A/N: Sorry about the pre-chapter note, but I realized that some of my timing might be confusing. So for reference, the first three chapters were each on separate, consecutive days. This chapter happens at the same time as the previous, however. The events of this chapter occur later during the same night as Nepeta and Gamzee's interactions with Sollux and Feferi.
The sun was rising over the desert, shining far too brightly for any troll to look at—not like Karkat minded all that much, but the brightness was growing a touch too brilliant for his tastes. Yes, he could withstand the sun, but that didn't mean that he FELT like roasting his ocular spheres in the orange glow. He rather liked his vision and didn't plan upon losing it, despite Kanaya's insistence that his immunity to sunlight applied to his oculars as well.
As the light grew bright and hot, he closed the mostly opaque shades covering his windows and groaned. The night had been a dull one, like most of his nights. There really wasn't much to do in the desolation of the Alternian desert.
His husktop pinged.
~~gorgeousAntagonist began trolling carcinoGeneticist~~
GA: Karkat?
GA: Karkat Are You There?
CG: WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT?
GA: There Is No Need For Such Brusqueness
GA: I Merely Wondered If You Had Acquired The Pigments I Desired
CG: YES, I HAVE YOUR STUPID DYE.
CG: ARE YOU EXPECTING ME TO BRING IT TO YOU? BECAUSE IF YOU ARE, THEN YOU MIGHT NEED TO CHANGE YOUR PLANS. I DON'T FEEL LIKE TRAVELLING ALL THE WAY TO YOUR STUPID HIVE. WHERE THE FUCK DO YOU EVEN LIVE?
GA: The Material Is Not For Me Personally
GA: It Is For The Empress's New Garments
GA: She Has Commissioned A Gown For Her Proper Ascendance And She Will Be Most Displeased If It Is Late
CG: THE EMPRESS CAN SUCK MY BULGE. I DON'T GIVE A FUCK IF SHE'S 'DISPLEASED,' I WOULD RATHER AVOID BEING BURNED TO A CRISP OR EATEN BY ZOMBIES.
CG: YOU DO REALIZE THAT'S A DISTINCT POSSIBILITY WHEN I LEAVE MY HIVE, RIGHT?
GA: Yes I Am Aware
GA: But I Doubt That Her Condescension Will Care
CG: TELL HER CONDESCENSION TO WAIT FOR ONCE. I CAN'T FUCKING PULL THIS STUFF OUT OF MY NOOK, ZAHHAK.
CG: I'M GOING TO SLEEP. FUCK OFF.
~~carcinoGeneticist is now an idle troll~~
GA: Well Then
~~gorgeousAntagonist ceased trolling carcinoGeneticist~~
Karkat slammed his husktop shut and rolled his eyes. Why were all his friends such utter losers? He considered complaining about his Past Self's willingness to open the chat log, but then decided against it. Instead, he re-opened his husktop and began surfing the Trollweb.
There were rumors going around in the news about a rebel group, but in Karkat's opinion, it was all total bullshit. Even if anyone was stupid enough to defy the Empress, they would be hunted down and culled immediately, along with everyone they had ever known.
Trawling through the dregs of the internet, Karkat wound up in a number of very sketchy sites. The sun was strong, and it leaked around the curtains, but he didn't care.
One particular website caught his eye. He'd stumbled upon it by clicking a series of links, travelling from an article about recent revenant sightings to a log of well-known troll adults to a small forum that was known for its crackpot theories.
The site was plain black text on a light grey background, with minimalistic ornamentation and design. The top banner simply read 'The True History Of Alternian Rebellion.' If Karkat had been fully awake and coherent at the moment, he would have clicked away rapidly. Anything with a title like that was either a plant by the government or proof of treason should anyone in the higher castes find out about his reading it. But Karkat was neither fully awake nor coherent, so he continued to read.
In modern times, trollian history is kept by the seadwellers. They are the highest caste, and so this should be natural—but they tend to leave out bits of the past; bits that are crucially important.
One of these bits is the story of the Stranger.
Stranger was a troll with a dream and a vision. She was hatched in a time when adult trolls still resided on Alternia, but unlike most of her age, she had no lusus to her name. Instead, she was found by another troll.
The jade-blooded troll was a mere sweep and a half old, having wandered away from his Mother Grub lusus into the breeding caverns. When he stumbled upon the grub that was to become the Stranger, he was enraptured. He knew that she was different, and he took her into his arms, bringing her to the care of his own lusus.
The Stranger and Defender grew up together, becoming moirails and finally matesprits. Their love was something beyond natural…
Karkat stopped reading, but continued to stare fixedly at the screen. What the fuck was this shit? It couldn't be legal to post this kind of garbage on the interweb, especially not now that the new Empress was preparing to ascend. She was going out of her way to obliterate any possible opposition; something about justice for the highbloods. It was all fucking nonsense.
