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David Elizabeth Strider-Lalonde, The Future King of Time.
Crown heir to the Dersite throne, just a few moments older than his sister, he was destined to become king. To follow in his older brother and sister’s footsteps, to sit on the throne and take their place. To become everything his brother Dirk was and more.

David E. Strider-Lalonde. Knight of Derse.
A gifted Knight. Quick with a sword, quicker with his cunning. Trained from a young age, he moves like a ghost and strikes faster than a snake. His mentors and teachers left in the wake of his skills, praises on their lips. A true warrior. And eventually, a true king.

David Strider
A man hidden from the world behind crowns, politics, and his sword . A man spoken of in reverence and loyalty. The reality is much messier, a boy playing prince. And a child trying to please his brother all while not ever talking to him. Escaping that façade is easy. He steps away for a few hours, takes his horse and his sister to ride throughout the countryside and draws all he sees.

Dave
A clever lie. A simple name to hide a much less simple man. Traveling far away from his future as the King of Time. Hidden as a sellsword he will never have to think about the politics or the nuances of his family ever again. Running to Skaia, the Kingdom to the far east, he will be free. An easier life, a free life.

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Dave and Rose were saddling Dave’s horse in the quiet of the night, down in the stable courtyard. Rose was incanting under her breath to a necklace. When she’d finished, she moved over to Dave’s horse. He tossed her a bag over the saddle and she began to fasten it.

“And you’re sure about this?” Rose whispered to him.

“Like I’ve got an alternative,” Dave huffed at her over the saddle of the horse.

She tightened the bag harshly on the horse’s back. It nickered. Shushing it, she replied, “No, but this is dangerous, and Dirk...I don’t want to know what will happen.”

“Couldn’t you just find out using your magic?”

She whacked him over the head. “Will you indulge me in my fantasy of us being normal humans and that I’m helping you escape from some awful future I could elect to find out at my own pace?”

“Fine. Keep your mouth shut though... please?”

“Yes. Go. Or else you’ll get caught.” She buttoned shut the last bag on the horse. “Stay safe. With luck, see you never.”

Dave walked around the horse to give her a final hug. “You’ll be great. A good queen.”

“And you’ll be happy. Take this.” She handed him a ruby charm necklace with a feather and a single glass bead on it. She muttered some final words under her breath and her eyes lit up gold for a second before fading to their usual purple. “Do. Not. Lose. It.” He had a reputation for misplacing things, not losing them, though his sister failed to see the difference.

He tied it around his neck and tucked it into the secondhand beaten leathers he’d purchased the day before as a disguise. Then he put a foot in his stirrup and swung on top of his horse. “Nothing as important as this could be lost to me, promise,” he said mockingly.

“You’re full of shit. Get the hell out of here,” Rose deadpanned.

“Yeah, yeah, love you too.” Then he turned and left. Spurring his horse out of the stable grounds, down the cobbled streets into the lower city, across the bridge and out of the capital city of Dracon.

Rose looked to the road for a moment longer after she watched her brother leave through the gates. She could see his horse leaving the city from where she’d gone to watch in the elevated courtyard of the palace. Leaning against the wall she whispered a prayer to Cetus, “Keep him safe,” and walked inside.

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Dave’s horse slowed as he entered the forest. He was nearly four miles away from Dracon, and at full gallop for that long his horse was starting to resist him. Despite that, he and his horse continued on, albeit slower. Dave felt numb, felt as though if he thought too hard about what he was doing he’d make himself turn around. He continued in silence for hours, letting the rhythm of his horse’s feet lull him into quiet humming. A pastime from his youth, before Dirk became King of all that stood within their borders, and put upon Dave an uncomfortable future. Music was a luxury that not even a prince could afford, apparently.

He knew he was still miles away from the border, and that Dirk’s men would be on him the moment that someone noticed he was missing. He needed to get off the road, and hope that the morning trade traffic would grant his horse’s footprints enough cover to get by. A few more miles and the sun was beginning to tint the sky grey. A side road led him off the main trade route and into a small town, one of Dracon’s siege-ready farming towns.

Few lights were on, but more were turning on each minute as his horse slowed to a halt in front of the inn. He tied a breakaway knot on a nearby post outside the front and pulled his hood over his head. He entered the inn ducking his face so that the shadows would catch his face and hide him.

“Oh! Morning there. Don’t get many visitors this early in the morning,” a voice spoke to him from behind the bar. A young woman in plain clothes with a smile far too bright for this early. “You have a horse outside? Need a room and a stable stall?”

“Ah, yes. How much?” he spoke gruffly, trying to disguise his voice best he could.

“Ten silver if you’re sleeping through the day and leaving at night. Five more for silence.” She said in the same chipper tone as before, as though she hadn’t just threatened him.

