#sipara nzinga

[activatingaggro]

in a tidal wave of mystery you'll still be standing next to me you could be my luck even if we're six feet underground i know that we'll be safe and sound we're safe and sound i could lift you up i could show you what you want to see and take you where you want to be You could be my luck Even if the sky is falling down I know that we'll be safe and sound

And here's to the best ship, the longest ship, and also the second-longest character interactions of my entire cast - Riccin and Hadean were the first characters to interact, but Sipara and Hadean were the second to meet.

Hadean belongs to @rebatrolls, as always~ Costumes are two chocolate skeletons, and the rainbowdrinker they've hauled along.

#12th perigee ball 2023 #pretty snowflakes #fantrolls #hiveswap #homestuck #sipara nzinga #pheres dysseu #hadean dauths #[art]

[cloudbattrolls]

your honor i plead not guilty on not doing the other halloween costumes because this one was fun

Sipara belongs to @activatingaggro, and this was supposed to be a basic sketch with some color slapped on...which it still sort of is but to a much greater extent than initially planned.

She’s dressed up as a snugglebug, one of my own design, but the concept of them was created by @terribletrollstbh

Mar said “bug fursuit” but I opted to go for the somewhat easier option of janking aspects of this kigurumi design. Kigurumis are discount fursuits anyway, change my mind. 

#cloud doodles #sipara nzinga

[fleetbound]

BIRDS AND LIONS [SIPARA POV] - 20k

This got deleted off of tumblr ages and ages ago, so reposting. |D

You can’t picture it. You might as well picture having fins. But Pheres apparently can. “So he doesn’t need our hivestem. He’s got his own, and it’s lovely,” he says for you, when you don’t answer. He’s been wringing out his hair, but now he pauses. “And.. he said I can come see it soon. If I want to.”

It’s rare for you to be gobstopped! But the words just won’t come. Your pan is like a leaky sieve, ‘except instead of draining out thoughts, it’s not even letting them in. Everytime a word appears, it pours out just as quick, ‘til the only thing that’s left is a sickly kinda unease.

But he’s watching you side-long, waiting for a reply.

“.. but you aren’t,” is what you finally manage to say. It comes out as a squeak. Worse yet, it comes out as a question, and all you want to do is rip out your voicebox and start over. “Right?”

0. COIN | 7 years old / 3.27 sweeps

"Catch!"

The caegar is dusty and green with age and rust, but it still cuts a nice figure as it twirls in the air high above. The green light catches on each rivet and groove, pink shadows deepening each curve, every place it bows out until it looks like something special: some kind of a gem, maybe, sparkling in the night air.

It isn't! It's just something you found in one of the journals and spit and polished until all the dirt had come off. Too old for the Imperial symbol to have been carved onto it! Too old for it to be of any more use than the wooden coins in the boxed games. But as far as you're concerned, that just makes it all the better.

After all, wood rots! And you'd never get away with playing river games with a real coin.

The moons are in your eyes at this angle. Everything's green and pink moonspots and the purple sky above, and between those three, the caegar blends right in. You catch a glint of it. You snatch for it! And you miss.

Instead of landing neatly in your palm, the coin smacks into the water with an audible pop near your face, and you jolt back, spluttering with outrage.

From the shore, Sipara whoops.

It’s the start of the wet season, and even though the moons are high on the sky, the air is still heavy with a heat crisp enough to taste. It won’t stay hot and humid like this for very long. Soon enough, the rains will come proper, and you won’t be coming outdoors for a dozen caegars, never mind this silly little half-penny. But that’s nearly a perigee away, practically forever, and until then, you and Sipa are determined to take advantage of the heat.

“Way to go!” she jeers. No matter how much you beg, she refuses to ever get so much as her walkstubs wet. You even tried bribing her once, but she'd just stolen the apple you’d offered and eaten it anyway. And the only time you actually hauled her in, she’d bit you so hard that you’d had to get bandages from Whydah.

(They'd sucked their fangs at you when they'd seen the bloody weals, and then wrapped the bandages so tight you couldn't feel your fronds for nights.)

But every time you head off to the river, Sipara’s always a step behind, trailing you like the world’s most dreadful shadow. She claims it’s ‘cause she’s waiting for you to drown, so she can take all your stuff and pawn it at the market, but she hangs around even when the river’s way too low for you to do much more than wade. You think she’s jealous!

Which is silly, because you keep offering to teach her to swim. She's the one that always refuses. But then again, Sipara is silly. “You’re supposed to catch it, doofus!” she yodels at you now, hands on her hip. She’s leaning in close to the river, near enough that you can see her reflection on the water below.  “Not let it fall!”

You puff out your cheeks at her, pressing your palms to your face and wiping away the water. As much as you can manage, at least: staying in place like this is hard! Your head keeps bobbing down, trying to dunk you in the water 'til even your top half's completely submerged. If you stop thinking for half a moment, you'll be pulled under.

Sipara’d scream if you were. She looks stressed enough just standing by the shore, like she thinks the water’s going to reach up and drag her under. You're not sure what she's so afraid of.

“Hard to catch it when you’re awful at throwing,” you call back. "Where did it go, Sisi? Did it even land in here?"

Tilting your head down, you make a show of squinting down into the briny water, but you're really watching her through your lashes. She leans down, big hands tight on her bendsockets. Her mouth is thin. "'course it landed," she snaps. You can't see her eyes like this, but you know they must be all thin and unhappy. You can't see her face, either, with all her hair falling down around her like a curtain, not anywhere but in the water, where it's too blurry to see what look she's making.

Too blurry to tell her feelings, maybe, but just clear enough to aim. You let the silence sit just long enough for her to stew in it. She can't stand quiet, not really.  And then, right when she's opening her mouth to say something else, you slap both hands into the water.

All that happens is she catches a mouthful of water, but the way she jolts, you'd think you hit her.

Sipara jerks back so quickly that her feet slip in the mud, and no amount of arm-flailing can keep her upright. She hits the clay soil with an audible plop, hair poofing up around her, her eyes saucer-wide in her face. Almost as big as her mouth, which's already twisting open as she sucks in a breath.

You dive just as she lets off the first ear-piercing shriek of rage.

Underwater, you can't hear it. (Underwater, she can't hear you, which's good, 'cause you're laughing.) The water is high and the river's murky with silt and dirt, but ducking under's comfotable, even when the current's jerking you every which way. That's alright. You just have to go with it, and you let it tug you along a few feet, staring down at the bottom.

The water would've tugged the coin a long a little farther than it ought. But luckily, just along, and not out. This close to the shore, the ground's near enough that you can feel it, brushing along the bottom of your psionics. And it's close enough that the light of your aura cuts through the gloom as easy as clay. There's still black on either side of you, tugging at the corners of your  vision where the light doesn't shine, but that's alright. You can see straight ahead, and that's all you need.

Because right below you is the gleam of the coin, hiding in the silt on the bottom.

When you grab it, it's heads.

1. RMEROS | 4.15 SWEEPS / 8 YEARS OLD

Pheres's moirail's got the biggest head you've ever seen. He's the biggest troll you've ever seen, really, if you count in his horns. And you sorta have to: they're huge and curly and ridiculous, curling all the way over his head and past his back, like he's some sort of wooly hairbeast.

"Rack like that," you'd heard Khirba murmur to Whydah that first night, after the sun'd gone down and everyone had come streaming out into the courtyard, jostling past and floating up over each other to try and see: "- rack like that it, doesn't really matter his personality, does it?"

It's no wonder he's got a big head, when everyone won't stop talking about him.

Especially Pheres.

"Sto~oppit," you wail, clapping your mitts over your soundflaps. He just laughs at you, showing off his teeth in that dumb grin that always makes you want to smack him silly. "I don't care!"

"Don't be such a brat, Sipa!" He's bustling around your hiveblock, rattling the dishes, hopping up on his toes to reach the shelves where you keep the sugar so bugs won't get in. The tea's on the hotplate, just barely starting up the whine that means it's about ready. "If you'd stop being such a runny-faced wiggler, you'd like him, I promise! He's so smart."

"Almost as smart as you," he adds, peeking back at you with a quick smile, and you let go of your ears.

"Almost as smart?"

"Almost!" The kettle whistles. He drops the mugs on the counter, sloshing the tea haphazardly in. Usually, your lusus would complain about how much's slopping everywhere, but your pops is up in the rafters, sleeping again. He's been doing that a lot ever since you got big enough to feed yourself. "I mean, he doesn't make stuff like you, but he knows all sorts of things!"

"What good's about knowing things?" You nudge him away from the kettle, taking over before it all ends up on the floor. Pheres's got tiny bird hands, barely big enough to fit your pop in 'em. Yours are bigger, and if you're careful, you can just about keep the kettle steady.

"Rmeros says all the goods in knowing things. You can't get nothing done if you don't," he says, shovelling sugar into your cup. When he sees you looking, he dimples at you. "Sugar to make you sweeter!"

You make a gesture that is not very sweet at all, and he laughs, passing you the mug. It's warm in your hands. You blow on it, but he's already sipping at his like the heat doesn't bug him any. (It's not fair! He can drink it straight outta the pot without complaining, but your mouth starts peeling just at the smell of it.) "You're going to meet him tomorrow," Pheres says, and it's not a question. "You'll like him!"

Gingerly, you take a sip of your tea, and you get a mouthful of salt.

He stops laughing when you dump the cup on his lap.

***

"This is Sipa," Pheres says a few hours later, his voice only a little muzzy.

Points to him! If he wasn't all ruddy, you'd barely knew you broke his nose at all.

"You met her before." He's watching the two of you, bright-eyed but wary, like you're stray meowbeasts about to scrap. Maybe he isn't wrong! Rmeros is big, sure, but it's one thing to know that and a whole 'nother to see it up close and personal. He's as big as a lusus, towering over you. Big enough to be someone's dad, and the fact he's got his van behind him doesn't make him seem any smaller.

It makes you feel small. It makes you want to rip him apart until he feels the same.

"I remember her," he says, eyeing you, and maybe he doesn't see you're two seconds from scratching off his face, 'cause he bends knee to you 'til his face's even with yours. Your fronds curl into fists. He doesn't notice that, either. "Hello there. You're Sipara, aren't you?"

You nod, stilted. His lips curl up, but it doesn't quite reach his eyes.

Rmeros doesn't have much to say after that. He leans back on the steps of his van, his back to the door, and he plays around on his fancy husktop. It's got to be nicer than anything any of you lot have: as the older kids pass by, you can see them eyeing it, but he doesn't pay them any mind.

You wouldn't think he was paying you and Pheres any mind, either, but you can feel him watching. It's weird. You don't know why, but then again, you've never met anyone from outside of the hivestem. Maybe they all sit there and watch like the slitherbeasts in the foliage, waiting to try and snatch your pops right outta the air.

He's not looking at you, but it's still like you can feel his attention. You manage to forget Rmeros is there anyway. It's easy when he's so quiet, and what starts off as a discussion with Pheres turns into a lecture turns into a discussion of everyone else. And just like it always does, it turns into an argument.

The two of you fight, even when you're agreeing. It's been this way since you were itsy bitsy and you first got stuck in the hole between your walls. (The both of you were perfectly agreed on how much you wanted to get out of the wall. The trouble came in that neither of you could stop hissing long enough to manage it.) "Simoom's terrible," Pheres says, in that hushed, rapid-fire way of his, "but you can't cull him, Sipa, that's silly. You're being silly. Again!"

"He's not that big!"

"It doesn't matter when he can lift you up with his brain!" He frowns at you. "You're going to start something and get hit, and you'll deserve it." He's always on about that. It's just a matter of consequences, he says, like that's anything but an excuse for the bigger kids to rough you up. "Even if you smacked him on the pan with a rock, he's still bigger --"

You whirl on your heel, flinging your hands out. "Pheres! You nerd!" He doesn't jolt back quick enough to avoid you grabbing his face. Your palms squish into his cheeks. "That's brilliant," you crow. "If I hit his horns enough times, he won't be able to do nothing at all! Walk, spark, nothin'!"

A white-hot spark lands on your skin. You let go with a yowl, and as soon as you do, he's dancing back. "Yeah," he says, confused but pleased despite the side-eye he's giving you. White's still dancing across his horns and shoulders like a brazen warning. You stick your hand in your mouth, sucking on the warm spot. "Ah. I.. am brilliant?"

Rmeros laughs.

Pheres jumps in a crackle of psi. When you stumble back, blinking againsnt the light, Pheres's right behind you, and the both of you end up sprawled out on the ground. "Get off," Pheres yelps, shoving at you. "You're smothering me!" Both of you forgot Rmeros was there: he's quiet as a fucking meowbeast, that's what he is, leaning forward with his chin on his hand and his elbow braced on his husktop. His eyes are twinkling over the top of his glasses.

Not like Pheres when he gets pleased, all sparks and a light that makes your eyes water. But like he's amused.

Like he thinks the two of you are a joke.

"You two really are pupas, aren't you?"

When you give Alsike this look, she threatens to backhand you. Rmeros just laughs again, eyes squinching shut in a way that doesn't happen when he smiles.

Pheres bats away your hand as soon as you offer it, scrambling to his feet and sidling away. You huff, squaring your shoulders. It's not that your feelings are hurt! It's just that he's dumb."Well, if you're so smart," you burst out, "what would you do?"

"Befriend him," Rmeros says promptly, and it's your turn to laugh. His smile shifts a little at that, turns to a shape you can't quite identify.

"What's your name, again?" he asks.

"Nzinga," you say, and his smile fades.

2. ADVICE | 4.58 SWEEPS / 9 YEARS OLD

Everyone calls you Nzi, except for Pheres.

It's always been Sipara with him. He says that's how you introduced yourself, back when you first met, but you have your doubts: the only thing you remember from back then is knowing he was there, right on the other side of the thin plaster wall, and knowing that you hated it.

It was your hive! It was your hive and your home and it was bad enough there were trolls on every end of you, breathing through the walls, breathing above and below you. But then you realised there wasn't even a proper wall between the two of your hives, just something you could punch right through, and it'd been terrible. If it wasn't a wall, then it was your space. If it was your space, then he shouldn't have been there.

You bit him, the first time you'd met, just for the fact he was there and you didn't want him to be. You don't think you introduced yourself at all! Least, not before he'd wrestled you into the coon and half drowned you in it. Your lusus had shrieked and shrieked 'til you'd given in, and that'd been the first and last time those two had ever agreed on nothing.

But it doesn't matter, 'cause when someone calls your name, you always know it's Pheres. No matter how funny it sounds.

"Sipara!"

He's doing his silly skip-hop again. Some of the floaters do a little skip-kick to launch themselves into the air, and he's copied - except instead of floating up at the tip of his jump, he flickers and crackles, and when his feet hit the ground, he's two, three feet ahead. He might've been the way back at the hivestem starting off, but it only takes him a minute to reach you like this.

His face's still red and his breath all funny like he's been running. "Sipa," he says again, unsteadily. "Oh my god, why are you in a tree?"

You kick your legs down off of your branch. "'cause I'm getting apples, duh!"

He's on the other side of the fence, but Pheres is a brat: he doesn't even have to scramble, he just makes that little noise that means you ought to close your ganderbulbs, and then jumps right over it.

When you open your eyes, he's right below the tree, staring up. "Khirba said Simoom'll dock our horns if we get caught stealing." But he's already unwrapping the scarf around his torso, and holding it up like a basket.

There's a game to finding apples worth stealing. This early in the season, half of 'em are still green and barely worth the picking. The other half are all ripe, but the orchardkeepers like to tuck those branches away, keep em hidden. They're little flashes of yellow in all the green, and you have to dig to find them.

"Simoom's a stupid fart and I'll bite him if he tries." The apples you're throwing down are mealy and small, but it's food. Pheres doesn't care, past that.

But he didn't just turn up for food. "'Sides, why're you worrying? He's not gonna do anything to you," you call, sour, "since he's,  like, over the moon for your dumb moirail."

"Why're you even here? Thought you'd be reading your dumb books."

"I'm allowed to go out," he says, taking a bite of one of the apples. "I'm not stuck learning all the time."

"Just whenever I'm supposed to see you," you complain.

He opens his mouth to protest, then shuts it.

".. I wanted to say you should be nicer to him," he finally says, all stiff and prim. "He thinks you're a brat. And you are!"

"Says the boy stealing all my apples!"

"I've only eaten one! And I'm holding them, so it's not stealing." He spits out an appleseed on the ground, then crunches through the core. "It's just a tax."

"That's dumb, and so's you." You shift. "I'm not gonna be nicer to him. He's awful."

"Well, you're awful, so the two of you should get along just fine."

You throw an apple right at his face for that.

There aren't that many apples. The grafters are too clever for that: they know people like to steal, and they don't like to make it profitable. So you have to climb all over the tree, stretching out your legs and arms far as they'll go as you pull and tug the branches. It's tiring!

But it's fun, too, and it's worth it for the way that Pheres is all but bouncing with excitement as his scarf starts to sag with the weight of it. Pheres has been hiding away in Rmeros's van for most of the hours of each night, coming in to visit you in breaks and right before he goes to sleep, like you're just something to keep him busy when his moirail isn't around. Like you're an afterthought.

But out here, you're his only thought. His big white eyes are watching your every move, and even if he's all salty over it, he's hanging off your every word. It's just like the way things used to be,  when it was just you and him and your lusus and no one else in the world who gave the slightest damn about either of you.

"The guards, " he says, and goes still.

'cause no matter how it feels, of course there's still other folks here. Simoom assigns people to walk the orchards just to crack filchers like you. Last time Majlis had caught you, she'd given you four lashes, while your pops practically burned Pheres for holding him back.

It's been perigees, but your back still aches at the thought. You hush.

It seems as if they might pass you right by. The orchards are big, and there aren't that many kids that wanna do field duty, not when they could be having fun out playing at guards or making things. There's only four kids at it any one night, and they like to split into two, the better to patrol. These two could be on their way home. They could be wrapping up for the night.

They're lingering at a tree three rows down, though, writing down where a fruit got bit straight in half by some echoing squeakbeast, and they're gonna be heading your way soon.

You're motioning for Pheres to scatter before you even look up. "You gotta go," you murmur, but he's taking, too: "- no, no, you have to go!"

"If you get switched again, then your lusus is gonna burn them, and Majlis'll have her mum eat him!" Now that they're studying the next tree, you can see the three pronged points of Majlis's horns. Ugh.

"If they catch you, Simoom's gonna kick your butt!"

"What's that matter? He does it anyway." Pheres huffs, looks away. His shoulders are up, but when he peeks back at the duo and catches a glimpse of your face, he blanches.

"No, no, I'll be fine," he says, quick as anything.  "He won't do anything! Like you said, ah, he likes Rmeros, and Rmeros already got onto Khirba for smacking me, so he isn't going to do anything but bark. I'll be fine, so just - oh, just hurry up!"

You slide more than climb down the tree, the jagged bark dragging at your palms and feet. But your skin's rougher than some dumb tree, and you don't feel nothing, not even when you finally slip to the ground.

Pheres's tying the scarf around your neck before your feet hit the dirt, the edges tucked so the apples are nestled close. He looks ridiculous without his wraps, all skin and bones and stubby little slashes of gray that barely count as grub scars. He must've been the tubbiest pupa.

He gives your ear a sharp tug. "You're thinking something awful," he informs you. "Stop! And go!"

"If she tries to smack you -"

"Sipa! "

"If she tries to smack you," you say, insistent, "tell her I'll snatch her horns off!"

"You're not even half her size," Pheres says. "You will not. Shoo! Go!"

He's smiling, so you go.

3. SMILE | 4.66 SWEEPS / 10 YEARS OLD

The worst thing about Rmeros, you decide, is that he's always smiling. When he's coming back from hunting, or teaching Pheres, or even talking to Simoom, he always looks amused, with his eyes all squinted and his seedflap curled up, like he's getting some joke no one else is hearing.

He even smiles at you. You hate it.

Pheres's not big on touching you unless the two of you're fighting: he's always leaning and sidling and shoving you, complaining that you're gonna knock him down until you get fed up and actually do. But he's sitting all prim and neat by Rmeros's feet, head leaned back so his horns are braced against his knee, and you hate that too.

Pheres wants you to be friends, though, and so it doesn't matter how much the sight of Rmeros makes your belly churn, or makes your mouth go dry and flinty. You've gotta play nice. That's the only reason why you're standing in his van, breathing in this stuffy-ass air that smells like mold and dust, and the only reason why you don't growl when he smiles at you, all flap and no bulbs.

He's got a wreath of herbs hanging from his hand, and a lizard in the other. It's dead, but it's not burned: your dad hasn't hunted for you for the last three perigees, so it's still all red, fresh, not bad in the slightest. There's even still blood dripping from it, the cherry red of the sorta critters that're okay to kill.

"It's very nice," Rmeros says, the skin of his nose all scrunched.

He's holding the lizard out like he's afraid of it. With each little plip-plop of the blood hitting the ground, his eyes go thinner.

"Congratulations on your.. hunt." If he got any more careful, his voice'd be wearing gloves.

"You couldn't have bled it first?" Pheres asks. A splash of blood had landed on his foot first thing, and he's been curled up tight ever since, face wrinkled like he bit into mold.

"Why would I do that? Dummy. I'm gonna make pudding out of it."

"For you guys," you add, fluttering your eyelashes, and Pheres perks right up.

You knew that'd win him over. He's always hungry, for all that he pretends he's not: your pops doesn't bring back enough food for the both of you, and he throws a fit if he thinks you're sharing too much. And you've always been able to get more from the communal pot, on account of the fact your lusus'll burn anyone that tries to stop you, but Pheres --

-- well, he just eats when people give him things, for the most part.

"Well." Rmeros gives the lizard a perfunctory shake, and then jerks his chin at you. It's a sharp little jerk! It's something that'd be more at home on Simoom's knife-edge of a face than his plump one. "Thank you for showing us before you began. Pheres. Take it back to her, will you?"

Pheres unfurls in a tangle of limbs, his head tilting up even as he pushes himself off the ground. He's in such a hurry he even forgets the desk behind him. The thwack of his horns hitting the wood's loud enough that you flinch, your noisechutes pinning back, but though his face goes red, he doesn't pause.

And he only just barely makes a face when he takes the lizard. "Here, Sipa," he says. He isn't nearly as good as hiding his voice. It's gone all sour and terse, and you can practically hear him vibrating with the urge to drop it every time the blood drips.

When he holds the lizard out to you, you shake your head. "Put it on the table," you demand, and he's eager enough to let go that he doesn't even question you. Eager enough for that, and, well -- he always likes free food.

You push past Rmeros, your soundflaps up high. He's just staring. Good! If Pheres wants you to be nice, you'll do it -- but you'll do it your way, so that everyone can see. If Rmeros wants to gawk at how nice you're being, well, good.

"Go wash your hands, dude, you're being gross." The trick to bullying Pheres, you've found out, is just ordering him to do what he wants to do 'til he thinks everything you say's gotta be like that. Alsike says it's on account of the fact he's a creature of habit.

Whydah says he's just biddable, and they don't say it even half as fond. "And get me a pot," you add. "A pot, and a - a -"

"A knife! I don't think we have cardamom, Sipa." He steps daintily around the blood you're tracking, reaches under the counter to pull out a drawer you didn't even know was there. "Good! Cardamom's gross," you say, wrinkling your nose.

He places the pot on the stove, then starts rummaging through a different drawer that's filled with little vials. (What does anyone even need that many vials for?) "Well, it doesn't matter if you like it. We have to have cardamom." He's so confident, like he's ever cooked a single thing in his whole life. "And the ginger! Rmeros, do you have any ginger? Well, I guess we'll find it later. Ah, you've never made pudding, right? First, we start with the flour --"

"We," Rmeros says flatly, "aren't doing anything. Pheres, what in heaven's sake are you doing? Put that down."

You'd found a knife all hidden away in a block of wood. Pheres's stilled in the corner of your eye, too far to see his expression, but near enough you can see his face go even brickier.

Whydah's right. He is biddable.

Well, you aren't! The first swoop of the knife takes off the head, easy as anything for all that the blade skids on the counter. (It leaves a scratch in the wood. Who makes counters out of wood?) Pheres jumps at the clang as it strikes the counter. Worse yet, he trills at you, with a quick, furtive step forward. You don't pay him any mind.

You aren't a wriggler to be minded. And you're not doing anything wrong.

You're lifting your arm for the second swing when something closes around your wrist.

Rmeros's hand is hot, hot, hot, hotter than Pheres's skin, hotter than even the stuffy air in the van. And his grip is tight. When you try to wrench free, you can't get so much as a wriggle off. "Hey," you protest, twisting. "Let go!"

He takes the knife with his other hand and places it gingerly on the counter. He isn't even half as gentle with you. His grip on your wrist is starting to hurt! You can practically feel your bones creaking, and shifting, like they might just up and break, and all he's doing is holding still.

"That's enough of this," he says. It'd be better if he was flat, or annoyed, or anything, but he's just.. talking, bland and brisk, like Pheres isn't wide-eyed and terrorstruck behind him. "If you want to make a mess of a kitchen, do it in your own damn hive. I'm told you have one? Somewhere?"

"And no, Pheres, I do not have ginger. Or cardamom. Honestly."

"Leggo! I'm not making a mess!" You're going shrill. Your wrist hurts, and he's not letting go, no matter how much you thrash. "I'm making pudding, so let GO of me, that's, like, like, what people do --"

"It's true," Pheres interjects, so quiet you can barely hear him. "It's.. she's trying to be nice."

"Bringing dead vermin into my hive and tracking blood across my floor is nice? You people have such unusual standards." Now he's gone flat. "If the two of you want to create a mess, then you can do it in her space, on your own time."

"Not in mine." He pauses, glances at Pheres. "Ours," he amends, and oh! His voice is so, soflat, flatter than the racks they stretch the skins out on, but Pheres brightens like that little aside's a kindness.

Like Rmeros doesn't have you by the fucking wrist.

That's fine. If Rmeros won't let go, and Pheres's turned traitor, you'll just help yourself. So you pin your noiseflaps, tensing your entire body, and then you lunge up, sinking your teeth into his arm.

The scream is gratifying. You've wanted to do this since the first time his rotten ping woke you up in the middle of the day. It's been a long time coming! The scream is gratifying, but the way the world goes white when his free hand slams into your central struts is not. He lets go of your wrist and you let go of his arm at the same time, and momentum sends you skidding over into the desk. The edge digs into your side, hard as any knife, an unfortunate match to the way your poor struts are throbbing.

Your mouth is full of iron. When you spit on the ground, it's brick red.

Pheres's looking between the two of you, wide-eyed, like he can't figure out which one he wants to help. Rmeros's arm is bleeding and his face is pale like a mask, his hands curled in tight. And you're hissing like your broken teakettle, horns down in case he decides to try and hit you again.

(Try. Let him try! You'll rip him apart.)

"I told you to let go," you snap, soundchutes still down, your chest a white-hot pain. "I told you --"

"Pheres," Rmeros says. There's a shake to his voice, just the barest hint of a quaver. It takes you a moment to realise it's a warning rasp. "Get her the fuck out of here."

