Riverbound

A blog for my AO3 Hiveswap fanfiction. Icon is by the talented ummmandy on Tumblr. https://ummmmandy.tumblr.com/

[riverboundao3ff]

Having trauma is hard. It’s hard and nobody understands.

[deerchasingheadlights]

its just me, my escapist tendencies, and these tits

[fangirlingsohardithurts]

I’m bold

NOT THAT BOLD

[romcommunist]

i cant believe i fell for that “look angry and upset and hope someone saves you” shit in high school! how boring! what an awful way to live! i want to be so warm that ppl are gently warmed when theyre around me

[romcommunist]

like a soup

[mystic-mousegirl]

like a soup

[diabolicalhardcore]

*MICKEY MOUSE VOICE* YOURE ABOUT TO EXPERIENCE THE WRATH OF A GOD

[mecharose]

I love characters that are completely harmless until they finally unleash their power and then they’re TERRIFYING

[mecharose]

or, even better: totally harmless but occasionally the other characters catch glimpses of what’s underneath and you just know

[this-is-milo-deactivated2022022]

Characters with raw, unbridled power, that choose compassion and kindess anyway

[riverboundao3ff]

GUARDIAN —> BEATDOWN

I promised my readers I’d draw a Riverbound scene for them, so here’s MSPAR (known in my fic as Micah) about to give Bro Strider the ass whooping of a lifetime. This was drawn in like an hour and a half so it’s kind of sloppy but I like it 🥴 You can find the story on AO3 and there’s a few chapters on this page too!

[skaters-art-blog]

hahaha you cant even tell this is the reader

Anyway this is Micah aka the guardian aka MSPAR and their from Riverbound, my favorite homestuck fanfic which you can find on ao3 or @riverboundao3ff you should go read it its my canon on what happened after pesterquest!

[riverboundao3ff]

!!!! I LOVE IT!!! 😳💜

[riverboundao3ff]

A tired Guardian

[riverboundao3ff]

Here’s a little thing I made on Picrew of Micah!

https://picrew.me/image_maker/391245

omoulo's icon maker / アイコンメーカー｜Picrew

Please use the arrows to move items! 矢印を使用してオブジェクトを移動してください！ Be sure to ch...

[riverboundao3ff]

Riverbound, Chapter 21

Your name is KARKAT VANTAS and you can’t stop thinking of that video John showed you that one time with the human gamer yelling “CAPTAIN! LOOOOOK!” even though this is very much real life and there is a fucking enormous pirate ship barrelling right at you.

You barely have your sickles out before Vriska comes barging out of her cabin in full pirate ensemble, sword strapped to her waist and fangs bared. “Eridan, take the lead with me! Aradia, Terezi, and Karkat follow. Try not to get yourselves killed. Micah, up to the crow’s nest and see what the enemy is doing. Feferi, keep us at full clip in a circle.”

“I’m not a very good captain!” Feferi yelps as she almost snaps the wheel in half.

“Don’t worry about it, the 8rigantine’s been through some serious shit. She can take a rookie at the wheel!”

Micah zaps up to the crow’s nest with the eyepiece and trains it on the enemy ship. Despite your bloodpusher hammering away in your chest cavity, your feet carry you over to Aradia and Terezi, both grinning ear-to-ear like the maniacs they are. Both are amazing fighters, and you are… very small. Small, and not very strong.

If Crabdad could see you right now you know the old guy would shit himself on the spot.

“Why am I here,” you mutter, gripping your sickles for all they’re worth. “Fuck, fuck, fuck--”

“Shouldn’t Feferi be giving the orders?” Eridan mutters to Vriska, scowling.

Vriska sneers back at him. “My ship, my rules. If you don’t like it you can swim back to shore.”

“I’ll throw you overboard first, bitch.”

“Good to see some things never change,” Aradia snickers, but you can’t bring yourself to rib Eridan for his black crush as you watch the other ship pull right up against the 8rigantine.

“What’s it look like?” Terezi asks.

“Big. Probably one-and-a-half times the size of the 8rigantine…” You trail off as you see the hostages on board and do a quick count. “There’s about fifteen lowbloods on board. Most of them are rusts and bronzes. I see one gold.”

“A psionic?”

“Yep.”

“Dibs,” Aradia calls.

“He’s all yours,” you mumble, beginning to regret being hatched.

Well, it’s too late to back out now. Aradia lays out the plank with her telekinesis and sends a massive shockwave across to the other ship before the terrified hostages can so much as try to rally together.

“Aradia! Don’t hurt them!” Micah wails in protest.

“Sorry!”

She doesn’t look very sorry, but Vriska and Eridan are already charging across the plank together with fearsome battle cries, Terezi right behind them with swords drawn and Aradia bringing up the rear. From the crow’s nest, Micah yells something about the violetblood captain being in his cabin.

“Oh, I am so getting grounded for this,” you tell nobody in particular, and then you bound across the plank in four quick strides, ignoring the dark, churning waters below, and fling yourself into the fray.

Some bronzeblood takes a swing at you the second your feet hit the deck, but you can tell her bloodpusher really isn’t in it when she scrambles back as you knick her cheek with one of your blades. You dodge around a pair of unarmed rustbloods, sweep the feet out from underneath another bronze, and end up back-to-back with Terezi.

Not too long ago you would have been losing your mind at the thought of fighting alongside the girl you crushed on for a pretty sizable amount of your miserable existence, but at the moment you kind of want to smack her upside the head for letting Vriska drag you guys into this. “Where’s your crazy-ass moirail?”

“Looking for our target! Micah said he’s in his cabin,” she yells over a rustblood girl’s furious screeches as Terezi is able to deflect every blow.

You swipe at a boy who tries to lunge for your arm. “Well I wish she’d hurry--”

A shockwave knocks your flat on your ass before you can finish that sentence. Your ears ring, and you roll over with a groan to see Aradia and the goldblood psionic circling each other, both crackling with invisible energy.

“Back off! Back!” the psionic shrieks, blasting yellow sparks at Aradia. “He’ll kill us all if we lose the session!”

“Nobody’s dying today,” Aradia tells him calmly.

“What?!”

“Just keep fighting. We’re here to help.”

Some of the other hostages obviously overheard the whole thing, because you see several stop circling a hissing Eridan to turn and stare at her. None of them have even tried to attack him. He uses the opportunity to break free and roundhouse the psionic into the mast, knocking him out cold and sending cracks up the wood.

A nearby zap alerts you to the cavalry’s arrival. “Eridan!”

“He was attacking Aradia-!”

“Micahlookout!”

The mast splinters apart at the base and comes down through the deck, before toppling over towards your alien friend. They teleport out of the way just in time, reappearing to grab the unconscious goldblood and disappearing again.

The bronzeblood boy you’ve been swatting at scrubs furiously at his ganderbulbs. “What the-- did I just-?”

“Yeah, they do that,” you explain.

“I wanna go home.”

“Same.”

The sound of glass breaking has everybody jumping back as Vriska and the violetblood dude come tumbling out of the cabin window, screaming and clawing each other up with no mercy whatsoever. Serket’s metal arm is making progress in tearing a gash in the violetblood’s side, but he’s still way stronger than her and just as angry.

“You fucking bitch! This isn’t how you play the game!” he snarls, kneeing her in the gut so hard you hear something snap.

She spits blue blood into his face. “This isn’t a game anymore.”

He kicks her off him and springs to his feet, only for a blast of energy to carve a perfect hole through the center of his chest before he can so much as cuss her out again. There’s no blood, no bits of flesh dangling down into the gap. Out of the corner of your eye, you see Eridan lower his rifle, brows drawn together in concentration.

You stare in shock as Vriska kicks the still-standing corpse overboard.

The following splash is the only sound to be heard for the next couple of moments. You and Micah make eye contact and stare at each other for a little bit. Eridan and Vriska high-five and start ushering the hostages across the plank to the 8rigantine. Aradia just shrugs and helps a bronze girl with a bad knee to her feet so they can go, guiding Terezi along with her other hand.

“Well, that was quick,” you mumble, making your way over to Micah.

They don’t show any outward signs of distress, but the way their gaze doesn’t focus on anything in particular once you both make it to the other side tells you everything you need to know. You want to throw Serket overboard as well; for fuck’s sake, she knows humans are fragile about these sort of things!

They look over at you. “Guess that’s one way to do it.”

“Yeah.” You look out at the horizon, where a pod of skywhales are surfacing to breathe. “I’ll be honest. This rebellion stuff is way less fun than I thought it was gonna be.”

“Me too. Wanna get out of here once we get the hostages back to shore?”

Oh, fuck yes. “Sure. Can we get some of your weird human food?”

“Ask Dave, my guy. I’m broke as hell.”

“Fine.”

You wait impatiently as Micah helps the others down to the beach once the 8rigantine makes it to shore, but you can’t help but feel a surge of warmth when you see the dawning realization on the former prisoners’ faces when they realize that they’ll be going home. You’re smiling as a few of the younger kids grow brave enough to give Micah hugs, which is understandable given that the alien is very soft and huggable. It’s no surprise to you that they’ve managed to land in somebody’s diamond.

“Nothing like trauma to help bring people together,” they say as you watch the group walk off together towards town. “One of them said that they’re gonna make a group chat and call it ‘Hostage Gang’.”

Everybody gets a good chuckle out of that, and most of the tension leaves as you guys head back to Vriska’s hive. Terezi and Aradia start arguing about what blood caste has the thickest skull bone, with Terezi in favor of seadwellers and Aradia insisting it’s the indigos.

Micah bumps your arm. “Ready to go?”

“Yep.”

“Cool. Lemme grab my backpack.”

They zap away and are back in the span of two seconds, backpack slung over their shoulder. You have to tell yourself not to stare, even if you’re still definitely not used to your weird alien friend’s wacky spacetime powers.

Vriska’s face falls. “You’re leaving?”

“Yeah, I’m gonna bring Karkat to Earth to hang out. I’ll be back soon,” Micah tells her.

“... Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Aw, missing your lusus already?” Eridan taunts, before hightailing it back up the path to Vriska’s hive with a furious pirate girl on his heels. Terezi takes off after them with a shriek of delight, with Feferi begging them not to start a fight and Aradia waving back at you as she pelts sand at the back of Eridan’s head.

“Good god,” you mutter.

“Love those assholes,” Micah says, every word laced with affection. They hold out their hand, and with a lot less caution than you used to, you take it.

In the blink of an eye, the both of you are outside Dave’s apartment building with the sun going down behind the skyscrapers in the west. It’s hot as fuck, even for you, and teleporting never fails to make you a little dizzy.

You look up and down the alleyway. Cool, no other humans around.

