She had fucked up so, so badly. Bad enough to make the universe scream out in agony from how badly she had fucked up, how awful what she had done actually was, and just how badly and completely she had screwed herself over. It was a major fuck-up, even if the alternative was so much harder to do. And yes, the alternative was indeed hard to achieve. There was no doubting that, and what would’ve had to be done. She would’ve had to avoid the drones and the ships for dozens of sweeps, hundreds of sweeps, until she had became properly well trained enough to finally be able to challenge the Condesce and reap her rewards. And she’d have to find a way off Alternia to boot, a way completely out of this portion of the universe, until she was out of range of her lusus, completely free of her psychic influence.
There was only one psychic power Feferi had, only a single one, and it was that her mind remained connected to Gl’bgolyb’s. They could both communicate with each other while they weren’t physically around each other, Feferi being able to send basic ideas and thoughts to her lusus, and her lusus sending prophecies, the fates of stars and planets and solar systems, the finely tuned details of the rankings of the Horrorterrors, and generally much more complicated stuff than even Feferi herself could understand at times. Often times this bond was simply used for motherly comforts, as Gl’bgolyb was a lusus and a guardian as well as the Emissary to the Horrorterrors, and she had a role of a mother to Feferi. Feferi knew her own connection to her could make her raise her voice, start killing off lowbloods by the hundreds, thousands, millions.
But she promised herself never to use it. Not once. Never. She didn’t even tell Eridan about it, not when they were young and just barely becoming Moirails, even if she was sure that he could’ve known it anyways, with it being just too massive a detail to overlook. She didn’t want him getting ideas, even if that idea was that she could kill him off simply by making her lusus raise her voice to a shout. Sure, she knew he had plans to loosen up Gl’bgolyb’s feedings at times, all in effort to kill off landdwellers, as that was simply part of being Moirails, but she also would’ve known if he actually went through with it, because of her connection with her lusus allowing her to see if she was being fed less than usual.
All in all, their connection to each other had been a useful tool, which she could use to her benefit, such as checking to see if she needed more to eat or making sure she didn’t raise her voice. But now that connection could turn against her, ruin her. She had known it ever since she was a wee wriggler. The fight to become an Empress was supported by both troll culture as a whole, as well as by all tyrians’ shared lusus. She would make sure that they fought, and fought to the death, until only one remained, and that one would be crowned Empress. This was the betrayal of the shared connection. Her lusus would ensure that all tyrians fight once they become a certain age, and she was already starting to feel the consequences of refusing to. Feferi had psychosis, she had known that ever since she was a wriggler and complained to Eridan of shadow trolls haunting her life and watching over her with malice, to her being sure that the Condesce was watching her and stealing her thoughts. She had never been able to be checked out by anyone professionally, after all, she was as much hated in the Empire as a mutant, with around the same fate of certain death. She got hate from the lowbloods for being so high up on the hemospectrum, and they thought that she would be a miniature Condesce. The highbloods regarded her as a threat to the throne, to be exterminated by themselves or even turn her in to the Empire early. She couldn’t get any sort of medication for the problem, even if she needed, and desperately wanted, medication for it.
But now her psychosis was getting worse, becoming tentacles writhing around inside her body, alongside her organs, and she’d see shady figures of dozens of tentacles, calling her, beckoning her. It was her lusus’s way of telling her that it’s time, time to fight for the throne, and Feferi didn’t want to be driven to fits by her own parent. Not to mention the ships had come for her. They always came around once a sweep to pick up the newest adults of that sweep, to take them off of Alternia, as per the order after the Summoner’s revolution had been. And Feferi, as well as all her friends and everyone she cared about, had turned nine sweeps.
It was officially time to be taken off planet, and this would be the time that Feferi was to be taken away from her lusus to an arena with a sandy, unforgiving floor, to be filmed and broadcasted to every electronic item the Empire had made that could display video, and it was there that she would die in a pitiful attempt to take the throne. Feferi had seen a few (many, so, so many) of those, kept recorded by the Empire so that one could observe the Condesce killing off dozens to hundreds of hopeful little heiresses like Feferi. She had watched them religiously, spent her time analyzing them. Any weaknesses the Empress showed, anything the heiress could’ve done to avoid their fate, any openings to look for- in the end, Feferi had ended up watching them all, from the time that they first started recording them for the databanks she found. She had to find out what to do to kill the Empress, she had to kill the Empress, she didn’t want to die in pitiful death throes in the sand, three golden prongs sticking into her body.
