A/N: We've finally made it to the ancestors! For some reason it was very easy to write as the Disciple and Nepeta. In the ancestor sections it will be told from the ancestors POV to avoid that burdensome "the Disciple, the Disciple, the Disciple" every other sentence. This is actually quite a bit longer than other chapters.

I made up a few troll seasons. The "darkening season" is autumn and the "brightening season" is spring.

Enjoy! And if you're confused by anything I say, don't be afraid to ask. :)

Part 4: Pawsitively Purrfect

You are elbow-deep in your cave scrawlings and paint is literally smeared across every scrap of cloth, exposed skin, and square inch of hair. Nowadays you usually look quite frightening since you never brush your hair or clean the blood from your clothes, but with the red, blue, green, and yellow paint plastered everywhere, you must look an especially terrifying sight! You are illustrating a picture of yourself, your dear Sufferer, the gruff Psiioniic, and the generous Dolorosa. Your memory isn't the best these days, so you're drawing one of the sharpest of those elusive memories.

As you paint, you talk out loud to yourself, acting as if Suffy is kneeling beside you, watching you in adoration as he so often used to do. "On my fourteenth wriggling day, we went to my old forest where I had spent my younger sweeps before I met you. It was a beautiful darkening season day and the golden brown leaves were drifting down all around us. It was fairly bright out since we were venturing out as the sun was setting. We kept our backs to the sun just in case it would burn us." With a flourished sweep, you spread your fingers that were smeared in yellow across the scene, stopping at the four figures to indicate the bright sunlight.

"When we had woken up that morning, you promised that today would be special, because it would be a day free of worries. I was happy when you put on the coat I made you - Suffy, you know, the one with almost every sign on the entire hemospectrum stitched into it? I really do love that coat. It goes to show that it doesn't matter that you weren't born with a sign. There are so many, you could pick any old symbol and would never find another troll with the same! I know you hate it when I say things like that, but it's the truth." You giggle and smudge multi-colored dots onto the Sufferer's coat in the picture.

"Anyways, we left that morning for the forest after rousing Psii and your mother. We were bundled up against the chill and sunlight and we picnicked out on the grass. Psii created amazing pictures with psionics in the sky. He said that his energies were actually so far up, trolls for miles around could see the pictures he was creating. The entire night you indulged me in playing my silly games. We challenged Psii to spar without using his psionics and you wrecked him with your sickles. You accidentally slammed him so hard into a tree, a huge piece of bark stuck onto his horns." You continue to laugh and grin, coloring the sky blue and red and mixing colors together to create a brown plank on Psii's horns.

"I don't . . . I don't remember all of that day, but I know it was among the best I ever had. When the games were over, we built a fire and you told us stories. Suffy, you're so talented at storytelling. When you speak, it is as if your words are a song, a sweet melody. Don't be embarrassed, be proud! It's one of the endless reasons why I love you. When the end of the night came and my wriggling day was nearly over, you announced something." After adding a small song note beside your Sufferer's head and a fire, you cradled your chin in your hands and finished the story.

"You said that you had finally gained the support you needed and planned on ransacking the Grand Highblood's castle. We were speechless for a moment, then rejoiced with you. It had been something we had been aspiring to for sweeps. This was going to be the start of a grand revolution much more lifechanging than our peaceful attempts. We all knew the risks, yet . . ." You stared at your picture, searching the inanimate red eyes of the Sufferer. "We thought it would be worth it.

"Six seasons later, they captured us."

Tears welled up in your eyes. "Suffy, I don't want to remember those days when you were tortured. They forced us to watch, wouldn't allow us to block our ears or avert our gazes. I wished those days were blurred in my memory, if not wiped completely away. Instead, they're the sharpest of any I can find. Every drop of blood, every wound, and how your wrists were a ruined, charred mess. On top of everything, I can remember that executor who murdered you. I can remember his face more clearly than your own! How cruel is that?" The droplets slid silently from your eyes, sliding over your lips. You did not sob; you had sobbed too many times already.

"Sufferer, if you continue to live somewhere in another universe, I want you to know I still love you. Every day. I dream of you every night. Even the horrorterrors respect our love, because they have never haunted my dreams. However, you do."

You are silent. So silent and still, that when a hand touches your shoulder, you yowl and jump two feet into the air, baring your fangs. Then you catch sight of the short black hair, the short, sharp horns, and the olive green symbol on a black shirt. You recognize yourself in the large yellow eyes. Instantly, you calm. You don't smile. After thinking such depressing thoughts, you are not ready to.

From her expression, she heard everything. She braves a small smile. "The way you talk about him reminds me of Karkat," she says softly, pointing a finger at your drawing of the Sufferer.

