I just about screamed like a starstruck grub when we arrived to a cave full of dragons. I could tell by the various red dots illuminating the slight mist in the air. The taste of mist plus red is amazing. However, the way I was dropped off was less than par: I was literally dropped and forced to go into the cave by someone with a prodding object.
"Move," they said in a gruff voice. As I entered the cave, I heard mom hissing and roaring at the other dragons. If I told you what she was saying to them, then this story wouldn't have a T rating. If I told Karkat, he would applaud and give her a medal. And Karkat's not a clapping person.
Then I heard them. Felt them. Felt their emotions, their memories, and even heard some of their thoughts. I wanted to clamp my hands over my ears, but they weren't coming from around me. It was so loud, loud, loud! The last time I was yelled at like this, I was cutting mom free of her net. But since then, I had been more formally trained in the mental arts. In the past, it came so natural to me that sometimes I did it without trying, like I did when I met mom. Now, I could barely hear myself think. There were so many happy times that I never had, in memories and minds that weren't a troll's. There was maybe one instance where I let myself tear up, and that was when a rainstorm had washed away some small eggs a dragon was trying to hatch. I always figured they'd have huge eggs because of how big they grew to be. Nope. They were barely bigger than grub eggs, maybe even the same size.
My preventative mental training consisted of two parts: think of something repetitive, then think of nothing at all. I thought of Karkat's hair and mentally counted all of the hairs on his head one by one until the voices and feelings went away. I'm sure they were still trying, but I can't tell. I went right up to the closest one and did the same thing I did with mom, trying to tame it, to ease its insecurities somehow by showing I wasn't going to hurt them. The dragon sniffed my hand and huffed.
"Impressive," an unknown older female said from behind me. I assumed she was the one in the gruff voice that brought me here. She sat on a large rock with her prodding thing in her hand. I turned to where the voice was coming from. "Most trolls don't last five minutes before I have to put them out of their misery. Looks like you handled yourself just fine."
"Who are you?" I asked. The deafening silence of her answer told me that I should have recognized her just by her looks. I cleared my throat. "Sorry, I'm blind, I can't really see if you're on a wanted poster or not." Unless I lick her face. But she probably wouldn't appreciate that. Come to think of it, I haven't really licked or heard of any wanted posters in the village ever, because we act like decent gentletrolls.
She sighed. It's not annoyed. It had a melancholic tone to it, though. She removed her mask, which had covered up her horns with some kind of fabric, maybe canvas. They smelled just like…
My eyes widened.
"Redglare?!" I practically shouted.
Sunrise came right on time. Terezi didn't. I put on my sun gear and called Crabdad. He wasn't far, just fishing. I managed to take a nap right there on the beach, too. Maybe she was on another part of the island? No, she would have circled before she landed and found me. I snarled and think about ordering him to get into the water. I hate swimming in the daytime, because then I'd be an easy target for seadwellers. I've heard stories from Eridan and people like his ancestor and the Condescension taking slave prisoners and setting their lusii free. In some part of my imagination, speculation leads me to believe that had happened to Mindfang. Then I remember that I don't care.
Alone, I go up the mountains instead. The island is basically round with a couple of mountains, and a perfect line of cliffs splitting the two ranges, like someone had taken an axe to it. There is a short river going down the middle, filled with rocks. Terezi and I figured out that the water was fresh, but there's literally zero vegetation on the island at all, which led us to believe that there was something wrong with it. I looked down into the gorge and saw just the river. I got to the highest mountain and looked out to the ocean. Nothing. Skies? Zip. I stayed up there for about three hours before resorting something I never would have dreamed I would EVER resort to, even if they were the only ones on the planet that could help.
It turns out that after half an hour of self-bickering, they were the only trolls on the planet that could help. I raced down the mountain, back to Crabdad, and we head back to our village. On the way, I run into Feferi and Eridan, amazed that I didn't die by deranged seadweller lusus. She didn't need sun gear apparently. I squinted in the sun. It was about midday now.
"Hey, Karkat!" she chirped. "I thought you were with Terezi!"
"Long story," I countered, exhausted at her peppiness, "I need to get her back."
"Glub!" she gasped. "Get her back?"
"Long story! Just get us there!"
"Okay, okay! Let me get grumpy gills." She turned and yelled, "ERIDAN!" Then she smiled at me. I want Terezi back. At least she calls me names to me face.
When we finally get back, I called all the teams to the arena.