Taking a running start, you kick off the dumpster underneath the fire escape and grab on to the last rung of the rusty ladder. You pull yourself up with a grunt and start hiking on up to the top floor, concentrating on the horizon to calm down your tilting vision. A bang of boot against metal lets you know Micah is right behind you.

“Why don’t you just teleport up?” you ask.

“Do you want me to take you up?”

“No. It makes me dizzy.”

“Sorry, dude.” They yank off their hoodie with a huff. “I need the exercise.”

“Don’t let Equius hear you say anything like that. For my wriggling day last sweep he gave me an exercise regime and video-called me to personally ensure that I was doing it. It was fucking terrible. Every time I see a stretching mat my ass clenches up so hard I taste shit.”

“... Do you think he’ll come around?” they ask.

You snort. “Who knows. I like the guy, don’t get me wrong, but… he’s pretty set in his ways about the authority of the Empire and the hemospectrum. If Nepeta can’t get through to him, nobody can.”

“Eridan decided he wants to change. So did Vriska.”

You bite your tongue before you can tell Micah that they unwittingly became the lusus-figure of those two jackasses the second they waltzed into their lives. “Yeah, well. Equius is a whole other hoofbeast, pun intended.”

By the time you reach the top level, your thighs are burning, you’re out of breath, and Micah has to brace themselves on their knees while sucking in air like an upright mechanical cleaning device. The usually pale skin is flushed red, and they’re making absolutely no attempt to cover themselves.

All humans have red blood, dumbass. Get over yourself. “How come you can go for three hours straight on Just Dance but get winded going up a few flights of stairs?”

“Man, shut up. You’re breathing heavy, too,” they wheeze.

“Barely.” You pull out your palmhusk and shoot a quick text to Dave, telling him to check the fire escape. Your palmhusk is barely back inside your sweatpants pocket before the window you and Micah are under slides open.

A messy head of blonde hair pokes out, and your gastric tract does a flip when a smirk lifts up the corners of Dave’s mouth. “Two aliens, chillin’ on my fire escape, five feet apart ‘cause they’re not gay.”

“I regret ever letting you in on the incredible gift that awaits this world that is Vine,” Micah sighs. “All those iconic seven-second videos, all those memes that have yet to define Gen Z as a culture… and some greasy millennial Texas kid gets the first crack at it?”

“Micah. Mickey. Mickaroonie. Gen Z was born at the start of 1995. I was born in 1996. I barely made it, but I made it. Slipped right in there like the intruder through Annie’s window, RIP Michael Jackson. Vine is my birthright, same as yours.”

“It will be your birthright.”

“What the fuck is a Vine?” you demand. Stupid humans and their stupid human culture. You still have difficulty believing that their planet is divided up into thousands of different sectors, each with their own laws and languages and governments. How come they just can’t pick one thing and go with it?

“Hush up and get inside, Karkles, both of you are letting all the cold air out,” Dave drawls, backing away from the window so you and Micah can hop in.

You do so and almost immediately eat shit when you land on a pile of comic books that slip out from underneath your feet. “Fuck!”

“Keep it down, bro, the walls are thin.” Dave chucks an empty juice bottle into the trash can across the room. “Thin as a rin-tin-tin, gotta keep on silencin’, can’t let the haters in from the world that keeps on burnin’--”

“If you shut up we’ll tell you about the rebellion that’s happening on Alternia. Past Alternia, that is,” you offer.

That gets his attention. He turns to you, brows drawing tightly together. “A revolution? On your hellhole of a planet? Isn’t that, I dunno, really frickin’ risky? You’re not in danger, are you?”

“Not in my time period, dummy,” you say, crossing your arms to block out the surge of warmth inside of you that has nothing to do with the Texas heat. He cares about your safety. “It’s like, ten sweeps ago? Fifteen? I dunno, Micah’s the one who’s actually in it.”

“Yeah… I don’t know, either. Alternian measurements of time are confusing. But yeah. Me and a bunch of my friends are gonna overthrow the government,” Micah explains.

“Hell yeah, stick it to the man. But, like, be careful.”

“I will. Time shenanigans are kind of my thing.”

“Can we get food now?” you demand.

“Hell yeah we can.” Dave glances behind him, but there’s nobody there. “Yeah… let’s see, Bro’s not gonna be back until Saturday, so we’re good.”

Micah glances over at the calendar on the wall and frowns. It’s Tuesday. You’re not sure what Tuesday is in relation to Saturday, but they don’t seem happy about it.

The three of you end up sneaking around downtown Houston until you locate a McDonald’s. It’s weird, how much safer you feel on Earth in comparison to Alternia. These aren’t your people, and this isn’t your planet, and yet when a group of teenagers pass under the tree you and Micah hide in while Dave goes inside to order you don’t even flinch. It helps that the sun has gone down and you know that humans can’t see in the dark.

“So…” they say, eyeing you thoughtfully. “Do you want me to leave you guys alone? You know, city lights, fast food, two teenagers sitting together under the stars…”

FUCK. You slap at them with a furious hiss. “No! I-- what, no! Who told you? Was it Sollux? It was fucking Sollux.”

“It wasn’t Sollux. You’re pretty obvious, dude,” they remark.

You scrub your face with your hands. “I… he’s just so great, which is stupid because he pisses me off, and he’s an alien, and it’s just impossible. A-And he’s human-heterosexual!”

“Hey. Look at me.”

You look at them.

They smile at you, and your racing bloodpusher calms as you remember that this person is one of the few you can trust with your life. “No relationship is ever easy. You know this. But what you don’t know is that people always find ways to come together. My moirail is an oliveblood assassin, and she’s easily one of the top three things that’s ever happened to me.”

You can’t help it: you smile a little. “What are the other two things?”

“Rice bowls at Chipotle. Meeting you guys.”

“You’re a sappy fuck,” you tell them, even as you snort into the crook of your elbow.

“I sure am, hotshot. Oh, hey, here’s Dave--”

“--eeeeeEEEEEE here it is! Help me up,” a familiar voice announces. You look over the branch you’re stretched out on and reach down to help Dave up while Micah grabs the bags of food from him. His palm is just as warm and sweaty as yours, and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

Once everybody is settled in and munching away on shitty, delicious human food you break out the big guns. “Micah has a moirail.”

“Which one is that?”

“They have a girlfriend. Ew, can’t believe I’m resorting to highblood slang.”

That gets his attention. “Oh, real shit? Is she hot?”

“Yes, Dave. She is hot.”

“What’s she like?”

“Kind. Shredded as all hell. Loves sappy romance novels. Lowkey murders people for a living. Gets embarrassed easily. Like, I’ll say something like ‘I’m gonna shooshpap the anxiety right out of your soul, honey-bunches’ and she absolutely loses her goddamn mind--”

You shriek and slam your hands over your ears, trying to not blush and give yourself away. “No, no, noooooooooo, Micah I’m under nine sweeps old please-!”

“I don’t get it! Why is talking about feelings so sexy?” they yell, throwing their hands up while Dave loses his mind. “Damn! I touched my friend’s cheek the other night ‘cause he was messed up about my ribs being broken and he just about exploded.”

“Slut,” you wheeze.

“Your ribs are broken?” Dave stops laughing and starts poking at the other human. “What? Are you okay? How did you even climb this tree?”

“I’m fine now, buddy, Alternian medical tech is pretty great,” they assure him, ruffling his hair as he swats at them.

“Wack. One time I was in the ER ‘cause I needed stitches and the nurse didn’t even numb me up, she just frickin’ went for it. Big-ass needle, big-ass thread, screaming six-year-old, I think I scared the whole McFrickin’ clinic half to death--”

You want to hear everything about Dave’s bravery in the face of a mediculler, but before you can ask for more details a beam of bright light hits Micah right in the face, making them reel back with an arm thrown over their face.

“What are you kids doing up there, huh?” a deep voice calls.

You look down and almost shit yourself.

Underneath the tree are four fully-grown adult males, all big and with guns strapped to their belts (seriously, why the fuck do humans run around with so many weapons on them when they’re so stupid?) and wearing blue uniforms.

Oh, shit. Dave told you to never trust the ones with the blue uniforms.

“We’re eating McDonald’s in a tree, officer,” Micah explains cheerfully.

“Can I ask why?” The one in the front glares up at you. You shrink back into the foliage as much as you can. Dave grabs your hand, squeezing tightly, and you squeeze back.

“Why not?”

“Can I see some I.D?”

“No. We’re not breaking any laws. This is public property.”

You stare in disbelief as Micah pulls out a fry and munches on it without a care in the world. Were they really not afraid? Did humans just… not fear their authority figures?

They can teleport. Of course they’re not afraid, you remind yourself.

“How many of you are up there?” another one asks.

“Three.”

“Are any of you armed?”

“No, sir.”

“Can you come down, please?”

“No, thanks. We’re fine where we are.”

“You guys want a cheeseburger? The lady who took our order gave me an extra,” Dave offers. “It’s got onions, though. Onions are nasty.”

The one farthest to the left says something into his walkie-talkie. Micah grins.

You know that grin. “What are you--”

“Hey, officers! Wanna see something cool?” they yell. “Watch this!”

They push off the branch they’re leaning on and lunge towards you and Dave. You barely have time to yelp before they’re grabbing your arm and zapping you guys out of there.

Delighted peals of laughter fills the whole apartment as you land face-first into Dave’s bed. You spit out a dirty sock that somehow ended up in your mouth and shove them off the end of the mattress, but you’re laughing too. You’ve never seen anything like that.

Dave looks over at you, gorgeous red eyes twinkling behind his shades and a big smile lighting up his respiteblock, and just for a moment, everything is perfect.

[riverboundao3ff]

Riverbound, Chapter 20

Your name is MICAH, and ten nights have come and gone in what felt like a few hours.

It’s still early enough that even Lynera is still asleep in the next room over, which is really saying something because that girl is up at the asscrack of dusk no matter what night it is. You’re curled up on the sofa in the study, staring at a fungus-shaped nightlight that does a poor job of actually illuminating the surrounding area, and wondering what the hell you were going to tell your friends in the future.

Hey, guys! Sorry I kind of dropped off the grid for a while there. I fought this fucked-up version of one of my human friends, vanished into the literal void to take a nap because I was super tired from splitting a whole universe apart, and then traveled back to the past to help fight in a literal revolution… because I want to save my other friends, I guess? You don’t have to worry about that changing the future or whatever, I promise! I’m literally a god now, so I have total control over time and space.

Geez. You hope Vriska is ready to stop the others from kicking your ass.

Should you just go? You could easily spend the night on future Alternia and be back by breakfast. Teleporting still makes you a little nervous; the fear of messing up still lingers in the back of your head, but nothing bad has happened yet, so…

Yeah, you’re definitely not getting any more sleep. Might as well be productive.

