MSPA Fanfiction VI: Trashy Rainbow Drinker Fanfiction

[Domoz]

Sigh. I need to get back into reading this stuff, everthing is so quality.
And I will do that, and will also use the oppurtunity to drop off the next chapter, yes?

The Pirate and the Empress
Part 10

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“So what about you, then, huh? You could have any troll you want, in any quadrant, but you don't! My standards are not that high.”
“Romance doesn't work that way, and anyways, I made the choice not to fill any of my quadrants. You know, if some one comes along that works out, that's great, but I'm going to search for someone to fill them out. I don't have to! You on the other hand, do, and let me tell you there is no such thing as an attractive troll who doesn't care about blood color and loves romantic novels, maybe one that has one or two of those traits, but not all of them! And no, my standards are not that high.”
This is the conversation Paris and Ianthe are having a few days later when the ship returns from the capitol.

The crew gathers on the beach once again. The pirates that went tell everyone else the general gist of how the mission went (that is, rather well)before dispersing off to nap or do whatever it is pirates do.

A few hours later when they all gather around the same place. One of them starts up a fire and everyone else gathers around, like they had nights before when they first arrived.

Apparently this is some sort of ritual they have, Ianthe discovers.
They all take turns telling stories, most of the crew seems to like Dualscar's stories the most.
It's (not sweet that is a ludicrous thing to call this, why would that even come to her mind) interesting.
His stories always seem to be exiting, roundabout tales of adventure (and romance, black, with some troll named Mindfang. Ianthe is sure she's heard the name before, though she's not sure where).
The stories go well into the morning, once Ianthe is asked to share a story of her own, she considers for a moment (actually really considers it, but she figures no one will care for a story of the royal court) but declines.

The crew laughs and boos at her, but Dualscar defends her (she can't fathom why) and placates the crew with another story.
Ianthe finds it odd that Ahab has to act like a lusus for his crew, but maybe that's how it is everywhere, she figures, what does she know about pirates?

Back in the capitol, a debate over the Pirate and the Empress grows more heated.
A teal-blood slams her hand down on the table.
“This is unacceptable!” she yells at the high bloods around her, “No one should be above the law, least of all the one who kidnapped the Empress!”
She would add that she is sickened that these high ranking members of society would even consider such a thing, but the fact that they are, well, higher ranking than her stops her.

A jade-blood, the one with the lowest blood in the room and yet somehow the one with the most commanding presence of them all places her hand on the Legislacerator's arm.
“Be calm, Redglare. And do consider the fact that our options are very limited”
“Yeah, well-”
“And that our time is limited, the Empire is falling apart before our eyes.”
This is enough to silence the Acolyte, at least for the moment”
The room is silent for a long moment. Someone breaks it with, “Well we don't have much choice, do we?”
A collective sigh goes through the room as the jade-blood replies, “No, I suppose we don't.”



Ianthe finds her days consumed now with conversation. First she talks with Dualscar, as they did before he left, then Paris. She finds each one is easier to talk to about different things.
Paris is much a much better choice when it comes to the quadrants.
Or he was, it seems he has figured something out about Ianthe that she doesn't know about herself quite yet.
He's eager enough to share his discovery, too.
“Well”, he says, “Who do you have red feelings for again?”
This is nothing new for him, a variant of this is usually how Paris begins every conversation.
“I don't, for anyone” she replies, and usually at this point they are able to move on to a different topic.
Not tonight, no, this time he keeps going. “Really? You don't have any sort of red feelings for anyone? Anyone at all?”
“I have never had red feelings for anyone, ever.”
This is a lie, he knows, she is only half aware. At any rate it doesn't feel quite right.
Paris purposefully shoots a glance at Dualscar. “No one? Ever?”
She chooses not to pick up on this, the blush on her face, she decides, is from the heat.
Now he looks dead at Ianthe. “Really?” Paris asks, “So you've never had any thoughts about filling a pails with a pirate captain? One with two scars, purple blood and a wavy sounding accent?”

About a million things rush through Ianthe's head at once, among them being 'am I so transparent he can see my feelings that easily?' and 'he's right, as little sense it makes'.
Ianthe now finds herself aware of the fact that she has a red crush on the troll who kidnapped her.
And she's okay with it.

I find myself with the strange problem of writing too little and then getting exited and posting it.

In other news I also wrote something called Three Legged Dog which is kind of Eridan/Rose if you squint. It's based off the fact that a normal 13 year old would be crying for mommy if they were in the kid's situation, I'm not sure how well I pulled if off though, and Eridan seems kind of OOC but well.... I'll stop complaining now and go read!