"Why are we up so late?" Vriska complained.
"Where is Terezi?" Kanaya asked.
"I can't believe I came down the mountain for you," Sollux said, "I thought thith wath about Terezi."
"Shut you pie holes and listen!" I ordered. "We were attacked by unauthorized pirates three hours south." Some of them muttered to each other, speculating that I left her behind. Instead of reacting to them, I did the mature thing and kept on talking. "She led them away, but before that, we found an entire village that had been decimated by a large lusus of unfathomable size, all of their lusii stolen or killed. Now, we know for a fact that they were the same ones who stole Pounce De Leon and Arthour." I glanced at Nepeta and Equius, both itching for a fight. "I don't know where Terezi is, but I have a good idea of where she might have gone." More like a vague direction, but it's better than nothing, right?
"What do you want?" Sollux asked.
"I need help. Preferably from someone who knows how to sail." If we have any chance of winning, we're going to need our lusii. But as valuable as Vriska's Spidermom might be, we might not be able to transport her, though. I could even tolerate Eridan if it meant getting Terezi and the lusii back. The others seemed to be agreeing with me, nodding their heads and coming up with battle strategies.
Then Vriska chimed in. "Tell us the catch, Karkat!" she taunted. That silenced everyone.
Fucking Vriska, I thought to myself. I gritted my teeth and said, "We have reason to believe that the Grand Highblood might be in on it."
"Oh, hell no," Eridan said. "Are you crazy?!" What? I thought he liked crazy!
"Look, if we want to get our lusii back, then we need to negotiate with him!" Tavros and Aradia were the first to turn away. "Hey!"
"Uh, look Karkat, it's not that we don't want to get them back," Tavros started to say. He didn't finish, but turned to Aradia instead, eyes pleading.
"They mean more than anything to us," Aradia said. "We just don't think we can win by ourselves."
"She's right," Equius agreed, "as much as I strain to admit, coming from a lowblood."
"Thank you, Equius," she said with a wink. Did they have a blackrom going on or something?
"I'm out, too," Sollux decided, "Come on, Biclopth." And at that, he plodded away.
"Some help you guys are," I mumbled. I addressed the rest of them: "As for the rest of you yellow-bellied suckers, who wants to go on a suicidal mission to get back our friends?"
Either they were all paralyzed with fear, or they were staying to help. Eight of us: myself, Nepeta, Kanaya, Vriska, Equius, Gamzee, Eridan and Feferi. Joy.
"Good. Anyone know how to drive a ship?"
Vriska raised her hand. "I do."
"You know how to drive?"
"No, but I know someone who does," she said with disdain. No. "And we have to break her out of prison to do it."
Many a sleeping guards later, courtesy of Vriska, we got to her prison cell.
"Well, well, well," Mindfang sneered, arms crossed. "If it isn't the motley crew of all the castes coming to rescue the lusii." Of course she can read out minds. Either that, or the guards have been informative chatterboxes. "What's the occasion for this most honored visit?"
"We need your boat," I said. Vriska nudged me hard with her arm.
"He means your ship," she said. Oh right, because pirates are stingy about that stuff.
"Oh?" The adult raised her eyebrow. "Are we going on an adventure?"
"We're going to get our lusii back from the Grand Highblood." I hated wasting time, so I cut right to the case. Her expression fell.
"Sorry, you're on your own." She slumped back into her pile of hay. They don't give prisoners slime around here. It keeps the people around here from committing any crimes.
"Why, you—!"
"I'd rather die than negotiate with that madman."
"Terezi's missing!"
She laughed. "Sure, like that'll get me to help you."
"I'm going to kill you!"
"Karkat, no!" Vriska said, she and Nepeta grabbing my arms.
"You raised her, you bitch!"
She stood up. "Look here, you little shit," she said, waving her finger, "I never cared for her, remember? You're deluding yourself if you think I'm going to help because you lost her." I glared at her, still held back by my arms. She's lying. She did care at some point. It may have been because of her blood color or her dragon, but no troll in their right mind would tolerate a grub as annoying as Terezi for seven sweeps and not feel something. As much as I wanted this bitch to die for breaking Viking law for Dragonmom, there are worse offenders out there actually killing them. They're much worse than smallfries like Mindfang.
"Fine," I said, shrugging out of their grip. I cracked my neck. "You're just a smallfry compared to them and you're scared."
"Me? The great pirate Marquise Spinneret Mindfang? Scared?!" She grabbed the bars and shook them. "You have no idea what you're talking about!"
