It’s beautiful, the way the universe works. She’d always thought so, even as a pupa, watching the stars twinkling from Pyralspite’s back as they traversed the night sky. It had always seemed like if she reached out just a little bit further, she might be able to pluck one from the night sky and hold it in her hand. Fires in the dark, the way the flames danced and moved, the sea rolling and swirling beneath the moon. For someone who could ‘see’ things the way she could, there was always an aspect of beauty in the world, and now she got to ‘see’ something new.
The flashes of light and darkness outside the cracked glass of the window were all that she needed to know the battle raged on, even if things had gotten quiet inside aside from her own labored breathing. Pesky things, lungs, they tended to not work if they were full of blood. Idly, she wondered if sea-dwellers had the same trouble with gills. She’d have to ask one sometime.
The countdown timer on the screen was nearing zero, but the escape pod indicators weren’t out of the red yet. Cutting it close wasn’t anything new, and she used her good arm to push herself up a little, looking for a better view of the white fragment of a world below.
An alarm made an ugly red sound in the distance, life support was probably failing. Good. That just meant anything she hadn’t culled on her way here probably wouldn’t survive even if she didn’t succeed.
A particularly bright flash of green between the white and black catches her eye, or nose, mouth maybe? Things were getting pretty muddled. Still, just meant she had to finish this one last task.
Turning her remaining senses back to the panel, the little green dots are finally clear, and she breathes a thick bubbling sigh of relief. She wasn’t sure if gods could survive this, but she knew mortals wouldn’t. With any luck, Fussy Fangs would pick them up on the way out, or maybe they’d find their own way out. Either way, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to look after them after this.
Entering the Executor override isn’t too difficult, just slow with how many fingers she’s got available. Her finger hovers over the activation key, and with a rueful grin on teal-stained teeth, she presses it.
She’d asked Pyralspite once, how a dragon dies, the answer was something she’d always enjoyed: “In a burst of fire and fury that shakes the heavens.” As the world started to turn white, she could almost feel them tremble.
[ “Both it is then! Hmm. Most of the traditional dances are for a crowd, but I could probably do the lead part for you, if you don’t mind the lack of music.” ]
Something she regretted now was never thinking to get recordings of anything from her homeland on Alternia, especially since it seemed like *that* Alternia didn’t exist anymore. With any luck, one of the others might have the same, otherwise she’d have to look into learning to perform or letting it just die out.
[ “You’re thinking of Earth fairy tales. Real dragons don’t have gold or treasure, what would they use it for? They have to keep moving of they’ll run out of food. We spent most of our time over the seas, plenty to eat there. Mostly we visited the mountains so I could talk to not-dragons for a while, and because they threw a festival whenever we showed up. East Alternians celebrate dragons as much as Western Alternians fear them.” ]
Not so different from the Eastern and Western Humans, though their dragons were so unimpressive. Tiny little things that lived in caves or fought over meaningless trinkets, not at all like Pyralspite. If she had any sort of wisdom and detachment from worldly things, she’d learned them from her lusus.
[ “Maybe? I don’t know what she had or didn’t have after the trial. We weren’t on the best of terms at the time...” ]
Understatement of the decade, or several, since she hadn’t actually started keeping track of resets until the second or third one. Something that continued to stir up regret. How many resets had she gone ahead with the same thing, another Earth decade of missing out on the things that mattered.
[ “I was using my words to explain, but you’re the one who wanted me to quit explaining. Besides, now you know. Anyway, you should take one back with you. No recoil, energy packs last for more shots then you’re likely to ever need, and no one on Derse has anything that can stop them.” ]
If she hadn’t already spoken to not culling all of Vriska’s friends and associates, it was a tempting thing to imagine. Afterall, she’d had sweeps and sweeps to figure out how to beat everyone except English himself with just the archaic clubs and rocks she’d had at her disposal. With *real* weaponry, she could end it in minutes, maybe less.
