Chapter three: Of contemplation, murder, and paintings.
Ever since you met Cat a few days ago she's been a thorn in your side. No not a thorn. More like a dozen thorns. Or barbwire. Or barbwire covered in thorns. The point is: she's just so ANNOYING. She's always talking to you like you're good friends or something, and she's always happy for no damned reason! She's like fucking Nepeta! Kind of. Sort of. Not really. Whatever. Unlike Nepeta, Cat knows when she's pissing you off. Also she actually backs off when she has you at a disadvantage. Who does that? Trolls that are idiots, people that are insulting you and Motherfucking humans, that's who.
As for that Dirk guy, that you totally aren't watching like a hawk 'cause you don't do that, he really is quite interesting. He almost never emotes and has this things about taking off his pointy shades. He's also not half bad with that sword of his. He could probably make a good sparring partner. Also he can actually lose you in the forest, and you know that thing like your glasses! Also he obviously doesn't even know he's being followed so he wouldn't be taking any evasive measures! Damn you've gotten rusty, you used to be like the fucking spirit of the forest or some shit! Wait. Fuck, you've been spending too much time with Cat and her weird spiritualness.
You've also taken an interest in some of the other humans that are there as well. Well, only seven of them truth be told.
Dave, the kid that looks disturbingly like Dirk, also rarely emotes and wears shades. But unlike Dirk he lets out the randomest strings of bullshit and just goes with it. You think it's funny how others are too stupid to come up with a come back when you have, roughly, thousands of them. He's also pretty good with a blade, although you know you could whoop his ass any day of the week. 'Cause you're just awesome like that.
Then there's Rose and Roxy. Again, they look disturbingly like each other. What is it with some humans and physical similarities? Creepy is what it is. Anywho, you can tolerate Rose. She's quiet and she talks like a walking encyclopedia so she always has something interesting to say but she isn't annoying about it. She really reminds you of your local Rainbow Drinker: Kanaya Maryam. As for Roxy, well, to you she's kind of just there and theatric. You don't like loud or annoying people, and she's both. You can usually keep calm if those people don't interact with you, she can't see you, it works out.
The rest you don't care about either. Really, John and Jade are annoying, Jake is a monumental idiot, and Jane's just like a background prop or something. Huh, all their names start with "J" and they all look unnervingly like each other, weird. Maybe their clones or something.
You come to your post after making the trek from your sleeping spot and sure enough, Cat's there waiting for you, like usual.
"Hey." you say as you sit down.
She doesn't say anything so you actually look at her. She's asleep. Wait, no she's pretending to be asleep. You look around to see if there's anyone there. Humans specifically. She tends to just clam up if someone else is there, well clam up about you anyway. You sort of wonder why, but you sort of don't care enough to pursue the thought.
Yup, there's that John kid not ten feet away failing at hiding behind a dead bush. You get up and walk over to him so you can try to guess why he might be here. Something stupid probably. You crouch down next to him and... he's snickering. What the hell?
Oh look, it's Dave. He's walking over to you two, er, to John actually and it looks like John doesn't know he's there. He stops next to the bush and starts talking.
"'Sup." he says oddly quietly.
But it's still enough to make John jump and flip out a bit. Of course, you laugh at this. John sooshs Dave rather violently while waving his arms around.
"Dude, shut it! You're gonna wake her up!" He whispers.
Dave sighs and adjusts his shades. "John, it's painfully obvious that you have a raging boner for her, but stalking her will not help you make her like you. It's just plain creepy. I should know." He says, still low.
There. Right there. That's the kind of bullshit you were describing before in your not-rambling thoughts. But wait, was he the stalker or the stalked?
"Daaaaave, you know it's not like that!" John whines. "She just comes out here every day and does nothing! Even when we invite her to do stuff she still comes out here!"
"So your trying to get rid of your boner by watching her do nothing? John there are so many better ways to get rid of that, it's not even ironically funny." Dave says
"I do not have a boner for her!" John shouts, then Cat moves and he ducks behind the bush with a blush and Dave's smirking. You can't help but laugh too. "No I'm not watching her do nothing, I'm spying on her to see if it's really /nothing/ she's doing." He whispers, then snickers again.
You shake your head and walk back to your post, after all you had gotten what you came for.
