Lulith peeks in Claire’s kitchen, scanning the room for a sign of her friend. The coast was clear and she allows herself to sneak in while she wasn’t around. Her goal? The refrigerator, of course. Where else would she go? She couldn’t cook worth beans and she’s hydrated enough to not need water.
She opens the fridge and there they were. A huge assortment of cakes in the shape of bunny butts, all vanilla with a sweet green whipped icing for the grass and a chewy but flavorful fondant for the bunny. She couldn’t help but purr as she took one and brought it to her mouth. Oh, that.....
Wait.
No wait, that does not taste good. Why does it taste like a billion Swap cartridges.
Lulith gags, putting the cupcake down and immediately running towards the faucet to wash down the utter nasty bitterness from her mouth. God, this wasn’t going away and she hated every moment of it. Why was it bitter?! Claire never did anything bitter.
She hears a small giggle behind her and turns around to find Claire with tears in her eyes from laughing. “What the hell was that?!” Lulith snaps, her fins pinned back in offense.
“A security measure,” Claire snorts, “they’re for Tyra’s cafe. I know you would eat at least one or two, so I made some of them a bitter flavor to ward you away.”
Lulith made a face. Like a caterpillar that eats bitter leaves so they can’t be eaten by predators. Clever girl, she thought. Like it would stop her the next time she made food, of course.
~~~ "If I had just sucked it up and stayed with her..." Claire looked at her new friend sympathetically. She would hold her hand if she was able to. She took a sip of her tea and set it down. "Don't blame yourself. You were in too much pain to think rationally. Tyra isn't angry with you... to...
Summary: Claire finds a new friend in Tyra’s nap cafe: Tyra’s sister, Syra, who wishes to return to the living, regretting ending her life when her sister needed her most.
Lulith glanced over to the cell phone resting on her desk.
She had recently taken it from the technology department to study its functioning and differences between Alternia cellular phones and Earth ones. The differences were very similar, which made it a relief for the science team; what made it frustrating was the annoying, constant beeping that the phone kept making as they were studying. Occasional checking of the phone showed someone desperately trying to message someone named “Iris”. The head of the tech department requested to inspect it further, but Lulith denied the offer - she wanted to be the one to look at it.
Unfortunately, Earth came after a long line of other planets that she and her matesprit have conquered separately. Their constant need to keep everything else in line overtook the Earth conquering plans for almost an entire sweep. Since then, the phone messages became fewer and farther in-between, until they stopped altogether. It seemed as if the person trying to contact Iris had given up, probably thinking she was dead. Made sense, no vulnerable, weak human could ever last on a planet like this. Not without any powers or weapons of their own, which this Iris human clearly didn’t have.
Lulith pressed the center button on the bottom of the phone, lighting up the screen. It was apparently 9:24 A.M. on Earth. She swiped up the screen and input the password that Rivers had given her after hours of hacking into the phone to get it.
She had never gotten a chance to really look at this phone the way it was meant to be. The moment she had gotten it, Tusira had taken it and looked at it herself, then took it over to the science and technology department and she hadn’t seen it since.
Her background screen showed a strange circular symbol on a bright red background. “Northeastern University,” Lulith whispered to herself. “So they have these on Earth too -- schoolfeedings for more advanced practices. Interesting.”
Iris didn’t have many other apps on her phone. She had games like “Pokemon Go”, “Candy Crush”, and other games Lulith could give less of a shit about. When she saw the Photos app, she immediately tapped it.
There were hundreds of photos of Alternia, from different trolls, animals, signs and words, and environments. Scrolling further showed photos of her on her home planet. She tapped on the first photo and started looking at all of them. There were multiple selfies of herself, vain little meatbag, but there were others that showed different other humans that she could only assume were Iris’ friends. One male human had features similar to her, and Rivers once told her that humans don’t have lusii like they do. They instead had to be taken in by older human caretakers called “parents.” This must have been her… shit, what did they call them… “father.” He wasn’t very impressive to her; in fact, none of the people in these photos stood out to Lulith; Iris was just an ordinary human. No powers, no skills in combat, nothing. The only thing that she could note about Iris was that she had a very impressive amount of endurance and speed -- something her advanced schoolfeeding probably taught her.