[ “I just. Wanted it to be clear. When I visit, it’s because I’d want to see you, and maybe Annwyl. Not because I’m trying to start anything. I won’t cull anyone without asking either, even Itchy.” ]
She was still tempted to maim a few who had been less than kind after Vriska’s ‘death’, but if the younger Alternian wanted them alive, she was content to leave them that way. For now.
[ “Oh. Yes. You should get back to your Moirail.” ]
Pausing for just a moment, she thinks better of it and reaches over, pulling the younger Alternian into another tight embrace that she releases after a moment. Looking her up and down, she nods a little to herself, setting as much of a smile as she can muster on her face.
[ “Thanks for visiting me, it actually means a lot. And. Thanks for giving me a chance.” ]
It was difficult not to stall, or try to buy a little more time, but there would be plenty of that later. At least, that is what she was going to tell herself for now. Regardless of how the future played out, for the moment, a little of the regret and weight of the prior decades was lifted as she watched her descendant leave.
[ “Hmm...I don’t think they ever got that big. I could probably use one of the larger ones as a riot shield, or maybe a door. They do get thicker though, and more layers. If you’re anything less than an orbital barrage, she’s probably not going to feel it. Or. Wouldn’t have felt it.” ]
Even dragon scales couldn’t protect you from a green demon mucking around with time.
[ “Anyway. There are huts, and cities, and megalopolises. Depends on the continent, and who lives there. I always liked the mountain villages myself, but that’s because the Empire was rarely there, aside from drone season.” ]
She wasn’t going to start a fight over it, especially given that there wasn’t a fight to be had. Alternia had enough technology to send fleets into space to conquer other races, destroy and enslave their populations, and then set up colony worlds. The question pulls her back to the conversation at hand, humming softly.
[ “Jade, like the caste, or marked with Maryam’s sign. Or journals, if she had any on Derse. I have the ones I confiscated from her sylladex, but I doubt it’s the whole set.” ]
The ones she had all told stories she already knew, likely a planned for eventuality, knowing Mindfang. Anything interesting had to be in older ones, or newer ones, if she kept writing them after the Trial. She grins at the question, tucking one hand back as though she was going to draw an old-style revolver. With a single fluid motion she withdraws her old Alternian-style blaster from her sylladex and throws a datapad from the desk behind her into air with her other hand. The first shot puts a hole clean through it, the second disintegrates it entirely.
[ “That, is a laser pistol.” ]
Flourishing it once, she ends the motion by recaptchaloguing it, chuckling to herself. Even if she preferred the more ‘personal’ methods of fighting, there was something satisfying about landing a trick shot or two.
[ “No no, they’re supposed to offer me the happy ending. If they want one, they’d better be cute, and female. The men always get so squirmy around bulges. I’d feel bad for them, but it’s really their loss.” ]
Her grin fades a little, remaining in place but without the intensity. She’d only visited the Casino as a guest after Vriska was gone...and even being there with Kanaya, she’d felt the weight of her regrets the entire time.
[ “...truthfully though, I’m not going to cause you any trouble at your home. Ask your Moirail, I can be a model guest.” ]
[ “I’ll send you something then, tonfa or those fancy bracers Fussy Fangs has. Not that you should split your focus too much, practice on getting comfortable with your forms, then you can move on. If you want my opinion, you should probably get some more practice on footwork in. Your guard and attacks are coming along fine, but you don’t want to bet it all on that.” ]
Not that they had any real foes to speak of at the moment, or she’d be tailoring to beat them more specifically. As it was, the basics would do, and maybe eventually sparring with someone else if he got that nervousness under control.
[ “Well, you wanted to see some dance, right? Am I showing you, or trying to teach you?” ]
She hadn’t had much occasion to do any traditional dance in a long long time, and Midnight City had been so mired in those terrible Earth dances, there wasn’t any place she’d had to do practice. Fortunately, like most things, her muscles remembered better than her mind and her mind was as sharp as her blades.
