"Brain the size of a planet and they had me running the bloody ventilators, I ask you," said the odd little man standing on the head of the trumpet-beast. No more than three feet high, He was a sort of flat white color, no part of him reflecting the ambient light more or less than any other so he looked two-dimensional. He had no features other than the standard number of limbs and digits, and his head was perfectly round and roughly the size of a medicine ball. His only clothing was a long colorful woolen scarf that Equius had given him the other night. The homunculus had been too proud to ask for clothing.

"I could have built them a bloody nuclear reactor if they'd asked. I could have made then bloody rulers of the whole bloody world. But all they cared about was their precious little air-clocks. The Lord forbid if the stupid little stone alligator didn't come and sing at noon precisely. And they'd insist on calling it an alligator too, even though it's a bloody crocodile. That's the thing isn't it though," he said, turning to Equius. It looked as if his body had rotated underneath his head. Equius wondered once again how the creature could see. "No one asked me. People used to ask me things all the time, back when I could actually do things. Still smart as balls though." He paused, raising an aristocratic finger. "A private joke. Haa haa. Hee hee. Hoo hoo."

Equius wished he still had his prostitutes.


He and his women spent some small time as the guests of the salamanders. At first they'd been mistrustful of the trolls, having rarely seen any in their lives. If trolls were too exotic, then the massive midnight-blue bulk of a trumpet-beast had them in terror, and so his party spent a good deal of time waiting and searching in vain. Equius checked his map. There was something here in the marshes, some ancient trollish site from the name; Locas. But as far as he could tell, there was nothing in the marsh that had not been crafted by the hands of either God or salamander. Furthermore, the map was more a vague representation of the entire region rather than an actual map of the marshes; while there was certainly a drawing of 'Locas', there was nothing to indicate where in the marsh it would be, not that he thought one could plot a marsh with any accuracy, at least none that would keep its accuracy after a few hundred years.

The nights were dark here, with no light penetrating through the thick foliage. The only light was the yellow-green flickering of the fireflies. They danced on the water, often alone, sometimes in a swarm, and sometimes inside the little lanterns of passing salamander boats. The boaters fascinated Equius. Why row when their thick yellow forms could swim with such elegance? They wore black robes embroidered with wispy white and grey figures like ghosts and almost always traveled in small groups. He thought they must be priests, or some fringe-members of society.

One night, he sat watching them from a gargantuan root. The lovely rust colored trees with their green-black foliage that perforated the swamp were massive enough to carry the weight of a fully grown trumpet-beast, observing the reed-boats skimming across the black waters with suspicion. The twins (having hatched from the same egg they were in fact twins) sat with their backs against the –beast communicating telepathically. They rarely spoke to Equius, and when they did he could barely understand their thick east-trollish accent. They were becoming increasingly unhappy with him, likely because there were no shops around for him to buy them things. He just wished they weren't so needy.

Oh, he knew they were prostitutes. It was obvious, what with the metallic paint and all. He wasn't born yesterday. They were also powerful psionics and a Royal Heir needs bodyguards sometimes. There were bandits in the desert and monsters in the marshes. He could swear they'd killed off an entire colony of crabdads since entering, spilling their sickly human-red blood into the black by the liter. The twins had proven invaluable, flinging the monsters with their mind even as they pierced them with the daggers they'd concealed in their hair. All the while they were silent, and generally looked at Equius with something like resentment. But as long as he paid them, well, there were no problems.

And he hadn't slept with them anyway. He was saving himself. Equius scrambled down the root and dunked his head in the filthy water to drown such lewd thoughts in brackish murk.

A bright light from above made him draw his head up from the marsh; he saw a swarm of fireflies so massive thy made it seem as if it were daytime as they passed by, and his entire party stared in wonder. Like a river of light the fireflies came, surging across the marsh for nearly an hour, turning the dark waters into the gold. Where they passed there were no shadows. A trio of passing boaters stopped their rowing and bowed in their strange salamander way. Near the end, Equius heard a rushing sound, as of something slicing across the water.

When the fireflies had passed, it was suddenly dark again. Equius had better night-vision than even regular trolls, so the glare left his eyes very quickly. Just in time in fact, to catch the gigantic worm of pale green, easily sixty feet in length, churning up the waters with its surprisingly swift movement. Its passing overturned the little reed boats, whose pilots were still bent in supplication, and with lightning-quick movement, it snatched one of them into the water, impaling it through the arm with a razor-sharp tongue.

Without thinking, Equius threw a stick at the thing. He'd meant to simply get its attention, but the twig flew like an arrow and impaled it through the tail. The worm roared in pain, churning up waters, spraying black, foul smelling foam up onto the tree trunks, even launching a canoe up into the canopy with its brave pilot still clinging to the side. The noise startled the trumpet-beast awake and it began to panic, threatening to stampede but finding nowhere to go, eyes rolling in terror, twin trunks blasting in dissonance. Fortunately, the twins had regained their night-vision and were busily subduing it with their powers, one crackling with red energy, the other with blue, as it slowly lifted off the ground.

