MSPA Fanfiction IV

[Kawa]

Isn't it supposed to be "my ears hear evil's every sound"? It better fits the meter.

[Nexev]

I second that motion.

[SeptimusMagistos]

Isn't it supposed to be "my ears hear evil's every sound"? It better fits the meter.

Right. Fixed.

[Kassiopeia]

@Dehgan and AC: that was fantastic. That's really all there is to say on the matter.

[lucidSeraph]

@linguisticDoctor: JUST AS PLANNED. Though this makes me think maybe my sig should be IN ALL CAPS AND GRAY.

@Dehgan: Oh my gosh, that was lovely also now I ship it thanks



dammit I want this to be canon.

[mutecebu]

Gentlemen!

I have created...THIS THING!

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White wizardry is not like other forms of power granted in the game.

This is due to the fact that white wizardry has a will of sorts. Not true intelligence by any stretch – rather, it simply rebels against certain forms of use. That is not to say it cannot kill – all medicines are poisons, after all – but it resists being bent to purposes that do not suit its nature.

However, It never directly opposes.

This is why when the Prince used it to shatter the Mage's psychic powers, it rendered him blind rather than permanently comatose.

This is why when it tore through the heart and spine of the Witch, it gave a quick and painless death

That is why it was the Prince’s last mistake to use it against the Sylph.

* * *

Don't turn your back on the body. What the fuck was that supposed to mean? If there was one thing he could have gone without having to deal with in this (stupid fucking horrible nightmarish) game, it would be the mysterious pronouncements. Bullshit riddles and doublespeak, nothing could be fucking clear-cut and straightforward -

Kanaya's body was gone - there was only a jade-green trail, leading to the transportalizer. Karkat bared his teeth, and the Regisickle flickered into his hand like it belonged there. "That worthless fucking piece of backstabbing trash...!"

He stepped onto the transportalizer. This was too much - there was no way he was going to let Eridan get away with Kanaya's body. He'd get her corpse back if he had turn Prince Fishface into so much human sushi.

In fact, he was looking forward to it.

He never noticed Trollian beep.

* * *

Eridan Ampora, Prince of Hope, made his way through the lab, following a path he had already planned out far in advance. A path that lead to a large, open space – a stage for his plan to unfold upon.

Eridan had lied when he said he would join the Demon. Doing so was suicide, pure and simple.

As such, that was his back-up plan.

Eridan hated his title. He had no hope.

His chosen matesprit had used him to feed her lusus, playing coy so that she wouldn’t have to dirty her hands with the blood of the trolls she wanted to 'save'. His kismesis did the same damn thing – using their hate-flirting and his need for lusii to get him to help gather victims for her own ravenous lusus.

Then once they were done they both just abandoned him, throwing him away like garbage washed up on the beach! And then the whole damn Sgrub plan happened and everyone left him alone in his Angel-infested hell.

Now they were all trapped, on a frozen chunk of rock in the middle of a dead session, being hunted down by a monster they didn’t have a chance of beating.

No, Eridan was hopeless, and so was everyone else.

So he wanted to die. Not just any death, though. He wanted to die like one of the great generals he had studied growing up. To die surrounded by the bodies of his enemies, the last one standing a foe worthy of having defeated him. The mustard-blood had just been gutter trash that had won the psychic lottery, not worthy of bringing a Prince down. Eridan knew exactly who he wanted.

Everything he had said and done was for one purpose and one purpose only. Eridan wanted Karkat out for his blood. He wanted the one person he knew cared about him through everything they’d been through to be the one to kill him.

Anything that got in the way of that was would be dealt with. Including whoever it was trying to sneak up on him...

* * *

Karkat stalked the halls of the lab. It was a simple matter to track Eridan – tracking was one of the first powers he had earned as the Knight of Blood. He could feel his quarry's pulse skyrocket, sense the traitor's flight come to a sudden halt. Karkat sped up. Whatever had stopped Eridan was giving him the chance he needed to catch the traitor, before he escaped to his section of the labs.

Sprinting around the last corner, Karkat let out a roar. “You’re not getting awa-!“

What. What.

He was trying to make sense of what, exactly, he was seeing, but instincts from forty thousand years of cultural nightmares were screaming at him, to run, to hide, to pretend he had seen nothing.

Eridan’s body twitched, blank eyes gazing into nothing, a horrified gaze gone slack in death. Kanaya (no, wrong, run!) stood there, her face buried in his neck as a horrible sucking sound (run run run!) echoed down the hall. Karkat couldn't move, couldn't think. He let out a quiet, shocked gurgle and dropped the Regisickle. Kanaya turned, eyes wide, mouth and teeth smeared with purple.

“Rainbow drinker,” he heard someone whisper, and realized it was him.

“Karkat,” she said. She dropped Eridan's corpse and turned to him (oh god oh god run hide get away) and tried to take a step back, but he couldn't move, he couldn't think -

She was there, taking him in her arms, and he still couldn't move. He was grateful when the world faded away.

* * *

Karkat woke up again. He didn't expect to wake up again. He opened his eyes and was greeted with the sight of the computer lab's ceiling, something he was pretty goddamn sick of seeing oh god his head was on Kanaya's lap. He froze, hoping that maybe she didn't notice.