You roll off the couch with a grunt, stagger a bit as all the blood rushes down to your legs, and then stumble over to the bathroom to brush your teeth and wash your face. Maybe you were about to pull up to the future to get yelled at by a bunch of teenagers, maybe not, but that doesn’t mean you have to look like crap.

The person looking back at you in the mirror startles you more than you’d like to admit. Their eyes are tired but wild, like a feral animal that’s been hunted to the point of exhaustion. Too-pale skin reflects the ceiling lights with an intensity that hurts your head if you look for too long. The dark shadows underneath both eyes are so dark they look like smudged mascara. You’ve always been very fair, even for a white kid, but you know that looking like this can’t be healthy.

Then there’s the fact that you’re still pretty underweight. You’ve been doing your best to eat on a somewhat regular basis, but you just don’t feel hungry anymore. It’s like your body already decided to give up.

And to be honest, the rest of you isn’t too far behind.

“Look at you. Sans Undertale looking-ass,” you tell the shadow in the mirror.

The shadow blinks in agreement at the same time you do.

You can’t look at yourself anymore. Moving as quickly as you can, you brush your teeth and do your best to assemble yourself into what could maybe pass for a functional human being and leave to go get dressed.

You’re rifling through your backpack for your water bottle when the lights come on in Lynera’s room. The bedroom door cracks open, and a messy head of pair pokes out, bits of sopor slime still clinging to black curls.

“Micah? What are you doing up so early?” she yawns.

“I, ah, I gotta go visit some friends a ways out of town. I’ll be back in a bit,” you promise. “Sorry if I woke you up.”

“You didn’t! A new cluster of eggs is due to hatch tonight and I want to be there!” she practically sings as she gets ready.

You feel the sadness leave your body as Lynera practically prances around as she gets ready for her shift. It’s not often she lets down her walls, but when she does, you can’t help but take a step back to enjoy the show.

“Give those babies some love for me,” you tell her as you hoist your backpack over your shoulders.

“I will!”

Alright. Here we go. You close your eyes and visualize Vriska’s living room. That’s a good place to start, right? You’ll have a quick talk with Vriska, you’ll go visit your other friends one at a time to explain what’s going on, and then you can talk to those who are interested about helping the rebellion from the future.

Time and space part easily as you zap out of Lynera’s study and--

“-- worry about OH MY FUCKING GOD.”

You yelp in surprise as somebody shrieks at a deafening volume right next to your ear. Instincts take over, and you spring backward into something big and hard. That ‘something’ turns out to be a bookshelf, as you soon find out as a couple of novels fall from the top shelves and hit you right on the head.

“Ow! Shit!”

And that’s when you realize you have twelve young teenagers sitting around Vriska’s living room, all staring at you in various degrees of shock. Nepeta, Equius, Kanaya, and Sollux are all on the sofa, with Sollux perched on the backrest like he’s ready to take flight. Terezi and Vriska are standing on the coffee table together for some reason. Eridan’s curled up on the loveseat with one hand on his rifle. All of the others are sprawled out on the carpet.

All of the others except for Karkat, that is, who seems to have been returning from the kitchen with a pile of chips on his plate.

“Oh, hi!” Aradia says cheerfully. “Wow, I can see your bones--”

“THEY’RE BAAAAAAAACK!” Vriska hollers, launching herself off the coffee table and slamming into you at full speed.

The air is smooshed out of your lungs before you can brace yourself for impact. Thankfully, Vriska catches you before you can eat shit, otherwise you would have probably just teleported back to past Alternia and tried this whole thing again some other time.

“Hey, Vris,” you wheeze, patting her back. “Happy to see you too.”

“Fucking HELL, don’t do that,” Karkat yells, stomping over to the sofa and plopping down next to Kanaya. Kanaya purses her lips in mild amusement and delicately plucks a chip from his plate to eat.

Vriska just scoffs. “Don’t be a baby, Vantas, you know full well Micah can teleport--”

“Eat my full ass, Serket.”

“Hi, Micah!” Nepeta trills. A general murmur of greetings follows that, some more enthusiastic than others. Sollux, Equius, and Tavros all seem to be very on-edge tonight.

Feferi actually hops up to give you a hug as well, thankfully with a lot more care than Vriska had. It’s becoming weirdly normal to know that this big-ass six-sweep old girl could crush your skull like an eggshell.

“Don’t worry, nobody’s mad at you, I promise,” she whispers in your ear.

“Huh?”

Vriska grins and clasps your shoulder. “Oh, I already told them everything.”

“... Oh, boy.”

You turn back to the others and try your best winning smile.

“Yeah, what the fuck, dude?” Sollux demands.

“How are we even gonna exist with this kind of thing?” Karkat splutters, throwing his hands up in the air.

Tavros winces. “We get that you can do crazy space-time stuff, but--”

“You’re in way over your pan, retard!”

Ah, fuck. “Listen, guys, I know what I’m doing sounds pretty insane. And I’m sorry that I can’t tell you how exactly I’m going to pull all of this off because… you know, time shenanigans. But I need you guys to trust in me, at least for now. Also, Karkat, let’s not use that word. It’s extremely disrespectful.”

“Who are you, my lusus?” he challenges.

“No. Should I zap over and get him myself?”

“NO!”

“That’s what I thought.”

Vriska snickers under her breath. Karkat gives her a look that just screams murder.

Everybody else still looks a little queasy. Guilt rears its ugly head for the millionth time in the hour you’ve been awake, fearful and taunting and ashamed all at the same time. If you could just tell them everything, right now, you wouldn’t have to feel like this anymore.

Tell them.

You don’t, because you’re a coward, but you do try and calm everybody’s nerves again. “To elaborate on what Tavros just tried to say, yes, I can do crazy space-time stuff. Which means I can do stuff in one point in time and it won’t completely fuck up all the other points in time. It’ll change things, sure, but it won’t erase people.”

“What about our memories?” Eridan asks tersely.

“Definitely not,” you tell him. I won’t let that happen. “If everything goes according to plan, things will just start… changing.”

“We’re gonna make a new world that’s better for everybody!” Vriska announces proudly. “That’s why you guys are all here today.”

“By our human friend fighting in a rebellion that was already lost? Setting aside the fact that’s… treason… that also sounds rather dangerous. Micah, you aren’t a great fighter,” Equius says. His voice is quiet, but he’s so stiff you could probably use him to prop open a barn door.

“A rebellion is a lot more than just fighting, dude. So far I’ve just helped teleport people around,” you remind him.

“... Still.”

Nepeta suddenly surges to her feet, eyes blazing. “I don’t care that it’s treason! Don’t you care about what they did to me? My whole neighborhood got burned down in a drone strike!”

“Nepeta--”

“No! I remember everything now. I’m gonna help them win, ‘cause, ‘cause… even though we all had to suffer, the ones who come after us might not have to.”

Nobody speaks for many heartbeats after that. Something about what she said rings inside your head, sticking to your neurons like glue.

“See? Nepeta knows what’s good!” Terezi yells.

“This is insane.”

“Yeah, it’s awesome!”

“I’m in,” Aradia agrees, winking at you as she smooths her skirt down. Your anxiety backs down a little at her blatant support. Aradia Knows Things, right? Surely if she thinks you should keep doing what you’re doing…

“So am I,” Tavros announces, setting his jaw defiantly. Nepeta seems to have set off a chain reaction, because everybody else sits up a little straighter, eyeing each other as if daring anybody else to go first.

“And I,” Kanaya adds.

Karkat groans. “Fuck you guys. Fine! It’s not like we can play SGRUB anymore.”

“You guys are gonna die,” Sollux says, scrubbing his face with the palms of his hands. “We. Are. All. Gonna. Die.”

“So are you in?” you ask, reaching over to poke his arm.

He smacks your hand away. “Get fucked. Sure. Whatever.”

“Yay!”

Eridan huffs quietly and crosses his arms. “Well, you guys are gonna need somebody with power to help. And money. I’m in.”

Equius turns to stare at him with his jaw nearly on the floor, and you’re so full of pride you think you’re going to explode. You should have known your friends would eventually come around. And with not one, but two whole seadwellers on their side, they were truly going to be a force to be reckoned with.

“I knew it! I knew you cared!” Feferi squeals, jabbing a finger at her ex-moirail. Eridan curls up tighter on himself, but that doesn’t stop a small smile from lighting up his face.

“Is that a yes from you, Feferi?”

“It’s a hell yes, Micah!”

Gamzee smiles lazily from underneath the coffee table. “I told you motherfuckers. I told you a miracle was coming, and here it is.”

Poor Equius looks like he’s on the verge of a panic attack. “I-I… you can’t possibly, I mean--”

“If you’ll excuse us!” Nepeta chirps, effortlessly pulling her moirail from the couch and slinging him over her muscular shoulders. The indigoblood yelps indignantly, but Nepeta just prances on upstairs as if she’s carrying a sack of potatoes and not a teenage boy nearly twice her size.

“What’s up with olivebloods and being insanely buff? I mean, my girlfriend’s taken on a jadeblood and a teal at the same time and she won,” you wonder.

Karkat immediately focuses on you with the intensity of a laser. “A girlfriend? You’re in a relationship?”

“Micah’s got a girlfriend!” Feferi yells, picking you up and twirling you around.

“What quadrant?”

“Is she cute?”

“An oliveblood, right-?”

“We wanna meet her!”

“Guys! Can we please focus on taking down the Empire? We can gossip about Micah’s love life later!” Vriska yells, clapping her hands for order.  

You rest an elbow on Feferi’s shoulder, enjoying being tall for the moment as she’s carrying you. “Ooh! You got a mission plan, Vriska?”

“You bet your skinny alien ass I do!” She pauses for emphasis and puffs out her chest. “We’re gonna go beat up a bitch for using lowbloods as FLARP bait!”

“Didn’t you do the exact same thing not too long ago?” Karkat scoffs.

Vriska scowls down at him. “Yes! Yes, I did! But now I’m gonna turn things around and help them instead, okay? ‘Cause I’m changing my…. my toxic behavior.”

She looks to you for support, and you give her the thumbs-up.

The others actually look a little impressed, which gives her the courage to keep going. “In half an hour Terezi and I are going to meet this violetblood dude who’s been responsible for a lot of rust and bronze deaths in the area. It’s a FLARP session at sea, so he’ll have his team-- I mean hostages-- on board with him.”

“You need a team?” you ask.

“You offering?”

“Of course.”

“Yes! But no passing out on me! Our goal is to neutralize the threat, secure the hostages, and deliver them back to shore so they can go home. Any questions?”

