Backstory Fic
Feb. 12th, 2014 01:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
carnagecarnivalThe Cult Of The Mirthful Messiahs
The body falls with a thud and so do you. The sand of the beach parts for your knobby knees and the rest of your bony, skinny self like you’re its king, crown seized, victorious. The only crown you have is this motherfucker’s head. You stare at the body beside you, bleeding out- purple again- and shudder where it remains still. The salt water and sand burns in the opens marks at your side. You reach up, hand shaking, to feel them and count, one, two; you managed to cull him before he reached three.
What, did you think you were a seadweller? Stupid airbreather, you need gills for that. You want to really swim?
You laugh a little, if weakly, because it was funny. It was a good joke with a good punchline. Give the landweller gills, just like he’d wished when he was two sweeps. Hilarious.
You turn over to retch.
You don’t know if anything or anyone else might come. The rise of tide and burn of dawn as well, eventually, if you were to let the whole night slip from you. You have to move whether you like it or not. You force yourself up on to unsteady feet. No one can hear you whimper. You’re the only wriggler, the only living surface troll for stretches, way down to where the marketplace is and the hiveclusters start to stretch south-west, down along the even greater length of the cliffs.
Taking off the head is the first thing you have to do. It’s the best way to keep them from rising up again, just in case. It’s hard, but what all motherfucking ain’t? You’re still no good at it but you’re getting better. You fucked up badly the first few times and had to deal with the dead, but you’re getting older, you can do this if you do it just right. You pick up the troll’s weapon and get to work.
You’re better at this when you’re angry. This has always been the way it is. You move faster, think faster, hit harder, endure more. You’re stronger when you’re angry. For some reason you’re not angry now, and so it takes that much longer.
When you manage, though, and the head comes free with ‘schluck’ sound, it’s all that much more satisfying. You’d flop backwards into the sand with relief if your side didn’t hurt so much. Instead you grind your teeth and allow yourself just a few moments of rest, knees pulled up to your chest and your head rested on your knees until your gut stops churning.
The moment passes and you jerk yourself back to work before unconsciousness completely pulls you under. Claiming sleep out of sopor was one thing but doing it outside your hive was a million levels of stupid.
The troll’s hair gets twisted up in one hand and the shirt on its back in the other. Along the sand you drag the heavy water-logged corpse. It clumps the sand to form and leave behind shining purple jewels. Fitting. Finally you drop the body down. Your side is now washed with your own indigo. You’ll need to do something about that, later. You settle down before the hive wall and turn the corpse over. It’s time to paint.
Yet another thing that works better when you’re angry, but you think you’ll manage. With reckless abandon, you slap the color on, splashing it this way and that, over top the layers of other dried colors. The freshest there is maroon, in its irony. You make sure to contrast some of the purple with it, let the colors touch and mingle, become something beautiful. You had hoped your next kill might allow you to paint up higher, make it seem like the troll living here in your hive- you- is bigger than he is, not a wriggler, but the slashes at your side protest enough to make your eyes water when you reach. Maybe next time.
You make sure to keep that maroon shining through on the side; they were a psionic troll that’s always impressive. More so, you think, than the purples sometimes. You nearly passed out trying to voodoo that one down. You nearly got psionically tossed through a wall. You have to remember to practice your voodoo. You drag it up now, just to feel around you, but for the most part, the world is quiet. Except for the constant crash of shore.
You pause, evaluating your wall, then the corpse. Alright, you decide, this time you can take some. You retreat to your hive, seek out an empty clay pot. You find one, just one left, nicely stained. The others are currently saved for fixing your water to get the salt--and other things- out. There isn’t too much to take left, but it’s just enough that it’s worth it. Then, in a lack of drift wood to make it keep, you drag the corpse out to the very same sea. Some creature will find it and eat it instead of you.