"His descendant." You are confident in your answer, although you have no evidence. Your love transcended definition. To you, it makes sense that it would not be destroyed by a mere few centuries and another pair of bodies.

"Yeah," the girl confirmed quietly.

From the sadness in her voice, you had to ask. "Has something happened to him? Has he . . ." Your vision blurs again as you contemplate the idea of this descendant's death. Can't the world leave him alone, let his soul have peace?

"No." She looks up from the illustration and draws her hands together to form a heart. "He's not dead. Actually, he has saved me and many of our friends over and over again. I was dead and he sacrificed part of himself to resurrect me. I love him so much, but . . ." She breaks her fingers apart, splitting the heart in two. "He doesn't love me. He is constantly annoyed at me, ignores me, and probably the only reason he knows my name is because of Terezi. She's his matesprit."

Your heart suffers another blow and you gesture for the girl to come closer. You are slightly taller than her and wrap your strong arms around her. You aren't sure what to say, so you hold her close and attempt to comfort her without words. You imagine a world where your Sufferer was there, yet didn't love you. It wounds you to consider it. You're not sure if you could handle it. This descendant of yours must be strong, because there is still kindness and light in her eyes although she is stuck in a love that cannot be. "What is your name, girl?"

"Nepeta Leijon."

"I am the Disciple."

"Do you have a real name?"

You pause. "I'm sure I do, but I cannot remember it. I have been called the Disciple ever since I met the Sufferer. Once he died, I didn't want to remember any other name. He will be the only troll who knows my name, not even myself." You manage a fragile laugh. Nepeta doesn't join you. She pulls away and begins to examine your drawings and reading the sermons you had recorded. (You had all of them except his final sermon, which still hurt too much to write.)

Nepeta stops at the drawing of your Sufferer's bonds when he was tortured. She ran her fingers along the lines and murmured, "This is Karkat's sign. He's always so protective over his blood color, but none of us care and there's no one else to cull him."

You are confused by that statement, but you decide not to pry. You would forget the information if she gave it to you. Instead you inquire, "Terezi. Who is her ancestor?"

Nepeta continued to wander the cave as she answered. "Neophyte Redglare. She was a legislacerator that captured Mindfang."

You remember that debacle vaguely. That legislacerator ended up dead, not Mindfang. "Does he have a moirail? Do you?" You are smart enough not to ask about a matesprit. It is obvious she does not have someone else besides him.

Eventually, she stops wandering and sits. You quirk your eyebrow, then sit across from her. "He has a moirail and so do I. His moirail is named Gamzee. He is the Grand Highblood's descendant." Before you can hiss and spring up, she hurries on. "He's a good person. He's nice and does his best to help his friends, except when he doesn't eat sopor. When that happens, he goes into a rage. That's why Karkat is his moirail; he's the only one who can calm Gamzee out of a rampage. It sounds horrible, but he really is a nice guy."

Despite your sour expression, you try to believe her words. "Your moirail?"

The extreme shift in her emotions causes a smile to spread onto your face. A moment ago, she was sorrowful. Now, she is bursting with life and happiness. "My moirail is Equius. He is the best troll you could ever meet. He protects his friends and is very strong." She flexes her arm and giggles. "He doesn't show it much, but he is sweet and kind and he would do anything to help me. I make sure he's not too gruff or violent, and he makes sure I don't make any silly mistakes. His ancestor is the E%ecutor Darkleer."

Your grin vanishes and your blood runs cold.

"What's wrong, Disciple?"

You stand and walk away. "He killed my Sufferer." Behind you, there is a sharp intake of breath. "He took pity on me and allowed me to live. He is the cruelest creature that ever walked the face of the Earth."

A shuffling and you can hear Nepeta following you. "Equius isn't like that! He died protecting his friends!"

You exit the cave and the forest around you is in the darkening season. It reminds you painfully of your fourteenth wriggling day. "Any troll with his murderous blue blood flowing through their veins is someone that shouldn't be allowed to live," you growl, scoring a nearby tree with your claws.

"He is a kind troll," Nepeta insists. "Cruel trolls don't help their friends or have moirails or have matesprits. If it wasn't for Equius, Karkat wouldn't be able to walk and a million other things would have gone wrong. He's not a saint but I know worse."

You hold your ears, blocking her out as best you can. It isn't working. The words are sinking in, and you're ignoring them as best you can. Except, what if she's right? What if he is not what you're convinced he is?

"Maybe you could meet him," she suggests. "We can drop the subject and when you see him, you can make your own judgement." Abruptly, you stop. She mewls in surprise and shuffles around to face you. "Deal?"