The Humans had all these stories of ‘heroes’ making armor out of dragon scales, but the whole idea was ridiculous. An adult dragon’s scales couldn’t be made into armor, unless you were going to make chainmail out of the eyelid and maybe tip of the tale scales, but you’d need to wait sweeps of shedding cycles for that. Either that or go after hatchlings, but their scales weren’t tough enough. Just like Humans to miss the details.
[ “Pirate code? Gamblignants don’t have a code? Not that it isn’t yours, there’s no one else to claim it, other than maybe me. Except I don’t want any of it, not really. Maybe some of the journals, or if she kept anything of...” ]
She stops, frowning a little, some mysteries of the past still weighed on her. They had never worked this one out, and as much as she wanted to disregard the tales in port, there was always a grain of truth to the more unpleasant lies.
[ “...if you find anything jade in her belongings, it would be worth a great deal to me. Just to see it, I mean. I’m not going to take anything from you.” ]
Contrary to Human belief, dragons weren’t hoarders. Quite the opposite, dragons couldn’t stay anywhere for long or they’d eat everything and the whole ecosystem would die out. They were always moving, only taking with them the important things that they could carry.
[ “Don’t look so incredulous! With an eye like yours, you can sever a hand before they can fire a shot. Why do you think Mindfang and I ran around with swords on a planet with laser weapons?” ]
She raises an eyebrow, not unused to the skepticism, there were many on Alternia that questioned the old-fashioned weapons she wielded. Afterall, the low-blood troops were forced into melee because the Condesce didn’t want to risk a threatening armed rebellion, but she was high enough caste and station to have something better. “Better.” A gun could only help you if you saw your enemy, if you could aim fast enough to hit them, if you weren’t dead before your hand grasped the grip. It warmed her pumpbiscuit to put those sorts of misconceptions to rest.
[ “But. Yes. When I visit, and I will visit. Not just for that though. We can do other things, if you want to. Oh! If the casino you’ve got still has those fancy Earth-style spa-bath-spring-things your Moirail put in, I wouldn’t say no to a dip.” ]
Since Derse never did have any proper hot springs, at least not that she could find. She offers as ‘normal’ a smile as she can, which is still toothy, but not in an “I’m going to eat you” kind of way that she normally put on for prey or show. All of this was still new to her, non-quadrant/non-sexual/non-manipulative nice-making. At least with Vriska, it didn’t feel like she was quite so far behind as it did with Kanaya and Latula and Kankri.
She couldn’t *smell* any deception on Vriska’s part, which was enough to give her a little bit of peace where the astrolabe was concerned. She liked to think Pyralspite might be alive on some dragon-ruled Timeline shard, but deep down she knew it wasn’t likely, or potentially even possible. It *was* nice that Vriska seemed excited about it though, a bittersweet experience when she thought of all the other things she could have shared once upon a time.
[ “It’s one of the ones from her eyelid, because the rest of them are too thick and tough to use for anything. That and they weigh a ton. Lucky for me she scratched it off when I was around to pick it up.” ]
Mostly Pyralspite had ‘groomed’ by finding herself some active volcano or acidic swamp or equally inhospitable place to divest herself of dead or damaged scales, not places Porosi could follow her. Once in a while though, she’d just have an itch to be scratched and some of her rare and valuable scales could be snatched up.
[ “Oh...” ]
That...was a blade that brought back memories, considering she hadn’t seen it since they’d both still been living on Alternia. She reaches out to touch it, hesitating a moment before settling her fingers on the flat of the blade. The last time they’d crossed swords was before the trial, before everything went to hell.
[ “...I didn’t know you’d kept it. I thought she would have just left it behind...” ]
There is an unspoken ‘like me’ in her statement, voice soft and almost hollow, her fingers tracing over the inlays of the blade. How many times had they clashed over the years? Pailing or extracting some reward or just talking, the rare meetings of equals beneath the starry sky. She had to work her jaw to keep from saying something foolish, hefting the blade and captchaloguing it in a smooth motion.