(Maybe, just maybe, it will be your Da. Maybe he’ll come back. He’d see what you’d done. He’d be proud of you then, you know it. He’d stay this time. You could convince him to stay. You’ve been collecting some of his other favourite foods too. You know he hates the shore, you know he gets hungry, but you can help him, you can. You even searched out a cove he could stay in, along the rocks of the cliff you hunt around, that’s nice and close and so he could come back to see you easily. Or you could see him! Oh Messiahs, you pray he’ll show.)
Carefully, you cradle the pot of purple like it really is a jewel. It comes with you inside, and after you wash clean your wounds, you take it with you to the stairs. They’re blocked by all manner of broken piece of wood, all jutting sharp this way and that. If it were to fall just right, you think it could maybe kill a troll. Which is exactly what you want. You look over each bit you can see, then smile when you find the one single piece marked with your blood. You give it a practiced twist, wiggle, and a tug, and it opens for you just enough to let you through.
Upwards, to the top of the stairs, you ease yourself carefully, so as not to disturb your wounds any more or lose the color you’ve claimed. You see the light of the window shining through just as you near the last step. You see the shot of green-- the moon of course-- but then, stupid you, stupid motherfucking you, you twist all wrong and send a flare up your side. You hiss and trip and the bowl drops to smash.
All at once you’re covered in violet and your last pot is broken. You scramble to your knees in the puddle and make a noise of choked distress. The pieces don’t fix together just because you will them and shove them. The pieces fall from your hands a second later when you catch eye of the splatter marked on your painting. Blood doesn’t come in white. White is special, takes certain tools. It’s the damp fur of your Da.
And it’s been wiped out from the painting.
No. No, no, no. No! Da won’t come back if that’s gone, Da won’t know. All the prayer, all the thought on it. It will all be wiped away by the stupid violet, no. More trolls will come. They’ll try to hurt you again and you’ll be all alone. You’ll stay alone. Your hands hover over the mark for a moment before you try to wipe it, only for it to be blotted out. The only thing you’ve got. You let out a pitiful moan. Your claws dig into your scalp as you thumb at your horns and rock back and forth on the spot, trying to calm yourself, trying to soothe. You gasp and sniff. Focus. Focus. If a motherfucker came in now what would you do? You’d be caught off guard and culled. They’d drag your guts half a mile through the dirt and laugh. You can’t afford this, you can’t.
You breathe deep once more and then wipe at your face. You pick up the clay pieces and shove them aside. You’ll need a new pot and you’ll need a thing what all can mark white. You’ve made fresh cull and painted the outside; it will be good enough warning. They should leave your hive alone and all your things too. You hope. You pray.
Back down the stairs you go, walking out a limp. It’s not safe to go out but you must. You need these things, and so, you fix your paint and tie off some cloth around your chest and side like a band. It’s dark, so hopefully no one will notice the bleeding and see you as easy target. Straighten up. Harden your face. The bigger and scarier you look the better. You pull a caftan onto your shoulders-- though it’s really more of a tiny blanket with a hole for your head. You’ve got boons gained from the last corpse tucked in a pocket. The clubs are grabbed and held tight, after all, it’s dangerous to leave a hive unarmed.
You steel yourself a look out over the shoreline. You don’t see sign of your Da (you never do, It’s been perigees) but it turns something in you to think of leaving it. What if he does come back? He’ll see you’re gone and never return. But if you don’t go he won’t anyway. You spend several more minutes waffling on the decision, almost turning back into your hive to crawl into the corner or maybe bury yourself in your recuperacoon.
The light of the green moon and the whispers of the Messiahs in your ear, make up your mind. It’s a good distance away and will take up your night. Any more wasted time and who knows if you’ll make it back without getting caught in the day. With a deep breath, you head out to the market.
You trek along under the moons, muttering the scripture under your breath. Let the Messiahs be at your sides, the Minstrels at your back, and the wicked word that which guides ahead. You keep going until the beach sand changes to something harder, struggling greens trying to peek through and the occasional groupings of long stalks of whistling reeds-- but you’ve been here long enough you can pick out the sounds of predator or prey should anything come too close.
