Vriska did not recall reaching the end of the tunnel, but she must have, because she was dry and breathing. Her head hurt like a bastard and she could hardly move, and it felt like someone had replaced her skin with a bag of nettles, but she was no longer swimming, and best of all no longer surrounded by angels. Or so she hoped. Her eyes, see, were closed.
Feeling like someone had sealed them shut with roofing nails, she forced open her eyelids. There was a nasty afterimage in her left eye that almost looked like a thumbprint and she had the sinking feeling would never go away. It seemed her vision eightfold had been reduced to something like four or five; she was unsure as none of the pupils seemed to have been blinded, merely damaged. Vriska sat up and looked around. She was in a well-lit, dome shaped cavern (though she couldn't find a light-source) lined with pinkish mother-of-pearl and coral. In the center was a beautiful, crystalline-blue pool, perfectly round, lined with a soft, sandy beach. She could barely see to the other end, and was unable to tell if it was because of the distance or her eyes. Where the hell was that Moirail of hers?
Karkat had never felt healthier in his life. His horn had been healed miraculously, and the wounds and burns all over his skin had been replaced with clean, even grey skin as soft as a human baby's. He was on his knees and had been unable to move for the past few hours; the water lapped against his thighs. He was rooted to the spot because something was calling to him, asking things of him that he didn't want to give. The sickle was stuck in the sand next to him, its burning words obscured by the sand and the tide.
It's me you silly boy! said the voice in his head. Something had attacked them as they came through the tunnel, he thought, but he couldn't remember. I'm the prize you seek, it repeated. Something rose out of the water in front of him. It was too shallow and too clear for whatever it was to have been there, but emerge it did. A troll girl, a sea-dweller. She was very pretty, he thought, looking at her cascading black hair like a living thing, and her full black lips. Something had hurt him, coming up for air. He felt a phantom pain in his abdomen. No, three of them.
She flashed him a coy smile. Mindfang hid me here ages ago, cursed me to never be able to leave. I'm the true empress; the other one is just a pretender. You can release me, she said, placing a finger against her pursed lips. All you need to do is come here! The girl spread her arms wide and welcoming. Give me a kiss, and the wealth of Alternia is yours! Karkat heard something vague and far off. He couldn't quite catch it. Slowly, painfully, his knee scraped across the sand and dragged him forward.
"KAAAAAAAARKAAAAAAAAT!" Vriska shouted right in his ear. He was just kneeling their looking hale and hearty and spazzing completely the fuck out. She grabbed his shoulder and tried to shake him, but he was as inflexible as a rock, and her limbs were weak from exhaustion. She tried to move his head but he was completely catatonic, applying enough counter-force so as to remain perfectly still.
"Snap the fuck out of it you fuckass!" She hissed, smacking him. A ruddy handprint appeared on his face, but other than that nothing happened. "Wait," she muttered, "we're together now," she thought for a moment and caressed Karkat's cheek. "Sweetheart," she said, voice saccharine-sweet. "Snap the fuck out of it you fuckass!" she hissed, smacking him again. Once again, this did nothing.
After a few minutes of trying to resuscitate her Moirail, Karkat started moving, kneeing his way deeper into the water. "No," she said, grabbing his shoulder. "Don't be stupid. You're going to drown yourself!"
Even with her lifetime of malnourishment, Vriska still had some measure of the strength bred into the highbloods. And yet, she was unable to stop Karkat or even slow him down in the slightest, and he made his slow, painful way into the water until Vriska was dragged in up to her waist, her feet digging up deep muddy furrows in the ground behind. "Stop it right now," she snapped. "Come on," she said, face softening a little. "We can pap each other simultaneously again! That was fun! I'll read one of your stupid books and pretend I liked it." Karkat continued his walk. "Karkat I will have sex with you. I mean it. I will let you pail with me one time." Nothing. She tried a different tactic. "Please stop," she said, patting his cheek. "Pleeeeeeeease? I really mean it, I can't—urgh!" she bit back an ugly retort and proceeded to shoosh and pap Karkat with desperation. "I can't do this without you," she muttered.
Karkat did not slow or stop. That motherfucker. Vriska was just bearing herself to the elements for this asshole; not once but twice in a single fucking day did she have to confess about her feelings for this undeserving twat-bucket and how his stupid mutant face with its complete disregard for thousands of years of breeding, just serendipitously coming out all new and heinous and making the black and white fluids inside her vacillate like craaaaaaaazy to the point she thought she'd have a fucking attack of some kind if he didn't touch her face right now and she was burning blue just thinking about this stupidity and he had the fucking gall to sit there and continue being high or catatonic or hallucinating or whatever bullshit excuse he had. Well Vriska wasn't having it!