He doesn't need to be told twice. Pheres's grabbing hold of your arm before you can even process it, tugging you along, careful to keep him between you and Rmeros. It's only when you're nearly at the door that he stops, looks back. You can't see his face, with him blocking you like this. (Like he could stop you, if you wanted to take another bite out of his dumb moirail.)

You don't need to see his face, though, when you can hear his voice.

"Ah. Rmeros! Are you sure -- do you want me to get you a bandage? Some wraps? Alsike has lots," he says, worried. "They're free!"

"What I want," his moirail says, flat, "is the both of you out of here  before I cull you."

4. MOVING ON OUT | 4.68 SWEEPS / 10 YEARS OLD

"Ghosts aren't real, Sipa," Pheres says, like you're simple. "When a troll dies, they're dead."

The smile he's got plastered on is as fake as the yellow of Myljis's symbol - everyone knows she's practically orange, no matter how much lemon she slathers on her skin.

Tonight, you managed to catch him just as he was leaving the river. That's all he ever is anymore: he crawls in the 'coon after you go to sleep and he wakes up before you do, and if he's not at Rmeros's hive, he's off in the damn water. His braids are still wet. He stinks of salt.

"They are! Whydah says --" you protest, but he cuts you off with a laugh.

"Since when have you believed what Whydah says?"

Since he stopped being around, you're tempted to say. But then he'll just get mad, and it's not nearly as fun as it used to be to wind him up now. Used to be that you could say the right thing, he'd take a swing at you, and that'd be it. You'd be on the ground, practically scrapping for your life!

Or at least, so he wouldn't ground your face in the ground and lecture you on being civilized.

Now-a-days, he just skips straight to the lecture, and if you pop him, he just gets mad. He shouted at you last time 'til you cried, and he's never done that, not even when you cracked his horn once when you were both little.

So you don't say anything. You just curl your lip at him, and he huffs right back at you, almost like he used to. "Whydah's superstitious and silly," he says, with a quick, nervous glance around to make sure they can't hear. They like to pop out of all the dark corners when you're least expecting it. "There aren't any ghosts in the river! I've been all over it, and I've never seen anything down there, except bones and kelp and clutter."

"There aren't even any fish! How's a ghost going to survive down there, if there're no fish?"

"It's a ghost, stupid. Why's it need fish?"

"Well -"

"Rmeros says," you drone with him, but while he goes red, he doesn't stop talking. "Ghosts are a silly thing for a person to believe in. Once you're dead, you're dead, and that's that."

There's something hesitant in that, though. It takes you a moment, then you whistle, impressed. "He'd better not let Alsike hear that."

Ancestor worship is big in your hivestem. All the older kids do it, even Simoom, though he grumbles something fierce about wasting good woolbeasts by burning it all up. "'cause he can't be a part of the stem if he doesn't believe." You don't, but that's just because ancestors are silly. Who cares what a couple of dead fogeys think? It's not 'cause you think they're not real, like some of the trolls.

Whydah doesn't think they're real, and that's why they spend most of their time out hunting. Everyone gets nasty mean when you don't fit into the flock.

Maybe Pheres's remembering that, because he's quiet even longer this time, like he's turning over the words in his head. "Alsike already knows," he finally says, careful like each sound's glass.

"And she didn't kick 'em out?" You let your flaps pin down in disbelief, and his face goes bricky. "I don't believe it," you announce. "You're fibbing!"

"I'm not," he protests.

"If she knew, she wouldn't let him be a part of the hivestem."

"Maybe he doesn't want to be a part of the hivestem, Sipara."

It's your turn to go quiet.

Pheres lifts his chin. "It's not like this is a big hivestem," he says, and if each word's glass, now he's talkin' like he's afraid he'll break them. "His is better! He's from Dimašqa, did you know? He said his hivestem is bigger than our entire plot, and it's one of the smaller ones. And no one even has to work there, not unless they want to."

"Can you imagine that?"

You try to picture a hivestem bigger than yours. How tall would that be? A dozen stories, reaching up into the sky - it'd be like the orchard, maybe, but with hives on every end, trolls blocks on each spreading branch.

You can't picture it. You might as well picture having fins. But Pheres apparently can. "So he doesn't need our hivestem. He's got his own, and it's lovely," he says for you, when you don't answer. He's been wringing out his hair, but now he pauses. "And.. he said I can come see it soon. If I want to."

It's rare for you to be gobstopped! But the words just won't come. Your pan is like a leaky sieve, 'except instead of draining out thoughts, it's not even letting them in. Everytime a word appears, it pours out just as quick, 'til the only thing that's left is a sickly kinda unease.

But he's watching you side-long, waiting for a reply.

".. but you aren't," is what you finally manage to say. It comes out as a squeak. Worse yet, it comes out as a question, and all you want to do is rip out your voicebox and start over. "Right?"

"Ah." He lets go of his hair. It's still dripping on the sand behind him as he folds his arms, wrapping them around himself. "Not right now!" He starts to laugh, then stops, wrinkles his nose. "Ah. That'd be silly. The rains are about to come, and then we won't be able to drive very much at all. But.. in a few perigees, maybe."

"When it's dry."

Everything about you right now is treacherous. If you could fight your body, you would! But your soundchutes are pinned flat and your bulbs are wide and the air's going wavy like the sun's about to come up. It isn't. It's just tears, staining everything a rheumy red, and that's even worse.

Pheres's gone pale and wide-eyed. He isn't smiling anymore.

"Oh," he says, distressed: "- oh, oh no, don't get upset! Why are you upset?"

If you say anything, you'll cry. So you clamp your fangs shut tight, but Pheres keeps talking. "Do you want to come?" His eyes are getting wet. He always gets upset when you get upset, and sometimes it's fun to use that, but right now, you don't want to cry. You just want to shut up and wait to calm down, but --

"You can come, too! I promise, I promise, Sisi, don't cry --"

-- he's going to make you talk.

"No, I can't!" You are blubbering. There's thick orange drops rolling down your face and clouding your vision and even swiping at your bulbs with your hands doesn't stop the tears. And Pheres's just staring. "You're going to go and leave me and I can't come, because -- because he hates me!"

"I won't leave you!" Pheres steps forward, but he stops when you hiss. You don't want him near you, not when his hands are twitching like he wants to touch you. Pheres doesn't like being touched, not 'less you're fighting, and you don't want to fight him right now. "I won't leave you, and - and you're being silly. He doesn't hate you at all," he says, soft, like you both know it's a lie.

5. KNIVES | 4.70 SWEEPS / 10 YEARS OLD

Everyone in the hivestem colony hates Rmeros, and that's just the truth.

Alsike thinks he’s weird. “You don’t get pale for a pupa,” she said to you one night when you’d been helping her cook one of the big kills. “Everything’s supposed to be even, Nzi-fizzy. Can’t be even if one of you’s about to get on a ship and the other’s barely out of the caverns.”Hamsin agrees with whatever Alsike says. Whydah doesn’t like him, though they’ve never said why, on account of the fact they barely say anything.

The only people that like him are Simoom, who’s a rotten old ponce with a rotten old crush, and Pheres. And Pheres doesn’t count. Pheres would like a daywalker, if it paid attention to him!

But even though everyone hates Rmeros, you’re the only one willing to do anything about it. Which is fine, ‘cause if Pheres ditching you’s taught you anything, it’s that you’re pretty great at working alone.

("I won't leave you," he'd said all prettily, and then he'd packed up his things and moved into Rmeros's van. You hope he gets to that stupid city and the hivestem's are all dead.)

Maybe you always had Pheres at your back before, trailing you like a dumb, gangly shadow whenever you needed to teach someone a lesson. (For stealing his shit, for making fun of your dad, for trying to sass you - there's always a reason to rough someone up.) But it wasn't like he was ever much help in a fight, 'cept for getting in your way if he felt you were getting too rough. He never really helped.

So it's not like you're working alone at all, really, 'cause what's changed?

Except that usually, you use this knife on animals, not tires.

Who knew that rubber was so thick? You're having to saw through it, and even that's barely scratching the surface. All it's doing is making your arms ache. And your soundchute's ache, too. The noise's so loud, you don't even notice when the van door pops open.

".. what're you doing?" Pheres's scrubbing at his face like he's trying not to fall asleep, eyes half-lidded, but you can hear the sound of snoring drifting out of the lookout, clear as anything. No way that big of a sound could have ever come from your reedy little hivemate: it's gotta be Rmeros. And if he's asleep, why isn't Pheres?

Because his hands are wrapped tight around a steaming mug, and it smells like the stuff the older kids drink. The stuff Khirba smacks you, when you try to steal a sip.

"Is that coffee?" you demand, but he's canting his head to the side, eyes narrowed to slits.

"Is that a knife?"

"I asked you first!" You shove it behind your back, putting on your most quarrelsome face. "You're not supposed to be drinking that!"

"I've got a lot of work to do. And no, you're not supposed to drink it. Your custodian doesn't care what I do." He's oozing along the side of the cart, forcing you to take a step back, pivot to keep him facing your front. And then he sparks,  just the once, and he's behind you, grasping your wrist.

"You do have a knife!" he hisses, outraged.

He doesn't keep your wrist. He's all bones, and while he's fast, he's never had the weight or strength or will to keep you: you twist free in a second, snarling loud enough to make him startle back.

There's fury churning in your gut, eating away at your tongue. You're doing this for him! You're doing this for him, and all he's doing is looking like you've messed up. His hands are clenched at his sides, and he's gone all sour and pinched. "Sipara, what is wrong with you-"

"Pheres." The snoring hasn't broken, but that's Rmeros's voice, not sleepy in the slightest. Pheres startles again, and your ears pin back. When you look at each other, it's hard to remember that you were just angry. You don't want Rmeros to come outside, you with a knife in your hand and rips in his tires.

Your wrist aches.

".. nothing," Pheres calls back. He's wide-eyed, but his voice barely squeaks at all. Maybe he doesn't want him to come out, either. "It was just a squeakbeast! I'll get rid of it."

He takes hold of your arm, tugs. You let your feet drag, but you let him pull you along when he hisses,  "Come on!"

He leads you away from the van in quick, hurried steps. The coffee keeps sloshing into your hands, but neither of you says a word until the van is behind you, and you're safely in the shadow of the walls. There's holes in it where the stones have fallen out, and he curls up in one, knees drawn up right against the curve of the bedrock.

"Where's your custodian?" he asks. When you just stare, he fixes it, peevish: "- your pops! Your bird! Where's he at?"

"Sleeping, duh. Same as always." He's been trying to stay awake more again, ever since Rmeros came, but he's no good for it. "Why?"

"'cause he's supposed to be stopping you! That's his job."

"What d'you know about his job? You don't have a lusus," you say, baffled, and you're gonna say more, but Pheres wilts.

It's baffling. That's the sort of thing that's never bothered him before. You're not being cruel: it's just a fact, like how you haven't any horns to speak of. He's not supposed to get thin-lipped and unhappy over it.

"I do have a lusus," he says, curling up tighter. He's so put off he doesn't even complain when you settle down near him, back againsnt the wall. "It's not my fault he's dead!"

He takes a sip of the coffee. "It's not my fault he's dead," he repeats, quieter this time and peevish.

He's never ever been salty about this.

You've seen his weird, dead dad. You live with him! It's impossible not to have seen him: Pheres used to keep it sitting on the edge of the coon til your thrashing tipped it in one night, and now he just keeps it around the nutritionblock. He moves it, sometimes, but it's the same way he likes to shuffle around everything. It's not like he actually ever cared about it.

"Um." You don't know how to deal with him when he's like this. A few perigees ago, you'd have started a fight, 'cause after that first slap, he doesn't have room for anything other than getting mad. But he won't fight back if you hit him anymore, and you don't think you could say anything mean enough to get him spitting right now.

The way he's acting right now, he'd just cry.

Or he'd leave.

You scoot down and lean in against him. Normally, he'd bolt away at this point, or kick up a fuss, or smack you 'til you moved. But he just exhales, loud and heavy like he's pushing all the air outta his lungs. Emboldened, you butt your head against his arms til he lets you rest your cheek againsnt his knee. "You're gonna get hair in my coffee," he grumps, but it's halfhearted. ".. and I'm still mad at you."

There's a hundred things you could say! But you swallow 'em all, because fighting right now seems like an awful idea. Saying anything at all seems dumb, so you just curl in tighter against him, shouldering your way closer 'til he's dropped his knees enough you can slide an arm around them.

Alsike will cuddle with you sometimes. Khirba, if he's in a good mood. But Pheres never, everlets you touch him like this.

"If you want a lusus," you say, meek, "you can have mine."

That gets a laugh from him. Everything feels soft and strange right now, but the sound warms you. Pheres might be being strange, but his laugh's still the same, all sharp and mean. "I don't want yours!" he huffs. "Yours is horrid."

"Yeah, well.. why not just carry yours, then?"

".. what, under my arm?"

"In a bag!" He's dropped his knees. It's a tight fit, but you climb all the way into his lap, writhing around until your face is looking at his, and your hair is getting caught on the stones. "Like, Alsike's got lots and lots with broken bits, and all she ever does is make stuff, and she likes you, so - so you could ask her! I bet she'd make one just for you!"

It's a brilliant idea. All of your ideas are, of course, but this one is especially perfect, because Pheres's brightening, one watt at a time.

"It'd look silly," he protests, but it's half-hearted.

"You look silly! With those big dumb horns -"

"Rmeros says they're dignified!"

"That's only 'cause his are worse." You grab one curly horn and give it a yank. He's not moving. He's not smacking you. He's letting you sit on him and you don't even have to hit him and it feels like your entire body's full of butterflies and bubbles all frothing to get out. "I bet if you went and hid with Simoom's fluffbeasts, he wouldn't even notice you were there, that's how silly these are! And - and - and if you made your hair all big, instead of lank,  he wouldn't be able to tell the difference, even if you went up and bit him -"

"I'm not going to do that!" He jerks his head hard, twisting his horn free with a huff, and the bubbles pop all at once.

"I'd rather go gargle in the river," he complains. But he doesn't push you out of his lap. He doesn't push you off at all.

6. THICKER THAN WATER | 4.74 SWEEPS / 10 YEARS OLD

Pheres is at the river. He’s never at your hivestem anymore, or at the hiveblock - he doesn’t even come home to get his share of the rations you collect every week, because Rmeros thinks the food here is disgusting. He likes his coffee that he gets all the way from Dimasqa, and food that he bought in a different district entirely.

“A more civilized district,” Pheres had whispered to you in Rmeros’s snooty voice, back when making fun of him was a thing your hivemate would still do. Now he gets mad and pinched if you talk bad about him at all, and the last time you made a joke about lamwas, he didn’t speak to you for a week.

But even though he never comes home, you always know where he is, because Pheres is always at the river.

Every time you see him on the shore, it makes you want to snatch him up. Make him move! He’s so little, and the river’s so big, full of ghosts and the bones of dead kids ready to pull him in. When you were a pupa, you’d stand right here and holler and fuss until he got away from it, and you’d cry every time his head bobbed under the water. You knew he’d pop back out.

Pheres is one of the only kids that goes down to the river, him and Whydah, and it’s practically a part of 'em. If you bled Pheres, sometimes you think all that’d pour out is water and the red-pink mud. But that doesn't mean you have to like it.

He isn’t in the river tonight.

“Sipara,” he says, prim and strict, like he’s the voice from the schoolfeed. His feet are dangling in the water, kicking up silt and dust. If it was any other river, there’d be crocs nibbling at his walkstubs right now, but nothing in this water’s alive anymore. Sweeps and sweeps ago, some wader dumped salt in the water until everything shrivelled up and died, and it’s been that way ever since. Pheres told you that, and Whydah told him, so you know it’s gotta be true: Whydah never lies, not ever, not even when they should.

(It’s why they don’t go down to the river anymore. No point in it, they’d told you, the one time you’d asked: they’d dredged out all the stuff worth taking back when they were your age, all the trinkets left on the bones that could be sold and the horns hanging loose on their beds that could be carved into arrowheads or jewelry or caps.)

But dead or not, though, you don’t like to get near the water. You dawdle a good few feet behind him instead, feet scuffing at the dirt, like you’re just bored and not spooked at all. “What’re you doing?” you demand, petulant. “You haven’t been hive in, like, days.”

“Bennui misses you,” you add, and he laughs.

“You’re not supposed to fib. That’s rude.” He pats the ground next to him, soft at first, then insistent.

You don’t move. He’s been ignoring you! He doesn’t get to play at this now, like everything’s fine. His hands still, and then he folds them in his lap, prim as if he’d never done that in the first place.

For a second, you almost think he slouches in on himself, but nah. Pheres sits like he’s got a tree growing up his spine, just like his dumb moirail.

“I’ve been busy. Rmeros’s teaching me how to copy.” The mud squelches between your toes as you slink closer. “It takes forever,” he adds, glancing back at you. “He wants it all by hand. He says that’s the proper way of doing it.”

“Copy what?” You've only been in Rmeros's hive a handful of times, and never after you brought in the lizard. This is the first time you kinda regret it. You hate not knowing things. It's a personal affront, which's one of Pheres's stodgy words.

“Books! You saw them the first time, remember? He gets them and he writes them down and then he sells them. It's prestigious," he says, preening, probably as much over the word as Rmeros's silly books.

(Selling books. Who'd even buy them?)

"You don’t need to sleep over there for that."

“I can’t work around you,” he objects, squinching his face up at you. “You’d dump something on the books!”

You wrinkle your nose. “Would not!”

“You would too! Even if it wasn’t on purpose. I’ve seen your manuals.” There isn’t nothing you can say to that. You dug out all the tech books from the hive ibrary, soon as you cracked open your first grub and realised you didn’t know anything of what you were looking at. They’d been nice enough when you started, but. Well.

If you’re not spilling tea, or dropping food, then Bennui’s fighting the pages in protest to the pictures. That’s not your fault, though, but you know Pheres figures it is, so you pooch out your lip, for all he can’t see it.

But maybe he knows you’re doing it anyhow, because he laughs. “And, ah, he’s been teaching me other stuff, too! Like..”

He bites his lip, turns his head just enough to peer back at you. It’s tilted to the side, so his braids are trying their best to slip out of the twine he’s wrapped 'em in. It’s the look he uses on Alsike when he’s trying to get her to braid some of her bright yarn into his hair. “Come here, and I’ll show you!”

Reluctantly, you tromp over, stopping a breath behind him.

He makes a show of it, to lure you in closer: he lifts up his hand, shoulders angled so you just barely can’t see, and when you shuffle a little closer, he wraps his fronds in closed. He doesn’t move 'em until you’re at his side.

And then he turns to face you, each frond  curling open one at a time, slow as the water in the riverbed. He's chewing on his lip, and he keeps peeking up at you, furtive little glances like he's tryin' to figure out what you're thinking.  Then he opens it all the way, all at once.

There’s a light in the center of his palm, dim but flickering. For a moment, it brightens as he breathes in, steadies himself - and then you make a noise, delighted, and it dissolves.

“He’s teaching you to make lights,” you say, awed. Your eyes are stinging a little. It made your scalp crawl, the sight of it: white as bone, as bright and garish as if he’d held the sun in his hand. The sort of thing you’re only supposed to see if you’re dead.

It wasn’t pretty, not precisely, but there’s something tight in your chest that makes you want to see it again.

When you look up from his hand, he’s bleeding.

Only for a moment, then he takes in your wide eyes and starts scrubbing at his snout. His eyes are bright, almost as bright as the globe in his hand, and it’s a stark difference to the ruddy stain on his face. “So I don’t need a torch when I'm working,” he says, proud, like he ain’t bothered at all. “I’m not very good at it yet - or, ah, holding it, haha - but Rmeros is amazing at it.”

“Rmeros can do lights! Dozen of them! Practically millions.” He’s got to be fibbing, but he sounds as proud as a fang-billed abirdination right now. (Used to be that he sounded that way talking about you. The tightness in your cavity's got a different source, now.) “And he says I’ll be able to do it like that, too, if I just keep practicing –”

“I don’t think anyone else starts bleeding over practice,” you say, flat, and his eyes dim.

“Well! Maybe nobody else is practicing the right way.” He lifts his chin, daring you to challenge him, but you don’t take it. Maybe once, it would’ve been an invitation to a real argument! A real scuffle! But nowadays, you argue too much, Pheres just leaves. “Rmeros says it happens to everyone, when they work hard. You just have to -” He waves his hand. “- push through it, 'til it sorts itself out.”

That’s dumb, you want to say. But you swallow the words, and you just flop down right next to him instead, shoving him with your shoulder. He goes tense, but all you do next is drop your head onto his shoulder, nestling it againsnt the curve of his horn.

(Once, you could’ve just slid your head right up againsnt his neck if he'd ever held still long enough to let you, but all his horns have been doing is growing, growing, growing, the past few sweeps. Like all the inches that ought’ve gone to his legs are going straight to his rack instead.)

“I’m tired of talking about your dumb moirail,” you announce. “What’re you even doing out here?”

You can feel the rise and fall of his chest. You can feel the way he’s staying stiff as a board, like he expects you to haul off and smack him. You think he might shrug you off, he’s staying so tightly wound, but all he does is sigh. “I’m thinking. Or trying.”

“About what?” you persist.

He doesn’t answer for the longest time. It’s just your breath, his and the sound of the river lapping at the shore, with the occasional splash of his feet kicking in it.

“.. Rmeros believes in ancestors,” is what he finally says, grumpily. “If you laugh, I’ll push you in the river.”

“I’ll drag you with me!” You bury your face in his shoulder, and then in your hands on top of it.

“You’re laughing!”

“I’m not,” you squeak, finally breaking for air. Your shoulders are still hitching. “I’m not, I promise! Don’t you shove me in there! Holy smokes. Like - like -”

Your voice is still hitching. He takes pity on you. “In all of them,” he says, pained. “In old ones. In new ones. In his own personal one. I didn’t know those were a thing. Did you?”

“No! How come you know they’re real?”

There’s another long pause, but this time, you think he’s doing it on purpose, 'cause he’s watching you side-long, and there’s something a little sly in his voice when he speaks up next. “'cause he told me,” he says, lowering his voice like it’s a secret. “I asked, and he told me all about them.”

“D'you know, he thinks everyone’s got their own personal ancestor?  Not like the shared ones. Ones just for us. All of us! Even me.” There’s pride there, begrudging but still clear. You’ve seen the way Pheres looks at Rmeros, like his signmate’s a promise of something he’ll grow into. It makes sense he’d like the idea of his own personal ghost.

“So, what, why doesn’t he burn stuff for 'em?” Alsike had been sour on Rmeros right from the start, but him refusing to join in the burning had set her feathers all up. All the older kids participate! It’s a part of what makes you all a hive, and not just a cluster of kids all jostling for space.

“He said that’s just superstitious nonsense.” Pheres rattles off the word with ease, like it ain’t longer than any good word should be, and he pays no mind to the way you grimace. “He thinks it’s just a thing that shows how you’re gonna be.”

“It’s all in the blood. He's got it, and I've got it, and our ancestors had it, too, and that's why we're all the same.” And he doesn’t sound shamed about the pride in that, not at all. “Or, ah. That’s what he says!”

“So what about me? Do I have one?"

He’s slouched forward, gradually, unbending like he ain’t even noticed. Relaxed against you like the two of you are friends, and like you’re not just another person he’s been ignoring. (Another person he thinks he needs to fight.)

But now he stiffens. “What about you?”

“What about my ancestor, you danderfluff?” you demand, nudging him. You don’t know why he’s gone all uncomfotrable on you again, but it’s frustrating, after you just spent all this time getting him to loosen up. “You got one! Do I got one?”

“Um.”

He’s so bad at lying. “Well? Did you ask him? You asked him, right?”

“.. yes?” He exhales slowly. He isn’t looking at you: he’s staring at the water, and his feet have gone still. “I asked him about yours. Because if I have one, and he has one, then you ought to have one, too. It.. ah, it wouldn’t be right, otherwise.”

“So what he’d say?” You shouldn’t be pushing, maybe. Every bit of him’s screaming you ought to not ask, but if he won’t come out and say it, you won’t pay it any mind.  If it’s your ancestor, then it’s yours to know.

“.. he said blood’s like water,” Pheres says, miserable, “and that means sometimes, it’s just bad.”

7. GUIDANCE | 4.78 SWEEPS / 10 YEARS OLD

“He thinks I’m dirty,” you wail, burrowing your face in Alsike’s lusus. “And so does Pheres!”

Simoom’s lusus might be the prettiest, but Alsike’s hoofed hopbeastmom is basically just perfect: she lets you scoop her up with no more protest than a sleepy blink.

“I hate him,” you tell her, burrowing your face in her headfluff. All around you, the tanning pits stinks of acid and burnt flesh, but Alsike takes good care of her mum, brushes her out and washes her every day. She smells like the same oil Alsike uses when she braids hair, familiar enough to make you ache. “But if I cull him, Pheres’ll cull me. I don’t know what to do!”

She bleats at you. You shake her. “I can’t do that!”

"Can’t do what, sugargrub?”

Alsike is stripping off her leather gloves and shrugging off her apron. She’s not the head tanner, but she’s in line for it: everyone knows that when Cendol gets conscripted, she’ll take over the tanning pits and be in charge of everyone that works in 'em.

Right now, though, she’s just another tanner, and that means she can take the time to talk to you and Pheres, when you dare to come near. The pits stink. You’re going to smell like this for whole nights.

“I need to talk to you,” you blurt out, spinning to face her. Alsike’s lusus snuggles closer to you, rumbling away in that weird way that means she’s happy.

It’s a good thing your pops is asleep at the hive, or else he’d get jealous.

“You do, Nzi? You sure? 'cause I thought for certain you were here to talk to Simoom.” Alsike’s smiling, fond as a lusus, and this is why you don’t like her. Pheres is over the moon for the way she dotes on him, but that’s just him being Pheres: he’s perfectly content being someone’s pet, if they give him a pretty enough bow.

“No!” You don’t hiss at her, because Alsike isn’t like Whydah. To be fair, she isn’t like Majlis, either. She won’t switch you, but a smack isn’t much better. “I don’t wanna joke! This is important!”

“Oh, well, if it’s important…” But she’s eyeing you like she’s taking you seriously, at least, even if it does take her forever to put away her things.

Alsike’s a flatscan like you, and the hivestem isn’t built for the likes of either of you. Soon as he got big enough to realise what yellow meant, Simoom offered her a hiveblock down in the basement, where it’s cooler, and easier to get down to. But she'd said no. Her hiveblock’s all the way up on the third floor, halfway up the stem, and she liked it just fine, for all that getting up there’s a matter of climbing up ropes, down the ladders, jogging across the roofs and across the hand-holds. Alsike takes her mum after the first climb, but you’re still sticky with sweat by the time you make it up to her hiveblock.

Alsike’s hiveblock’s like you and Pheres’s, save there’s no hole in the wall to your little closet of a block. She’s got the same hammocks near the window, the same sliver of counter and cupboards, a 'coon in one corner and a door to an ablution in the other. If it weren’t for the fact her roof’s so much lower, and there’s so much junk on the ground, you might’ve thought she’d taken you back to your hive.