“Hello, Karkat.”

Damn.

“I am glad that you are all right. I didn't intend to frighten you as I did.” She gave him a small smile, and he managed not to flinch at the sight of those fangs. Weird how they weren't so horrifying before. He sat up, and they simply looked at each other.

“So,” he said, after a moment of silence. “So, you're a...”

(Monster!)

(No, this is Kanaya.)

“A Rainbow Drinker?” She finished for him. “Yes, I am now one of the cursed few, those who stalk during the bright of day - “

Watching her start to gleefully wax rhapsodic put his worries to rest. “I'm pretty fucking sure you already did that.” Karkat felt a warm feeling of relief build in his chest.

“ - a blood-thirsty hunter, a daughter of the sun - “ Fucking hell, she was still going. Relief was being swiftly overshadowed by irritation. This was definitely Kanaya.

“Are you really doing this? Now, of all times?”

She stopped, licked her lips. “I – if my new state is going to be a problem...”

Fuck, here comes the drama. He needed to nip this in the bud, before his melodramatic friend (did he have any other kind? God why did he want to be the leader of this bunch in the first place...) tied herself up in overemotional knots.

“Stop being an idiot.” He glowered at her. “Of course I'm uncomfortable. Not because of your whole revolving door in the fucking afterlife thing, though – you killed Prince Fishface before I could. I'm not going to accept this rampant fucking insubordination.”

She smiled again, and he could see jade tears glimmering in her eyes – jade shot through with tinges of purple, but he was already coming to terms with that. “My apologies, Karkat. I did not mean to usurp your vengeance.”

“Yeah, well, I guess you avenged yourself pretty fucking well. Not like I could have done any better.”

Karkat moved back to his computer, carefully skirting around the reminders of Eridan’s treachery. He’d noticed Trollian blinking away at him. Someone must have messaged him while he -

“Karkat.” Kanaya broke the silence again.

Karkat returned his attention to her and noted that she was fiddling with the hole in her dress, and that apparently draining the traitor dry had done something because she didn’t have a hole through her anymore and oh she was talking wasn’t she he should probably look her in the eye.

“Karkat,” Kanaya paused for a moment. “I think I am going to need blood regularly, now, at least that is what everything I have read leads me to believe - “

He cut off her ramble with a wave. “So I guess you can drink mine. I'm the fucking Knight of Blood, I've got this covered.” The jade-purple blush was kind of off-putting, but he was getting used to it. “I – look. I've got all sorts of useless bullshit blood powers that this game saddled me with, someone might as well benefit from let go of me.” She wasn't letting go. Fine, whatever. Nobody was going to see - Sollux was still unconscious, Feferi was...he shied away from that thought, and hugged Kanaya tightly. “Consider this a new order from your leader,” he whispered, choking back tears. “Don't fucking die again. Do you understand me, Kanaya? Never again.” He couldn't go through that again.

“I hear and obey, oh mighty leader,” she whispered back, sniffling into his neck.

They held that tableau for a moment. Then -

“Kanaya, get your fangs out of my neck, you just fucking ate.”

“Sorry.”

I just sort of got the idea and ran with it.

arcaneCalligramancer was kind enough to edit it for me and help me out with the narrative flow, so I guess this is a team victory or something.

Anyway, if you guys like it I guess I will write more about this alternate reality thing I have here.

Wow... I don't know how to react to that... but I like it.

[Nox]

Cruelest of Tyrants

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You disgust me. In the end I could not change you even a little, and it burns just to think of it. Tavros, what in the hell is wrong with you? Never in all my FLARP days did I ever meet anyone as unbearable as you.

When I first saw you I felt disgust at how childish you seemed. But more then that I hated how weak you were. For me, I have to be strong. In my world you have to bury all those self doubts and compassion and do what you have to in order to survive. I have a spidermom to feed, and the weak don't do the feeding Tavros, they are the food! If she had been your Lusus you would be long dead.

Your Lusus loves you unconditionally, and to repay it your clumsy bumblings kill it! Do you know how lucky you were to have such love? The love I will never know! Because no being that loved her child would use them as bait, and then later as a hunter, to bring other trolls to the slaughter. No being that loved her child would make it clear that you are not the first to be hers, and what the fate of those who failed her was. I lived in the room those who came before had, and I read the warnings they left on the wall for me. Don't complain about your life ok?

That's how one must cope when life deals you a rotten hand. In time tears stop flowing when she forces you to watch her eat, in time you stop getting attached to others less it hurt more when they die. It isn't fun, but you take the good with the bad. In time you start to enjoy it, you adapt. But you Tavros...if it doesn't go your way you just run. If you had shown some spine and at least lost with some grace in that fateful FLARP game you would not have pushed me so far. You were Aradia's friend, so their was no way I was going to just kill you and make you a spider snack. But you went and acted like the failure you have always been and quit the game. You just spit in my face their, how could I not react?

Then soon because you were their, I lost the only friends I ever had. You became a blank canvas to show the world my worst sins upon. The cycle of revenge was just as much your fault as the rest of us. Now they pity you and hate me, and you've spit in my face again.

