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"What do you think?" Aradiator asks as she pulls back the transfer paper. Your symbol stares up at you from the back of your hand, black outlines on grey skin.
"Perfect," you say. It's the exact shape you remember from all those sweeps ago, the big circle with three waves stamped on a quest cocoon you'd only ever used to pull off some rad tricks. You weren't gonna die. Dying was so far from cool it didn't even cross your thinkpan (on good nights, when you kept yourself busy).
"This is going to hurt," she tells you. Well, duh. You're paying Fef to draw on you with needles, you know it's gonna be a huge pain. "More than a lot of other areas would, because there isn't much muscle there. It's going to take longer to heal too, and you'll probably need to come back for a touch-up before it looks right."
"You trying to get me to chicken out?"
"Of course not. I know how important it is to you. I just want to make sure you know what you're getting into. That you wouldn't want it someplace a bit easier to maintain."
"Shit, girl, nothing's been easy. I'll deal."
"Okay," she says finally, giving you the kind of smile you've never seen on Damz. "I'll get Feferi."
Your bloodpumper starts beating a bit faster once you're alone, full realization of what you're about to do hitting you. Sucks when it does it like that. One minute you're super-chill, acting cool as can be and the next you're getting all flustered and nervous.
But you're doing this. You're getting this shit inked. You promised yourself. You promised Little You. You're sitting on this sit-plank in LifeTime Tattoos (such a groan-worthy name it bounced back into being awesome) waiting for Perky-Fins to come in and draw right over this outline.
And, hey, if everyone else can do this so can you.
It would be pretty sweet if you were the first in your group of friends to get a tattoo of their symbol but you're not. 'Radia's got Time gears all up her leg and 'Feri's got Life growing up her arm like the raddest plant. And they're not the only ones. Pornstar's got Space right in the centre of her stomach and Little Makara's got some huge Ragemonster across his back. You've never seen it but you heard through the grapevine it's pretty intense.
Paymoney's the only one you know for sure would never get her symbol even though she's got tons of tats.
"Shell no," she'd said when you asked. "You've seen what that lifey stuff looks like. Never in a million sweeps. Yours is chill, though," she added. "Don't get your panties in a bunch over what everyone else thinks."
"Hello!" Fef chirps when she walks into the block. "Aradia says you want the tattoo on your hand, right?"
"Yeah." Maybe you should've been a bit more excited about that, with shoutpoles so prominent you could practically see them. Too late for that, though, and it gnaws at you a bit in that uncool way. Like when you don't stress the 'z' on your plurals or give out strong enough high-fives.
"Are you ready?" She's got her back to you, getting everything prepared.
You try your best to get comfy, settling back on the seat and giving your hand one last flex to get the nerves out. Can't get shaky in front of Feffers.
"Ready as I'm gonna get." You finally tell her, grinning as wide as you can and vowing to keep it on until you're sure her eyes are gonna be off your face awhile.
The first prick of the needle hurts like nothing else. Not as bad as the time you got your sniffnodes crushed by that girl you had a skating rivalry with, but pretty bad all the same. What comes out of your mouth almost sounds like a laugh, though.
"What is it?" Fefferoni asks.
You're tempted to say it's nothing but what comes out is, "I always thought they made a mistake, y'know. There was no way someone like me could be a Hero of Mind." Not when you were so nervous over everything. Not in some obvious "bad shit's gonna happen" way like 'Tunes was, but in a private way. It always felt like some joke. The girl whose mind is so jumpy by itself needing to protect the minds of others.
"Why is that?" Feffzorz asks. "I'm always curious, since I knew from the night I became Witch of Life that it's what I was meant for. And it was exciting! It's strange to talk to anyone who didn't feel that way."
You shrug with the shoulder attached to the hand she isn't poking. "Just didn't." You're not gonna act majorly uncool in front of her; you don't know her that well. "I wasn't the only one though. Kankerz was, like, super offended at getting Blood. Like the game was making fun of him or something."
"Karcrab was like that too! We didn't know why until much later, though. But I guess it would have been dangerous to tell us."
"Oh yeah. He would've been killed if he said something, right?"
