For nearly a month, Dave travelled south from Lohac on foot. He didn't lack skill in riding, but he just didn't like doing it. After a few days, the sands of the Painted Desert became rocky plains of colored stone. Soon, the heat faded away and he entered the Painted Steppes. He knew that eventually if he kept on in that direction he would reach the mighty River of Dew and Glass, which was the dividing line between all this Technicolor bullshit and normalcy, at least as far as the world went. Past the river, see, lay the Indigo Jungle, under the control of the Beforan Republic, where they'd shipped Eridan in from. And beyond that—well, who knew? The legendary Isle of Erin, where the leprechauns live? The world was a big place, unless of course it ended just after Beforus, which was a distinct possibility.
Dave might like to go that far some day, but for now, he trudged on toward a goal no further than the steppes. If he followed his map correctly, he wouldn't even get close enough to the river to see it. The problem was of course, his map. Eridan and Equius had gotten actual maps; one of them some ancient thing that looked more like a painting than a map and the other a perfectly modern chart of the Painted Desert's fabled air currents. Dave's map seemed to have been drawn in crayon by a blind person.
And suddenly they were upon him; the wild trolls of the Capricorn caste. A dozen of them came over the hill, laughing and screaming and braying like goats, several of them bigger than a bull on its hind legs. A few had bows, one had a rifle. One would assume that the drunken idiot tribe would be laughable at ranged combat, but they were in fact unerring archers. Or at least they had been until they met Sir Dave Strider.
Capes had a bad rap for getting caught on things during important moments, but bloody Hell they were useful. They made you a bigger target, true, but very little of that target was actually you. Dave could just swish it around a little and obscure his vital areas until he got close enough that ranged weapons didn't matter. Then he threw his cape over the face of one of the archers, a female wearing floppy shoes and a fake nose, and drove his sword into her stomach, spilling hot purple all over the steppe. Another one wearing motley got off a shot and Dave deflected it with his cape, the purple cloth (growing steadily purpler) wrapping around the arrow and tossing it aside. He loved his cape, he thought, as he closed the distance and separated the troll from his head.
There was a loud *BANG* and a fist sized hole appeared in the ground just inches away. Rather than cranking the rifle, the clown-troll simply chuckled and hurled the thing like a spear. Well, that was unexpected, thought Dave, as the bayonet grazed his face, dislodging his shades. Damn; he pretended he only wore them to be cool, but honestly, when albinism runs in the family protective eye-wear is something of a necessity. All the same, Dave had no trouble picking the rifle back up, cranking another shell into place, and shooting the huge skeleton-tattooed female that thought she was sneaking up on him with a club. As she fell down, suddenly headless, something heavy smashed into Dave's chest, nearly knocking him to the ground.
The third and final archer, whose hair had been styled into a glorious rainbow-colored afro some three feet in diameter, had apparently run out of arrows and was now lobbing throwing clubs at Dave. Useful for hunting small game, but not grown men, he thought, as he whipped the heavy projectile back at its owner. It hit the fellow right between the eyes and he fell down with a nasty crack. Damn, Dave hadn't even been trying.
"That's enough!" A very loud female voice that seemed just a bit off; not insane like damn near every Capricorn he'd met, just as if the speaker couldn't control her voice very well. He turned and saw an olive-blood, like Nepeta back home, though this one had much longer hair, and her conservative dress, though quite travel-worn by now, marked her as being from the Beforan Republic. Her tail was swishing along happily behind her. There was a purple-blood standing next to her, with the wildest, shaggiest hair Dave had ever seen, and white tattoos all over his body, depicting his own skeleton. His lips appeared to have been sewn shut. He signed to the olive-blood.
Gesturing at the troll next to her with a bright smile, she shouted, "This is Kurloz Makara, witch-doctor of the Dark Carnival!" And in a very loud whisper, she added "and I'm Meulin, his translator!" In her 'normal' tone, she continued "Surrender, right now—"
"You mean you surrender to me?" Dave stooped to pick up his shades at long last. "Very well, I accept." Chuckles erupted from all around. As a public official he'd learned to always project an aura of control even in situations in which he clearly was not. As a warrior who had fought off dozens of Capricorn raids, he knew you had to be good at bad jokes if you got captured and wanted to live.