When the game started, I had the endless pleasure of looking after you. Oh what fun it was to design a beautiful artistic staircase and then realize it was pointless. Oh the joy of the heightened grist cost for ramps! Oh the pleasure of having an annoying tag along who is all but useless most of the game!

Again and again I wasted time and energy trying to make you strong. Again and again you failed to step up or show any...anything! I could have gotten to the top of the god tier if you had not dragged me down! Do you get the significance of that? I gave up levels for you! You might be the only troll who didn't even get all the normal levels.

Then came that moment. You were getting a little...just a little better. Then Arania came back, and beat me to near death. Thanks for the backup by the way, good to know you were covering me. Then you took me to my quest bed, and I asked you to do something for me. I asked you to mercy kill my old body.

I could have forced you, but that would have been just as traumatizing as actually doing it yourself, without the growth it would have given you. So I let you do it of your own will. Then you failed me again. Ran away crying while I died screaming in agony! You let me suffer! I put myself through hell holding out for your sorry ass and you run. You always run. After everything, I asked...no I begged one favor. The one time I really needed you, and you left. If I live forever, I still won't reach the point where I can forgive that one.

Then you spend the rest of the adventure sleeping. I didn't care at that point, I was done bothering with you. Still it hurt, because the only true failure I have is being unable to make anything out of you. You would have been culled for sure before I even crippled you. From turning everyone against me, to never growing at all, you are a disappointment.

You made me feel disgust, you made me feel pity and worst of all you held up a mirror. I saw you, saw my own horrors in you, and felt like screaming.

You view everything in black and white, good and evil. Only a fool thinks their are no shades of grey in between. Do you think I am an utter monster? Do you know I remember every troll I've killed? Do you know a number of trolls walked away alive and well from my games? Do you comprehend that I NEVER actually created the demon, only determined how. It must be so much fun to say 'good' and 'evil' and think that's all their ever is to it.

So you come to stop me, convinced of your own cause and it's just nature. Why is it that you only show any potential now? The game is over for us, nothing is left to fight but each other and the demon. I've long since stopped trying to make anything out of you, and starting now would take more time and energy then I can spare. Still, I at least promise to let you start the fight, hoping you would see reason or more likely chicken out.

It's the most one-sided fight of my life. I've fought imps tougher then you Tavros. You charge directly at me in a straight line, across an empty room! Never mind that if I WAS hit we both would fall to our doom down the pit behind me. It's such a pathetic thing I don't even use my dice, I slap that ugly mug of yours!

Then your lance is in my hand with a single movement. Your grip is so weak! Was it naturally this frail, or did the slap actually loosen it? Either way, in a blink the lance is in my hands. All in the same move the weapon is flipped around and I'm one move from victory with a split-second choice to make.

I never doubted that I would win, the odds and luck simply were too stacked against you. The real question is if you would live through the defeat. I thought about this ahead, and eventually decided to do what felt right in the moment.

On one hand I had been tormented by your existence since I met you. Your weakness was so great it eclipsed my hard won strength. Your foolishness drives me mad! Your nothing but a burden, both to me and the others. No one actually likes you, they just pity you enough to make my sins amplified. You let me bleed! And worst of all, YOU are my failure. The one thing I could never accomplish. Why should I spare you?

On the other hand, you are showing strength now, if only a little. Not to mention all the other trolls will trust me even less if I do this, if not outright turn on me. John will trust me less if he learns of this. And it will prove the truth of my sins, you would show them one more time...and...I will admit that I feel sorry for you, that I feel some guilt for crippling you, and that I will feel more if I end you...

...

Screw you, you were weak.

I wonder if the short look of pain on my face surprised you. With all the shock upon your own I'll never be able to tell. I throw your body off the edge, because the disgust and the guilt make looking too painful. I try to pretend that it's my Lusus's web, and this was just to feed her.

Damn you Tavros, even in death your going to be a burden to me. The others will not like this, even if you intended to kill me yourself. And despite the grin I'm wearing now, I know a feeling of regret will always follow this moment.

You did what no one else ever did. You crushed my strength. With weakness and ignorance you ruled over me, and brought me a thousand agonies. So great was the damage of your rule, even with you dead I'll never recover. I cry now, both for your death, and the pain your reign caused me.

You were the cruelest of tyrants.

[Kassiopeia]

HERE IS A THING. I hope you like it.

Vindicatrix
Part One

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The demon's laugh sounds through the halls, a harsh, mirthless barking that sets Eridan's teeth on edge.

"Join me?" he says, "You hear that? Kid wants to join me." He gestures around the ruined court expansively, as if expecting an answering chorus of sycophantic laughter, but he is alone. The echo of his mocking laughter seems to satisfy him, and he turns back to Eridan with a glint of insane hunger in his bright white eyes. Eridan huddles on the floor, his forehead pressed against the stone in an attitude of panicked submission.

"Tell me what you got, then," says the demon. He is utterly changed. Karkat's mentor had been sleek, his every movement a barely-contained threat. This Jack wears his aggression like a dark and bristling cloak.