But there’s so much junk. You step on a bag of chips, and it crinkles. “You’re gonna get bugs,” you announce unhappily, dragging yourself into the hammock.

“You wanna clean, Nzi?” She’s bringing over two glasses of water, and she sets it carefully in your hands. “'cause in that case, I’ll get you a bag. But I thought you wanted to talk.”

Pheres is Alsike's troll. When he was little, she offered to take charge of 'em, make sure his hair didn’t end up full of nits and he wasn’t hauling disease back to the hive. She even used to bring him food, 'fore you got old enough to hunt for you and him and he got clever enough to filch without getting caught.

He adores her. But you don’t like her, not at all, and the stickiness of your distaste is making your speechfrond feel like stone.

But you gotta talk. Alsike’s piling with Simoom, and Simoom’s in charge of everything. When he hollers, folks listen - and if anyone can knock Rmeros out of your hivestem, it’s him.

So you talk.

“- and he wants to put me in a bag, and drown me in the river!”

At some point, you put down your glass all carefully in the hammock, and then you’d started pacing. It makes it easier to talk, somehow, get out all of this frustration and anger, 'cause you certainly can’t take it out on Alsike. Still, you wish you could! Your chin’s tucked down and your horns are up, and if you thought she wouldn’t smack you silly for it, you’d be scratching them on the wall just to get the itch out of them.

“He’s not going to drown you, pupa,” Alsike says, soothing, and you whirl on your heel to hiss at her.

“Duh! I’d, like, rip him in half if he tried!”

Alsike’s mouth goes pinched like she’s trying not to laugh. Slap or no, you give her the nastiest look you can muster. “And I don’t care if he wants to,” you snap. “He’s awful and I hate him and I wish he’d try! But he keeps telling Dys things, and - and -”

You don’t cry. You fell head-first out of one of the orchard-trees once when Alsike had passed under and startled you, and you’d gashed your forehead right open in the process. You’d bled and bled, and Pheres had screamed like you were going to die, and it’d felt like it. But you didn’t cry!

You aren’t going to cry now, no matter how much your eyes are stinging. “He’s gonna make him hate me,” you say, or you try. It comes out as a wail, and you grab hold of your hair, pulling it hard in front of your face.

You’re not going to cry. If you say it enough times, you won’t.

“Oh, pupa.” Alsike’s being gentle, and if you hate Rmeros, right now, you hate her too. “Is that what you’re worried about?”

“No! It’s -” She thinks you’re being a wriggler. She thinks you’re being a dumb, jealous pupa, and maybe you are, but that isn’t what’s important right now, is it? So you take a breath, scrubbing at your face with your headfluff, and if the world’s a little orange when you open your eyes, you’re just gonna ignore it.

“He’s telling Dys things! And they’re all wrong. And he keeps getting different, in - in a really bad way. He’s unhappy.” She isn’t looking anything but sympathetic. Alsike helped him when he was little and small and alone, and you thought she’d help him now, but he’s not any of that anymore, is he?

He’s not even her pet anymore. He's Rmeros’s, and his dumb moirail hasn’t even brought out a bow.

“His face bleeds whenever he uses his sparks,” you say, desperate, and finally, she looks concerned.

“Every time?”

“Every time! And he thinks it’s normal!”

She goes quiet at that. It’s suddenly hard to breathe, because her brow’s gone all furrowed, and she’s biting her lip like she’s thinking. Simoom’s the only one who can tell Rmeros to get out, but he loves Rmeros, and he hates Pheres. If he thought Rmeros would strip him down and sell him for parts, he'd probably give him  an entire hivestem suite.

But if Alsike asks - if Alsike says something to him -

“Nzi, dear,” she says, “have you tried speaking to him? They’re signmates. Maybe it is normal for their psionics. I’ve seen stranger things…”

Your face must fall. “They’re moirails. They know best. But don’t worry, sugargrub,” she says, gentle as anything. “I’ll speak to Dys for you.”

8. KNOWLEDGE | 4.98 SWEEPS / 10 YEARS OLD

If the sun doesn’t kill you, Rmeros’s stupid lusus will.

Every time she exhales, moisture beads on your throatstem, and her head bobs, making her feelstrands skitter across her skin.

Every time you inhale, you get the stench of rotting meat, heavy enough that you can taste it.

You’ve seen the smaller lusii before play with the mice and birds in the court. They’ll pin them and bite them and break their wings, and when they start to get bored, they’ll let them go free.

And then they’ll eat them.

Well, she’s got you on the ground, her mitts digging into the meat of your rotationropes, and you think she’s past the point of playing.

When the door of the motorcart creaks open, you don’t even bother looking. It’s probably just Rmeros again, back to gloat or whatever the fuck he does. He’d seen you outside the van, with his mum’s teeth on your shoulder like a warning and the rock on the ground, and he’d fucking laughed - and then just went inside, like that’s okay.

You’re part of a hivestem! No one lets their lusii attack each other, because that’s the rules.

No eating the lusii: no eating their fucking kids.

(But Rmeros isn’t a part of the hivestem, is he? He’s always made sure of that.)

But the footsteps are all wrong for Rmeros: he’s big and he walks like it, with galloping steps that send dirt flying, but this is all pitter-patter in comparison. And maybe the roarbeast notices, because she pauses from where she’s nuzzling at your throat, her lip curled enough that you can feel the press of her fangs.

(You’d just wanted to put a rock through his window. His mum wasn’t supposed to be here! His mum is never here.)

Her ears flick once, twice - then they snap back as a dark hand cracks her straight across the head.

“What,” Pheres hisses, “do you think you're doing? Get off of her!”

You can see dusty feet out of the corner of your eye, but you can’t see him proper. You don’t need to: you can hear the impact of him hitting her again, the sharp crack of a hand hitting fur.

When she growls - a deep, rumbling sound that makes her entire body shake, and her claws sink into your skin - he snarls right back. If you tilt your head, you can just barely see him, throwing one twiggy shoulder into hers like it’ll do anything but give her an ache.

“Move, you stupid cat!”

It takes you a moment to realise she actually is. There’s pain shooting up your legs as her tail lashes against them, but more important is the way she sinks into your shoulders - and then the weight evaporates all at once as she bounds over and off of you.

You’re scrambling up and backwards as soon as you can. Your body is screaming like someone’s driving iron into their poor hoofbeasts heels, but you can breathe, and Pheres is right there, fussing.

Rmeros’s mum is sitting only a few feet off, watching both of you with slit eyes and a curled lip, but he isn’t paying her any mind. “Sipa! Sipa sipa sisi - are you okay? Did she hurt you?” he’s saying instead, hands flitting across your face, tilting it up and to the side, checking your neck -

- brushing against the browning skin of your shoulders  -

There’s snarling. It only when Pheres jerks back, his eyes bright with alarm, that you realise it’s coming from you.

You’ve bit him before. There’s ragged white lines on his arms where you’ve sunk your teeth in and held, scrabbled and scratched until there was red in your mouth or until a fist hit your horns, or a foot landed in your gut. You see him remembering that in the wideness of his bulbs, in the way that they flick down towards your teeth, but you can’t stop growling, because everything hurts.

Then he hisses at you. “Stop it,” he snaps, sliding in close, knocking one bony shoulder under your arm. He’s emanating that familiar warmth, and it’s painful and soothing all at once. “I know it hurts, Sisi, but you’re not going to bite me, so just calm down.”

There’s needles in your shoulders, sparks of pain climbing down your arms like bugs under your skin. Pheres is moving, and you can’t seem to remember to walk with him, so he’s mostly just dragging you, his mouth a thin slash.

You’re still growling.

But you don’t bite him.

The sky is purple by the time the two of you finally make it back to the hivestem.

“I didn’t think you were gonna come,” you say later. There’s bandages around your shoulders, wrapped triple tight and slathered in all the sterilisation fluid that Pheres could find. You’re lying in the recuperacoon, your chin resting on the edge, and sopor and exhaustion’s making you sleepy: it’s hard to talk, but you make yourself form the words anyway.

Pheres is curled up by your coon, his knees all tucked in and wrapped up in that way that means he’s thinking. When you speak, though, he jerks like you hit him, all hurt and indignation. “Of course I’d come!”

He’s barely spoken to you in nights. You let the silence sit, watching him drowsily, and you can see when that thought hits him: his face reddens and his shoulders go up.

Your tastefrond’s heavy with the words that could turn that embarrassment into his familiar, spitting rage. It’d be so easy! And you’ve always liked Pheres best when he’s forgotten to be all stiff and proper, and he’s just being him.

(You always thought he liked himself best when he was like that, too, until Rmeros came.)

But right now, the thought of him being upset just seems dumb and boring, like some wriggler’s game you’ve outgrown. It hasn't been fun for perigees.

“You’re usually, like, sleepin’ by now,” you say, when the silence gets too much. “Like, you’re always sleeping.”

“Rmeros says -” He pauses, unhappy. If he had normal soundflaps, instead of the round little nubs you can barely even see, they’d be flat. “I decided sleep is a waste of time,” he settles on instead, and that’s so stupid.

Pheres is so stupid. The rush of warmth that thought brings is weird, too.

You laugh, and for a moment, he looks indignant, then it smoothes out. “Don’t be a brat,” he sniffs. “Think about all the stuff you could do if you weren’t sleeping all the time.” He’s scrubbing at his arm, and then he abruptly adds: “.. Rmeros needs to control his mother.”

He unfurls, kicking his legs out in front of them, and then he stands up, gingerly as if the name alone’s brought his stupid moirail into the room. He dusts off the front of his shirt like there’s dirt there, but there isn’t: there isn’t anything, except the oil streaks left from his braids. He’d already tied them in a day-knot.

So much for not sleeping. Pfff.

“Yeah, well, your moirail sucks.” It’s hard to feel het up when you’re in the sopor: it feels like the attack was perigees ago, not just, like, two hours. “If she’d eaten me –”

“She wouldn’t have eaten you!”

You blink at him, and the angry red of his blush deepens to something bricky. He folds his arms, like he’s trying to reign back in the outburst. “I wouldn’t have let her,” he says thinly.

“But if she had -”

“- if she had eaten you, then I - I would have told Alsike,” he says, lifting his chin. “And she would’ve taken care of it.” You both know what that means, for all that no one’s ever broke the rules while you’ve lived here. Simoom's the overseer, and Alsike's his moirail, and that means certain duties fall to her.

And Rmeros isn't a part of the hivestem. He can't be exiled. Which only leaves..

"Liar," you say drowsily. All you want to do is duck down low in the sopor and go to sleep. The warmth's getting to you.

Pheres’s voice has gone from thin to out-and-out reedy. “I don’t care about him as much I care about you, because - because I know you.”

You’re not feeling so drowsy now.

He looks at you sidelong through his eyelashes, like he does whenever he’s nervous. For a moment, there’s eye contact - then he breaks it, his gaze skittering up to your hair.

“I know you,” he repeats, and your breath catches.

“I know you better than anyone else, and you know me, and.. that means something, doesn’t it?”

It feels like there’s flutterbugs in your digestionsack. You tilt your head to the side, letting your cheek squish flat against the recuperacoon’s edge, but it doesn’t take the feeling away: it just intensifies, like all the bugs are dancing a jig. And maybe he’s feeling that way, too, because he’s still talking, the words getting faster and faster, until he’s bubbling away like that river he likes so much.

(You do know him.)

"And even if we haven’t talked all perigee - even if I never, ever saw you again, or if I leave, or even if you go off and get ruddy with some highblood and leave –”

You stick out your tongue, gagging, and he grimaces right back at you, laughing a little despite himself. “Even then,” he says doggedly, “I’ll still know you, and you know me, better than anyone else ever, and that’s more important than moirails, or quadrants, or - or -” He flounders, and his little bubbling ends weak. “He’s got to control his mother. It’s not right.”

“C'mere,” you say.

He shuffles in closer to the recuperacoon, and you kick in the sopor until you’re straight again on the edge. Leaning forward, you press your forehead against his, and he doesn’t move, even though this’s usually the point you’d bite him. It's hitting you he's kind of sad-looking, all gaunt cheeks and sad eyes.

How come you’ve never noticed that before?

“You’re mine,” you say, testing it out, and he doesn’t object: he just breathes out. “And I’m yours. And we’re both okay. So, like, chillax. Okay?”

Pheres doesn’t say anything: he just he huffs, pulling back. And then: “Stop hogging the ‘coon,” he says, wrinkling his nose, and scrambles in.

9. KISS | 5.08 SWEEPS / 11 YEARS OLD

Pheres spends the next week back in the hivestem, and it's just like old times. Except nicer, in a way, 'cause the two of you aren't always scrapping. Used to be you'd never even thought that was a problem. If anyone'd ever say the sight of Pheres wouldn't make you want to bite him, you'd have laughed 'til you were sick.

But you haven't wanted to smack him in ages, and before you went to sleep last night, you'd reached over and pressed your lips to his cheek.

He'd blinked at you, already half-asleep, almost all the glow gone from his eyes. He always looks moon-eyed when you catch 'em like this: all big gray blotches around little black dots, 'cause his eyes are so used to the light, they never go properly big. "'sat for?" he'd said, sleepy.

But pleased.

"Iunno. just 'cause," you'd said back, nuzzling your head into the curve of his neck. The two of you've always shared a 'coon. When he curls his arm around you sleepily, it feels like the past few months never happened at all.

You fall asleep like that.

When you wake up, Pheres is gone.

He's not in the respiteblock, he's not in the kitchen, and by the time you notice the floor's all sleek and shiny, yours are the only green tracks on it. He must've got up early to mop it, but it's weird. Usually, he waits until you're up.

The only time he didn't was when he'd left to stay with Rmeros, and he didn't come back.

You're in a frothing fury by the time you make it down the ropes and to the ground-floor of the hivestem. It's still early enough in the evening that the sky's bright and no one's really out yet: there's the sound of voices coming over from the fields, where they like to start early, 'fore the ground gets too hard from the chill, but that's all.

You know he isn't down there, so you don't even bother to stop. You do stop by the tanning pits, just in case he's waiting for Alsike. You could forgive that! But he isn't. He's not even in the courtyard, though you even go as far as to check under the stairs. He used to slip under there, back before his horns grew in and he started getting stuck.

He isn't there either, stuck or otherwise.

Majlis waves down at you as you slip out the gates, just to be a prat, but you don't have time to fight with her right now. Or anyone else! If Pheres is off with Rmeros again, then that's - you'll have to -

("- that's more important than moirails, or quadrants -")

- he's not, you decide, so it doesn't matter.

You check anyway.

The van's empty when you get near it, but you don't get too close: your ears are up and pricked for any sound, and you're tense as a wire. The bruises from his rotten lusus haven't faded yet. They're still aching as you try your best to see if the vans lights are on. It's hard to tell through the tinted solar windows, but there's no light shining out of the look-out.

And Rmeros's lusus is nowhere to be seen.

"Pheres," you call out, but there's no answer.

You move on.

***

That first night after he'd met Rmeros, Pheres had been so pleased. He'd barely been able to sleep, even after you'd dragged him into the 'coon.

"He's so dignified," he'd said, delighted and fit to burst from pride. Rmeros spoke Standard like a troll from the vids, smooth and rolling and deep, like he was talking straight from his digestion sack. "D'you think I'll sound like that? When I'm his age?"

It'd taken dunking him head-first to make him finally calm down.

With all the fuss Pheres paid him, you'd recognise Rmeros's voice in a crowd. But you don't have to: the only sound is the rushing of the water nearby, and the awful, gargled-rocks sound of Standard.

And the buzz of psionics.

It's just a bother at first, but by the time you get close enough to see the figures by the shoreline, it hurts. It's like being right next to a rumblecart when it starts, or like when the bees got loose from Khirba's apiaries: you can feel the vibration of power going all the way from your horns to the rest of you, buzzing through your nails, setting your teeth to edge.

When you crest the hill and can finally see down the shoreline, Pheres is there. And so is Rmeros.

Every time you see Rmeros, you're reminded how big he is. It's never been quite as clear as right now. The hand holding up Pheres's chin is the size of his head. The thumb keeping him in place's as big as his nose. Rmeros himself's like a bird in the sky, and Pheres's his shadow: so much smaller than anything ever ought to be.

For the first time, maybe, you don't think you can fight him. You're big, sure, but there's big and then there's massive, and Rmeros is huge. He wouldn't have to grab you to hurt you. He could just swing. You can't fight him, but there's no way you can leave the two of them, because you've never seen Pheres's eyes this bright. It hurts to look at him: it makes your horns buzz and your eyes water, like you're staring at a lightbulb. Like you're staring at the sun.

That's not right. Most of the kids in the 'stem are sparkplugs, but there's only one time they ever get like this, where the air's so thick with psi, you could reach out and bite it. And that's when they're scrapping. Not the little kid shows, either, but the shit like the time Simoom'd caught his kismesis making time with Cendol.

But all they're doing is sitting there.

"Pheres," you call, and he doesn't look up. If he and Rmeros were normal trolls, maybe one of 'em'd have flicked an flap, or tilted it. You don't even get so much as a wiggle from their flat, round noisechutes. It's like they can't hear you at all.

Rmeros's eyes are bright, too, and as you creep closer, the buzzing only gets worse.

You can feel it in your claws. You can feel it in your fangs, practically taste the vibrations on your tongue. It's like holding tar in your seedflap, heavy and thick and sticky. Like something that'll suffocate you if you stay near for too long.

Maybe this is how they practice.

(Maybe this is why Pheres keeps bleeding, because you know plenty of psionics, and none of 'em have ever shed so much as a drop of blood.)

So much of your pan's saying you ought to go, go, go. Just leave! If you interrupt, Pheres'll be furious. (If you interrupt, Rmeros will cull you this time, and save his mum the trouble.) Alsike said that moirail's know best.

... but Pheres said you know him, better than a moirail, better than any quadrant, and the thought sticks more than any tar.

You know him, and you know this can't be good.

Only a meter away, the roar of the water's near deafening. You approach it slowly, carefully, weighing out each step as you creep around them and towards the shore. You had the first big rain of the season a few nights ago, water enough that the river poured up the bank. The water's gone down. The debris it left behind hasn't.

There's rocks the size of your fist, rounded and tumbled smooth by their journey through the water. You pick one that fits neatly into the palm of your hand. When you curl your fingers, they fit neatly over the top.

Then you whirl around and you throw it.

You're scamping away  even before the rock leaves your hand, chin tucked, horns down defensively. Your hair is falling in your face. You can't see between the black waves and the white glare of their psionics, but you don't need to: you hear the thunk of impact, a crack that makes your stomach heave with sympathy. And then you hear Rmeros snarl.

You grab up another rock. When you look up, the light's have dimmed. It isn't pleasant, not precisely, but it's not painful to look towards them. And Rmeros's standing up. There's a crack in his top horn, sluggishly leaking red down his forehead. He's sluggish, like he isn't quite there.

It doesn't stop him from noticing you. The fact your rumblereeds are rattling so hard you're shaking makes you hard to ignore.

"Nzinga's," he says, slow and displeased, like it's the worst kinda marvel. "Why is it always a fucking Nzinga?"

Perigees and perigees ago, Pheres said you ought to hit Simoom so he couldn't use his psionics. And so you threw so that Rmeros can't, either.

You're not expecting that he doesn't even try.

He's bigger than you, and he's got a longer reach. Two steps closes the distance between you, before you even have a chance to respond. Then he hits you. Rmeros's hand's nearly as big as your head. It catches you right across the face, nails tearing. If you'd stayed stiff, it would've taken your head clean off.

You go limp instead, and it sends you flying.

The ground's hard when you hit it. It's hard and it hurts, but you're still alive, so you scramble to your feet, pumpbiscuit racing. (The world feels kind of lopsided. He hits like a goddamn tree.) Rmeros's gaining again, quick as anything, looking properly peeved for the first time you've known him.

You throw the second rock.

When you were a baby, Bennui had brought you a knife from the hivestem's stores. It'd been dull and old and rusty, and hunting had been horrible. He'd go out, find you something, and burn it. Then he'd leave it for you to finish off.

Killing something with a blunt blade is torture.

By the time you were old enough to be allowed into the stores yourself, you'd learned about the power of a stone. Every bodies nothing but skin and giblets and the pieces holding them together. Throw a rock just right, hit those spots, and things just fall apart.

It works well on rabbits and deer, and it turns out it's true for trolls, too.

Rmeros doesn't crumple so much as he staggers. One knee hits the ground with a thunk. Then the next. Then his palms, but you're not paying attention to that. There's more rocks near you.

Once, you'd figured you'd rip him apart. But right now, you just want him down. And once he is, you'll -- you'll --

-- you'll figure it out, because behind him, Pheres is wailing.

You sprint over, veering wide around Rmeros. (He's making sounds, too, gross keening pity noises. The second rock was much pointier than the first.)

When you see Pheres, your pumpbiscuit nearly stops. He's all curled up just like his signmate, knees tucked in, hands cradling his face. He's wailing high and throaty like he's the one hurt.

"Pheres," you say. Your knees hit the ground. You turn him over, prying his fingers away from his face, but there's no blood from his forehead: just some steadily dripping from his snout, but that's no reason for him to be wailing. His eyes are still bright. Too bright, and it hurts to look at them. So you don't. You reach down instead, mopping away the blood on his face and scrubbing it off on your breeches. "Pher, Pher, why - shh. Shoosh!"

He doesn't shoosh. And you don't know what else to do, so you pap him.

"You're fine. Shoooosh. You're fine. I promise!" You keep sneaking glances over your shoulder, but Rmeros isn't moving. He's gone still, though he's still making those noises. (This is the point you'd cull a rabbit, but you left your knife at home, and your pan's still scrambling for a different solution.) Pheres, on the other hand, is finally quieting.

His eyes are dimming, so you keep petting his face. The skin of your fronds is catching on his skin, and you're leaving trails of mud, but you don't care. Maybe he doesn't either, because his breath hitches, and then he stops wailing, the sound dying off with a sickly little sob.

"Pher --?"

"He was in my brain," he says, hitching over the words, and you make a decision.

***

You make Pheres help. You don't regret that.

Rmeros's not dead, when you push him into the water.

You don't regret that, either.

What you do regret is that Pheres keeps crying.

And what you do regret is that neither of you thinks to check the van, and see where Rmeros's mother is, before it's too late.

10. SCRATCH | 5.3 SWEEPS / 11 YEARS OLD

She doesn't kill you, but you don't realise it for weeks.

The first few nights, it's just pain, pain, pain, and Pheres's worried eyes above you. He cries on you once, sad and squelchy and making all sorts of horrible noises, like his airsacs are straight up gonna fall out and burst, but you can't keep your eyes open to tell him to calm down. You can't even get words out of your soundchute: your wordmuscle is thick and heavy in your seedflap, and it feels like there's wool on your face, keeping all your sounds in.

But you try anyway. The hours blur together. The van's hot, too hot, and you can't seem to sleep, but all you do is sleep: you take a breath and blink, and the sun's shining down from the look-out in murky rays, where it was all gloom a moment afore.

One day, you blink, and when you open your eyes, you're feeling better.

Pheres is asleep right up against you, his face buried in the crook of your neck, arms wrapped tight around you like you're his lusus. Compared to the heat you've been feeling, had crawling under your skin like the worst kinda worm, he's been cold - but now, he's sweat-hot, fever-hot, and the sticky damp of his skin's too much to deal with. "Move," you whine, and you try to shove him. You're not in the 'coon, for some reason.

Your arm is all numb, like you slept wrong, so you use the other.

The instant your palm touches 'em, he's on his feet and skittering away, even before his eyes are all the way open. He's too tired to even spark at you: he just curls his lip, shoulders up and eyes slit, afore he realises it's you.

And then his eyes pop open all at once.

He does cry on you, this time, and it's gross, but you let him.

Pheres wants to curl up right against you, bony points digging into all of your fleshy ones, but you whine and whine 'til he settles on the ground below the platform instead. He rests his chin on the edge of the soft bit, and peering up at you with that big ol' scentnozzle, he looks like a barkbeast from the vids, all sad-eyed and hopeful.

"How are you feeling?"

"Good," you say, 'cause what else can you say, when he's looking at you like that? You hurt all over, like you've been in a fight. (And you were: with the lusus, then with the fever. You've seen the ways kid thrashed back at the hivestem, like sommat was beating 'em black and blue.)

He brightens. "Oh, good," he says, fervent, like someone's taken a weight off of his back. His eyes are red, red, red, rimmed with his blood along the bottoms and with the little blotches of burst veins in 'em. If he's been sleeping much, then you're mad as a tower of bees. "I'm so glad! I'm so, so, so glad - I tried all the medicine in his cabinets, but I couldn't find none - any, I couldn't find any that'd work right, all the labels were saying things that weren't right at all, so I had to go get a mediculler, and d'you know, d'you know these hivestems are too small for a mediculler?"

"Too small! They just -" He's straightened up, and his hands are flitting in the nervous little gestures he does. But now he clasps them together, wringing them in a way that's gotta hurt. "They don't take care of people if they get hurt," he says unhappily. "If they think they're unsalvagable. So I had to drive all day to get to one that did."

"But she fixed me," you say, reaching out. Your arm's still asleep! No matter how much you jerk it, it doesn't want to move, or do nothin' but tingle, so you harrumph, shift your whole body over so you can swat his hands apart. "So, like, it's cool."

He's not wringing his hands. He ought to look calmer. But he's going pale, pale as the tile under him at your words. "She.. mostly fixed you," he says, hesitant, and something in your gut drops. "She got the fever down! And she pulled the infection out. She had psionics, you know, the healing sort, so she could just -" He spins his hand in a quick, jerking motion, that you have no idea what it could even mean. "She said there ain't nothing else - there wasn't anything else she could do, past that. I'm sorry."

"What're you sorry for?" The room's spinning all around you, but you're still struggling to sit up, because something's wrong. Pheres's gone from looking nearly calm to on the verge of tears again, his lips pinched tight like that might stop him from bawling. "What's - oh, goddamnit. Why's it still asleep?"

You can shrug your shoulder. That's not asleep, and awkwardly, trying your best to keep your arm out of the way, you sit up. "You let me lie on it all day, or what?" you grump at him. "I can't feel a damn thing in this stupid hunk of meat --"

"She tried to fix it. She did her best," he says, unhappily, and tells you the truth.

You don't break anything.

Later, you'll be very proud of that.

***

"It's a good thing we left, huh? 'cause I wouldn't have been able to climb shit. I might've fallen and breaken my damn neck."

"Language," Pheres murmurs.

It's been a whole perigee since your fever died down, and you learned about your arm. Pheres hasn't let you leave the cart since then.

He hasn't let you drive, either, so all you do is sit righ tyour nose pressed up againsnt the viewing panes, watching the desert pass you by. You've been driving for days and days now Not on the main road, where people are always looking askance at your big ol' rattle-truck, but on the smaller ones that wind through the plains and the trees and skirt right along the shadow of Kuikiro's treeline. Pheres figures it's safer, farther away from anyone else.