“I’m coming too,” Eridan says. He hops to his feet, dusting off some invisible debris on his pants. “That’s not a question, though.”

“Can I come? It sounds exciting,” Aradia begs.

“Sure! Anybody else?” Vriska scans the crowd with a smirk, as if saying You are all too pussy for this kind of adventure.

Unfortunately, it works. Karkat and Feferi step forward as well, which brings the team total up to six. Everybody else gets ready to go home before the sun comes up. Out on the horizon, heat lightning crackles in the sky like a strobe ball. You end up leaving your jacket with your backpack on the couch, because even for somebody who has trouble retaining heat, Alternian summers are brutal.

Surprisingly, the team figures out their FLARP-ing shit quickly enough, as they all played at one point or the other. You still have no idea what to make out of all the numbers and stats and scores that come with each move, even though Vriska makes it all look like child’s play. Karkat keeps grumbling about “games for girls” which has your hackles up until you remember that female trolls tend to be more violent than the males. That makes sense to you, especially when you remember Remele beating the shit out of that purpleblood and all of Lynera’s knives.

In almost no time at all the six of you are sailing out to sea, the wind in your hair and the smell of salt water filling your nose. If you close your eyes and pretended, you could almost imagine you’re back on Earth, taking a boat ride with your mom’s boyfriend and your stepsister at the lakehouse--

A particularly large wave knocks you back on your ass, and the memory cuts off as quickly as it began.

“Fuck!” you hiss, trying to get your bearings. You try as hard as you can to visualize what you just remembered, but all you can recall is sunlight sparkling off water, the rumble of an engine, a man laughing and nearly choking on his beer as your tiny preteen self got knocked around by the rocking of the motorboat.

A strong hand picks you up by the arm and sets you on your feet. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Thanks, Fef.” You pat her elbow. “Sometimes it’s rough being a little guy.”

Her eyes are round with sympathy. “Looks like it. That reminds me, I wanna ask your opinion on something really important.”

“Oh, okay!” Wow, the Heiress of Alternia is asking my opinion on something? Talk about friends in high places.

… Wait, what was I trying to remember?

“What do you think of the hemospectrum?”

You purse your lips. “Well, if that ain’t a loaded question I dunno what is.”

“I mean, you don’t have to answer, but…”

“You know what I think? I think that the hemospectrum could have been a really good thing. Those who live for quite some time, paving the way for those who won’t be here as long? Sounds great. But then it became about power and control. And-And I think that if-- that once we win, we can’t go back to that system. There’s just too much trauma that’s been birthed from it that’s affected literally every troll to have ever existed,” you explain.

Feferi considers that, and then she nods in agreement. “That makes sense.”

“Oh, shit, is it big brain hour?” Terezi calls from the wheel.

“It is!” Then you do a double-take. “Why is the blind girl driving?”

“Vriska’s getting dressed.”

“Do you even know where we’re going?”

“Forward.”

“Bruh.”

Karkat throws up for the fifth time over the side of the ship. You groan and stumble over to him to pat his back.

“You’ll get your sea legs soon,” you promise.

“I hate the ocean. Why does there need to be oceans. I never would have thought I would ever say this but by infant Troll Jegus do I miss Texas. It’s hot, it’s human-racist, but there is hardly any damn water and for that it’s easily one of the best places I’ve ever been,” he rasps.

You smile. “Wanna see Dave after this is over?”

“Yes, please. Strider’s bullshit is the only thing that can numb me to the pain of occupying the realm of mortals.”

Out of the corner of your eye, you see Eridan smirk. You turn to look at him in confusion, and he makes the quadrant symbol for flushcrush: two thumbs pressed together over the center of his chest, where a troll’s heart would be.

Really? you mouth at him, delighted by this unexpected turn of events. He nods eagerly, clearly just as enthusiastic about Karkat getting a boyfriend as you are, but before you can sneak off with him to get the tea his gaze fixates on something past you.

You turn to see the small speck of what is undoubtedly another ship coming your way. A ship that is much bigger and fancier than the 8rigantine, at full sail and most likely armed to the teeth.

“He’s coming on our eleven!” Feferi calls up to Terezi.

“Go get Vriska,” the tealblood orders. Her perfectly white fangs flash in the light of the moons as she grins like a shark. “Time to kick this bitchboy’s ass!”

[riverboundao3ff]

Riverbound, Chapter 19

Your name is WANSHI ADYATA and you think you just walked in on a muscular theatre session between an alien, an oliveblood, and Lynera Skalbi.

The night had started out normally enough, except a little bit better than usual because one of your classes got canceled, which almost never happens! You decided to go see if Daraya wanted to finish creating her Soldier Purrbeasts OC with you, but she was busy because of her chores. That made you try to find Karako instead but one of the older girls told you he left earlier for church. Annoyed, you went off to the dining hall to grab a snack, only to run into Lanque. Lanque asked if you wanted to help make your friend calm the hell down.

And here you are.

“Polypa! Let go!” Micah cries, thrashing violently in the oliveblood’s arms. Wow, you’ve never seen a non-jadeblooded troll in the caverns before. “Put me-- why can’t I teleport? Why can’t I-!”

“You need to calm down!” Lynera begs, trying and failing to restrain the alien’s arms. She’s afraid of hurting them, but that means she isn’t using the strength she needs to subdue them.

“Calm down my ass!”

“Micah, we can’t let you go kill a god because you feel like it,” Polypa tries to reason. She tries to shoosh-pap them, only for them to rear back and kick at her kneecaps.

“He killed my friend! I will tear down this entire solar system!”

Hazel eyes flash pure green, and your bloodpusher starts to race in fear. You creep closer to Lanque, who’s been silent, but he doesn’t look afraid so you won’t be either. Friends being scared of each other isn’t what real friends do.

He clears his throat. Everybody stops what they’re doing and stares at him. “Micah, what was the first thing I said to you when we met at Ardata’s party?”

Micah blinks. “I, uh… you asked me why I look the way I do?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“To distract you.”

In one swift movement, Polypa arranges them into a wiggler-carry in her arms and sits down on the loungeplank, holding them tight enough so they can’t escape.

“Traitor,” Micah growls.

“It’s only temporary, darling. As much as I’d love to help you wipe that Scratch bastard from the face of the multiverse for all he’s done, now is simply not the time. You’re in no shape to be doing something like that.”

“Or ever! Please don’t run off to fight a god!” Lynera pleads.

Lanque scoffs. “Well, I’d help you fight a god, even if she won’t. But I digress.”

“Lanque! Don’t give them ideas!”

“Shut up.”

“You shut up!”

“Or what? Going to cry about it, Ska-?”

“BOTH OF YOU ARE GIVING ME A FUCKING MIGRAINE. OH MY GOD. SOMETIMES I WISH ULTIMATE DIRK SNAPPED MY NECK WHEN HE HAD THE CHANCE. IF YOU BOTH DON’T SHUT UP I’M TELLING BRONYA YOU PITCH FLIRTED IN FRONT OF WANSHI. I AM SERIOUSLY AT MY LIMIT, FOLKS. SHUT. THE. FUCK. UP.”

You stare in awe as Lanque, Lynera, and Polypa all back away as Micah leaps to their feet and bears down on Lanque with a furious snarl. “Do not antagonize Lynera!” They turn and point at the girl in question, who is trying to flatten herself into the wall while looking anywhere but at them. “Don’t tell me what to do! And you.” They glare down at Polypa. “If you ever restrain me like that again I’m breaking up with you.”

With that, they whirl around, storm up the stairs, and slam the door behind them hard enough for it to rattle on its hinges.

A moment of dead silence deafens everybody in the room.

“... Is it just me or was that kind of hot?” Lanque asks.

Lynera swallows nervously. “I think we broke them.”

Polypa nods, looking immensely sad and guilty.

You sigh. You know what you need to do. “I’m gonna go talk to them.”

All three of the grown-ups turn to look down at you.

“Are you sure, Wanshi? They seemed pretty upset.” Lynera says. She picks at a loose thread on her sleeve, one of her many nervous habits. “It might be best to just let them cool down.”

You cross your arms. “No! They just need somebody to actually listen to them. Bye!”

Lynera calls after you as you run up the stairs, but you’re on a mission and Wanshi Adyaya never fails a mission.

Their scent trail is super distinct ‘cause they don’t smell anything like a troll, so you’re able to follow it all the way back up to the main level, and then to the main entrance. You have to dodge a bunch of other girls who are going to class due to the fact that you’re supposed to be going to class… but you don’t really care. You’re doing something far more important than learning about stuff you can just ask Lanque about later.

Just as you reach the tunnel that leads to the outside world, the trail abruptly doubles back and you have to turn around. You walk along it patiently as it takes you to one of the offshoots that almost nobody knows about except you and a choice few others.

… You are SUNPETAL of SHADECASTE, and you are tracking down your wayward castemate after they ran away from a Gathering gone awry. TWINKLEMOON of STORMCASTE, former rogue turned popular caste-cat, must be found and comforted no matter what the cost! All five castes grieved as if they lost their own family after they mysteriously disappeared for half a sweep, presumed dead by all. That sort of thing must never happen again!

Sniffing the air, you confirm you’re on the right track and keep marching on into the dimly-lit tunnel. Fresh air blows over your face, bringing with it the odor of acid rain.

You find them curled up at the small opening, watching lightning crackle in the late evening sky.

“I know you’ve come and gone farther than most, Twinklemoon, but I’m afraid where you rest won’t give you any shelter from the storm,” you announce.

They shake their head as they gaze up at the dark clouds. “I fear no storm except the one inside me, Sunpetal.”

“Storms can be scary,” you agree. “And yet rain gives life to plants and animals, and the wind blows away the sorrows of yesterday, and the lightning starts fires that clear away dead vegetation so that new forests may grow in its stead.”

“So there is beauty in suffering?”

“No. But there’s always hope.”

Micah looks back at you, sighs, and hops down from the ledge, closing the hatch behind them as the first drops of acid rain begin to fall. One lands on their arm, and they wipe at it with an absent grunt of pain.

“Try not to be too angry with them,” you tell them. “They want to help you, and they really care about you-- we all do. We just don’t know how to show it. You’re not a troll, so yeah.”

“... You don’t have to involve yourself in this kind of stuff, Wanshi,” they say quietly.

You huff. “Well, I want to be involved. I’m part of the rebellion, too.”

They grin, something in their eyes softening. “I know.”

“Are you mad ‘cause you’re hurting?”

“... Yeah. I’m… not well, Wanshi. My brain isn’t, anyways.” They sit down on the carpet and pull their bony knees up to their chest. “I don’t know exactly how trolls behave in response to trauma, but for humans we have flashbacks to the event that hurt us, and we get angry for no good reason, and sometimes when we’re angry we accidentally hurt the people around us.”