Eridan knows better than to mention his royal blood. What fucking good has royal blood ever done him anyway? He imagines it spilling on the floor, blackberry-purple slicks running across the marble, the smell of hot metal, slippery under his scrabbling fingers. Worth less than the lowest crimson. He would shed every drop if it would-

"You goin' to stare at the ground all day?" says the demon, and Eridan feels the point of a blade at his throat.

"I c-could help you," he stammers. On his way out here he had hoped that the demon might just murder him and have done with it, but now the black blade pricks his skin he finds himself clinging to life with a desperation that disgusts him.

The demon's lip curls in derision and his chitinous eyelids flick shut. "I'm a motherfuckin' god dog, kid," he says. His voice is lowered to a jagged whisper. "I'm a glitch in the goddamn code. What do you think you can do?"

"I've killed," he says, "I've killed... a lot of people. I- I've got a wand and I ain't afraid to use it."

He hadn't intended to vomit cliches like this. He had wanted to make a speech, the kind that goes down in history. Because this is a turning point in history. Maybe he'll be remembered as the boy who made an alliance with Jack Noir, the man who secured the future of the high echelons of the troll race -

- like raindrops spattering the floor in purple, each small drip, drip stings like a whip of scorpions, each small helpless gasp steals the air from his own throat, oh, what has he done, what has he done -

"F-th-the, the, the-" Eridan shivers uncontrollably, the words trembling on his lips. He can't say her name. "The Empress," he says at last, "I only, I only fuckin' loved her, I didn't - sh-she got in the way, I was so angry-"

"Well, ain't you a pathetic snivellin' specimen," says the demon. "Get up."

"W-what?" says Eridan.

"I said get up, you goddamn blitherin' sack of mucus," the demon spits, "The hell are you goin' to take orders lyin' on the floor?"

* * *

It is a strange business, omniscience. People misunderstand the word. It is hard to know every movement of every particle in past, present and future, every twist and quirk of energy moving through the timelines like the leaves of an infinite forest moving in the wind, ever branching and rebranching, looping and reversing, annihilated in an instant and recreated new in the next. It is harder to do this and to maintain any identity. It is hard to know every fish in the shoal and not to become the ocean that surrounds them. It is hard and nobody understands.

Scratch tries not to be self-pitying about it. All-knowledge has its upsides. Cold, hard and vicious upsides. One is never surprised by grief or by happiness. There is no joy of anticipation and no pain of disappointment, no unexpected loss.

Alternia floats in the darkness before him, a pale grey speck amongst the stars, that will bloom verdant with life under his guardianship. A small girl stares up at him with great dark eyes, her tiny hands reaching up like flowers stretching to the sun. In the same instant he sees her soul racked with green fire, a sickeningly familiar green. Her body falls, crushed beyond repair, jewel-coloured blood seeping into the tiles. Alternia withers and dies in a hail of rock and flame.

His omnipotence is limited by what he knows must be. The fates at times do not lack mercy, however, and it requires only the slightest unravelling of reality to reach into the brain of a dying girl and redirect certain nerve impulses.

Mister Scratch It Is Good To See You Again

You have played your part well.

I Am Glad That You Think So But I Must Confess That I Am

Frightened

I know. This will not last long.

Im Hallucinating Arent I

Yes. How perspicacious.

I Would Like To See Vriska And Rose And Karkat Again

I Need To Warn Them

Perhaps in time. For now you must sleep. I have taken your pain.

The book of knowledge in which he writes and is written records one further detail, and that is his revenge. All that remains to be done is to make certain connections.

A/N

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Part two will be posted soonish, but I'm pretty sure you'll be able to work out who's going to be in it. Writing Eridan was difficult. I hope I conveyed his utterly self-centred and self-dramatizing torment properly.

Also I utterly buy into the slightly sappy fan theory that Doc Scratch is a sort of father figure to Kanaya. It may be a little, er, interpretative, but I think it works here.

[crash826]

kass

if you write part two I will personally raise a daughter as a virgin and sacrifice her on an altar to your fic

again

[Sionnan]

@Nox- this was very interesting! I'm not sure how much of it I would espouse myself, but I really enjoy that you've tried to humanize Vriska just a little, while keeping her arrogant, flippant, cruel persona intact. This was a very nice examination.

@Kass- very nice. You have some very evocative turns of phrases in here. Eridan's youth is staggering, and it's something that I think we all tend to forget about in this comic. As a linguistics note, and not a bad one, only a neutral one, your British-English came through pretty strong in here. I thought it was a neat little touch, very reflective of the author.

Now, for a fic!

An examination of Gamzee's name, and how it should have been a warning from the start. (Because I speak Arabic, and it was too good to pass up.)

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He should have seen it coming. But even he could not predict the pockets of unknowledge that bubbled through his mind.

All things with a capacity for speech had a fondness for hiding meaning behind it. Even those who professed to be open and direct were simply using the words of those before them, and the fact of the matter was that the older a civilization was, its capacity for tricks multiplied.

He had dealt with the ambitious, transparent little girl and her cohorts just fine. Children who were playing at deceit and adulthood.

But he had never noticed their companions, especially not this one.

