Not for long. "Hey wake up asshole! My hand is fucking bleeding. What did you do, make my entire body as fragile as a gogdamn wingbeast?" He continued to rant and rage and even threw in a few kicks until the troll opened his eyes, peering up through the slime.

"Finally!" he grumbled, thrusting his bleeding hand in Equius's face. "I need you to fix this before I fucking bleed out."

It was a good thing that the blue blood was a morning person. If he wasn't, Karkat might have had to add "dislocated jaw" to his injury list, and that wasn't something that Equius could fix with his tools. After cleaning the sopor from his hair and skin and locating and putting his glasses on - accidentally adding another crack with his STRONG fingers - he had Karkat sit in a chair at his workshop which was in the corner of the room. He searched around until he found the correct tools and knelt down beside Karkat, fixing the circuitry he had cut inside of the hand and then fitting the metal together again. He lightly sanded down the area, and the hand was as good as new.

"Thanks," Karkat muttered, flexing his fingers to check they all were working. He tried to avoid insulting the mechanic too much nowadays since he basically controlled whether he could walk or not.

"You are . . . most welcome." Equius kept his gaze downwards, a thin layer of sweat already forming. Before Karkat could berate him, he added, "Is everything else working?"

"Yes."

"May I check?"

Karkat sighed. "Fine."

Smiling slightly, Equius began inspecting and examining the rest of Karkat's mechanical parts.

Both of his arms and legs had been replaced with steel appendages. Karkat was extremely bitter about how he had acquired them, especially because along with those actions, he now had a new nickname. Some of the trolls, usually Vriska or Terezi, called him the Sufferer. How fucking great was that?

He didn't want to admit it, but they were correct. He hadn't wanted others to sacrifice themselves. But that was enough of that. The subject was a sore one.

He focused in on the mechanic who was touching, testing, and rolling his arm, checking to see if everything was in place correctly. The guy was surprisingly gentle and even hummed as he worked. He smirked. He would bet his precious sickles that the idiot had no idea his strength had a subconscious off switch. If he didn't, then he wouln't be able to craft anything or carefully tweak and tighten the bolts in his metal limbs.

Knowing stuff like this is why I'm the leader, he thought as the mechanic dropped down to inspect his legs.

He had been creeped out by Equius touching his legs for the first few weeks but he'd been forced to get over it. Plus, this was the only situation when Equius wasn't a huge creeper, too focused on his work to notice the awkward position.

When he was finished, Karkat lurched to his feet and stomped out the door. The mechanic called out a warning, something about not putting too much strain on the joints but it fell on deaf ears. As Karkat headed downstairs to sulk and eat his breakfast, Equius changed into his clothes and went about the normal morning business. When he was finished fixing a door he had ripped off its hinges, he plodded around the hive until finding himself at Nepeta's doorway.

Not trusting himself to knock on the door, he politely called for his moirail. Not a moment later the door flew open and Nepeta had pounced on him, wrapping her tiny frame around him. "Good morning, Equius!" she giggled, grinning up at him. "Are we going to breakfast?"

"Indeed we are. I wished to rouse both you and Aradia before departing to the dining hall," he replied, allowing himself to smile, knowing she would be pleased. She loved it when he smiled and acted friendly to others. Before Sgrub he had been pretty controlling, possessive, and mean to others, but after his death he had been determined to have a Nepeta-esque outlook on life and others. He had done his best to hide his prejudices over blood caste and always attempted to be curteous to everyone, including gutterbloods such as Tavros and Aradia. In fact, ever since he had sought to change, Aradia had welcomed him into her life as her matesprit.

For once, things were pretty good. Sure, he got jealous and possessive when Aradia spoke with her moirail, Sollux, or when Nepeta turned her attentions to Karkat. Some old habits die hard. What mattered was he was surrounded by friends he could care for and protect.

When they woke Aradia, she insisted on rousing Sollux as well. When he scowled, Nepeta patted his head - she had opted sit on his shoulders for the time being - and Aradia gripped his hand, lacing their fingers together. The scowl faded and he conceded.