The ground grows more matted as you go, the signs of desert stretching out and out and motherfucking out from all you are. It’s all barren and dead out there. If you turned wrong you’d be dead too. Thankfully, you know the way; you followed a couple trolls sweeps back on the way here without them ever knowing you were following. It isn’t long before the lights start to come into view and you get a little thrill out of seeing them, even as the underlying terror reminds you that there are many, many other trolls here. Your pusher races, slamming against the cage that’s your ribs.
You’ve got your voodoo leaking all the time, so often you don’t even notice, but it’s weak and feeble. Switching one club to the other hand, you bring a hand to the side of your head and try and pull it out as best as you can. Your teeth grind and it hurts your head but you bear with it until you’ve got something of an imaginary wall built around you, and then hold it after still.
The closer you get, the brighter the lights seem. You watch them all as you approach, feeling the fears of everyone around like little beacons of their own. Everything’s all shine and color. There’s something fascinating about it all. You slip into the streets, small enough still that you can weave unnoticed, tricking the fears off your “barrier” just right so no one turns to look, save the braver. It falters several times and you immediately run each time to a new place, careful not to get trampled by any lussi or beasts weaving through with their charges or masters. Merchants call out and bicker and try to swindle trolls into buying their goods, giving the lower or higher bloods dirty looks depending on their caste. There’s rows on rows of foods and tools, jewels and clothing. The weapon stalls tend to be most noticeable by how half the time someone is dying in front of them.
You get distracted-- first by the shine of gems tucked with feathers, then by a troll testing one of the blades on another, and finally by a lusus walking, with tall horns that weave-- and you bump and stumble into other trolls and turn to catch the eye of one, looking livid. You duck out of the way and run for an opening, a place to hide. You slip into some building or other, with what you think might be a lot of lowblood trolls. You keep your head down but some spot your paint and sneer anyway, which you growl at because they’re faithless and stupid, however stupid it may be of you to do so. You think one of them was getting up to strife you before you got bumped. You stumble in surprise, and in that moment you hear another troll say, “Sorry, pardon me.”
You’re startled again by the words (Who all even says that?) and turn immediately to growl at them too, only to see a troll way smaller than you. And no lusus trailing either. You see nothing but the back of a hooded-cloak and what might be the smallest horns you ever seen. Are they… they are, they’re rounded. You see what is probably a line of a maroon on their leg as the cloak flicks about, even if it seems so much brighter. You tilt your head, squint, and then follow the troll. He keeps on ahead of you and you keep quiet. He keeps going, weaving this way and that, until suddenly he stops. You wonder if he’s caught you and if you’re about to strife him, but instead, he turns, and only then do you clue in to the sounds of fighting beyond general noise. You can see, sort of, through the tables and people, that it’s the same lowbloods from before. They’re going from punches and kicks and thrown insults, to growls, hissing, and barred teeth and claws. You’re pretty sure you’re about to watch one of them get culled, until suddenly, your nubby troll clears his throat.
He stands up atop a set of crates in the corner so he may be seen. His hands are raised high at attention, palms outwards. He’s got small dull triangles for fangs and too many to fit his mouth. His nubs are just as nubby from the front. He is small, boxy, and soft looking, with thick hair hidden under his cloak hood. Other than his softness, the troll before you is entirely unremarkable. You stare. He speaks.
“People! Please! Please!” He calls out, almost desperate, entirely too damn bold, and for the sheer oddity of it, they look. “You don’t have to fight! You don’t have to be cause of each other’s suffering! Look at each other, your fellow troll. Were you not only moments before sitting together at peace? Strangers who could carry on their way without fighting. Perhaps friends! And you would bring this upon yourselves at cost of what you could have instead. Surely you could talk this through!”