That was enough of the photos. There was nothing important in any of them except glimpses of what Earth culture looked like, which was something that she right now could give less of a shit about. She looked through the contact list and all it did was further prove to her how… boring this fucking human was. There were hardly any people in her list: “Family” members, some people she could only assume were friends, places like “Doctors”, “Shun’s Kitchen”, “Therapist” (that was something she was going to need a lot, if she ever gets back, Lulith thought to herself and chuckled), and “College Advisor”. Boring. Dull, dull, dull, nothing. If anything, this irritated her further, as how the fuck did someone this god damned average manage to escape her grasp like that?
She saw that Iris had voicemails. Curious, she peeked around, and her fins rose a bit in surprise when she saw there was over 40 voicemails from one person - the same person who also called her over 100 times… and possibly texted her more than that. Tapping play on a voicemail, she immediately started to hear the voice of another girl speaking frantically and panicked.
“Iris?!” she said, “Iris! Please answer the phone, send a text, anything! People are growing more and more worried by the second! There have been search parties, news reports, everything!” the girl sounded like she was hyperventilating. “Please send even a single thing telling me you’re not mad at me or worse, dead! Please!”
-Beep-
Lulith couldn’t help but snicker at that. She’d been gone for that long? At least people cared about her enough to search for her. She tapped on the next voicemail, this one was from a few days ago.
“Iris? Iris, this is Bea,” so her name was Bea. She made a mental note of that, “I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to put you in this situation. I know you’re, uh…, probably super mad at me, which is probably why you haven’t been talking to me lately. At least that’s, um… that’s what I’ve been telling myself so I don’t fear the worst. I’m doing everything I can to repair this… stupid thing… so I can get you back… back home.”
What…? What “stupid thing” did this Bea human mean…?
“I think I’ve almost got it, though,” Bea said after a long period of silence, “if - if all goes well, then I can just… I can just reconnect you and just… just poof you back. It’s gonna take a bit… and uh… it’s gonna use a lot of power, ‘cause it’s like an emergency abort system and stuff. All I’m asking is to hang tight, Iris. I’m going to keep in touch as much as possible and make this up to you, okay? Please still be alive -- I really… I really don’t wanna do this and transport back a dead gross corpse, okay? I’m already having a hard time explaining to people what happened to you. I kinda… kinda told people you ran away. Used the college finals as an excuse and whatever. They’ve been looking for you all over the place, and I can only… I can only keep this up for so long. Please respond soon… just so I know you’re… you’re not dead. Thank you. Love you.”
-Beep-
Lulith went silent after that rather unnecessarily long message. This girl, this “Bea”, was the one who got her here in the first place? Due to some… transportal device? Was she going insane? Did this one human actually have the means to get them to Earth without having them possibly spend thousands or even millions of sweeps to get there?
Suddenly, Iris wasn’t so boring to her anymore. In fact, she was not only very interesting to her, but now also very, very useful.
The problem now was finding her again, but that wouldn’t be a problem -- she knew who would be more than willing.
Lulith’s breath gets caught in her throat, choking her as if a hand clenched around her airways. She snapped towards the troll, her cheeks soaking wet with her luminescent tears, making hiding them impossible.
This was not Lysander, or Tusira, or Claire, or anyone she allowed to see her cry. This was a stranger, someone who she didn’t know; who she didn’t trust.
Her eyes slowly went orange and her fins spread out and flared defensively. How dare she let herself be vulnerable enough to be seen in tears? How dare someone approach her when she was so weak? How dare she even cry in the first place. This was her fault, but if this person didn’t back off it would not be her punishment.
Her tears did not stop. If anything, they increased; dripping off her chin and landing on either her clothes or the pavement between them, their glow fading away once they dry. Through her anger and offense, she was afraid. Afraid of what this troll would do now that they’ve seen her at her most vulnerable, afraid of what they might think. After all, she was told all her life that she was a fuchsia-blood and they should never show weakness to anyone or else they will hurt you, take advantage of you, KILL you.
A deep growl rose in her throat. It was shaking at first but it soon stabilized and got louder, a threatening snarl curling her lips and causing her fangs to slightly extend in length to make herself look as monsterous as she really was with her spread out fins and defensive stance.
“Don’t you dare,” Lulith growled, “don’t you dare... I’ll... I’ll fucking k-kill you... if you come closer... I am not.... weak.... and I will fucking show you if you even nudge a step....”