She put her hands to her forehead because it helped her concentrate. Maybe she'd used up the last bit of her strength killing that angel, but she didn't think so. She knew herself well enough to know that she might be holding out on herself. She was a tricky bitch. Vriska thought at Karkat so hard that the blood pressure in her head was like having it trapped in a vice. There was a…blooming sensation in the back of her head, a big tropical flower opening up at once, and a trickle of blue dribbled down her nose—
And she was in. Her voice echoed in his head; cut that shit out right now you pitiful fuuuuuuuu—
And then she saw, through his eyes, what he'd been seeing this whole time. It was a beautiful young sea-dweller, beckoning Karkat towards his doom. Help me, he thought.
Fuck yeah I will, said Vriska, drawing her knife. "Hey sea-bitch," she said out loud, glaring at her through Karkat's eyes, "this fucker belongs to me and to Princess Jade Crocker, but most importantly to me. You can't get any!"
It was at this exact moment that Vriska realized what her main problem was as a person. She'd always been very intelligent, but not particularly clever, so for this she can be forgiven. She also possessed a hearty mixture of obscene pride and deep anger that made her do stupidly idiotic things such as challenging a sea-dweller, and an apparently magical one at that, while standing hip-deep in salt-water.
Her opponent surged through the water like a dolphin, splitting it with a trail of crystal-white foam, grinning like a shark, golden trident raised high in the air. Vriska was fast and took a swing at her, feeling the slightest impact in her chest as she did so; the sea-dweller's trident must have just missed her. Vriska's knife tore an ugly wound in the girl's face with the notch on the dull side, meant for chopping through ropes. She grinned in victory for a second as the sea-dweller howled, spraying pink blood into the cobalt-blue water.
Then Vriska finally felt the awful, throbbing pain of the three spearheads lodged in her chest, the ugly sting as the salt water lapped against the wound, the tweaking sensation as the weight of the weapon pulled it down. She could feel the damn thing against her bones, and the blue in the water was coming from her, but there was so much of it that she didn't believe that all of it could have, not in so little time, it didn't make sense; she must have been bleeding for days—
The trident twisted in the sea-dweller's hand and Vriska experienced temporary oblivion as she was raised up into the air, brought back to cold, sobering, painful reality as she was submerged in the water completely.
Vriska's damaged eyes could barely make out anything in the increasingly dark water as she was pushed, down, down, doooooooown, past a gaping black void that must have been where she and Karkat had come from, past walls decorated with pearl strings and glittering jewels and platinum enough to buy Prospit and Derse and half the Empire into the bargain. Deeper down, and deeper still, and all she could see was the sea-dweller's angry face and the sadistic joy of the kill in her pretty, predatory smile, and the mingling of their blood. What the hell was a princess doing here? Her hair was writing and swirling like a living thing, and behind her…what was that? Silver gossamer fins and…a tail? Vriska realized she was dying.
They hit bottom and the trip must have been shorter than she'd thought because the blow was still somehow strong enough to knock the breath out of her in a big bubble tinted with her blood. It popped just above her, releasing a cascade of sparks that she realized was the result of her vision finally giving out, her body shutting down all inessential functions first. The pain was gone, but sensation was still there. She felt wood, old and rotted, underneath one hand, and then the pull and tug and push as the sea-bitch pinned her to the ground with her trident, as if Vriska was going anywhere. She felt the wake of the sea-dweller leaving. It felt smug. Vriska couldn't feel her limbs anymore. Her blood-pusher was still pumping away dutifully, expelling her blood and replacing it with salt-water. There were still sparks dancing in her eyes. Vriska realized she was sad, and might even have been crying. Pain had stopped being a thing aaaaaaaages ago, pay attention; she was sad because now Karkat would fail, her poor stupid Moirail. His girl would go off and marry some Dersite ass-hat, and John…that didn't bear thinking about.
The sparks were winking, dwindling away to nothing. Seven. Six. Five. She had a funny thought. Four. Three. Two. "Will the last one out please turn off the lights?" One. Nothing.
The stars are always out, even during the daytime.
This thing wasn't a star, but maybe a representation of their light? It had a sister, and that was a star. She was brilliant and hot and ever-present, giving life and guiding it towards its ultimate goal.
The light of the other stars, the ones that can't be seen in the day time, takes billions of years to reach this planet. If they want to do anything here, they need to plan it out eons ahead of time. It doesn't pay to be clever. Cleverness is far too in the moment. It takes knowledge, and the ability to use it.
The light of seven perfect stars, sisters of equal size, shape, color, and distance from each other linked in an eternal dance, first reached it exactly one thousand years ago. The planet was round, or so the light noted. What the locals called the end of the world was a piece of the void, the outer ring that its kind was not permitted to see; something to do with ancient contracts and the rules of some game. It was none of the light's concern.
What was its concern was a young troll standing on the beach looking up, eyes full of wonder. She was small, but they always start out small. Her blood was blue and she wore a fine dress but the light neither knew nor cared. Whatever she'd been didn't matter anymore. What mattered was what she would become, with the light's guidance. The seven perfect sisters twinkled in her left eye, a perfect match for the constellation. The light filled her head with dreams of wealth and prestige, and a kind of immortality. Any dumb blue-blooded girl can be a Marquis, the light told her. She was to be a pirate. The greatest and most terrible pirate there ever was or would ever be.