The worm reared up in the water, towering above Equius's camp, hissing in pain and rage. The beast lowered its pale, almost human head towards Equius, and he saw its bulging black doll eyes and mouth bristling with rows of needle-like teeth. Out of the corner of its mouth, looking like a worm itself, was its razor sharp tongue, with the impaled salamander still dangling and glubbing in terror. The monster inhaled, swelling multiple times its size, the force of the suction pulling Equius forward.

At the edges of his vision, the air was turning blue. He'd heard stories about the worms of the marsh. It was said they were rebels against the Great Heir, blaspheming against his deific Breath with their profane abuse of its power. The worm exhaled, the stream of tinted air exploding into brilliant blue fire. Apparently it was true, thought Equius, as he leapt over the Breath of fire, and punched its fucking head off.


Anointed with a white robe and covered in chains of flowers, Equius and his companions were led to what he assumed was the holy site for these amphibious mystics. A long canoe ride into the center of the swamp was an island of stone, upon which were four gigantic carvings of strange creatures; people so highly stylized that he could not tell their race. It was probably, he decided, some primitive depiction of the Four. Each had its gaze turned to the center of the island, where an intricate circle had been carved into the ground. The design had countless loops, swirls, peaks and valleys, all perfectly symmetrical. It gave him the impression, somehow, that it had been drawn in a single stroke. The mystics began to sway back and forth, glubbing rhythmically.

"I believe they expect us to do something," said Equius, turning to the girls. They shrugged and said nothing. He knelt down on the carving, tapping it with his finger. A loud, hollow boom rang out. "It's something like a manhole cover," he said over his shoulder, not really expecting an answer. "Would you mind terribly?" They rolled their eyes and linked hands, passing their multicolored energy between them as they began to shift the stone.

It was much heavier than they had anticipated, as they'd underestimated the strength it took for Equius to make the stone drum sound, and they were clenching their shark-like teeth hard enough to leak indigo blood from their mouths, but eventually, they pushed the slab aside. There was a dark and ancient stairway beneath, filled with silence.

Equius's companions looked at him. He looked back. They glared. He gave a broken-toothed smile.


In the depths of the caves, the twins gave off their red and blue glow, and talked animatedly with one another. Equius didn't need it, of course, but they certainly did. He'd left the trumpet-beast with the salamanders, with explicit instructions not to eat it. He'd seen them eat; the adorable little things had retractable cones of solid bone in their mouths big enough to puncture a crabdad's shell. He hoped they had understood.

The cave system was immense. So much so, that it seemed to Equius that it should be impossible. Surely they couldn't have climbed down far enough for the ceiling to be that high? And surely the weight of the marsh up above would be enough to bring the entire thing crashing down? And suddenly there came a shrieking like a thousand nails screeching across a chalkboard at once and out of the darkness emerged a living cloud of troll-sized bats, coated in deep navy-blue fur.

The girls leapt into action immediately, readying a blast of psychic energy between their clasped hands, drawing their daggers and letting their powdered hair cascade almost to the ground. But the bats did nothing but swirl around over their heads, until a small handful of them dropped to the ground, skittering towards them on all fours and then stopping. The one directly in front of Equius was clearly ancient; his fur was long and white, except on his head wear it had all fallen off. Clasped between his wing and thumb-claw he held a gnarled staff that was clearly meant for ceremonial purposes only. "At long last, you have come," it said.

"What? Beast-men that talk?" said Equius, confused. He motioned for the girls to disarm themselves. They turned to each other and started arguing loudly.

Ignoring them, he went on. "What is this? I command you to speak since you can."

"Come, traveler, we have much to show you." The ancient crooked his thumb-claw and Equius approached. With speed belying his age, the elder leapt into the air and seized Equius's shoulders in his hooked talons. Two more quickly grabbed his legs and he was raised almost to the ceiling in an instant. Twisting his neck, Equius saw that they had grabbed the twins as well, keeping them well apart. They sparked and fizzled impotently, hurling insults in east-trollish so vile that even though Equius could not understand them, his ears still burned. The bats seemed unaffected, so he blushed for them. 'Cao ni zu zong shi ba dai' indeed.

"You will release me at once beast-man." Equius announced, tone brooking no argument.

"I am afraid not," intoned the ancient one. He had a younger sounding voice than one would think, with a far more cultured accent. "If I did so you would fall to your death."

Equius looked down; they were so high that even his keen night-vision could not see the floor. "Very well. Then you shall set me down gently on the ground and then release me at once."