Karkat closed the internet window, and prepared to slam his husktop shut. He needed some sleep, but Trollian was pinging again. God forbid he should leave the abyss of the husktop without being harassed by some more assholes.
Name: KARKAT MARYAM
Age: 8 SWEEPS
Blood Color: JADE GREEN
~~gorgeousAntagonist began trolling carcinoGeneticist~~
GA: It Seems That You Will Have To Come Deliver The Pigments Personally Regardless Of Your Personal Wishes
GA: The Empress Is Quite Insistent That You Come To Her Palace
GA: She Wishes To Have The Colors Matched To Her Own Personal Hue
CG: WHAT THE FUCK.
CG: NO.
CG: I AM STAYING IN MY DESERT WHERE THE MOST I HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT ARE A COUPLE OF UNDEAD NOOKWHIFFS AND THE HEAT OF THE SUN.
CG: I AM MOST CERTAINLY NOT TRAVELLING TO THE FUCKING OCEAN.
CG: THAT IS NOT A THING THAT I PLAN UPON DOING IN THE NEAR FUTURE.
CG: IN FACT, THAT IS NOT A THING I PLAN UPON DOING EVER. AT ALL. IF THE EMPRESS WANTS TO TALK TO ME THEN SHE CAN FUCKING COME HERE.
GA: Desert Sun Is Most Uncomfortable For Sea Dwellers
GA: You Know That
GA: And Besides, I Do Not Have The Authority To Counteract Her Condescension
GA: You May Message Her Yourself If There Is A Problem
GA: Unless I Am Mistaken You Do Possess Her Chat Handle
CG: NO. TALKING TO THAT NOOKSUCKER IS LIKE WRENCHING MY THINKPAN THROUGH MY EAR CANALS, THEN DISSECTING IT SLOWLY WITH A RUSTY NEEDLE WHILE IT IS STILL ATTACHED TO MY BODY AND CAPABLE OF SENSATION. AFTER THE PAN IS REMOVED AND TAKEN TO PIECES IT WOULD BE FED TO ME BIT BY BIT BEFORE THEY SLICE MY TONGUE OUT. THEN, FINALLY, IT WOULD BE REMOVED WITH SURGICAL TOOLS FROM MY STOMACH AND PLACED BACK INSIDE MY SKULL WHERE IT WOULD PROMPTLY BE MASSAGED WITH SHARP OBJECTS.
CG: THAT IS THE SENSATION OF COMMUNICATING WITH OUR BELOVED EMPRESS.
GA: How…
GA: Eloquent
CG: WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO CONTINUE?
GA: No, Thank You
GA: Although I Am Sure That The Conversation Would Be Delightful
GA: I Must Warn You, Though, That If You Refuse Her Summons The Empress Will Send Subjugglators After You
GA: Have You Seen What Subjugglators Do To The People They Capture?
GA: You Would Rather Be Culled
CG: FINE. TELL YOUR BULGESUCKING EMPRESS THAT I'LL BE THERE AS SOON AS I'M FINISHED WITH WHAT I'M DOING RIGHT NOW.
CG: AND DON'T GET YOUR HOPES UP.
CG: THIS IS IMPORTANT BUSINESS, IT PROBABLY WON'T BE ANY TIME SOON.
~~carcinoGeneticist ceased being trolled by gorgeousAntagonist~~
Kanaya sighed and stared at the chat window. Karkat really was the most belligerent person she knew, and she was certain that his bad attitude would get him in trouble.
In fact, she mused, it already had. The Empress was on his trail, and knowing what she did about Karkat's history, it wasn't likely that he would get out alive. Lady Peixes was a less than empathetic person, and Kanaya was thoroughly worried for Karkat's wellbeing.
Yeah—she was so pale for him it wasn't even funny. The ignorant douchebag probably had no idea, though. All he ever seemed to have time for was his stupid obsession with romantic comedies. His so-called 'important business' was probably just another bad movie.
Kanaya left her respite-block, wandering through her hive towards a window. In her location on Alternia, it was still night, although dawn would arrive fairly soon. The view out her window was impressive: several ostentatious blueblood hives in the distance, and a long stretch of shoreline to the east. Her neighbor Equius was pacing back and forth in his lawnring, looking down at the dead exoskeleton of his monstrous spider lusus. The thing had starved after Equius had refused to feed it.
Kanaya almost felt bad about what she was preparing to do for a moment, but the feeling soon passed like an unpleasant turn of the stomach.
