"Terezi, sit down and eat your meal," mom told me about a week later we failed to get the lusii back. I was starting to get antsy. Who was that guy with the rustic orange wings? What does he want with the lusii? Who does he work for?
"This is a horrible injustice," I muttered. "First Ram-mom, then Tinkerbull, and now Pounce and Arthour!" I slammed my fist on the table, making the dishes jump.
"Terezi!" Vriska yelled. "We know! We're all antsy! We'll come up with something."
"But we had him!" I yelled back. "I'm going back." I grabbed my weapon and sun gear and walked out the door, mom following me. The sun had just set, and I was planning on being out at least all night, probably until the sun rose again. I had too much energy coursing through my veins, so I walked all the way to Karkat's hive.
"Vriska has a point. We need to be patient," mom said.
"I know!" I didn't need to tap my cane on the ground to know where I was going. The nice thing about anger is that you breathe a lot and I could smell everything. Including the atrocious smelling brown the town was covered in. Finally, we got to the hive and I banged on the door. "Karkat!" I yelled. I had to tell him that I was going, because if I didn't, he'll flip his shit and probably hate me again for a while. Although, I do have mixed feelings about him going with me. Worst case scenario, he could die. Best case scenario, we could kill that winged guy and get our lusii back.
"What the hell!" he yelled. "Terezi?"
"I'm going to get the lusii back," I stated simply, "and there's nothing you can do to stop me."
"Good," he replied, "because I was going to go if you weren't."
"You could die," I sneer.
"So could you." He waved me inside. I waved in Kanaya's general direction. "I'm not letting any matesprit of mine go alone." He too grabbed his sun gear and weapon.
"Karkat," Kanaya called.
"Yeah?"
"If you do not return in a week, I will be forced to gather a search party."
"God, you're such a hoverlusus. We'll be back by then," he assured her.
"Have fun!"
"Bye, Kanaya!" I waved again.
Karkat whistled, summoning Crabdad, who came skittering. Mom landed and I got on her back. Karkat joined me and mom picked up Crabdad in her talons. "Okay, mom, let's go!"
We flew past all of the islands we charted. It took hours, but we relished in the silence of the wind blowing right through our armor. I had to put on my sun gear to stay warm this high up. After a while, I spoke up, bored of relishing.
"This takes me back."
"To when we were young and inexperienced?"
"To when we hated each other."
"Don't remind me."
"Aww, someone's embarrassed."
"Of course I am! Worse, I'm ashamed!" He paused, waiting for me to respond. To be honest, I was taken aback. When I didn't say anything, he said, "You probably figured out that I hated you because you were not exactly on par with everyone else, even though you were, and I was extremely jealous." I leaned back against him. Even though it was a long time since he allegedly hated me, it still hurt because I can't seem to remember a time when I didn't feel red for him. "I have red blood, which is really dangerous because no one has red blood, and I had something to prove. My mantra was that whatever I was dealt, I could work with it."
"And you did."
"Yeah. I got a joke weapon, but I was able to work with it. I got a lusus in the most embarrassing way possible, but I got over it. I went from average to one of the best."
"Terezi, I beseech you not to ask what you're about to ask."
"So who is the best?" I asked, ignoring her.
"Feferi," he answered plainly.
"W-what?!" I sputtered. I couldn't believe my ears!
"It's her damn lusus!" he said defensively. "I'm a realist, remember?"
Understandable. I blew a raspberry anyway. "Fine, who's the second best?"
"I'd get thrown to my death if I didn't know that you have been since the beginning."
"Would you still say it was me if we weren't flying at 15,000 feet?"
"The fuck do you think? Why are you asking me such stupid questions? It's not like you need validation."
"You're right. And don't think for a second that you do, either."
"Terezi, below."
I leaned away from Karkat and sniffed. "Karkat, do you see a fire? We're smelling smoke here."
I felt him shift to look at the ground. I haven't tasted any clouds, so the sky should be pretty clear.
"Yeah, looks like another village," he answered. "Half of it is in smolders."
"We should take a look," I said.
"Agreed."
We circled down and around until we got to the outskirts of the village, right outside some houses that were destroyed. Fortunately, the trolls there were alive, but I didn't smell a single living lusus. There were very few scattered about the entire town, all slain. I can only assume that the rest of the lusii were taken. What a horrible injustice. And I am going to get it for them.
"What the hell happened here?" Karkat muttered. He and Crabdad skitter about.
"The fires all seem to be caused by the hives collapsing," I speculated. "It's like something smashed them down from above, and then the flames spread from the firepits to the rest of the hive." Every hive had been flattened, but only half of them had burned to the ground. Well, closer to the ground.
"Yeah, but what on Alternia's—"
"You!" someone interrupted. They must be one of the survivors. I listened closer and I could hear a faint hum of voices arising from around us, most of them coming from the smoking town down the hill.
"Us?" I asked.
"Who are you and what business do you have with us? Can't you see we've been through enough tonight?" Wow, what a grouch.
"I'm Terezi Pyrope and this is Karkat Vantas," I said, introducing myself right off the bat. They were incredibly rude, but that was no reason to be uncivilized. "We're from a village about three hours north of here. We were flying overhead and we were curious. What happened here?"