A woman grown, still young at three hundred years, the girl had become as beautiful and deadly as the ocean. She'd sailed to the very heart of the Empire and ripped it out. The Empress was dead and all the little princesses would fight each other for the throne. Her blue lips pulled back in a sneer that spoke of equal parts pleasure and cruelty. Not all of them. She looked down at the sparkling pink eyes of the wiggler in her hands. She'd need something to guard her treasures.
The tiny princess, Feferi, grew up loving her strange and wonderful lusus, the dread pirate Mindfang. Even when she took her to the witch-doctor, the madman with the aspirations of being Grand Highblood someday, whatever that meant, she still had full faith in her mother and smiled joyfully as he took her away into his colorful tent. Even when his ritual replaced her blood with salt-water and made her beautiful legs into some hideous lumpy tail and her smooth skin into pink scales, she still loved her mother. When she was shut up in the grotto with the wealth of nations and told to guard it until her return, however, she knew that her entire life and been a lie. Not even a good lie. Feferi had been entirely too trusting. She vowed she would put the trident through Mindfang's heart if she ever saw her again.
Her last sight of the sky had been of seven perfect stars. She hated them. They reminded her of her mother's eyes. Just like those little blue rocks in that one wooden chest. Her mother had loved them most of all. Feferi wasn't sure why; she'd learned plenty about precious stones in her time with Mindfang and they were simple blue fluorite, hardly worth anything. When she was very young, she'd thought they were magic. But what they were was precious to her mother, and so she hated them. She hid the box at the very bottom of the grotto, and in time, her hatred consumed her mind. Feferi could no longer remember where she'd put what and why, only that she was to keep people away from it and that she hated her mother.
The light found a little piece of Mindfang floating around in the world again, very recently in fact. Two of them, about to hatch from the same egg. They would be damn near identical. One would be given to the church, as was the custom with twins, and the other would be given to a lusus. That wouldn't do.
The light went into each of them and they burst out of their egg, crying and biting and gnashing their teeth, but it gave the larger part of itself to the one that would be given to a lusus, and made her so difficult and angry and violent that none of them would want her, not even that monstrous spider that would likely have just had her as a snack. That was hyperbole. The light knew what lay down that path, and the world didn't need another Mindfang. It needed a Vriska Serket. Not immediately, but soon, at least in star-time.
Soon. Now.
Vriska grabbed the box. Of course it was a box; she'd put it there. At least, she'd had others put it there. It all amounted to the same thing, or so she thought, before giving it a good, hard shake. She couldn't hear the dice rattling inside, but she felt it. Of course they were dice. What else would they be?
Power and strength surged into Vriska and she felt herself become more somehow. Her wounded body re-knit itself, not merely mending her but improving. Vriska's vision became clearer and brighter until the platinum on the walls gleamed like fire. Her mind expanded and she smirked at her younger self and the pride in her little sting. She could sense all around her at once now. Her clothes had changed too. They resembled that outfit she'd bought at the market, black leather with blue piping and spider-web patterns, but this outfit seemed so much more practical, like armor. It was much more conservative for that matter; she blushed remembering that Karkat had said she looked like a hooker. That had hurt, dammit.
Speaking of, he was up above there, a little ball of anger, fear, and frustration. Of course Feferi was with him (how did she know that name? It had all been so clear a moment ago while she was dying, but now that she was better it was all fading away as quickly as sand from a broken hourglass), a cluster of pain and insanity. Vriska felt bad for what she'd done to her—no, not she herself, Mindfang. Her ancestor, apparently. It felt odd, knowing she had one.
Vriska shook the box again. There was no need to actually see the dice, and in fact not seeing them bettered her chances of getting a favorable role; it seemed that observing things changed their outcomes. Interesting. Vriska rocketed upwards through the water as if she'd been shot from a cannon. The water around her foamed up into a silver-white cone of bubbles as she accelerated, upwards and upwards, getting faster and faster. Feferi looked down at her, and her mouth opened in horror. Vriska realized she must look exactly like Mindfang now. She drew her knife—but it wasn't a knife anymore, it was a huge cutlass, glowing blue, with a wicked notch near the end like a fishing hook. Well, only one thing to do with fishing hooks.
As she burst out of the water, Vriska took a backhanded swing at Feferi with the sword; the hook caught her right in the jaw and dragged her out into the air. With a hard swing, Vriska threw her out onto land, splattering a trail of pink across the sand. She grinned evilly. It was good to be the strong one for once—
She fell back down into the water. Well, that charge had to run out sometime, she supposed. Vriska paddled towards the sand, pushing Karkat's prone form out of the way. Her new muscles were accustomed to swimming, or built for it, or something.