[Shinji Shazaki]

So I'm on team Rose Kanaya for the HS-Shipping Olympics. So is partingxshot, who wrote Show the Lights. She and I had a conversation about how she was in a lull after finishing that, and I volunteered to write her something to help motivate her.

She requested that it involve the thighhighstuck meme that ran around on tumblr a little while ago, and Rose and Kanaya.

So I did just that in this fluffy SFW story titled Couture.

Enjoy.

[stuffedAnimal]

The problem with the shipping olympics, in my opinion, is that I cannot stick to just one ship. It is impossible for me to not ship, say, Gamzee Nepeta and Karkat Vriska at the same time. Anyway, nice fics, everyone. *applause*

[Shinji Shazaki]

I bring to you good folks chapter seven of Frontierstuck: Fiddler's Adagio.

One of the tags I used on my tumblr was "friggin' finally."

*whistles quietly*

*goes to bed*

[Unibear]

Your the best shinji :3

[Non-Player Character]

Shinji, I love reading Frontierstuck, but the sheer quality always humbles me when I think about it and my own fanworks in anything close to a comparative light. Still, thanks for writing it, and keep up the great work!

Anyway, I wrote a little something of my own, so here it is:

Uncertainty on AO3, with warnings for violence, mild nonlinearity, John Vriska (so far, anyway) and dream bubbles. To anyone who read my two earlier works, yes, I merged them into it as the first two chapters, as I'm starting to work it into a more coherent story (though, I worry, not yet coherent enough). I hope it's enjoyable enough.

Also, I'd gladly take criticism on anything in it worth criticizing!

[Twigwise]

Oh, uh, yeah. I'm probably a few millennia behind everyone else on this, but... I just read aHiHH today.
Skaian, I think I'm in love.
So uh... yeah. *scuttles back off to lurking*

[SkaianRedeemer]

Thanks twinTempo! It's been a bad day for productivity, I think I needed that!

[Rimbaum]

Big Brother: Chapter 6

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Yet another chapter up on AO3

I will switch back to Bro's POV. Eventually.

[SkaianRedeemer]

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CT: D --> No.
AC: :33 < yes!
CT: D --> No.
AC: :33 < yeeeeees?
CT: D --> Abs100tly not.
AC: :33 < *ac reaches into your mind with her sp00ky gh0st powers and says* yes!
CT: D --> You will under no circumstances draw Poorly Considered Formspring Question <3 Your Corpse fanart.
AC: :OO < *ac's ghost scares you into letting her draw crack!arts!*
CT: D --> Nonsense.
CT: D --> You are no more frightening than you were when you were alive.
AC: :33 < am so! i have scary ghost powers for real just like you!
AC: :33 < i just don't want to actually scare you
AC: :33 < ...<>?
CT: D --> No crack!art.
AC: :(( < !! but...
AC: :(( < i just want them to be happy togefur.
CT: D --> You are consciously aware of what you just said, correct?
AC: :33 < yes!
CT: D --> Why can't you just draw nice Gamzee <3 Tavros fanart like I e%pected?
AC: :OO < nyo!
CT: D --> What? Did you actually just... reject a pairing?
CT: D --> I would admit that I did not e%pect to live to see it but the irony would be too much.
AC: >:(( < equius, he strangled you and hit me on the head!
CT: D --> I simply believe that if you are going to engage in this redicu100s shipping e%ercise,
CT: D --> You should do it with proper deference to those above you on the spectrum.
AC: >:(( < hissssssssxppt!
AC: >:(( < *ac is leaving now!*
AC: >:(( < *she is going to dave and tafuros' to tell him she's sorry all his matesprits turned out to be meanies!*
AC: >:(( < *ac slams the door behind he--*

*slam!*

CT: D --> ...
AA: well
CT: D --> Quite.
AA: i think i won't bring up any information from past the fourth wall from here on out
CT: D --> That would be best.
AA: what were we talking about?
CT: D --> With all due respect...
CT: D --> ...I have no idea.

This is probably a good sign that I should take a day off.

EDIT: Instead, I heavily edited aHiHH Chapter 8 (AO3 9). Again (x4!). This time for the colour/FFn releases. I feel just as exhausted as I do when I actually finish a chapter. Ugh, I have no sense of self-preservation.

[Varkarrus]

Beautiful. Day = Made.