“Silence for what?” Dave was screaming internally, it had been barely a few hours, he couldn’t have failed already. ‘Play dumb, Dave, play dumb, it works best for you,’ his internal Roxy snarked, roasting him in her absence.

“People don’t come early in the morning unless they’re running away from something.” She walked from behind the bar to a pedestal in the front near the stairs and pulled out a lockbox that jingled as it moved.

“Just leaving early for a trip,” he tried.

“You stand like a knight,” Dave slouched immediately. “Ha! You’re a deserter, right? We get a ton of those out this way. Running away from the war between Derse and Alternia.”

“There’s no war,” he diverted. He knew that was some bullshit. And he knew about every one of those deserters very personally. The sentence for desertion was death, he had lost count of how many soldiers he had “lost track of” during a desertion hunt.

“Yet, that doesn’t change the question.” He drew his attention back to the woman.

“Yeah. Fifteen silver?” he gave in, pulling up his coin purse.

“There we go!” she exclaimed as he relented his money. She snatched it up, counting out the coins quickly, “Is the hood staying on or—” she began to ask.

“Hood stays. Key?” he cut her off and diverted again.

Without another question, she handed him a key. “Top of the stairs, last door on the left. Breakfast is in an hour. But I imagine you’ll be sleeping. Pick an empty stall for your horse. I’ll feed it in a moment here.”

“Thanks,” he murmured, exiting the inn to put his horse in a stall and remove the saddle. Once finished, he returned inside as the woman was heading out. He pulled his hood tighter. She chuckled in response. He retreated to the safety of the room he’d paid for. He finally breathed free inside. ‘Gods, that was such a shitshow. It’s a miracle, a genuine miracle, Timeaus must be smiling over me. For once.’ He sent up a short prayer and promptly fell asleep.

He slept for hours more than he should have. Missing breakfast and sleeping straight through whenever some semblance of lunch could’ve been. His exit was far too hasty and the woman who was now lightly dozing in the quiet of the after-lunch hours chuckled at his haste.

He quickly saddled and bridled his horse and left. Only stopping at a general store. Hood pulled far down over his eyes, hidden by sunglasses to disguise the bright colours of the royal family. He knew that if he pushed his horse and rode into the night he’d cross the border just after midnight and make it to the town a few hours past the border by morning. While he didn’t quite favor his odds of making it there before Dirk realized he was gone for good this time, he figured he could at least get across the border, and an armed force would have a lot more trouble getting across than a single man with no identity.

So as the sun continued past its peak, he took off from the town, leaving nothing but dust in his wake.

It was a slow, tedious road. Nothing was changing, no distinction in topography, no changes in fauna, in his defense he’d never headed towards Alternia, and he honestly couldn’t remember how far he’d made it by the sun’s setting. He was feeling more numb with every tree he passed in the increasingly barren plain.

Numb and exposed. And most definitely alone. If his paranoia was anything to go by. He’d been checking the road behind him every five minutes for the past few hours. He was used to paranoia, it was trained into him at a young age. In his youth, he was very alone, besides Rose. They were taught to be wary and aware at all times, their parents had just been killed, Dirk and Roxy were distracted with the country. Dave and Rose had been largely left unwatched. However, after an assassination attempt, they were both shunted into intensive training.

Dave remembered it with a certain level of fondness. His instructor had been an old soldier that fought for his father, while his sister’s instructor had been an escaped Alternian sorcerer. That paranoia he’d gained came from countless surprise training exercises in which his instructor would jump him throughout the day. The paranoia was almost a friend. A reminder of a slightly happier time in which his fear wasn’t genuinely founded.

The numbness wasn’t anything unfamiliar either. Over the past few years as he’d become more aware of the responsibilities he was going to receive he began to repress his emotions, save for his outings with his sister and the shining moments when all four of the royal family members had managed to sit down for a meal or an after-ball drink together.

He’d excused his apathy with the belief that kings were supposed to be emotionless paragons of their people. Dirk certainly portrayed that. An unsmiling, powerful man with the wisdom to back the gaze and the strength to never let it waver. He let that be his example. His sisters did their best to convince him otherwise.

He forced his mind to stop wandering as he came upon a structure on the road. A toll gate and a wall. The border. He pulled his cloak a little further down over his face. If a guard made him remove it he’d be doomed. The moon cast a shadow from the sky behind the gate and a single lantern hung from the arch.

A young troll woman was sleeping on a chair just inside the arch of the gate. Long, tattered coat and slightly pointed horns. The colours lining her well-worn uniform denoted her as an olive blood. Dave was ashamed to say he’d only ever met high bloods and was further ashamed to not know whether or not he should expect something different.