Makara was not amused, although his translator giggled when he hesitantly signed his words at her. It occurred to Dave she must be deaf. "No silly, you surrender! The Dark Carnival is only just over the ridge, the entire purple population could be upon you at any second! But Kurloz thinks you're interesting and want to take you to see His Honorable Tyranny, the Grand Highblood!" The other Capricorns practically busted a gut with that one. Well shit. He was being taken to 'trial'. He knew why; he'd killed a couple dozen of them in the past. They had some kind of nickname for him that he couldn't remember.
A thought occurred. Dave produced his stupid crayon map and looked at it. If he was reading it correctly, and there was no guarantee that he was, then that was exactly the place he needed to be. "Lead the way," he said.
Near sunset. Dave strode into the Dark Carnival as if the insane troll posse were his honor guard rather than his captors. He did not let his disdain for the tent city show on his face. All around there were Capricorn trolls laughing and drinking and committing tiny atrocities to the accolades of their peers and often that of their victims. Every tent was spattered in a multitude of colors as if it were a masterwork of modern art, but there was that cloying metallic-sweet scent everywhere and he realized that all of the colors were the product of troll blood. Slaves, non-Capricorns of all shapes and sizes, bustled about dressed in rainbow-spattered livery, doing anything that might be considered of use. They all seemed very tired and very wary although none of them had a visible mark on them. Meulin was still talking to him, explaining this or that concerning who was whom and what tent provided which service, but he wasn't paying attention, because he noticed as she shook her head around that beneath the dense black curls, there were a pair of hideous ragged scars where her ears should have been. "And if you fuck up, they just kill you," she concluded with a smile. "They don't mistreat the help like some other places."
Someone pressed a drink into his hands and Dave accepted it with indifference. It had a thick foamy head like beer, but didn't have the slightest taste of alcohol. It seemed to be composed of fruit pulp, vanilla, and so much sugar that it made him gag. It wasn't bad per se, but definitely an acquired taste. Still, he drained his cup and asked for another. They respected a man who enjoyed their weird-ass drinks.
Eventually they arrived at the center of the Dark Carnival, a long trail of purple blooded trolls following behind, not so much gawking at the newcomer as grinning in amusement. Here was the largest tent, some two stories in height and completely splattered in colors, a tent reserved for His Tyranny, who the reports said was big enough to fill most of it. In front of it there was a perfectly circular area of earth that had been tamped down to be perfectly flat. In one of her loud whispers, Meulin said, "this ring is the only permanent structure in the whole city!"
Dave nodded as if he had already known this. All around there were other things, exotic entertainments; food stands boasting greasy snacks whose recipes had been looted from all over the world, beast-men and kidnapped lusii in cages (the Capricorns did not believe in lusii for whatever reason and raised their wigglers communally), treasures looted from distant cities, a steam-engine from Beforus that they'd put to use as a self-playing organ. Dave was surprised at the level of complexity. Not that the purple-bloods were less intelligent than other trolls, but he had never known one to be able to keep their attention on something long enough to accomplish anything like that.
Kurloz and his party came to an abrupt halt in the center of the ring. The other trolls began to hum in time to the organ, their voices deep and mournful. The bouncy carnival tune that had been playing now seemed like a dirge with the addition of their low rumbling. Once again, Dave was surprised at their organization. Meulin took note of it and looked like she desperately wanted to explain, but just shrugged and joined in the humming.
Just then, the ground began to shake, like the rhythmic pounding of a drum. The humming increased in speed and intensity as the pounding grew louder, until the tent flaps flew open and out stepped four huge trolls, carrying a massive chair made of horned skulls, each smeared with a bloodied smiles, upon which sat—
A gangly troll only a little taller than Dave himself, looking positively tiny on the huge throne, clearly intended for someone five times his size. He was wearing an easy, glazed smile, and was dressed in a purple cape with a ridiculously long hood, and an enormous cod-piece. There was some sort of stylized scowling face drawn on his chest, and on his back was a pair of poorly made butterfly wings in some grotesque mockery of the Four. But what really drew Dave's attention was the sparkling war-hammer in the troll's hand.