"You just can't compare to lusus murderers like the Grand Highblood and his orange-winged henchman," I taunted.
"Orange winged henchman?" Her anger melted away, turning into pure smugness. "You didn't tell me anything about an orange-winged henchman." She smiled, looking into the far distance. "That little…" She chuckled. What the hell. She focused back on us. "Get me out of here. I'll sponsor your little trip. Don't blame me if you die in the process."
I had so many questions. I met with mom again, who came tearing down the cave and about to kill everyone in sight. I calmed her down and turned my attention back to—I still couldn't believe it—Redglare. Must resist urge to lick her face. The torches on the wall cast shadows on her face that don't give me a clear picture.
"Terezi, no," mom warned. She walked over to me, surrounding me with her tail and draping a wing around us.
I shot her a look. "I know, but I just want to see her better."
"Are you two communicating?" Redglare asks.
"Yes? I know it's weird, but—"
"It's actually quite typical," she interrupted.
"What?"
"That's what makes dragons so special," she continues, removing the armor from her own dragon, which I can only assume is her lusus. "There are many different types. For instance, the dragons we ride are part of the pyralspite species."
"Mom, did you know this?" I asked her.
"I had a vague idea, yes. I vaguely remember a troll teaching me Trollian as well. She may have been this one, but it was so long ago." I mentally balked as well as I could. She never told me any of this. She must have picked up on that because then she explains, "I did not think it was all that important." Well, it's my heritage, so it was pretty important to me.
"Your lusus is about eight sweeps old," Redglare said suddenly. "Although for a dragon, that is very mature indeed. They need to mature rapidly if they are to survive in this rapidly expanding world."
I tried to focus, but the information that both mom and Redglare were giving me had clouded my thinkpan and churned together into mush. I know about as much about dragons as mom does, and even then it was pretty limited. "Can I just ask you a bunch of questions willy-nilly?"
Redglare chortled softly. "Sure, but follow me if you can. I know these caves like the inside of my mask, but I don't want you to get lost."
It was my turn to chortle. "I'm sure I'll be fine. I'm blind remember? I kind of don't need light to see, thanks to mom. She taught me to smell and taste things, instead of using just hearing and touch." I grinned, trying to give her my toothiest smile.
"Good." I heard footsteps, and the colors whooshing towards me indicated she was heading straight for my cane. I didn't react fast enough and she took it.
"Hey!" I reached for it.
"I thought you didn't need this?" Was she testing me? It wasn't appreciated.
"My sword is in there! I'm basically naked without it!"
"Your sword?" I continued to grab at it, but she held it out of my reach. How tall was she exactly? I heard it being unsheathed. "Very sleek." She handed it back to me, saying nothing else about it.
Despite the awkwardness of the response, I started my questions anyway. "Why did you leave?" Get the heavy ones out of the way first. Everyone else in the village knew where their ancestors were. Feferi's was ruling the seas, Dualscar was a pirate, the GHB was kidnapping lusii, Darkleer and Disciple were together in a highblood village, Mindfang was in prison, Dolorosa and Psioniic lived in the village with us, Signless and the Handmaid were serving a prison sentence on the green moon, and Summoner was… wait, where was the Summoner? I guess Tavros and I had something in common besides Fiduspawn.
She sighed sadly, starting down the tunnel. I had to jog to keep up. "I did want to stay, watch you grow. Everything happened so fast after I discovered the Grand Highblood's schemes to overthrow the matriarchy. Yes, this has been many sweeps in the making. In any case, he eventually found out that Mindfang had been in hiding and I tracked her down. She blew me off, but I stayed, trying to knock some sense into her. In my naivety, she had planned to take my lusus for her own. Envy is a terrible disease. At the time, it had been too late and I had already…"
"Eugh," I shuddered. All the while we were covering a lot of ground through the tunnels, mom and Redglare's lusus trailing behind.
"So I begged Dolorosa to watch over you, to take you in, but she couldn't promise me anything. She said she already promised to take care of another's grub as well, but she would do what she could. Did she manage to keep you in her care by any chance?" She stopped, probably facing me. I was breathing in all sorts of things, and the colored sweat on her face showed me her hopeful expression.
I shook my head. "No, I didn't even know her all that well." I gulped, not wanting to make her feel guilty for leaving. I had to tell her, but I'm generally not the sort of troll to lay down the truth in a way that can be easily swallowed. I'm more of a harsh truth kind of person. "Mindfang took me in."
