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When Her Imperious Condescension needs to make a point, you learned that she likes to make examples out of people. You didn’t become a victim. As far as you thought she knew, you were a normal blooded troll who was loyal to her. You were loyal, you always had been. Hell, you wanted to join the threshecutioners and serve Her. Even with the difficulty of hiding the fact that you were and still are a mutant blooded freak, you persevered and joined their ranks.
You received many assignments over the couple of sweeps you were a threshecutioner. Most of them were mundane tasks requiring you to kill simple targets, but the most recent one you got was the one that was going to cause you a lot of trouble.
You had a sweep to kill her, but you were supposed to do it as fast as possible. Your target: Feferi Peixes, the only living heiress old enough to be seen as a massive problem to the Empress. Something felt so wrong about it, but it had been sweeps since you were physically on Alternia that you pushed the feeling aside. You were nervous because you were killing a tyrian blood. Yeah, that was it. You could do it, and you would do it.
A couple months passed before you actually found her. Suddenly attacking her on the beach didn’t work when she fought back. Even so, you two fought for several minutes before you got a good look at her face. She looked older than you remember. Older and just as pretty.
“Feferi!” you shouted as you backed away from her, not wanting a fight anymore, “It’s fucking me, it’s Karkat!”
“Karkat?” She stopped fighting, but looked confused, her trident still aimed at you. It took her a few seconds to respond again. When she did, she glared at you. “Why.” You both knew the answer to that, but neither of you decided to answer. Neither of you talked for several minutes after that, and the silence was only broken by you muttering an apology. It was the only thing you could think of saying. Several more minutes passed before she lowered her trident.
After that incident, you disregarded your mission to kill her. Rather than kill her, you spent time with her, slowly getting to know her again. You remembered how kind and caring she was and how beautiful she looked under the moons. Or maybe you only realized that second part more recently. Or maybe you were just going crazy, because you had a sinking feeling that the Empress would do something about her sometime soon. That feeling went away whenever you saw her under the moonlight or when she was hauling a lusus carcass into the ocean.
Several more months passed before you kissed her. Instead of kissing you back, she froze up and avoided talking about why. A week later, she told you why.
“I don’t want anyone getting hurt because of me,” she said plainly.
You crossed your arms. “I don’t fucking care, Feferi. I’ll be fine. Do you really think I can’t defend myself from some piss tank threshecutioners?”
“It’s not them I’m worried about you being unable to handle!”
“I’ll take on Her Imperious Condescension myself if I have to!” You shouted right back, since she was doing so herself.
She frowned and you hugged her. You wished you were taller than her so you could make a more convincing argument, but you considered it a victory when she quickly kissed your cheek.
You felt your gut twist into knots when She showed up with a pair of threshecutioners. Feferi fought back when they tried bringing her on board the Empress’s ship, but one managed to hold her attention long enough for the other to grab her. You followed them, wanting to make sure she would be okay. You didn’t know what you were thinking.
They quickly chained her up and left, leaving only her and the Empress. You knew what was coming, and it horrified you. Feferi flinched and screamed when the Empress ran her trident into her. Highblood pain tolerance only went so far, and this went beyond it. She knew you were there, and felt that was partially why she dragged it out, making sure not to land fatal blows. The camera that you saw was also probably another reason she dragged it out. You wanted to help, but when Feferi saw you starting to come close, she shook her head, and you stayed put, waiting and watching and listening to her scream. You figured that the Empress grew bored when she finally left after several minutes, leaving Feferi to bleed out. Still, you could save her, and you would.
Getting her off the ship drew attention to you, and yet you ran, grabbing bandages to help her. You ran with Feferi in tow into the woods far enough away from the beach as fast as you could, even if it wasn't very fast. Your princess was losing blood fast and you knew it. Once you thought you were far enough away, you set her down on the ground. She looked pale by the time you started wrapping up her wounds. You barely got one wrapped before hearing shouts and picked her up again. She let out a sound of protest, but you still moved. She begged for you to stop, to run away, to leave her. She was dying and she knew it. You knew it, too, but you couldn't bear to admit it.
You set her down again a few minutes later and tried wrapping another wound. She could barely sit up or keep her eyes open anymore, and it took a noticeable effort for her to tell you to stop. You wanted to scream at her, to tell her that you didn’t want to leave her, to let her die. But you didn’t. She protested and begged, but you ignored her. You kept trying to save her, because you remembered how afraid she was of dying. You kept trying to save her, but you saw her slowly fading away.
“Karkat, please…” You ignored her. You ignored her and her tears and her blood and her begging because if you didn’t, it was going to hurt all the more to admit that she was dying. You were scared, but you’re positive that she was even more scared. Scared for you, scared for herself, and scared for her friends.
However, you couldn't ignore her for more than a few seconds. Rather than ignore her, you held her hands and cradled her to your chest while she quickly lost enough blood to stop her blood pusher. You couldn't save her, and you wished you could have. Instead, you cried.