There was one productive thing that the Capricorns were known for. Their obsession with colors led many of them to pursue artistic endeavors, and while many of those were horrifying, they'd come up with a process wherein they wrapped objects in a net of gold wire, which they'd then set with a special paste made with a secret mixture of alcohol, troll blood and sand from the Painted Desert. This would then be placed in a furnace of burning magnesium and instantaneously be hardened into something resembling stained glass but harder than diamond. Once, they had been forced to pay tribute to Prospit, and King Daniel I's rainbow-colored war-hammer was the result. It had been lost at the battle of Lohac five years before with the king's death. It seems it had merely returned to its makers.
Well shit, give a girl a long-lost family heirloom and she's almost legally obligated to marry you.
"Well," the troll whispered, "if it isn't the motherfuckin' Hundred-Slayer." His voice was somehow able to carry across the ring. It possessed some sort of insinuating quality, not having to fight against the buzzing throng of the Capricorn horde, but slithering across it. It was perfectly friendly, and perfectly sinister.
"Oh, that's what you guys call me," said Dave, sounding bored. "It's been bugging me all day. Was it really only a hundred? It felt like at least a thousand. You're all so weak I sort of just had to stick my sword out and they just jumped onto it, like 'thank you Mr. Knight I was so tired of being a useless piece of shit and have been looking for a way out. All up ins', or something." Despite the fact that he was making fun of them, a handful of the trolls gave up their humming to snicker at him.
"SHUT." He roared. "THE FUCK." He stood up on his throne. "UP." He hurled a throwing club at one of the laughing trolls, cracking his skull open and spraying a horrific gout of purple onto the multicolored earth. The humming faltered for a second, and then the Highblood laughed, and so did every other troll in the Carnival, tension instantly broken.
"Where'd you get that hammer, bro?" Dave asked.
"You're real bad at listening, hundred-slayer." The Highblood whispered, hefting the hammer to examine it. It flashed a multitude of colors in the sunlight. "Besides, YOU'RE ON MOTHERFUCKIN' TRIAL."
"I plead not guilty by virtue of you guys all being dangerous psychopaths," said Dave, examining his nails.
"THIS AIN'T THAT PART YET MOTHERFUCKER." The Highblood spoke with his entire body, waving his arms, stamping his feet, just generally making a show of himself. A performance. "You like pretending you don't care but I got somethin' that's gonna make you're motherfuckin' sides split," said the Highblood, no longer quite so friendly seeming. "LOOK AROUND YOU HUNDRED-SLAYER AND TELL ME WHAT YOU SEE!" Continuing to feign disinterest, Dave examined the exotic treasures and noticed with a start that there were an inordinate amount of Dersite banners in the mix. Dersite banners, and Dersite amethysts, big pentagonal Dersite coins and Dersite weapons in a big pile. Dave remembered with a start that the rifle from earlier had been a dyed a different shade of purple from the one these trolls used. He ran over to the pile and started sifting through it despite Meulin's protests. The Capricorns laughed at the lapse in his cool façade; he would have to work quite a bit to get back the sliver of respect, but at the moment he didn't care.
"Lookin' for this?" the Highblood whispered. Dave turned sharply. The Highblood was holding a sword up in the air, wiggling it around. It was simple, single-edged, with a long grey blade and a flat, black handle that would have served a kitchen knife better than a sword. If Dave was right—but he couldn't be right—then it was the finest sword in the world. Where had he gotten it from? Gritting his teeth, he said, "That belongs in Derse."
The trolls released such a cacophony of laughter that Dave thought he might go deaf. He fell to his knees and covered his ears, but the Highblood's whispers still found their way in. "DERSE? Ain't no such place no more, brother."
Dave stood up and glared at the Highblood. "DON'T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT!" he roared. "It was like that when we got there. WE JUST CLEANED UP AFTER!" Dave said nothing. "All the surviving Dersites are property of the Dark Carnival bro. YOU STAND ACCUSED OF STEALING YOURSELF FROM YOUR RIGHTFUL OWNERS." The crowd was working itself up into a frenzy of bestial laughter. "How do you motherfuckin' plea?"