Redglare's face did not change. "Oh." She turned away, but I could still smell it, which turned into disappointment with a hint of anger. She kept going, thankfully slowing her pace. "My pyralspite took me here, to an island that had been a safe haven for dragons for eons." She stopped, feeling around on a dead end.
"So there are more?" I asked, trying to contain my excitement.
She turned to me, the anger gone and a smile replacing it. "Much more. This is the only island on the planet that is perfectly sustainable for dragon life." She rolled the wall away, letting bright light shine through. It turned into greens and pinks and blues that I have never smelled before. I could also smell the undeniable sheen of millions of scales in the sunlight, indicating hundreds, maybe thousands of dragons. I nearly fainted at the nerdiness of it all. We put on our sun gear hoods and walked into it, letting our lusii through.
"What other types of dragons are there?"
"First, let me explain the pyralspite." She walked past me and strolled right up to mom. "But before we get into that, I am proud to say that I do in fact recognize yours. Did you name her by any chance? I'm getting a feeling that you don't call her by 'pyralspite'. I call mine Firefleet." I read Mindfang's journal countless times, so I snorted to hide my laughter. Mom laughed in her "huff-huff" sort of way. Redglare took offense. "Are you laughing at her name?"
"No, no!" I said between breaths. "Mindfang kept a journal of her adventures, and I just thought of something funny from it." I calmed down. "I'm not that creative in naming her, but I did name her what she was: Dragonmom. Or Mom for short."
It was her turn to laugh now. "Very thoughtful." She turned back to mom. "Mom is the descendant of Firefleet."
Bullshit. "How can you tell?"
"I can tell by her eyes. They both have a bright red color, very distinct from other reds. The colors are passed from generation to generation, and pyralspites usually only lay one egg in their entire lives. It's what makes them rare, even among dragons."
"Did you know that, mom?"
"I knew that the second I laid eyes on Firefleet in the air today. She's not speaking to me, which is extremely vexing."
"Why isn't she speaking to you?"
"I may or may not have run away about a sweep ago and never came back." She read my guilt coming on and reassured me, "Keeping me with you at the village did not refrain my return, so you can stop feeling guilty about my choices." Her words made me feel a little better, but it didn't stop the guilt entirely.
"The other types of dragons out there have different mental abilities. For instance, pyralspites can read minds and communicate. Other lusii have similar abilities, such as altering moods and thoughts. " She went on for about an hour just about dragon abilities alone before finally ending it with, "The Gl'bgolyb lusus has all three: reading, communicating, and altering. It makes them very formidable. You can also argue that all lusii can communicate, if you count their screeching and various noises as speaking."
"Is that why the Grand Highblood wants the lusii? To control them?"
"Albeit a simple answer, the reasoning behind it is very complicated. From the times I knew him, I could barely understand it myself."
Wait, what?! "You knew the Grand Higblood?"
Redglare hesitated, clearing her throat. "He was my matesprit for a time." My eyes must have bulged right out of my skull. "Additionally, it's embarrassing how late I broke it off with him." No. "It was actually right before I broke it off with Mindfang. I had a lot of issues back then." No. "To stick it to him, I even took the—"
"Terezi, calm down," mom said.
"Gamzee?!" I shouted. I took a page from Karkat's book of swears: "Sweet bulge-licking grubsicles, no!"
"Oh, so he survived then?"
I collapsed on the ground, curling into a ball. I can't believe I'm related to that guy. "Leave me alone to die."
Breaking Mindfang out was easy. Submitting to her demands were another thing entirely. She promised not to control any of us, but she did knock out the trolls that were guarding her ship. It was in a huge-ass warehive on the water. It was dusty, but she said it would be fine. Fortunately, it was also big enough to house the rest of us, save for Eridan and Feferi who went on their own for god-knows-what reason, and the lusii we had left. Of course, Spidermom and Gl'bgolyb were too big, Mother Grub had to stay behind, and Seagoatdad and Seahorsedad could swim. That just left Crabdad. Did I mention that naming our lusii these ridiculous names all started because Terezi named hers "Dragonmom"? Yeah, they stuck after that. Very creative of them.
Right before we set sail, Mindfang came up behind me. "Scared yet?" she jeered.
"Not a chance," I fired back. Finally, we were getting a move on. Terezi could be unconscious for all we know. The farther my imagination took me, the worse my mental stability became. "Let's set sail already!"