Waking Sollux led them to wake Feferi and Eridan, which led to Nepeta suggesting they should get Tavros as well. Soon enough, Tavros, Gamzee, Vriska, and Kanaya had joined the group and they were all heading downstairs to eat. They didn't bother checking Terezi's respiteblock, since they all knew she woke up early to annoy Karkat.

Sure enough, downstairs Terezi was scrawling all sorts of illustrations with her treasured red chalk. Actually, this chalk was extra special, because Karkat had begrudgingly gifted it to her on Twelfth Perigree's Eve along with a dark gray Scalemate she had named Threshecutioner Graygrump. Apparently he had been too embarrassed to give it to her directly, so he left it in a hidden corner of her room with a little card that read, "HERES YOUR DAMN PRESENT, I HOPE YOURE HAPPY." On the back of the card was a small heart which revealed his true intentions.

On that day, she had grinned like a lunatic - more than she usually did, of course. Hehehe.

Terezi made a point to carry Graygrump around everywhere and slather red chalk on anything that caught her nose after that, especially if it belonged to Karkat. She even scrawled pictures on his arms when he wasn't paying attention.

All-in-all, annoying Karkat was her number one priority after that gift and through her hard work she had managed to persuade him into roleplaying with her once. She took this as a sign of progress. She was determined to make him less of a grump. She wasn't that successful when he was around the whole group, but privately, when they were alone, she had actually managed to make him smile.

Terezi counted that as a point. Actually, she counted it as six hundred and twelve points because Karkat did not smile for anything. Except, apparently, for her.

She peeked up from her drawings to cackle at the nubby-horned troll sitting at the head of the table. He scowled at her and ordered her to shut the hell up. She giggled and began drawing again, babbling on about an imaginary courtcase. She were prone to babbling and despite Karkat's silence, she could smell the slightly annoyed content surrounding him like a soft blanket. It was a uniquely sweet smell with a slight sour edge to it. Besides the cherry red of his blush, it was one of your favorite scents.

After fifteen minutes of soft thumps from upstairs, ten trolls entered the room where you and Karkat were sitting. They were all talking to each other, Vriska's voice in particular louder than the rest. Terezi greeted Nepeta, who slid down from Equius's shoulder to perch on the chair beside the blind girl. The table bustled with each individual hunting around for their favorite food. Terezi and Karkat had already eaten, so Terezi focused on socializing and making a nuisance of herself as usual.

The meal was full of shouts and conversations with the occasional papping and grimacing. The trolls had acclimatized to each other, adopting the "Just Let it Go" policy. It was surprising, but besides her usual crap, even Vriska was rather nice in her obnoxious, mean way. The only true fueding going on was between kismesises, such as the flying insults being swapped by Vriska and Aradia and Sollux and Eridan. By the end of the hour, the fighting had subsided to a low grumbling and most were paired up with their moirails and matesprits, talking about any old subject. Terezi was pretty proud how cooperative everyone was.

When everyone was finished, they seperated into groups. Gamzee dragged both Karkat and Tavros off to go "motherfucking chill," Feferi convinced Sollux to go somewhere that was probably ocean-related with a sulky Eridan in tow, Aradia disappeared with Equius to enjoy some "time shenanigans," and a final group of Terezi, Nepeta, Vriska, and Kanaya went into the woods to investigate, explore, and hunt some huge wild lusus.

It was a pretty typical day, and Vriska got a chance to use her mind control to make Karkat slap himself and say "I'm a pretty girl." (Far away on the cliff Gamzee had dragged Tavros and Karkat off to, he cursed Vriska and promised to gouge out her eyes while she was sleeping.) Besides that incident, and the fact that Equius and Aradia actually spent their entire day millions of years in the past, it was pretty uneventful.

Then the sun began to peek onto the horizon and they returned home. They ate dinner with the same hubbub of breakfast and the subject of Aranea and dream bubbles was finally addressed.

"Imagine it. Mindfang. After I meet her I'll be eight times as great as before, because she'll be telling me all of her secrets. Aaaaaaaall of them," Vriska gushed, an almost murderous glint in her eyes.

"Can't believe you guys are excited over this bullshit," Karkat growled, instantly in a worse mood now that the ancestors had been mentioned.