Your jaw hangs a little and you know you’re not the only one. He doesn’t even stop there, he keeps going. They snap back after a second (who does he think he is talking to them? They have to teach the other a lesson. The other doesn’t deserve a throat to speak with.) at this tiny-ass troll, but he isn’t deterred-- you feel the fear that goes with the slight flinch, but he doesn’t stop.
“You both deserved to be listened to. You all deserve to be listened to--”
You hear things you’ve never, not ever heard before. Your hands loosen around your clubs, but you don’t notice. Your nubby troll is focused, bent on making himself heard, determined to make things clear. He wears it like it’s his sign, and the thought has you look for it, but you can’t see any. The only thing you can see is that flash of too-bright maroon, disappearing again beneath his cloak. This troll isn’t all that much older than you, can’t be, so what the fuck does he think he’s--
“You deserve better than this but it cannot come to be unless you work together, we must all work together--”
You feel the churn of fear and it gives you those extra seconds to spot them; a bunch of blue ruffiannihilators following in. You don’t even think. For all that, you don’t even motherfucking think. You rush forward and you tug the nubby troll, spewing that noise, right down off the crates and you run. You keep his hand in yours and you pull him, fast, with your two clubs held in your other. No good for fighting. If anyone catches you you’re dead.
If he makes a sound you don’t listen. If he fights, you don’t notice in how tight you hold on. You just keep running, with him in tow, weaving through the place and through the market until you’re out and away. When you finally stop, you’re by the cliffs, the empty part that no one goes to, with the tree and the stone and the grass all around. You’re breathing hard and so is he. Now that the motherfucking noise has stopped in your head and now that you’re here alone, you can think, yeah, he probably did protest something. You think he’s about to now with how his mouth opens and he raises a hand. But you beat him to it.
“Are you motherfucking crazy? Do you all got at to be motherfucking wanting all to die?!” You flail a little. “Those guys would’ve killed you! You can’t go sayings them things, brother, you’ll be motherfucking killed you will! Dumby!”
He looks offended. Like you’ve said something that isn’t absolute truth. But you still aren’t letting him speak.
“I-”
“What all got putting them motherfucking things in your pan, brother? Where’d you even up and learn that, who all would schoolfeed you that? What the fuck’s up with your nubs? Why’re your pants all glowing nearly? Do you really mean it? Did you really motherfucking mean it all? It is true?”
“Of course it is!” He says. “Why would I lie about all that? And--”
“But that’s treason! Probably! They’d have killed you! You know they’d made all to have culled you don’t you!? They--”
“Will you let me talk?!” He snaps. He swishes his cloak in annoyance. Then glances nervously at you and over his shoulder, far back to the market. You personally don’t see anyone coming. “I can tell you it all, if you will listen.”
You all deserve to be listened to.
“Aight,” You say, and you sit down in the grass, clubs in your lap. He settles upon the rock before you and the moons shine on him and halo his head and tiny little nub horns. Miraculously...he doesn’t even try to hurt you. Not once. He stops sometimes when you get too restless and have to argue or ask questions. He listens back. He talks of how this world could be like shangri-la, without even having to die. He talks until an angry (or scared) looking adult troll comes over the horizon, and you get your clubs out and get to hissing, but he tells you that it’s okay, it’s his mom, and laughs all light when you get confused-- a sudden sick and sharp panic makes you stop him before he turns away, makes you beg him to come back, to promise to meet here again soon.
You get schoolfed all about the wicked news.
~~~
You realise once you’re back, you forgot both the new bowl and the white. The realisation sends you to panic for a while; the idea that your old goat might not come back. And all because you were too distracted to pay attention.
And then you were distracted because of the nubby troll. Kankri, he said his name was. You can’t bring yourself to blame him though. The promise to meet again holds you to the surface through the next few nights. You have to wait until a certain time for him to come back again. He and his tall troll don’t go to the markets often, only when they absolutely need something-- too dangerous there otherwise.