"I am afraid not," he repeated.

"You will do as I say," Equius said authoritatively.

Once again, there came an "I am afraid not," with the exact same tone and inflection as the first time. Odd.

"Yes, you will!" Equius boomed.

"I am afraid not." It occurred to Equius that this line of inquiry would go nowhere very quickly. A thought occurred. "Do you truly speak, or merely imitate?"

Ignoring his question, the beast-man said "behold our greatest treasure." Equius looked straight ahead and saw nothing. Likely as not, the bats had even keener eyesight in the dark than Equius himself however, so he said nothing. Sure enough, within a few minutes, a shape began to emerge from the dark. It looked to be some massive arch, though as time passed he saw that it was a pair of statues linking arms, though he could not quite determine the faces. Their eyes were lit by bonfires. And time continued to pass. They flew for what seemed to be hours, and Equius grew quite cramped and asked for his posture to be corrected. Three times, about an hour apart, he heard something like the sound of a pipe organ playing. The twins had grown hoarse in their shouting, and then silent, letting out only an occasional whimper.

Though he had known the grandeur of both Derse and Prospit, even their mighty gates paled, at least in terms of pure scale, compared to the statues. No, it was one massive structure, and suspended between them there was a face. A clock face, but not like any clock he had ever seen before. An enormous clock that divided time in some obscure way he couldn't tell, with two massive wheels in constant motion rather than hands, each one depicting a menagerie of fantastical beasts, picked out in some vaguely luminescent stone. A ram, a two headed giant, three minotaurs, et cetera. It occurred to him that different combinations of animals gave the time.

Finally, they entered the massive vault, and Equius saw that the system of caves was but one of five that led to this enormous clock. What's more, he found that he could finally distinguish the forms of the statues, though he'd been too preoccupied with the clock-face to notice. A pair of identical and beautiful trollish women, ram-horned and wild-haired, equipped with a pair of butterfly wings each; stonework so delicate it could not have been crafted by any mortal hand, much less by these new beast-men. It must have been some chthonic pagan deity, though by the cut of their clothing the statues might have depicted the Maid. Though the oddest thing was that despite the stern expression, they resembled his darling Aradia down to the laugh-lines that betrayed their grimness.


"Nak," said Willoughby, conversationally.

"I don't know either," said Eridan, lazily stirring his drink. The two of them were relaxing in chairs set right next to a cave entrance high on the rocky green island, overlooking the soft white and green sand below. The greenstone island was very porous, allowing natural light into nearly every chamber, but this was by far the biggest and best 'window'. "She disappeared before I could get a good look at her. Pretty eyes though." He giggled to himself like a schoolgirl.

Willoughby scratched his forehead. "Nak, nak?"

"Hmm," Eridan was pulled out of his reverie. "No, I have spoken to her again. These past few nights she's led me into a small chamber like a confessional and talked to me through the screen. She has a wonderful voice too," he sighed; it was flavored with an accent from a country that had never existed, or so she said. They had talked for hours on end. He'd wanted to ask her important questions, like who she was and how she'd been able to help him, and if she'd be willing to part with one of her treasures, but mostly she asked questions. About his life, but especially about his family. She seemed especially amused by them, for some reason.

The first conversation had been rather awkward, of course.

"Who are you?" he'd asked before even setting himself down properly.

She'd laughed a tinkling, aristocratic laugh. "A friend."

Eridan huffed. "Why aren't I dead?"

"A little bit of the panacea," she said brightly. "Medicine that can heal almost any injury. I was entrusted with the only one."

Eridan lit up. Now that was a treasure worth braving the desert for! "Would you be willing to part with it?"

The tinkling laugh again. "I don't think you'd be willing to give me my price, dear."

"I'm very wealthy," Eridan assured.

At this she'd sighed deeply. "What use have I for money? But no; I'll tell you later, if I think you might be receptive. Best not to scare you off before I get to know you better."

Eridan had tried to peer through the screen but he could glimpse nothing. Irritated, he asked, "Why did you save my life?"

"I couldn't stand the thought of you dead, of course!" Her words had sent chills up his spine and he fell silent for a long while.

Raised from his stupor by a curious 'nak,' Eridan suddenly smacked the crocodile in the shoulder, scraping his knuckles on the crocodile's ruby scales. "I think I'm in love with her."

Willoughby gasped and started nakking hurriedly. Eridan scowled. "Fuck you! Don't tell me how to feel! No, you're rushing into things!"

"NAK!" Willoughby roared.

Eridan recoiled so hard he fell from his chair. "How dare you?" He rose to his feet, hand reaching for his sidearm. "There is no conceivable way that what you just said is even remotely true." He drew the pistol. "You apologize or I will swear to God I will make a purse out of you and give it to my lady."