Dave knew how these 'trials' worked. Once, when they'd still been a part of the regular trolls, the Capricorns had had an actual role in the legal system, and they'd enforced actual laws and there'd been actual legal precedents and procedures. Now though, it was just plead guilty and die, or plead innocent and fight the Grand Highblood. Dave smirked. "Come at me, bro."
The crowd went silent. Not quite what he'd expected. The Highblood held his arms out in akimbo as if bracing for a hug, if not for the two weapons in his hands and the frightful leer on his face. "CHOOSE YOUR MOTHERFUCKIN' WEAPON BROTHER MAN!"
Dave's father's sword glinted enticingly in the light of the setting sun. The Highblood didn't deserve it. But neither did he. Not yet. "My own sword." Kurloz sent out Meulin with it. She scampered over as fast as she could under its great weight; the point of the scabbard dug a deep furrow behind her. Dave gave slight bow to the olive-blood as he received his weapon, hefting it up onto his shoulder. The crowd 'oohed'.
The Highblood hefted both the war-hammer and the stolen sword, first one then the other, as if trying to decide which. Then he threw both of them to the floor, jumped off his throne, and ran towards the crowd. He wrenched a bow and a quiver of arrows out of somebody's hands and shot Dave in the knee before he had a chance to process what was going on.
Dave fell to his knee, grimacing in pain as he added his red blood to the thirsty Technicolor steppe. Damn, that's why this Highblood was so small. He'd beaten his predecessor through trickery. The Highblood nocked another arrow and stared down its length at Dave. Dave struggled to his feet, pushing himself up with the sword. "Any last words, motherfucker?"
Dave nodded. "You may have taken father's sword and all the wealth of my kingdom, you may even take my life, but I still have something you will never have."
The Highblood fell to cruel, mocking laughter, lowering the bow towards the ground as he struggled to contain himself. "DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I HEAR THAT? Is it your motherfuckin' integrity? YOUR PRIDE? Your honor? YOUR MOTHERFUCKIN' PATRIOTIS—"
Dave snapped the greatsword up and over his head, hurling it with all his strength even as his wounded knee gave out and he fell to the floor. Good thing too; the Highblood managed to raise his bow and loose just as the sword took him through the chest. The arrow would have done the same to Dave.
The crowd stood in shocked silence as Dave struggled to his feet and tried to pull the arrow out. "My piercing wit," Dave announced. The crowd roared. The Highblood burbled as he lay there in a comic pose, propped up by the sword that impaled him as he dribbled out his violet heartsblood. Kurloz and Meulin approached Dave and instructed him to lie still as they dressed his wound.
Then, some others came and hauled him up, and laid him before the throne of bones. They adorned him with brightly colored beads and black paint. They stripped off his clothes and dressed him in new ones before he even had time to protest, and now he was dressed in black and purple, and bore the sign of the stylized face. Through Meulin, Kurloz engaged in an argument with some other trolls in some language Dave didn't understand, and he was given a new cape of deep maroon red. "Apologies Lord Highblood," shouted Meulin, "we don't have any dyes in your exact blood-color. Human blood always turns brown and prickly and gross after you dry it out!" Dave shivered to think that everything he was wearing had been dyed in the blood of some poor troll. But what he said was, "Huh?"
Kurloz laid the war-hammer reverently on Dave's lap as if it were a scepter. He signed to Meulin. "You killed the Highblood! That means you're the Highblood."
"That doesn't make sense. Surely I can't be the first human to ever kill the—"
Kurloz gave a stiff nod. Oh, so Dave had been. Well fuck. Wait. "What was that the old Highblood—"
"Gamzee," they interrupted, "once they have been defeated, they are no longer entitled to their…titles."
"Fine," said Dave with an eye roll. Someone tried to strap on a codpiece and he waved them away. "What did Gamzee say about the survivors of Derse?" Meulin and Kurloz signed to each other animatedly and she sent someone away, once again in some odd language. A few minutes later, Nepeta Leijon and Aradia Megido appeared before him, looking a bit ragged but not as bad as he'd thought. The maid gave an elegant bow; the roguish girl gave Dave a hug. Dave had a felt a sinking feeling in his chest. Was this everyone? "Nepeta what the fuck happened?"