But Feferi couldn’t avoid that fate forever.
The ships had finally come, had finally arrived for her, to take her away now that she was of age, to an arena on a neighboring planet, to be preened until she could be thrown out at the Condesce, to take her own and die like a hoofbeast lead to the slaughter. She had tried to run at least. She had tried to run, tried to pack away what little she could carry with her, what little she would need, and she strapped it all away on a bag on her back. She had discarded her old clothes, donned rags and torn up sheets made to look as messy as possible, used them to hide her gills and fins and her face and even the shape of her horns, all to look the part of a lowblood beggar without a lusus. Even Eridan and her friends didn’t know where she was going or what she was doing- she had stopped talking to them nights ago, refusing to allow any hint of where she would be to not let anyone who would’ve bugged in find her. Or even themselves find her, as already paranoia was setting in deeply and fully, and she was afraid that they might even betray her, send her in to the Empire themselves and get some reward for capturing the heiress, oh no, she was having no part of that.
Turns out, they didn’t even need to- the Empire found her. She had been trying to flee, having spent a couple of nights just getting to shore, as her hive was far out in the middle of the ocean, and right at the very bottom as well, to make sure that she had easy access to her lusus. It was a long way inland, and Feferi had nothing to assist her swim, only her own body. No lusus to help, no technology, no other troll. Only herself. Actually, she had been pretty speedy in it too, landing on the beach after around three days. Just when she was coming in, the sky was already beginning to turn lighter, and her sensitive eyes hurt. The sun couldn’t be far away, and soon morning would be upon her, and she’d have a hard time adjusting to being blind as well as fleeing from the Empire. So she scouted out a cave, carved out by the sea, moist with saltwater, and smelling of rotting fish and seaweed and other things the tides spat up.
Feferi had prepared to settle down for the day, removing some of her rags and using them to make a makeshift nest of sorts. She didn’t necessarily need a recuperacoon. Whatever caused the day terrors in trolls, whatever made them roll about and toss in their sleep only to wake up drenched in sweat and screaming, she knew none of. A different sort of hell had plagued her, desensitizing her to the terrors of the days passed, and didn’t need the sopor to have a sound sleep. When Feferi laid down to rest, she had figured she was going to have just that. That wasn’t the case. She was awoken sometime during the day (she couldn’t know when, she was down deep enough that there wasn’t a hint of sunlight, as to keep as careful as possible towards not going blind).
There was the click of plates upon protective plates, and Feferi smelt something odd, sweet, in the air. It made her drowsy and sleepy, and the world began to slip and change in front of her, blurring together and she couldn’t get her eyes to focus, as if she was suddenly a landdweller that was thrust underwater. She had time enough to stumble to her feet and grab her trident, pointing the hazy prongs at the blurred shapes heading down the cave towards her, and she could faintly make out the usual spikes of drones. Of course they wouldn’t send live, adult trolls to catch her, they usually weren’t hardy enough to properly tangle with a tyrian, and nonetheless they weren’t allowed on Alternia anyways. The adults just came in their ships and sent the drones down to the surface, making them do the work and then collecting the now adult trolls fresh off the planet. This realization barely scraped by Feferi, recognizing that they were here to take her away. They had found her, and she had stood her ground long enough to spear one that got too close, but then the sweet smell got all the stronger and she faltered, blinking heavily and trying to get herself to focus, but already the ties of unconsciousness were coming fast, and she just had time to realize there were far too many drones than she could take on anyways before finally blacking out, and letting her body hit the ground, out like a light and her trident skittering away from her.