He’d heard the awful tales that came out of Alternia. Talking about the culling of lowbloods in the old days, rumors said it was still happening. As a prince he knew he wasn’t to have an opinion based on rumors. He couldn’t ignore them though, they were too loud to ignore. The slaughter of hundreds. All excused. The excuses were the worst part.

He remembered hearing them from visiting dignitaries and ambassadors. Forced to stand at the side of his siblings at the top of the dark marble stairs in the Dersite throne room, looking out over a sea of Dersites and Alternians alike intermingling and communicating. He stood with his too heavy crown and pretended to be a statue. That’s what Roxy had always said. ‘You are a statue. They cannot touch statues. It’ll be like a game!’ He remembers her laugh. ‘We all like games. Come on.’ He remembers how similarly to their mother she had been when their parents first died. With guiding hands she’d taught him how to place his crown on his head, how to believe it wasn’t as heavy as it felt, and with soft words she’d coax him to perform.

They’d stand in file at the top of the stairs. King Dirk, Queen Roxy, the Crown Prince and Princess, Dave and Rose. He’d hated and loved the night in which the Alternians visited. Loved seeing the clothes, the gentle silks of jade-bloods, the armored stylings of the blue-bloods, and the regal war-gowns of the Condescension and the Heiress. They stood next to them. The Condescension on Dirk’s right, and at the end of the line the Heiress, a shy young girl just his age.

He remembers how quickly she’d turned from a statue to a bubbly little girl when they were released from their standing positions to dance and enjoy the ball. Rose, the Heiress, and Dave snuck off into the gardens with a dozen stolen tea cakes and snacks. They told each other secrets.

Secrets like names. Dave remembered telling her, “My name is the Future King of Time. But really I’m just Dave.”

She whispered back in like, “My name is the Heiress. But I’m just Feferi.”

Rose had made little firecrackers in her hands with her budding magic “And I’m the Great Sorceress of Light! And nothing but!” they’d all giggled. And it wouldn’t stop until they’d giggled themselves right to sleep. They’d been woken up an hour later by Roxy who got them cleaned up and sent back to the party. That’d been a happy night.

Dave was jolted back to reality by the sound of iron hitting cobble. He was under the toll gate now, the lowblood startled awake, landing in a fighting position.

“Who are mew!? State your business!” she snarled, body tense.

“Ah, just a traveler, I’m afraid. Nobody interesting.” He was determined to deflect the inevitable interrogation.

“Nobody is nobody. Who are mew? I want a name.” She relaxed into a standing position. Obviously still on guard but she seemed to have decided that he wasn’t a threat.

“Dave. I’m ah— an ex-knight.” Rose had always believed that the best lies were closer to the truth. Dave hadn’t always agreed. The further from the truth the less likely they were to actually guess the truth, he had figured.

“Ex-Knight? Oh! You meowst be headed through to Skaia.”

“Yeah.”

“Hood off? Fur securkitty reasons.”

“Ah, how much does it cost for it to not come off?” He bargained.

“Five silver. It’s the standard silence fur.”

“Oh. Ok.” He dug through his saddle bag, procuring his money purse. “Here.”

“Nice doing business with mew.” She took his money and stepped aside. “Travel well, Dave. Oh, and say hello to the innkeeper and guards for me, I’ve been at this outpost way too long. I’m Nepeta by the way.”

“A pleasure, Nepeta. Will do.” He waved as he walked through the border gate, pushing on towards the town.

Chapter Text

Dave arrives at the town a few hours later. It looks grungy and dingy, with half asleep guards posted at the entrance, unlike the woman at the border who woke up. As Dave comes towards them, they don’t even flinch. Internally he judges their guardsmanship – also internally he thanks the gods for their inattentiveness, he reckons it’s saved him another five silver. The town looks the same from the inside as it does from the outside. In the early morning no one is outside but the few people opening shops or stores. The only place that generates any decent level of noise is the inn as Dave comes upon it.

A few trolls come stumbling out directly in front of his horse who startles and bucks a little.

“Fuckin’ runt!” one of them shouts back into the inn, then directs his attention to Dave, “Who the fuck— human? Get the fuck out of our fuckin country… s’shitheads like you who…” he stumbles, hiccups, belches, then falls face first into the mud. His buddies rush to pick him up, once settled he sways, then looks at Dave, “Oi, did you push me over? You bastard!”

The troll lunges at Dave’s horse, as she sidesteps preemptively and swings around to slap the troll’s companions in the faces with her tail. “I didn’t touch you.” Dave defends, preparing to send his horse, Crow, fleeing after a quick dismount.

“Ain't nobody here to tell anybody otherwise.” One of the troll's buddies steps towards the back of Dave’s horse. Crow begins to do exactly what got her her name, crow hop. Dave makes a hasty exit off her back.