[Layra]

Not so happy with this chapter, possibly because the stuff I really want to get to happens in the next chapter.

Prologue
Marching Orders
Pulling Rank

Militia: Targets

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She ducked behind a rock and into the small crack between it and the ground. A rain of arrows flew over her, followed by a few blasts of lightning. She waited, holding her breath, until the screaming started. She sniffed once, twice, and then peeked out to see her pursuers swarmed under by blue-stained claws.

Afterwards they grabbed the strife specibi the bluebloods had dropped and passed them around. The bows weren't too interesting, although watching some of the arrows burst into flames had been mildly amusing, but the guns! She could almost understand why a troll would want to become an Artillerator; the Girl's Best Friend was so much fun to fire! But eventually they realized that the sound would probably give away their location. Maybe Honeybee would have an idea.

Captchaloguing what they could, they returned to the lookout point to set up for their next raid. She tried counting the number left but it was still a lot.

The remaining bluebloods had banded together into a tight camp, weapons pointed in every direction. Would now be a good time to attack head on maybe? No, not yet. Another raid should do it.

But what would get them to break formation? Before they just snuck up on whoever was on watch, killed him, and then ran when the reinforcements came, but now all the Loyalists were gathered together, too many to take on all at once.

Smiles nuzzled up next to her and spat out a piece of cloth. The uniforms! That would make perfect bait! She really did have the best lusus.

She gave Smiles a big hug and scratched him behind the ears for a few moments, and then gathered her trolls together. Piece by piece they gathered almost an entire uniform; the rest had disappeared into various lusii's stomachs or had been shredded due to overeager play. She giggled; she had started with a full, mostly undamaged blue uniform from the last raid and barely had a cufflink left. Still, they had enough to make a good lure.

As soon as she stopped playing with it.

As soon as she stopped playing with it.

As. Soon. As. She. Stopped. Playing. With. It.

She giggled and let Smiles take it from her, her cheeks bright green.

They hid behind a rock and watched as the uniform pieces, floating in the air in a psionic grip, danced about. "Stinky highbloods!" she called out, "Can't even kill a little greenblood like me!"

She ran as the rock she was hiding behind exploded. She ducked behind another boulder and hunkered down, catching her breath and watching the still-dancing uniform. Then she took a deep breath.

"You take orders from fishies now, but by the end of the sweep you'll all be taking orders from a brown blood!"

That did it. She bolted as the world behind her filled with arrows and bullets, only her finely honed reflexes and the plentiful cover keeping her alive.

Smiles split off to flank the group, while she continued, calling back taunts whenever she had the breath to. She risked a glance back and yelped at the sight of half the remaining Loyalists following her. Her troops wouldn't be able to ambush so many of them! She had to find better cover if she was even going to make it through this.

They were no longer even bothering to aim, just firing haphazardly in her direction. She heard the buzz of psionic powers and realized that her psionics were at least keeping her shielded, somewhat, but she still needed to get away.

She scrambled up a steep hill and into a cave marked with a blue symbol, barely noticing the sudden lack of enemy fire behind her. Her forward movement was abruptly halted by a wall in the form of a pair of legs and she tumbled backward with a yelp. She looked up to see a pair of arrow-headed horns atop a hulking figure in black and indigo.

"Who are you, lowblood, to enter my domain?"

--

She limped into the clearing and snarled, glaring at her leg. She was bleeding from dozens of wounds and she ached all over, but limping! The indignity! No true hunter was ever less than perfectly graceful, the peak of elegance, the-

Ooooowwwwwww.

She crumpled and curled into a ball. Fortunately, the other survivors were too busy taking care of their own wounds to watch her descent.

She slowly managed to sit up, rolling up her uniform to examine the wound. Running a cautious hand over the injury, she felt a bump where there shouldn't be one. Broken, no wonder it hurt so much. Well, that was easily fixed; the limb itself was still attached and it wasn't something delicate like a spine or something. She just needed to pull it in the right direction. Easy enough. Just a quick tug. Just a tug.

When she managed to open her eyes again, a redblood was looking down at her, frowning. "Hi?" she managed.

"I'm taking over," he declared. "You're no better than bait with your leg injured like that."

"The mighty Huntress Direclaw is not bait!" Except for that one time, but that didn't count.

He rolled his eyes. "The mighty Huntress Direclaw can't even stand."

"I can stand!" she protested, hopping to her feet. She wobbled and hissed, but managed to remain upright. "See? I'm fine!"

He kicked her injured leg and she howled, collapsing. "No fair!" she whined.