“How are you gonna get better?”

“I don’t know. I’m going to get worse before I get better.”

“Because you don’t know how to get better.”

“Exactly.”

You think about that, and then you think about what you could say to make them feel a little better. “Sometimes Karako gets angry because he’s super smart but he can’t communicate like you or I do. That doesn’t mean he deserves to be lonely. It just means we each have to work a little harder to understand what’s going on.”

Micah turns to face you, pale brows furrowing. “Wanshi? How smart is Karako?”

“Wellllll… he can draw really well. And he always knows what people are feeling! Like, he always knows what’s going on when I talk to him. I don’t really know how to explain it, but I think the way his brain works lets him understand things a little differently. Not more or less, just… different,” you explain.

“... Huh.”

“What I’m trying to say is that you should talk to us more. Maybe you’re a pale slut, but you’re our pale slut, so we want to hear about your problems!” you declare.

They burst out laughing and fall back, throwing an arm over their face. “Oh, geez, don’t let Bronya hear you talk like that!”

You blow a raspberry at them. “I’m gonna be a teenager in a few sweeps! I don’t care what Bronya thinks!”

“I know.”

“Or Lynera.”

“Alright, alright. Thanks for talking with me, Wanshi.”

“No problem! Just promise that you’ll keep talking to us so we can help you.” You hold out your “pinkie finger” as they call it, and they reach out to link it with their own. “No more secrets.”

A flash of something like pain darkens their eyes for a split second, but it comes and goes so quick you’re honestly not sure if you even saw anything at all. “... Okay.”

“Good. Wanna go back to the others and get your moirail out of here? It’s kind of illegal for anybody except jadebloods to be here.”

Hazel eyes grow round. “Oh, shit, I completely forgot about that.”

The both of you run all the way back to Lynera’s study, but you can’t stop giggling at Micah’s little utterances of “Shitshitshitshitshitshit--” under their breath. Something about them reminds you of a fussy baby purrbeast.

The next several minutes of your life are very entertaining.

“Polypa! Why are you here? It’s illegal!” Micah yells as they tear down the stairs to Lynera’s study at maximum velocity. “It’s illegal!”

You watch as the two start squabbling. Polypa is on the verge of a messy breakdown because hello, her moirail just threatened to break up with her, Micah is yelling at her for risking her life by being in the caverns, Lanque has somehow gotten a bag of chips and is munching away while looking totally enthralled by the whole mess, and Lynera keeps trying to no-clip through the floor. That or she’s constipated, you don’t know for sure.

“Can I have one?” you ask Lanque.

He passes you the bag, never taking his eyes off Micah and Polypa. “Wanshi, what you’re seeing right now is the reality of serious relationships. It is also the highest form of entertainment known to trollkind.”

“Lanque, that’s our friend and their moirail, not entertainment!” Lynera hisses.

“My dearest Lynera, I said their situation is funny, not the people themselves. There’s a difference.”

“Not really!”

“Oh, shush. You wouldn’t know what humor is if it slapped your ass and insulted your lusus.”

“And you wouldn’t know what being a decent person is like if it put you on evenings for the rest of the sweep for cavern duties.”

Oh, boy. You lean back as Lanque turns to glare at Lynera with utter disdain, but thankfully Micah and Polypa put a stop to the fistfight that would no doubt have happened by wrapping up their argument.

“Well, I’ve just received word that an old associate who makes electro-bombs is back in town from vacation. I think I’m going to pay him a visit,” Polypa huffs, brushing by Micah with her head held high.

They splutter. “Fine! You do that. A-And be careful!”

“I will!”

“Good!”

“Text somebody we both know as soon as you leave so I know you’re safe!”

“Fine! I was going to do that anyways.”

“You better.”

Polypa slams the door behind her, only to reemerge and glare around the corner at her moirail. “Love you. Take a shower.”

She runs off before Micah can get the last word.

“What’s up with everybody telling me to take a shower!” they yell, throwing their hands up in the air. “I try, okay? Not my fault I’m a stinky little human!”

“Do you want to use my shower?” Lynera offers.

“... Yeah. Thanks.”

You nod, satisfied. “My work here is done.”

Deciding Micah is in good hands and that Lanque and Lynera aren’t going to rip each other’s throats out, you race up the stairs and out of the study to go find the scary oliveblood girl who is also somehow your alien friend’s moirail.

There’s something you need to ask her.

By the time you catch up to her she’s already out of the caverns and making her way down the trail to the city, but you don’t let that stop you. Her legs are way longer than yours, so you have to jog to keep up.

She gives you a confused look as you fall into step alongside her. It’s always been pretty funny to you how other castes really have no idea how to interact with trolls younger than them. “Uh, aren’t you supposed to be back underground?”

“My bio class doesn’t start for another half hour. I gotta ask you something.”

“Yeah?”

“So, I wanna fight too, right? Like, in the rebellion with you guys! But Lanque says I’m too young. So can you tell me how I can be a part of everything, too?”

Polypa slows before coming to a halt. “Kid, look. As much as I’d happily shove Bombyx off a rooftop, I have to say he’s in the right about this one. You should feel lucky you have a reason to not get involved in all this shit.”

Anger makes your lips curl up. “Wow. And I thought you might actually be cool.”

“Manipulation doesn’t work on me, but nice try.”

“Come on, you have to give me something!”

“... How about this?” She squats down a little to look you in the eye. “Go enjoy your wigglerhood for all the kids who don’t get to. It’ll be over before you know it, believe me. Have fun, make a lot of friends, see if there are any other jades who might be interested in making the world a better place. It’s the little things that count.”

She’s gone before you can respond, and then it’s just you and the steady patter of rain that’s starting to sting your skin.

You don’t even bother to pretend to listen to Lynera’s scolding as she meets you at the cave entrance with a towel. Polypa’s words ring around the insides of your pan like church bells.To be more specific, the last thing she said.

You’re still wet when you go to class with a towel around your shoulders and without a single bit of motivation to actually listen to the instructor, but for the first time since this whole thing started, a little spark of hope warms you from the inside out.

Your name is Wanshi Adyata, and you’re going to lead the first jadeblood rebellion in Alternian history.

[riverboundao3ff]

Riverbound, Chapter 18

Pancakes turn out to be a great idea, because you haven’t had breakfast yet and you get more time to think about what you’re going to say when you’re chewing on a mouthful of delicious sweetened bread, berries, and syrup.

“I can’t believe you’re alive,” Ardata says for the umpeenth time. You had let her rant for the past ten minutes about how sad she’d been after you disappeared, about her GrubTube career going down the drain after she’d been hacked, and then eventually making friends with Elwurd and Remele because, in her words, “They were the only trolls interesting enough to make me want to go out and Do Things.”

Elwurd snorts. “Only after countless wipes of bitching and moaning, but okay.”

“I had to unlearn everything I was raised to believe-!”

“Yeah, yeah, we know.” She looks back to you and grins. “We’re just happy you’re okay. Where the hell did you even go, dude?”

“Well… I was kidnapped, there were some interesting shenanigans involving space and time, made some new friends, yelled at a couple of assholes, and then I found my way back here,” you summarize. If you had a nickel for every time you’ve explained what happened to you, you’d have enough money to buy an actual hive to live in.

“Good gog,” Remele mutters, sipping on her coffee. “That sounds… rather stressful.”

“It was, believe me.”

Next to you, Polypa clears her throat, not meeting the eyes of the ceruleans. You don’t blame her; she’s a lowblood and all three of the other girls are intimidating, especially Elwurd. “So, you three are part of that… group?”

Ardata purses her lips, but it’s Remele who answers. “It’s… a wee bit complicated. We know Dammek and Xefros, of course, but we’re more focused on taking out direct threats to the rebellion instead of social justice.”

“We’re a highblood ally group, basically,” Elwurd clarifies.

You blink. “Dammek and Xefros?”

“The bronze and the rust up on that overturned scuttlebuggy. They’re in charge of the whole thing. They’re pretty cool.”

Remele nods. “Xefros is the one who found the other rebellion faction and located you.”

“Dude must have had a hell of a night finding an alien,” Polypa mutters, amused.

The ceruleans fall strangely silent. Elwurd sucks her teeth and looks over at Remele, who looks at Ardata, who makes a face at her and stares down at her waffles. You instantly know that something big happened, something that they’re hesitant to tell you.

“So, about that,” Elwurd says.

“What?”

Remele hums nervously, tapping a claw against the plastic of the table you’re all sitting around.

“What?” you demand.

“Look. This is going to sound a little insane, but…”

“A human child came to Alternia while you were away,” Elwurd finished.

“... WHAT?!”

<>

Your name is ELWURD, and you are running away from a pissed-off indigo chick who just wanted to enjoy her pancakes. This is disappointing, because she’s pretty hot and you haven’t had a date in like, two perigees, but maybe you’ll catch her later at the party you’ll be throwing next wipe and apologise.

“Why don’t we just fight her? There’s five of us against one!” Remele complains as she vaults over a fence with you hard on her heels.

“I’m not fighting that bitch, she’s huge!” Ardata yells from up ahead.

“Second that!” the alien calls from somewhere behind you. They’re surprisingly speedy for a little guy, but they do have great legs. Not that you’ve been looking.

Polypa speeds past you in a black-and-olive blur and flings herself up the wall of the abandoned drill factory you’re all heading towards. “Rule number one of fighting indigos: try not to.”

Ardata zooms up after her, yelping as the tip of her boot gets caught on a stray shingle as she vaults herself up onto the roof. She’s come a long way from being some spoiled GrubTube celebrity, you’ll give her that, but her parkour skills still need a lot of work.

You and Remele bring up the rear, and before you can turn around to help the alien up a little zapping sound like a plasma ball being bounced around sounds from just behind you. You turn in surprise to see the alien standing on the roof with you guys, hands on their knees and out of breath. They give you a thumbs-up.

“Did you just…” you begin, unsure if the stuff you snorted off your own kneecap last morning wore off completely, but from the looks Remele and Ardata are giving your mutual friend you think you aren’t high anymore.

Polypa sighs. “Yes, my moirail can teleport. No, I really don’t know why.”

“HEY!”

You lean over to peer down at the indigo chick. “Yo!”

“You load of bitches better learn to treat your superiors with respect! You’re lucky I don’t feel like climbing this shitpile!” she spits.

“Right, totally because you’re not out of breath,” you call back. “Man, you indigos are all the same. All muscle, no stamina.”

“Or pancells,” Ardata sneers.

“Or decency,” Remele finishes.