She moved towards her recreation block, removing the tools from her highly fashionable belt. She still had several robots to finish. The foremost project was a commission from the Empress: a servant drone to attend her in place of a slave. It was a particularly difficult challenge, as most of Kanaya's work wasn't well-suited to water.
She was also working on a robotic hand for another one of her neighbors, who had fallen afoul of somebody's lusus in the forest. He was a strong telekinetic despite his position on the hemospectrum, but somehow he had still lost a fight to the massive creature—he claimed it was a winged purrbeast, but that was ridiculous.
Kanaya's robotic designs were famous all over Alternia for their craftsmanship and beauty. She also dabbled in fashion, hence her request from Karkat and the designs for the Empress's cocktail gown that currently sat on a nearby desk, but so few trolls respected that particular art that she needed another way to make money. The robots were particularly lucrative, and she was always filling requests from her neighbor, who could support her on his payments alone. Apparently his favorite recreational activity was beating the shit out of metallic trolls.
When the sun came up, Kanaya laid down her tools and cleaned the grease from her hands. She moved to her husktop in order to send one last message.
~~gorgeousAntagonist began trolling carcinoGeneticist~~
GA: You May Stay In My Hive If You Need Lodging During Your Trip
GA: I Have Plenty Of Vacant Rooms
GA: You Need Only Inform Me And You Will Be Welcomed
~~gorgeousAntagonist ceased trolling carcinoGeneticist~~
That pale crush wasn't going away any time soon, was it? Kanaya frowned and closed her husktop. Stripping to her nightclothes, she sank luxuriously into her sopor.
She dreamed of a city made of gold.
Name: KANAYA ZAHHAK
Age: 8 SWEEPS
Blood Color: ROYAL BLUE
Despite his protests, Karkat knew it would be ridiculously stupid to ignore the Empress's summons. He packed his necessities that day, despite the heat filling the hive through the curtains. Once he'd thrown together everything he needed, he slept for a precious few hours.
His was a thick, dreamless sleep, and he awoke before sunset with a nasty feeling in his gut. Grabbing his pack, he descended the stairs of his hive to say goodbye to his lusus. The mother grub merely smiled knowingly.
It was only when he stood at the stop of the door, looking out at the desert, that he realized he had no means of travel whatsoever.
There was no alternative: he had to message Kanaya. He pulled out his grubphone and brought up Trollian, knowing too well that he was about to be on the receiving end of massive loads of stupidity.
~~carcinoGeneticist began trolling gorgeousAntagonist~~
CG: I HATE TO SAY THIS, BUT…
CG: I NEED A RIDE TO THE PALACE IF YOU WANT ME TO GO ANYWHERE.
CG: I'M KIND OF STUCK.
GA: I Will Come To Your Hive Shortly
GA: Do Not Worry, I Planned For This
CG: OF COURSE YOU DID.
~~carcinoGeneticist ceased trolling gorgeousAntagonist~~
Sometime around midnight, a grubmobile pulled up in front of Karkat's hive. The window rolled down to reveal another troll.
Kanaya was fairly attractive, as trolls went, wearing lipstick the color of her blood and a pair of dark blue sunglasses. Her horns were much longer than Karkat's, much to his chagrin, and though one of them was cracked they were clearly more impressive than the jade-blood's ever would be.
Flushing madly, Karkat stepped into the grubmobile. The ride to the coast was excruciatingly long and mostly quiet, with a couple attempts on Kanaya's part to break the silence. Karkat simply sat stubbornly, a frown fixed upon his face. It was all too obvious that he wanted to be anywhere but where he was at the moment.
When they finally arrived at Kanaya's hive, he fled the grubmobile before it even slowed to a stop. The horizon was brightening in the east, and they hurried inside. Karkat set himself up in an empty, sparsely-furnished respite-block.
He desperately wished that he had someone to troll other than Kanaya. Gamzee was too annoying and vague, and Karkat didn't feel like dealing with the drug-addled troll's antics. Feferi was cryptic and had an unhealthy obsession with the apocalypse and the number two, which was shared by Sollux. That pretty much summed up everyone Karkat knew.
When the time came to meet the Empress, Karkat was actually relieved. He had deliberately avoided Kanaya throughout his stay in her hive, coming down only to eat. The Empress, however belligerent she was, would be a welcome relief. Something about Kanaya simply wigged Karkat out.
On the beach that night, a strange vehicle was waiting. It almost resembled a grubmobile, but it was incased in a massive plastic bubble and it appeared to have flippers. Kanaya entered and gestured for Karkat to follow.
"This will take us to the Empress," she said simply. Karkat grunted.