[ “I’ll take care of it, for now. You should learn to use it yourself some time though. I could even teach you, if you wanted.” ]
It was hard not to be a little hopeful, but she knew better than to invest too much in an unknown outcome. Vriska had plenty of things to do and places to go that didn’t involve her, if they could even see each other again after she left here. But. She could dream a little.
At this point, she understood the way his brain was twisting her words well enough to know that she wasn’t going to get anywhere trying to convince him of his own progress. It reminded her of Vriska in some ways, just with a stubborn attachment to casting himself in the shadow of perfection instead of a stubborn attachment to bravado.
[ “If you keep working on shoring up your basics, you’ll keep making progress. Once you get to a place you like, we can try to specialize. I assume you don’t really want to specialize in weapons, unless you want to try out blunt ones?” ]
She wasn’t entirely sure of the rules with this new Kankri who was willing to employ some measure of violence, which is why she’d given him his space and resisted much touching thus far. It was also why she’d gone out of her way to make sure he wasn’t actually hitting her, because it seemed like it was making him uncomfortable.
[ “That’s because you had a giant spider lusus. If Pyralspite was still around, I’d introduce you, especially since you’re older. The only thing she had that was small enough to do anything with me when I was a wiggler was her tongue.” ]
When your lusus was as large as a small mountain, there were a lot of things they were too big for, nevermind the appetite. She’d always counted herself lucky that Pyralpsite could hunt for herself, generally for enormous sea life. Now if only she had snapped up the Condesce’s lusus by accident, that would have solved all sorts of problems...
[ “Mr. Miles is not the kind of challenge I’m looking for, and I don’t want to break your friends. Well. Not that one anyway. Some of the others? No promises.” ]
As much of an idiot as Itchy was, she could appreciate his tenacity and cleverness when he actually rose to the occasion and put his mind and powers to good use. The rest of them though, the most she could summon up was platonic pity, if that.
She hums softly at the next statement, trying to think of something to say in response, except she was never really one to put much stock in words. Using them? Absolutely. They were as effective as any weapon. That didn’t make them valuable though, especially when they couldn’t be used as leverage.
[ “I...yes. That’s good. Since we’re not enemies or strangers, it means I can give you something!” ]
From her sylladex, she produces something wrapped in silk cloth, a little larger than palm sized for Vriska. Inside the cloth is an astrolabe, the material it is made out of neither metal nor stone or even wood. It would be further complicated as every line appears to be wholly smooth, suggesting either no tools were used, or they were very fine instruments. The darker parts are stained cerulean, lighter ones in teal, and the tassel itself is made of the colors braided in silk.
[ “I didn’t think we’d actually ever...talk...so I don’t have something specific made for you. But. This is something you can use no matter what the laws are, and it’s one of a kind! An astrolabe etched with acid from one of Pyralspite’s scales. Almost indestructible, and if you’re ever lost, you can find your way with the stars. If you still have them. Either way...no more Alternia means no more dragons, so...it’s rare.” ]
She frowns slightly for a moment, annoyed with the weak presentation, but she wasn’t about to take it back. It was a gift meant for a Serket, and Vriska was the only one left, even if it didn’t fit her to a tee. She’d have to think of something more suited later, but she didn’t want to send her home with nothing. At least this way she’d have something of hers and Pyralspite’s which...hopefully meant something. The thought of it ending up in landfill, with so little of Pyralspite left, was an...apprehensive one. Especially after the incident with Paint. But. Trust had to start somewhere, right?
She squeezes tighter for a moment before loosening the embrace and leaning back enough to look at her, eyes a little bloodshot but her sclera have returned to their normal golden hue.