The crocodile squinted his one eye defiantly. "Nak." Eridan pistol whipped him in the snout and threw him out the opening in the rock. The sand below made a sound something like a splash. His work done, Eridan wiped off his hands. The little shit was resilient and would be back the next morning, just like the past two nights.

Still, he thought, pausing, what he had said this time….

No. He couldn't believe that his lovely patroness was just a monster in disguise. It was ludicrous. Obviously.


Two hours later Eridan was running around the cave panicking, frantically sticking his head out the many windows and looking for Willoughby's scarlet form. He would slap himself, talk himself down, recline in a chair (there was always a comfortable chair handy and he never once questioned it), and berate himself for doubting the integrity of his patroness who was surely a kind and beautiful as well as powerful woman.

And as soon as he was comfortable, the panic would fight its way back up into his brain through his stomach. He would scratch, shift in his seat, snap at himself to get a grip, and within minutes he would be up again shouting for Willoughby and looking for an exit. There were hundreds of exits of course, but they all led to scalding heat and powder so fine he could never hope to cross it. He stared at the desert and the still smoking wreckage of the pirate ships off in the distance. "How the fuck does she even get here!?" he shouted, firing off his gun at random while screaming incoherently.

When he first came to, his wounds miraculously healed and covered in some sort of bluish slime, his only thought had been to find his rescuer. He'd looked everywhere for her, filled with an intense yearning to see the face that went with those eyes and that voice. He was certain that if he did, he would finally be happy. The cave had enough chambers to serve as a middling-large mansion and was decorated with fine Alternian weavings and a multitude of religious artifacts. Books, statues, reliquaries, from all manner of sects and faiths, even the heathen beast-man religions were represented equally with the Heroes and Nobles and the pentagrammaton, and even a few chalk drawings that he guessed she'd made herself. He'd considered this a sign of being cultured.

But no, now Willoughby had infected his brain with his stupid mind-virus, the clever, clever bastard.

There was only one solution; he would have to confront her. Eridan smacked his head on a pillar a few times and then sat down against it as a purple bruise formed across his face. Then he loaded his gun and waited. He felt awful for being driven to this, but it was only way. Hopefully she would just laugh it off, reveal herself to be as beautiful as her voice, and tell him what a silly git he's been.

The sunset seemed to set fire to the desert, turning the silver-white sand into a blazing inferno of scarlet and burnt-orange. Eridan paid it no mind. She would be coming soon. The air became suddenly charged as if presaging a lightning storm and the cave seemed greener for an instant, accompanied by a pounding like the sound of massive wings. Wings indeed.

He made his way to the confessional but ignored the door. There was only one door, but she always made her way into the second chamber. Somehow. Eridan raised his gun, gave it a menacing click, and said—

Nothing, because the wall of the confessional swung open on a secret hinge at that exact moment, revealing a pretty greenblood in a suit. "Hello!" she announced cheerfully, causing Eridan to jump, tripping over his cape and falling on his ass.

Despite her snow-white hair and manner of dress, she seemed to embody the platonic ideal of trollish beauty; long curly lashes in a charming shade of lime, big liquid eyes that were almost, but not quite, entirely filled in with blood-pigment, ears that were very slightly pointed, skin the color of polished lead, a glowing green blush blooming across her cheeks, thin lips stretched over a mouthful of delicately pointed fangs. Her horns were long and curved upwards in a lazy spiral like an oryx's. Eridan found himself grinning stupidly and stood up, trying and failing to look menacing. "Tell me who you are," he demanded. "Really."

She pouted. "Now here I thought you were frightened I was some terrible monster. Shouldn't you be relieved that I'm just a pretty girl instead?" She stood up and strode towards him. Eridan took a step back. "You know, I really am the injured party in this situation. You've broken my one rule and I should probably just fly off to my mother's, heartbroken, and leave you to rot." She paused and considered, finger on her lip. "Or turn you into an owl. I always forget how the story goes."

Sweet merciful Sufferer she was cute—Eridan slapped himself in the face. She was close enough now for him to see that what he had perceived as a blush was in fact a pair of spiral markings on her cheeks, and the sign on her lapel didn't even tangentially resemble an Old High Trollish character. "Trolls don't fly," he said. "And they don't explode pirate ships with rainbow fire. I know; I've tried. And I've never in my life seen horns like that!"

She smiled and pointed at her horns. "Well you caught me!" The air crackled and they disappeared in a flash of green light. "Did you like them? I designed them myself. I always wanted horns, see, but to be honest they are quite uncomfortable. I only wear them when I go out, or if I'm entertaining."

Trembling, Eridan dropped his gun, made the sign of the Sufferer. He was barely able to choke out a question. "What the hell are you?"