"Some monstrously-sized tentacle lusus destroyed it," another one informed us, "it happened just this evening."
I turned my head slightly in Karkat's direction, scrunching my eyebrows. That sounded eerily like Feferi's lusus. But she couldn't have done such a thing. She's too nice. Come to think of it, I didn't really know Feferi that well. Could she have? No! She may be the highest caste, but would never order the killing innocents.
Suddenly, the villagers all started talking at once. "Yeah, but they had some big troll ordering it around!" "They came on a fleet of pirate ships!" "They took our lusii away!" "Whichever ones resisted were slaughtered like milkbeasts."
"I think one guy had wings?" "Bullshit!" "No, they were orange! I think…"
I definitely heard that. I grabbed Karkat. "Hey, the guy that took Arthour and Pounce had orange wings."
"Are you sure?" he asked.
"Positive! My nose never lies!" It may have been dark that night, but that didn't mean I couldn't smell in it. I turned back to the crowd, addressing them. "Where did they go? Which direction?"
They hushed immediately. "You're not thinking of chasing them, are you?"
One of the others piped in, "The biggest one was definitely the Grand Highblood." Her voice was aged, like a wise old troll, obviously the village leader. "I saw it with my own eyes."
"What would the Grand Highblood want with our lusii?" Karkat asked. "And how do we get him to give them back?"
"I'm sure we can take him," I added. "I have a dr—"
"No!" she insisted. "There's no fighting with the Grand Highblood! He rules the land, all of it!"
A little kid spoke up. "I heard he told Her Imperious' own lusus to eat her!" He then was overcome with giggles and told to shut up by an annoyed troll, probably his guardian.
"Impossible," Karkat deadpanned. "No one can control a lusus that size."
"Maybe so," the old troll said, "but I assure you, you can't just go up to him and pick a fight and expect to win." Then she sighed and pointed out to the ocean, straight into the path of the green moonrise.
"I'm sensing a lot of mistrust. We should leave," mom informed me. I nodded to her.
"We'll do our best to get them back!" I shouted as I got onto mom's back. Karkat joined me and mom picked up Crabdad, and once again, we were off.
"We should fly closer to the ground," Terezi suggested, "and a little slower, too. We're getting close, I can feel it."
We had found another unknown land mass in the path of where the old lady pointed. From what I could tell, the entire village consisted entirely of lowbloods. And the elder mentioned a lusus that sounded like Feferi's lusus. I'm pretty sure Feferi is too nice to give an order to destroy an entire town of lowbloods just for some lusii. As far as I know, she had a hard-on for common troll folk, much to Eridan's dismay. I don't feel sorry for him. But I guess we should be grateful that because our village is so diverse. We've never really had any serious problems amongst each other… well, except for Mindfang…
"Karkat?"
"What?"
"I'm getting a lone dark spot to the left. I think it's a boat."
I turned my head and sure enough, there was a boat coming up on our left, and it seemed oblivious to our existence. It had brown sails, so it definitely looked illegitimate.
"It might be pirates."
"Her Imperious should have gotten rid of any unauthorized crews." In oral training, we were taught that any sails not flying her colors were deemed unfit for water and destroyed promptly by her Gl'bgolyb. Feferi told us that there were many Gl'bgolybs on the bottom of the ocean, but they don't come up very often, even for the lusus-searching events. Feferi however, never learned to avoid them, because apparently they're extremely territorial. She was too curious for her own good and was nearly swallowed up by one of them, only to be tamed by said troll. That was about four, maybe three sweeps ago. "Besides, it might just be merchants."
Boom!
"Those aren't merchants! Hang on!" Terezi yelled as Pyralspite rolled in midair. I checked on Crabdad, who was still hanging on, although he looked a tad freaked. "They shot something at us!"
Boom!
Then I saw it. It was a rather large net, big enough for the four of us. Pyralspite dodged the second one, too. I squinted at the trolls on the ship, one with the largest motherfucking horns I have ever seen, sticking straight out and up, just like Tavros. He must be one of those castes that can communicate with lusii. Either that, or Tavros is a freak of nature. But if he can, he can easily steal someone's lusus. Literally everything about this premise is so wrong, not to mention against Viking law: You can't just steal lusii. Of all the other shit we steal from each other, lusii are the only things kept sacred. "We need to split up!"
That snapped me back to reality. "No! I'm not leaving!"
"Karkat, we almost got hit that time! We'll all be captured if we stay together!"
Nookfisting highbloods, as much as I hated it, I agreed. "Fine, Get close to the water and drop us off! Meet me at Gnarly Buttooth by sunrise!" That was one of the islands we "discovered" and named.
"Okay!" Pyralspite dove down, then spread her wings to coast us closer to the water. She let Crabdad go and with a splash, I dove in after him.
I didn't even have to wait five seconds in the frigid water before Crabdad snatched me and swam underwater. I can hold my breath for a good while now, and when I had him resurface a few minutes later, we were far on the other side of the boat. Yes! We lost them! A victory for once. I scanned the sky for a white dragon, and compared our locations when I did.
The boat was ignoring me and heading straight for them.