The two of you don't talk about your hivestem, or Rmeros, or anything much at all. Pheres is too flip: he snaps at you, then jokes, and all of his jokes fall flat. He gets uncomfortable when you get too energetic, and he cries when you're tired, like you're only half a second from dying on him again.

It's a miserable ride, and worse is the fact he's keeping you penned in like a brooding cluckbeast.

He drops the basket on the table. There's eggs, the crisp, transluscent white that probably means they came from someone's lusus. The end of a bread loaf. Fruit, and...

There's blood on Pheres's lip. "It's nothing," he says when he sees you looking. "Don't worry. I got some food, didn't I?"

"I told you to get meat," you huff, looking away. If you ask how he got banged up, he'll just play it off. If he'd let you out of the cart, you wouldn't let anyone rough him up, 'cause if you're not allowed to, why the hell's anyone else?

And you're his moirail. You told him you were his moirail, all the way back, when his face was ruddy and before Rmeros's mum came out, and you hadn't lied. Keeping him from getting roughed up is supposed to be your job.

But he won't let you do it. He won't let you out, and you've run your voice raspy with the asking.

"Meat's expensive, Sipa." The two of you've shoved as many as the books as could fit down in the storage hutch, but there's still trays of 'em on the counters, on the table. He has to push them to the side to start unpacking the food. "We don't need it. I got nuts, see?"

"You don't need it, because you're not broken." You can't see his face, but his ears go red, and he droops a little againsnt the table.

You're not being kind, but you know by now he won't say nothing. And you're not being fair, but by now, you just don't care. (Fair isn't a thing, not when you're the one who got ruint.) "But whatevs," you say, bouncing to your feet. Bennui stirs on top of the recuperacoon, where he's been sleeping. Because there's no time for sulking, not when an opportunity just struck you.

"Me and Pops can hunt us up something, and it won't cost nothing at all!"

"You can't do that." Pheres looks back at you, frowning.

"Why? We're out in the woods! I'm not gonna trot off into the jungle, you big baby," you say, grabbing hold of one of the long-sleeved shirts. You'd long cut off the legs on your pants, on account of the fact it's so hot, but sleeves'll give you some protection, if something goes after your arms. "Don't worry! I'll get something good, too."

"You like hopbeast, yeah? Can't, like, make it fancy like Alsike did, but I bet I can find one out there --"

When you turn, Pheres is standing in the doorway, his face pale. "You can't go outside, Sipa," he says again, sharp and slow like you're simple. "It's not safe."

You stare at him. His face's going more ruddy, and he looks down and away. "Why wouldn't it be safe?" you ask, squinting at him. He's skirted around the question, when you threw it at him in the past. Danced and played with it, like not sayin' it changes anything at all.

He opens his mouth.

("Because it's dangerous," he said last time, like you didn't get mauled in this damn cart.)

"Because you're injured," he says now, waspish, spitting it out all at once. "You're injured and people'll take advantage of that. Look, if you want meat so badly, why don't you have Bennui get it? He's already getting up!"

Your pops is. You hear the rustle of feathers behind you, the slinking-shuffling move that means he's getting up, and then the flap of wings. Pheres's got one of the windows cracked, just wide enough for your pops to slip out, but not big enough for anything to get in. It creaks now. If you looked, you'd probably see your lusus slinking his feathery butt out.

You don't look.

"I'm perfectly fine," you snap, scowling at Pheres. Your arm aches, but no, it doesn't: it's just your pan, saying it ought to ache, 'cause you can't really feel nothing in it.

"You are not." He lifts his chin. "Don't be silly. Here, I got you something, too." He digs around in the basket. You hadn't taken a good look inside. There's just food, and what d'you care about food?

But he shifts the eggs and the loaf, the fruit, and he pulls out a larva, small and fat and glistening with something wet. It blinks its many eyes at you and yawns, showing off a tooth-lined seedflap. "It's old tech," he says doubtfully, "but she said you might be able to program it to do something interesting --"

He's holding it out to you, and you slap it out of his hands.

Pheres jerks back, eyes wide, his horns hitting the cabinet with a thump hard enough to shake the books. He drops the grub. There's a snap as it hits the ground, a high-pitched squeal, and then it races off -- somewhere.

You're not looking at it. You're watching Pheres, who's got his horns down like he wants to fight, but who's damn near cowering. It's stupid. He's stupid, and awful, and --

"Well!" He looks down at the piles of things where it might've hidden, and his voice's brittle. "There just went twenty caegars."

"I don't want your stupid grub," you snap. "What's that supposed to mean? People'll take advantage?"

He doesn't say anything. There's something hot and unpleasant churning in your gut. He's right, something in the back of your pan keens, he's right and you're cullbait and if you leave, someone'll knock your head clean off just for the audacity of existing --

-- but the rest of your pan's just frothing, furious at the indignity of this, because he might be right, but he's wrong, too. "I can defend myself! And I'd defend you too, bulgemunch, if you'd let me! I never got knocked around afore, and I won't get knocked around now, and - and - if someone tries to take a go, then I'll cull 'em! Like I culled him!"

Pheres's not saying anything at all.

"Say something," you demand, but he's just watching you, horns down, mouth set. The skin under his eyes is bunching, the tension in his shoulders is growing. If it was anyone else, you'd say he was going to take a swing at you. But this is Pheres.

He doesn't hit with his hands anymore.

"Because you did such a fine job defending yourself," he says thinly.

"What would you do if someone went after you? Throw a rock at them, Sipara? Bite them?" The words are spilling out like rocks, like he can't keep them in, and each stings. The way he's saying them stings. "We're not in the desert anymore! And - and what we did wasn't culling. You can't cull your -"

"- your quadrants," he spits out, his eyes bright. "It's called murder. And that's what people'll do to you, if you go outside! You're not big! You're not tough, you're not - not anything, except worthless cullbait."

You can't breathe.

You take a step forward, and he flinches, starts to step back before he realises the cabinet's right behind him. But then he recovers: squares his shoulders, sticks out his chin. "Take it back," you demand, your voice quavering, and just as quick, he says: "No."

"I'm not worthless!"

"Saying that doesn't make it true. We're rust, and we're pupas, and we're worthless," he says, stretching out the word. "The only thing we're good for is feeding to people's lusus. And I can run, if someone tries to nab me. What about you?"

"What're you going to do, if you can't even lift your arm?"

"You're wrong." He thinks he knows you, but every words proving that he's wrong, wrong, wrong. He doesn't know you at all, not a thing, because you're not -- you killed someone for him. For both of you. You didn't do that for nothing.

But just because he doesn't know you doesn't mean you don't know him. Your pumpbiscuit's racing. Your mouth's dry. Each exhale feels like it hurts, like you're pushing all the air out of your lungs and it ain't never going to come back, but your words come out clear. "You're being stupid," you snap, because he might know how to hurt you with his words, but you know how to make him bleed. "That's all you are: do you even think anything in there? Or is it all fluff? 'cause I can't tell if it's you or Rmeros talkin' right now."

The name drops like a stone in the water. Pheres flinches like you just hit him, his eyes wide, and for a second you think he's going to cry about it. What he does instead is hiss at you, his face twisted, sparks cracking off of his horns. "Everything I do doesn't go back to him! I'm not - I'm -"

"Dunno why I culled him," you say, "if you ain't even gonna try to be your own person."

He tackles you.

You hit the ground with an oomph, but he's skinny, and only getting skinnier since the two of you bolted. "I have thoughts," he reeds, "thoughts and opinions and they're mine!"

"You don't know that!"

He goes for your face. You grab his wrists, one in each hand, and he hisses at you, trying to wrench them free. His eyes brighten. There's a spray of sparks, but they're dim, and he's cringing, shaking his head like he's trying to dislodge them before they're even half-formed. "I do!"

"You don't! You don't even know how to think! Alsike says, Rmeros says - you didn't even know how to think before he came, and now you're just some shitty copy --"

There's a blinding pain in your eye. You yowl, jerking away, but you don't get free. He's got those skinny knob knees dugging into your side, locked in as tight as a door, and no matter how much you kick, he hangs on.

He doesn't pop you again. "You were going to die. If I hadn't gotten someone, you would've died. You were so close," he rasps. "I had to stay up all day to make sure you stayed cold! And - did you know, the mediculler wanted to cull you. She said it wasn't worth the money to save you."

"Shut up --"

He leans in. "She said it'd be a mercy," he says, soft, his knees digging in, and for all that he's smaller, you can't knock him off. "- and if I gave the slightest fig, I'd let her."

"I told her I'd fry her if she tried! She had a knife and she was yellow and I told her that anyway, but - but if you think I'm so awful - if everything I say is just terrible - then I should've let her!"

You slap him, hard. When your claws drag at his skin, you hook them in. You rip.

Pheres screams.

It's the worst sound you've ever heard, and there's warmth on your fingers, and an elbow to your face - your gut - everywhere he can hit, tiny hands flailing. (But you don't stop. You grit your teeth and you curl your fingers in tighter, because he hurt you and that's not fair, it's not fair at all--)

You can't see anything at all, he's sparking so hard, and you feel that more than see it, each pinprick of pain as they hit your skin. He's kicking back and you're kicking back, and - and -

- suddenly he's off of you, and your back is hitting the wall, hard.

The room is spinning. There's lights in your eyes, and you hear more than see Pheres bolt for the door.

When you look down, there's blood on your hands.

***

A few hours later, your eye is a mottled, ugly brown, and it's swollen tight as a door. You can’t see shit. You don’t want to, either, not when it’s still throbbing like.. well, like someone popped you in the face.

When Bennui got back in, hauling a pair of burnt-black mice, he'd taken one look at you and puffed up, furious. You’d almost felt better, ‘til he’d dived down at you and taken a whack.

There's blood in your mouth from where he caught you with his wings, but there's no more painpills in the counter. When you’d went for the fridge, Bennui'd had a go at you again, pecking and smacking until you’d retreated back to the front. 'Tough it out,' he'd said, with his birdy little eyes and angry mantling: '- you deserve a little discomfort!'

When the door creaks open, you're feeling rotten. Your face hurts. Bennui’s hiding on top of the fridge, guarding his mice like they’re the world’s greatest prize and giving you the cold shoulder. (Least he’s stopped lecturing you. But being ignored, as it turns out, isn’t much better.) And you don’t want to see Pheres. You don’t want to see anyone else in the whole, entire world.

But you can’t exactly lock him out of his own hive, no matter how rotten you feel.

‘specially because when he comes into the back, he doesn't look like he's feeling much better.

He's fixed up his face as best as he could, but there's no fixing the bloody furrows you left. You can see the path of your claws, where some hit his snout and stopped, where the rest curved under and up towards the rest of him. The skin's peeled back where it's the deepest, but the entire thing is angry and red and weeping.

He looks like he's been, too.

For a moment, both of you just stare.

“.. I wasn’t expecting you to still be here,” he says, brittle.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," you blurt out, stepping forward.

Maybe that wasn't the right thing to say, because his face goes tight. But he doesn’t leave, and you take that as encouragement. His eye on that side's half squinched shut, like it hurts to keep it open, but you didn't think you knicked it. Did you? You're leaning forward to see, pusher in your mouth -

- and he's skittering back, hissing loud enough that it makes you flinch.

"I'm sorry!"

"You don't get to hit me," he says all at once, stumbling over the words. "I hit you, but I didn't hurt you. And - and it's not right for you to hit me, when all I've been trying to do is help you. I didn't have to! I didn't, I didn't, I'm already a horrible moirail and no one would've said anythingif I hadn't, but I did, because you deserve to be helped, and - and -"

"I don't deserve to be hit!"

"I'm sorry," you squeak. His back is to the door. You take a step back, putting more distance between the two of you. Your arm feels like a dead-weight, dragging you down. There's red rolling down Pheres's face, either blood or tears or both, and your vision's going cloudy with orange.

"I'm an ass. I'm awful, I'm sorry, I'm really, really, really sorry, and -- Bennui bit me over it." Laughing from nerves is Pheres's thing, but maybe it's catchin', because you're laughing and hiccuping all at once. "He bit me 'cause I hit you and I know that means I fucked up! I'm really, really sorry, dude. You didn't deserve it. I'm just awful."

He's supposed to say you aren't. The two of you've seen moirails in the hivestem before. You both know how the script goes.

He squares his shoulders instead, wiping at his face with the back of his hand. ".. you are," he says, petulant. His face is all runny still, the sealed scratches re-opened by all his hissing, but he’s not cringing quite as much anymore. That’s something, right?

“You are awful. But –“ He takes a breath. “I guess we both are. We’ll just have to – have to –“

“Work on it,” you say, hopeful. (Working means he won’t go. Working on it means he won’t leave.)

“No more hitting,” he says, and you’re nodding, before the words are even all the way out of his mouth.

11. COIN | 5.8 SWEEPS / 12 YEARS OLD

"Betcha five dollars I can beat you up!"

You're up on top of the bannister of the staircase. The moons are high in the sky, and this is the only place in Temasek you can probably see 'em: everywhere else, it's all skyscrapers and hivestems and the terraces between 'em, but you're in the central court. Far enough from the docks that there's no finny faces, but near enough that everything's nice and wide and spaced out. Lowbloods don't mind the clusters, but you're learning highbloods act like they've got a stitch in their britches if they so much as have to see another fellow walking nearby.

But it works out! There's no building for twenty, thirty feet in any which way, just stone tiles and the raised patio of the courtyard proper, and there's plenty of folks milling around in every direction. Folks who keep lookin' at you.

A mossblood makes eye contact. You beam, showing off all of your teeth. "Hey, lady," you sing, "wanna take a bet?"

She looks at your bandaged arm, at your scruffed up clothes. At your pops, sitting on the bannister next to you like he ain't got a care in the world. She's not much older than you! A sweep, maybe, which's just about perfect. That means five caegars is enough for her to consider it, and not enough to be salty if she loses.

(You lost a tooth, last bloke who tried to get pissy with you after he lost. A clout to his horns dealt with that.)

Her friend laughs, nudges her. "Do it," she urges. "Or are you scared about some one-armed pupa, lah?"

That's all greenie needs.

Fighting's easy, even one-armed. You're a big kid! A tumble sends her flailing to the ground, and then you grab her by the wrists, twist 'em up above her head. She tries to bite you. You headbutt her right in the nose, then you do it again 'til she yowls empress.

Her friend's laughing still as she gets up. Greenie's face is all green and nasty, like she wants to hit you proper. But she flips you a coin all the same.

A dark hand snatches it out of the air before you can.

Pheres's balancing on the slanted arm of the staircase, stepping down as carelessly as a meowbeast. (He won't fall. He never, ever falls. His psionics are good for that, at least!) "Five dollars?" he asks, clicking his tongue.

The mossblood's out of hearing, but that doesn't stop him from checking, glancing after her with a quick, furtive smile. "What a cheapskate," he says, once she’s certain she’s gone. “She’s bigger. She ought’ve bet ten.”

"Well, why don't you tell her that?'

Pheres doesn't bother with rude words. He just makes a gesture with his fronds that shows you what he thinks of that idea. And when you laugh, he rocks back on his heels, flashing his teeth like he did something clever.

"Maybe five dollars isn’t much to you, mister fancy pants," you announce: "- but some o' us are poor as fuck. Five dollars is like, a fortune.” You bounce forward. He shimmies back. One step for every step. “Five dollars is like, like --"

Pheres beams at you, clasping his hands behind him. "Two plates of tau huay?" he offers, fronds wrapped tight. He can't think you've forgotten he's got your caegar.

(Both of your caegar, technically: everything the two of you bring in is split. His book money, your fight money. Ain't no point in keeping it separate when everything you've got is shared.)

"Two plates of tau huay and an entire mug of tea. That I earned, so give it!” You sidle around him, but he turns with you, laughing. Pheres's still tinier than you, all bird bones and pointy limbs, but age is doing weird things to the angles of his face. Before, he was pointy and moon-eyed, with cheeks you could put your palms in, and a nose that a lusus wouldn't love. But now he's growing into both of 'em, and there's flesh to the curves of his face, and he's almost pretty. Especially when he's pleased.

Not that you'll ever tell 'em that. He'll get a big head, and between that and his horns, his neck'd snap right in half.

“You're thinking something dreadful again, aren't you? No, don't argue, I can tell. It's all, you know --" He presses his palms to the sides of his face, angling his fingers down in a crude imitation of your soundflaps. "Well, think about this. I could stand to eat an entire two plates,” he says, thoughtful. "Everyone says I'm too skinny. In fact, I really think I need to! D'you think they'll trade the tea for coffee, if I ask nicely?"

“You can’t even eat half a plate, dude, don’t play. If you tried to eat two, you’d – you’d explode!" You fling out your hand to demonstrate, sidling another step in closer. His eyes are so busy tracking your fronds, he doesn't even notice. "It’d be gross. There’d be guts, and organs, and, like, folks crying every which way, on account of the fact they’re all smothered in nasty giblets --”

“That’s not scientifically plausible,” he mocks. “That doesn’t even happen in films!”

“Sure it does! I’ve seen zeds blow up all the time in your silly daywalker kissing flicks --"

"I'll give you the caegar if you'll shut up," he says, and he flips the coin right over your head.

You whirl around, lunging after it with your good hand.

When you grab it, it's heads.

#brightest shade of sun #I remain inordinately fond of these two #sipara nzinga #pheres dysseu #drabbles

[cloudbatcave]

Terrible childhood friends.

#cloud doodles #Sipara Nzinga #Siroco Tamahu

[anontrolls]

> Laledy: Experience mild regrets.

You’ve done a lot of stupid things in the name of science over the sweeps, but you think this might be on the list of the top five at the very least. Maybe even top three. Definitely not more stupid than the time you got chased up a tree by revenants, though.

It probably helps that you weren’t doing it just for science, though. If you’re honest, seeing Sipara fret around like a lusus that lost her charge rubs you in all the wrong ways, so when you saw an opportunity to prove her worrying to be for nothing and look into a fascinating new natural phenomena-

Well, it turns out that Sipara was probably right. Not really - horrorterrors aren’t any more real than titanic squids are actually from outer space - but right enough that you should have been way more careful.

And maybe worn gloves when picking up the weird, eldritch samples that have been making any seadweller wading more than waist-deep in the water horrifically ill. Your scientific professionality has been struggling a little bit ever since you fled the caverns, hiked through the desert for perigees, and became homeless, you will admit that.

But those things all on their own are exactly why you should have been careful, because where every other landdweller that’s touched the stuff (or so the news says now, after you’ve gone and stuck your fronds all over the tar-like acid) is getting by with the sniffles and some mild dehydration, you’re struggling to so much as crawl from Pheres’s cushioned seating platform to his sink.

It’s just so hot. And - you’re used to hot, you’re okay with hot. But it’s also humid, and for all that you feel like you’re breathing water, your throat feels like you’re back hiking through Hanhai, sand in your boots and sun baking through the bandages on your back.

You don’t tell anybody where you go the first night. You don’t want them following you - it’s a cold, you keep saying, but you don’t know what it is, really, and being so stupid that you end up getting yourself horrifically sick is one thing, but...

You wouldn’t ever say it, but you’d rather have your teeth pulled than get Pheres or Sipara ill. Or Hadean, even, for all that you’re still wary of him after how friendly he was with someone like Prisma.

Well. One tooth, for Hadean. Sipara likes him, but you like your teeth.

Regardless, you drag your feet down to Pheres’s cart the first night that you’re starting to shiver in what is nearly ninety degree heat, and pass out on his reclining platform. When you go to sleep, you’re still shivering.

When you wake up, you’ve sweated through your hoodie and feel more than a little bit like you’re dying. In part, this is because you wake up screaming, the memory of something cold and slimy lingering in the back of your mind. Mostly, it’s because you’re so thirsty that you’d drink seawater, and your attempt to muster up the strength to stand results in you pitching straight off the platform and to the floor.

The tile is blessedly cool against your cheek, and you make an embarrassing noise into your sleeve. You will forgive it the inevitably bruise on your chin. Maybe not the splinters, though. Regardless, you need to figure out how to get to the sink.

Nobody’s come thumping across the cart in response to your undoubtedly noisy display, so there is nobody to sacrifice your pride to when you realize that you have to crawl.

You’re actually out of breath by the time you get to the sink (ten feet of unobstructed floor, and you’d say that you can’t remember the last time you were this weak but the truth is that you just don’t want to). Out of breath, and lifting your arm feels like Attlas lifting the sky. Every breath that rasps past your throat is so dry it actually hurts.

You curl over your knees with an even more embarrassing sound than the first one you made, and grit your teeth as you convince yourself that crying would be stupid and probably also dehydrate you more. It’s just not fair - you’ve hiked through a desert with a flayed-open back and little enough food that someone less blind than you could count your ribs through your tank top by the time you got to Port Mina. You drank from the fountain in the middle of town that night and didn’t even care who saw you. How could you possibly feel this wretchedly godawful now, in Pheres’s nice cart and having eaten three square meals for the past week?

You almost wish you hadn’t slunk back to Pheres’s cart, because - well, the logical wish would be that a person with a functional immune system could bring you a glass of water, but, honestly, you left your phone back on the platform and you mostly just want to talk shit on the internet to distract yourself from the fact that every single muscle you possess hurts right now. You just want to be with people, just for a little bit. It’s a stupid, unhelpful wish.

You do need that water, though. You still can’t get to your feet, and when you try anyways you make it only as far as kneeling before vertigo violently objects and you end up knocking a horn on the ceramic counter and hissing into your knees.

You don’t lift your head again, pressing your forehead into your jeans and closing your eyes instead. You need water, even if you do feel a little bit like throwing up with how much everything is spinning. You are too exhausted to get water. Logically, you should rest.

There is a cupboard handle digging into your spine, but you literally cannot be assed to so much as shift over a foot right now. You cannot be assed to do much of anything, really, other than quietly hate yourself and fall asleep slumped right where you are.

When you wake up, you’re back on the reclining platform. The AC is humming and the air doesn’t burn when you breathe, there’s a blanket tossed over you somewhat haphazardly. A water bottle is balanced on a pile of books by your head that you nearly knock over before you see. You drain it with shaky hands.

You can’t see the look Sipara gives you when you yelp and fling the empty plastic bottle about three feet to her left in response to her materializing in your awareness, but even the tone of her voice and the heat in your face (entirely illness-induced, you will swear up and down) don’t quite overcome the gratitude twisting in the pit of your stomach.

(Apparently you can’t disappear out of nowhere and abandon your phone suddenly without people getting concerned. Who would have thought?)

(You’re not sure you even want to touch that realization right now, honestly.)

#ic #laledy vesper #sipara nzinga #drabbles #bwic #I will fully disclose there really was not much of a point to me writing this #it has no plot #it has no point #I just wanted to do a quick 1k of RANDOM MISERY |D #I should probably hold it in drafts and proofread it tomorrow before posting but #I don't think it... has enough to it to be worth that #pfffft

[obstructedantiquity]

💬 for twelve-year-old Riccin

RICCIN KAYATA | 5.60 sweeps / 12 years old

Her thumbs dig into the thin skin of your throat as she hauls you down to her level, and plants a kiss right on the tip of your nose. “Look at you! You’re adorkable, dude,” she jeers as she shoves you back, hard enough that you stagger. “Just like a Gerber furby!”

Sipara’s all teeth, even when she’s trying to be careful: those tusks of hers are still newslick and unfiled, but that doesn’t mean they don’t sting when they catch on your face. “Ow,” you complain, even as she chirps: “- you gray-eyed loser.”

“Empress, no wonder you always gotcher psi on!”

She takes a step back when you stalk forward, her grin wide enough to spit her face in two. You’re not sure what you’re gonna do! Smack her, like as not, because she’s bouncing back and forth like she expects you to. And it ain’t like she won’t deserve it. The dampeners are hid under your skin, where nobody can see ‘em and you oughtn’t be able to feel ‘em, but they tug at your skin every time you move, set your horns to itching when you so much as think about sparking. Not that you could!

The world looks too bright, too colourful without your psi cloudin’ it, and shit’s disastrous enough without Sipara poking fun. Or.. it should be. But Sipara never really gets you mad, not really! Anyone else, you’d swing and knock their teeth out for that, psi or no. You have: Taalik’s regretting their snide bullshit off in the infirmary.

But you don’t really want to smack Sipara, not really.

“Pretty sure I’ve, like, totes seen actual fax, little bitty, itty bitty -” She spreads out her hands a scarce inch in front of her, fingers flared like they’re grabbing something minute: “- so itty they’ve got all SIX legs on still, and they’ve still got eyes darker than yours!”

Mostly, you don’t want to smack her. But biting’s fair game.

“You have not, sister.” You rub at your throat, baring your fangs, but she just laughs, flashing hers right back. Shit’s unfair! Even unfiled, your girl has got a mouth like a fish, each row of fangs sharp enough to make her tongue bleed, add salt to her constant venom. Your snarl’s lopsided, all marred by these clownfish fangs, but she’s got a proper curl going on, threatening and pretty as fuck.

Well! She’s got edge on her side, but you’ve got size. That’s what matters more, isn’t it? The Shepherd always says your fangs are bigger than your mouth, and when ID’s patching up your marks, he’s always after you to just bite her back. “Put those big chompers to use, sweetpea,” he said the other day, when she’d left a ring of marks all the way across your hand: “- just once, and let me tell you, she won’t do this again.”

It isn’t like she isn’t biting you. It isn’t like ID doesn’t bite Raphae, for all that he plays at flush. And if you don’t want to smack her, biting her seems fair game. The thought’s sort of appealing, too. Less mean-spirited. It’s not like you have to bite her hard. Or be an ass, like her, and bite her on the hand, so she can’t practice for nights and nights.

You could just bite her right on the mouth instead.

“.. can’t believe they say -” She’s been prattling this entire time, bouncing like she’s expecting you to take a swing, and it’s just a matter of when before you move. But now she pauses, squints at you. Her nose wrinkles in a parody of yours, ‘cept it ain’t cute, it’s like she’s some kind of a daft barkbeast. Her mouth twists to the side, accusative as fuck, and you have to look away all of a sudden, just like that.

“What,” she says - no, demands, hands on her hips. “What the fuck, dude, why’re you all orange? Are you embarrassed? Like, are you really embarrassed? Dude!”

“Just ‘cause you’re a loser with gray eyes doesn’t, like, make it a bad thing, tyrian tits -”

“I’m not embarrassed, chucklehead.” There’s heat all the way up to your ears. There’s something awful about all of this, from tip to bottom, something absolutely wretched in the way the realisation is creeping through you like sunburn, devoted to roasting you from the inside out.

You want to kiss Sipara Nzinga, your best friend and your worst enemy, the only girl in the creche too stupid to earn her half-paint, the only girl crazy enough not to fucking care.

You want to kiss her, and shell punch you right in the snout if she realises.

Or worse yet - she’s gonna laugh.

“- but I need to go check my moth,” you blurt out, and you flee.

The studio isn’t empty when you fling open the doors and yowl, voice loud enough to bounce off the corners of the room: “Ico!”