[ “I called you a selfish whelp, which you are, but it isn’t all you are. I might not be a lusus, but I do care, and I’ve made a lot of choices I don’t know if I'd make again...but...I don’t regret my descendant.” ]
Taking a deep breath, she lets it out slowly, decaptchaloguing a pair of bandages to wrap her knuckles. Thankfully, with the technology on the station, she could have this healed at any med station once she was done here. Even without, it was barely a trifle, she just didn’t want to be leaking around Kanaya.
[ “...I will visit you, but I don’t know if I can stay there. I need...challenges...I need to have things of my own. I have lived a long time with only what I could carry or captchalogue, and I want more than that, but I’m not abandoning you. I wasn’t then, and I’m not now.” ]
Contrary to what others might think, dragons were very tactile creatures, even if it wasn’t all physical. She certainly wasn’t any different, Dragonsight making all the senses that much more alive. Given how she has only just wrapped her hands, she opts to brush the outside of her thumb lightly over Vriska’s cheek to avoid getting any blood on her.
[ “I never wanted us to be enemies, or strangers.” ]
The gritting of her teeth is audible, a growl growing in her throat as she slams her fists down on the metal desk, growing into a reverberating howl that compliments the rain of blows. It is not quick, nor is it pretty, an overflowing wellspring of anguish that culminates in a final strike that puts a dent in the resilient material.
Her knuckles are split, bleeding teal rivulets into the marks she had made, arms still shaking with contained energy as she presses down onto the desk for a moment longer. It is only a moment though, because afterwards she has moved, flickering with a speed that all but the most skilled of Striders would miss.
In an instant, she is on the other side of the desk, sweeping the younger Alternian up into a crushing hug. Is it the first she’s ever given to her? She cannot remember. Cannot remember anything other than watching from afar, always on the outside, knowing little in the ways of caretaking beyond what she learned from her lusus.
{ “...selfish little whelp...” }
What she did not know of subtlety, she knew in fierceness. A dragon would burn down a mountain or evaporate an ocean before it would allow its treasured ones to come to harm, and she was no different, lacking only in wings to wrap around them both.
She had missed so much for pride, guilt, and fear. The world they lived in, one of gods and monsters and life after death, none of that mattered if you were facing it alone.
[ “Fear? You think it’s fear that stays my hand?” ]
Maybe it was because she looked and sounded so much like Mindfang, or because she had spent so long bottling up this particular subject, or maybe there was some sliver of truth in the statement. Either way, she rises from her chair, voice booming in the small office.
[ “I don’t want to die on Alternia because I have a matesprit and a descendant to look after! I don’t want to end up culling the Humans on Earth who don’t have the good sense to back down, just like the ones in Midnight City. I was only playing along with the thrice damned charade on Derse so that I could stay there!” ]
Her jaw strains as she works it, fingers curling into fists. Everything she’d left behind on Alternia, her lusus, her reputation, the power of her position, the career she’d had, acquaintances, the life she’d built, everything sacrificed to follow Mindfang. Something that was rewarded with further betrayal, and then she had even less, scraping her way up the ranks, trying to keep watch, and even that, taken in an instant.
[ “What happened to me? I started giving a damn about someone other than myself! And look what it brought me! Exiled from my home! Abandoned by my Quadrant! Left to die in the streets! And still. Still I kept going, rebuilt it all, and then had it destroyed again!” ]
She snarls, too far gone to stop now, old wounds and new alike are opened in a raw outpouring of emotion. Her voice crescendos, her accent thick as she has no presence of mind to smooth it over, sclera darkening from yellow to orange.
[ “...but none of you have ever cared about that, have you? No one spares a thought unless somehow my suffering inconveniences them. And that’s what this is, right? I’m ruining your future kingdom by being stubborn? Why else would you care? And now, this is where you mock me for my sentimentality, right? This is where you tell me it’s my own fault for choosing my Kismesis over my lusus. My ideals over my career. My descendants over myself. Will you sneer when you do it? Turning up your nose at that worthless commoner you’d rather forget? Please Vriska, tell me all the ways I am wrong.” ]
Her voice is dangerously low, body shaking from muscles coiled tight, lips curled back over sharp teeth that catch the low red lighting of the room like they were stained with blood.