She snarls loud enough for it to echo off the walls before storming off back the way she came. Polypa gives her the finger, smirking proudly as she watches the indigo stomp off into the night. You can see why the alien chose her to be their moirail.

“So.”

You turn back to see the alien tapping their foot impatiently. “The tea. Please.”

“Well… weird portal thingie brought over this girl from Earth named Joey. Weird portal thingie also sent over Dammek to Earth. Shenanigans ensued. Drama happened. I fistfought a violetblood in the parking lot at GrubMart. Somehow, we managed to get everybody back where they belong, and nobody even died. Yay.”

You hope Joey and Jude are doing alright-- they were great kids, even if being around them was a little painful. Both of them reminded you so much of your long-lost friend. Maybe it was a human thing to be overly nice, super goofy, and a total crackhead all at the same time.

The alien’s hazel eyes are focused on something past you. Their lips are moving but no sound is coming out. They begin to shake.

Polypa calls their name, darting forward to grab her moirail’s shoulders. They look like they don’t even see her.

“Hey, are they…” You don’t finish your sentence, because hello, your friend is obviously having a panic attack.

“It’s him. It’s him. It’s gotta be, Polypa, he’s still…” they gasp, the rest of the color draining from their already pale face. “He’s still here, he’s gonna come for me--”

“No no, it’s okay, you’re okay,” she whispers frantically, trying to shooshpap them even though they’re human and that sort of thing doesn’t work on humans. “Listen-no, look at me. You’re safe. You’re safe--”

Ardata jumps back as their eyes flash bright green, like neon searchlights in the dark. They don’t look like themselves anymore.

They look like--

“What’s happening?” Remele asks worriedly. You wave her away, following the little voice in your head that’s urging you to stay back.

Something feels terribly wrong.

<>

You are THE GUARDIAN. You are the Guardian. You are the Guardian. You are the Guardian. You are the Guardian. You are the Guardian. You are the Guardian. You are the Guardian.

And the universe is splitting apart.

Of course it’s not in the sense that corporeal beings like yourself would be able to see, but because you’re a god you can feel it. You can feel it in every atom. It’s in every proton and neutron in your physical form, wiring into you, deeper and deeper until you can’t feel anything but the shriek of reality being torn apart like a wet napkin. The pain hits you soon after.

Your legs give out and you fall.

You grab for the tear, try and smooth it back together, stop the bleeding. You’re bleeding. Why won’t it stop--

Somewhere far away, you can hear Polypa calling for you, but no matter how hard you try you can’t answer her. Come back. Please come back.

Please

I

    can’t

The last shreds of your vision that aren’t dominated by black spots vanish at last, and you gratefully fall into the darkness.

You’re not sure when, but eventually there is a light shining from deep within the void. You twist around to stare at it mid-fall.

You blink, stunned, and then you’re standing in a school cafeteria. Sunlight streams in through the big glass windows-- Earth sunlight. It warms you from the outside in, like you’re being thawed emotionally as well as physically. The lunch tables are all folded neatly against the opposite wall. In the air is the familiar smell of linoleum and french fries; it must have been burger day. God, you miss burger day.

There’s no soreness from tumbling across the pavement earlier when you knocked Ardata out of the way of that drone. No scabs are visible on your knuckles. Every breath you take is like inhaling pure oxygen, even with nothing around to produce it. For the first time in what feels like years, you are in absolutely no pain whatsoever.

Soft footsteps behind you alert you to the presence of another. You turn, bracing yourself for anything, for him, but…

“I knew you could do it.”

She grins at you with eyes that sparkle like stars, pride radiating from every fiber of her being. Her dress is free from dirt and looks as new as the day it was made. The sunlight catches in her jet black hair and makes the white of her dress glow gold.

“Boldir,” you choke, a hard lump forming in your throat even as you run for her and throw yourself into her strong arms.

Boldir catches you without hesitation and holds you tightly, gently rocking you back and forth. You’re crying but you can’t bring yourself to feel embarrassed and it’s amazing.

You laugh wetly, wiping at your eyes. “How-- what? How are you here? Why are you here? What even is this place?”

“Good questions!” She looks very proud of herself. “Reaching you took a lot of work, but I found out that the easiest way was to create a space where you could astral project into. A place buried so deeply into your subconscious even he couldn’t make you forget about it.”

You look around, knowing who Boldier is talking about but still baffled as to why you’re in a school cafeteria. “This… this is a school.”

“Yep! Does anything look familiar?”

It hits you like a punch to the gut the second she says it. With a gasp, you whirl around, taking everything in as a memory resurfaces from the sea of the life you once led.

About ten feet away, a fuzzy image forms out of thin air. A bunch of teenagers are sitting around one of the lunch tables, yelling and laughing, doing homework, eating, showing each other stuff on their phones. They become more solid the longer you look at them, like you’re trying to focus on them through a microscope.

Sitting between a dude with a varsity jacket and a pretty brunette girl is a small blonde kid, easily the shortest person at the table, their hair down past their shoulders. They’re reading something off the brunette’s phone and almost spit out their chocolate milk when they start giggling.

It was the last day of your sophomore year, you remember. You were going to hang out with your friends after school. You can’t recall exactly what you guys did, but it’s so far away in your memory you can’t even begin to think about what it might have been. The little blonde kid looks so happy, their only worry being what colleges they should apply for next fall.

You don’t even know you’re crying until Boldier wipes the tears from your face with a soft, sympathetic noise.

“This is my high school. Those were my friends. I… I grew up here, Boldir,” you whisper.

“And that’s why this universe split apart from the others, Guardian. You’re finally remembering who you are and where you came from! What else can you recall?” she demands, cupping your face between her strong hands.

“I… the other night I remembered my grandma, and my uncle, because she died of a heart attack and… and oh my God. Oh, fuck. I remembered my mom,” you sob.

“Good! Yes! What does she look like?”

Your head is beginning to pound. Are you dehydrated or something? “She’s… taller than me. She loved me, right?”

Boldier giggles. “Everybody’s taller than you.”

“But she loved me?”

“She did. She does.”

The sunlight coming in through the window seems to be getting brighter and brighter. “Boldir, what’s happening? Where are you?”

“I can’t come to you right now. I have to keep him away from you as long as I can,” she explains swiftly. “He’s losing patience.”

“Scratch?”

Ice water shoots up your spine when she nods, a low growl building up in her chest. “Listen to me. You have to remember who you are! That’s how you can break free of Scratch’s control. When he finds you, you can’t listen to anything he tells you. You are the First Guardian. You control your own destiny. I know you can save Alternia, Micah!”

A loud splintering sound makes you whip around to see the linoleum crack open, revealing shards of light that pierce the air like knives. The sunlight is nearly blinding you now. Your headache goes from mildly painful to a full-blown migraine in the course of a couple seconds. Boldir hisses in fury and throws you behind her as the ground where you just stood gives way into white nothingness, the color of bone after it’s been out in the Alternian sun for a day. The low, dull roar of the heart of a star follows after, so loud to your aching head that you almost collapse on the spot.

“But where are you?” you cry again. “I’ll come get you! Are you in danger?”

She just pats your shoulder, looking back at you with big sad eyes. “You might be the most powerful being in this reality, but there isn’t anything you can do for me anymore. I’m sorry. What I want you to do is succeed and be happy.”

“But-!”

“Just keep remembering, okay?” she pleads, and then she’s gone, and once again you’re tumbling down through emptiness.

Remember.

:::

Your name is MICAH. It’s not the name you were given at birth, but it’s a name you chose for yourself when you changed your hair, your pronouns, the way you dressed in a life not so far away from where you are now. Your name is Micah. Micah… something.

What the hell is your last name?

Why are you trying to remember that…?

Boldir. Remember Boldir.

Her words come back to you about you not being able to do anything for her anymore. They ricochet around the inside of your brain, becoming more and more agonizing to think about until you’re wailing into the nothingness of your subconscious. Your heart is breaking into a million pieces just like that damn cafeteria floor.

Because you know that Boldir Lamati is dead.

And you never even got to say goodbye.

In a moment of time that might have been five minutes or five years, you begin to feel your body again-- all four-feet-eleven-inches of you, even though you really do not want to go back to the land of the living. Living sucks ass.

Somebody is running their hand through your hair, gentle and smooth. You want to just lay there forever, letting whoever this is hold you, but then you hear somebody speak nearby and your eyes open all on their own.

“They’re coming to!”

You meet the concerned gaze of Lynera, who’s wringing her hands fretfully as she stares down at you. A familiar ceiling spotted with bioluminescent fungi hangs low above your head, and there’s a jade green blanket tossed over your torso.

“Well, this certainly rings a few bells,” you mumble to yourself. You look up and realize you’re in Polypa’s lap. She’s not normally one for pale PDA, so the fact that she's holding you so close with somebody else around is a little strange. Her long hair is tickling your face, making you sneeze and scrub at your nose.

“How are you feeling?” she whispers.

“Awful.”

“How so?”

“One of my friends is dead.”

“How do you--”

“I had a dream where she came to me. She’s done it before. Polypa, sometimes I… I have dreams that tell me about the future. And the past. And the present.”

She exhales, quietly stunned. “I’m sorry, Micah.”

You nod, doing your best to fight back tears and failing. Even the sound of your own name isn’t helping you feel better.

Footsteps approach, slow and careful, and you look over to see Lynera crouch down next to you. “We think you had some kind of seizure? Your moirail said that you started talking really strangely, and then you collapsed and started to spasm. Then she brought you to the caverns. You were out all day.”

“Yeah, that sounds like a seizure.” So, you have seizures now. Fantastic.

“There isn’t a whole lot of information on these kinds of things, but I’ll keep looking around to see if anybody has information on mental disorders-- not that I think you’re mental! I just want to make sure you don’t collapse out in public, because if the wrong troll sees you do that you’ll get culled and it’ll be horrible and we can’t lose you again! So you should probably take it easy for the rest of the night. I’ll tell Bronya to… um, where are you going?”

You stagger as you put all of your body weight on to your feet. Your head is spinning, but you don’t give up.

“I have to go commit a murder.”

[abessinier]

Stuff kids on tumblr better relearn

1. You are responsible for your own media experience. 

2. There is such a thing as a healthy level of avoidance towards topics that make you feel unwell or even (in a real-life clinical definition of the term) trigger you - but you are the one to actively take care of what you view.

3. Avoiding does not mean policing others.

4. You have no right to tell artists to censor themselves - you may criticize what others do, you may dislike it, that’s fine - but actively asking for censorship when you could easily unfollow or block a person just makes you look incompetent in your use of the internet.

5. Do not give people on tumblr or /any/ website the responsibility for your emotional well-being. Because these people do not even know you so no, you have no right to ask them to take care of you.