"Nak."
"Don't give me that Willoughby you nook-sniffin' little bitch face!"
"Nak, nak?"
The cannons boomed in response and a geyser of purest blue sand erupted only a few yards off the port bow. Eridan ran astern of the sandship and opened fire on the pirates with his rifle, emptying his magazine at the front guns. A pirate fell overboard and sank into the fine, fine powder below. "Willoughby you cunt turn the fuckin' gun arou—"
There was a deafening boom far too near Eridan's head and one of the pursuing ships exploded in a flash of green. "That leaves four of 'em," he said to Willoughby. The grizzled old crocodile 'nakked'.
Eridan wound up with the map of air currents. There was a section of the deeper desert where the sand was too fine to walk on with any ease, even for the hump-beasts of the neighboring tribesmen. The air there moved strangely, with the winds always blowing at roughly the same speed in the same directions at the same times of day, like currents in the ocean. Someone had had the bright idea to build ships with multiple pontoons and utilize the wind currents to sail across the sinking sands. Eridan of course had had a choice; ride across the sea of sands on his hippocampus like a chump, or he could procure a ship.
And that little shit of a nakadile Willoughby had convinced him to steal one. "Nak," he said.
"Fuck you," Eridan responded.
They ran out of powder for the cannon late in the afternoon, and only managed to sink one more ship. Eridan began to feel dehydrated again and went below. They were nearly out of water; a sea-dweller did not belong in the desert, so he filled his bottle from the tank water of his hippocampus. It was a magnificent creature, with pearly green scales and aqua colored fur, not lusus colored; Eridan had had no lusus but Queen Roxanne, God rest her soul. The creature whinnied at him in annoyance. "Piss off, I'm the one who has to drink something you probably shat in," he grumbled as he drank the stuff and nearly gagged. In some cruel irony, Eridan hated the taste of fish.
He took a moment to go through his ammunition stores. They were nearly gone. He'd spent a lot more than he'd thought just stealing the ship, even with Willoughby's help, and the pirates had actually boarded them once, a few days back. Now that had been a fight.
Much later, as the sun began to set, the ship was in tatters. "Nak," Willoughby asserted.
Eridan glared. "Who. Even. Asked you!?" he shouted, punching the crocodile in the snout to assert his dominance. Normally it's a terrible idea to put your hand that close to a crocodile's mouth, but Eridan's anger leant him strength and courage, and he sent the four-foot high creature flying all the way to the prow. Eridan found he only had one bullet left. He took careful aim at the helmsman of one of the vessels and squeezed the trigger.
He blew a fist sized hole in the Carapacian, who slumped onto the wheel. Then, as the weight of his body finally dragged him down, the wheel dragged with him, and the ship turned sharply to the left and into the path of one of its comrades. The two collided with a sickening crunch, crippling both vessels. A fire broke out. "Hell yes!" Eridan shouted.
There came a startled cry from Willoughby. "Nak! Nak nak! NAK—" The final ship had somehow managed to flank them. Like some phantom horror, it appeared from a behind a ridge of violet rock off of starboard. It was so close Eridan could see the light glinting off the beady eyes of its Carapacian crew. The sun had set and the silver-moon was rising, with the rose-moon nowhere in sight. Eridan readied his rifle. He was as good at fighting with the bayonet as any fencer in the world. He'd fought off the boarding party before, and he could—
The sand pirates blasted him with their side-cannons, blowing his ship to smithereens. "NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—" Willoughby's smoking form flew off into the darkness as Eridan fell into the sands.
Roughly an hour later, he woke up, having drifted during his sleep. Somehow. "Sand doesn't work this way," he muttered, mouth drier than Hell. The sand all around was white, streaked with pale green, and looked a bit like candy. The silver-moon was high. It seemed his instincts had taken over and he'd swum away from the wreck while half-conscious. Eridan looked back and saw the pirates searching for valuables and possibly survivors. He imagined the look on their faces when they found out only a single troll and a half-blind crocodile had given then that much trouble. There was an island of greenish stone a ways away; if he could reach it he might have a chance. He began to swim.