"Now that was very rude love," she said, crossing her arms. "Generally speaking, when you court a girl you don't make inquiry as to her species or go around aiming guns in her house, not that you could harm me even if you were so inclined." Assuming a faux-offended manner, she continued. "I however, unlike a certain Grecian deity who found himself in a very similar situation, am willing to actually put work into this relationship."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Eridan shouted.

She giggled. "I heard you talking with your friend earlier. I wasn't eavesdropping mind; it's just very difficult for the omniscient not to hear private conversations in their own home—"

There was a menacing click and Eridan turned to see Willoughby, covered in sand, holding a pistol that was easily half his length. "NAK!" he swore, leveling the gun at the girl and pulling the trigger. At that exact moment, it flashed with green and yellow lightning and seemed to expand until it filled the room and was suddenly gone, all in a single instant. The crocodile proceeded to flip the fuck out, running around in circles and unleashing a stream of truly virile naks.

The girl giggled. "Oh, you really need to stop thinking of me in such impersonal terms," she said, turning back to Eridan. She extended her hand. "I'm Calliope."

Unthinkingly, he took her hand and kissed it. "Oh, well that's one thing about this world is how chivalrous everyone is, even you!" She—Calliope—was visibly flustered now. Well, thought Eridan, at least both of them were uncomfortable now. Still, what had he expected? Some powerful sorceress who wanted to look like a troll he could deal with. It didn't change anything, surely.

She took his hand and pulled him away into another chamber away from the reptilian's crisis. The sun had set quickly and but for a line of orange on the horizon, it was now nighttime. He could see that there were stars sewn into her clothing, though they didn't move when she did, and yellow-green sparks danced in her hair. Something flashed in her hand in that crackling green way, and then she was holding a large cube of gelatinous blue slime. "These were once actually quite common," she said, nervously. "But this is the only one left. Gods require so much more of it than mortals though; it'll last you a long time."

Eridan gulped. "What do you want for it, Calliope?" The word was alien to his mouth, perhaps another relic of sunken lands from infinity ago. It was lovely all the same.

She stared at him with those big liquid eyes. "Would you like to stay here with me? Forever?"

Completely ignoring his fear from before, he immediately breathed out a desperate yes. "Only, I must to give the treasure to Dave. He needs it. I doubt he'll have found anything as wonderful as I have." He found himself slipping into a more aristocratic dialect, which had never come easy to him before.

"Um, before you agree," she had a fascinating way with her Us, he thought, "You need to see something." She paused, looking down at the floor. "It may just change your mind about this."

Trying to sound heroic, Eridan said, "I doubt anything could change the way I feel about you." There was a loud nak of irritation from the next room. "No Willoughby you're a cliché! A fuckin' one-eyed pirate? I mean come on! Yes, you are a fuckin' pirate jackass you stole a ship!"

Calliope laughed, though it sounded a bit forced to Eridan's ears. There was a glimmer of lime green at the corner of her eye. "I'm going to show you my true form now," she said, wiping it away. "Promise not to scream."

For an instant, her form became obscured by green and yellow lightning, expanding until she seemed to take up everything, everywhere, and collapsed back into itself. Except something else was standing there now.

Shrouded in iridescent white wings crackling with green lightning, Eridan could barely make it out. He saw a tall, powerfully-built figure with deep green skin. With a sense of finality, Calliope threw her wings open, filling the room with light. Eridan stepped back. Her hands and feet bore heavy claws built for rending, dismembering prey, and her skull-like head bore a mouthful of vicious tusks.

There wasn't a single trace of hair anywhere on her body, he noted, except for her long curling eyelashes. Calliope's big liquid doe-eyes were just the same as before, he saw, and her green skin was spangled with stars that did not move when she did. Her body had seemed androgynous at first, but he could still make out subtle signs of femininity. Calliope's skin gave off a rainbow colored luminescence, as if she were burning, a source of light and power. Eridan laughed a little to himself.

"Am I that terribly ugly?" she asked.

"No," he said.


The City of Wrath was magnificent for something that had been built by mortal hands. Painstakingly assembled from cut stone, it expertly mimicked the gothic spires of Prospit. Though it had been abandoned some three thousand years, most of it was remarkably well preserved. Karkat and Vriska marveled at the proud structures, the pointed arches like blades of space, the monstrous gargoyles bigger than grown men, and the barbed and serrated spires that carved at the sky. Every stone was a work of art, its every surface engraved with some scene or animal, or a verse in the enigmatic pre-contact human language that has been lost to time.

The City of Wrath was silent. The weight of three thousand years seemed to crush all sound but for the fluttering of angel wings on the sea breeze. As they progressed towards the city center, signs of the calamity that had driven out all life became more frequent. Rusty stains on the ground that spoke of ancient violence, shattered stones and fallen buildings, signs of fires, stacks of weapons and shreds of clothing, everything remarkably well preserved, as if even the forces of decay had been killed here. There wasn't a single sign that anything had lived here for thirty centuries. No plants, no animals, no insects, and no bodies. Nothing here but for the softly singing voices of the angels hundreds of feet above.