When she came to again, she was already on her way to the arena. She had awoken in a recuperacoon in a block, and from what she could tell from a porthole on the wall, she was already in space, being sent to the neighboring planet of Alternia’s, to go fight to her own death in that fateful arena. The block itself was nice, if sparsely decorated. It obviously was a high end recuperacoon, and when she went to check out the ablution block, it seemed to follow suit, and there was even some fancy soap in there, all organic and made sure to be nontoxic. Everything seemed to be bolted down firmly, and there were no real furniture. Just the ‘coon, made into the floor, and the ablution trap and load gaper followed suit in the same manner. She had even checked out the material the floors and walls were made of, which seemed to connect with each other at perfectly rounded edges, and they were made of a tough metal that blended onto itself until it seemed to have no faults in it, and Feferi was sure she would at least require some effort prying it away from itself first to even attempt any escape. It was also thick, and Feferi was sure that this was to ensure that she did not escape.
After all, no one wanted to loose the heiress to be killed. Most of that ride was spent staring out the porthole at the expanse of space, watching it go by as they sped through it, heading straight for the sister planet, where she was to die. They were going at a reasonable speed, and Feferi had to wonder exactly what was powering this ship. It would depend on the size, really. A larger ship would mean a helmsman, which would also mean that this ship was used for something more than just ferrying heiresses across the expanse of space. A smaller ship, one that was made for this occasion, would likely have some other engine, but she thought they were going at such a fast rate then it would surely have to be an expensive piece of machinery, to go at even the lower speeds that a helmsman could accomplish.
But maybe Feferi just wanted to take her mind off things. She thought about what was going to happen all while she was being transported to the arena. She was going to die, these were the last thoughts of a dead troll. Her time was slowly ticking away, one second at a time, and the sand in the hourglass is running low. She’d have to bite the dust, she was going to die slowly and painfully and it was inevitable now. She was captured, taken away from her hive and lusus, who wasn’t responding now. She wasn’t sending any kind of messages to Feferi, which made her wonder why, why mother, why had she abandoned her? Now she was going to die surrounded by hundreds of trolls and being broadcasted onto even more’s screens, to be seen across the universe. Feferi’s last moments were sure to be in pain. Tridents weren’t designed with a peaceful death in mind.
Feferi had to be transported, led away from the ship by more drones, her trident long since taken from her. She was lead away in bindings, making sure no accidents happened, and the drones themselves still carried weapons. She watched those weapons with wary eyes. What if she actually got ahold of one of those weapons? They were simple things, swords and knives and a couple little guns that packed a powerful enough punch to stop a musclebeast in its tracks, and she had to wonder what it would be like if they just forgot to tie her up properly, or left one of those things behind for her. She couldn’t escape now, no. Now she was in the inner rungs of the Empire, being paraded through the streets, tied up and with a cover over her head, supposed to disorient her and throw her off so that it would be harder to win over the throne. But she could still hear the chatter of thousands of trolls, what they said about her, whether or not they were purchasing tickets to actually see her die, and she had to admit to herself, that it was royally fucked up.
She was destined to die. She had always known that. But if she had the choice, would she go out on her own terms? She didn’t want to die slowly in front of everyone, begging to survive or to be let go while her organs were strewn out over the ground and her head nearly bashed in, only enough to stop her from dying quickly and painlessly. She had contemplated the thought before. Her life was stressful, between trying to care for a struggling relationship, to trying to take the throne to wrestling with psychosis and various mental issues, and the topic had come up several times. She wasn’t proud to say she had nearly done it several times either. But now she was in another, different ballpark. She was going to die, it was just the matter of how she was going to do it, whether by her own means or by the Condesce taking her away bit by bit, piece by piece, and dying a slow, painful death.
There was a part of her mind that childed her, told her that she couldn’t do it, that she was weak and frail and she wouldn’t be able to do it, but she knew that she had no other choice other than dying anyways, and she would soon be a corpse either way.
In the end, Feferi decided she would much rather take her own life. However, that choice was never presented to her, never made relevant, and before she knew it, she was in a holding room, brandishing her trident and preparing to fight the Condesce. Afterwards, Feferi wouldn’t remember the battle at all. It went by fast- the Condesce was brutal and quick to the point. She had a habit of rushing in, and Feferi would either leap away or get caught, and then it was just more blood splatters on the customary skin-tight outfit she was given. She had to defend more often than not, and otherwise just play keep away, keep trying to dodge and avoid her. Her Ancestor was large- an intimidating troll, with rows of jagged shark-like teeth, and a nasty gleam in her eye that told Feferi that she was eagerly anticipating killing her, splattering her royal blood on the ground. She was a much older troll, far older than Feferi could even imagine, as the databanks didn’t stretch back far enough for her to find when the Condesce first came to power.