Feferi was squirming on the ground, flopping like a fish, screaming wretchedly into her shirt front, trying to stanch the blood-flow. She really wasn't a troll anymore, Vriska saw. She had a tail where her legs ought to have been, and dark pink scales in places, and thin, gossamer fins, not at all like other sea-dwellers she'd seen. Vriska stomped out onto the lad, water sluicing off her in seconds, tinted with pink and blue. Her gloves and boots were bright red, she noted absently, like fresh human blood. She held up her sword; it seemed to hum in the air like a tuning fork. The sound changed slightly as she steadied her arm for the kill, almost as if it was telling her how best to strike. Arm out, elbow bent, wrist loose. Feferi squirmed away. She really was terrified.
Hook her around the neck and pull, the sword seemed to sing. Splatter her all around this chamber and then go home towards eternal happiness. Sailing. Plunder. Vriska had plans. The sack of Prospit and Derse first, then the Empire and finally the Beforan republic. With the wealth of nations she would launch an expedition to distant Eire, and then who knew? But she didn't want power and she didn't care about money. If she'd cared about money, would she have sunk everything here in some dank pit guarded by monsters? And any idiot with a knife had power; she could pluck the stars from the sky with the kind of power she had. All she needed was the dice and this sword, and most of all, infamy. It was stronger than wine, than even sopor, and sweeter than candy. It was what she lived for, what she'd been hatched for, to become a story to tell children and wigglers, and remind them that there were real monsters in this life, real, unapologetic evil, because if there weren't monsters, what would you measure heroes against? Why else would she have burned a hundred ships, plundered the world's greatest super-power, hidden her treasure in a nest of horrors and used a proud Alternian princess as a watchdog? Vriska caught Feferi around the neck, just like the sword told her. The worthless thing had betrayed her—
No she hadn't! Vriska snapped. She wasn't thinking these thoughts. Mindfang was. The sword hummed to itself amusedly. Vriska had a direct link to her ancestor, her hero—
And she was a heinous bitch. We can't all live up other people's expectations, the sword seemed to say. Now let's finish her off and take our dice.
"I'm sorry," Feferi muttered, speech garbled and thick. "Please leave me alone."
The wretch tried to kill me. Us. She failed at her duty.
No she didn't, she did exactly what you told her to do; you're insaaaaaaaane.
You're weak.
Piss off. Vriska stabbed the sword into the sand. I'm not done with you, Vriska added warningly. The world only needs one manipulative cobalt-blood. She knelt and laid a hand on Feferi's shoulder. The girl tensed. "I'm not going to hurt you," Vriska reassured with an eye-roll. "Anymore, that is." She drifted away from herself, sensing. There was the black ball of hatred and sadism radiating from her sword, and some reflection of its madness trapped in the poor, mutilated princess. Her shoulder was so cold. "What did she do to you?" Vriska wondered. Feferi whimpered. "Wow, you are fuuuuuuuucked up," she snapped. "Hold still."
She shook her box again. Feferi spasmed and fell instantly asleep. Her kin started peeling off in ugly grey-white flakes and Vriska was afraid that she'd done the wrong thing and killed her. Mindfang snickered in her…mind.
"Fuck off," she snapped out loud, glaring at the sword imbedded in the sand. "And go to so much hell you quivering asshat. You're not even a person anymore, you're a bunch of genetic memories reawakened by a handful of magic dice and nobody even cares what you think!" She threw a handful of sand at the gleaming blade. It flashed indignantly
Stupid child, said Mindfang, gleefully, Here you are arguing with yourself while your Moirail is drowning. Shit. Vriska spied him floating facedown over the darkest part of the water, where it suddenly plunged down hundreds of feet into the depths, and where the rest of the treasure horde awaited. Vriska ran out into the water, churning up sand into the already sullied pool, and took care to stop at the edge of the shallows; she didn't want to waste time swimming back up from the depths. Vriska reached out, stretching towards Karkat and grabbed a cold, stiff finger. Shiiiiiiiit. Vriska pulled him over to her and dragged him back to land as quickly as she could. Feferi looked like a gigantic wad of burned paper now, but Vriska couldn't afford to care.
Karkat was cold, and he wasn't breathing. Vriska laid down a hefty hammerblow to his chest. Mindfang taunted her. He's dead you kno—
Vriska reached out with her mind into that yawning black void and commanded Mindfang to shut the hell up forever. It felt like throwing a sledgehammer at a mirror and watching it explode, except that Vriska was the hammer, and the person throwing the hammer, and the mirror too, even though the mirror was someone else, and the yawning blackness was gone. The cavern seemed brighter. Vriska felt ill. For some reason, this victory was hollow, as if it had only been allowed to exist to please her. Karkat was still and cold. She punched him again, near to tears. A fountain of dirty water burst out of his mouth and Vriska smiled. He lay still.
