Most likely, this is due to the fact that said seadweller is not responsible for your PERMANENT OUT-OF-BODY EXPERIENCE. The fault for that lies squarely with the meteor that destroyed your BELOVED HIVEBOAT. As it stands, you are completely fine with floating here and watching this chick dispose of your remains. In a strange way, you are almost GRATEFUL; Batmom is still out on a hunting trip. You’d hate for her to come home and see you dead. She’d be inconsolable for sweeps.
Granted, her considering you M.I.A. isn’t much better, but at least she will still have HOPE, however futile.
You watch as the seadweller girl—you still can’t quite remember her name, which would be rude if you were corporeal enough to be expected to address her—finishes up and leaves. You are left alone with the river.
Eventually, a squeakbeast skitters out of its burrow, correctly judging that the danger has passed for the time being. It takes you a moment to figure out how, but you manage to drift down towards the critter as it approaches the water’s edge. You reach out to poke it…
And suddenly, the ground is much, much closer, you can feel your(?)expanding and collapsing bladder-based aquatic vascular system beating, and your nose can’t stop TWITCHING.
You blink the squeakbeast’s eyes, and have an idea that could turn out to be either SUPREMELY BRILLIANT or STUPIDLY HOPEFUL AND UNREALISTIC.
You decide to go through with it.
It takes you nearly three months, or roughly that (time is much more fluid when you’re dead, you’ve found) to get back to THE CONTESSA’S CASTLE.
It also takes you nearly A DOZEN (12) NEW HOSTS, as you have made the mistake of lingering until the HARSH AND UNFORGIVING LIGHT OF DAY, instead of allowing the creatures to take shelter. Or remembering to let them eat. Or forgetting to hide from predators. You almost feel bad about it. Almost.
However, the ENDS JUSTIFY THE MEANS, or so it goes, and you do, eventually, reach your OLD ABODE. Releasing the purrbeast that served as your host for the last stretch of the journey, you drift through the chilly stone walls, almost smiling at the familiarity of it all. You phase through the floors, down and further still, until you reach the CHAMBER you have been shooting for. Once there, you take a moment to REGARD the FAINTLY GLOWING CORPSE, sealed back up in its crystal sarcophagus after you had divested it of the clockhands, and MENTALLY PREPARE YOURSELF for your next move. If it doesn’t work, you can’t say you’ll be too disappointed, but you would feel MARGINALLY SILLY for expending the effort to get this far.
With very little fanfare, you drift over to, and through the coffin.
And then you open your eyes.
It’s a bit disorienting, being back in a body that FEELS like yours, except completely different. You’re SOMEWHAT TALLER now—though admittedly very short, as adult trolls go. You may even be taller than some of YOUR ASSOCIATES, who previously all had at least several inches on you. You feel the FAINTEST FLICKER of satisfaction at that thought. You wonder, for the first time, what they think. Has the seadweller—what is her name? You swear you should know—spread word of your untimely demise yet? You suppose you will know, as soon as you get in contact with them all again.
But first you have to get out of this box.
There isn’t much room for you to raise your arms, and the GOWN you’re wearing makes the task that much more arduous. But you manage to clumsily push at the edges of the coffin, until you hit a SECRET SWITCH and the top slips off. You don’t waste time wondering why the coffin would open from the inside, because you are not AN IDIOT. The Contessa was obsessed with immortality, so it is completely understandable that she would have prepared for an eventuality of this kind.
Well. Maybe not this EXACT OUTCOME, but you still pay it very little mind. You are more focused on sitting up, which you eventually manage with some difficulty. It is quite difficult, you find, to maneuver your body in any manner whatsoever whilst laced into a corset. However, you eventually triumph, and carefully balance yourself on two legs for the first time in OVER A MONTH.
You try to step forward and topple to the ground.
Blowing your FANTASTICALLY LONG HAIR out of your face, you crawl over to the nearest wall and use it to help you stagger towards the door, which you remember to OPEN instead of attempt to PHASE THROUGH just in time. It takes you another moment or two to accomplish this, because FUCK HANDS, HOW DO THEY EVEN WORK?
You find yourself marginally delighted and infuriated at having thumbs once again. This revelation, however, takes a backseat. Because before you lies the STAIRCASE leading to the rest of the castle. With a vaguely grim twitch of your lips, you wonder why nobody ever warned you about how much of a hassle these things could be.
By the time you reach the top, you are wheezing and have resolved to GET THE FUCK OUT of this corset and dress. Your respect for your Ancestor has effectively SKYROCKETED. You are AWED and HUMBLED, to a small extent, by the fact that she not only wore these things every night of her life, but also STRIFED in them.
Your trial with the DREADED STAIRS has managed to help you master the BASIC MOTOR SKILLS of your new vessel, however, so you are able to replicate the feat with MUCH LESS DIFFICULTY in order to get to the upper levels, where the respiteblocks are. You know better than to go to yours, as all of your HABILLEMENTS are undoubtedly now almost comically too small for you, and instead make your way to the Contessa’s. You have only POKED AROUND in there before, feeling that too deep of an investigation might be SACRILIGIOUS or DISRESPECTFUL.
Considering you have HIJACKED HER CORPSE, you have no such qualms any longer.
You pry open the GRAND WARDROBE standing ostentatiously against the far wall, and drop your face into your palm when you discover a plethora of even more revealing, frilly, constricting dresses.
You sigh and turn, accidentally kicking a LARGE CHEST. You consider it for a moment, before fumbling with the latch and prying it open. You find, within it, a collection of clothes of varying styles and colors. Mementos of the Contessa’s ‘GUESTS’, you suppose. You drag out a few, and somehow manage to squirm out of your CURRENT OUTFIT without breaking a rib.
However, you soon run into yet another problem. Despite your resolve to avoid wearing a dress, you find that the PANTS within the chest do not fit right. You find yourself cursing your Ancestor’s UNFORTUNATELY BUXOM figure. The shirts are all too big or too tight across the BUST as well, and you repeat the aforementioned sentiment with a hint of something almost like passion.
Because you know exactly who to turn to in times like these.
You are not disappointed; TROLL GOOGLE, which you peruse VERY CAREFULLY so as not to DESTROY your beloved HUSKTOP, directs you to a site which outlines how to make one’s own clothes. Admittedly, a SKIRT looks much easier to craft, but you are STUBBORN, even in DEATH. Or NON-LIFE or WHATEVER your current state of being is classified as. The POINT is that a skirt is close enough to a dress to put you off of the idea.
You spend the next week or two scrounging the castle for the correct materials. The previously-boring SERVANTS’ QUARTERS prove INDISPENSIBLE in this effort. After several test trials, you are able to create a PASSABLE PAIR OF PANTS.
However, the dilemma of a SHIRT still stands between you and YOUR DIGNITY. This time, though, GRUBLR serves as your savior. With a very helpful and EASY-TO-FOLLOW set of instructions, you are able to transform a LARGE GREY SHIRT, originally designed for a MALE, into something that you would have called CUTE and TRENDY, had you still been FULLY-ALIVE and CARED.
Now moderately SATISFIED with the preservation of your dignity and FULLY CAPABLE of moving in your inherited body, it occurs to you that you really should MAKE CONTACT with those associates of yours. You sign into Trollian, and on some strange whim make a few changes to your Trollhandle and quirk.
--derisiveD0ll [DD] has signed on--
pixelskylines
tangentwithtanner
jimmyeatworldofficial
germansingergirl
areudirty