The City of Wrath was a dead place. Death walked the streets with heavier tread than any angelic inhabitant. Somehow, Karkat knew that the city would never be habitable again, even if someone were to wipe out the angelic infestation and flood the city with people. Nothing could grow here and nothing could live here because nothing would live here. The very idea of living in the city brought to mind the idea of building a house out of bones. This place was just the crumbling skeleton of a city, a corpse of a civilization, and the only things that lived among corpses were scavengers. Karkat looked up and saw two angels, circling above the City of Wrath like vultures, their long, whip-like tails fluttering behind them. Could something eat an abstract concept? Like what separated a city from a pile of stones?

In their four hour journey, the angels ignored Karkat and Vriska, and indeed they ignored the city, mostly circling the high crag to the east, and occasionally looping back over it to check on their young. Both the trolls were wearing hats made of Karkat's aluminum scraps. The angels could use any part of their body as an eye, of course, but this provided some protection from their psychic assaults at least. They had left their riding-beasts outside the city, tethered to a small oasis. Vriska assured him that the angels only devoured sentient creatures. It seemed her dip in the goop had given her some understanding of the monsters.

The eggs were large enough for both Karkat and Vriska to lay down in comfortably without even touching, and the same pearly white color as everything to do with the monsters. They had been imbedded, seemingly at random, in surfaces throughout the city. "They need stone to incubate their eggs," Vriska whispered as the stared one pearly dome peeking out from a third-storey window, where it had been forcibly pushed through the brick by means unknown. There were at least a dozen others like it on the same street, half-buried in the cobblestones or under piles of rubble, and one could be seen imbedded atop the highest tower of what they assumed was the royal palace. "If they try to lay them in the sand like animals the babies are born deformed or die outright."

Karkat nodded, hand on his sickle. He seemed far warier of them than Vriska did, even though she'd had the worse experience. There was a sudden flash of green and a loud bang, and a gun as long as Karkat's forearm fell out of the sky and shot one of the angel eggs, cracking it open with a sound like exploding glass as a river of milky pale fluid spilled onto the street, the deific fetus shrieking its death-throes into the trolls' minds. A pair of angels swooped down from the sky, hurling obscenities with their minds and beams of burning light from their heads. Vriska ran up to the gun, picked it up, and shot one full on the face. Karkat grabbed her and ran just as she started cranking the handle.

"Let me go! I hate them! I want them dead," she screamed. A blast of white light tore open the ground in front of them and she came back to her senses. Karkat looked down into the hole. It had probably been intended as a sewer, but after millennia of neglect it had flooded with sea-water. Above, three more angels dove in out of the sun, singing a delightful ditty in their language, helpfully accompanied by images of tearing off strips of trollflesh by the handful and braiding it into a noose—

Karkat and Vriska looked at each other, and jumped.

Karkat felt a terrible sting that seemed to go right to his brain as his damaged horn hit the water that drove the breath out of him and left him stunned and disoriented. For an awful moment he felt as if everything were swirling around him and wondered if they had jumped into a whirlpool.

Suddenly he was yanked away by a fearsome grip and he lashed out, hitting something hard and sharp—

Then he could breathe and Vriska was shouting at him, quite literally blue in the face. "You paranoid fucker you almost chipped my horn! Underwater!" They were floating in water about ten feet deep. Land trolls are not generally strong swimmers, but it was seawater, calm but for a slight current. "They'll leave us alone here," Vriska continued. "They don't like seawater. It can short out their powers."

"Is that why the other one died? But then why the hell do they live so close to the ocean?" Karkat snapped.

Vriska looked at him as if he were an idiot. "Because they can fly indefinitely." Karkat conceded the point.

They swam with the current a while, following a brick tunnel that seemed to be slowly but surely filling with water. Vriska was leading due to Karkat's sense of direction being muddled by his injury. His angel-bloodstained sickle provided a hint of light. The angels, having lost visual contact with them, were searching for the trolls confusedly; occasionally Karkat's mind was touched by a shriek of concern or a disturbing image, but they couldn't lock on through the layers of stone and aluminum, and he figured they were unwilling to blast too many random holes in the floor so near to their eggs. He and Vriska were probably safe.

The current eventually took them to a place where the water touched the tunnel's surface; it had not been filling with water, it had been at an angle. They took a deep breath and dove, prepared to swim until their lungs gave out. There was no need. The tunnel let out after a few feet into a wide stone chamber held up by pointed arches, the vaulted ceiling above seeming like the ribcage of a massive animal.