She hugged him to her chest and cried for the second time today. No, she thought. She reached into Karkat's head, her mind like a vicious claw, grabbing and squeezing. Live. There was still a little spark of something deep in his brain, she saw. She stoked it, commanding, bullying, pleading, and it grew. She commanded Karkat's heart to beat, his lungs to breath, his brain to work. She didn't know anything about anatomy and she'd never even imagined having powers this strong before; she was just fucking about with his nervous system and hoping it would work. Karkat coughed.
"Okay, first of all," said John, "everyone tell me your names."
The patriotic troll stepped forward and gave a crisp salute. "Domenn Patria, at your service, majesty."
"What's your rank?" John asked, raising an eyebrow. "I'd thought you were in the military."
The troll began to sweat. "Well. Not as such, sire…"
"He just likes books on military history," said the yellowblood, shoving her way past with a deranged smile. "He's never even held a sword!" whispering, she added, "Domenn's a farmer! He grows citrons by the south gate!" She then curtsied, as if just remembering that she was addressing royalty, and did it poorly at that. "I'm Alppis Corhai, and I'll be your fuuuuuuuuuuuuture briiiiiiiiiiiide."
"Um," said John, taking a step back, "We'll talk about that later."
"Yessir," she said with an exaggerated wink.
In short order he had memorized the names of all fifteen, and had them all knighted, tapping them on the shoulders with his cane, including WV and Tavros. "You're also my pageboy, Tavros," John added as Tavros rose from his knees. "You go into a room just before I do and tell people that I'm coming and list off all my titles and possessions. It's very important."
"That just sounds egotistical and mean," mumbled Tavros.
"Egotistical and mean sire," John warned. Turning back to the crowd, John gave a dramatic wave of his pipe. "Now everyone! Let's all do the windy thing!"
It soon became apparent that the windy thing should not be done indoors. It was decided that all future training would be done at Domenn's farm outside the city gates, away from not only the prying eyes of Dersite sympathizers, but also out where there was more space and fewer fragile things to destroy while trying to keep a feather up in the air.
It was a big house, though the troll was embarrassed by what he perceived to be its humbleness. Sure, thought John as he admired the place, it couldn't compete with the palace, but this had been built by mortal hands, not whatever cosmic masons had built the city. This 'modest' home was exquisite by those standards. It was a broad, three-storeyed house built of clay and wooden beams. The beams were of good, pale yellow hardwood that they harvested from the western forests that contrasted surprisingly with the honey-colored walls. Hadn't Rose called Prospit a study in yellow? The inside was elegant, decorated with brass and copper, yellow wood furniture, and with splashes of color in the form of fine carpets from the Empire, dyed, John feared, with troll blood. It really did make wonderful colors, but he needed to come down on it as soon as he became king. All the same, they were works of beauty.
Domenn Patria also had an armory. "In the event that I ever had to retake the city, sire," he explained. "Fortunately circumstances have proven me to be quite sane."
The weapons and armor were older but well maintained, surplus from the knights that had been sold off at auction. Gold plating gleamed on every shelf of the man's basement. There was a fine war-hammer almost like the one John's father had used. But he liked his pipe now.
"It's just enough for us," said Tavros, comparing a jousting lance with a heavy bladed spear, "but what about everyone else? We can't take over a city with just seventeen guys, no matter how, uh, Breathy they are."
"We'll do something about that," agreed John. "And we'll have to distinguish ourselves. There are a lot of Knights in Derse's pocket still wearing the gold. We'll have to stand out."
"Royal blue," Alppis insisted. "It's your personal color, and the color of the Breath." She reached into her bag and produced a surprising amount of the fabric while shouting "ta-daaaaaaaaaaa!" and counting off to twelve with her foot. John grimaced. How many trolls had died for this?
"I make it myself," she said proudly.
"Holy shit," said John, stepping back and sticking out his pipe. Tavros took up a defensive position. The entire room became tense.
"I grow indigo at my place at the desert's edge," she said. "I mix my dyes with the dust to make it ssssssssssssparkle!" She added excitedly, eyes dilating with emotion. John started breathing again.
There was a surprising resource in the Sage. No one knew the Salamander's actual name, as he could apparently only speak in his native tongue. However, he proved himself to be enormously skilled with the Breath. John wondered why he'd shown up the first day at all, then remembered that Patria had only come out of a sense of patriotism, and not exactly for tutoring. Perhaps this fellow was the same. They were practicing out in the orchard; it was closed off by a wall of clay and river-stones. The citrons Domenn grew were of the Witch's Hand variety and had a very strong but pleasant scent, though John thought they looked more like golden-green horrorterrors. The Witch had always been one of his favorites of the Four, she seemed so gentle and kind, and he wondered why people would name these ugly things after her; it was almost an insult. But maybe there was something to be said about it, symbolically speaking. He was just no good at finding symbols and turned his head back to the Sage's demonstration.