You grimace and hug her. "Deal," you whisper into her ear.

"Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!" she squealed, clutching you.

Laughing, you disentangle yourself from her and point at the surrounding trees. "I bet I can bring down a lusus faster than you, runt." You wink to let her know you meant nothing by the insult.

She drops into a ready crouch and bares her fangs. "Bring it on. This is a game I am pawsitive to win!"

In a flurry of coats and appendages, you're both off. Worries forgotten, you lose yourself in the hunt. Purrhaps this is what you need. You miss Suffy so entirely that it feels like your heart has been ripped apart, but with a companion in this dark place it might be more bearable.

"You know, me and Suffy wanted to raise a grub."

"Really?"

You nodded, wiping your mouth and accidentally smearing the brown and teal blood from your hands onto your face. You and Nepeta had spent the last hour or so lurking the forest, racing through the different seasons, and stalking the wild lusus that roved there. You had caught a stocky howlbeast lusus and your companion had caught an unnaturally large wingbeast lusus. Although the wingbeast had been a brown blood, that did not take away from its juicyness and you reluctantly crowned her the winner of the hunt.

After eating the meat of both creatures raw, both of you were covered in blood. You disposed of the remaining meat, stored some feathers from the wingbeast to commemorate this day, and headed down to the stream to clean. You didn't do this often because you never had anyone around and for once, the drying blood began to irritate your skin.

The conversation flowed smoothly. You broke it for a moment to bend down and dip your entire head into the water. You scrubbed your face under the surface and also washed out your hair. It was as matted as always but at least the paint and other debris was out. With a dramatic motion, you straightened and flipped your mane of hair to flop wetly against your back and shoulders.

"Why would you want to raise a grub? That sounds so weird." Nepeta scrunched her face up in confusion. She had shed her large coat to wash her arms, her face already clean.

"I know," you agreed. Leaning over the bank, you wrung out your hair until all the excess water had fallen. "But Suffy was raised by the Dolorosa. The stories of his childhood with the Dolorosa were so joyful and contented. When I told him about my lusus or when Psii admitted that his lusus had been a complete idiot, he was disappointed. He said that being raised by another troll was so much more fulfilling, like there was someone he could rely on whenever he needed help. Lusus never act that way. They rely on you more than you rely on them."

The girl nodded attentively as you paused to swallow a gulp of streamwater to wash your mouth out. "When he told those stories, I began dreaming about a world where I had a mother or a father. Purrhaps both! Me and Suffy figured, why not? We could do it. It would be tricky, but if we could sneak into the Mother Grub's chamber and steal a grub, we could do exactly what the Dolorosa had done. She could give advice to us, too, so we would know what to do!"

"Were you able to?"

"No." You sighed deeply and tilted your head back to stare at the sky. "We began planning a perigree or two before my fourteenth wriggling day, and then it wasn't long after we were captured. If we had been able to though, we were planning on finding an indigo blood." Your smile returned at the memory of those conversations. "We decided that if we could raise an indigo with our mindset, we could overthrow the caste system easier. We could use him or her to become the new Grand Highblood and influence every landdweller on Alternia. If we couldn't find an indigo, we would've had an olive blood or maybe a rare caste like lime or another mutant such as him."

You waited patiently for Nepeta to berate you for such a moronic notion. Others, such as the Psiioniic and countless friends had tried to convince you it was idiotic. The Dolorosa supported you of course, but she was the only encouraging voice in a sea of insults and negativity. It had never deterred you and you were used to it. You couldn't dislike them for disagreeing. It was an outlandish, un-heard of idea.

It was surprising when Nepeta didn't call you a numbskull. More surprising: she supported it. "It sounds sort of exciting. My friends and I know these aliens called humans and that's how they raise their grubs. Actually, they don't have a Mother Grub. It's just two humans who combine their genetic materials together to make a grub that's related to them. Like . . ." She began gesturing helplessly in the air, attempting to explain it. "The two humans make up both halves of the grub's genetics and no one outside their 'family' has any genetic match to them at all!"

Nepeta blushed because your eyes on her are wide and enthralled, begging silently for more information. "The two humans," she continued, "raise the grub by themselves until it gets old enough. Then it leaves their care to live its own life, but it stays in touch with their parents like they're all moirails or something! I thought it was really strange, except when I consider it, it sounds nice. Like, what if instead of centures between descendants and ancestors, there was fifteen sweeps? What if you had raised me and the Sufferer had raised Karkat? It's so mind-boggling to think out, but at the same time so . . ."