The vehicle, which turned out to be called a grub sub, took them under the ocean and past multiple ridiculously enormous and ornate hives. Once or twice, a seadweller passed by and curled a lip at the land dwellers' vehicle, but for the most part they were alone. Once again, Karkat ignored Kanaya. He was too busy hoping and praying that the grub sub wouldn't sink or rupture.
Finally, they surfaced. The top of an elaborate hive pierced the waves, with a fuchsia flag flapping in the breeze above it. So this was the Empress's palace, Karkat thought. It was even worse than he'd imagined it to be.
Kanaya led Karkat out of the grub sub and into the building. How she knew where to go, Karkat could only guess, because the place was a labyrinth of fuchsia and gold. The Empress certainly liked her treasure, that much was obvious.
"Welcome to the throne room," Kanaya finally announced, leading Karkat into a room that was almost completely full of shadow.
If he hadn't known better, he would have sworn that the two of them were alone in the massive hall, whose ceiling was out of view and whose walls were draped with royal fuchsia banners. The Empress's sign was omnipresent, worked into the sweeping arches of the walls and the sharp angles of the tiling.
"Karkat Maryam. It's a pleasure." The voice came from the shadowed end of the hall, echoing weirdly around the chamber. The speaker sounded as though she was only whispering, but the shape of the hall bounced the words everywhere until she could have been shouting.
"My Empress," he intoned, dropping to his knees as was custom. He wasn't stupid enough to mouth off directly to the Condescension's face. That would be suicide.
"I have delivered him as promised," declared Kanaya. Her royal blue dress sparkled in the light of the single torch in the corner of the throne room. Karkat had a very uneasy feeling about the whole affair that was only strengthened by the fact that he couldn't see his Empress's face.
"You have done well. Now fetch me the others. You are dismissed," replied the Empress smoothly. Her quiet voice, amplified by the hall, was more intimidating than a shout ever could be.
"Majesty? I was told that I was here to help tailor a dress?" Karkat said, his sentences turning into questions. "I will need to see you in order to do that." To Karkat's alarm, the disembodied voice of the Empress only laughed.
"I'm afraid that wasn't entirely true," she smirked. "You see, my dear…you possess a certain quality about you that poses a threat to my rule. An alarming threat." The Empress stretched her words out, speaking to Karkat the way she would to a grub. "I'm afraid you must be exterminated."
"What?" blurted Karkat. "But I—no way—" The Empress laughed louder, the sound of her cackles bouncing all over the stone room from every direction.
"Ampora," she called. "Obliterate him." Footsteps echoed from the shadows. Karkat got to his feet, reaching for the sickles that he always carried, but they simply weren't there.
He'd left them at his hive. Fuck. Of all days to forget his weapons, it had to be today. He backed up against the cold stone wall, the smell of salt water stinging his nostrils. He may not be armed, but he wouldn't go down without a fight.
His hearing, made hypersensitive by the darkness and his fear, picked up a quiet sound that he recognized all too well from his time spent at Kanaya's—moving metal. Well-oiled joints were softly shifting as the mysterious aggressor moved closer and closer towards Karkat. A low chuckle bounced around the room.
A silhouette appeared in the torchlight. Karkat processed fins, polished metal, and a pair of long horns before he felt something pierce his chest.
He looked down slowly, stiffly, as heat burst through his body, sending him crumpling to his knees. The lance had passed through his entire body, and jade-green blood sprayed all over the floor.
"Do clean up the mess, Ampora," the Empress commanded as Karkat's vision flickered.
His last thought was that his blood looked remarkably like grub sauce.
A/N: Ahaha. Ahahahahahahaha. AHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAA! *continues laughing maniacally*
Yay, this chapter was actually a decent length! I think it's about equal in word length to the sum of all three before it...and the plot appears. I didn't want to put Karkat's death in a different chapter later because I felt like people would forget about his conversations with Kanaya. And yes, Karkat is really dead. Sorry :) I had to. Oh, and just for reference, the Trollweb is the troll internet. I know I swapped terms a lot there, but I couldn't remember if there was a canon term or not and the Internet is clearly a human thing.
What is this, two updates in two days? I know I said that I'd be really slow in the last chapter, but bluh bluh whatever. Your two-week pause will be after this chapter. I had a really strong spark for this update and finished it late last night. And I actually did cackle maniacally while I wrote that ending...oh, my bloodswapped seadwellers. I love you so.
The next chapter will officially introduce Eridan and Terezi, as I promised. And because I'm an evil author, there will be no mention of Karkat's unfortunate demise until AT LEAST chapter eight. Knowing this fic, Vriska will eat Chapter Eight because she's Vriska. So maybe not.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA! Being (slightly) evil is fun!