"Glub," said the Sage, and a bubble of gleaming blue spittle drifted from his mouth towards a nearby tree. It exploded against the bark, igniting the entire tree with a bright blue gas-flame, intensifying the smell of citrus a hundred-fold as the lumpy, hand-shaped fruits shriveled and burned, fingers curling into angry black fists. Shit, thought John, as Domenn and his lusus, some kind of six-legged amphibian with a leaf-shaped tail, tried desperately to put it out. Breath of fire. A very advanced skill. John could barely light a candle even now. It was a thing of mages, and John simply didn't have the right mindset for it, but the Sage could do almost anything with Breath regardless of the exact discipline.
With his help, John was able to get his loyal knights as Breath capable as he himself had been before his ascension. Now, all they needed was a plan.
"The Harmattan is coming!" announced Fang Abata, the brown-haired girl with the marbles. At first he'd thought she simply had a big forehead, but apparently Fang had come from a far away land where the custom was for women to shave the front third or so of their heads. She had an eager smile and big grey eyes, and was essentially the opposite of Alppis in personality. "Maybe we could do something with that?" John scratched his chin. That was a distinct possibility.
"We need to get the people on our side, sire," said Domenn. "You need to show them that you are alive, and that you are their king. If you can convince them that you can win, they will fight for you."
"That's also true," said John.
"I think, um, I have an idea," said Tavros, raising his hand nervously.
"Something to add?" asked John.
"Something to, uh, do."
"So how do you get a name like Fang?" asked the dead-eyed boy. He was keeping watch. Tall and gaunt with vaguely ginger hair and deep bags under his eyes, he did not look like a particularly trustworthy young man. He'd actually been part of a gang until the general ennui of life had caught up to him and he decided to wait in his home until something interesting happened, wasting away slowly, barely eating or sleeping. Then one day he'd accidentally blown out all the windows in his house with a sneeze. He'd been vaguely interested in seeing if he could do it again, and here he was a month later.
Fang, meanwhile, was busily drilling into the wall. Alppis liked to use drills, but Fang was much more well-suited to this job. Using just the Breath and a hard stone, she could make a drill better than anything made of metal. The low hum and the flying yellow powder were distracting enough that she almost didn't hear her partner's question. "It's short for Femaang," she said brightly.
"What kind of name is that, then?" he repeated.
"What kind of name is Rick Havoc?" she replied patiently.
"A badass one," he said absently. It was mid-summer, and they were both swaddled in royal blue cloaks insulated with fur. He still felt cold. The sun was setting. Up above something big and black flew clumsily. The king's speech would begin soon. Then the storm would start up properly, and the people would come out of hiding, and he and Fang would be here to arm them with stuff right from the city's armory, just as soon as she could get that hole drilled. Rick Havoc yawned. Things might get interesting soon he figured, but no need to get excited now.
Jade was down in the catacombs with Sollux. And then she wasn't. With a single step she had crossed the distance between that place and the crown of the Witch's skull, her great pointy ears flanking her to either side. She was looking out towards the east. She could see the irrigated lands all around the city for the first time in her life, the lemon orchards and the beehives and all the lovely yellow houses, and so much fucking green. It was like a whole different country right at the foot of her city and she'd never seen it. Less than a day's ride was the Painted Desert, like a rainbow where the ground should be, but better, because the wind played with the fine, colored dust and made it shimmer and shift. It was an ocean of crimson, burgundy, chocolate, gold, olive, lime, jade, teal, cobalt, indigo, violet, fuchsia, burgundy, on and on, more shades than she could name, and probably many that were nameless, that only existed for the fraction of time where the wind mixed the powders just right, and then they were gone forever.
Karkat was out there, somewhere. Did he know about what had happened? How could he? And things were only getting worse by the minute. Jade had often thought of Prospit as a little island in a sea of sand, a still, quiet place, a place where nothing happened. Now there were occupations, and plagues, and a war, soon, she could feel it. Witches knew these sorts of things. It helped having a Doom-mage for a teacher too, though. She smiled a little and took another step.
Now she was on top of the Witch's ear, standing on the toes of her red shoes like a ballerina. It didn't really help her balance at all, because the tip of the ear was as fine as a blade; she was suspending herself with her magic, willing herself not to fall. She couldn't even normally stand on her toes; she did not have the grace for dancing. Jade shaded her eyes; the sun was setting behind her, but the desert was so bright that it took effort to see. She thought she could spy the troll hatchery, that lonely little outpost with those strange, beautiful women who brought the babies to the city, sorry, wigglers. Troll speech always brought a laugh out of her. Behind it, she knew, was a brave little stream that made its way all the way out to the ocean. That's where he'd gone, she thought, feeling a pang. To go and collect some treasure. Had she really made that decree? She felt stupid for having done so, knowing what she did now. She wished Karkat was back. She'd marry him in a heartbeat now, treasure or not, status or not. She wondered though, if she really loved him, or if she was just lonely. God, here she was being all emotional, going from happy to sad and back, round and round and round. By the Sufferer, weren't witches supposed to be cold and stoic? She set her jaw and steeled herself.