[vesperlionheart]

6. Content creators are not your parents and owe you nothing, not even a breakdown on why their content isn’t problematic. You don’t get to demand a dissertation denouncing any and everything unhealthy in a piece you don’t like. Move on.

[summerpipedream]

7. Tagging is a nicety but not an obligation. You can message people, politely, and ask them to tag things, and many people will, but understand that it’s their blog and they aren’t obliged to say yes. Unfollow and block when you need to. Circling back to number 1, you are responsible for curating your own experience.

8. Don’t be a jerk. Remember at the end of the day, there are actual living, breathing people behind each screen name. Don’t say anything you wouldn’t say to someone’s face in real life. 

[babanillustration]

Been working on these slowly for the past 2 months at the start/end of my streams!  I didn’t annotate them on the sheets because my handwriting is baaaaad, but I’ll add design notes below:

- Ladies are generally taller than the fellas. - Prospitians have smaller eyes, Dersites have bigger ones. - They don’t shed their carapace, it grows in similar to skin and they have to maintain it by buffing it down, though it grows in a lot slower than skin unless they have an injury that’s healing. - Toe pads are like cat toe beans in that they’re more arched and have a bigger pad. - Most of the carapace has gradients between skin and tough carapace rather than harsh edges. There’s less chance of things getting jammed up or them accidentally catching it on anything. - Their faces are more fleshy and gradient up into carapace along what would be a hairline on a human. - Tummy and back plates are soft enough to stretch and twist. - Prospitians have black teeth - Size of the sclera in relation to the iris/pupil is similar to cats and dogs, you only really see the sclera when they look off to the side.

- Bifurcation down the middle of any plates that wrap around to allow for expansion and contraction. This is true of the torso and also the upper forearms and calves, but the carapace fuses along the seams around the wrists and ankles where there’s less muscle movement and bones would be closer to the ‘skin’. - Zygomatic and frontal bones are pulled back at the side to around the centre of the side of the head. Zygomatic arch circles back around into the temporal line making the circular swoop at the side of the head. - No nasal structure, so the Maxilla joins up to the frontal bone between the eyes.

Thank you for attending my Carapacian lecture, I will be taking questions after class. And yes, all of this will be on the test.

Commission Info | deviantArt | Youtube | Twitter | Instagram | Discord | Twitch 

Redbubble | WeLoveFine | Teepublic | Zazzle

[riverboundao3ff]

Riverbound, Chapter 17

All in all, Lanque’s a whole lot calmer about the whole thing than you thought he’d be, which makes you feel better about going to him right away instead of Daraya. Of course you love Daraya, but knowing the kid she’d probably run off to start a fight with Bronya, Lynera, and any other poor bastard who gets in her way.

“I want to believe Bronya’s doing this because she thinks she’s in the right, but I just can’t… augh! I just… can’t believe she’d ask me to do something like that.” You conclude your messy rant by flopping down on the carpet. There’s a dull ache in your skull from either exhaustion or anxiety, possibly both.

Lanque’s looking down at you from the loveseat in the corner like the universe’s most judgemental therapist, sprawled across the whole thing with his gangly self. “You haven’t known her nearly as long as I have. You heard me say once that she’s the craziest bitch in the whole cloister. I meant it.”

You want to argue with him; Bronya isn’t crazy, just a control freak, but that’s gonna have to be a discussion for another time. “You’re not surprised at all by this? Not even a little?”

“Not surprised. Just… disappointed.”

“What, does she make you to sleep at certain times and check your palmhusk, too?” you joke.

“Not anymore, she doesn’t. She learned her lesson after I filled my whole camera roll with the spiciest nudes you can imagine.”

You try not to imagine anything of the sort and fail miserably. Your last brain cell hangs on for dear life. “So, uh… w-what should I tell her the next time we go out?”

“Tell her that I’ve been taking Daraya to a slam poetry club. We’ve actually done poetry in the past, so it’s not like you’ll be lying,” he says with a smirk. “You should come sometime. Talk to people about all sorts of controversial alien opinions. Maybe throw in some rhymes while you’re at it.”

“Alright,” you agree.

“... Darling?”

“Yes, babe?”

“Don’t breathe a word of this to Daraya. She’s stressed out enough as it is.”

“Of course not.”

“Good.”

:::

The next night you spend with Polypa, vandalizing stuff with the Heiress’s face on it and even setting a billboard on fire. It’s a lot of fun, but between vandalizations you can’t stop yourself from thinking about the girl herself. From what you can tell she’d be around seventeen in human years, which meant she’d soon have to challenge the Empress, as all the Heiresses before her did.

Some teenagers like to play video games, some like to sing or dance or do sports; you even know a few who live all by themselves on an island in the middle of the ocean who can shoot guns better than most military personnel. But not Trizza Tethis. No, she’ll be off to duel for the throne… and her life.

In your hearts of hearts you know that Tethis is a monster. There’s no doubt about it. But that doesn’t change the fact that she’s still just a kid, a kid who is going to be murdered soon for the crime of reaching adulthood.

It makes your heart hurt just thinking about that, and all of the other girls that came before her, and if this rebellion goes to shit all the girls who will come after her.

“Hey, Polypa?” you ask.

“Yeah?” She’s hanging upside-down on some broken piping while spraying THE REVOLUTION IS HERE on the side of a post office. You’re being a good moirail and keeping watch for anybody who might see her, even though it’s dark out and you can’t see much past the street lights lining the sidewalk. For some reason she refuses to tell you, she’s been in a mood ever since she came back from Tegiri’s, but you’re patient. You can wait for her.

“Do you ever wonder if Trizza might have been a good person if Alternia wasn’t the way it is?”

Polypa stops what she’s doing and stares down at you. “Honestly? I don’t really care how she might have turned out if things were different. All the things I’ve seen her do, the shit I’ve heard her say on social media… I just can’t bring myself to believe anything other than she’s one of the most horrible Heiresses Alternia’s ever had and that she deserves to die. Slowly and painfully, that is. And then she deserves to be forgotten.”

“That’s fair,” you tell her. “I dunno, I just kept thinking about how she’s supposed to go off and duel the Empress soon, and that she’s definitely not gonna win, because none of the fuschias who went up against her ever did.”

“... Does that make you sad?”

“It makes me sad that a kid is going to die, yes.”

She huffs. “Save your sympathy. She doesn’t deserve it.”

“Can trolls control who they sympathize with?”

“Of course we can. Can’t humans?”

You laugh. “No. Or at least I can’t. Empathy’s a blessing and a curse.”

Polypa chucks her spray-paint can into the nearby dumpster. “Empathy? Isn’t that like, feeling what other people are feeling? I thought that was just a myth.”

“Some humans can feel the emotions of others. I’ve always been able to.”

“That sucks.”

“Again, it’s a blessing and a curse.”

Polypa shudders, flips upright, and then drops down to the concrete. “If you say so. C’mon, let’s scram.”

You scram, or at least you try to before somebody bumps into you hard enough to nearly knock you over.

“Watch it!” Polypa hisses from somewhere behind you.

You look up at a boft looking (buff plus soft) rustblood guy, who flinches back when he accidentally looks you in the eye. “Sorry! Sorry. Bye.”

He shuffles off down the street, shoulders hunched in like he’s trying to make himself as small as possible even though he’s easily the biggest rust you’ve ever seen. Huh.

“Well, that was weird,” you say, and then you feel something crinkle in the hood of your jacket. Cautiously, you reach up and grab it, hoping that he didn’t just put a bomb on you or something. You aren’t that worried about dying, because you know your immortal ass is coming right on back, but if Polypa’s in the blast zone--

“It’s a piece of paper,” she says.

“Oh, yay. I thought it might be a bomb.”

“Definitely not a bomb.”

The paper’s been folded several times, so you smooth it out and read the letters that have been cut out and glued out in a note, like some kind of Nancy Drew shit.

“What the…” You read the message, and then you read it again, once, twice, thrice, four times before Polypa starts swatting at you and grabbing for the paper. You hand it over and stare out across the street.

You are not alone. Tomorrow at midnight.

“I’m texting the others,” Polypa mutters, shoving the paper into her pocket and whipping out her palmhusk.

“There’s more of us,” you whisper. “That’s what it means, right? We’re not the only faction out there fighting for-!”

“I don’t know, I don’t know, let’s not believe anything that some stranger wrote down on a piece of paper and shoved into your hoodie--”

“But he came to me, Polypa--”

“Hey!”

Both of you turn around to see some cerulean girl you don’t know storming across the street to you. “The fuck you think you gutterbloods are doing, huh?”

“The revolution is here, bitch,” you tell her, and you grab Polypa’s sleeve and zap away.

Polypa does not hesitate to smack you upside the head the second you two appear on the roof of some building downtown. “The hell was that? She just saw an alien and an oliveblood teleport out of an alley with fresh graffiti on the post office!”

“Who’s gonna believe her?” you snort.

“She’s a cerulean, she’ll make somebody believe her.”

“Dude. Chill. We still have time before things get crazy.”

“Apparently not! Tomorrow at midnight--”

“I know! Isn’t it great? What if it’s like, a big post on Chittr, or a public service announcement from God knows where saying that it’s time for bigots to start shitting their pants, because the revolution is here and it is sexy!”

“Augh!” Polypa throws up her hands. You start to get a little concerned. “Aren’t you scared? Like, at all? We could all die tomorrow and you’re just… totally fine! You disappear for half a sweep and come back ready to lead a revolution!”

Alright, it’s time to bring out the big guns. Slowly, so she has time to pull away if she wants, you step forward and reach up to caress her cheek.

The effect is instantaneous. She visibly loosens up from horns to toes, leaning forward into the contact with a low chirrup rising up from deep in her throat. If you were a troll, that sound would have probably made you pale-horny to the max, but you’re human so all you do is just stand up on your tippy-toes to press your foreheads together. You imagine pulling away all of her fear and stress and releasing it into the open sky, never to be seen again.

“We’re not going to die,” you tell her. “We’re just not. And if we were, I’d tell you, because dying isn’t that bad. Doesn’t even hurt, really.”

“... You’ve been dead before?”

“Yeah. Feels like the best fucking nap you’ve ever taken.”

She snorts hard enough for you to feel her breath across your face. “Only you would say something like that and be completely unbothered.”

“That’s just how it be sometimes,” you say, because joking about your trauma and having anxiety are basically your only two personality traits nowadays.

“I’ll write that down for the pile,” she says, because she’s always been able to see right through you, even when you can’t see yourself. “Which we’re going back to an abandoned apartment building to do once I yeet this glass bottle into that window over there.”