My muse is about to break down, send “I just want to help” to calm them while they’re crying.
Leaves crinkled underneath Iris’ shoes as she walked carefully back to the hive, away from the forest where she was gathering some supplies and ingredients for food. She wouldn’t dare go into any area overly populated by trolls, so primal survival was her only option.
It was dark and cold. She didn’t know that Alternia had seasons similar to Earth and she could feel and smell the familiar scent of winter approaching. She shivered and pressed her hands to her face. She was blushing from the cold, and the exposed color on her cheeks was a definite death sentence. She rushed home, using her phone as a means to see. Her fear grew with each step, worried to death that she was just getting herself lost with each passing thought.
She had to stop to breathe, leaning against a tree. She shut her eyes and tried collecting herself. She checked her phone. No messages. She sighed in aggravation, the one time she really needed her friend to talk to her and just… tell her everything was okay. Iris never felt more alone than she did now.
Iris could have swore she heard leaves crinkling around her, but she dismissed it. It was probably an animal, she thought, nothing to really worry about. She looked at the coordinates of the troll’s hive. Noticing she was close enough to walk at a better, less rushed pace, she started to walk again.
After a few steps, she heard more leaves crinkling, and the sound of something scraping up against a tree. A cold feeling of fear welled up in Iris’ throat as she turned around to see if that noise had a face to it. It didn’t. Not that she could tell anyway. Breathing out a sigh of relief, she turned back around to continue her walk back home when she bumped right into what she thought was another tree in her way. Sighing annoyedly, she fumbled with her phone, its battery already drained from 90% to 66%, and flicked on the flashlight.
She froze when the “tree” she bumped into had boots. Slowly, almost painfully, Iris lifted her head with her phone following her. She backed away a little bit when she saw pink fabric glitter and shimmer when the flashlight hit it. She had to raise her head all the way up to get a look at this troll’s face. Christ, how tall can someone even be on this planet? She looked up at her face and saw her pupils reflect like a cat, immediately shrinking into slits once the light touched.
Iris gasped and fell on her rear end, dropping her phone. As she fumbled to get her phone back in her hands, the large troll crouched down and began to speak.
“Hey, hey… No need to be afraid.”
She felt leather touch the top of her head, stroking her hair before moving down to her chin, pushing it up so her eyes met with the stranger’s.
“You’re not from around here… are you?”
Iris shook her head, both to say no and to get the troll’s fingers off her face.
“Do you have a name?”
She gave a warm, welcoming smile, her eyes looking gentle and relaxed behind what Iris could only assume was some sort of odd masquerade mask. Said mask covered part of her face, giving a very unnatural feel to her facial expressions. She looked almost emotionless. Iris opened her mouth and squeaked out a response.
“….Iris.”
“Iris! Oh… what a wonderful name…,” her voice was deep but soft. Iris would have felt relaxed hearing a voice like this under any other circumstances, but not now. Not when she’s face to face with a troll whose hand was bigger than her head, stroking her cheek like a kind old lady, “Can you tell me why you’re here? You seem very, very lost. I assume you’re trying to find your way back?”
“Yes...,” Iris whispered, her voice shaking as much as she was.
“You poor thing… I could see why you would be so afraid out here...,” the giant troll gave a sad frown, her pink fins drooping, “I would love to help you. I know how to get you out of here.”
“Y-you do…?” Iris asked, an ounce of hope in her voice.
“I do,” the troll chuckled, causing a shiver to crawl down Iris’ spine. She shouldn’t trust her. Everything in her gut was telling her not to trust her. Why would someone like her be out here in the middle of the night and target her alone?
“I… l-listen, I’m staying at someone’s, uh… hive? You guys call it? Their hive. I kind of want to go there instead,” her face paled when she saw the troll’s fins rise up, the shimmer in the membrane causing it to glitter in the bright moonlight, “i-it’s just cause I personally doooon’t know where to go myself?? It’s a long long long LONG long story, it kinda involves my friend making this weird machine and I was like, ahahaha, no this won’t work, and then bam, it does work and now I’m stuck here and…. Uh… I’d like to… go back… to the hive…,” Iris tried not to hyperventilate, but the look on the troll’s face… she knew that wasn’t the answer she was looking to get, “…..please…..”