"Amazing," you finish. You can't help pouncing on her, hugging her so tightly she probably couldn't breathe. When you were finished squeezing the life out of her, you grabbed her hand and began leading her deeper into the woods, watching the subtle signs until you wound up in the brightening season part of the forest. From there it was easy to locate the tiny cottage that you and Suffy had used as a hide-out when there were more trolls out for his blood than supporting his cause. It was a somewhat painful memory, but you stepped into the cottage nonetheless, and strode into the main living space. You sat in a chair and gestured for Nepeta to take a seat anywhere. When you were both comfortable, you leaned forward to hold her hands in yours.

"Aranea says I'm living in a dream bubble. My eyes are white, which means I'm dead. I don't want to pry or anything, but are you dead as well? Because your eyes are there, even with the olive irises I used to have."

She shook her head. "Nope, I'm not dead. I do have a dream bubble though, which is why I can visit you here. Aranea and my friend Aradia can help you move out of your bubble so you can meet others, but I think she said ancestors like you can't exit your bubbles for some reason." She frowned and you are absolutely crestfallen at this news, though you're certain that Aranea had told you that before.

Nepeta tilted her head to the side. "Also, don't you remember saying that Karkat revived me? I would have to be alive." she asked, jumping back onto a safer topic for a minute.

"Oh." You blushed a little. "I have a horrible memory."

She giggled. "That's fine. Um, why did you ask about being dead in the first place?"

You repressed a grimace and tried to answer honestly. "I suppose I sort of remember Aranea telling me about how I couldn't leave this bubble. I was under the impurression that only those who were dead could visit me though. That's why I inquired. Also, did you say earlier that you wanted Darkleer's descendant to meet me?" You frowned at the mention of Equius and Darkleer. Despite everything Nepeta said, the idea of Darkleer made your skin crawl.

"Yes," she purred, glad you remembered.

"Well. I . . . I was wondering . . ." You bit your lip, accidentally drawing blood. You giggled and swiped the blood away, and was less hesitant as you finished your thought. "I was wondering if I could meet some of the other descendants or my Sufferer again. I know he can't leave his bubble, nor can I leave mine, but is there any method to combine them? Even for a short while. For half a second. I'll take a single milli-second! My memory is so shot, and the idea of seeing him again is just . . ." You shivered and wrapped your arms around yourself. "It would be better than having a chance to live once again."

Nepeta smiled gently. "To be honest, I don't know anything about these bubbles and stuff. It must pawful to be seperated from him. I'll ask Aradia and Aranea. If there's any way to do that, they would know."

You breathed a sigh of relief and allowed a small seed of hope to grow in your lonely heart. Nepeta was not someone who lie. She would do as she said. She would do everything to reunite you and your Sufferer. The very notion caused tears to leap into your oculars. You thanked her again and again and again until you were green in the face and her blush was so deep it was nearly a jade coloration.

By your own will, you suggested that you changed subjects. She informed you that there probably was a couple hours left, so you both relaxed and told stories and also going into discussions about aspects of life and such. She described to you her friends and the humans she had mentioned earlier. She hinted that they had played a game, but the tale was so long and complicated and headache-inducing that she never wished to re-tell it.

In return, you spoke of your Sufferer's revolution, your first meeting with him, and also talked of the Psiioniic and the Dolorosa. There were so many things to say and so little time to say it in, and eventually the segments of Nepeta's topics dwindled to nothing as she sat, entranced, as you spoke. You rambled on and on about Suffy and how loved him so, so much. You talked of his funny mannerisms and how he was gentle and kind, although he did have an angry, vemonous side. Besides Suffy, you described the various followers you four collected on your travels, the great many exotic places you visited, and . . . It was amazing. There was an endless amount of things to say.

Eventually, you quit trying to remember what you had already told her about and began spewing out whatever came to mind, even the most mundane things such as the fragility of a flutterwing or how lusus fur was so abnormally white.

It was peaceful. And it was nice to speak to someone who was actually there, instead of a mirage that your mind projected. You were too disappointed for words when Aranea popped her head into the cottage and reluctantly announced that it was the end of the night and Nepeta needed to leave.

"Please say you'll return!" you insisted, squeezing your descendant as tightly as you could manage. You giggled at her wheeze and loosened your iron grip.

"Of course I will." She reciprocated your hug just as fiercely. "I don't know you that well, Disciple, but I already love you. It's weird - almost like a moirail but not. You know?"

You nodded vigorously. "Today was pawsitively purrfect. I can't wait until whenever you can return. I'll be counting the days. Well, I would if I knew how long a day here was." Another flurry of giggles.

It was too soon when she embarked with Aranea. You were left with a heart both heavier with loneliness and lighter with the knowledge you had another friend and that maybe.

Just maybe.

You could see the Sufferer again.

And that was worth all of those sweeps of isolation.