Fuck. Karkat was travelling with that girl John had liked, wasn't he? The thought of John brought a tear to her eye, but her chest burned with anger too. She wanted to hurt the people that had hurt her family. She growled in frustration, reaching for a strand of hair to play with, but it was still too short. She'd gone her whole life, or so it seemed, without cutting it and now this stupid messy bob made her feel like a boy. That was quite enough thinking, she thought. Witches don't think, they feel. And for now, she felt like doing something witchy. How about flying?
She kicked off and briefly her red-shoed feet instinctually scrambled for purchase on nothing. She let out a yelp as she plummeted back to the Witch's head, and then stopped, feeling a tingling all through her body. She smirked. Hell yes. With a loud bang, she was propelling herself forward, into the sunset. She whooped with joy. "Hell fucking yes!" And then a sound filled her with equal parts dread and joy. A loud voice called out, filling the air, literally filling it, she could almost see the vibrations flowing up into the air from lower down, from every point in the city. "Attention everyone," it said. "This is your king."
Lohac had never been breached before. The lake of fire was an impenetrable barrier. Men in armor could barely even stand being near it. What's more, it was constantly in motion, so there was no fixed point of entry to attack. The day-hand (the city was a clock that measured days, months and years, of course) had twelve docking points at small villages all around the lake, where it would extend a drawbridge during daylight hours. During the last big war, when Prospit and Derse had clashed on the lake's very shores and King Daniel had lost his life and his hammer, the crocodiles had simply kept the bridge drawn and gone about their business. There were some crocodiles who'd been present on that very day that didn't even know the battle had happened.
The city had never been breached, and likely never would. Which is why they didn't care that a complete second city had sprung up all around, a rainbow colored tent city inhabited by maniacs, who had purchased all the booze and pie in the outlier villages and threw random shit into the lake to watch it burn. Hell, it was good for business; at least they paid for things, unlike other encamped armies they'd experienced. One entrepreneurial crocodile had even started up a business of selling things that burned very prettily, and the visitors/invaders(?) put on nightly fireworks shows by competing to see who could skip lumps of magnesium and mineral salts across the lava farthest. Plus, their leader'd had a reservation at the hotel for months now; they couldn't just turn the guy away, as long as the platinum kept right on coming.
Dave was sitting on the hotel balcony, reclining on a comfortable sun chair in full highblood regalia, sans makeup. He was eating grapes. They were sour and out of season but honestly he needed something that wasn't completely sweet right now. He'd been out here killing time until he returned to Prospit. Obviously he was going to win the competition. Not only was he bringing back that war-hammer but also a brand new army. There's no faster way to a girl's heart than by expanding her territory and imposing peace on the vast lawless wasteland surrounding her kingdom. Hell, he should make her do something for him.
Someone knocked at the door; it was glass, so it shattered. Dave sighed, glaring over his sunglasses at the person standing there. Was it Aradia? Or maybe Kurloz? They both kept bothering him about responsibilities and suchlike; stupid nonsense mostly.
"Hello Dave," said Equius, sounding tired. "Are you aware that the city is being besieged?"
"Sup bro," he said trying not to sound eager or even surprised. "Don't worry about those guys though, they're cool. Well not cool," he clarified with a concise gesture, "but they're with me and I can't seem to get rid of them. Anyway, you should have said something before you broke my window. Do you know how much they charge to fuck up a hotel room? Musicians kept coming here and tossing the furniture into the lake so they imposed sanctions. It's uncivilized. Come on, sit down, let's shoot the shit."
Equius sat on another handy sun chair, which was immediately bent out of shape from his bulk. "Forgiveness, please," he said.
"Whatever," said Dave, looking around. "Where're the girls? You know they were hookers right?"
Equius growled. "I'm not an idiot. My mind is as strong as my body, if not moreso."
"Not to sound like I'm complementing you or anything but I doubt there's anything stronger than your body," Dave drawled. "Now stop dodging the question and tell me. If you're here it means you finished your quest right? Or did you just give up?"
Equius turned very blue. "Well," he began.
There was a sound between a hiss and a crackle accompanied by a bust of yellow-green lightning, and suddenly Eridan was there, along with a one-eyed crocodile and a very pretty girl with short silver hair, who looked like a troll except for her lack of horns. Equius fell out of his seat with startlement. Dave gave a lazy wave and said "sup."
"Hey losers," said Eridan happily, flashing his pointy teeth. "I don't care about the quest anymore so I figured I'd give one of you guys my treasure."
"If you don't care," asked Dave, "then why'd you get a treasure?"
"Because I know you guys failed miserably," he said self-importantly, throwing his cape around himself in what he must have thought was a dashing manner. The girl giggled. "I mean look at yourself Dave, you're dressed like a fuckin' savage."
"So is she from some obscure tribe where they cut off their horns and consider weird depressed hipsters to be the platonic ideal of masculine beauty?" Dave asked, sitting up lazily. He somehow looked even more relaxed than when he'd been laying down.