The troll’s frown turned back into a smile, a grin, even. Iris saw her long fangs that looked sharp enough to pierce through steel with enough effort, and then she spoke again, “Oh… I’m so sorry. I understand. You must be terrified. Why don’t you tell me where your friend’s hive is? I can get you there. Easily.”
“N-noo, thank you,” her response just slipped out of her mouth like nothing, “I… I think I know my way back s-so, I… I’m going to go...”
Iris stood up quickly, giving this… rather huge troll an apologetic smile before backing off.
“Aren’t you afraid…?” the troll asked, “You sound like you know from some experience how dangerous it is out here… and you don’t want someone like me to help?” she chuckled a little bit, “Rather unwise… don’t you think?”
Iris almost audibly gasped when she stood at her full height again, reminding her that this troll by size alone was not someone to just mess around with, “Listen, I… it’s been great. Awesome, even. But I just… gotta… gotta g-g-go… I-I’m sorry!” and like a bolt she turned and ran as fast as her legs could take her.
“Hm… how sad,” the troll said as she summoned her whip from her strife specibus, “and here I thought it would be easy. Oh well. I like it when they run, too.”
Iris kept on running. She was so, so thankful she was one of the top people in her track team back at college, or else she would have been meat to that huge lady. She vaulted over broken branches and downed trees with ease, pretending that it was just track at college. That’s all it was. Track practice. Maybe then she would wake up and realize this was all just a horrible, horrible nightmare.
*CRACK*
Iris shrieked in fear when she saw a tree suddenly fall itself right in front of her, forcing her to stop so suddenly that the momentum of her running caused her to trip and fall, slamming her shoulder onto the trunk. The wind was knocked out of her, and as she was struggling to get up, she felt something sharp wrap around her ankle and start dragging her away.
“No… no, no no no nonononononNO!”
“Aliens like you make me so, so sad,” the huge troll said as she dragged Iris towards her with her whip, “why can’t you just… cooperate? For once? You make me do these horrible things when all I need is just some… information. About your planet. I’m a curious, curious bear, little one,” she lifted her up so Iris’ face met with hers. She grinned and chuckled darkly, “I like to learn.”
Iris was panicking, frantically searching for something, something to help her get out of this.
“But… Hm… there must be many more of you out there, isn’t there? There can’t be just you.”
She had no strife specibus, no weapons in her sylladex. She had nothing.
“So if you won’t give me anything… then I’ll be sure to find someone else. Easy. While you…”
Iris’ breath stopped when she heard the metal scrape of a knife being pulled from its holster.
“I’m going to make an example out of you.”
Iris felt a branch scrape her hand, which she desperately tugged on.
“I wonder what color will come out of your neck, little one.”
The branch broke off and in a desperate attempt to free herself, Iris swung the sharp end as hard as she could, stabbing her attempting murderer right in the arm. The troll reeled in shock, gasping in pain. The surprise of the sudden retaliation caused her to drop the whip and instinctively grab her now bleeding arm. Iris yanked the thick branch out as she fell, deep fuchsia spattering her face as she used this opportunity to run. Her own arm was throbbing in pain but it was something she would have to ignore until she was at a safe enough place to check it out.
The troll, however, was pissed off. Frustrated her prey got away. She hissed. The pain wasn’t too intense, but it was enough where it hurt to move her arm. Fucking little shit…
When she stopped seeing red, she put her whip and knife back in their strife specibi and walked over to the log she fell to trap the… alien thing. Huh… red blood. She broke off a piece of the bark covered with the most blood and put it in her sylladex. She sighed disappointedly and turned to walk away, but stopped to examine a bright light in the distance. Walking towards it, she saw it was a phone. It was at 27% and someone was anxiously messaging whomever owned it. “Iris” was mentioned in one of the push notifications. Ah… so this was her’s. Good. At least something was got out of this. She simply slipped the phone in her pocket and slipped back away into the thick of the forest, heading back to the ship.
She had no reason to return here. The prison cells, once full of constant suffering, were now empty with the occasional traitors. She had no reason to return here, not even Butcher - no - Catrix had a reason to be here anymore. So why was Lulith coming back? In all honesty, not even she knew why. All this did was hurt her to see, but sometimes she needed a reminder. After all, it wasn't going anywhere.