You count the days just like you used to way back, when waiting for Da to show. You mark it on the wall, to be sure. You notice too that you don’t have any color like Kankri’s anywhere, all the reds are ruddy and dark. Every color has a darkness to it that you didn’t notice before now. It has you frowning and touching your walls. You didn’t ever think it was dark before, but Kankri is as bright as moons, you realise later, as you wait on shore. He’s bright as them pale glimmering stars, you think.
Those same stars guide you through the night, many days later, along the path, weaving this way and that. You reach the tree and stone and cliffside, the grass all around and the lights of the market shining. You don’t see him. He’s not here. Immediately fear takes you. What if he doesn’t show? What if he forgot? What if he didn’t want to see you after all? (It wouldn’t be the first time would it?)
When you hear the rustling, you’ve well and bitten up your lips to bleeding. Your ears perk up and you sit up, clubs ready. Your breath is held.
You see nubs and the brightest red.
“Brother!” You call. You go to greet him, smiling. You notice the way he smiles back.
~~~
“So… they’d cull you… if all they up and knew?”
“Yes.”
You feel his fear.
“I’ll fight them.”
“Kurloz, no! I don’t want you to fight them, I don’t want anybody to fight!”
“But Kankri, they’ll try and cull you! I could fight them! I’m strong! I swear! I’ve--”
“No,” He says firm. “I don’t want that.”
~~~
You wait there as you always do, greet him as you always do, rising up quick, with a call to him. At this point, you’ve almost seen him more than you’ve seen your Da. He’s the only one to greet you without raised claw or weapon. He’s the only one but the Messiahs that you speak to at all. Sometimes you think, they’ve sent him to you, just for you.
He talks of things he’s seen. He talks of places, of things.
He talks of people too. But when he does he gets sad, or angry.
You don’t ever talk of real people. Not the way he does. You tell poetry and stories instead.
You talk about the way the too bright cut on his hand might look to someone else, how dangerous it is, how he should learn to fight or run, and definitely not continue all the motherfuck on with his ideas. He gets annoyed when you say it like that and you get annoyed right back.
You tell him it will never work, it’s too dangerous and he’ll die. You think you’ve been telling him that he’ll die every time you’ve by met now. He says, “people are listening more and more!” and you knew that already, you’d seen for yourself and thought for a moment you’d have to pull him out from getting culled all ways before realising they were just listening in. “Just like you did, Kurloz.” You wince. “We’re getting somewhere!”
“You’re going to get on the motherfucking gallows,” You tell him. “All up on the gallows you is going at to get your motherfucking self all to be. This can’t work. It won’t. That ain’t how all the empire works! I’ve read it and heard, brother, studied the wicked shit. YOU HAVE TO STOP OR THEY WILL MAKE YOU!”
“Kurloz!” He starts, and you fall quiet, your temper stilling but your face is still twisted in unhappiness. “Kurloz, don’t you understand, that is what they want us all to believe, but if you’d just look, you’d see! There are people willing to try!”
You don’t say then, how much it doesn’t matter. You don’t think too hard on how if the Messiahs sent him, they did intend for him to stay long. It sends a shudder through you and you almost blurt, “Come home with me, please.”
You can’t. You can’t ask him that. He’d see your home, he’d see what you do, he’d see that even your lusus barely wants to be around you. Even if he could bear you then, he’d still likely be killed. And he’d never completely leave the adult troll he hangs around, even though you’re allowed to speak alone now. He’s got his cause. He’d never choose you over it.
It does occur to you that maybe, the Messiahs sent him to you for something else. You know his veins run bright and his thoughts run heretical. He can’t keep his mouth shut. You'd demand he run, but then he might never come back. He won’t listen to calls for strife.
He doesn’t understand, like you do, the way a body can come apart so easy. He doesn’t understand the way you do, how easily death comes. He could be here and then gone, just like that, he could never come back and there won’t be anybody left, you’ll be alone all the fuck over again. Just like he would run if you asked him to stay.