[ “Tell me how I should come with you again. So I can either suffer on my own, or make you suffer when I have to start culling people for helping that fucking monstrosity. Or maybe this is more devious than that, maybe you enjoy the torture. Are you trying to break me like Paint? Going to lure me in and let your friends turn me into a corpse like the ones I fished out of the river? Go on! Tell me how I’m being melodramatic! Tell me how insignificant my pain is! Tell me!!” ]
Her breaths come in short gasps, caught somewhere between a growl and a sob and so remaining as neither, her pupils reduced to tiny slits in the sea of teal as she waits for an answer.
[ “Being Alternian means struggling to improve, not living in fear. We’re not programmed like Carapacians, we’re not content to sit like Humans.” ]
It was something that had taken her living in Midnight City for a while to actually recognize the difference between the forced improvement employed by the Condesce, and the natural drive to be stronger that was present without her. Humans were superficially different, which is what made them kick and struggle, but they were all the same when you boiled it down.
Carapacians were all the same, with only a few managing to buck their roles and be more than their programming, those few she had met that did were ones she missed dearly.
Alternians though, they were the ones who were *really* different. Different lifespans, different abilities, a mess of unmatched parts that had no choice but to grind and crash against each other until only the best moved on. Like the evolution that Humans prattled on about, except so much faster and better.
[ “You keep using that excuse, but you’d pick it up, nevermind that you’ll live long enough that you’d be contemporary in a decade or two, probably less.” ]
That was definitely something that she never understood about the younger Alternian, the primitive wasteland that was Midnight City had always been a thorn in her side. Fortunately, their inane laws hadn’t removed any knowledge she had previously, and the fools that grew up there were that much more unprepared for someone with Fleet training, even if she never served on it herself.
[ “Of course.” ]
It wasn’t hard to keep the disappointment out of her voice, considering Vriska had a tendency to not only discard olive branches, but burn down the tree for good measure. Why expect this to be any different? Just because she wanted something didn’t mean she was going to get it, especially from Vriska, best to get used to disappointment.
[ “I should probably find it funny that your Terezi is the only one I haven’t run into yet, especially since you two would be like sisters, or half-sisters maybe, if she was my descendant.” ]
[ “I do see the worst in everything. The worst in everything spent its time trying to cull me my whole younger life, and then I grew up just in time to have an even bigger worst in everything tighten like a noose around all the people I had left to care about in my life.” ]
It was a little difficult to keep the edge out of her voice, even if it wasn’t directed at Vriska. She hadn’t started on her second glass yet, setting it aside as she keeps her voice level, not willing to let it rise into the false range she used for the public.
[ “Why you stay is what I want to know. You could take your quadrants and go anywhere, why stay where the cue ball and the monster could come back? Would it be so bad to start over somewhere else? Out of Mindfang’s shadow? ...out of mine?” ]
Regret was wasted emotion, there wasn’t anything she could do to change the past. She wasn’t even sure that she’d want to if she could, considering the sort of influence she’d have been. Even so...thinking of the years she missed, and then the ones she spent in subterfuge, it was a weight on her that made itself known.
[ “I did consider my options...and don’t think I wrote you off. If I had a transportalizer to Derse right now, I might even take it. I can’t say I’d stay there, I don’t want to be just another dead Redglare, there’s plenty of those already. But. I’m not Mindfang. Whatever it was she was thinking, wherever it is she went, that isn’t me.” ]
Being direct with Vriska was hard, mostly because it seemed like the younger Alternian was raring to turn everything into a personal attack. At this stage though, she didn’t have the luxury of time to beat around the bush.
[ “I... If you wanted me there, and you understand that it wouldn’t be what it was before, it would...be a heavily weighted factor.” ]
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