"Just stay out of my way."

She pouted as he walked away. Fine. She could wait. Watch them all die without her expertise and her skill. And as soon as her leg got better she'd show them what it really meant to be a mighty hunter. The ones that were still alive, at least.

She lasted perhaps minutes before boredom set in. The last time she had been hurt this badly had been when she'd been flung out of a tower and fallen fifty stories before landing on an armored artillery vehicle. Back then, her attention had been consumed by the need to hide and escape, but now she didn't even have being hunted to keep her entertained.

So instead she settled for dragging herself, slowly and painfully, up a tree, hoping to catch a glimpse of the battle. She got caught in several branches and when she reached the top, all she could make out were bright flashes of psionic power and smoke and the occasional explosion.
She grumbled, intensely disappointed, but settled in to watch anyway. It was better than trying to climb back down the tree. The only things down below were grumpy, injured trolls and the tattered remains of dead trolls. The living ones would only yell at her and the dead ones were too much work to move around.

The flashes and the smoke began to dull and the explosions picked up, which she was pretty sure meant that the trolls were losing. Hah. Stupid city-dwellers. Stupid city dwellers who didn't know anything how to kill anything but other city-dwelling trolls, cowering in fear of daywalkers and beasts. A real troll should only be afraid of one thing:

Clowns.

She shuddered at the thought and had to readjust her grip on the tree as her bad leg gave protest. No more thinking about that. Happier thoughts now. Maybe she could come up with a way to save her troops. Honeybee had said that she was getting better at planning, towards the end, and it only sounded mostly sarcastic.

As she pushed herself back into position, her gaze drifted to the side and she spotted it. A thin, gleaming blue line that reached up into the clouds, moving slowly but purposefully toward the battle. She gasped, remembering the last time she had seen beam from the sky like that.

The beam finally centered itself amidst the smoke and explosions, and turned bright red before vanishing. She spun, dropping below the tree tops just in case and howling in despair as a column of swirling light brighter than the sun fell from the sky and devoured the horizon.

While writing this, I realized that while trolls may be great killers, maybe even great warriors, they are almost certainly terrible soldiers.
Also, I feel like writing a fic wherein Nepeta, as wiggler, was actually a normal, well-adjusted troll, but Equius carefully molded her into the off-kilter, romance-obsessed hunter we know and love because he found out that her ancestor was like that. 'Cause that's the kind of thing that good moirails do.

[ArcFour]

Hello, all! This is my first post here, but I just wanted to put up something I'm in the midst of writing.

Essentially, I really liked the differences between Dave and Aradia (specifically the differences between the Knight and the Maid), and so I wanted to try writing little shorts about what the other classes might have been like. So, I'm going through all 12 of the Heroes of Time and writing them out. Here are the first three!

1 – Bard

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You are the Bard of Time, and you follow the Rhythm.

You know Time’s true nature; it is the Sound and the Silence, the Ebb and the Flow, the great Notes that govern all. And you know how to play it.

Here the tune sways, and you take it in your hands and in your strings and in your breath and you make it sway more. Sweet sound flows from your lips, and the Rhythm bends to you.

Time slows down. Time speeds up. Enemies find themselves caught in a mire, unable to think, unable to move, too slow to make any difference. Allies find themselves on fast forward, thinking like lightning and moving like light.

And you. You stride into battle with the tune on your lips, and you are like a storm, like a wave. You move, and you become a requiem for the dead, a dirge for those who dared to face you. Enemies fall, in the blink of an eye, and before anyone, friend or foe, can react, a whole symphony has played. You are fast. You are strong. You are an Elegy for those who align themselves against you.

But your power is limited.

You have tried. God have you tried. But the Rhythm can only be bent and pushed. To jump, forward or back, is to break the Rhythm permanently, and you can't bring yourself to do that. For now, it can only be bent. That is simply the way it is.

And then you face the Black Queen. Your teammates are at your side, and as you see the clock set into her chest, the product of a foolish choice by a well-meaning teammate, you realize that the Black Queen can feel the Rhythm as well.

The Black Queen will be unstoppable. You know this. So you make a choice.

Before, you felt a weakness in the Rhythm. You resisted taking advantage of it, because you could feel that to use it was to break it. But now, here, at this time and this place, you realize that it will be necessary. The Rhythm must be broken. The Beat must come to an end.

So, as the Queen comes for you, and everything slows to a crawl, you pull up your strings and your voice and your blade and you play one last song.

The Rhythm skips a Beat, and breaks.