You talk to near dawn, and you have to run for your goddamn life to make it back to you hive in time. When you slam the door behind you, shutting out the light of the sun bursting through, you fall against it. Down, down, down you slide until you hit your knees. Right there, you pray.
“Oh Messiahs, the holy two and mirth makers. Let thine sinner’s tongue plead to thee. Please,” You start.
~~~
You show up with one eye swollen to closing. The joint between your neck and shoulder is burnt, chewed the fuck up and raw. Your back oozes. You’ve got blood all down your front. It ain’t all your own. You’re still breathing heavy.
He looks at you in horror, which you could know was there without seeing, feeling it as you do. You find disgust. You look away.
“Let me help.”
~~~
“How can you think it okay?”
“What the motherfuck does that mean?”
“You enjoy it! You talk like you enjoy it!”
“What? You think all that I should be sickened at by it? That’s stupid, It is how all I am alive! You think I should let them kill me?”
He bursts, “There is a difference between trying to survive and doing it for fun!” He sounds like he’s been wanting to say it for a while now, sounds like it’s been built up and buried. You think of those you pulled him from that he’d been preaching to, how they looked at the blood under your claws, how they looked at your color. How they whispered “highblooded” like they would whisper “pest”, “savage”, “beast”, “monster”. How they jerked and stiffened, even lurched forward, especially if your eyes fell on them (and how you longed to twist their fears right there). Your focus is drawn back to Kankri. Your eyes narrow.
“The fuck do you know. You don’t even know what it’s like cull! YOU’VE NEVER CULLED AT ALL UP IN YOUR MOTHERFUCKING LIFE! Never motherfucking had to! Who fucking cares if all I enjoy it? The corpse ain’t gonna goddamn care! It’s all gonna be dead either way!”
“It matters! It makes a difference whether you had a choice or not! It is gross entitlement of the Highblooded individuals to think they can do this whenever without trying for an alternate option! It should not be excuse to cull whoever one pleases--”
“FUCK YOU! FUCK THAT UNRIGHTEOUS NOISE! THAT’S HOOFBEASTSHIT, KANKRI!”
“It’s the truth! Just because you don’t want to hear it doesn’t make it less true!”
“I AIN’T CULLED YOU! Never once have I tried!”
“That does not excuse it!”
Why not? You want to stamp your foot and scream. But you hold your tongue and turn away. Everybody culls. Everybody but him. He looks down on you for it.
You’re scared.
Minutes pass and he gets up. He doesn’t have time for you like he used to when all you have is time for him. Your hand lifts to reach out but you force it to drop down quick. He’s a sinner. And you’re one of the Mirthful.
“You think you’ll make all to come back to here soonlike?” You know he has to go. To run. He has to be much more careful these days (and dammit, you know he ain’t being careful a bit).
“A perigee and three nights,” He says, automatic. He has set times, so people know when to find him, dangerous as that is. You nod and get up to leave too. Dawn comes whether you like it or not. You can’t think what else to say, so you don’t say a thing. He drags his cloak around himself like it might protect him. The only one you can think he’s trying to protect himself from is you.
~~~
You remembered the white. You got a new clay pot. Your Da has long since been marked back on the wall.
Your Da himself hasn’t been back for a long time. You wonder if he’s dead.
You know your Goat though. He’s not dead he’s just… not here.
You settle down into the sand. Breath comes in time with the shore and so does your voodoo, although at the moment, there’s nothing fearing and so nothing to fear. The beach is just empty.
The old goat can’t talk, not really. But you know he’s smart enough that if he could, he would. Smart enough to figure things out for himself, to decide one way or other. You wrack your pan for the millionth time what you might’ve done so that he wouldn’t choose you. You know he’s got some trouble seeing you for you. He gets to looking and he doesn’t realise it’s you. He gets to looking and he just doesn’t see you’re there, unless you can call him in time. (But you don’t swim out anymore, you stopped that by now.) It’s only a matter of him coming around.
