"My, my, aren't you two all lovey-reddy?"
The voice of Aradia was betraying her amusement at what she was witnessing in Tavros' respiteblock. Tavros was leaning on his elbows on the brim of his recuperacoon, while Vriska was curled up, except for a rogue leg that had decided to lean on the border of the recuperacoon in her sleep. Both of them woke up immediately – Vriska almost slipping in the slime while trying to get up again. Before Tavros knew it, she had shoved him out of the recuperacoon, her face blue with embarrassment. She then proceeded to ignore him, her arms crossed.
"This isn't what it looks like Aradia!" Tavros tried to say while picking himself up.
"Oh, and what is it then?", the red-hooded girl simpered.
"Uh, that's a long story."
"Seems interesting, do tell me more" she chuckled.
"Oh, so that's how you ended up like this!" she mused, lightly bouncing on the edge of the couch they all had sat down on. "Well I'm happy you've been able to reach some sort of truce! I was a little bit worried about Tavros, but I guess I shouldn't have!"
"What makes you say that? I could totally torture him or something you know."
Aradia giggled.
"I know you won't."
She was smiling alternatively at Tavros and Vriska, as if she understood something they didn't. She stood up.
"Anyway, you seem to be doing very well here, so I shall take my leave for now – even though I'll come to see you again!"
Vriska lightly touched Aradia's arm to get her attention.
"Wait Aradia, can you stay a little bit longer? I'd like to talk with you."
Aradia smiled.
"Sure!"
Tavros, understanding that they may be going to talk about personal matters, muttered something about going for a walk outside and quickly left. Aradia sat back down, crossing her legs.
"I know that's a bit late, but I'm sorry." started Vriska.
"Oh."
She rolled her black eyes.
"Why are you apologizing all of a sudden?"
"Let's just say that recently I've been thinking a lot about what I did when I was alive."
Aradia chuckled.
"Because of Tavros?"
Vriska frowned.
"Maybe."
"Oh, still a sensitive subject I see. No problem!"
"Aren't you still holding a grudge against me?"
"Nope! You see, this 'incident' happened such a long time ago from my perspective. And well, I guess reaching god tier and coming back to life did help!"
"I assume you're not going to get your revenge on me then?"
"If you keep saying these kind of things, I'm really going to think you're a ma… machitso… masotchi… er, I can't remember the word humans use for people who enjoy pain. Guess I'll have to ask Dave again." she shrugged.
"Why do you think I am whatever you're talking about?"
"Well, look at your nose." she said, pointing at Vriska's bandages.
Vriska touched it, and realized it didn't hurt anymore. She took out her bandages to have a closer look.
"It's healed…!" she concluded.
"Oh, right, I forgot to tell Tavros… In fact, you heal very quickly in dream bubbles since well, it's your spirit that is hurt, not your body. Every time you sleep, your mind forgets you're supposed to be wounded, so when you wake up, you're in perfect condition. So yeah, there would be no point in beating you up again anyway – even if I was still mad at you, which I'm not anymore."
"Oh."
"But you know, you should move on with your life – well, with your death I should say."
"I don't know if I deserve to."
The fairy rolled her eyes yet again.
"You're already dead. Who cares? You should use this opportunity to live life as you want. Or die death rather."
"Maybe you're right… But you need to stop with the dark humour."
She giggled.
"Anyway, I should get going. Take good care of Tavros!" she said with a wink.
She flapped her wings, and then she was gone.
"Damn fairy girl."
When Vriska went to look for Tavros, she found him once again sitting on the edge of the cliff, playing Fiduspawn. She stealthily approached him, and suddenly gave him a noogie.
"Ouch, what was that for?" he cried, his hands rubbing his poor hair.
"Just felt like it."
She sat down next to him.
"Aradia told me to say bye for her."
"Oh, she left?"
"Yeah."
"Were you able to uh, talk a bit?"
"Yes. It was very… instructive. For instance, look."
She showed him her nose.
"Completely fine!"
His mouth gaped.
"Wow! How did you do that?"
"I didn't do anything, the dream bubble did."
She then went on to explain what Aradia had told her. She didn't mention the rest of their conversation – especially not the part where Aradia implied there was something going on between Tavros and her. She didn't know what to make of it. Did they really look that way?
She found herself pondering about it more often than she would have wanted in the following days and weeks.
Thanks to Tavros' help, Vriska learned how to control her dream bubble somewhat. After many tries, she finally managed to recreate a dream bubble version of her hive in its Sgrub period. They even managed to recreate the pshoo vehicles they had, so they started flying around the dream version of the land of maps and treasure pretty often. Then one day, Tavros made a request:
"Do you think it would be, uh, possible for me to try flying with your pshooes?"