It was much more difficult to move his body through sand than it had been to move through water. He struggled and sweated out what little water he had left until he felt that surely he would die, but struggle on he did. He wished he was still in Derse, even though nobody liked him but his foster-brothers. No, that was unfair, he had friends; it was just that they all had better friends. They enjoyed his company, but he was always the last option to hang out with. Was he really as bad as Dave joked? Was Dave even joking?
Then, he wished he'd never been chosen to go and be the King's ward, but apparently his genetic line was most likely to serve as a good diplomat or some such nonsense that they'd made up. Come to think of it, he'd hated the Republic the only time he'd visited. Sure the air was so humid it felt like being in the water all the time, which was good, but the people were so damn stiff, and they acted as if they didn't want to acknowledge that an individual could have value. Of course, he'd been too young to express that in words. Instead, he cried that first night, because he realized he hadn't fit in anywhere. Not Derse, and not his alleged homeland. Then the queen had come and held him, and they'd played wizards all through the night.
Goddammit, was he crying? That was impossible; Eridan was so dehydrated he wasn't sure how his heart was still beating. And yet, his face was covered in something wet and sticky—ah, it was blood. They were shooting at him again. Eridan's dark clothes must have stood out like a goddamn beacon against the whiteness of the sand. It looked like silver fire in the moonlight. Eridan cursed Willoughby and all of his descendants.
A shell exploded only a few feet away, showering Eridan with sand and rock. He heard a whistling sound and had just enough time to think, "Wow, they must really hate me," before another shell struck close enough to him that he flipped up into the air and plopped down in the fine powder, sinking up to his head. He was almost certain he'd broken something and was bleeding in several more places, or he should have been, but his blood was feeling very sluggish now, and he was certain he'd die of the lack of water before the pirates managed to actually hit him with anything.
He looked at the approaching ship, creeping ever closer across the silver-white sand, and he gave it the finger.
It exploded in a magnificent ball of rainbow fire. Eridan heard a whooshing noise, like the beating of enormous wings, as he passed out. His last thoughts were, "I really am a wizard!"
Something sharp poked Eridan in the cheek. A girlish voice called to him in a sing-songy tone. "Wake up sleepyhead!" He opened his eyes, and beheld the most beautiful pair of green eyes he'd ever seen.
The coup went off without a hitch. As soon as the Royal and Heir and the princess were dead, all of the Dersite agents came out of hiding and launched a perfectly coordinated attack against Prospit's infrastructure. Aside from the Paladins at the palace, in the Regent's pocket since time immemorial, and a token force left alive to 'maintain continuity into the new regime', the Knights of Prospit were no more. They'd been slaughtered to a man, as their heavy armor and unmaneuverable mounts made them easy targets in the cramped city streets. Their headquarters were burned to the ground, the statues of the Prospitian monarchs pulled down, and every single golden banner in the city replaced with one of purple.
Queen Jane was taken into custody, which is to say a guard was posted at the door to the tower where she spent all of her time knitting. The throne would pass to Jade as soon as she married. She would choose a Dersite prince or her mother would meet with an unfortunate accident.
Jade spent the first day in bed, feeling sorry for herself.
On the second day she pulled herself together and went to go see her mother, at which point she fell apart again, sobbing into her mother's lap as the older woman brushed her hair. "Now now Jade darling, what's this all about?"
"They killed John, mom. Him and Rose together. She was their own princess! They just don't care about anyone at all—"
"Oh, John?" her mother interrupted, sounding more surprised than anything. "Is that what this is all about? I think you'll find the Heir doesn't like to stay dead. He'll spend awhile in the otherworld and once he gets bored he'll come back to play with us mere mortals."