Now they swam against the current. At regular intervals, they could see smaller brick tunnels identical to their own branching off to service the rest of the dead city. As they swam, it seemed that the brick tunnels were higher out of the water, until they reached one that was completely dry. "The city's sinking!" Karkat realized as he pulled himself out of the water into a sitting position.

Vriska nodded. "Stacking several tons of stone on a sandy beach will do that." She wrung out her hair and produced a water-tight leather tube. Inside was the map. "Okay, according to Mindfang, the treasure is hidden in the Grotto of Despair—"

"Sounds fucking wonderful," Karkat intoned.

"Shut up Vantas," Vriska said absently. "The only way to get there is through the underground part of the city, where we are of course. Now, the stupid thing about this map is that it's just a general map of the region," she said, flicking it with three fingers, "but we do have written instructions on how to get there."

"I know already," Karkat pointed out. "You translated this shit for me like a month ago, remember? You just love hearing yourself talk, don't you, you narcissist?"

"Wow you are such a charmer, I feel so appreciated," she deadpanned. "The tunnels on this side here go to another identical chamber, which should be mostly dry. Both of those let out into the ocean, but the entrance to the grotto is in between them somewhere."

Karkat nodded while yawning exaggeratedly. "I just love hearing things I already know. It's the best fucking thing." Vriska slugged him in the arm.

The pair trudged on through the tunnel. This time Karkat was in the lead, holding his sickle in front of him as there was no water to reflect its light. With his damaged balance, navigating the slimy, inclined hole studded with fossilized refuse was no picnic, but when he stumbled Vriska was there to shove him back to his feet.

Eventually, they reached the vaulted chamber. The floor here had cracked right down the middle and jagged stone shards taller than either of them reached towards the far wall at a forty-five degree angle like vicious claws. Vriska clambered up the side of one as nimbly as a spider. When Karkat tried to follow, he smashed his face against the stone, spurting blood from his nose. He growled, smashing his fist against it. "It's this stupid fucking horn!" he shouted. "I'm basically useless now. You know what Vriska," he said, leaning against the stone, "You should just go and get the fucking thing. I'll wait for you here. On second thought, I can make my own way back—"

Something coarse and slightly heavy thudded onto his head, then slid off onto his shoulder. The magic rope. "You are such a fucking wiggler sometimes, Karkat!" Vriska snapped. In a very poor imitation of his voice, she said, "'Oh no, I'm a mutant, Jade doesn't like me, they took my knighthood, my horn is broken,' fuck you I was almost cannibalized by a giant retarded clown and then nearly drowned in cosmic egg-yolk that was well past its expiration date and I barely even have nightmares anymore, so just grab the fucking rope or I'll slit your goddamn throat." She was wearing a vicious smile, as if to indicate that she was only half-joking.

Karkat grabbed the rope and she hauled him up. Carefully, he lowered himself to the ground while she jumped off the pinnacle, touching down on wet sand; just as Vriska had claimed, the ground underneath the stone was just tightly packed sand, finally giving way under the weight of an entire city after all these centur—

Vriska grabbed Karkat by the neck and violently threw him down onto the sand, sitting on his back, hand to his mouth. He twisted and struggled, trying to throw her off, until he chanced to see her face, nearly white with fear—no, it was drenched with white light. Her hair was standing up like an angry black cloud, and points of blue light were beginning to dance on the edges of her aluminum hat.

A little in front of Karkat, there was a space between two of the shards, and he could see something massive and pearly white standing on the other side. Part of it split open and an ugly white dome slid out, turning this way and that. An eye. This was an angel, but unlike any angel they had yet seen. Vriska slipped off him and squeezed under the stone, motioning for him to follow.

He crawled in after, looking up as he did. The angel—creature—whatever, was taller than the stones, if tall was the appropriate word. It seemed to be a massive circle. Not a perfectly smooth one, mind; it seemed as if there were a humanoid form near the top, or rather the impression of one, muscled chest and featureless face seeming as if they were trying to press themselves out of the strange, living wheel. Its arms were thrown back, he noticed, but they morphed into a big, crosshatched pattern—Ah, like wings. Karkat remembered thinking that the eggs were far too large to have been laid by the creatures he'd fought. He squeezed against Vriska.

The angel-thing retreated, and both trolls breathed a sigh of relief just as it ramped itself over the hedge of jagged stones. Karkat and Vriska crawled away as fast as they could, until they found a gap big enough to crawl through. Once on the other side, Vriska produced the big pistol that had fallen from the sky earlier and aimed it back through the gap. Karkat grabbed her arm and shook his head emphatically, but she slapped it away and took aim—

There was nothing there.

It smashed through a stone to their right at great speed and came rolling towards them. Vriska turned and shot it, the heavy gun blasting a fist sized hole in the thing's edge, causing it to wobble off course and slam into a wall.