"Probably," she sighs. "That's something I was going to change when I became empress, though."
"So that's what you wanted, then. You weren't gonna run away to the moon like Meens?"
She chuckles. "Of course not. I don't know how I would've gotten there for starters."
"It wouldn't have freaked you out to have to lead everyone?" You couldn't do it. Some nights you couldn't even lead yourself out to the skate park. Too much pressure to be perfect.
"Of course it would! But I could have made the world a much better place so it would have been worth it."
You're getting used to the buzz of the tools, the rhythm of pain and pressure and Peixes 2.0 wiping at the ink. And talking to her is calming you more than you'd ever want to admit.
"What would you do?"
"Well... When I was little I wanted to stop culling, for one. Redefine it, actually. Make it more like the culling you grew up with." She still sounds eager over it and you start to feel like you'd want to pull your hand away if it wouldn't ruin your tattoo. "...What?" She looks up at you with those big fuchsia eyes and your mind goes back to Highblood Duty and accepting what those who were better off owed you with a smile while always, always assisting anyone worse off.
"Really?" you choke out.
"Well, of course! I'm sure Alternians in general would have rather gone by the Beforan definition if it were an option."
"Not me. Losing all your independence like that? Not cool at all."
"I thought culling on Beforus was a good thing."
"Compared to Alternia, maybe, but being coddled for the rest of my life? Girl, I wouldn't want that." Sometimes you think of what your life would have been like if you'd let it happen, if one of your friends had sold you out -- if Kanny-Bear's worries got a little too loud, if Tunafish had thought it was going to happen the way he did about all kinds of things you all ignored, if Kurly or Paymoney were into culling the way a lotta adults thought they should've been. You guess you still would've been you, but damn things'd be different. But things would probably be different if your sniffer hadn't been busted over a turf war either. Less worrying about culling, for one. Kinda like now. Best part of the new planet is it's a non-issue.
"Huh. I always thought other trolls would be happy to be taken care of."
"Well, there's being taken care of and there's overkill, y'know?"
"Taking care of trolls who don't want it, you mean?"
"Well... yeah. Not everyone needs it. It's like these wicked tats, y'know. Some of us are really gonna want one but the rest would rather do anything else than sit on this plank getting stabbed at."
"I guess you're right. I'm just so used to thinking they'd want something nice like culling. Guess that's what happens when you end up dead at six. You get stuck with those same feelings for what feels like forever."
"Well, it's not like you're the only one. Or that nine was that much more mature than six." Death didn't treat you bad, but it got you just as stuck in the same old thoughts as everyone else. You can tell F Peix was the same.
"Whale, that's it," FF finally says, wiping off the last of the excess ink and turning to put everything away. You can practically hear the sea-pun in her voice. "Take a look!"
You've had your lookstubs pointed almost everywhere else so you didn't have to see your teal blood mixing up with the not-quite-teal ink and when you look down you're nearly speechless. It's exactly what you wanted; like the outline but a million times better.
"This is really rad FP. So rad, like." You raise your hand, about to unleash one of your killer highfives, then think better of it. Maybe let this heal up first. "Wicked cool."
"I'm glad you like it. I've been meaning to ask, though... Why did you want this on your hand?"
"I guess... I was chilling with TZ one night and we started talking about Mind, y'know? And she said maybe she should get the symbol tattooed on her face. See it every time she looks in the mirror thinking about bad shit and be reminded she's a Hero of Mind. And I thought, wow, that's really fucking deep. Like, not the kinda shit I'd ever say even if I was thinking it. So I said, man, if you're gonna do that maybe I should get it on my hand, so if I'm not feeling great I can remember too. I'm the Knight of Mind; I can protect people with it. Punch anyone who challenges us right in the face with that symbol."
Peix lets out this squeal of an 'aww' that almost breaks your heardrums. "It's really sweet you and Teresea are so close! I'd love to do one of these for her too. But... she doesn't still want it on her face, does she?"
"Dunno. Maybe I'll bring her by one night and you guys can figure it out."
You're sure Tere-sea (Fef P's nickname grew on you quick, what can you say?) will be all over getting her own Mind symbol once she sees yours. You can't wait to get back to your hive and show her.