It was also hidden from the history books, as if pretending that she had always been there, the Condesce cast some unholy shadow over the populace. But Feferi had learned. She knew from a thousand heiresses dead what points to look out for, what openings there would be, how there were ways to get out of entrapments and snares set for her. She wasn’t too shabby a fighter either, having hunted for their lusus the second she was out of the brooding caverns, blinking upwards at the vast Alternian sky and seeing the stars. She had practiced and practiced, as to ensure she had the best chances possible to win over the throne, even if she couldn’t see her plans to their completion. But in the arena, all plans were gone. Time either did not pass at all or it was going so fast that Feferi had completely lost track of it. There wasn’t even any cameras or a crowd up to the thousands on the sidelines, cheering on either side. They weren’t even trolls anymore. They were wild animals, forced into an illegal ring to fight to the death, to rip and shred each other until one or both died and people gambled on whichever one was going to win or lose. They were forces of nature forced into troll bodies, natural disasters given form and made to duke it out with tridents for the amusement of the masses.
The Condesce was fighting to stay the Empress and assert her control over the troll species, meanwhile Feferi was simply fighting for her life and the hope of freedom it would give. Sometime in the battle the tridents had been discarded and then they were going at each other with teeth and claws, ripping and tearing and shredding each other, blood splattering the ground and making it clump together in fuchsia clods. Feferi’s stomach had been torn, the ends of a trident (her’s or the Condesce’s- she couldn’t tell) having gone through it and narrowly missed her spine by an inch or two, but tyrians were resilient and rugged and simply did not die easily. Feferi couldn’t even remember how she had finally killed the Condesce, either jamming her trident’s prongs into her throat several times or by tearing it open with her teeth, only that later they found bits and pieces of shredded, tyrian bleeding meat in between Feferi’s fangs. She had passed out almost right after finally killing off the Condesce, blood loss and exhaustion kicking in. It had been a long battle, hard fought and hard won, but in the end, the heiress had prevailed.
The Condesce is dead.
Long live the Empress.
Feferi was carted off to a hospital as quickly as possible. She had to be put onto an emergency ship to carry her off to a hospital that might actually be able to heal her, with the massive amounts of damage she had taken. There were three massive holes in her abdomen, spearing her through to her backside, and her organs had torn, spilling their contents into the wounds. More gashes appeared all over her, some small scrapes, others massive, bleeding gorges that required large amounts of stitching and bled profusely. There was a good amount of blood that had to be stolen from the corpse of the former Empress, being the only other tyrian blood in existence currently, and Feferi desperately needed as much blood as possible to survive. She had been laid down into a medicinal recuperacoon, one that was the absolute best that money could buy, which was good enough to even ensure that trolls could regrow limbs or half of their face. But Feferi had taken a lot of damage, and she needed time and patience to heal again.
Meanwhile the rest of the Empire was torn.
There were riots in the streets, highbloods turning to excessive violence for the death of their Empress, whom they weeped and mourned for. Meanwhile the lowbloods were torn. Some celebrated, seeing it as the end to the Condesce’s tyrannical rule and seeing it as reason to believe that they were finally going to gain some equality and proper rights. But most were just torn. On one side, the Condesce had been awful to them, treating them and their lives as disposables, tossing them away at a moment’s notice. But the new Empress was still a highblood and a seadweller, and they were prone to being generally unsupportive of their causes. There was no telling if she would be any better or worse, and in the end, only time could tell.
For now, all they could do was just lay low and try not to get killed by the rampaging highbloods, who were deeply upset by the happenstances, and the fact that the new Empress might try to change the way things were run, things that they liked, and that she might disrupt the hemospectrum.
It had been several days of rampant riots and violent crimes before Feferi even began to wake up again, finally coming to in her assigned block of the hospital.