She picks up the broken glass bottle at your feet and proceeds to do just that. It sails through the air with all the majesty of an eagle and crashes through somebody’s office window. You know enough about troll romance by now to be a little scandalized by how forward she’s being, but you both know it’s out of necessity. Troll language is far from just verbal-- it’s flattened ears or bared fangs or dilated pupils. It’s hissing and chirping and growling and all sorts of sounds you don’t even know the names for, and you can’t even hear most of them because they’re either too low or too high a pitch for your human ears to catch.

“Hot damn, wildcat. You gonna take me out to dinner before you throw me down on somebody’s abandoned loungeplank?” you tease. Her face lights up in green, and you grin in satisfaction as she splutters something about saving it for the respiteblock.

You’re about to cook up something truly slutty to say when her palmhusk vibrates. Polypa reads it and snorts. “Aaaannnddd Daraya is losing her mind, Tagora says it’s a trap, Tyzias wants to know what the rustblood looked like, Stelsa is in agreement with Tagora, Lanque is asking how the hell it could be a trap when the rustblood didn’t even ask you to meet him anywhere, and Mallek is telling everybody to shut up so he can take a nap. Konyyl and Azdaja haven’t responded yet. I bet they’re making out in a back alley somewhere. Oh, Tagora is telling Lanque to shut his Troll Twilight-looking ass up before he fines him for wasting the rebellion’s time… and Tyzias just sent a bunch of hysterical laughing emojis.”

“I love my friends,” you say.

“You sound like you’re trying to convince yourself.”

“I’m gonna get Mallek to hack the server so whenever people start arguing over stupid stuff a bot starts spamming the chat with gifs of fighting purrbeasts.”

“Do group chats have servers?”

“I have no idea. Come on, I’m fucking freezing up here.”

:::

Your memories of growing up on Earth are fuzzy at best. You have no idea if it’s from Scratch, or Ultimate Dirk, or hell, maybe it’s just regular old brain damage, but one of the few things you can vividly remember is when your grandma died.

You can’t remember her name, but you can easily recall her eternally-smiling face, that smile that always reached her eyes-- hazel, like yours. She’s the one who taught you how to braid your hair, wing your eyeliner, ask out a crush. She also taught you how to take down a grown man with nothing but your fists and a pocketknife. Old age hadn’t ever been a problem for your grandma. Or at least, that’s what it felt like.

The morning your uncle found in her lifeless in bed hadn’t felt any different than all of the mornings before. You just woke up and started to get ready for school, and then your mom… yeah, it was your mom who picked up the phone. She didn’t cry, but your uncle did.

It was a heart attack.

Your mom told you that you didn’t have to go to school, but you were still pretty young, and it still felt like every other morning before so you went to school.

You’re not sure why you’re remembering this when you first smell the smoke, or see the burning buildings from the roof of the abandoned apartment building you and Polypa crashed in. Maybe it’s because it still feels like every other night before this one.

Something deep in you that’s been irreversibly interwoven with time and space begins to tingle. This is a turning point in history, you just know it.

Polypa’s shaking her head like she can’t believe what she’s seeing. “It’s a riot. A riot. In Thrashthrust. We really aren’t…”

“Alone,” you finish with a smile so big it hurts your face.

“... Do you think this is really the right thing to do?”

“A wise man from my planet once said that riots are the language of the unheard.” You turn to her and take her hands in your own. “So let’s make them hear us.”

You’re not sure what you were expecting when you drop yourself and Polypa into downtown Thrashthrust, but you definitely weren’t expecting to almost get run over by Konyyl and Azdaja, both panting, sweaty, and smelling faintly of smoke.

Konyyl yelps and jumps about a foot in the air. “WHAT the-- oh, hi, guys. You didn’t scare me, I just… yeah.”

“Dude, what is all this? This is incredible!” you crow.

An explosion rocks the ground, followed by a giant plume of fire that shoots up into the sky just one street over. Azdaja whoops in delight, and Konyyl cheers even louder as a piece of flaming metal you think used to be a scuttlebuggy sails through the air and takes out a convenience store. Normally, something like that would have worried you, but seeing as the store’s already nearly burnt to the ground you think everybody’s already gotten out.

Not to be outdone, Azdaja telekinetically grabs on to a fallen lamppost and hurls that bad boy through the grocery store across the street.

“Show-off,” Konyyl scoffs.

“Where’s the main protest?” you ask.

“Like, a couple of blocks back that way. Some bronzeblood is leading the charge. Absolute mad lad,” she says, grinning. “I think a few more people you know might be there.”

That’s all the convincing you need to grab Polypa’s hand and take off running. You can hear the roar of a crowd chanting something.

“What are they saying?” you ask Polypa.

“Be silent no longer, when we’re together, we’re stronger,” she replied, glancing back at you with a twinkle in her eye. “I kinda like it.”

“Me too!”

The both of you turn the corner at the end of Hookedclaw street and find yourself face-to-face with a sizable crowd of about one hundred trolls. They’re all looking up to a pair of trolls standing on an upturned scuttlebuggy-- a bronzeblood, like Konyyl said, and the same big rustblood guy who you ran into last night.

You gape in shock. “Holy shit!”

The bronzeblood boy is yelling something, so you press closer into the crowd to hear what he’s saying. Most of the trolls here seem to be lowbloods, so when they see you and Polypa, an oliveblood, they gladly make room for you to join.

“... for what? A social construction that keeps us divided, because those who sit on thrones marked with the blood of our people know how strong we are together! They know that we’d be able to take control of our own destinies, and that terrifies them!” He pauses to take a short breath. “For fuck’s sake, I just want a world where I can walk down the street without worrying about getting killed! Is the bar really that damn low? Think about that, all of you!”

Another wave of cheering echoes through the streets, and you join in without hesitation.

“This guy’s spitting straight facts,” Polypa admits, looking impressed.

“He’s got balls, all right,” you agree. “That rustblood guy look familiar to you?”

She ribs you. “Yeah, yeah, you were right. I admit it.”

You turn your attention back to the boys, but they’re looking over the heads of the protestors at something behind you. A soft wave of hisses rise into the air as you turn to see a trio of purples stalking towards everybody, clubs dragging behind them with the awful scrape of steel against concrete. They’re twice the size of Polypa, except the giant fucker in the middle, who you think might be just a little bit shorter than Chahut.

“That’s a pretty sermon there, bronze brother,” he calls with a voice that crackles like burning wood. “Pretty for a load of treasonous fuckin’ shit.”

“Can’t be shittier than whatever they’re cooking up in that drug-hole church of yours,” the bronzeblood fires back with a smirk.

Even the rustblood standing next to him sucks in a sharp breath as the clown regards him with no trace of emotion. Polypa grabs your hand, and you squeeze it tight.

“You’ve got a big-ass mouth for a critter the size of my motherfuckin’ left toe,” the clown on the big guy’s right says.

“And you’ve got a big-ass forehead for a bastard with such a tiny skull.”

Somebody lets out a loud snort. It might have been you.

The feeble tendrils of bravery holding everybody together begin to unravel as the purplebloods begin to approach once more. You instinctively back up and pull your jacket hood over your head.

“Get ready,” Polypa growls.

But before the clowns have the chance to attack or use their chucklevoodoos, or before the lowbloods gather their courage enough to storm the intruders, a deafening CRACK splits the air like a thunderclap.

The clown to the far left drops like a rock, and standing over him, bat raised, is Elwurd.

She’s wearing a mask to conceal her face, of course, but you’d recognize that crest of blue hair anywhere. Beside her is Remele with her oversized mallet-club thing, and bringing up the rear with shining dual blades is none other than Ardata Carmia.

“Am I fucking dreaming,” you ask nobody in particular, and then all hell breaks loose.

The cerulean girls lunge for the two purplebloods that are still on their feet. The bronzeblood screams for everybody to scatter just as drones begin to swoop down from the sky, opening fire on the trolls below. Half a dozen kids drop dead on the spot.

You and Polypa duck into the nearest alleyway just in time before bullet holes pepper the pavement. Behind you, Elwurd roars something that sounds like “Duck!” before another explosion blows out all the windows. You yelp and cover your head as glass showers down on you like rainfall.

“Zap us out of here!” Polypa yells.

“No, wait! We have to go help the girls!”

“I’m not going back out there and neither are you!”

You glance back just in time to see Ardata drop to her knees, holding her bloody arm. She’s shrieking in terror as a drone advances on her, culling fork glinting bone-white in the darkness. Remele and Elwurd are too busy getting their asses kicked by the last living clown to help.

In that moment you can’t remember her as the bloodthirsty murderer who tortured you in her basement. All you can think of is the time she broke down in your arms, overcome with guilt at the monster she’d become in the name of being accepted by highblood society. A monster who’d traumatized you, and then became your friend.

You’re moving through space and time before your brain can catch up to what you’re doing. Ardata is cold and hard when you tackle her out of the way of the drone. The two of you tumble across the street together as the culling fork hits the spot where Ardata just was with a SHUNK. Even with adrenaline racing through your system the sound chills you to the core.

Remembering what Dirk taught you about hand-to-hand combat with a larger opponent, you grab one of her knives and zap right over to the clown, getting right up in his business before burying the blade into an eye socket.

Unsurprisingly, he drops a squirming Remele and covers his face with a scream so horrible you almost pee your pants. Ardata’s wailing your name from the sidewalk like a terrified child. You want to yell at her to shut up and run before the drones spotted her again, but you never get the chance. One moment you’re twisting a knife into a purpleblood’s skull, the next you’re flying through the air like a ragdoll before a pair of strong arms wrap around you. You and your rescuer land hard on the street with matching grunts of pain.

You look up into Elwurd’s bewildered face and burst out laughing. “Hi!”

“What the--”

“Time to go!” Remele yanks the both of you up by your scruffs like a pair of naughty cats. “Ardata, stop screaming like a wiggler and get your arse over here now!”

“My arm!” Ardata screeches. “I’ll be scarred for life!”

“No, you won’t, idiot, not when you hit your adult molt-!”

You zap the three of them out of there and into the alley, grab Polypa on your way, and then get the hell out of dodge.

The five of you end up in the back of a Troll Dennys, because of course you do. Polypa falls on you, knocking you to the ground, and then she yowls in anger when Elwurd lands on her legs, only for Ardata and Remele to hit the concrete ass-first. Remele accidentally kicks you in the stomach. Ardata falls back against a dumpster and hits her head on the metal with a BANG.

Everybody stares at each other for a long moment with varying degrees and expressions of utter shock. Polypa glares at you, and you just know you’re in for a long discussion about putting your own safety first in dangerous situations, or something like that.

You decide to break the ice first. “Anybody want pancakes?”