You sit down and say "You catch any of that?" to Cat. She gives a small shake of her head. "Well, that John kid is spying on you to see what you're up to, out here all hours of the day. Oh yeah, and he has a raging boner for you too. Good luck with that!" You say with only a hint of mockery in your voice. She smiles and you can tell she's trying not to laugh, it makes you kinda happy to see. Wait, why? Hmm, feeling happiness for making others happy. You just chalk it up to another one of your weird abnormalities. "Anyway, he's over there behind the bush Dave is talking too. I'm sure you can come up with something to scare him off on your own." You say deciding you've had enough of that train of thought and it's possible implications.
She "wakes up" and goes over to said bush. Probably to go scare them off like you said. Truthfully you can't hear what they're saying, and you don't really care what they're saying either. Johns complaining and Dave's... Dave-ing when she tells them whatever she's telling them. She comes back and waits until the two guys are suitably gone before speaking.
"Hi Bethy! Thanks for telling me where he was. I knew he was there, but I couldn't look around for him without giving myself away! So I pretended to sleep. So... Hi!" She says
You nod and sit there as she goes on to tell you about her life in the village. You interject questions about things that confuse you every now and again. Frankly this is what you two do. Talk about the stupidest, irrelevant shit imaginable like it'll save your fucking lives. Thankfully you get a distraction this time around. The alarm bell sounds, effectively shutting Cat up in surprise, you guess. A prisoner is trying to escape.
You get up and turn around, spear at the ready. You see not just one, but a hoard of prisoners making a run for it. A demented rustblood comes at you, probably thinking she can take you out. Idiot.
You take your spear and charge her. Once you're in range, you take her leg off at the knee before she can see you make the move. She falls to the ground and tries to crawl away, growling violently as she does. You laugh and give into your sadistic nature. You chop off her other limbs.
You were going to end her there, but oh look at that, another escapee is coming near you. You ditch the rustblood and go after this new one.
This one is a mutated winged brownblood. He's taken the most logical choice and is trying to fly away. Most logical, if the hunt- guards can't throw that is. You take aim and put a rather large hole in one of the insect-like wings, he falls like a rock. You go to where he came down, ready for any fight he can throw at you, only to find disappointment when you see that his landing killed him.
You see a mute indigoblood a bit off, but Karkat is already working on him. Frankly, even one as stupid as Karkat can take down these wrigglers. Although, you wouldn't stop the mute troll if he tried to kill him.
After about four more vic-escapees are killed you gather up the bodies and body parts and give them to Vriska for her spider lusus to eat. Why it would want to eat a fucking mutant is beyond you, but whatever, it's not like it's you that's eating it.
When you get back to your post, you still have one of Terezi's fucking smiles plastered on your face. You can't help it if you like to kill as much as Gamzee when he's sober. Your covered from head to feet in a veritable fucking rainbow of blood too. Oh well!
You look at Cat, and she looks like she's scared fucking shitless. She kinda looks like she's frozen. You come up behind her.
"Boo!" you say, snapping her out of her frozen state.
She jumps up and tries to run from you, but trips and falls. Normally you would laugh at such a pathetic display, but now you just don't think it's funny. You feel legitimately bad for making her look so terrified, a fact that you refuse to think about the implications of right now. Of course, you'd never say anything like that to anyone ever. So you take the bitchy way out.
"Oi!" You snap at her. "Just how much of an idiot are you? You're scared that I'll hurt you right? Good fuck, I cant even touch you let alone harm you!" You say as your smile is replaced with a scowl, because FUCK you are NOT weak for reasons you're NOT thinking about right now!
She nods, as if seeing the reason in your statement, or just to scared do disobey you. She stands but keeps her distance and you realize what you must look like to her. Covered in blood, holding a weapon, pissed as fuck. To someone in your world, your just another idiot. Yet to someone raised out of violence, you're probably the stuff of nightmares.
You sigh and stab your spear point down into the dirt. Taking off your ever present blood stained sweat-shirt, you sit and assume a non-threatening position on the rock. You try to calm down as well, but you've never had that much control over your temper so you achieve a grumpy apathetic-ness at best. You are /only/ being so vulnerable now because she can't harm you anyway, you keep telling yourself. Frankly, this whole situation falls under the "think about it later" category.
She sits back down next to you, apparently acknowledging that you made yourself harmless. Yet she doesn't try to kill you as anyone else would have.
"So, thats what guarding a prison is about in your world?" She asked.
You two had already figured out that the two worlds were in different dimensions but situated in the same place, or something. You guess it makes sense, but your mind set isn't right for that kind of thinking so you don't really know.