“Ico! Brother!” The despair in your voice could inspire a litany. Fuck pictures: the strength of your pain could paint an entire goddamn chapel, roof and all, panels and panels just showing the depth of your inner distress. “I think -” Your voice gives a hitch. If you weren’t so fucking mad, you’d have to stop to envy it, because the little wobble it gives your words is everything. “I want to kiss her!”

His troupemates are used to you by now, though, and they’re ungrateful louts besides that. There’s scarcely a stir, for all that Abrama frowns at you: all across the floor, people keep up their activities, stretching out to touch their toes, pulling themselves into strange poses. “No shoes on the floor,” Abrama reminds you, pulling her toes to her shoulder.

Her frown just deepens when you whine.

By the time you strip off your boots nd make your way to ID, he’s pulled himself halfway up a rope. He peers at you from upside down, his hair brushing the ground, his legs wrapped tight around the coil holding him up. “Really? That’s adorable, my little dandelion. Positively precious! But if you’re asking for advice,” he says, dubious, twisting so that the rope tugs him a little higher, “the answer, I am afraid, is no!”

“Also, we’ll have to have a talk about proper boundaries, too -”

“That’s not it!” you hiss at him, ears going back and your lip going out. He never appreciates your drama. He never takes you seriously, and just to slight him, you lean in, grab hold of the rope with one hand so he can’t go twisting away. “I need - I need -”

“Speech therapy?”

“I don’t know! How do I make sure she doesn’t laugh? How do I make sure she ain’t gonna, like, freak out?” you demand, and he laughs, lets go of the rope.

He doesn’t hit the ground. His psi holds him in place, tugs him upwards, and he dangles mid-air instead, face thoughtful as a cat’s. (And still upside down, because ID’s a prat, through and through, and for all you don’t need to read his lips this close, he likes to test you all the same.)

“That’s a good question, sugargrub! Hm. Uh.. let me get a cigarette,” he offers, twitching out a hand, and his bag’s halfway across the room towards the both of you when you slap it down.

“I don’t want a face full of smoke. Brother! Come on. How’d you get Raphae not to laugh?”

“.. that. Uh.” He blinks at you. “That,” he says, careful, “is a completely different ball-game, darling! And not one relevant to you, bless your pumpbiscuit. Or, ah, well, it better not be, or.. well! It had better not be, how’s that? But. Um. Right! No. Do you want the honest truth, dearheart?”

“No,” you sniff, “I want you to fucking lie, brother.”

“Well, too bad! Ashen isn’t about getting what you want. The honest truth is.. she’s going to laugh at you.” When you squawk, he’s ready: he’s already pulling himself up and higher, horns brushing the ceiling by the time you take a swing. “Hush up! She’s going to laugh,” he tells you, brisk, “but then, darling, you little lemontart, if you don’t go trudging off to sulk under a tent, the two of you’ll have a talk, and it’ll all even out.”

“.. how do you know that?” ID is so full of hot air. Half the time, you’re not even sure why he’s your auspistice: he’s all fluff and bitterness and things he won’t ever explain, no matter how much you and Sipara nag him, but.. the other half of the time, you remember. There’s no doubt in his voice right now! Just an easy sort of confidence that rolls over you like a balm, smoothing out all of your rough edges, dampening the clawing, sickly aggravation trying to make its way out of your chest.

It’s easy to believe in that sort of voice, even if the words don’t make any sense. You’ll have a talk, he says, like Sipara’s ever talked about anything maturely in her entire goddamn life -

- but he says it so confidently.

“Magic! Advice time is over,” ID announces, reaching out and tapping your nose with a finger. “Think about it, and scat.”

#[drabbles] #and close the blinds #riccin kayata #iconicdisquiet #sipara nzinga #mirkstrolls

[runictrolls]

So the ask I was SUPPOSED to answer was about @activatingaggro and honestly

HONESTLY

what is a guy to do? They have THREE (at least) trolls and, like @mirkstrolls, they’re all so well fleshed out that it makes me BITTER THAT I HAVE 24 OF THESE ASSHOLES instead of, like, a more reasonable number that I could actually devote time and attention to.

So picking one is gonna be tough! I’ll go with Sipara, probably mostly because I’ve dealt with her the most (though I’d like to have some more CR with Pheres and Riccin if you’re up for it). Also, everything about her is great? I mean, she’s awful, but in that good awful way. She has a really great attitude (read: a terrible attitude but one that I like), and her personality comes across clear as a bell in all of the interactions I’ve seen with her--whether they’re chat logs, paragraph RPs, or drabbles. She’s some ungodly combination of peppy, sarcastic, casual, mean, sharp, and intelligent, all of which somehow work really well together and I’m envious of your ability to pull it off with aplomb every time. 

Aside from ‘kind of a jerk’ (a fave archetype), Sipara ALSO fulfills the ‘uncharacteristically smart’ archetype that I love. I fall into this trap, personally, where my ‘smarter’ characters tend to use elevated diction and perfect grammar--Sipara uses chatspeak and fistfights in a cage but is still a genius with grubtech and witty as hell. She reminds me of characters I used to play, and ones that I obviously need to bring back in some way. Her interactions with my trolls have always been surprising and really fun, and I’ll always be a big fan of ‘shitty science girls make steroids for bugs.’

#ooc reply #sipara nzinga #fave character meme

[mirkstrolls]

[LOG] dumpster days, pt 3/3

[After Widsth ducks out near the end of the last post to fight his attackers one-on-one, Emerel and Hadean get pitch-flirty again and Ullane calls them on it, and then is dragged for being a wingtroll who doesn’t have any quadrants. Sielan and Pheres (re)enter the chat to put their two cents in, which leads to the following:]

MN: hEy .PHERES. arE you any closEr to cascara than .I. am by any chance

PP: It certainly sounds pitch

RS: | A Little | Why | ? |

MN: orphEo is gEtting his ass kickEd in a dumpstEr and .I. told him .I.d comE scrapE him off thE walls

RS: | | What |

MN: but hEs likE 20 milEs from the city

ID: don't worry, he's dueling them in the dumpster now.

RS: | Where | ? | Wait | No | I'll Look on the Book of Faces | Brb |

ID: i'm sure it's going well for him.

MN: is hE liVEstrEaming this from thE facEbook MN: .I.m trying to hElp but hE thrEw tomatoEs at thEm

IT: I am a little busy to be livesreaaming!!!!!! IT: The good thing about historians is that they respeCt the ruls of the duel; IT: howver, the BAD thing about THESE historians in partiCular is that IT: they are Called legion IT: (for they are many)

RS: | He is Not | ! | But | People are Discussing the Trash Teal | Haha | which is More Useful | =:) | RS: | Ah | Do You need Retrieval | Orpheo | ? | RS: | Or | Are You having Fun | ? | ? |

MN: .I.VE got about another 10 milEs to go

IT: I am relatively Confident in my ability to forge my way through the rest of this paCk, or at least enough of them that the rest grow weary of trying IT: However IT: Ahem, however, I may require retrieval in the aftermath

MN: what do you think wErE trying to do bEan dip

IT: My attention is a tad divided at the present moment!

ID: hahah wow what a mess. does this happen a lot.

MN: okay .I.m almost on ironcold finally MN: arE you still in thE dumpstEr

IT: I am defending it against all C IT: Comers IT: I imagine we are making quite a lot of noise, thou mayst follow the Commotion

MN: holy shit yEah MN: .I. can hEar it from hErE

ID: so people who aren't off rescuing the tealblood from his own stupidity. ID: what are you doing?

MN: okay .I.m likE right thErE MN: brb guys

ID: ughhh everyone is gone aren't they. =:I

[An interval, in which some chatting is done. Meanwhile, in Ironcold Lane, Emerel drags Widsth bodily out of the fight and attempts to smooth things over. Widsth proceeds to shout inflammatory comments at the historians until Emerel clocks him with his own staff. Pheres sits on the sidelines and takes bets with the historians about whether Emerel and Widsth will pap. Eventually, he checks in:]

RS: | Good News | ! | No One is Dead | Bad News | I have Lost Forty Caegars on a Bet with One of the Historians | on the Duration of the Fight | And Shipping | RS: | Do not Take a Train | Honestly | Hadean | =:1 |

PP: Sad to see you lose RS, better luck next time

[the discussion moves on. ID says Sipara (AA) will support his fight with MN. About 45 minutes later:]

MN: .I.m back and .I. hit orphEo with his stick MN: and thE fight got mEssy becausE .HE CANT KEEP HIS GODDAMN MOUTH SHUT.

ID: aww sounds so pathetic. poor you.

MN: why do you think hE got hit with his own wEapon by .ME.

ID: because. <>?

RS: | Here You Are | =:| | RS: | She will Not Support You | But I think I should Go Make Sure Orpheo is Not Bleeding | Anyway |

AA: suuuuuup. AA: wait, omfg,  why arne we talking abt a fight?? AA: .. wait, who the fuck is ornpheo?? AA: >:{

MN: bEcausE hE is stupid and dEsErVEs to suffEr

[The conversation moves on, but that’s about it! Except for this snippet from later:]

RS: | Heels are Fine | RS: | If Orpheo was Wearing Heels | Perhaps People would be Less Likely to Shove Him in a Trashcan |

MN: .FUCKING ORPHEO.

#refiningspacetime #havesomefantrolls #plaguetrolls #rebatrolls #emerel victis #pheres dysseu #sipara nzinga #sielan riesov #widsth rp #widsth #ic #pesterlogs #bad wiggler isolation creche #dumpster days #mirkstrolls rp

[refiningspacetime]

PHERES DYSSEU: 8 SWEEPS / ALMOST 19 YEARS OLD

SIPARA NZINGA: 8 SWEEPS / 18 YEARS OLD

"I love you," you declare, and Sipara jostles, her ears pulling straight up like she's been slapped. She stares at you, wide-eyed, a hand flitting towards her mouth.

Then she yelps: "- fuck off, I love you MORE."

"You can't," you say, peaceful. "I said it first."

"Well, I'm saying it better!" She puffs out her cheeks, flouncing off of her seat on the crate. Her heels thump as she begins to pace, the solid whack of keratin against wood. "I'm saying it, like, super better," she adds, wrinkling her nose, and you laugh.

Her face is all circles, all fat: her weight fluctuates but it always stays round, round, round as the day you met her, sweeps and sweeps ago. "I love your face, and your nose, and yes, even those silly ears," you tell her, and they flick back, just like that. Her eyes are big enough that you can see the gray specks in them, right at the edges, where the colour's still mottled. "I love that you look like you're six, for heaven's sake. I love --"

"I don't look like I'm six!"

"You look like you're six and a day," you give, and she squawks with outrage. Then she's in your face in a flurry of curls, hands braced on your knees, her face inches from yours. When you lean back, she leans in. Her nose squashes against yours.

"I love you better," she announces. "You're dumb, and you're extra, and you can't even tie your shoelaces without, like, falling over."

It's your turn to squawk. "That is untrue --"

"Then do it!" she crows, right in your face, pulling back so you can see the waggle of her eyebrows. Then she's grabbing your hand between both of hers and tugging. "Do it, do it, prove me wrong -"

"No!" You're laughing, loud and bright, and so is she, as she tugs you onto your feet. "I am not!"

She huffs at you, but her shoulders slump, her ears relax. Her grip on your hand loosens, and just like that, you reach up, pap her on the cheek.

The first time you did this, she'd bit you on the wrist for your trouble. But that was sweeps and sweeps ago: now she nuzzles her face into the curve of your palm, presses her lips, fangless, against your wrist, pale as the moonlight above. Now she flings both arms around your shoulders and bounces up on her toes.

A kiss to both cheeks, a kiss to your forehead, a kiss to your mouth: each perfunctory, careful, with just enough force that you're going to have to wipe lipstick off. "I love you," she tells you, and it's not a proclamation. It's not a game: there's a steady confidence to it, now, like she's telling you the sky is blue, or the trees are pink. "I love you more than, like, anything I've ever, ever seen, 'n more'n anyone I'll ever, ever meet, and -"

Liyiji clears his throat.

"Please get a room," he says, flat, peering down at the two of you from the front of the ship, his hands on the shipwheel. Riccin's face is as orange as the sun, and they're steadfastly staring at the moons, their mouth twisted like they're trying not to smile. "I'm not into public piles. Sorry."

#[drabbles] #pheres dysseu #sipara nzinga #brightest shade of sun #FELT LIKE WRITING FLUFF #so have some fluff

[ladytrollfishes]

The Pale Manuever

Hadean flexed his hands and he prepared to take on his next opponent: Tumaro the Terrible.

Tumaro was new on the scene, but had rapidly risen through the ranks with sword and shield. He was blue blooded and barrel chested, and he was here to win. He had only fought a few times but he had taken trophies- broken horns of those he had beaten.

Hadean was here to win too, but he was nervous. It wasn’t every day he had to fight a highblood, both bigger, and most likely stronger. He flexed his hands as he waited for the bell to start. Behind him, he could hear his good friend, and pale crush, Sipara Nzinga cheering him on.

“You can do it Hads!” She yelled. “Kick his ass!!”

Sipara was famous for her prize fights. No one took on her without wanting to rip her head off, but Hadean’s pumper of pumpers bled a pale love for her. Their ringside jostling, their witty and biting banter, from what else could the foundation of a hive made pale be made of?

Still, he had no idea if she felt the same way for him. He was scared to ask- for what if she didn’t? Would their ring side jostling cease? How could he bear to climb back into the ring without her shouts of support egging him on?

The bell to start went off. Hadean immediately formed a spear from his psi to keep distance from Tumaro.

“Take this!” he yelled, twirling the spear and thrusting it forward. Tumaro only grinned, raising his arms to welcome the blow. As the spear got closer and closer it suddenly disintegrated.

Hadean backed up, fear in his eyes. He knew what he was dealing with now.

Tumaro was a nullifier.

The Terrible advanced, casting his sword outside the ring, needing only his shield to deal with the unarmed maroonblood.

“Come on Hadean!!” Sipara screamed. “You fucking got this!”

Filled with the rigor of love, Hadean put up his goddamn dukes.

“You want a piece of me?” He roars, and charges in recklessly.

“Oh yeah,” Tumaro said in a low grumble. “I want a piece of you.”

The hulking blueblood smashed the shield into Hadean’s face, sending him sprawling into the mat. A trickle of blood flowed from his nose as he crumpled to the ground.

“Come on!!” Sipara screamed.

Hadean wiped the blood from his nose and tried to push up off of the ground, but Tumaro’s foot pressed him back down.

The crowd screamed as the referees start blowing whistles but none of it stops Tumaro. He reaches down to grab the glowing ball between Hadean’s horn.

“What are you doing?” Hadean yelled, trying to punch Tumaro and failing miserably as he just stepped him further into the mat.

Tumaro tugged on the horn, his nullifying powers dousing the psionic fire, and yet it doesn’t move. Hadean grabbed his foot and tried to shove it aside, but his efforts were useless as a baby meowbeast’s struggle. Horns. Tumaro was a horn collector. Where were the referees?

“I thought this might happen,” Tumaro growled, ignoring Hadean completely. He stepped off and kicked him in the gut. Hadean retched, rolling over onto his stomach but Tumaro sat on his back keeping him from turning around.

He grabbed Hadean’s horn, yanking his head back, and pulled out a battery operated sander with the other and turned it on.

“WHAT THE FUCK??” Hadean and Sipara both yelled as Tumaro put it against the floating horn. Hadean shrieked as horn dust flew everywhere, trying to jerk his head back but the burly blueblood has a good grip on his horn.

His neck ached, as his weird little floating horn got obliterated in a matter of seconds.

After he was done, Tumaro slammed Hadean’s head back into the mat. Tears sprung to Hadean’s eyes, red streams flowing from his face and into the ground.

“HADEAN!” Sipara screamed and leapt over the boundaries full on slugging Tumaro in the face. The crowd went wild, as Tumaro hit the mat, the air rushing out of his lungs.

The referees swarm into the ring, as Hadean struggled to get to his feet, clinging to the rope barriers.

“FUCK YOU!” Sipara screamed, sending a referee flying. Hadean stopped to admire it. Yeah he’d pap that. But if she didn’t stop, maybe no referees would do her matches anymore. She had to stop.

“Sipara!” He called through the din. Instantly, Sipara barreled over to his side, tenderly caressing his face.

“Hey bub,” she said, tears only just bubbling up in her eyes. “Don’t scare me like that.”

Sipara scooped up Hadean in her arms, then snarled at the pack of referees. Hadean clung to her neck, wincing as his ribs twinges, feeling safe in her arms.

“Fuck all of you motherfuckers,” Sipara declared. “Do your goddamn job!” Then she hopped the barrier, and bullrushed her through the crowd to the medbay.

Sipara kicked open the door, hollering. “GET HIM A MED CART! HE’S INJURED!”

Hadean blushed, embarrassed at her concern. “Sips,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder, almost a pap, “it’s okay really I’m fine.”

The medicullers gathered around, pointing out a bed for Sipara to put him on. She staggered to it, and laid him down gently, taking a seat by his side as a mediculler checked him over.

Sipara took a seat next to him, head bowed, and reached for his hand.

“Hads,” she whispered. “I was so scared.”

Hadean turned his head and smiled at her. “Sipara, I’m fine,” he murmured.

“But your horn!” She wailed.

Hadean just pulled his hand from hers and brought it up to her cheek, papping it gently.

“Shhh,” he said. “It’s fine. It’s really fine as long as you’re by my side.”

The loss of the third horn was nothing compared to the warmth of her concern.

Sipara looked back at him, eyes wide with shock.

“Hads,” she whispered. “You’re–” she broke off, incredulous, as a smile crept onto her face. “You too?”

Hadean nodded, still weak. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m pale for you, Sipara Nzinga.”

Red tears bubbled into Sipara’s eyes and spilled over.

“I’m pale for you too,” she sobbed. “Oh Hadean!”

Darkness was starting to encroach at the edge of Hadean’s vision, as his eyes started to droop shut. Suddenly he was so tired.

“Hadean?” Sipara cried. “Hadean!”

But it was too late. He had fallen unconscious.

—-

unu I hope you guyz all liked this chapter!!!!! 💓💓💋 There’s so much more in store! PLEASE R&R FOR EXPLICIT PILING NEXT CHAPTER! ;) ;0 DLDR, CW PILLOWS AND MANICURES.

Will Hadean remember his confession????? Will Sipara take revenge???????? Will Hadean’s third horn ever re-

lmfao jk MotHErfuckErs. THIs Is for you spITfIrE. fuck you. fuck your stupId goddamn horn.

you bETTEr rEad THis ouT Loud on THE strEaM. THInk of all THE swEET vIEws. €>:)

I’ll be waTcHIng THat sTrEaM and If you don’T rEad ouT loud THis IM MEMorIzIng it and rECITIng IT durIng the Match.

- THE wordsMITH

#I am so sorry #except I'm also not #the wordsmith #Hadean #Sipara

[activatingaggro]

rubs hands at your kiss drabbles how about 13: Hair Kiss for Sipara and Pheres?

The first time you'd seen Pheres, sunlight had been pushing through the curtains of his closet of an apartment. You remember the way there'd been fingers of impossible heat stretching all the way across the clay floor, and for another troll, they would've been a warning.

But you'd been young, and dumb, and still practically wet from the egg. You'd been too young to know! You'd been too young to care. All you'd known was that someone was too close to your hive, and you'd hated it, and you'd hated them.

And back then, those fingers of light were practically beckoning you to action.

"You are getting entirely too much pleasure from this," Pheres tells you, sour, his eyes slit down to two sun-bright lines. There's a trickle of blood running down his forehead, just dark enough that it stands out against his skin.

When you swipe it away with your thumb, it smears.

"Can you simply put on the bandage -"

"Brah, who's the fucking mediculler here? 'cause, like, spoiler alert, loser, it sure as fuck ain't you." You bang your fist into the top of his head, and with a huff, he lowers it once more.

It's been nearly two sweeps since the two of you have lived together, but at times like this, it feels like you've never stopped. Oh, the environment's changed. This isn't your little shithive apartment, back in the deep Hanhai, and it doesn't have the smooth white tiles of your old place in Namsty. There's none of the white-hot smell of heat permeating everything, or the constant cloak of humidity here. Pheres's apartment in Ghoulisar doesn't look like anything you'd ever live in.

But it doesn't matter. Everywhere the two of you go, it always seems to come back to this: the sun-bright glow of his eyes, the rasp of your voice, and the familiarity enough that you can't always tell where you stop, and he begins. When you curl your fingers around the antiseptic bottle, it's not the sort of thing you think about. There's no conscious plan behind it! It simply happens, just as you know it will, just like you know to flick Pheres on the horn just a moment before his chin starts to pull up.

He hisses at you.

"Hold still," you tell him, shaking the bottle.

"It doesn't need antibiotics - oh! Oh, that stings - why are you laughing?" he demands, twisting to face you, but you've already dropped an elbow on the crown of his head to pin him in place. "I am going to bite you, if you do not hurry up! I'm not joking," he's saying, as you snatch up the bandage with your free hand. "I will - well! Perhaps I won't bite you. I'll just - oh - perhaps I'll just headbutt you! How's that?"

"You're not gonna headbutt me, dude," you say, "or else, like, I'm pretty for sure your horn'll just snap off, and then Hads'll be laughing, too."

"It won't snap," he says, and then: "- it won't! Will it?"

There's a fine line snaking across his hornbed, trailing like spiderwebs down into the velvet. Pheres's horns are as thick as a fist, but you can still see the exact spot he must've hit - there's a nick right in the keratin, a little inward bow like someone pressed their thumb into an eggshell. "Iunno," you say. The antiseptic had seeped in readily, but there's beads of liquid already peaking at the center of the crack as you watch. "The fuck did you do? Try to pap a fucking clowncar?"

It's just an incomplete fracture, you think. He's not sparking, and it's not bleeding. But you don't need to tell him that. "Or tryin' to fuck a clowncar? 'cause, like, eye-dee-kay your whole beeswax, dude, but I was pretty sure Hadean knocked that shit out of you -"

"Oh! I was not trying to pail anyone, thank you very much! Especially not - not -"

He takes a deep breath. You can't see his face, but you know what his expression must be: eyes hut, mouth pinched, brows knit until he finally exhales, and the mask slides back into place. "Apollo took my drink," he says, as prim as any rustblood from the films, "and I decided that his behaviour was uncouth. Because it had been made very clear to me the last time we went out that I was to purchase my own drinks, if you can believe that. After I had simply left my credit chip at home! And so I simply felt as if that was the new standard of behaviour on which we were operating. So he objected, and I was forced to -"

"Bite him?"

"No," he says.

"Pap him?"

"Sipara! He has a moirail!"

"Like that's ever stopped you before," you jeer, and tie off the bandage with a knot. "Here, loser." On a whim, you lean forward, pressing a kiss to his hair. "Try not to break yourself again, yeah?"

"Thank you," he says.

Then he slams his horn into your face.

You really should've expected that.

It's hard to tell who's shrieking louder. There's a flurry of curses, as the two of you tumble apart. Bennue wakes up all at once, adding his shrill cries to the cacophony of noise, and you can barely see at all for the way that Pheres's sparking.

"What the fuck, Pheres," you shriek, but he's already yowling back: "- don't shame me!"

"Saying you're a floozy isn't shaming you, dude, when you're a fucking -"

"Oh! Come here and I'll bite you! See if I won't!"

"How am I supposed to fucking see anything when you're going off --"

"Well, good! Perhaps you don't deserve to see!"

#phone drabbling like it's 2014 #brightest shade of sun #sipara nzinga #pheres dysseu

[cloudbattrolls]

Hit And Run

Siroco Tamahu | 5.4 sweeps | Temasek Southern Market

The map says it’s called Southern Market, but that’s just a stiff name made up by a bunch of trolls who’ve never been. Never breathed the food cooking in the pans, or heard the chatter and snap of the lusii, jumped out of the way of the clowns who come sniffing to make sure no one’s causing trouble, or if it’s a lucky night, some of their shiny caegers might change palms with a stallholder or two.

‘Course, when that happens, then everyone’s fixing to rob them silly. Not like the other vendors have a grub’s leg to give, just sniffy it wasn’t them getting clown cash lining their pockets.

“Hurry up, fucker.” Sings a voice next to you on the edge of a short, long warehive that nobody pays much mind to, but looks right down on the colorful patches of cloth and umbrellas in the market.

You turn and put on your best squint at ol’ Siparaja. You heard the floating pink boy call her that once and it sounded good.

“Why, you got a meeting?” You stress the last word like you’re wringing it over a bucket. “Didn’t know them clown kids actually wanted you, lah!”

“My rail’s coming back tonight.” She says, with a snap of her fangs right near your ear. “Soooo, like, if you make me late, I’ll totes cull you.” She chirps, just like her lusus.

“Right, yes, that.” You flap a hand, scanning the crowd. Nobody’s making any moves for the newly rich pottery stand yet, fresh from a clown passing through, and you tilt your head, trying to see more.

You see some folks lingering, though, like as not sizing up the stand girl’s spark. She’s a lifter, like a lot of the yellows around here, but you’ve never seen her float anything bigger than a barkbeast, the stray kind that never grow bigger than most trolls. Right now she’s eyeing everyone around her, nervous as a bird among meowbeasts, wondering which one thinks she’s worth trying to eat. Her eyes are sparking, just a little.

Siparaja’s staring at her, too. You flick your ears at her.

“D’you think, like, she could beat folks back if they tried shit? Sparkplugs are so soft! But she looks like she’s gonna blow.”

You smile and stand up, carefully, with your cane instead of bugs. Too risky to try it here.

“Only the yellows, lah! Now go, go go go.”

“You better be ready!” She says, singsong, with a threat in it as she jumps and lands on the rickety fire escape, and you go down after, still learning to make it look easy. Nobody cares if you lounge and lean on a cane, when highbloods use them too.

If you try to go fast, they know you’re a dead troll who only ducked beneath the Handmaiden’s gaze because she’s too busy to collect you, and you never know when she’ll come back.

Siparaja’s curls bounce in the heat, and you wait until she’s started arguing with the stalltrolls nearest the nervous yellow - peeping and hissing so you can hear it even from here - and you find some little friends flitting above whose flicker-bright minds you slip into, urge them where you need them to go as your body leans against a lamppost. You look like you’re thinking real hard, and you haven’t got a thing worth grabbing, so nobody’ll - 

“No lepak! Shoo! Buay tahan with you wrigglers!”

It’s a muddy yellow girl, almost low enough to be brown, with a shaved head and crossed arms thick with muscle.

She’s trying to knife you with her oculars, you’re pretty sure. A firefly lusus sits on her shoulder, long as your arm. 

Your mind tilts on the edge of the moths and what’s in front, flowing back out of them with a snap when she gets close, right in your face, and you can smell the sweat on her, see its sheen framing her orange-tinged eyes.

“Always you hang ‘round, leh, not buy.” She spits. “You kenasai! What you say, lah? Excuses? Don’t try!”