He was for all intents and purposes a nonentity. He rarely spoke coherently, and he seemed far more content to engage in childish games and antics than most of his peers. He ate some inedible green substance that enhanced his stupefied state, and all seemed right with the world.

When it all happened, however, he turned his sight on the boy.

His mind shifted in a wash of white, and he understood, ruefully, how foolish he had been.

The child practically came with a label, for heaven's sake.

His name was Gamzee Makara, and in a language of a culture that was many billions of lightyears beside them, his name meant something very specific. And he knew, then, there was no turning back,

Makara- a trick.

Something powerful, hidden under a guise.

How ironic.

[Decker]

Lookin good Kass! I'd like to see the next part for sure.

[PingZing]

First of all, incredibly belated thanks to everybody who read my fic (way back on page 70-something!) and enjoyed it! That was a very pleasant surprise.

Second, feedback!

Gentlemen!

I have created...THIS THING!

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White wizardry is not like other forms of power granted in the game.

This is due to the fact that white wizardry has a will of sorts. Not true intelligence by any stretch – rather, it simply rebels against certain forms of use. That is not to say it cannot kill – all medicines are poisons, after all – but it resists being bent to purposes that do not suit its nature.

However, It never directly opposes.

This is why when the Prince used it to shatter the Mage's psychic powers, it rendered him blind rather than permanently comatose.

This is why when it tore through the heart and spine of the Witch, it gave a quick and painless death

That is why it was the Prince’s last mistake to use it against the Sylph.

* * *

Don't turn your back on the body. What the fuck was that supposed to mean? If there was one thing he could have gone without having to deal with in this (stupid fucking horrible nightmarish) game, it would be the mysterious pronouncements. Bullshit riddles and doublespeak, nothing could be fucking clear-cut and straightforward -

Kanaya's body was gone - there was only a jade-green trail, leading to the transportalizer. Karkat bared his teeth, and the Regisickle flickered into his hand like it belonged there. "That worthless fucking piece of backstabbing trash...!"

He stepped onto the transportalizer. This was too much - there was no way he was going to let Eridan get away with Kanaya's body. He'd get her corpse back if he had turn Prince Fishface into so much human sushi.

In fact, he was looking forward to it.

He never noticed Trollian beep.

* * *

Eridan Ampora, Prince of Hope, made his way through the lab, following a path he had already planned out far in advance. A path that lead to a large, open space – a stage for his plan to unfold upon.

Eridan had lied when he said he would join the Demon. Doing so was suicide, pure and simple.

As such, that was his back-up plan.

Eridan hated his title. He had no hope.

His chosen matesprit had used him to feed her lusus, playing coy so that she wouldn’t have to dirty her hands with the blood of the trolls she wanted to 'save'. His kismesis did the same damn thing – using their hate-flirting and his need for lusii to get him to help gather victims for her own ravenous lusus.

Then once they were done they both just abandoned him, throwing him away like garbage washed up on the beach! And then the whole damn Sgrub plan happened and everyone left him alone in his Angel-infested hell.

Now they were all trapped, on a frozen chunk of rock in the middle of a dead session, being hunted down by a monster they didn’t have a chance of beating.

No, Eridan was hopeless, and so was everyone else.

So he wanted to die. Not just any death, though. He wanted to die like one of the great generals he had studied growing up. To die surrounded by the bodies of his enemies, the last one standing a foe worthy of having defeated him. The mustard-blood had just been gutter trash that had won the psychic lottery, not worthy of bringing a Prince down. Eridan knew exactly who he wanted.

Everything he had said and done was for one purpose and one purpose only. Eridan wanted Karkat out for his blood. He wanted the one person he knew cared about him through everything they’d been through to be the one to kill him.

Anything that got in the way of that was would be dealt with. Including whoever it was trying to sneak up on him...

* * *

Karkat stalked the halls of the lab. It was a simple matter to track Eridan – tracking was one of the first powers he had earned as the Knight of Blood. He could feel his quarry's pulse skyrocket, sense the traitor's flight come to a sudden halt. Karkat sped up. Whatever had stopped Eridan was giving him the chance he needed to catch the traitor, before he escaped to his section of the labs.

Sprinting around the last corner, Karkat let out a roar. “You’re not getting awa-!“

What. What.

He was trying to make sense of what, exactly, he was seeing, but instincts from forty thousand years of cultural nightmares were screaming at him, to run, to hide, to pretend he had seen nothing.

Eridan’s body twitched, blank eyes gazing into nothing, a horrified gaze gone slack in death. Kanaya (no, wrong, run!) stood there, her face buried in his neck as a horrible sucking sound (run run run!) echoed down the hall. Karkat couldn't move, couldn't think. He let out a quiet, shocked gurgle and dropped the Regisickle. Kanaya turned, eyes wide, mouth and teeth smeared with purple.

“Rainbow drinker,” he heard someone whisper, and realized it was him.

“Karkat,” she said. She dropped Eridan's corpse and turned to him (oh god oh god run hide get away) and tried to take a step back, but he couldn't move, he couldn't think -

She was there, taking him in her arms, and he still couldn't move. He was grateful when the world faded away.

