he somehow had the feel she was prodding into his head to look at the exciting banter between her older guardian self and the other not-so-decent author on public social media. probably she was, may vision omnifold be cursed.
but still it wasn’t what mattered at the moment, not when there were things and notes concerning the complex mechanics of the game he couldn’t access at all due to his ‘newfound’ guardian status. funny how he’d think it would make things easier -if not, it was harder. harder to live with the awareness that death would look for his head like it did with marie antoinette, with the only difference that they were the ones leading a falling revolution, and not the ones trying to stop it. there was a hum from his lips, a sound of acknowledgement of the context she was giving -namely, the first time being already known to him. he remembered the tumor. the timer. the explosion, the green sun. but when he woke up, he was sitting on the green of a park with the sun peeking through tree leaves and the scent of sunscreen against his nose, with rose right next to him writing the very first draft of what he’d see becoming a great literary saga, remembering the true past like he’d remember a vivid dream and glancing the fake past like he’d gliss over unneeded details.
he had to take the glasses off for a moment, one hand holding onto the golden frame and the other rubbing the bridge of his nose, albino eyes in a squint as the shift in light did indeed bother him. fucking sun.
“ don’t worry, i pretty much signed up for this shit being unclear unless going for baby steps, from the very moment we started playing. ” a sigh. he admittedly didn’t expect things to get so complicated after their deaths -if he knew that was going to be the outcome, he’d probably suggest trying to keep surviving until the time was right. but he had the feeling that would be going against the game, against the greater schemes, against the light of his rose’s sight. he felt… useless, somehow. “ i am aware that the lack of people covering mine and jade’s role would have brought some discrepancies, but we clearly overlooked, when being granted with the children to send in the future, that their aspect could have been subject to change and that they wouldn’t inherit ours like normally you would inherit something within the genetic code of your bloodline. it’s not about some mild changes that could just be tossed aside like bathrooms, aspect related shit’s more serious. ”
things just liked to be extremely complicated. or extremely favorable towards tyrannical trolls, he didn’t really know which definition sounded more doom-inducing. he could feel groans bubbling from his lips, the frustration rise alongside the sudden motion of impatience -perhaps easier to link to lacking his daily input of caffeine through his system. perhaps he was just deluding himself of that.
there was a clear click of his tongue. he could see the potential. how it grew, how it was indeed hope-festering -and how it got cut short because of what rose described as a literal non-birthday massacre lacking only of some tragic scene kid music in the background. “ clever move. it’s just a pity that it ended up having you branch into a doomed-wait what. ” what. why was he having that nasty sensation of scratching all over his spine returning like in his own most vivid nightmares. why now. why again -panic. that was panic. that was definitely a rush of motherfucking puppet-induced panic, but worse than the infamous smuppet pile -one specific demonic spawn level of it. “ w-what do you mean cal was in the meteor, he should have been destroyed with the old universe, not in makara’s hands. ”
She hadn’t wanted to upset him, but the truth was the truth and in her mind, it was necessary to bring up this unnerving fact for the sake of uncovering whatever hidden realities existed in their world, realities that had escaped the Seer and the Knight of both universe A and universe B. At least his reaction proved rather quickly that Dave had always understood that there was something amiss with the puppet. She had too, but never had she experienced the fear that inflicted her brother whenever its mere name was mentioned. Cal had always been a prominent force in the discomfort that Dave felt towards puppets - his existence in Derse, within Dave’s room was proof of this - and this coupled with the fact that it had never strayed far from his less than friendly brother - well, needless to say, this reaction was understandable. Such fears would never fully disappear, regardless of age. No, they were buried within ones self in an attempt to forget their very existence.
❝ I don’t know how it ended up on the meteor with us, because you are correct in say we left it behind, but Makara most certainly had Lil’ Cal within his possession last I checked. I may have been... intoxicated for the final stages of our journey, but I remember that much distinctively before my own problems got in the way, as well as from what little pieces of conversation I can recall that I had with Terezi and some of the other trolls that had encountered him. He was, if anything, an elusive bastard. ❞
According to Terezi, the puppet had been on the meteor before the death of Vriska, back when Gamzee had apparently ‘snapped’ and began his pattern of erratic behavior. Had the puppet played a part in his behavior as well? According to the other trolls, Gamzee was once a rather peaceful boy, albeit peace induced by a toxic substance. Could Lil’ Cal have influenced him as well as Dave’s brother? It was all very possible now that she was thinking about it. ❝ We must consider that the puppet may have had some sort of power, likely negative given its choice of company, that compelled it to constantly appear throughout our session. It was, in all regards, a puppet - but most certainly a puppet that had been put there for a reason, a purpose. ❞ she stopped, a moment of realization hitting her. The puppet’s company - it made sense. ❝ - your brother spent most of his time with you initiating combat, right? Those constant brawls you had on the rooftop... What if the puppet was the cause of that? What if, theoretically, Lil’ Cal was making him make you fight in order to prepare you for Sburb? ❞
She remembered hearing something similar when comparing the situations of Alternia and Beforus - one was a peaceful planet, but upon initiating the Scratch, it had become a cruel world, a land where survival of the fittest played an important role - all because of outside influence, in order to make them stronger at the game they had played. All because of - ❝ ... What if Lil’ Cal was similar or at least associated with the First Guardian of Alternia, and was somehow related to the Lord of Time? That white texted bastard was the one who toyed with me, the one who tricked us into creating the Green Sun, and so on. Meanwhile, Cal who appeared with your brother who trained you, also appeared on Alternia and then the meteor, with Makara who was very obviously unhinged. I-I can’t say I have a concrete way to place his existence, but the Lord of Time does seem to be behind everything. ❞