"Yeah, sure."
She handed him her pshooes, and he clumsily put them on.
"Ok uh, here I go."
The trembling in his voice betrayed his nervousness – and probably his excitement too. Flames appeared at the heels of the shoes, and his feet left the ground. Predictably, he lost his balance. If it wasn't for Vriska grabbing him like a meowbeast would carry her young, he would have fallen face first. He restarted the pshooes, Vriska still holding onto his shirt to prevent him from falling again. He awkwardly, and shakingly, leaned on her shoulders.
The sudden physical contact startled her a bit, but it was overshadowed by the feeling of his claws digging in her shoulders, looking for support. She let him do, since she knew it wasn't on purpose. Also, maybe because the sensation wasn't all that unpleasant. Aradia's musings about her being a maso-she-doesn't-know-what came back to her mind, but she dismissed them.
She put her hands on Tavros' shoulders.
"Alright Tavros, now you have to stand up on your own."
"Uh yeah."
He was shaking when he let go of her. He stumbled a bit, so she grabbed him again by reflex – but he slowly pushed her away.
"I'll be fine. Somehow…"
He didn't look all that fine, but seeing his determined expression, she decided not to interfere – she just patted him gently in the back as an encouragement.
A lot of arm flailing took place, but he held his ground – or rather, his air. He finally managed to reach some balance, and seemed utterly proud of him.
"Are we good to go?"
"Yeah."
"Let's go then. I'll use your vehicle."
She went to sit in Tavros' pshoo device – it was more roomy than she thought. Actually, two people could probably fit in it if they huddled together. Maybe Tavros and her could– Wait, what was she thinking? This was stupid, and there was no way he would agree and– But she had considered it.
She felt weird all of sudden, and decided to speed up a bit. This way, she would be able to blame the bluish tint of her cheeks on the wind.
Weeks went by rather leisurely, with them having sleepovers at each other's recuperacoon in turns, and flying around the dream version of the land of maps and treasure during the day. When they were too lazy to go pshooing, they would just play Fiduspawn or read books – Vriska had retrieved her beloved Marquise's journal, and even if she already knew it by heart, she still loved to read it again and again.
Then, one day when they woke up in Tavros' respiteblock, Vriska suddenly said:
"Tavros what the hell?"
"Huh? What?"
Vriska stared at him in awed surprise. He was completely clueless as to why she was like this. She pointed at him and said:
"You're… tall."
And indeed he was. He had gotten a head taller in his sleep. When he realized it somewhat, he whispered "What the hell" and ran to go see himself in a mirror. A surprised cry followed – Vriska went to see him. He was examining his face.
"Gosh, I also look older… Woah."
"You really do… Wait."
She examined her own reflection.
"I… also look different. What the hell."
Those three words were the most fitting to describe how the two not-so-young-looking-anymore trolls felt. She went to get something to measure her height, and found out she had grown by 10cm overnight.
She came back to Tavros, who still couldn't believe his empty eyes.
"I think we must be around 7 sweeps now? Wow."
"Wow" he echoed.
"Why is it happening all of a sudden?"
"I don't know…"
She admired the slight curves that had made their appearance on her body.
"Well, not like I mind it. I like myself this way." she concluded.
She took a peek at Tavros. He was now quite taller than her – she reached the height of his horns. And he didn't look bad at all. On the contrary. She felt a tingling sensation in her stomach, but didn't understand what it was. It was gut-wrenching, but not in a physically painful way. But she felt it announced nothing good.
"Tavros?"
"Yeah?"
"Let's sleep in our respective bubbles from now on."
"Why?"
There he went again with his sad look. She turned away, and blurted out the first excuse that came to her mind:
"You're too big now, you're going to take up all the space!"
"Oh… Guess so, haha. Okay."
Even if she wasn't looking at him, the wavering in his voice could be heard. She bit her lower lip harder than she intended to.
When time to sleep came, Tavros dragged his feet, but Vriska stood firm, and they went their separate ways.
There was no way that she was going to sleep in his recuperacoon. Not with him looking like that. And even if it was more a "good" excuse than anything, it was true that he would take up more space, and they would have to be all huddled together to fit. For some reason, she dreaded such a situation.
Also, she was somewhat irritated by the fact that he didn't seem to realize the issues caused by their sudden growth.
As for her, it had made her realize that they wouldn't be kids forever, even in the afterlife.
A week passed by this way when a bubblequake similar to the one that had brought them together happened. They went to see whoever it was, treading cautiously in the unknown bubble. A shadow passed them by, and stopped in front of them. And like this, the intergalactic coolkid, also known as Dave "motherfucking" Strider, was in front of them.