Karkat wasted no time, resisting the urge to shout as he swung the war-sickle overhand, lodging the blade deep into the thing's side. He saw now that there were dozens of similar humanoid impressions all over the thing. Did angels…compress themselves into new shapes and forms? He pulled out the sickle and hacked into the thing again. Vriska meanwhile, had pulled out her boating knife and driven it up to the hilt in the angel's disgusting eyeball, making sure the stream of sickly white blood didn't touch her skin, then cranked the pistol as fast as she could. As soon as the bullet clicked into place she stuck into the now vacant eye-socket and pulled the trigger.

It had neglected to use its psychic powers at all until now, unleashing a horrific wail that buzzed against Karkat's brain like a swarm of hornets. His scalp grew horribly warm and he realized that his hat was crackling with blue and white sparks, just like Vriska's.

"Let's see how you like it motherfucker!" she shouted, just as her nest of foil actually caught fire. She ignored it and touched her forehead, face contorting into a wretched mask that Karkat would have entitled 'boundless hatred' had he found it buried at an archaeological site, before burying it again for fear of whatever curse was sure to inhabit it.

Still, what was she hoping to accomplish? It wasn't as if she could control the angels—

Vriska could not control the angels. But she could give them aneurisms, or so Karkat decided when it gushed a quick but violent spurt of blood from every orifice and collapsed.

He reached over and plucked the bits of burning scrap from Vriska's hair, which was fortunately still wet enough not to have caught fire. She was making a noise somewhere between laughing and crying. "I got some on me," she explained. There was a gleam of pearlescent white on her throat. Karkat fished out a very grubby handkerchief and wiped it off very thoroughly before taking her arm and leading her over to a stone that looked comfortable to sit on. After twenty minutes, she declared herself ready to proceed.

"Wait," said Karkat, putting his aluminum hat on her head. She hugged him, so quickly that he could barely register what had happened. They walked in silence a while.

"Hey Karkat," she said, "I've been thinking. You don't really hate me, do you?"

He sputtered. "Of course I do! How could you even ask that?"

Vriska snickered. "Come off it Karkat, you're too good a person to properly hate anybody, at least in that way."

"Fuck that, I will show you what a great kismesis I am," said. Then he grabbed Vriska, spun her around, and kissed her.

"Are you happy now," she murmured when he pulled back.

"No," he said, removing his jacket. "We are going to have, like, crazy hatesex right now. All of it." He threw off his chainmail, which clattered to the stones with a satisfying clink. "All of the hatesex," he elaborated.

Vriska raised an eyebrow. "Somehow I doubt that."

"Was that a jab at my virility?" Karkat said, pointing an accusatory finger, "Because that just makes me hate you more—"

Vriska slapped away his hand as it drifted towards her. "This is just the adrenaline talking Karkat. And possibly all the brain-damage finally catching up to you."

Karkat was not listening to her as he was busily trying to remove his trousers, which were sticking to his legs due to the seawater. "Stupid piece of shit bastard pants—"

"Karkat, I think you're pale for me."

"Black as night babe—"

"Because I'm pale for you."

Karkat regarded her very carefully. She had withdrawn into herself, as if ashamed at having revealed so much, which was stupid as they were ostensibly already in a relationship. But, aside from bickering they had rarely acted like kismeses. Bluh, did kismeses even go on trips together? He'd known since they'd first met that this girl needed someone to keep her from committing mass murder. But was he up to it?

"You're not just saying this because you've finally realized how desperately you need a Moirail, right?" he asked.

Vriska made a noise at the ground. "No dumbass," she smirked, not looking at him. "It has to be you. No one else knows me well enough, and no one else would stick around after finding out. Well, except John, but he's firmly in the red corner." Turning a fierce blue, she added. "And there's no one I'd rather be shooshed and papped by."

Karkat nodded. "Praise the fucking Sufferer," he said, and hugged her.


Author's Note: I'm so happy to be going to ComicCon that I updated twice in a day. You are pleased.

The Euquius segment was meant to be one piece chronicling his entire adventure, but now it'll be two. The prostitutes are in fact high quality courtesans, like trollish geishas, hence the fancy makeup. They were intended to invoke the Aradiabots, of course, but this setting has no robots, so they are clearly real trolls with names. Let's call them Maaraa and Rae-Rae. This isn't going to come up in-story, of course, or else I wouldn't put it here.

The Eridan segment is meant to be an allegory for the fandom's relationship to Calliope as it developed. Obviously. I am so clever. But honestly, aren't those two made for each other, or at least desperate enough to settle?

So, we've finally caught up, I have no more existing chapters of this story. I'm working on the next one, but I'm also going to start uploading some other stories I've partially written. Would you be more interested in a Zelda: Wind Waker fusion, or an AU where trolls are android companions that fight each other for fun and profit?