And everything becomes a little…

disCORdaNT.

2 – Mage

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You are the Mage of Time, and you hold the Source.

You know Time’s true nature; it is the Font and the Well, the Spring and the Power, the Origin of all that is. And you know how to tap into it.

An enemy approaches, and you smile as you reach out. He gets close, empty grin upon his face, and dies, as the Power reaches him in a wave of red light. All that’s left is dust.

Yours is the power of Time, the power to bring about its ravages to those of the Enemy. All fear you, Ally and Enemy, because Time knows no bounds, knows no fealty, and cannot understand the difference between your friends and your foes.
And as time goes on, well, it becomes difficult for you to tell, either.

Time is a Source, Time is Power, and everything that faces you will fall to the dust.
Even those you love.

And as you stand in the ashes of one who did not deserve to die, you know there is one thing you can do. While all others before you have turned to dust in its power, you think that you could survive the ravages of the Source long enough to go back, to do what is necessary, to keep this from happening.

But you cannot be certain, because in the long days of Sburb, you have learned the true nature of the Mage.

You could go back. But how far? How far would the massive Wellspring of Time take you? Because you know that you would not be able to guide yourself, just like you could not control the flow of power that took the life of an innocent.

Because you know that the Mage’s curse is to have Power without Control.

3 – Thief

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You are the Thief of Time, and you know the Prize.

You know Time’s true nature; it is the Reward, the Gift, the most valuable thing in all of paradox space. And you know how to take it.

Everyone’s time is limited. They’re born, they live, and they die; that’s the way the world works. That is the way it is.

Except for you, that is.

Everyone’s time is limited, and valuable, and yours for the taking. Days, weeks, months; you take them from those who would face you, and you watch as they begin to crumble, begin to bow, and begin to bend under the weight of their end days. Creatures in the prime of their lives are suddenly left old and withered, brought to their twilight years by your own hand.

And you? Well, those stolen hours have to go somewhere, don’t they? You take them away, and keep them for yourself, and you can feel them nestled in you, warm and glowing. You know that you need never die, need never even age as long as there are fools out there with years yet to give.

But it isn’t enough. Not yet.

As imps and ogres and basilisks crumble and wither and die under your grasp, you realize just how pitifully short their lives are. Their bounty is miniscule. Their treasure is pathetic. Their Prize is unworthy.

So you set your sights higher. And you see her.

The Black Queen, you’ve learned, is old. But still she is as young as she supposedly was a very long time ago. You’ve learned what you could of the carapace people, and they live long. Their bounties were far more plentiful. But the Black Queen’s Prize would be… invaluable.

So you face her, early, and you have her at your grasp, and you take.

It is then that you learn the truth. The carapace people are long lived.

But the Black Queen is ageless.

And even though you take more and more and more, she has an infinite well of years inside of her, an eternity that cannot be brought to an end. You take and take and take, and she only smiles, and stands up.

It is here that you learn a truth.

There are Prizes too large for even the most skilled Thief to take.

So, yes, I started out with a few of the more difficult ones for me to write; I had a hard time finding a way for the Bard to be interesting! And the Mage for that matter. The Thief was easy, though.

But yeah, it's a bit of headcanon for me that all Bards have the potential to go batshit insane fairly easily. The other bit of headcanon is that any specific Hero of Time only has a vague idea of how Time works, and each Hero's experiences with it are different. Each only sees a facet of how it works, and assumes they are seeing it all.

So, next up are the Rogue, Sylph, and Page! (three OTHER hard ones to write!)

Enjoy, all!

[Shinji Shazaki]

Bam. Three posts in a week. Baller.

I present chapter eleven of Retroversion Dissolution: Orders From Above (2/3).

In which the teams begin to move together, the Heir of Time steps up as a leader to stop the incessant bickering (particularly between the Maid of Space and the Sylph of Blood), the Seer of Void vanishes, the Thief of Mind is held in the Mindgrip, and the Bard of Space strikes a deal with the Mage of Void.

Enjoy.

[Non-Player Character]

Bam! Bam! 2xFanfic combo!

First, In Which Vriska Gets What She Wants (but not in the way she wants it) or, alternatively, Change One Thing, Change Everything, a story ironically not (entirely) about Vriska.

Second, Let’s Play Sburb: Commoner Cycle Modstravaganza, a look at Sburb as though it were a real-life video game.

Also, Skaian Redeemer, that was so great I don't even.

[ch00_bakka]

Hello, all! This is my first post here, but I just wanted to put up something I'm in the midst of writing.