On the horizon, there’s a flash of white and you immediately stand up, blood pusher racing, breath held, eyes wide. You watch close.
Tentacle. Not goat horns or fish tail. Just the beast of the dark deeps. Your face twists and you go inside to break something.
~~~
You keep wanting for the church. You haven’t gone yet but you dream of it. The only reason you haven’t gone is that leaving the shore for too long sends jolts up and down your spine, worry that someone might take your things, your hive, leave you without anywhere to stay, only to die in the day. Or worse, that your Da might show. Your meetings with Kankri are few and far between, so it’s only for this, for him, that you can excuse it.
You sit on the rock, bobbing your head. The sound of the shore isn’t so far off that you can’t hear it. It rings in your ears as you close your eyes. With voodoo, you feel the world around to see who is and isn’t there (safe for now, but alone), then try, not for the first time, to see if you could pull at your own fear with voodoo, tug it free from yourself. Using the power that much gives you headaches though. It makes your daymares worse and kinda hurts in your throat for some reason. But you try anyway.
You want to ask him. This time, you think you might ask him.
You bounce a little on the rock, kicking your feet. You’re not very patient and waiting for him is always hard.
You get up eventually. You push the voodoo out but you can’t feel a thing. So you try something new; you leave. You keep your power trained on that one spot, teeth grit, one eye closed. Every few feet affords a panicked glance back.
You make it to the market and still nothing. Through the streets you run and run and find motherfucking nothing. You run back. You pace.
He ain’t here. He ain’t motherfucking here. Why isn’t he here, he promised. He promised he’d come back, he did.
Your claws dig into your scalp and into the horn beds. You didn’t get it wrong. You’re sure. You counted it right, you scratched it down. You’ve been waiting for ages.
Why isn’t here? Round and round your pan spins, too fast for you to properly wrack it, for why, why, why he wouldn’t show. You thought--
The green moon seems to flash almost, suddenly so bright. You trip on the rock, stupid you. Light pain catches your senses and you turn over your palms and stare.
Slow and deliberate, you crawl back and drag your palm along the stone’s surface. It scraps your skin more and sure enough, it smears purple.
Blood.
A laugh breaks out. Blood. Of course. More laughter permeates and ever more blood. You don’t stop. Even as the laughter descends into something else entirely.
You get it now. You’ve sinned. This was all a test and you failed. Shows you for challenging the Messiahs. Shows you for hoping. You stupid, stupid motherfucking wriggler.
Still you wait until dawn comes and oh does it motherfucking come. You don’t have time to make it to your hive. You sneak into the back of an old tavern and you hide there and bite your knuckles and cover your mouth, the whole day to keep anyone from hearing you, finding you. The whole of your body shakes with rage, exhaustion, humiliation, and hurt. Your paint isn’t even any good anymore and your body cramps in the space. You don’t let yourself make a sound. Not until evening comes when you stumble your way back to you hive, collapsing on the shore. It’s almost dawn again by the time you get back and despair cuts into your bones.
He doesn’t come back.
~~~
There's a moment where you’re knocked off your feet and held beneath the waves crashing onto the shore. You claw at the motherfucker's arms, desperate, terrified, but eventually force through thought enough to land a hard kick into the other troll. You can get up now and you burst from the water with a gasp. You run back to your dropped clubs, pick them up and swing them with a cry. One, two, crunches of bone for one of the other trolls, two, three right back at you. The third cracks at your head and your roll like a goddamn ragdoll. You roll all kinds of motherfucking comical you do.
Fuck. You’re fucked and you know it even before the one stomps down on your leg, and the other decides it's time to stab. You’re already bleeding all the fuck everywhere. Bits of ribboned grey and indigo all over, you can't tell what's hurt and what's not anymore. The third, the seadweller-- of course it's a seadweller it's always a fucking seadweller-- hauls you up by his hair and slashes you. Again and again. You are easy cull. You are motherfucking dead. You’re lifted up a final time and slammed against the outer wall of your own hive, rainbows backed behind you but like fuck that even matters now and these trolls seem to think the same.