A few moths land on her horns without her noticing. You nod cheerily, twisting your cane back and forth in the dirt. She snorts out breath from her sniffsponge as her lusus tilts its head and she reaches for your neck...

“Auuuugh! SIMI SAI!”

You duck and make your way toward the pottery stand as fast as you can, cane clicking against the stones, your mind half-split toward making sure she can’t see anything past all your little friends. It’s not what the plan was.

“CULL YOU!” 

It’ll have to do. 

You sidle up to the pottery girl herself, who shoots you a look of utmost hatred, and flick some imaginary dust off the table that has her cash register and her pretty, fragile wares. Your partner’s climbed on top of the other vendor’s table, the one just a stone throw from where you are, and no matter how hard they try to shove her off, she keeps biting them and nobody else seems to want to help, or is busy eyeing the shouting yellow. Good old Siparaja.

“Siam lah.” The pottery yellow says flatly, but her eyes are sparking even more, and she’s gripping the table like it’s an anchor in rough seas.

The moths flap away, the bond broken, and the muddy yellow spins around and roars, her tusks gleaming in the moonlight as she charges for you, her lusus -

- flashing so bright it blinds every swaku looking at the noise when you grab its mind.

Siparaja punches the pottery vendor with those bug arms, grabs the clown money, and you give the stunned vendor a polite kick in the side. Not hard enough to break anything, just to get her attention.

She hurls you with her psi and you get thrown high, high even when her range runs out from the force of it, laughing as you get hundreds of little friends to help you down - not gentle, but close enough, as you take a moment to balance yourself and Siparaja catches up, panting with a sack of caegers she quickly puts in her sylladex but grinning with all those teeth she files.

“Wow, I can’t like, believe that actually fucking worked!” 

She high fives you, and after a wobbly moment, you slap her frond back.

“Go go go, lor, not free yet.”

No one’s chasing you yet, but that doesn’t mean they won’t. You know better than to look back - only cullbait looks back at their crimes, wonders if it was worth it.

You and Siparaja never will. 

#cloud writes #Siroco Tamahu #Sipara Nzinga

[fleetbound]

Favorite Fleetlounge excerpts so far!

#dorset orsett #liesin magpie #radiostar #sipara nzinga #iconic conetl #fleetlounge #thread highlights

[anontrolls]

> [Part 2] Close Encounters of the Zombie Kind

[After Pheres gets injured by a revenant on his research expedition, Sipara (under the false impression he and Kit are moirails) reluctantly goes to inform (and threaten) Kit about the event.]

[Sipara is AA (maroon), and belongs to @activatingaggro. Kit is CC (cerulean), and belongs to me!]

Excerpt:

AA: w/e. neway, he got   B I T    by one of his stupid fucking zombies on the strneam you totes did not watch -

AA: - and, like, which i did not shut down, b/c i   T H O U G H T   the blueblood hanging off his goddamn tails would fucking, like, pull rnank on this dumb goddamn idea -

AA: - and he's being stupid at evernybody rn. if he messages you, fucking disrnegarnd it orn i'll slap yrn horns off yrn damn face.

AA: 'kay?

-- activatingAggro [AA] is now messaging cerebralCottontail [CC]! --

AA: .. lmao, did you rnly name yrnself cernebrnal?

AA: this is meukit, rnight. phern didn't put the wrnong fucking name in his phone?

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(Um.)

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(... Yes.)

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(Hi.)

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(I guess I just thought it fit because of my implant.)

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(Why are you messaging me using Pheres's phone?)

AA: loool.

AA: he messaged you yet?

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(Nnnno.)

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(I mean, not since earlier yesternight?) 

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(But I've been at work, so I couldn't message him, either!) 

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(Except for  after work last night, but he went on that expedition, so he was probably busy with that.) 

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(Why?) 

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(I was going to message him later to ask what he's doing this week. Or weekend, maybe.)

AA: goddamn, you even chattern online.

AA: but, like, 'kay, good, that's one less pernson i gotta smack, then.

AA: y, he was v busy with the expedition. 

AA: he livestrneamed it. like, totes surnprnised you didn't see it.

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(Oh! Well, I was at work at the time!) 

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(I can't really check my palmhusk until I'm done, or sometimes maybe during lunch or something, depending.)

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(Why are you going around smacking people?)

AA: y, y, y. fleet bbs gotta fleet, all that.

AA: altho, like, forn rneals, could've stepped into a fucking trnap. just sayin'.

AA: arnen't you two, like, fucked up pale?AA:

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(Um!) 

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(No!)

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(And I didn't think I needed to!)

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(I didn't know he was going to livestream it.)

AA: don't even ans- >:/ 

AA: wtf arne you, then?

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(Um.)

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(I think that's probably something you should ask Pheres?) 

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(I guess I figured we're good friends, but he's also kind of particular about stuff like that, I think, so I don't really want to say something he wouldn't agree with.)

AA: mm. y, grn8 idea, will ask when he wakes up.

AA: w/e. neway, he got   B I T    by one of his stupid fucking zombies on the strneam you totes did not watch -

AA: - and, like, which i did not shut down, b/c i   T H O U G H T   the blueblood hanging off his goddamn tails would fucking, like, pull rnank on this dumb goddamn idea -

AA: - and he's being stupid at evernybody rn. if he messages you, fucking disrnegarnd it orn i'll slap yrn horns off yrn damn face. 

AA: 'kay?

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<( ) 

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<( ) 

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(He got bit?) 

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(Is he going to be okay?? Where is he?) 

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(I wouldn't -) 

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(I don't pull rank on him!) 

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(I thought he did this all the time?) 

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(And he had people with him!) 

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(And) 

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(Why can't I talk to him?) 

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(He's hurt!)

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(How did he get bitten??)

AA: tyrnian tits, yrn thumb get stuck on entern?

AA: he's fucking fine orn i wouldn't be TALKING to you, trnust me.

AA: he's just high as a fucking kite on wtfevern this little cavematrnon's got him hopped up on. 

AA: orn, like, frnom the fevern. idefk.

AA: and you can't talk to him bc he's being stupid, and he's high as a goddamn kite, and he doesn't know what he's saying, that's why.

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(A little bit!) 

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(I was kind of surprised to hear all of that!) 

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(And that doesn't sound like he's fine, it sounds like he's actually doing pretty badly off if he's on that much medication and if he's trying to message people and) 

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(Why would that mean I can't talk to him?)

AA: 

AA: okay, i know yrn dumb, but trny to keep up. why don't you talk to drnunk ppl? like, i hope yrn not talking to drnunk ppl, don't need to add skeevy to fucking daft and seven.

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(I mean.) 

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(I... do talk to drunk people? Sometimes? Usually when I'm also drunk, but...) 

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(You don't do anything with drunk people but I'm not sure why talking to them is so bad?) 

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(Like it's not okay if you're asking them for private information or stuff they might not usually want to share but I'm not sure why that extends to asking someone how they're doing!) 

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(I'm not going to take advantage of Pheres!!)

AA: loool.

AA: 'kay, congrnats, yrn not as dumb as i thought. 

AA: it's a fucking mirnacle. paint my face and call me a goddamn clown.

AA: idgaf what you say. i'm not having him say shit he doesn't mean to, not until he's got enough fluff back in his pan to figurne out if he wants to say it. 

AA: so don't start gabbing at him until he's bettern. alrneady having to chase fucking emernel out of his msgs, i don't need to waste my time w/ you.

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(I) 

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(Okay.) 

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(That makes sense.) 

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<( ) 

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(How long is it until he's okay to talk to?) 

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(And where is he?)

AA: dernevnya, rnennis's clinic, i alrneady said that. 

AA: like, come visit, if yrn not too busy wornking.

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(I)

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(I only can in a couple of nights.)

AA: lool. wow.

AA: woow. 'kay, like, it's no skin off   M Y    snout if you don't show up.

AA: and, hell, he's fucking out of it enough, he ain't exactly gonna notice.

AA: i will let you know when he's fine to talk to, how's that? >:}

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(I mean) 

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(Do you know maybe when that will be?) 

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(... Maybe I can make it then.) 

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(I just work weeknights, is all, and)

AA: 

AA: nope, i'm out, yrn abt to starnt stuttern-typing and i'm not abt that, soz.

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(I'm not!!!)

AA: that's two commas in, like, four goddamn wornds.

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(I just didn't know how to finish that sentence, okay? I just want to know when Pheres is going to be okay!)

AA: that is SO stuttern-typing.

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(It's not stuttertyping, it's trying to apply grammar correctly!)

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(You used like three in that sentence! Why is it such a big deal?)

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(Just, nevermind.)

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(I don't really care?)

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(You can make fun of me if you want, I just want to know about Pheres.)

AA: well, we all fucking want to know when he's going to be okay, meukit, but he's stuck with some dumb cavewrnetch trnying to play nurnsemaid with plants, so who the fuck knows.

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(Plants?)

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(And who is it?)

AA: i will   T E X T   Y O U  when we find out if we'rne gonna have to lop a limb orn not. 

AA: and, like, btw, yrn welcome forn letting you know in the firnst place. bc: yrn not his pale, apparnently, so i totes didn't have to.

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<( ) 

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(Thank you.) 

CC: ／(･ × ･)＼<(It means a lot to me.)

AA: mm. 

-- activatingAggro [AA] is no longer trolling cerebralCottontail [CC]! --

#ic #meukit london #sipara nzinga #close encounters of the zombie kind #bad wiggler isolation creche

[obstructedantiquity]

RICCIN KAYATA | 8.7 sweeps / 19 years old

temasek, hanhai region (2353 words)

Here's what you always known about Ico, since the very first time you laid eyes on him: the motherfucker is about as bright as a blown-out lightbulb, and he's never, ever placed a mind towards fixing that. His plans are poor. His thoughts are weak. If there's a way to make things worse, then he'll seek it out and find it, no matter the costs, no matter the goddamn trial of it.

So it's a little strange to realise, for once, he's actually done something right.

-- iconicDisquiet [ID] is now messaging antiquityObstructed [AO]! --

ID: Oh, darling, darling, darling.

ID: Are you fucking serious?

After his death, you’d looked up his file in the system, once or twice. The first time had been to calm Sipara down, convince the both of you that Raphae was right. His status had been the crisp lime of the deceased.

She’d cried, for all that the two of you weren’t together, for all that the two of you were scarcely talking, and she’d spent the day curled up in your recuperacoon, with the both of your lusii hiding in her hair, and you reading hymns.

And you’d looked it up once after, when Gliese had brought him up, but his file had been shut. You’d figure it’d been deleted. Why keep it? They didn't need a body to say he was gone, when the entire fucking hivestem was in shards around him. Blow-outs like that mean burn-outs, and he's not like you. Brother never was high on any scale but finesse.

Taking down an apartment would've left his brains leaking from his ears, and yellow mottling his face like all the points of a galaxy.

So it’s on a lark that you look again. It’s a fool’s errand, you know, and it’s a waste of your goddamn time, but.. the font’s like looking at a goddamn ghost, that’s the thing about it, and there’s only one thing to do about that.

The file’s supposed to be locked. But when flip open the database, plug in the right numbers, it slides right open, just like it did two sweeps ago. And it’s a strange thing to be looking at it again, with the moonlight just now filtering through your panes, with a lump in your throat. If you stopped, peered into your coon, you’d half expect to find Nzinga there, curls sticky with green.

If you stopped reading right here, maybe you’d get rid of this awful goddamn feeling, like you oughtn’t be looking at all.

You’ve always hated ghosts.

But you keep reading.

"Iconic Conetl of the fire drill," it reads, every line like the caress of a lie: "Age: ten sweeps. Chrome: #FADA5E, imperial yellow. Culture: yes, processing, estimated arrival cohort cycle 4.52A-Y-5."

“Status: alive.”

Well.

ID: I just - oh my goodness gracious, I just don’t know what to do with your little pupas.

ID: Always scampering around, thinking you’re clever just because you threw a sheet over your head and now you think you’re invisible.

ID: antiquityObstructed? 

ID: What sort of a name is that? (ᗒᗣᗕ)՞

When you’d first met Ico, you’d been in the lab, feet dangling off the edge of the table and an icepack pressed to your flap. Shepherd had taken a fang, just to see how fast it’d grow back. Standard procedure, the assistant had told you, his mouth a little wavery, and you had figured it alright. It wasn’t like it hurt awful, and the only thing bothering you was the way the shots made your cheek swell.

You’d been waiting for.. something, for someone to come back in, but when the door cracks open, you’d never expected some half-grown ganglebeast with more spots than skin to saunter in like he owned it.

Maybe he hadn’t expected you to be there, neither, because he’d stopped, blinked at you with those half-closed eyes like he was having double-vision, and then the first words he’d ever said to you had been:

“ - are they fucking serious? Why, sugarplum, did she just pluck you straight out of the caverns?”

"Highblood, you can’t smoke in here,” you’d said, and he’d flicked ashes right at your face.

“Oh, don’t even start, pupa-dear, you’re not old enough to tell yourself what to do.” You’d thought him actually tall back then, is the strange thing about it. Tall and lean and just this side of alarming as he’d stalked forward, smoke billowing out of his nose and mouth, the indigo of his blazer trailing him like the tail of some vast drake. It’d have matched the venom dripping from his mouth. “Where’d she get you? And here I thought Iphie was ba-- wait.”

“Highblood?” he says, marveling, and then bursts into laughter.

ID: Honestly, couldn’t you have at least changed the initials?

You’ve never been much of a reader, but here’s the thing: what’s a computer but a book you can crack open? Some folks struggle. Dysseu whines, every time he’s hauled his husktop over to your place: taken over the entire table with notes and cross-references and a hundred different measures to try and make him remember what he’d just read, a thousand different bookmarks that he gets caught up in some sick sort of tangle.

It’s not like that for you. Information’s there to be read, and for all that the most of it’s worthless - that it’s a poison in your pan, that every false syllable’s just a sour note worming its way in - it’s not fucking hard. Raphae’s access codes peel the pages, easy as a knife, and all you have to do is skim, let your eyes drag through until something catches.

Ico’s file is full of this shit.

Thought dead, then found alive. Reporting to General Farwinde, and following up on her chrome just gives you a page too high for even Raphae to see. The picture on Ico’s file is your age, just about, and you’d always thought he was old as sin itself, but there’s meat to his cheeks, gray still streaking his eyes.

Paint along the curve of his cheek.

There’s an itch on your husk. When you swipe at it, your hand comes back damp, but nah, that’s not right. The feeling in your gut isn’t sadness, you don’t think. You know what that feels like. How could you not? The sickness of remorse, of regret, of a thousand things you could’ve done and didn’t - why, you’d lived that for perigees, over Sipara, and Ico’d never spawned that, not even when the wound was fresh.

You hadn’t felt much of anything at all. No, this isn’t sadness. What the fuck is there to be sad over? He’s alive. He’s fine enough, if he’s rattling at you, if he’s been playing moderator for perigees and perigees. And you’d had an inkling, before, when Gliese had mentioned his name.

His file had been shut, then, and you’d quashed the strangeness of it all like an egg underfoot. There’d been no need to think about it much, then. It’d passed, just as quick as it’d come, and you’d forgotten all about it soon as the next barb had hit your inbox.

The only thing you want to quash right now, you think, is him.

ID: But the handle’s been deleted, and we’ll just consider this your first warning, on account of the fact that was just insufferably fucking foolish.

ID: I mean, my stars and garters, sweethorns, at least try to seem like you aren’t snooping, hmmm? (〒^〒) Less embarrassment for all of us.

OA: my, my, my, brother.

ID: Oh.

ID: You’re not offline! Well, good, my little daylily, you can pull out your pen and paper, and take some notes. (´｡• ᵕ •｡`)

OA: such foul language.

OA: you been fucking with your nanny? don’t you know that’s a imperial goddamn crime?

ID:

OA: couldn’t even change your initials, huh? :o)

OA: well, don’t you worry none. brains was never the reason they fucking kept you, was it? it was all about that pretty face of yours. shame you went and blew it off.

OA: or was that a lie, too?

ID: Oh, for fuck’s sake.

OA: language.

ID: Go stick it up your ass, Riccin, you’re not old enough to watch your own language.

ID: So you found me out! (´-ω-`) What a surprise, sweetash, but I suppose we can’t all drown ourselves in sopor all the time.

ID: I knew I should have made Proper send this.

ID: Make them pull their weight for once!

ID: But this is just what happens when you’re too kind for your own good. Things come back, little pupas get some sense, and we all suffer for it. (´Ｏ`)

ID: Oh, well!

ID: I’d love to stay and catch up, see how you’ve been doing, but - well, you broadcast your life all over the chat anyway, so frankly, I think I’m all caught up on that. A little more caught up then I’d like, really, but that’s alright. I’ll live! Somehow. ( ~ ω ~; )

ID: So absolutely lovely talking to you, sweetheart, but I’m afraid I’ve got other warnings to give, so good light, au revoir, have a positively great romp of a night~

-- iconicDisquiet [ID] is no longer messaging obstructedAntiquity [OA]! --

-- obstructedAntiquity [OA] is now messaging iconicDisquiet [ID]! --

OA: why, don’t i get to say goodbye? share some wicked grievances? rend my fucking heart over our brief adieu? brother, have some fucking manners. let a motherfucker at least kiss both cheeks afore you go fleeing out the window.

OA: but that’s fine. i see how it is, brother, what sort of tale you’re spinning here. i’ll just give raphae your regards for you, then.

OA: and a good light to you.

-- obstructedAntiquity [OA] is no longer messaging iconicDisquiet [ID]! --

-- iconicDisquiet [ID] is now messaging obstructedAntiquity [OA]! --

ID: Oh no you don’t.

OA: :o)

OA: not so busy now?

ID: What do you want, ashling? A formal apology? Me grovelling on the ground, begging for your forgiveness? A return of all your 12th Perigee’s gifts?

ID: Because if that’s the case, I’m sorry to say, they’re currently buried under three tons of rubble. You could probably go digging and pull them up, but, why, I just don’t know if it’s worth it. Mister Kibbles is probably filled with mold, poor dear.

OA: can’t i just be bonding with my ex, brother? marveling over this most beauteous miracle that’s been brought down upon us? look at this shit. the clouds have parted and a sinner has been returned from the dead. back in the night, that’d be a cause for fucking celebration.

ID: Oh, gods, are you still into that clown nonsense?

OA: and don’t call me ashling, brother, i am fucking quadranted.

ID: Oh, yes, I saw that. To the pupa who reaches your navel. Is scrawny cullbait your new thing, or are the pickings so slim? Because, let me tell you, darling, I know you’re just a bit of a hard sell, but you shouldn’t be so down on yourself. Why, there’s plenty of trolls out there who’re perfectly keen on some strapping young thing like you, even if you are rolling around in FayGo like a clown at carnival.

OA: one: shut the fuck up.

OA: two: shut the fuck up, because brother, let me tell you now: you are lucky that i still have fondness in my heart for your useless ass, because the right and proper thing to do here would be to drag your carcass in front of our proctor. fuck the clade. fuck raphae. what is he but a mite in the eye of the messiahs? brother has no faith. brother has no USE.

OA: you don’t give a shit about him? who the fuck does.

OA: but what’re you but property gone astray?

OA: you know how much she COMPLAINED? how many fucking WORDS she had for us? the LOSS OF IT. the SHAME OF IT. she should have skipped the nanny. just slit your pan open and strung you up like a battery, threaded blue through every inch of your worthless skull just to keep you in LINE. she chose grace, instead. she chose fucking MERCY.

OA: and what did you give her but ingratitude, you goddamn wretch? you took her gifts and spat in her face. took her fucking tech, took her TOOLS straight out from her fronds, and then you LEFT us to deal with the goddamn CONSEQUENCES.

ID:

ID:

ID:

ID: So, I take it you do want an apology.

OA: if i had any sense in my fucking pan, i would turn you over to shepherd and watch you fucking bleed, brother. raphae’s still sweet on you, but what’s that matter? she’s been threatening me with a handler, and i ain’t done shit wrong.

OA: wonder what sort of things she’d threaten YOU with.

ID: You clearly have so many feelings. 

ID: My goodness gracious, somehow I just wasn’t expecting this! Give me a moment, why don’t you, dear?

OA: or would she bother with threats, brother? you did her a mighty fine snub. why, shep could just strip you down, take the tech right the fuck out of you. got another conetl popping out in two sweeps. girl could just start the fuck OVER.

ID: Let me get my thoughts together, string a sen

ID:

ID: She has what?

OA: my. someone ain’t been looking at their file.

OA: or did farwinde not tell you that?

ID: You know what, Riccin, my lovely little saffron, my former ashling? I don’t think this is a conversation we need to have online. Why, there’s no nuance to it on here! There’s no understanding.

OA: Tell you what. Why don’t we meet in person, and we’ll talk this out? Get our issues all nice and sorted! Have a proper conversation. What do you say?

OA: ha.

OA: sure. why the fuck not.

#disasterclade #riccin kayata #iconic disquiet #narrator: this was a terrible idea. #you'll get a part two at some point #[drabbles] #[prose]

[bwicblog]

> HADEAN

Sip made you all pretty while you chatted about beating Emerel's ass in. It was... Fun in a way you've never gotten to experience before, really. And hey, you were pretty enough to pull of anything.

And Sipara seemed sure that this goo wouldn't melt off your mug. She would know better than anyone else... You hope. Back in your normal clothes it seemed right to head to the fighting rings and see about scouting out your opponent. You'd had your fun at the faire, gotten to meet a bunch of trolls and have enough quality bonding time to last you a few sweeps...

That meant it was time for business. You absently tapped your staff against your shoulder as you walked, eyes sweeping over the trolls assembled. Honestly, you had no idea who you were looking for! Just that he was jade.

"Siiip. Which one of these dirtbags is Emerel? Fucker was hella rude, not even sending me a picture. He's not actually hideous or something, is he?" You had thought Pheres had taste. But... With what he was wearing... Maybe not.

> EMEREL

You walk back into the arena, sweat dripping down your forehead that you can't be bothered to wipe off. Besides, it's kind of attractive. You had some rage to let out and you feel a bit better now. There's a bit of blood streaked across your garb and you're not sure if it's yours or that blueblood you took a quick drink from while he was knocked unconscious with a very rude halberd pole. Ironically, you're pretty sure that's the same blue you drank from during the faire where you meant Pheres. Small world. You decide you'll hang out on the benches with your waterbottle for now, thoroughly overheated and in need of something for your throat. Hadean will make himself known when he gets here, you're sure.

 > SIPARA

Hadean's pretty as a goddamn picture, and you _absolutely_ crammed your phone full of 'em. Between Pheres's horn-shining and your work, there's something deeply satisfying in how positively _glam_ he looks. And he'll look even better when he's kicking someone's ass in it. Empress, you miss being in the ring. "Ha~aaaaads," you drawl back, squinting at the crowd. "He's the mossball over --" You bounce up on your toes, peering at each troll in turn, before you jerk your chin towards Emerel. You've only seen him in person once or twice, but with as many pictures as Pheres's put up, he's kind of hard to miss. "There! And - eye-dee-kay, dude, he's not _my_ thing. You like 'em long and gangly and nubby-horned?" "Because if you do.. looks like you might have competition. Haha, holy shit, did he fuck around with a teal before he's _fighting?_"

 > HADEAN

Huh. First thought it he looks like a sweaty gross nerd. Second thought is woww, was he really fighting before your bout? "Looks like it. Hella rude, doesn't he know he was supposed to save himself for me? Might start bawling as soon as I try talking to him, I can already feel myself getting choked up." Well if he wanted to tire himself out before his fight, fine. You were used to being looked down upon for your blood color, obviously he didn't think you were worth his best. His loss, it'd just make it an easier win for you. You stroll your way over to the benches, whistling loud- like you would for a woofbeast. "Oh Emerel~ Are you always this sweaty and dirty, or was this your attempt at cleaning up for me?"

 > EMEREL

You're quietly minding your own business, drinking your waterbottle on your bench, when you're whistled at. It's not the first time someone's whistled at you, so you can't say you're bothered. You love it when strangers pay attention that kind of attention to you, usually. When he calls your name, however, you pause with your bottle still at your lips. You don't look towards the source of the sound and your only response is to tap your fingers on the bottle. "You could say-" You look over to him, snorting when you notice how prettied up he is. Even you know better. "-That I simply look the part of a man who just went to war." You HAVE been doing reenactments all day, after all. You stand up, setting the bottle down to look Hadean over. He's not much taller than you, horns notwithstanding, and the only thing about him that's really concering you is that dumb floating horn. You're sure you should be wary of that one.

 > HADEAN

"A man who went to war. Sure, buttercup." You make sure your voice is as dry as possible. War? Is that what he thinks fighting trolls one on one for a while is? Man, he's a dramatic one... But you guess it comes with the territory of being a fucking. Historical nerd. "Well, you need a little more time to freshen up, or are we fighting now? Because I came all this way to this stupid faire to beat you up. Might as well get it over with." You lean against your staff, giving him you best cocky smirk. You didn't have to get serious about it until you were actually going at it, after all. Let him think you the cocky lowblood who was getting in over their head. You could play stereotypes to your advantage any night.

 > MAIDEL

You’re sitting in the stands with Sipara, watching Hadean and Emerel anxiously, but then Prisma really does come over! You beam at the yellowblood. “Hi! Are you excited for the fight? I’m a little worried, but…” You trail off and look at the two trolls. “…they both seem pretty capable.”

 > EMEREL

"I'm ready when you are. Question is, Hadean, just how good are you at putting your money where your mouth is?" You look to his face, a wide smirk crossing yours as you summon your halberd to your hand, copying his lean. For all your talk, you're making all sorts of immediate observations about him: Face tattoos. High pain tolerance. Floating horn. Some type of psionic bullshit. You probably shouldn't get too close. Staff. Another indicator that he keeps a distance. Cocky. It's a trick you know quite well. Tall. Inherently on the tough side. Long hair. Doesn't spend too much time in close range fights if he's not worried about getting his braid yanked on. You think you might try fighting close to him and seeing what happens. "But, you know, if you want to apply a little more makeup before we get into it, I'll wait. Be my guest."

 > PRISMA

"I am marginally excited. I am more excited to see Hadean destroy this mysterious jade blood," You remark simply, cocking your head lightly at Maidel. "You found time to get away from the booth, finally?"

 > VATRRA

You've locked up your shop in favor of wandering around until you find where you need to go. And it's not hard to spot the familiar face in the crowd once you remember what to look for. The greenblood and goldblood next to Nzinga are unfamiliar, but based on the chrome in the chat these are probably the other people you were just talking to. You walk over and take a seat at the end of them, nodding in greeting.

 > HADEAN

"Oh my god, clearly you've been watching way too many shitty movies with Gliese is you're going to spew that line and try to look cool doing it." You roll your eyes at him, but you're taking note of him while you trade jabs. But let him try to compartmentalize you! As much as he likes to think how good he is at fighting, you've just had a lot more time alive to fight. And you're used to fighting trolls that are physically stronger than you. "Now don't go tossing Sip's skills or she might give you a good kick when you're down. Are we going to stand around all night, or are we going to fight?"