Essentially, I really liked the differences between Dave and Aradia (specifically the differences between the Knight and the Maid), and so I wanted to try writing little shorts about what the other classes might have been like. So, I'm going through all 12 of the Heroes of Time and writing them out. Here are the first three!

[cool stuff here]

I'm gonna give you a .

[ArcFour]

Thanks, ch00! I'll have the next three up pretty soon, too. I've written the Rogue (which was fun) and the Sylph (which was tough), and now I have just have the Page left.

[draconicAlgorithm]

I really need to stop starting new things. But I just... get crazy ideas and start rolling with them. I might have a problem.

In any case, I actually posted this on AO3 a while ago, but here's Oathbound, a crossover with Diane Duane's Young Wizards series. It was inspired by another fanfic with the same crossover on AO3, but where that one focuses on the kids meeting the trolls, this focuses on the kids getting their manuals and going through their shared Ordeal.

[Domoz]

Sigh
Being able to write anything that makes any conceivable sense in canon is hard, and no one understands.

That is: Living Life

[ArcFour]

Okay, here's batch 2; the Rogue, Sylph, and Page.

4 – Rogue

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You are the Rogue of Time, and you make the Ways.

You know Time’s true nature; it is a Map and a Contract, a Guide and a Rulebook, a set of Instructions to be followed. And you know how to disregard it.

Following the set path is for the weak and the unintuitive. It’s in the wild ways that you find adventure and excitement. Reading a map? Following directions? BORING.

No. You’ll make your own way, Sburb be damned.

And it’s here that you excel. Here, a teammate dies unnecessarily. Time points you here, but that makes things too simple, so instead you go HERE. And it cuts it close, to be sure; the ally barely makes it through, but you succeeded, didn’t you?

And so you play, from close scrape to rocks and hard places, from pans to fires, and you’re laughing the whole way, because you know that the same closeness that is making everything so exciting for you is making it for exciting for your friends, too.
With every encounter they come out a little stronger, and with every fight you know they’ve all learned, not just you.

With every jump, you set your own Way, not Time’s Path, and you know in your heart you are doing good. Your whole team is stronger through your effort, whether they know it or not, and you don’t even feel the need to tell them. That’s just how you are.

So, when everything goes horribly wrong, when everything falls, and your team lies dead at your feet, Time confronts you with a single Path. A path that leaves you all in dire straits, but all alive. But you see another path, one farther away, tucked out of sight, which brings not only life, but true success to your team.

But it leads to your death.

And you grin, even with the carnage around you, because you’ve already made a choice. The Rogue takes the most interesting path, despite the end.

And you’ve always been willing to risk everything for your friends.

And days earlier in the timeline, but hours after that fateful choice, you realize something wonderful.

Death is not the end.

Sometimes, all it takes to Rise Up is being willing to make your own Path.

5 – Sylph

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You are the Sylph of Time, and you feel the Flow.

You know Time’s true nature; it is the Sky and the Sea, the Wind and the Water, the great Current that guided all things natural. And you know how to thrive in it.

There is a Balance to Paradox Space, despite first appearances, just as there was to your home, but here, as the Sylph, you can really feel it. There’s an ebb and flow to it all, a current, and it doesn’t take you long to realize that it’s all to the beat of Time. Time is the Keeper, the Pendulum to which it all sways.

And in realizing that, you feel wonderful. Here there’s a meaning to it all that you lacked before. Here, the Enemy is clearly in the Wrong, and your Team is Right. Here, every time you kill an enemy you feel the Flow shift back into alignment, and everything feels better.

But it all goes wrong, very, very quickly.

The first time you alchemize your first Time tool, a simple flute, it feels odd in your hands. You’ve played the flute all of your life, but this one feels different.

When you put it to your lips and play it, your body twists in searing pain as you are hurled back in time several hours. Hot and cold, ice and fire, grips your mind and soul, and you realize that your power is wrong.

You don’t play it much after that.

And as you continue through the game, only sparingly touching your flute as necessary, you begin to wonder if you, too, are wrong; if you are as much a parasite, a curse on the game as your flute?

You begin to wonder if you need to die.

You make a decision soon after. The team gets together, and your leader makes a hard announcement. To continue, one of your team will have to stay behind and hold off the enemy. Someone needs to hold the line.

They wonder why you offer yourself so readily, but you tell them a simple lie. It is your Planet, after all; you know it better than they do. They accept it, however, suspiciously, and you’re happy.