"Fuck!" I yelled, pounding the water with my fist. I had Crabdad pull me closer to the boat to try to see if there were any weak spots, but the bottom was entirely metal, and impossibly waterproof. It looked like the parts above the water were mostly wood. I squinted in the salty water, trying not to lose any air by scoffing angrily to myself. It was difficult. I should also be used to opening my eyes in salt water, but I'm not.
About half an hour later, we reached Gnarly Buttooth, extremely exhausted. Crabdad screeched and began clawing at a tree. Of all the weird shit I've seen him do, that was probably the weirdest. He can approve or disapprove of hive décor, he knows exactly when to gather wood for the perigee seasons, and looks around like he wants to understand what is going on, but just can't talk. He screeches again and I reconsider the "not being able to talk" part. He talks plenty. I don't have the patience to even try to understand it yet.
It turns out that sunrise was a lot longer away than I initially thought. After about two hours of watching the stars go by, I got bored and started to nod off. Crabdad interrupted that by screeching loudly while hovering above me. I yelped and screeched back at him, "What do you want?!"
He skittered down to the shore and presented me a pile of fish. I usually don't like fish, because it makes me think of a certain seadweller that flirted with Terezi that one time and I nearly ripped off his horn. I laughed at the memory of his face. Classic me. I'm angry and I'm proud.
Angry, proud, and bored. I'm so bored, I could watch a primitive species evolve into gods and be entertained the entire time. Hell, I could probably even watch blood dry. I scanned the skies for the billionth time and still didn't find her, so I got up and started cooking some of the fish. Crabdad just swallowed them whole. I was so fucking hungry, I just didn't give a flying rodent's asshole with fireworks shooting out of it about how much watching him eat made me gag. I made a fire and gorged three of the fish onto a stick. I don't cook so I'm not exactly sure if you're supposed to skin them before or after you cook them. At least my sickle is clean to do it. As I sat there waiting for the fish to cook, I watched the purple moon rise in front of me, the waves crashing softly not twenty feet from me.
I just hope Terezi's okay.
"I can't shake them!"
"Can we fly higher?" I asked, out of breath.
"I wouldn't, especially since you're already exhausted." She sent me some images of me passing out but I ignored them.
"I'll be fine!" I was convincing myself more than her, but it's not like I'll ever let her know that.
"Hang tight, and tell me if I'm going too high." I nodded against her scales.
And I did. We sped straight up and I hung around her neck for dear life. I would really kill for some goggles so my eyes won't dry out. Or maybe a whole facemask. No wait, then I wouldn't be able to smell anything. In any case, I'm not sure if it was the dryness or the lack of air, because I started to get really sleepy.
I heard more cannon fire and felt the wind from the nets whizzing by, and the next thing I knew, I felt nothing but wind, not even mom. I came to my senses immediately. Somehow, I had let go of mom. I started to panic, and because the wind whooshed by so loud and so fast, I couldn't hear or smell a thing. I grabbed at the air, shouted for mom… and finally landed on something large and firm. It was a little big to be a neck, so maybe I landed on mom's wing or her butt. I started slapping the armor there, thanking her under my breath. I definitely need a seatbelt or something. No more riding bareback, no sir!
"Terezi, that's not me," she growled menacingly. I could feel her anxious thoughts fill my thinkpan.
My eyes shot open and I drew in a sharp breath. She was right. Whatever it was, it felt like mom, but it didn't smell right. It was very similar, but it wasn't her. Was I on some other flying lusus? I could smell mom clear as air flying next to us, but whatever it was, it was wearing a lot more armor than mom was, and she barely wore any in general, even during competitions.
"Why did you let go? I warned you not to let me go so high." She changed from anxiety to worry, and I felt like a total asshole.
"I'm so sorry! I blacked out before I got the chance," I thought back to her. I felt the wind die down some more, and I wanted to slide off of whatever I was riding on and back onto mom, but then I felt a hand keeping me in place. I wriggled myself away, trying to see who was with me. What I did smell was a white skull-shaped mask on a body that was covered head to toe in bright red and a dirty blue. I took another whiff and the dirty blue honed into the distinct scent of… my own blood color? Was I bleeding all over a stranger? Was mom?
They produced some sort of stick weapon and held it around my front, across my forearms and stomach. I've been in worse situations on land; I could easily flip this person over but that would send us both flying to our deaths, and I can smell mountains racing not very far below us. Mountains everywhere. They seemed to go on for miles.
"Shh," was all the person said. I already couldn't tell if they were male or female because of their heavy armor, and the generic hushing sound didn't help.
We must have circled the mountains or gone farther inland, because the sound of booming cannons had long left my eardrums. Everything was brown, brown, brown. Not even a good brown, but more like piles of useless mud clods. It was dark and reflecting green moonlight, so that made it even worse. Either that, or they were covered in moss, which implies a rainy environment.
"Terezi, have you figured out what you're riding on?"
Discreetly, I wiggled my hand and stuck it in between the armor to touch the texture of the ferocious flying beast, and found scales. No way.
"Yes, you are correct," she confirmed my suspicions. It's another dragon.
Suddenly, we're easing our way down.