And suddenly, so suddenly you don’t care. How easy it would be to just stop. It'd be a good death. A decent death. You'd stop hurting and.... you'd stop being alone. Messiahs have you, Messiahs hold you. Suddenly, alarmingly, you want that. You want it so bad. You could ask them for it, but that would take away the worth of it. You keep silent and your eyes dart out to the empty sea.
There’s a blurred shape on the horizon.
No. No, no, it can't motherfucking be, it's been perigees, there's just no way.
You blink and your vision focuses on nothing but this one thing. Da, you think. The old goat stares at you and motherfucking stares. The sideways pupils are so clear, so lucid, you can't imagine you ever thought the goat was anything but. Your pale grey holds the Goat's indigo. The trolls look away to the Goat, tensing, wondering the same thing you are, you think. Did your lusus come for you? But then, as if he weren't there to begin with, he's gone. Just a splash under the waves.
You go limp. Slackjawed. You stare and the other trolls look at each other. Then suddenly, they're laughing. The motherfuckers are laughing at you. Laughing that the goat took one look at you and saw a dead troll, a worthless troll, someone not worth the caretaker what chose him after the caverns.
The seadweller holding you up turns back to you again, grin all across their face and they lean in to taunt you with something or other, but you never find out, because in that moment you are sinking teeth deep into the gills at the side of their neck and tearing them out. Voodoo up and motherfucking sings like it’s never sung before. The seadweller gurgles and drops, and so does your own body. You lunge as best as you can anyway, and grabbing the next troll's ankle, the one screaming most at the mental assault. You tug them down, rip the bladed weapon from their grasp and gut them right there with it. Green. Wierd. The last troll gives a strangled cry and leaps forward to knock you off what you’d bet to be their quadrant mate, and what a nice snapping noise your arm up and makes. They jump atop you, but fuck that. MotherFUCK that wicked noise. You pour every last bit of voodoo he's got into the last troll's pan and turn them over.
You don't stop punching until both your fists and the other troll's face are nothing but pulp. Blue. Maybe Indigo. You think that might be your own though. You aren’t sure. The last troll is limp and so, slowly, shakily, your force yourself to stand, ignoring each and every bit of pain even as it makes you cry out.
You stare at the water. Empty. It's motherfucking empty. The goat saw you and left, didn't care, didn't give a single damn, and Messiahs you should be dead right now, you’re so motherfucking alight with pain and fury you feel like you’re going to burn inside out. You want to say something to the goat, to tell him once and for all how you don't need him, thanks for motherfucking nothing!
Empty as the place on the cliffs.
You don't need anybody. You don’t want anybody ever again. You want your dad’s blood on your hands and you want red to paint the way you walk. The brightest most beautiful red there ever was and fur white as bone. You want to tell this to him now.
All that comes out is a long, loud scream.
It stretches on, pulls from your throat and with it, voodoo sings so loud your ears nearly ring. Something breaks. Something gets up and motherfucking broke.
You can't stand anymore, and so, you drop. Your face is wet but you’re pretty sure it's just blood. One could wash the wounds out with the saltwater but you decide there's no point. You’ll have drag yourself through sand anyway, there's no point trying to clean it, and so drag yourself you do, leaving the bodies where they lay. You nearly pass out so many times, but somehow you make it so your back is against the inside wall, even if you're curled and prone on the floor. It's safe enough. Safe as you’re ever going to get. Until you’re stronger.
~~~
You go to church.
You get strong.
You learn.
The next you hear of those peace wishing trolls, the next you lay eyes on their lot, you know now how damaging they can be. You know how their faith is false, their cause pointless. You know it makes trolls weak and you know it makes trolls sin. You know it cannot be allowed to survive on Alternia if Alternia is to survive.
You are to cull them.
You do.
And you don’t feel a goddamn thing.