The enemy comes, and a dozen, a hundred, a thousand of you are here to face it. Each of you burns with the fires of wrongness, of imbalance, but you fight anyway.

And when it’s all over, and only you are left, mortally wounded, you find yourself in a bed, a wonderful, beautiful bed, and everything feels right.

When you Ascend, you are faced with a Truth.

To be a Sylph is to be of your power, but also apart from it; never to use it, except at great cost.

Unless, of course, you make the greatest sacrifice.

And now you flit through the Flow, and it sings through you, and you realize that now, now everything truly is right.

6 – Page

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You are the Page of Time, and you learn the Lessons.

You know Time’s true nature; it is a power to be Learned, it is knowledge to be Gained, it is a great Gift that can be used as a tool and weapon only by those who have become Experienced.

So you learn.

You are the Page, and that means that you are weak, for you are only a student where others are already masters. Your friends and your enemies have their power already, and they never had to work for it.

But you do.

So you follow them. You help where you can, though your skills are meager (and become more so as your friends grow even greater in power). You fight. You support.
You learn.

Some of your teammates don’t appreciate you. They think you’re useless. You agree with them, for now.

But the only way it will change is if you learn to play the Game for what it is.

You become knowledgeable about the Game. You figure out the rules. You figure out the mechanics. You figure out secrets. And you do it all by paying attention.

And then you learn it; the greatest Lesson of them all.

The Page’s destiny is to be weak, because he must earn his power where others are given it freely. His destiny is to be weak until he has learned.

And as you stand on a strange Pedestal engraved with the mark of a Gear, the mark you have come to recognize as your own, you have learned exactly what it will take.

When a very familiar figure stands in front of you, almost like a mirror, garbed in the strange red clothing and hood of What Comes Next, the both of you smile, because you understand.

The death is quick.

And you Rise.

And you understand, as you prepare to go back and slay yourself, that this is the fate of the Page. To be weak, to be frail, to be useless; these are the qualities that the Page must turn into a strength. Because now? Now you have Power to rival the Mage, Control to rival the Witch, and Understanding to rival the Seer, and most of all, you have Experience, because you know what it is to be weak.

The Fate of the Page is to earn that which the Heir is given by right, so that he may wield it with Experience. And so you will.

So, when I started these I didn't intend for these three to all go Godtier, but it really seemed to fit them. Also, the Sylph was hard to figure out; that one took some work, hehe.

Also, Headcanon!

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One; Pages have the potential to be really, really powerful, but it takes a lot of work.

Two; Tavros COULD have gained that power, but never got past the 'weak' stage. He, like almost every other troll, depended too thoroughly on his own natural abilities, and didn't really play Sgrub the way it was supposed to be played. They won, but 'improperly', so to speak.

Three: the reason Nepeta never had a chance with Karkat was because she never really tried; she did the 'simple' thing by staying back. Had she done the more 'interesting' thing, and actually tried to start a relationship with him, it might have worked. She was the Rogue of Heart, after all.

So, next time, we'll have the Maid (yes, it's Aradia), the Prince, and the Witch.

[ArcFour]

So, here are the next three, the Maid, the Prince, and the Witch.

7 – Maid

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You are the Maid of Time, and you are bound in the Chains.

You know Time’s true nature; it is the Law and the Bindings, the Fetters that enslave all under its tyrannical whim. And you have no choice but to follow it.

Time has a Path. This Path must be followed by all. But most of the time, they follow this path unknowingly, blissfully naive of the engraved-stone Fate they all have.

Your naivete was stolen from you in a vicious cycle of revenge.

And now, dead, you can see the Path, in all of its terrible, binding majesty.

So you follow it. You don’t have a choice. You don’t even care, anymore. The Maid’s fate is to serve, and you serve as bidden.

Here a teammate dies at the hand of another, and the Session is Doomed. You go back, and say the words needed to change it.

Here a teammate dies of her own foolishness and arrogance, taking on an enemy larger than herself. You go back, and stay her hand.

Here the Black King fights, and all die in the sound of his terrible Voice. You go back, a hundred thousand times, and die in their place.

You die, and die, and die a thousand, thousand times as you guide according to the immovable rulings of Time.

But it is only after the end, when all seems doomed, that you see a glimmer in the darkness.

It is only after the end that you are given a Chance.

And, in an uncharacteristic action of choice, you take it.

And you Rise Up.

And now you know the truth of the Maid, of all Maids. They are to serve, and serve unflinchingly, unless they have the courage to take their freedom by force.