Jade looked up at her mother, wide-eyed. She was a handsome woman, and had probably been beautiful in her youth. She cropped her hair short, grey streaked with black now. Jade could see both herself and her brother in her, especially in the eyes; just a shade away from John's. She started weeping again. "What's all this? Not a proper way for a Witch to behave, no not at all. Once upon a time you would have moved planets to get your way, and often did. You once caught yourself crying and gave yourself a fine beating so you'd have something to cry about at least." It was all nonsense, bits and stuff from half-remembered fairy tales, but for some reason it made Jade happy.
"I'm scared," she muttered, along with something half sob and half chuckle.
The queen smiled. "Don't be. We all die sometime, and then we get to come back and explore. How would our lives have been different if things had been otherwise? If Derse and Prospit had been neighbors, if I had married the Page, if your brother had gotten on with Dan better. We just keep coming back, time without end, to try and do better the next time." The old woman yawned. "I'm tired now Jade. Don't worry about me; I don't think I can die. I think I'm made of life."
Mother hadn't been quite right since father died, and she'd retreated from society altogether once Daniel, the oldest son, was killed at Lohac. He'd been more like a father to the twins than their own father had been. Anyway, the queen had started raving about the Four, rattling off facts about their lives and personalities as if she had actually known them. She claimed the Witch was Jade's namesake, even though none of them had had a name. At least now, she seemed to be making an effort, even though Jade didn't understand anything she was saying.
Jade gave her mother a hug and whispered a thank you, then straightened herself up. She set her jaw, dried her eyes, and marched out of the room with a determined expression. The guard, a paladin, shied away just slightly as she glared at him. "If you touch my mother, I will put one right here," she flicked his forehead, "right in between those baby blacks." He squinted at her. She glared back. He averted his gaze.
As she stormed down the halls, Jade felt a fire burning inside of her, and it needed an outlet or it would burn her to ashes. It was hungry and roaring, no—howling like a wolf. She wanted to tear something's throat out with her teeth. Had she really just thought that? She'd never thought she could be so angry before. It was awful, and yet it was also wonderful, as if power were building up inside of her and anger was just the fuel, that would be burned away in a glorious burst. She didn't notice, but her long black hair had started to stand up, since she left her mother's tower, fanning out behind her like a living thing.
She didn't have much of a plan, only an idea, but it would have to serve.
Jade went to her room and changed. She was still wearing her golden nightgown. Goddammit, she was in mourning. But she also had work to do. She threw on some old black clothes from the back of the closet, a short but thick black dress and a black cowl, and some serviceable red shoes. A splash of color never hurt anyone.
Under her bed, there was a secret compartment. Father had installed it and taught her how to access it. The technique made almost no sense, and seemed to rely on wishful thinking more than anything. She supposed it was somewhat logical, in an internally consistent sort of way rather than a common-sense sort of way, as it was meant to serve only as a last hope.
After a few minutes of fumbling, she opened it, and drew out her father's massive rifle. It was taller than she was, seemingly crafted of yellow and white gold, and so ornately carved that there could have been no way for it to fire. The bore was so wide the bullets must be the size of ducks. Or they would be, if the thing fired bullets. In truth, it required no ammunition at all. Just a strong spirit, or so father had said. That's why he'd left it to her. John was spirited alright, but he was all air and light. "You though," he'd said, "You are fire and lightning and the coldness of space. Or you will be, someday."
A spark of green and yellow passed between her fingers. She concentrated, and more appeared, forming into a tentacled ball of emerald fire. "Well, today must be the day," she muttered. Then she climbed out the window.
Authors note: Oh shit neither Karkat nor Vriska were in this chapter sorry.
It's to my benefit that the two most socially awkward trolls, Eridan and Equius, both have a 'royal' class in canon. Obviously in this world they were raised by humans, and therefore would not fit in with regular trollish society. They basically only hang out with Dave and a few others. Also, I can't help but write Dave and Nepeta as friends.
Eridan's a sea-gangster. I mean, a land pirate.
This site kept messing up my little act-breaks that I like to put in, so I added the 'horizontal lines'. Hope it's not too ugly. And of course I'll go back and fix the others! Someday...
Also, I love that you're all favoriting an following and suchlike, but nothing inspires a writer more than constructing criticism, so if you could just take some time to leave a review explaining what you liked and how I can improve, we'll all be very happy together. Yes indeedy...