 > LOKKIC & CO Somehow, all of you have managed to sit on the bleachers without causing a scene. Of course, it helps that you have yourself, your lusus, Nikola, AND Desmon in that order between Natali and Daiyel. It seems to be working as far as keeping them seperated goes. You're so glad. Your arm still hurts and you hope it's not infected. Where even is the med tent? You never were able to find it and you gave up.

 > EMEREL

"You say that, but I think you're just pissed that you're missing out on the movie night food. Too bad, it's good stuff too. Oh well. Sucks to be you." You shrug at him, twirling your halberd once and hoisting it on your shoulder as you approach the ring. You think you have a strategy worked out for this guy, at least for the first few minutes. You'll have to see what other surprises he has up his sleeve. "You're the only one still standing, Hadean." You look over your shoulder, winking at him. "Be sure to get a good look at my ass while you can because this is the last chance you'll get to see it."

 > MAIDEL

“Well, Pheres will be here too!” You say. “He’s hardly going to miss his matesprit…so I think we’re just closing for a bit.” You say, shrugging, then realizing Prisma doesn’t know who Emerel is. “Oh, Emerel’s not mysterious! He’s very nice, really, and he’s a military history expert.” You wave to the redblood who you assume is VA, and you feel bad that you don’t remember her name. “Hi! You’re VA, right? Good to see you!”

 > CANELA Fight, fight, fight! You're so glad you found the fighting rings. You love watching people beat each other up! Especially when there's blood involved. And that is exactly why you're polyp-levels rooted to your bench, happily tapping your feet as you rest your chin in your hand. Your other one is reaching into your box of tasty fried crabs. You were so glad you found a seadweller food booth at the faire! She was such a nice girl, too. And she makes tasty crabs. You can't wait for the killing to start.

 > PRISMA

A military history expert... You raise an eyebrow at this, pursing your lips somewhat tightly. This is an increasingly odd collection of people. Even more so with the newcomer, and you look at the redblood appraisingly. They must all really believe in comraderie. "But then why are they fighting? For the sake of it?" You ask Maidel, turning your gaze back to them.

 > LALEDY

Even front row seats don't manage to make this a fight worth bothering to try and actually view. You're kind of having fun with the rest of it, though - Sipara's done up your face in a way that actually makes you want to preen, and you can already hear Hads and the other guy talking shit to each other. It's like a bad drama, and you're snickering into your left-over pizza plate as you wait for the real theatrics to start. You're probably not going to see much of it, but you're fully prepared to make fun of the crowd.

 > VATRRA

You give the greenblood a small, slightly awkward wave, "Aye. You're AC, right?" You catch the tail end of the yellowblood's question and hope that it gets answered. You're not so sure why there's a fight either, and it seems a little rude at this point to ask if it's a deathmatch or what.

 >SIPARA "Because it's _fucking cool_," you declare, looking up briefly from your phone to grin at Prisma, at the same point that Pheres huffs, from down against the fence: "- because they're a pair of _morons_, that's why."

 > LALEDY

You were right, the crowd is totally the best part. You lean over so you can raise an eyebrow at Pheres. "Ain't one of them your, like, matesprit?" you ask.

 > MAIDEL

“Um.” You say. “I think they think it’s fun. Hadean really likes fighting in general, and Emerel does re-enactments.” It’s not your thing at all. “Oh! And I think some trolls bet on it, too.” You remember, then laugh a little as you look at Sipara. “Maybe Sipara will make some money!” “Yes!” You say, smiling at the redblood. “But my name’s Maidel - what’s yours?” You have to restrain giggles at Sipara’s statement - it’d be rude to laugh! Unfortunately a few escape past your hand on your mouth, your floppy ears flicking.

 > PRISMA

You can't help but grin at Pheres's reply, looking away to keep it politely hidden. It is strange they would let their matesprit get caught up in all this -- you're confused still by the connections everyone has. It seemed like too much to take in, and you sigh briefly. "Hadean likes competing. Emerel's interest seems more skewed, based on that," and then you quiet as Maidel reels to the other troll.

 > HADEAN

Ugh. Is he showing off to intimidate you, or to piss you off? Doesn't he know the brat section of this fight belongs to you? Well, he'll probably lose it when it gets to the actual fighting. No one can play dirty quite like you. "What, is getting to look at your ass a scare tactic? I mean, it is a pretty sorry sight." You stroll over to catch up to him, giving him your least impressed look.

 > VATRRA

Sipara's answer tells you that it's probably NOT a deathmatch, and the other rust's answer cements the idea, which is sort of a relief. Jade is kind of up there, but it would still be a shame to see them or a rustblood murdered in the pit. You lean forward, trying to not make the greenblood- Maidel switch between talking to you and the goldblood. You look between the two of them. "I'm Vatrra". "So, they're just gonna duke it out for the fun of it?"

 > EMEREL

"Well, if you want a better look to make a decision on that, all you have to do is ask~" You put your finger to your lip, giving him a one-finger blown kiss before stepping past the circle into the ring. You know he gets weirded out from shameless flirting. And that's something you're very, very good at. "Now are you going to fight me or weep mascara on my face?"

 > PHERES

Being mean to Laledy would be dreadful, given how much Sipara chatters about him: she clearly _likes_ him, and that's rare enough. And you're fond of him, too. And it wouldn't do anything to stop your sulking. "Mm," you say, not quite an agreement, and watch Emerel spin in the ring. "He's the jade. Who're you betting on, Laledy?"

 > HADEAN

undefinedUgh. You keep you unimpressed look up, tapping your staff on the ground as you look around. "Oh, we're fighting. I just wanted to make sure we didn't have to do anything like cross weapons or bow or any of the other fancy shit that only historical losers would do!" Hah. You're throwing jabs and making constructs at the same time. Under your clothes where no one can see it, hardening your energy to take blows for you. Your psi are sneaky- there's some sparking of your horn, but not much to show for it. For all he knows the flames dim and flare naturally.

 > MAIDEL

“I think Emerel likes showing off.” You say fondly. “He’s good at it! And aha, yes, Vatrra. They both seem really down for it, they’ve been talking about it for nights.” You smile at Pheres, and oh, there’s another jade! What unusual hair. Laledy? Huh. You don’t want to interrupt

them, but you’ll have to say hi at some point. Any friend of Pheres’s is always worth talking to.

 > LALEDY

You blink. Well, that's not exactly the answer you expected. Pheres's words don't say much, but his tone speaks volumes. Did you say something? "Nah," you tell him, "Ain't bettin' nothin'! And it's totes cos I'm a respectable and carin' friend and ish and not, like, cos I ain't got nothin' but pocket lint and pizza to bet. You doin' aight, pal?" You pause, debating, and eventually resign yourself. "... Got pizza if you want some," you say proferring your plate. You've still got two perfectly respectable slices on it. You can probably spare one, at least.

 > EMEREL

You chuckle, taking another look up and down him. He smells like he hasn't showered in a while. Or at least like he doesn't do it nearly as often as he should. Does he spend a lot of time sweating? Because old dirt and sweat is what it smells like to you. You vaguely recall that he travels. Talk about traveling on foot a lot. But that means he's probably got some good muscle built up, at least in the legs. So avoiding them is a good idea for now. Your most likely target is going to be his front: The face, neck, and chest. But you promised Pheres no lethal blows, so you think a good crack over the head and a kick out of the ring might work out here. "I only bow to people who aren't named Hadean, I'm afraid. So unless you change your name, that's out of the picture." You raise your weapon, tapping the handle on the ground twice. "We do do this, though." AKA, only you do it. But he doesn't have to know that. "Let's go."

 > HADEAN

"Oh wow. Did you stay up all day thinking of quips for me? Managed to rub those two functioning circuits in your thinkpan long enough for that one, good job." Huh. You just tap your staff twice before you shift it in to both hands. Your energy is a low hum against your skin, familiar- ready to spread when you're ready to reveal your hand. "Hope you can use that pig-sticker." You don't like pressing an attack, not at first. You set your stance a little bit, waiting to see what he'll do- if he thinks he's naturally got the advantage and come charging in.

 > EMEREL

This is going to be interesting. Since you don't know yet what Hadean can do and all your observations have indicated that you shouldn't take him lightly by any measure, you're playing the safe route at first. You ignore your buddies at the side yelling out their bets, deciding you'll try and fake him into making the first move. "You know, they normally wear something a little different in the ring." You shrug, tapping your fingers on your halberd which is still balanced on the sand. You note the tightness in Hadean's muscles and try to figure out where he's the least defended. "We normally wear a lot more padding. Even if we didn't, where's the fun in your jeans?" Before you've even finished speaking, you've made use of how long your weapon is, the tip of the axe aimed right at his face.

 > PHERES

You would really rather dig holes into the fence post and seethe. But Laledy's trying to be kind, so you roll your eyes and slog up to his seat. Your smile's crooked, but at least you manage it. "I'm fine! Disappointed, but. Ah. We'll see how it goes. Thank you for asking, though. Sipara, scoot over," you demand, and as soon as she shifts, you cram yourself onto her lap. She's got her phone. It'll be _fine._ And you do steal a piece of pepperoni off of his pizza. Well, if he's _offering..._

 > HADEAN

Ah, the old keep them distracted with talking while you swing at them. Good to know he's not above using tricks! Means you can't rely on him playing by the rules, which is fine by you. You feint back and let your staff come up, trying to sweep his halberd- a test to see how much he'll fumble, knowledge of how long you might have to strike in the future. You don't press an attack now, you're still using a staff after all! It's a defensive weapon and you're going to take your time when you can get it. Build up some energy weapons under your shirt to play with. "Jeans are comfy. The fun is in beating you. Duh."

 > MAIDEL

Pheres doesn’t look happy, but you can’t help smiling as he scoots onto Sipara’s lap and takes a piece of pepperoni off of Laledy’s pizza. You look down at Emerel and Hadean, wondering when they’ll actually start fighting. You’re nervous - naturally - but also excited and a bit curious - Ooooh, there goes Emerel. You suck in a sharp breath, until Hadean swings his staff up to meet him. Your eyes are still wide, though.

 > LALEDY

You can't quite read Pheres's face even when he gets closer, aside from a general smile. His tone is still stiff, though, until he shoves Sipara over and grabs a slice. Well, if the food's gonna help get the stick out of his ass. He's probably worried his boyfriend's going to get shanked, you figure, but it's not like these things are to the death. Besides, Emerel's green - and hasn't been living on fumes and duct tape for the past quarter-sweep like you. He's going to be fine. You nab the last slice of pizza for yourself (anchovies: not actually as bad as everyone has been making them out to be, but hunger is the best topping) so Pheres can't grab it if he decides he wants another, and lean back to munch on it as the fight starts. Well. "Fight." It's still mostly posturing, which is more fun if anybody asks you!

 > EMEREL

You shift your grip on your halberd and turn it, trying to use it for something resembling its proper purpose as you attempt to catch his staff with it. If you can disarm him, the better. There's a loud cheer from somewhere to your left as the weapons clash together and you admit you love the sound, even if this is a bad time to comment on that. "Comfy and also boring. No wonder someone had to fix you up for this. It's not like you can take care of yourself~"

 > HADEAN

Well, looks like he can use his halberd some. He probably thinks he's clever catching you, but you put your strength in to it as you clash, trying to lock your weapons together as a plan forms. You let him talk, it gives you enough time to hopefully hold your ground and let your energy gather, teeth bared as your shirt rips. RIP one of your three shirts. But you've got another arm now! Does an energy tentacle count as an arm? You think it does when it's armed with a knife. It's just like using any other limb for you, a little will springing it around you to lash at his middle while you hopefully keep his weapon engaged with your own. Thank god for buying the staff with a lead core in it, it's probably the only thing keeping your staff in one piece.

 > EMEREL

Well, your plan to disarm him isn't working. If anything, he's trying his best to make sure you can't move either. What's he planning? Your immediate instinct is to disengage and step back and when you hear the sound of ripping cloth, you feel like that was the right choice. Your weapon, however, is locked hard in his and you're going to have to make a gambit to tip things in your favor here. You hold your breath and hold still until whatever the hell he just made actually punches you staight in the stomach. You cough, holding tighter to the chapped leather on your handle as you use those locked weapons to your advantage. Hopefully he won't be expecting you to counter so quickly after being basically sucker punched. Which means he hopefully won't be expecting you to immediately swing yourself around via your trapped weapons and sweep your legs under his to knock him down.

 > HADEAN

Oh fuck, did you just straight up shank the fuck out of him. Oh yeah, that's the sort of flesh ressiting and then submitting to a razor edge that signals that your knife went riight in. He was supposed to dodge! What kind of troll stays locked in with a guy and just takes a gut shot!? The same kind of idiot who just sweeps a guy when he's still got a knife in him you fucking guess. You instinctively use the tentacle coming out of your back to try and catch yourself somewhat, to not leave yourself completely defenseless. The staff is gone, but you've still got psionics, and- oh yeah, your tentacle was still knife-ing him. You really hope your trying to catch yourself didn't slice him open even more. You focus on keeping your head and arms protected if he comes in for an attack while you're still trying to regain your footing, purposefully leaving your armor-protected legs and chest there for him to try and stab at. Unlike him, you don't just take a gut shot like it's no big deal.

 > EMEREL

You cough again, louder as blood pours over your lips and your chest burns and throbs. That fucking hurts. That hurts like hell, why did you do that? You hear what sounds like a distressed goat screaming somewhere and you think that might be Pheres. This is a weird time to want to laugh and you're going to stop chuckling now. You think you'll be just fine, though. You've been dealt a literally fatal blow and this isn't nearly as bad as you remember. Holy shit, you were not expecting those powers of his. At all. What are you supposed to do about them? You'll figure out something, damn it. You refuse to lose without a hell of a fight. At least it looks cool for the crowd, as they're getting louder. You stumble back, finally getting that damn tentacle out of your chest and that hurts even worse now that it's out. Okay, this is hurting as much as you remember now. "Fucking hell-" You mutter. "That's impressive." Your voice cracks and you promptly step on that stupid shitty braid of his, aiming the butt of your halberd at whatever gap in his guard you can reach, fully intent on butting his his eyes out if you can. He's lucky you're using the blunt end, honestly. Of course, this would be easier if you weren't busy watching the tentacles for more shenanigans.

 > HADEAN

Oh man you fucked up. How bad did you fuck him up. He's bleeding from the mouth, so... You're gonna err on pretty fucking bad. But hey! He's still talking. Is that good? You're counting that as good. Otherwise you're going to feel really bad at that screaming from Pheres. Okay, he's stepping on your braid. Less pity now. Especially when he's aiming for your face, fuck that. You raise your arms to block it and yeah, that hurts like a son of a bitch. You're used to pain, you can do this. Just gotta ride that adrenaline high and hope that nothing is fractured. ...Something is probably fractured. You whiz the tentacle at him again, just trying to force him to give you enough distance to get up. You're slashing at his legs, because step number one is trying to convince the guy who just took a gut shot that he needs to fucking move holy hell.

 > EMEREL

This time, you actually move. A second stab from that thing might legitimately kill you and you quite like being alive, unlike your sadsack of a brother. You spit a bit of blood at his face as you move your legs away from the tentacle before they end up shredded, quite content to see your blood dripping all the hell over him. Hot. The bitch can have something to remember you by for a while if he insists on not showering often anyway. Wait a second, how much juice does he have? You date two psionics, you know they get fried after a while. You grin rather darkly at that, realizing you know exactly what your plan is. "Hey, Hadean! Is that the best you've got?" You call out through your blood-choked breaths. "I'm still standing and I'm still winning that sweet prize!" It's a taunt, plain and simple. You put your foot in position, waiting for the second that he takes his arms down to kick sand from the arena at his face. "Why don't you get back up already and make my night a little more fun?"

 > HADEAN

Good news: He moved. Bad news: He fucking blood bukkake'd your face. Good god, he better not be diseased. If you catch something from his shitty jade blood you'll be pissed. You've got some distance, but he's still there, waiting. And taunting you. "I just had part of me inside you and then you blood bukkake all over my face and don't call that fun? God Emerel, at least buy a guy dinner first." You don't rise to his bait, not when you're already on the ground like this and he's looming so close. But your tentacle has him edgy and you can take the moment to draw some energy up your poor injured arms to shield them from the next hits, forming a shield as well to hold in front of you as you stand.

 > EMEREL

"Yeah, give me something I haven't tried before and we'll see about fun. Bitch, I'll make you dinner." You shoot back, weapon at the ready. You need to keep this plan going. But that means getting close again and not taking stupid shots that involve you getting stabbed. Your plan worked, but now you just look dumb. Oh well. You'll recover. You like yourself enough for everyone else anyway. As soon as he stands up, you're running forward fast to kick the sand up at him. It's not much, but it's some degree of a distraction. And sand blows, so you're not worried about his shield saving him from it. As you charge in, you keep a close eye on the tentacle. And that whole damn light show he's putting on right now. You can't afford to get hit by that thing again, or anything else he might have on him. You make like you're going to make a right step and slash at him, only to stop at the last second and slide left and swing your axe at his shoulder. It's time to see just how goo of a shield he can make.

 > HADEAN

"Oh, you blood bukkake everyone? You perv." Fucking sand. You were raised in it and this is how it repays you. Dirty trick though, you should have been hurling sand at him! If you weren't busy. Stabbing him. Yeahh..... Oops? At least it's a momentary distraction, because you have a axe coming at you. You get your shield up but not enough- thank god for the armor you constructed under your shirt that takes most of the blow. But you can still feel blood welling up, not enough to stop you from getting by unscathed. Shoulder wounds are so nasty- did he slice your tattoo? Fuck, you'll need to get it redone. The pains are adding up, but you press an attack with the tentacle at the same time you go for a shield bash, pulling your mangled shoulder away. It's pretty deep, but you've had worse. You switch hands that the shield is in and let the tentacle swing to your injured side to take over, hoping you've got enough time between attacks to form another one.

 > EMEREL

"What can I say? A man has needs. And mine include blood bukkake-ing everyone." Your chest is squishing with the blood and you deeply regret that gambit. It played out so much better in your head. That was a bad time to mess up that badly, but whatever. It is what it is, you guess. On the bright side, you think it's starting to heal itself already. Thank goodness for speedy healing. At the very least, you can make Hadean bleed to make yourself feel better. When you see blood bubbling up around where you hit him, you decide to go for a second opening while you have the chance before that tentacle gets you, jerking hard on his braid which is dangling in your arm's reach and aiming the blunt end of the staff at whatever unprotected point you can reach.

 > HADEAN

Boy, you're starting to hurt. Your arm is definitely protesting all this moving around you're making it do, and your body is already pulling energy away from your constructs to worry about the damage done. Stupid shitty psionics, not realizing you need to win the battle before you worry about repairs. Your hair is getting a lot of yanking today, you don't like it. You pull the shield in against his staff hit but the injuries make it flimsy- instead of absorbing the hit it shatters and you still get a nasty hit that will no doubt leave a mark. You don't like this, you're starting to get angry- your shield is gone so you just reach out to grab the arm wielding the halberd with one hand while you blindly let your tentacle form a projectile, flinging it at Emerel's face. Well, it's the right color for a brick at least?

 > EMEREL

His defenses are weakening. You can see it. He's moving more slowly and even his powers are having trouble keeping up. You're winning. You just need a few more good hits and you can finally knock his ass right out of the ring. You raise your knee, getting ready to kick him out of the circle the two of you are inching closer to, when you suddenly wraps his hand around your halberd arm. You twist your body and move your arm to break it out of his hand past the thumb. You're already pulling back to kick at his chest while you're at it. What you didn't expect, however, was the light coming at your face. You immediately duck, but it's too late; there's a searing pain in your face and the pain is shooting through your eye and all the way into your neck. You let out a shout and swing your halberd blindly at Hadean, your pan frantically trying to figure out what the hell even just happened. "What the fuck are you doing?!" You snap at him, finally going through with that kick to the chest you were trying for in the first place.

 > HADEAN

Haaaa, sweet sweet face contact. Followed by nearly getting gored by him flailing his halberd, but you dodge that by the skin of your teeth, riding high on his shout. Well, until he fucking kicks you. Oww. You nearly buckle, your poor torso is really not doing alright, but he sounds so pissed. "Just improving your face a little bit Em! Fans might find a facial scar charming! And you'll get to look in the mirror and remember this fight for the rest of your life." Was that too much? Fuck it, who cares? You got to hit him in the face.

"Uggh, you-" Oh, now you're mad. You're shaking mad. You've been hit in the face before during these fights, but it's specifically when Hadean does it that you're pissed off. This was supposed to be a no kill fight and that's the second blow that could have legitimately killed you, even if the first one was your own damn fault. undefinedImproving your face a little bit, Em. He says that that's it. That's just it. You grip your weapon so hard that the leather is digging into your palms. You hiss as him, loud and sharp and more animall than troll. Your fangs are bared and you're lunging at him, one hand aiming for his throat, the other raising your weapon (which, miraculously, is still set to the blunt end) to hopefully stick in his skull

 > HADEAN

Oh. Ohhh he didn't like that, did he? That's a nasty noise coming out of him, and a nasty look, and- fuck, he's gonna try to kill you. You knew that look just fine, makes your pumper skip a beat before the survival instinct kicks in. He's got a hand on your throat and it's enough, he's going to try and kill you? He's dead. If only you knew how dead he really was. It's just a light glow, outlining his hand around your throat as your psionics open up and swallow his lifeforce in. It's always such a heady feeling- you imagine this is what being high might be like, might be trying to capture this euphora. To be able to hold the stuff that lets a troll breathe, let them love and grow and be- and to take it away. To make it so you breathe. But the euphoria fades about the same time as your body jerks, eyes and horn jerking from rust to jade. Something's wrong. Why do you feel cold? What is this? What did he do? You can't identify the anti-life, the death trying to spread through you- not while your pan is screaming that you're dying. You crumple in to the sand and you can't move, your body is spasming but you aren't controlling it. It feels like there's acid in your veins, but instead of burning it's freezing. You might be making noises, you don't know. All you know is that it hurts. In other words, you're fucked.

 > EMEREL

You really don't know what you're doing. Somewhere in the back of your head, Pheres' worries about your temper flash and you get a cold feeling as you realize just how well he actually had you pegged there. You're about to let go of Hadean's throat and punch him or something instead when he starts fucking glowing. Oh no. Shit. Instead of the sharp, piercing pain that you were expecting, however, you get a hollow, light feeling. Your head feels light and fuzzy and all at once every muscle in your body feels like it's made of lead. You shake and tremble, clutching vaguely at your chest as you literally lose your ability to breathe. Hadean is seizing up like he's having an attack and all you can think is that something has gone very, very wrong. He's screaming. Are you screaming? You think you're screaming. You collapse to the side of him, shaking hard and gasping for air before you finally feel too heavy to struggle anymore. You feel warm blood on your face and then nothing else as your eyes close and the sweet embrace of...something...takes you over.

 > GLIESE

You were running toward Hadean even before he fell. Before _both_ of them fell. These _stupid fucking morons._ You hate both of them! You’re going to skin them and use their hides for _leather!_ You don’t know what just happened, but it doesn’t take a genius to realize it’s bad. Hadean’s rust. He’s in more danger. You feel a stab of guilt - but Emerel has Pheres, he has caste on his side, and something really bad just happened to your lowblood friend. You pick him up, struggling under his lanky form, but you put him over your shoulder regardless with blueblood strength and start marching off, looking for a mediculler, looking for somewhere you can keep him so that nobody tries to _cull his stupid ass._ He deserves it. Fucking idiot. But you drag him to the mediculler’s hut anyway, and the yellowblood doctor there immediately starts working on him. You get up, worrying, worrying, guarding the door in case anyone gets a bright idea. You’d attack almost anyone right now if they tried anything - Hadean’s _yours._ He’s stupid, he’s reckless, but he’s _your_ friend and damned if you’re going to let him die from some stupid fucking fight.

 > PRISMA

The fight seems to be turned on its head within seconds, and with that you're standing up and looking over the ring with confusion. What the hell was going on? You'd known this was foolish, and turning quickly into a furious blood bath, but at the sight of Hadean seizing you feel like you should act -- before that, though, a blue blood is darting out towards them You reach out briefly, brows furrowed, and then you're physically hit by something. It causes you to suck in sharply, covering your mouth and causing your heart to contract in -- fear? You aren't sure. It's not something you're familiar with. It blooms quickly from your chest, turning into a horrific split of lightning through your head that blurs your vision and sends shocks through your map of the area. Everything is alive, and then suddenly it isn't, and when you are able to fight through the feeling, you push through to follow after the blue blood snatching Hadean. Was it Hadean? Where did the other... Emerel...? Why couldn't you feel what they were... It didn't matter. Someone should have broken them up -- you, actually, should have broken them up. Inhibitor be damned. It's strange feeling... anger? Why were you able to feel this suddenly? You arrive at the hut, clutching at your eye as if that would stop the pain behind it. There wasn't really anything you could do but wait. You aren't foolish enough to try to get in the middle of this -- and you aren't foolish enough to see what touching Hadean would do to you -- or him.

 > BUDINO

You watch the fight in pure shock and horror, your mouth hanging slightly open as you watch Em let out that unnatural hiss. You feel the chill race down your spine when you realize that the fang bearing and screaming that he's doing, that leap, that choke attempt...they're all things that you've done before, when you were a different person. Is this really some type of genetic lineage bullshit? Regardless, you're on your feet and racing at top speed to Emerel when you see him convulse and fall to the ground. What did Hadean do to him? Whatever it was, it clearly hurt him too. Whatever. That's not what you're worried about. You kneel next to your 'brother,' trying hard and failing to shake him away. "Emerel, get up. Come on." When that fails, you at least pull your apron out of your inventory to wrap around his chest. You could at least try to help with the bleeding.

 > HADEAN

You're in too much pain to really register that you're moving- but you do notice that you're being carried by someone just spilling over with energy. You can judge it as blue- gliese, some frazzled corner of your thinkpan provides. But you're on cloth, you can feel the energy but it's trapped away from you. You're put down, the energy retreating to be replaced by a candlestick, burning down to nothingness much quicker. Again, a barrier. You want to scream as you realize they're trying to heal you. You didn't have energy, they were going to be working on a corpse soon! But then, there's a hand against your shoulder, wonderful skin. You can't help it, you need it- you slip some of her life away before your thinkpan provides gliese again and you force yourself away. It's enough, you think. The pain is ebbing back, you don't feel like you're being frozen alive. Your psi sputters back to rust as you raise a hand to feebly wave at the mediculler. "Getchur pawsof me." Well, you tried.

 > GLIESE

You snort at him. Dumbass. But your ears raise and your eyes tinge orange as someone else arrives at the entrance and you lift your hand off your friend’s shoulder, ready to defend yourself and him, but it’s just Prisma. “You said you were his friend, so I’m gonna give you the benefit of the doubt and not stick you with my scythe.” You say curtly. “Don’t make me change my mind.” You watch him carefully as the medic does their work, ears slightly lower but still wary to any sound, any rustle of movement. Before your fleet training you might have been tempted to take an occasional anxious glance at Hadean, but if the military’s good at anything it’s taught you discipline. You’re focused like a good soldier.