* * *

Karkat woke up again. He didn't expect to wake up again. He opened his eyes and was greeted with the sight of the computer lab's ceiling, something he was pretty goddamn sick of seeing oh god his head was on Kanaya's lap. He froze, hoping that maybe she didn't notice.

“Hello, Karkat.”

Damn.

“I am glad that you are all right. I didn't intend to frighten you as I did.” She gave him a small smile, and he managed not to flinch at the sight of those fangs. Weird how they weren't so horrifying before. He sat up, and they simply looked at each other.

“So,” he said, after a moment of silence. “So, you're a...”

(Monster!)

(No, this is Kanaya.)

“A Rainbow Drinker?” She finished for him. “Yes, I am now one of the cursed few, those who stalk during the bright of day - “

Watching her start to gleefully wax rhapsodic put his worries to rest. “I'm pretty fucking sure you already did that.” Karkat felt a warm feeling of relief build in his chest.

“ - a blood-thirsty hunter, a daughter of the sun - “ Fucking hell, she was still going. Relief was being swiftly overshadowed by irritation. This was definitely Kanaya.

“Are you really doing this? Now, of all times?”

She stopped, licked her lips. “I – if my new state is going to be a problem...”

Fuck, here comes the drama. He needed to nip this in the bud, before his melodramatic friend (did he have any other kind? God why did he want to be the leader of this bunch in the first place...) tied herself up in overemotional knots.

“Stop being an idiot.” He glowered at her. “Of course I'm uncomfortable. Not because of your whole revolving door in the fucking afterlife thing, though – you killed Prince Fishface before I could. I'm not going to accept this rampant fucking insubordination.”

She smiled again, and he could see jade tears glimmering in her eyes – jade shot through with tinges of purple, but he was already coming to terms with that. “My apologies, Karkat. I did not mean to usurp your vengeance.”

“Yeah, well, I guess you avenged yourself pretty fucking well. Not like I could have done any better.”

Karkat moved back to his computer, carefully skirting around the reminders of Eridan’s treachery. He’d noticed Trollian blinking away at him. Someone must have messaged him while he -

“Karkat.” Kanaya broke the silence again.

Karkat returned his attention to her and noted that she was fiddling with the hole in her dress, and that apparently draining the traitor dry had done something because she didn’t have a hole through her anymore and oh she was talking wasn’t she he should probably look her in the eye.

“Karkat,” Kanaya paused for a moment. “I think I am going to need blood regularly, now, at least that is what everything I have read leads me to believe - “

He cut off her ramble with a wave. “So I guess you can drink mine. I'm the fucking Knight of Blood, I've got this covered.” The jade-purple blush was kind of off-putting, but he was getting used to it. “I – look. I've got all sorts of useless bullshit blood powers that this game saddled me with, someone might as well benefit from let go of me.” She wasn't letting go. Fine, whatever. Nobody was going to see - Sollux was still unconscious, Feferi was...he shied away from that thought, and hugged Kanaya tightly. “Consider this a new order from your leader,” he whispered, choking back tears. “Don't fucking die again. Do you understand me, Kanaya? Never again.” He couldn't go through that again.

“I hear and obey, oh mighty leader,” she whispered back, sniffling into his neck.

They held that tableau for a moment. Then -

“Kanaya, get your fangs out of my neck, you just fucking ate.”

“Sorry.”

This is lovely, and you should feel lovely. I love vampire stories where the characters aren't SUBSUUUUMED BY LUST FOR BLOOOOOD because that gets kinda old. And Kanaya plays the part perfectly.
That final line literally made me laugh out loud.

HERE IS A THING. I hope you like it.

Vindicatrix
Part One

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The demon's laugh sounds through the halls, a harsh, mirthless barking that sets Eridan's teeth on edge.

"Join me?" he says, "You hear that? Kid wants to join me." He gestures around the ruined court expansively, as if expecting an answering chorus of sycophantic laughter, but he is alone. The echo of his mocking laughter seems to satisfy him, and he turns back to Eridan with a glint of insane hunger in his bright white eyes. Eridan huddles on the floor, his forehead pressed against the stone in an attitude of panicked submission.

"Tell me what you got, then," says the demon. He is utterly changed. Karkat's mentor had been sleek, his every movement a barely-contained threat. This Jack wears his aggression like a dark and bristling cloak.

Eridan knows better than to mention his royal blood. What fucking good has royal blood ever done him anyway? He imagines it spilling on the floor, blackberry-purple slicks running across the marble, the smell of hot metal, slippery under his scrabbling fingers. Worth less than the lowest crimson. He would shed every drop if it would-

"You goin' to stare at the ground all day?" says the demon, and Eridan feels the point of a blade at his throat.

"I c-could help you," he stammers. On his way out here he had hoped that the demon might just murder him and have done with it, but now the black blade pricks his skin he finds himself clinging to life with a desperation that disgusts him.

The demon's lip curls in derision and his chitinous eyelids flick shut. "I'm a motherfuckin' god dog, kid," he says. His voice is lowered to a jagged whisper. "I'm a glitch in the goddamn code. What do you think you can do?"