"Oops," said the girl. With another flash of yellow-green, a pair of spiraling troll-horns appeared on her head. "I always forget to put them on," she added embarrassedly. Suddenly an indignant green flush filled her cheeks. "And Eridan is a sweet boy!" She put her arm around his neck and kissed his cheek. "He just needs someone to tell him constantly."
"Yeah Dave," Eridan agreed, pointing a claw at him defensively. "And don't be harshin' my girl's horns. Callie is beautiful and you are just jealous! Anyway, here," he said, producing a gelatinous cube. "Whatever you guys might have found can't compete with this. It's a miracle cure. Brought me back from the brink of death."
The crocodile nakked. Eridan scowled. "Willoughby, just go jump in the fuckin' lake, why don't you? Just take a runnin' leap off this fuckin' balcony and fall into the fuckin' lake of fire! Then keep swimmin' until you drown because I know you would survive it otherwise!" The crocodile nipped his pantleg.
"Yeah, no," said Dave, reaching under his chair and pulling out the war-hammer as Eridan swore at his companion. The hammer glittered with golds and reds from the light of the lava. "It's King Daniel's war-hammer. Jade's daddy's lost treasure. Ain't no miracle cure in the world worth as much as sentimental value. I'm getting hitched for sure." He pointed at Equius, who was still sitting terrified on the floor. "Him though," said Dave, "he lost everything, including, apparently, his ladies."
Equius scrambled to his feet. "Silence, cur!" he boomed, the air warping a little. "You merely babbled so much that I couldn't tell you what had happened. I exchanged my escorts for a treasure. They are currently residing with a subterranean society of batmen who worship them as goddesses."
"Cool," Dave intoned, not sounding convinced. "I threw my sword at a dude and his people made me their king."
"We stole a sandship and got exploded by pirates," said Eridan, helpfully. Equius growled, feeling like he was being made fun of.
"Minion!" he barked, "approach!" A tiny white figure emerged from the room, stepping cautiously over the glass. He was all white, and dressed in a multicolored scarf that was too big for him, and nothing else. It was just as well, as he had no features beyond a bulbous, perfectly spherical head. The creature had a self-important air. He gave a slight bow to Callie. "Greetings Calliope. How do the demands of your station suit you?"
She scoffed at him. "Better than they ever suited you, you shameless meddler."
"You know this…" Eridan hesitated, trying to find a word. "Guy?" he settled, lamely.
"Hey little man," said Dave, eyeing the thing suspiciously. "What's your name?"
"I have several," he said, examining his non-existent fingernails. "At the moment I am going by Mephistopheles."
"I've been calling him Minion," Equius explained, bearing his teeth at the creature. "As befits his station and infuriating nature. But he has his uses." He snapped his fingers. "Minion! Show us the princess!" He turned to Dave and said slightly more quietly, "he is all-knowing and can show us anywhere in the world." Calliope bent double trying to contain laughter, and Equius eyed her nervously, breaking out into a sweat.
"Oh, am I not in forty-thousand Hells, surrounded by such buffoons?" asked the homunculus, dramatically raising his hand to his forehead (for lack of a better term).
"Nak," agreed Willoughby.
"Thank you," said Minion emphatically. Equius took a step forward and he hurriedly took up position. His head shifted color, like drops of ink swirling into water. An image formed…
Author's Note: Dun! We're back, and we're staying back until this story is finished, you guys. I'm so excited. Thief of Prospit will not make it to the next month; I know, this will be sad, but on the other hand I will finally have finished something!
More things were going to happen in this chapter than ended up happening, which is really my problem; I always come up with new ideas that push the old ones back, next chapter, I say, next chapter. Then it's five months later and the short novella is a two hundred page book and hasn't updated in nearly two months and I've got like, five series running at once and by the Sufferer where do I get time?
Feferi was originally supposed to die, but then I lost the scene where it happened and decided to do something different as I'd never be able to replicate the scene properly. Um, spoilers?
Doc Scratch is the little dude and I decided not to give him any variation of the name like I usually do and call him something completely different on the basis that in canon Doc Scratch is some kind of devil figure and is thusly named after the devil, whereas this Scratch is far too ineffectual for that. He has delusions of grandeur, but really he's just some imp rather than a big bad Satan.
This is the second longest chapter I have written for a work; the very longest is a certain one in Azure Conspiracies (available on Ao3!) that took me a single day and is one page longer.
The OCs were named! We've got Alppis Corhai, named by LordlyHour, Domenn Patria, named by rezi, and the Sage, named by polyfandrous. Rick Havoc was named by me, and Femaang 'Fang' Abata was also named by me. THE JOKE IS SHE IS LIKE AANG BUT A GIRL. Likely she will run off to some other nation once she's mastered Breath Waking, searching for a teacher in Light Playing, until she has mastered all the Aspects and can take on the evil Lord of Sick Fires. I might actually write that if I thought anyone would read it :P
Also no one donated an OC so the remaining ten Breathy dudes will remain nameless faceless blobs.