Vriska turned her head so fast to glare at their leader, Tavros was hit in the face with her huge amounts of hair. Before she could say something stupid, Feferi piped up. "Not all of our ancestors are as great as yours, Vriska. I mean, look at the Condesce. She's terribubble!"

"Kar can't use that excuse," Eridan said. "The Sufferer wwas a hero or somethin'."

"Yeah, what's your problem?" Vriska hissed.

Karkat slammed his fist down on the table. "It's just a bad idea, okay? It's a fucking bad idea and I'm not going to be the idiot nooksniffer who regrets going along with it. I'm not going to talk with that suffering asshole, and I can't think of one reason why any of you would want to meet your own ancestors." He pushed away from the table and stomped upstairs. Terezi sighed and followed him, rubbing the bridge of her nose in annoyance.

"I don't see a reason why my motherfucking best friend can't up and have his own good opinion," Gamzee drawled, picking at the edges of his face paint.

"Me, either," Nepeta proclaimed loudly. She stood, her hands on her hips. "I think it's pawsitively stupid of anyone to criticize Karkitty because of what he thinks." She stared at Equius, waiting for his agreement.

He sighed and nodded. "I suppose you are correct Nepeta, although I do not have any knowledge of an altercation that would create such a negative opinion."

It fell silent in the room. Nepeta excused herself and locked herself in her respiteblock. Equius gave Aradia a pleading look and then went after her, standing outside her door for the next half hour attempting to console the cat girl. Aradia was next to leave, muttering that was she had to sleep early so she could help Aranea with the dream bubbles. The remaining six trolls participated in some tension-filled small talk before heading to bed themselves.

That night it was much easier for Aranea to gather the twelve trolls. There was some obvious dissent in their ranks, but she tried not to let it worry her. When they were quiet, she began speaking. "Hello everyone. It's nice to see you again. Not all of you might agree to this plan about meeting your forebearers, but I assure you, it is quite the experience! They are rather interesting." Catching sight of a scowl in the crowd, she cleared her throat and continued. "Um, well Aradia cannot move all of the dream bubbles at once. She said that the maximum she could move tonight would be three, so who would like to meet their ancestor tonight?"

All but Aradia, Karkat, Equius, Gamzee, and Feferi raised their hands. When Nepeta gave Equius a confused look, he shrugged and said he would rather wait another night.

Aranea nodded. "That's seven. Would anyone be willing to wait another night?"

"I would," Kanaya spoke up with Sollux quickly agreeing.

"Down to five. There are only three spots," Aranea reminded.

"I, uh-" Tavros was interrupted when Vriska slid her hand over his mouth.

"Tavros, you need the confidence boost. I'm not letting you skip out if it means I'll have to spend another day with your stuttering mess of a personality," she told him.

"Perhaps." Aranea paused and examined the remaining five. "Perhaps Vriska and Eridan should wait until tomorrow night. You two basically already know your ancestors, especially you Vriska. It would be nice of you to give the others a chance."

Eridan opened his mouth to complain, but was silenced by a barbed glance from both Sollux and Feferi. Vriska, however, was not affected by glares and blurted, "I guess that makes sense. I mean, I can be nice enough and take pity on these other losers, but what about Terezi? She knows just as much about Redglare as me and Eridan know about Dualscar and Mindfang."

Terezi laughed and pointed her cane at Vriska's face. "Not really. All I know is she was a legislacerator, hunted Mindfang, and that Mindfang killed her." Behind her glasses, her eyes narrowed at the last fact.

Vriska sneered. "Fine. Take Toreasnore and the others. I don't care."

"Excellent! Aradia?"

Aradia disappeared and about five minutes later, reappeared. "Everything is ready."

Aranea gathered Nepeta, Terezi, and Tavros and led them to the edge of the dream bubble, a few moments away from their respective ancestors. "Are you ready?"

They all nodded and Aradia took them away. When she was gone, Aranea grinned at the remaining eight trolls. "Isn't this exciting?"

"Yeah," Karkat said sarcastically. "It's fucking riveting. Can I go now?"