"I've killed," he says, "I've killed... a lot of people. I- I've got a wand and I ain't afraid to use it."

He hadn't intended to vomit cliches like this. He had wanted to make a speech, the kind that goes down in history. Because this is a turning point in history. Maybe he'll be remembered as the boy who made an alliance with Jack Noir, the man who secured the future of the high echelons of the troll race -

- like raindrops spattering the floor in purple, each small drip, drip stings like a whip of scorpions, each small helpless gasp steals the air from his own throat, oh, what has he done, what has he done -

"F-th-the, the, the-" Eridan shivers uncontrollably, the words trembling on his lips. He can't say her name. "The Empress," he says at last, "I only, I only fuckin' loved her, I didn't - sh-she got in the way, I was so angry-"

"Well, ain't you a pathetic snivellin' specimen," says the demon. "Get up."

"W-what?" says Eridan.

"I said get up, you goddamn blitherin' sack of mucus," the demon spits, "The hell are you goin' to take orders lyin' on the floor?"

* * *

It is a strange business, omniscience. People misunderstand the word. It is hard to know every movement of every particle in past, present and future, every twist and quirk of energy moving through the timelines like the leaves of an infinite forest moving in the wind, ever branching and rebranching, looping and reversing, annihilated in an instant and recreated new in the next. It is harder to do this and to maintain any identity. It is hard to know every fish in the shoal and not to become the ocean that surrounds them. It is hard and nobody understands.

Scratch tries not to be self-pitying about it. All-knowledge has its upsides. Cold, hard and vicious upsides. One is never surprised by grief or by happiness. There is no joy of anticipation and no pain of disappointment, no unexpected loss.

Alternia floats in the darkness before him, a pale grey speck amongst the stars, that will bloom verdant with life under his guardianship. A small girl stares up at him with great dark eyes, her tiny hands reaching up like flowers stretching to the sun. In the same instant he sees her soul racked with green fire, a sickeningly familiar green. Her body falls, crushed beyond repair, jewel-coloured blood seeping into the tiles. Alternia withers and dies in a hail of rock and flame.

His omnipotence is limited by what he knows must be. The fates at times do not lack mercy, however, and it requires only the slightest unravelling of reality to reach into the brain of a dying girl and redirect certain nerve impulses.

Mister Scratch It Is Good To See You Again

You have played your part well.

I Am Glad That You Think So But I Must Confess That I Am

Frightened

I know. This will not last long.

Im Hallucinating Arent I

Yes. How perspicacious.

I Would Like To See Vriska And Rose And Karkat Again

I Need To Warn Them

Perhaps in time. For now you must sleep. I have taken your pain.

The book of knowledge in which he writes and is written records one further detail, and that is his revenge. All that remains to be done is to make certain connections.

I do like it! Anything featuring DadScratch is enjoyable, and seeing Eridan reduced to a sniveling nearly-repentant mess is very satisfying.

Third, I am writing more! It's partially complete! Expect more soonish.

[lucidSeraph]

@Kass: OMNOMNOM KASSFIC. First, I think your portrayal of Scratch here is far less sappy than some other Daddy!Scratch fics that I've seen (which have left me going a bit :\ because while cute, I don't see him as very nice, and... yeah). As usual, your Jack is terrifying and perfect, and I thought your work with Eridan here was great, showing his vulnerable side. Man, all the fanwork around here is almost making me like him again, despite his dickery.

@Sionnan - Sorry I haven't been commenting on your fic as much lately first of all, I've been SUPER FUCKING BUSY (and I am now, actually... procrastinating like all hell). Second, this is quite interesting and I've liked all your Gamezee stuff so far, the way you look into the linguistic puzzles surrounding his name and theme (and god knows I'm a sucker for linguistics)
...
I wish I could remember more Arabic than the word kitab though.

[DragonNinjaAri]

@Dehgan: OH PLEASE OH PLEASE OH PLEASE I absolutely ADORE KarkatKanaya, it is my favorite moirail pair, and this was perfect.

@Kass: ...I'm sorry, I think I cried a little. I love Dad Scratch. That is...oh wonderful. I'll probably never write the pairings/characters/whatever I like most, because I've got too much love for Dad Scratch and minor characters/relationships that take over my brain and you showed just exactly right. He was Dad Scratch, but he was still Doc Scratch at the same time, and THAT is the most important part. And Jack Noir was utterly TERRIFYING, in his usual Jack Noir way.

tl;dr awesome

[Nox]

...no one ever comments on my writing...

[Decker]

...no one ever comments on my writing...

@Nox- this was very interesting! I'm not sure how much of it I would espouse myself, but I really enjoy that you've tried to humanize Vriska just a little, while keeping her arrogant, flippant, cruel persona intact. This was a very nice examination.

[DJ-P0N3]

@Nox
For one, Sionnan did.

For two, we have gone over this before with Dermonster.
Do we really need to explain as to why and how not everyone comments on everything?

[SeptimusMagistos]

...no one ever comments on my writing...

All right, if you want.

It wasn't bad, by any means. The grammar and sentence structure are better than most, and the voice stays constant throughout. But if you were trying to do character exploration, I don't feel like you've succeeded. Your fic doesn't tell me anything about Vriska I don't feel like I already know.