Her boots stomp on the metal, echoing through the halls, rattling the cage bars. She keeps her gaze low so any prisoners that stayed can't see her tired eyes. She ignores anyone trying to talk to her and slowly walks further down the hallway. It's clear that this part of the hallway was never touched for centuries. Millennia. Three thousand sweeps, even. Some doors are rusted shut, unable to be open by even the toughest of trolls. Dried, muddied blood of all colors decorate the metal hallway, all covered by a thin layer of dust which Lulith slowly drags her organic hand along while she walks.
It takes a while but she finally reaches the cell she was looking for. It was hard to miss anyway; underneath its shut door is a pool of red blood seeping through the cracks. Dried, almost black in color, but unmistakably red. Lulith sighs and walks over to the cell door and opens it. The door is easy to open, unlike the other doors, but it was heavy. Or was it just because Lulith felt weak entering? It was hard to tell.
Light enters the prison room and Lulith looks at the sight with a sad stare. Bones litter the floor on top of a giant mess of dried red blood. She takes care not to step on them, as they're important to her. Everything in this room was. Especially what was in the dead center of it.
A helmet. Fragile, rusted, and caked in the dried blood just as everything else was. When she picks it up, she feels small pricks all over her hand. Even her prosthetic arm's fingers involuntarily twitch when it touches the helmet. Is it the helmet itself, or the fear she felt when knowing this... thing... that killed Claire is still around? Why didn't she get rid of it? Why did it even happen in the first place?
She had no reason for it to get this bad. Claire had no reason to die, and the fact she was alive and kicking now didn't change the fact that it happened in the first place. It didn't get rid of Lulith's immense monster of guilt she felt whenever she was reminded of it.
Tonight, however, was going to change. She waited far too long to do this, and if she was going to be better, she had to remove the things that made her worse.
Her grip tightens on the helmet until there were cracks, which soon turned into chips, which soon turned into--!!!
Lulith gasps and drops the helmet. Her heart was about to explode out her chest. The skull was still inside the helmet. Claire's skull. The eye sockets felt like they were staring into her very soul and judging her. She swallows and shakily picks the helmet back up, staring at the skull for a long while. She turns her head and shuts her eyes when she finally puts full pressure on it, crushing it to dust in her hands. Literal dust, due to its age. She looks at the dust on her hands, made of both skull and whatever the hell that helmet was made out of, and slowly walks out of the prison cell. She needed to see Claire now. For no other reason than to just... see her. Alive, laughing, making tea.
She shut the door to the prison cell and then kicked the handle. No one was going in there again, not even her.
Send me “✍🎵” and character names or a ship and I’ll shuffle my music and whatever it lands on, I will write for the duration of the song, whatever comes to mind for the characters!!
In a little prison cell lay a huge puddle of blood.
In the middle of the little prison cell sat a fuchsia-blooded troll covered in blood of all colors in the rainbow. Blue, violet, even some of her own fuchsia blood.
But the most she was covered in was red. Red, warm blood from someone that should never have died.
She bent over, hugging Claire’s decapitated head as if letting go meant ending her life... and at this point it probably did. She was struggling to breathe. She squeezed her eyes shut and lifted her head, letting out a horrible, agonizing scream of pure pain. This shouldn’t have happened. This never would have happened. Not if it wasn’t for her... she could have prevented this and she knew it.
She stayed there for what seemed like hours, her tears falling in a glowing puddle beneath her.
“.... Lord Eradictator...?”
That was the first time someone actually called her that. She slowly lifts her head, her body feeling like it weighs thousands of pounds, and turns her head towards the person.
There stood Morgan, heavily wounded from Lulith’s enraged killing spree, tears in her eyes.
“... What are our orders...?”
She stares at Morgan for a long, long time before speaking in a broken voice.
“Your first order... is to leave me alone. I need to be with her one last time.”
Philan was most likely working on a mechanical project, most likely a prosthetic for someone. Emulie hadn’t seen him since he fixed his look again. His horn being fixed and his face looked.... normal. It's strange. "Mr. Philan?" Emulie scuttled, looking for him, "Mr. Philan? Where are you?" H...
Summary: Emulie goes to Philan’s hive to ask for ideas and clues as to how to bring Syra back from the dead. Mentions of a troll whose horns were identical to the small ghost child begins to bring back memories for them, and curiosity wins over.
RP with @fantroll-ikea, bold text are their replies.
