Hey guys! SOrry this one took a while, I was debateing about whether or not to included some details in this, but in the end I went with it. They are on their way to answers! Also, I did the poll on my account, pleasepleaseplease vote! The next few chapters depend on your answers, so go do that please please please! I promise I'll do more now that it's summer and schools up, but if I don't know what to do I can't continue so PLEASE VOTE AUGH Ok I'm done enjoy!

The next few weeks went by with no real event. I learned how to hunt, and survive in the woods. What areas made good campsites, how to hide your trail from predatory beasts, and most importantly, how to track things myself. I got used to my daily chores, including getting water and checking and setting snares. Nepeta and Rose talked to me a lot. I talked to Kanaya a bit too, but not as often.

Karkat, how ever, was a different story. He tried to talk to me as little as possible. Based on what little I had gathered, this was very out of character for him. To not talk to someone so much. Rose assured me it was nothing personal, but I didn't mind. I knew I wasn't going to do anything to hurt these people, so eventually I would prove my worth to him.

The one thing about my chores, however, is they only lasted about half the day. I was left with nothing to do till dinner. I often wandered around the woods. I'm not sure what I was looking for, but I felt it was important. Maybe I was subconsciously still searching for 88, or maybe something else.

One time when I was wandering, I found myself about 1/2 a mile away from the campsite. Near me was a large tree, with odd markings throughout the whole thing. I got closer and saw they were words. One of the bigger set of words said "RoseMary", and underneath in parentheses, it said "(RosexKanaya)". I looked around it and saw other names put together like this in many combinations, a few of them I knew. I even thought I glanced at my name for a second. After standing in awe of this, I looked up and saw Karkat glaring down at me. He was sitting in the branches, looking very peeved that I had found his hiding spot.

"What are you looking at!?" He growled when I made eye contact, and I held up my hands in defense.

"What is this?" I asked him, hoping he would be willing enough to tell me.

"Nepeta's Shipping tree. When she meets people, she starts to pair them up in her mind with other people she met. Any people she really wants to date she writes their names together here. A fucking waste of time, if you ask me. There's so many more valuable things she could with her time! But noooooo, she has to spend time her making her stupid ships!" He answered.

"Oh," I responded, and I looked at all the names. Nepeta knew a lot more people than I thought. I wondered how many were from her old village. I wondered where it was I had seen my name, and who it was with. I knew none of these answers, and I probably never will.

"At least she refrains from putting my name on there too much. Haven't really spotted it, and when I do it's only out of the corner of my eye."

I nodded, even though I wasn't sure he was looking at me, because I had gone back to looking at the names. After examining a few more, I asked "How many of her ships are real?"

"Just Rose and Kanaya," He answered, and it shocked me.

"Those two are lovers?" I asked, and he looked down on me with a criticizing expression.

"You're kidding me, right? What are you, blind?! Of course they are! Haven't you noticed the way Rose flirts constantly?! Or how they sleep together?!" He yelled.

I shrugged, "Things like that are never that obvious to me," I said.

He just rolled his eyes and leaned back into his nook with a thud, "You're a fucking lunatic," He mumbled.

I glanced back up with him, and saw him fiddling with something in his hands. I looked back down and thought. I don't know why, but him not trusting me was starting to bug me. I looked back up at him, and did what was probably a stupid move, in high and sight.

Without thinking, so that I couldn't back out, I climbed up the tree so that I was sitting on a branch just behind Karkat's little nook. He wasn't paying attention, and hadn't noticed. I leaned up to him and asked, "What is that?"

He jerked and turned to face me, looking rather angry. "Hey there's this thing, called personal space? Ever hear of it? Yeah you just took mine, and I'd like it back please!" He said, and made a move to climb down the tree.

"You didn't answer me." I said, to keep him from going, "What is that?"

He turned to me and shoved it in my face. It was a mess of metal and different wires, "I found this and I'm trying to turn it into something helpful," He answered honestly, "Now stop talking to me,"

"I didn't know you were into computers," I said. He shrugged.

"Yeah, well, I kinda consider myself a hacker. Not that I'm really any good, not nearly as good as my dad was. He had barely started to teach me..." He trailed off then glared at me, "What the hell am I doing?! I don't have to tell you!" He shoved his "Technology" into his pocket, and settled back into his nook, leaving had been forgotten.

I nodded and we sat in silence for a minute. I looked up the tree and saw the ships again. They didn't go much higher before fading to none. I wondered how high they went, before turning back to the issue at hand.

After a while, Karkat finally said "Look, It's been bugging me forever, like, fuck I just gotta know, What do you want with us? How are you going to destroy us? And why?!" He gradually grew to yelling in his sentence, and now he was glaring at me.

"I've told you Karkat, I have no plans of harming you. It's the last thing I want to-"

"Fuck that," Karkat cut me off, "I've heard it a million times. You're trying to do exactly what he was trying to do! He talked to my dad, told them that the war was over and our village was safe, but it wasn't! He was lying! Afraid of that, and never trusting him, I ran away, and when I came back at sundown, he had killed everything that moved and burned everything else. Now I may not be able to get the others to not trust you again, but this time I won't sit pathetically to the side while you do your damage! I will keep my friends safe from you and you're terrible, lying kind!" He spat at me, and slowly, I wiped the spit off my cheek.

"...I wouldn't do that," I said, but he just snorted.

"Like hell you wouldn't!"

I just looked away, and I could practically feel Karkat fuming. For a moment, I doubted my own story which I knew was true. What if I did bring harm to these people that helped me? But I knew I'd protect them at all costs, and I shook the thought away.

"I'm leaving," Karkat announced. He climbed down from the tree and started off in another direction.

Before he was out of my sight I called, "I will prove it to you eventually."

"Try all you want, but you won't!" He yelled back and walked off.

I huffed and leaned into the tree. He was rather annoying sometimes, why I suddenly wanted his approval I don't know, but I wouldn't back down from a fight, challenge, and least of all a promise.

I looked back up at the trunk again, where the names faded from getting higher. I wondered how high they went again, and this time I climbed higher. Only a few feet up, the tree started getting less stable, on account of less trunk width and branches strength, and I no longer saw any names. A few branches higher and I stopped. Only Nepeta could get higher without falling of a broken branch, so if there were any more high I didn't know. It didn't matter because I didn't see any more ships, so they must have ended.

I looked down to see how high I was, when I saw carved in small printing on the very top of a small branch. There was no way anyone could see this from any angle unless they climbed up here so Nepeta must have wanted to hide it from prying eyes. I took a closer look to see what it said, and saw the words "OTP" And right underneath "Karnep (KarkatxNepeta)"

I felt like I had read her diary, I just found out what was blatantly obvious. Nepeta had a crush on Karkat. I felt bad for the little girl, Karkat made it clear he didn't return the favor. I wondered briefly if he had had a love in his other town, but I moved on, it wasn't my place to worry.

As awful as it was, I ignored it. If I forgot about it, things would be for the better. I climbed down the tree and decided I wouldn't bring up Nepeta's, and Nepeta's only, business. Not with anyone, not even her. I got back to the campsite, and again, went through the normal routine.