 > PRISMA

You manage a heavy sigh, unconvering your eye briefly as you lean against one of the poles before you glower somewhat at Gliese. You're too frazzled by Hadean's twisting emotions to do much more in retaliation, though. In your state, it wasn't like you could take her. He wasn't dying, was he? You just met him... It's an empty feeling, though, replaced by a torrent of frustration, terror, breathlessness, help? Lock, trap, blue, trap, trapt, trapped, blue -- You inhale sharply and shut your eyes tightly. And suddenly it's gone. You hold your abdomen and look worryingly over to the rust on the table. You just met him... You can't even be frustrated. You just stare for a few moments until he moves, lacking the ability to feel proper joy or relief so much as the hollowness leaving you briefly. "Hadean?"

 > SIPARA

Red-faced, annoyed, you'd helped Pheres move Emerel from the sandy field to the stands as Gliese - _Gliese_, of all fucking people - hauls Hadean off. "He'll be _fine,_ he's _jade_," you tell him and the jade alike, your flaps all the way back. "Pheres, Maidel - you can spark 'em to the cart, but for fuck's sake, don't _lift him_. Wrap the torso, stick one of those bloodsacks on him, don't _jar the wound_ --" It takes longer than you'd like to actually wrest yourself free! It's a guilt thing, mostly. Pheres is furious and shaking and dry-eyed in that way that means he's contemplating murdering something, and you ought to pap him down - but he _dumped you_, and you're more concerned about Hadean's life right now than Pheres's emotional _fit._ At least Prisma's there to keep Gliese from doing anything stupid. "Pri!" you yelp as soon as you're at the hut of the mediculler, shoving your way through the door. "Is Hads okay? Like, what the fuck happened out there?"

 > HADEAN

God, this is so not your night. Everyone's showing up now, are they there to gawk? They're going to have questions that you... Really don't want to answer. But hard to avoid it now, isn't it? Hard to focus on them when you hurt so much. Especially your damn shoulder. And your arm. Breaks suck. Stupid shambling corpse jade bastards suck. As nice as it would be to just sleep, you don't know if you can. You still need an actual meal sometime soon- Gliese was enough to balance out the spiral that that undead energy had sent you down, but you still feel like you're running on fumes. The glow of your horn is probably a sad sight, sputtering flames as you try swatting at the mediculler again. "Need to go." You try to rise, and it doesn't- go well. Your body sends up a chorus of pain that lays you flat for a moment, choking on a curse. Getting the shit beaten out of you is never nice, being so fucking drained is just the cherry on top. But you're stubborn and you try again, baring your teeth at the mediculler. Hey, at the very least you might diffuse any hot tempers from flaring up in the tent.

 > PRISMA

You look immediately to Sipara when her burning presence bursts through the tent. Shaking your head, you can't even process what to tell her. "Hadean had some sort of reaction. I don't know, but I felt it. It may have been psionic, there is no telling," you attempt, at least, to offer something up. "But he was very hurt. And very scared. I didn't feel anything from Emerel, though. Nothing at all." It's stated like a report, as if you're coolly relaying a dispatch to an officer. As the laid out red blood begins to fight against the doctor, you take a step closer with a wary eye on Gliese. Clearly he didn't have enough energy for something - it didn't take a genius to figure that out if his horn was sustained psionically. It certainly couldn't be physical. "Go where, Hadean?"

 >SIPARA

ou like Pri, you decide. Unlike everyone else, he just rattles off information without even needing you to threaten him with it. It's for the best, because as soon as Hadean tries to sit up and chokes, you kind of want to kill something. "Thanks, dude. And what the actual fuck," you complain instead, stalking closer. Gliese might shank you for getting this close, but whatever, you don't care. "You can't even get up, dude. Where the hell would you be going? Is he feverish?" Being rude to the mediculler never helps. That doesn't stop you from trying to lay a hand on his skin, though, just to check.

 > HADEAN

Right, Prisma was an empath or whatever. He's feeling your shit. You might have felt bad for that- you probably will, later- but right now you're just focused on getting your sorry ass up. Easier said than done when you're getting a bunch of well-intentioned jerks butting in. You'd feel touched, but. They're interfering in stuff they didn't know about and didn't have to understand. "I just need to go." Man, even talking hurts. You just had to find someone, get them alone. You wouldn't be picky right now, even a maroon would do. Speaking of maroons, Sipara is coming closer. She touches you and there's the urge to drain, but no. She's a friend. ...But the parasites are another story. They're a shitty meal, really. Like trying to gorge yourself on fortune cookies. But it's the best you have at the moment without losing a friend, isn't it? You can't stop yourself from making a low sound as you take the energy, a mouthful of water when you're blistering in the fucking desert. Hopefully Sip can get the bastard off before it goes for her blood.

 > PRISMA

"Of course," you reply, just before Sipara launches into her spiel. Lord... "That doesn't make sense, Hadean. Your body can't sustain movement right now..." you say quietly, remaining at a distance with the other three tending to him. "You have to stay. If you go the injuries could tear again..." You're at a loss for words and action, instead looking with worry between Sipara and Hadean. You can't feel anything else from him, so he must be fine...? No, that's not right either. And what was with the noise... "What is it you need to leave for, so badly?"

 >SIPARA

You're not expecting him to touch your arm. You're definitely not expecting the flash of colours that means your prosthetics levels are plummeting - - but this time, at least, you've got the sense to snap off a _disconnect_ before the fangs dig into retaliation. The worm goes limp as the fangs pull out, sliding down your arm in the process, and you hasten it by half-yanking the rest off. It's already stiffening into a defensive curl when you drop it on his lap. "Don't be so fucking petty," you snap. "If you don't wanna be touched, you can just _say! _

 > HADEAN

Oh my god, you're dying and she's whining like you're killing her worms to spite her. You groan and try to force yourself up, slightly more successful this time- you sit up, even if you wobble. Your head is spinning, but you swallow against the dizziness. There's a worm in your lap and you grab it to see if there's anything left in it for you before you weakly shove it off. "Need energy." You squint at the floor, trying to judge if you can stand. How are you expecting to get past all four of them? You weren't planning, you just know you need to. Damn them for caring.

 > PRISMA

You flinch somewhat at the sharp reprimand, curling your hands at your side. What did he do to her... arm? You don't understand in the slightest, watching in some horror as she pries this grotesque something off of her arm. In another life, you might be somewhat nauseated. This time, you move to try to help Hadean steady themselves, "You should stand against someone, or the table. You could black out," You said hurriedly, "What sort of energy?" You look to Sipara, as if she might be able to produce an answer for all of you. Psionic energy? But... that was an extension of will. He said his was... no, he denied it was metabolic. So what was it? The puzzle is irritating.

 >SIPARA

His horn is a little brighter, is the first thing you notice. That's a relief; the way he isn't even bothering to bite back at your snap deflated you, quick as anything. Maybe he's feeling better? No. He's swaying just from sitting up. And Prisma's looking at you. And there's a dead worm on the ground, same as your last one. (When did he zap that one? When you said you wanted to fight him...?) "Tyrian tits, dude." You hate taking the prosthetic off of your bad arm, not least of all because it hooks in tighter: there's those pinprick flashes of pain as it disconnects from your nerves, but at least it's made to come off easier. And if you roll your shoulder after it's free, it looks like it's just asleep, not dead. At least, it better. You toss the freed prosthetic one handed at Prisma, trying not to frown too hard. You're settling a theory, that's all. "They've got psi, " you deadpan. "Let's see if he wants to cull that one, too.

 > GLIESE

You decide to sit down and curl up into a ball as Prisma and Sipara talk. A sudden apathy washes over you. You’ve done everything you can. You can only wait. Though you do frown as Hadean…what did he do? Sipara’s bug is just…dead. At least the mediculler doesn’t seem at all perturbed by Hadean’s insistence and keeps working, sanitizing, bandaging, and packing, cleaning him up. “He’s not feverish.” says the yellowblood quietly. “No warmer than a maroon should be.” “If you need psi - “ You finally say, hoarse. “ - take mine. My bloodline’s stupid strong, it won’t do anything.” Even if it did, you wouldn’t care. Hadean’s life is worth more than some lousy mind control.

 > HADEAN

Well, Prisma makes a good brace to just sort of lean yourself against. You tell yourself you'll just give yourself a minute. Then you'll stand. That sounds good. "I'll black you out, hush." Yeah. Keep acting tough, even when you're feeling weak as a half-squashed grub. You frown at Sipara when you notice she's doing something, then her arm is off. Huh. Neat. She tosses it to Prisma worm and all, and you might grab at it a little eagerly. Fuck the eyes watching you, you'd deal with it somehow... Later. For now you just focus on that little burst of energy you get from the worm, leaving it to have its death throes in Prisma's arms as you close your eyes. At least it's enough to give your horn a faint little constant glow, you're not just coughing up sparks for the moment. But you know it'll come, you have a lot of damage to repair. And oh, they're talking. "I don't eat psi." God, look at her just offering up her powers to you. That's the only thing that gets her that fancy desk job later in life, isn't it? Jeez... "Uh. Thanks for the offer." Hey, you can try to be polite. Even when you're three-quarters dead.

 > PRISMA

"I will see it coming. I do not recommend that, friend." You resituate how to support Hadean when Sipara tosses the... creature... to you. The last thing you wanted was to hold this in your bare hand, but you don't actually have any complaints-- at least until Hadean's touch causes it to seize and crumple. You drop it to the floor, staring down at it numbly before your attention is pulled towards Gliese's offer. If it's not psi... but it can be sustained by food... You purse your lips, eyeing Hadean beside you in silence and waiting for Sipara's authority. Until then, though, you are determined to either keep a grip on Hadean or keep them in arms length.

 >SIPARA He doesn't eat psi, but he's murdering all of your worms. And he fucked up Emerel fairly bad. And, yeah, now there's a glow worth noting in his horns again, and... You blow out your cheeks, trying not to look as alarmed as you're starting to feel. It's Hadean, he's _fine_, and besides, you're totally going down murder hive lane for no good goddamn reason. You've never heard of psionics working like that. They expel, they don't _siphon._ "Sit the fuck down, Hads," you say, curt. This is his deal. You don't need to shout it to everyone in the room, especially when one's blue. "You don't need to _hold_ him, Pri chill already. You need energy, Hads, we'll get you some." "How raw do you want it? "There. You're the queen of subtlety.

 > GLIESE

If he doesn’t eat psi, what the fuck is his deal? Oh. Energy. Weird. But whatever. And now Sipara’s offering, and you roll your eyes a little but don’t comment. At least she’s helping. …wait. Was that why - did he try to pull that on Emerel, and - ? Your eyes narrow, but now’s not the time. Though if he did, why did it fail on the jade? Emerel’s as energetic as anyone. You feel a stab of guilt for abandoning him, but he has Pheres and that greenblood to fuss over him, plus caste on his side. He’ll be okay. You’ll visit him later. “Yeah, Hadean. Name it. We’ll get it.” You say, wry.

 > HADEAN

Sip's smart, you have to give her that. But then of course she is, growing her worms and doing all that lab shit. You've given her enough information now for her to make a calculated guess. You're not sure what you expected of her when she started putting the dots together, but... This wasn't it. You just stare at her, wondering if this is a trick. Or if you're more fucked than you thought you were. Do trolls hallucinate when they die? Maybe. You settle on the bench, licking your lips as you try to figure out what the fuck you do. But there's not much choice now, is there? They all know enough. "Fuck. Fucking. Raw as it gets. Colder the better." You turn your head to stare down the mediculler, because they're an unknown in all of this. Would they blab? Maybe it was best to take care of them.

 > ULLANe

Your only response to the redblood glaring at you - Hadean, you’ve gathered, from everyone saying his name so much - is to raise one eyebrow. “Your powers are none of my business.” You say, shrugging. “Culling me is ill-advised. I can leave you all deathly ill with my psi before you do, so why bother.” The blueblood makes a frustrated noise. Too bad. “I’d like to test that - “ she says, going for her scythe, but before she can she chokes, her own esophageal cells multiplying and blocking her air intake before you cut them off again. “Don’t.” You say. “I shan’t tell. As far as I’m concerned - “ You say, looking around. “ - this was a normal treatment, and nothing unusual happened. I left you to go check on the jade.” Saying so, you pack up your gear and leave to do just that. Whatever they get up to now is none of your business.

 >SIPARA

The mediculler flounces with a flick of her fingers that sets Gliese to choking. It is manners alone that keeps you from grinning until you're out of the tent, and then you're fairly cackling as you walk away. You hate walking without your prosthetic. Your bad arm jangles next to you like a weight you can't feel, startling you every time it brushes your thigh, but luckily Pheres's cart isn't that far. The stall is still attached to the front, even, for all that the doors have all been shut and the curtains on the van proper drawn shut. And there's Lal, right where you left him. Well. Not quite. "What, he wouldn't let you in?" you ask, sympathetic. "Soz. Hey, wanna help me steal a goat?"

 > LALEDY

In your defense, you did try to get into the cart - but no amount of pizza peace offerings are going to calm Pheres down from the mood he's in. Understandably: you're pretty sure his matesprit is dead. That doesn't stop you from being anxiously restless as you strain to hear inside the cart and wait for someone to show up before a fairgoer decides your loitering is getting suspicious. Thankfully, Sipara comes loping over to your rescue. No worse for wear despite what you're sure was a tense situation, though with a little less volume on one side. "Depends," you declare, shoving yourself off the side of the cart, "That, uh, Pheres, on accounta the attitude and, y'know-" You gesture at your own horns- "Or the one that up and ate your frond?"

 > SIPARA

"Neither! We are stealing, like, a totally unrelated hoofbeast that's innocent of all crimes. Shit's gonna be wicked." He doesn't look chill. He looks, actually, pretty much the _opposite_, and you catch yourself looking at the van like you can peer inside. "So. Uh." God, you shouldn't ask. "Is he, y'know -" _Croaked it_ isn't a good term, not when Pheres might hear it. "How's he doing?" you say instead, twisting your mouth to the side.

 > LALEDY

"Well," you concede, hoping Sipara doesn't ask. "So long's I ain't gonna get short, mad, and fluffy on my tail. Cos, uh-" She asks. Damn it. So much for getting away from the death and angst card immediately. You lean back against it, shoving your hands into your hoodie pockets. "- I ain't a medical professional," you say carefully, awkward and a good bit quieter. "But, uh - green dude ain't, like. Aspiratin' or nothin'."

 >SIPARA

Laledy looks like it's _his_ clademate that just croaked it. You should feel worse, you think. But it's not you know Emerel! And it's not like Pheres's even known him for _long_. Still, he's still going to be frothing, so you puff out your cheeks, and with great reluctance, rap hard on the door. You barley get to a second knock before a window cracks open, and Pheres's voice drifts out. "He's fine," Pheres snaps. His voice's gone all _throaty_, in a way that makes your ears pin back at the sound of it. "And you're not allowed in, so just - _fuck off._" A moment later, the window snaps shut. "Well," you say, turning around. Your cheeks are warm. _Goddamnit._ ".. uh. Shit. Um. Thanks.. for staying? Y'know. During that."

 > LALEDY

Pheres sounds like he's either been crying or is about to, and that's just about more emotional vulnerability than you can tolerate from a guy that you're barely friends with. Sipara doesn't sound much less comfortable when she turns her back, and you're relieved at the chance to jog a few steps to catch up with her. You duck around until you're on the side of her good arm, pressing your fingers to her elbow so she can lead you to wherever you're going to... catch a goat, apparently. You shrug awkwardly. "Ain't no big. Gotta make sure a guy ain't gonna go nothin' - y'know, right?" Well, that's certainly a sentence that made sense. "He'll be fine. Pher, I mean. Ain't so sure 'bout his boo, but..." There's not really a 'but' that follows, and you're not entirely sure how to even have this conversation. The one boon to being stuck outside listening to make sure Pheres didn't, like, hurt himself or snuff Emerel was that you didn't have to talk to anybody about the potentially dead guy in the van. "Why're we gettin' a bleatbeast?" you blurt.

 > PHERES

You have no idea what to do. It's a good thing that Budino's being quiet in the corner, because right now, you'd cull him if he said a word. It didn't work. He looks like he's sleeping, with scarcely a dent in his face to show it was ever injured, and he's not sleeping: he's _dead_. The saw is still lying where you left it. If you have to, you'll cut off his head. But.. maybe you'll just wait, first. It can't hurt to wait. "Maidel," you say, and you hate the way your voice rasps. "You should go. _Please._ Thank you, but.. Go."

 > MAIDEL

You completely understand. You fixed Emerel - mostly - but it doesn’t seem to have done any good. You don’t understand. His body responded to your healing, but…he’s still… You don’t even want to think about it. You hang your head and don’t say a word, going out at Pheres’s orders, floppy ears sadly drooping even more than usual. But then those ears flip up slightly as you see Sipara and Laledy walking off, and tilt your head as the jade asks why they’re getting a goat. “Why ARE you getting a bleat beast?” You ask curiously. Maybe it’s none of your business, but you need something to do, and - wait, where did Sipara’s prosthetics go? You’ve _never_ seen her without them before. You hurry over to them, concerned. “What’s going on?”

 >SIPARA

Maidel looks like someone shot Kabiir in front of him, and then started eating. It is entirely too fucking depressing. "We're getting a bleatbeast to impress he-who-must-not-be-named," you murmur, quiet enough that Pheres won't hear. "C'mon, Maidie-baby, you're getting conscripted to help us out, on accounta the fact, like, I'm _totes_ down an arm." "And how else are we gonna carry it, if you don't come with?"

 > LALEDY

You suck in a breath through your teeth and realize - well, shit, you've now got one friend that's culled another friend's quadrant. At least Sipara doesn't seem to have forsaken Hadean - or you think so, anyways. Maidel catches up the few steps to the two of you, and you wave an awkward hello, briefly considering letting go of Sipara's arm before you decide you don't currently give a fuck. "Where we gettin' it?" you ask, "Cos, lemme tellya, it ain't been smellin' near's bad as I'd've figured for a place what's up and got bleatbeasts to spare. And, like, why's Hads want a goat?" You suppose it's better than him not needing a goat, on account of being dead.

 > MAIDEL

You blink as Sipara tells you why, and you don’t really understand, but she is your boss, so you shrug and go along with it. Pheres would probably want you to keep an eye on the pair of them anyway, just to be safe. Besides, you kind of like the nickname. “I can take care of it.” You say, confident. You don’t even have to carry it - you can just stick it in a safe plane and retrieve it. That way you don’t have to worry about it getting loose. “Um, one second - “ You take your fair map out of your sylladex, looking it over, and then showing it to Sipara, waving a freckled finger over an area labelled ‘authentic historical food, slaughtered fresh!’. “They’ll probably have one, or something like it.” You walk with them, and even though you’re further away now, you still lower your voice to ask. “Is Hadean okay?”

 >SIPARA You give Laledy a long look. "Do you _really_ want to know why he wants a goat? Like, really? Really?" "And - yeah, we'll get it from there. Sounds good." Lal's clinging to your arm, and it's.. actually, weirdly sort of endearing. You need people on your arm more: if it weren't currently being dead-weight, you'd probably loop your others through Maidel's. "Hadean's.. aright. Why wouldn't he be?" "He's not the dumbass that walked into a fucking _knife._"

 > LALEDY

You stare at Sipara. "Pal, the way you're goin', there's like a 50% chance you're about to tell me he wants to pail it, and a 50% chance you're gonna say we're summonin' the Demoness, and, gotta say, there's zactly one a'those options I ain't down for." Then she calls Emerel a dumbass for walking into a knife, and you bark an incredulous laugh. "Wait, for cereals? Even I ain't that shit at fightin'! Uh, crap-" You just insulted a dead guy and somebody needs to tape your mouth shut- "Then what'sa matter with 'im? I wan't half-sure he wasn't, like, also dead."

 > MAIDEL

Your face knits in worry as Sipara questions Laledy, but you nod as she agrees. Then you’re puzzled again, but from her tone, you figure it’s better not to ask, and you wince at her last comment before trying to withhold slightly horrified laughter at the jadeblood’s remarks. “I don’t think Hadean has the energy for the first one.” You say, bemusedly. “And I think we’d have to offer the Demoness better than just a goat, probably.” You give the jade an alarmed look, but he seems to have realized his mistake - besides, you have no idea how well he knows Emerel. Maybe he hasn’t even met him properly. “He’s probably just recovering, I imagine.” You say, partially to help Sipara out. “Those wounds looked nasty.”

 > SIPARA

"Look, what I'm _saying_, Lal, is that we're gonna walk in, drop off a goat, and close our eyes to whatever fucked up shit goes down before we manage to get the fuck out. Why do you have to go 'n make it weird?" A beat. "'sides, why can't he do both? Hadean's, like, _talented_, dude." .. are you supposed to fight Laledy over him insulting Pheres's quad? He's dead. He can't exactly _object_, and Pheres isn't exactly here to _hear_, so... nah. "He's fine! He's just gotta sit, take a breath and then walk it the fuck off." You shrug. "You saw the braid thing, dude, 's just woozy," you drawl, light, and then you nudge Maidel with your shoulder. Thank god she's so tall. "Hey, babe, you leadin' the way? 'cause beeteedubs, I have _no_ fucking idea where this is."

 "Uh, right." The braid thing, whatever that was. "Ain't impugnin' Hads's many talents, pal, just wonderin' what choice I made in life that's let to this demonic cult I just joined, and also how you know the Demoness goes in for that kinda ish. Like, pal, if we're gettin' her a bleatbeast, seems kinda shit to get her a used bleatbeast!" You thought that maybe if you talked enough, it would somehow eliminate the awkward, but you forgot that you opening your mouth absolutely never entails a lowering in awkwardness. At least Sipara is half as lost as you are. You snort at her - the blind leading the blind.

 > MAIDEL

You make a lot of faces as the two of them talk. You’ve lost count of how many different emotions you’ve been running through. “Oh! Yes, I’m taking us there. It should only be a few more minutes.” You reassure her. You keep switching between the map and the landmarks, anxious to keep the three of you on the right track, and you’re pretty sure it’ll be coming up soon. You laugh a little at Laledy’s comments. “I’m about…ninety percent sure, there will be no heraldic figure of doom summoning.” You say. “Oh! Yup, there it is, uh…hm.” You come up on the place, and you can tell by the smell and sound of it. There’s a very menacing looking yellowblood with a butcher knife, slicing a bloody haunch of meat at a stand, but peering around that you can see stalls from where bleating and mooing is coming. “Hm.” You say again, more quietly, thinking. “I think one of you might want to distract the stall keeper, while I get close enough to grab the bleatbeast…that part’s easy, I just need to make sure I won’t be getting a blade in the neck.”

 >SIPARA

"Dude, the fuck is your thing with demon summoning? You got _practice?_" You jeer at him: "-'cause if you do, don't tell Queenie. Pretty sure she's the only spoopy thing allowed in the shop." You lace your fingers through Laledy's, then use that to tug him forward. "We'll distract him," you declare. "C'mon! It'll be just like the musical dude, In Which Seven Young Signmates are In Need of Kismesises (And One Case of Auspisticism). You've seen that, right? Or - shit." You pause, peering at Maidel, your ears pricking forward. "Can you even carry a goat by yourself?"

 > LALEDY

"Duh," you tell Sipara, sticking out your tongue, "Ain't you heard? It's, like, emogoth chic, I gotta be true to my identity-!" You were going to keep going, but then Sipara actually grabs your hand, winding her fingers through yours like you're in a romcom, and now you're walking together instead of behind her, hands swinging between the two of you. Well, that's one way to shut you up. You're pretty sure you've gone green up to your ears. The last time you'd held someone's hand, Cateex looked at you like you'd rotated your head 360 degrees. "Well," you manage, though not without missing a beat or three, "If there's precedent - and, shit, pal, who's up and questionin' peeps' talents now? Maybe she can, like, carry two bleatbeasts, even! One for Hads, one for the Demoness."

 > MAIDEL

You laugh, letting a few lime green sparks off from your eyes - not too noticeable unless you’re looking closely, but apparent to anyone within a few feet. “I don’t have to.” You say, smiling. “But I _am_ going to vanish with it, so we’ll have to meet up somewhere else. Pheres’s cart?” Aww, Laledy’s blushing. It’s kind of adorable. Are he and Sipara quadrants? Well, none of your business, you suppose. Maybe your bosses just like jades. “I could grab two, but I think one is enough to worry about.” You say dryly. “Unless you really want one as well, Laledy.”

 >SIPARA

"'sactly! And -" Wait, Lal's blushing. Why? .. over-exertion, probs. For fuck's sake, why'rne you always surrounded by a bunch of waifs? But you slow down, obliging up until Maidel chirps off that line. "Holy shit, _no_, not Pher's. You -" You pause, completely serious: "- you, Maidie, keep the fuck away from the cart for awhile, 'kay? 'til he says he wants you there. Like, either of us pops back up, he's gonna eat our fucking faces. Let him cool off." "Take it to the mediculler tents! Hads in the fifth one down."

 > LALEDY

"So he is effed up!" you accuse, "What's he gone to the mediculler's for? And what's the bleatbeast for?" To be clear: You are totally down for stealing a goat. You're just incredibly fucking confused, have no idea what went down the entire fight and how and why everyone is so injured, and this is, like, the one thing you can probably get a decent answer for so by the Mother Grub, you're going to get it. "And shit, pal," you tack on, midlly disbelieving, "The more the merrier! Just pop on over with one on each shoulder like it's nbd, yeah?"

 > MAIDEL

You wince, but of course Sipara’s right. Even if you didn’t go in and just stopped by before taking the goat away with you, Pheres might be mad, and you don’t want to deal with that. “Right.” You say, nodding. “I’ll see you there then.” You snort. “Not really…but it’d take me too long to explain. The point is, I can do it and leave no trace. It’s a psi thing. Anyway. I’ll wait until they’re focused on the pair of you, and then I’ll dart in and get one. It shouldn’t take me more than a few minutes.”

> BUDINO

You've been quietly sitting in your corner of Pheres' cart, not particularly wanting to say anything even if it didn't look like Pheres might eat you if you so much as breathed too loudly. You keep your knees drawn to your chest as you stare down at the floor. This is way too familiar to you and you hate it. This is why you try not to like people. It always ends up like this and you're starting to think your existence is just fatal luck to everyone else. You stand up, slowly padding over to Emerel's body when Pheres isn't looking, staring down at his face. This is distressing, how much he looks like you. Is this what you'll look like whenever something finally finishes you off? Somehow, the thought is...it usually comforts you, but now it just fills you with bubbling terror when you're actually looking your double in the cold, dead face. You keep expecting him to wake up and yell at you to get a new sign, but he won't. You know he won't. You sigh loudly, your shoulders slumping as you rest your arms on the table next to him, letting your forehead fall on them. Fuck. Everything.

#C:MAIDEL #c:budino #c:pheres #c:sipara #c:hadean #c:prisma #c:gliese #c:vatrra #event:cascara fair