"Yes it is. Every prisoner that tries to escape we kill." You say, with an accompanying sigh. You don't bother saying that it's less of an order and more just a smart thing to do. "Isn't that the way your prisons work?"
She shakes her head. "Usually the guards just take the prisoner back to they're cells and they get reduced rations or something like that. Well unless the warden or someone higher up than them are really cruel, then I don't know what happens to the prisoners." She says, still nervous around you. Well that's the feeling you get at least.
You silently wonder once again at how different Troll culture is from Human culture, and how humans can even fight living so freaking carefully, or safely, or something.
And then she's talking again. About that Jake kid and how cute he is with that accent. About how she would date Dirk in an instant if he were a girl. About how Dirk would look as a girl. About Bec and his magical powers. About how maybe you could actually meet each other some day with Bec's help. About how pretty the Princess is and how hot Vriska is. About you and how are you still alive living in such a violent world? About rivers and forests and her sense of direction. About dogs and cats. About unicorns and pegasi and alicorns. About the meaning of life. About death. About singing and baking. She talks. You talk. Night falls and she leaves, back to all her real friends.
You sigh again and get up, gathering your things. You head back to your sleeping place in a forest quite a ways away. Yup, now's the time. Now's the time that you need to think, specifically about the things you said you'd think about later. Well later has become now. You've been dreading this night. As you walk the distance you begin said task.
Okay, list time.
One: humans exist. Meaning the stories that say Omegas are descended from them are true too. Meaning you are part human. Meaning that you could possibly be biologically weaker than trolls. But then you already knew that.
Two: You think things that aren't sadistic in nature are funny even though you are positive that you hadn't before Cat started talking to you. Meaning she was changing you even back then. Meaning you were letting her change you. Meaning you trusted her even back then.
Three: The relationship between you and Gamzee. It's a lot like the relationship between Dirk and Dave from what you see. Cat explained it to you, calling them "Bros". Well at least you won't be in limbo about that anymore.
Four: You're happy when she's happy.
Five: You get mad at someone who scares or is mean to Cat, whoever it may be.
Six: You let down your guard around her.
Seven: You go against your instincts and try to be nice to her.
Eight: Facts four through seven point to one of two things. Flushed feelings for her, or pale. You honestly think it's pale.
Nine: You think you might possibly be flushed for Dirk.
Ten: You're happier then you've been in a long while.
Eleven: All of this is as substantial as a dream. Meaning you've set yourself up for emotional pain yet again.
Twelve: Your relationship with their world will never be anything more than this.
You snap out of your thoughts when you see orange in your peripheral vision. Of course, you never had much control over your curiosity either, so you follow it. It's probably just a mutated brownblood that got past a stupid guard, which could be any of them. Idiots.
It doesn't take you long to realize that you've never explored this part of the forest before and that you are lost as fuck. Surprisingly enough, you never got very close to them. All you ever saw was a bit of clothing or a moving branch. You pick up the pace, because like fuck you're going to let any prey of yours survive!
You come to a less densely wooded area and... what the actual hell? You come upon what looks like... the missing part of a broken wall you guess. But that's not the amazing thing.
The sky of it is blue not black, and shining a light, and the grass is tall and like an ocean of green on the forest floor. Everything's so alive, ... on this broken piece of wall. But it all looks so real, as if you could just step into it and be... there. In that wonderful place.
You know it's just a very realistic painting or something, but you're prone to fantasize at times. You refocus and look around for his foot prints. Frankly, the prints are so big and deep its either a man or a very big girl.
Holy shit there are a fuck load of prints here. You follow the most recent set to behind the painting. Here mutant, come to your death. You hear a noise behind you and spin around, expecting an attack. You pause in surprise when you don't see the piece of wall with the painting on it. There's just nothing there.
You walk forward to where you estimate it to be and reach forward, thinking that the artist could have painted the back too. Your hand doesn't meet anything, so you slowly begin walking again. You're sure that you've past it by now. You turn back around. It's still there.
Fuck a stupid troll, this is interesting. You circle it and find that it's only visible from the front, and not even tangible from the back. You stand and stare at it, wondering just what could do that.
Something moved. In the painting. Something moved inside the painting... No, you're obviously just imagining things. Paintings can't move and it's rather unmistakeable that it isn't a screen and not being projected onto. Paintings can't move, paintings are substantial, this is a painting. Right?
Prey forgotten, you reach out to touch it. Little do you know, you are not alone.