You are the Maid. And now you are free.

Now you are alive.

8 – Prince

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You are the Prince of Time, and you are trapped in the Role.

You know Time’s true nature; it is the Promise, never fulfilled. It is the Goal, never to be reached. It is Power that can never be yours. And you finally understand.

It isn’t that you don’t have power, no. You have the power to jump through Time’s streams, to right what goes wrong, to keep everything stable and right. You have the ability to slow and to hasten, to break and to fix, to play Time like a tune. You have all of this.

But you know you could have more.

Every time you grasp your power, it is never quite enough. Time slows, but not quite enough. Your allies are faster, but you know it isn’t quite enough. You jump to where you are needed, but you don’t quite have enough control; you are only ever barely able to do what you need to do.

Not quite enough control, not quite enough power, not quite enough understanding; you want more, and you know that your Role is keeping it from you.

This can’t be all that Time has to offer.

This can’t be all that the Hero of Time is able to do.

Which means that Sburb is keeping it from you.

And as you watch her fly, wearing the strange purple garb of the Godtier Heir of Hope, you wonder if this is the way to take the power that Sburb will not give you. As you watch her, you wonder if maybe you can have power like hers.

So you set it up, and it is perfect. Here you are, sleeping on your Quest Bed. Here you are, standing beside it. Here you are, holding a gun to another version of yourself. A quick pull of the trigger, and the pistol will do all the work for you, and you’ll have the power that you’ve been dreaming of.

And you can’t do it.

Nothing holds you back. Not the Heir, not Sburb, not Time.

Just you.

You walk away, and you wonder if this is the fate of the Prince, to accept his fate, or to die.

You have learned a Truth. Ultimate power was not meant to be yours.

The Prince will never be King.

9 – Witch

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You are the Witch of Time, and you know the Rituals.

You know Time’s true nature; it is the Will and the Word, the Point and the Line, the great Pattern that directs everything. And you know how to control it.

Control is an intoxicating thing, as it turns out. You’ve always had an interest in the supernatural, but to find that your interest is giving you a HELL of a leg up in your Game? That’s a pretty damn good ego boost.

It’s almost ridiculously easy; simple patterns drawn in the air cause easily discernable reactions. A slash and a swirl here, and an imp is slowed and stopped, frozen in midair. A point and circular motion there, and your Knight moves like the wind, blurring on fast-forward.

And when you need to pull out the big guns, well, all you have to do is wave your arms, and there are a dozen of you there, time clones and loops all ready to fight.
Yes, control is very intoxicating.

Of course, it all had to go very, very wrong.

As it turned out, the Black Queen had this control as well. You could have countered her, you suppose; cancel out her Time abilities and let your friends do the rest.

But she had other powers as well, granted by right and by birth and by Sburb, and when she raised her hand, and red light flashed and broke in front of you, you felt the Pattern fall away.

Time was still there, of course. Time had to be there. Time didn’t just go away. But the Rituals to make it work, the Patterns that you depended on to work your magic? They were gone, as if they’d never existed.

And as she came to strike you down, all you could do was stare, as you finally realized where you had gone wrong.

You knew the Patterns, but Time? Time you knew nothing of. Not one damned thing. When the Pattern was gone, you knew nothing of how to continue. You were simply blindly using a tool whose workings were like a black box.

And you laugh, as she comes for you, because you learn a Truth.

The Witch’s curse is to have Control, without Understanding.

So, yes, these were fun. The Witch plays into a sort of theme I'm doing with the Seer, Mage, and Witch; the Mage is Power without Control, the Witch is Control without Understanding, and the Seer is Understanding without Power. And, of course, the Heir has all three. So, yes, this has been very fun! I can't wait to finish.

The next ones will be the last; the Knight (Dave), the Seer, and the Heir.

Enjoy, all, and let me know what you think!

[lucidSeraph]

/CRAWLS BACK INTO THIS THREAD

HEY GUYS

THERE ARE THREE NEW CHAPTERS OF VIOLETESENCE UP???

They're all under one work name though. For. Organization.

Rosemary, Pansy, Columbine, Rue

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It's over at AO3 okay

/crawls back into oblivion

[crash826]

more violetescence aw yeeeeeeeee

[ArcFour]

Woot, more Violetescence!

I'm a huge fan of alt!char stories, hehe.

[Quirk]

If anyone's interested, I have a project going that could use some help getting off the ground, so if you have a bit of extra time and like writing about trolls, come on over.

Link also in sig.