[apocalypticCritic]

@Nox: The story and idea was good. The grammar... less good. You used their where you meant there almost every time, and at least several times used your instead of you're. That's one of the things that bothers me the most.

Also, as a character exploration, it was basically the same thing everyone says about Vriska, if they like her. Maybe it was a more interesting look at how she viewed Tavros, but, again, not very original.

[Nox]

Ah, now I feel like a total jerk for that one post. Sorry.

Guess I need to learn patience. I'll do better in the future.

[DJ-P0N3]

Its alright Nox.
If someone doesn't comment, take it as
"Next time I ought to do better!"
Take it as motivation, not disappointment.

[Kassiopeia]

tee hee, thanks guys. I am so looking forward to doing the next bit. Maybe even tonight if I decide the world can probably survive another day without my staggeringly unoriginal analysis of Ulysses.

@Sionnan - Cheers! I'm amused (in a good way! bluh bluh something of a patriot) you think I'm British-sounding - I normally try for neutral, but I imagine it doesn't matter toooo much with characters like Scratch who don't really have a nationality. I wonder what made you think that specifically? I mean, if anything in particular. Your Gamzee fic is great, incidentally. Exploring the duality of his character = always good in my book.

@Decker - thanks man! I'm sorry I forgot to comment on your thing earlier - I liked it. Can't resist anything with Jack, and your take on Aradia is pretty nice. If anything I would say maybe working on something extended is the way to go now? Your dialogue is fine, but developing some scenes/plots might test your writing a bit.

@Seraph - aha thanks bro. I am finding myself... strangely fond of Eridan also o_o I mean, I still want him to die, but reading/writing fanwork is softening me up (also, any opportunity to mine a situation for all the angst it's worth = catnip to me).

[deceitfulDarj]

Hi guys! I've never really said anything on this thread, but rest assured I lurk here like the biggest creeper! (SSSSSSSS) But uh, I thought it'd be nice if I would just contribute something.

It's really really super duper short and it can hardly be called a drabble, but I was feeling sad about Tav, soooo. And chances are this will be like completely pointless or something, but it was worth a post, I guess! You could call this a character study, I suppose, if you wanted to define it. Also the ending is sort of a abrupt, but eh.

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Music

Tavros liked to sing.

That wasn't to say he was good at it. His voice often cracked, he couldn't go very high, he couldn't go very low, sometimes he forgot the words, and sometimes he said them too fast or too slow.

But he enjoyed singing. He liked making up words for songs, even if he forgot them immediately after. He liked the way the words would go together so perfectly, like they were made for that purpose specifically, but could also fit into other rhymes, other rhythms.

He liked the way he could stutter his way through a line but continue with no one mocking him. He liked the way the words would work the way he wanted them to. He liked the way that they would just work somehow.

Tavros liked the beat, too.

A simple tap of his hand against the side of his recuperacoon while he tried to get to sleep, echoing in the silence of his room. One, two, one, two, something that he could control, that he could turn into something beautiful and complicated, or just leave it to remind himself of the beauty of simplicity.

The highs and the lows, the rumble of the words in his throat as he thought, he loved them.

The words would never make fun of him, they would even encourage him if he wanted them to. When he was feeling down, all the had to do was try his best to remember an encouraging beat, his bitten-down nails tapping against the wall, a desk, a raspy note from his noise smoothing out.

When he was feeling sad or unwanted, disliked or just down, all Tavros had to do was clear his mind, take a deep breath, and start singing some meaningless ditty.

He would never plan what it would turn into. It would start off with an emotion, a high or a low or a medium or a here or there. Eventually it would become something, something that he could be proud of, or even something that he could just use to make himself happy.

He would never write it down though.

Well, for one, he didn't even know how to write it down. All the notes, all the letters were just a little bit too out of his league. Little grubs were never schoolfed about music, it was something considered to be a little too frivolous to bother with.

The main reason Tavros never tried to learn wasn't laziness, no, no. He was anything but lazy. No, he just didn't like the way something so beautiful and individual and unique could possibly be... replicated.

He liked the way that the sound was his and his alone, something he could share with others if he wanted, but nothing that could just be changed.

[arcaneCalligramancer]

I am made of flattery and glee in equal parts. So is lil' bro but he is far too easily distracted to post.

Thus, I am taking all of the credit. All of it.

(I don't know why he asked if he ought to write more in this little AU, it's not as if I'm going to give him a choice.)

edit: deceitfulDarj - I like it! It's a neat little view of Tavros.

[Decker]

@Decker - thanks man! I'm sorry I forgot to comment on your thing earlier - I liked it. Can't resist anything with Jack, and your take on Aradia is pretty nice. If anything I would say maybe working on something extended is the way to go now? Your dialogue is fine, but developing some scenes/plots might test your writing a bit.

Thank you.
I am working on something extended believe it or not, but for the Valentines day exchange. I'm not done yet with the one I'm working on, and I believe that it's already longer than anything I've written so far.

Which isn't saying much admittedly. I think my longest fic is still Tenth Life, clocking in at 2,211 words.