“Alright, there is no need for a fight.” Dave's hand comes to rest on his sword just under his cloak. He side-steps towards the building and away from Crow as the trolls crowd in on him. “Seriously, back the fuck off.”

One of the trolls puts her hand on his shoulder. “My buddy says you pushed him. You humans. Fucking everything up. Worse than mutants, the lot of you. Red blooded bullshit.” She sneers.

“Disgusting. Kinda want to see it, eh? Khazea?” the third of the group leans into his ear. He drops into a fighting position.

The three of them surround him, not yet attacking, but certainly threatening. He moves his hand from resting on his sword to gripping it, moving his cloak ever so slightly to display the sword. He speaks again, “I said—”

“Fuck. Off.” A shorter troll stands behind the one in front of him, a nasty looking sickle hooked around the troll’s neck, the drunken one who’d started the whole mess. “You whining chutewads can mess with humans anywhere else you like, but my inn is a combat free zone. Plus you spooked the horse. And no one needs that bulgefondler of a blueblood over here.” His voice is gruff and strict. If he were any taller Dave would have to draw similarities between him and Dirk.

“We ain’t in your inn. Are we, Runt?” says the girl troll, Khazea. If Dave had to bet.

Then the short troll takes a step forward, and the drunk troll hisses and jaunts forward to avoid the blade against the back of his neck, and they all migrate step by step until Dave’s foot hits a wood step. He steps up, and suddenly he realises he’s been forcefully walked into the inn.

“Aren’t we?” The short troll removes the crooked blade from around the drunk one's neck, with an equally crooked smile. And steps to the side, giving them an exit, and the smile drops. “Leave. You nooksuckers waste all my fucking time anyway.”

The two leave his shoulders to stand by the drunk one. The girl spits at the shorter troll’s feet, then turns and drags the other two with her.

“Thank you.” Dave turns to the shorter troll.

“Wasn’t for you. They’re bad for business,” the troll says, glaring after the three walking away. “Mistakes of the mothergrub, festering discharge, douche-squatting...” the troll fades into mumbles that Dave thinks could count as insults.

“Are you the innkeep?” Dave asks, cutting him off.

“Do I look like I wear this apron for shits and giggles?” He responds, looking at Dave with a look that makes Dave want to get back on his horse and keep riding. It is the first time that Dave has bothered to look at the troll, however. A dark grey shirt with plain lacings and dark leather wrapped at the wrists. A simple cloth apron with pockets that at the moment look to be filled with utensils and a few loose coins. And a simple chain tucked into his shirt. Dave does what he does best, and opens his mouth.

“I don’t know. I’m not from around here, maybe aprons are in or some shit, all the fancy rich girls buy them and compare them and go, ‘Oooh, I like yours better, where’d you get it!?’ and the other fancy rich girl goes, ‘Oh! My mother had my seamstress make it special! Maybe if you ask yours they can come up with something like it, I know they don’t have the same access to materials,’ and then a fight breaks out and one girl comes out dead but she has that damn fucking apron so it’s all worth it and—”

“Oh sweet fucking Troll Jegus! Shut the fuck up!” The shorter troll yells and starts waving his arms.

“Who’s Jegus?” Is all Dave can think to ask.

“Troll Jegus,” the shorter one corrects, “He’s not important, and fake. Are you a fucking customer or not, Mr. Human? If not I’m going to kick you out of my inn too.”

“Yes. Customer. That I am,” Dave says.

“Oh thank the Mothergrub,” the troll sighs. “There’s zero fucking business around here.”

“It’s a border town. There should be plenty. Is there another inn?” Dave gets fixed with another glare.

“No. And, there just aren’t any new saps to get money off of. A room and stable care for one night?”

“Yeah, please.” Dave pulls at his money purse.

“Twenty silver,” the troll says. “Or two gold. If you’re special or some shit.” And Dave knows he has gold, and that gold would be easier, but that comment puts him on edge, and there’s a whole inn of people staring at him that he didn’t notice until right this moment. His father would’ve had him dead on the bricks of the castle for that, and Dirk would’ve shook his hand for it. So Dave coughs up the twenty silver.

“Key. Go take care of your hoofbeast. And don’t let that biscuitshit blueblood catch wind of it.” He barely noticed the innkeeper talking by the time Dave tuned into the last few sentences.

“The horse?”

“You or the horse, honestly. And get out of my inn as soon as you can. For my fucking sake.”

“I thought you were itching for customers, you finally got one and you’re too afraid of commitment to hold me down, jeez, helluva business plan. What’re you expecti—” Dave starts teasing him again, seeing him fume is starting to get funny.

“Get the fuck out and hide your fucking sweat monster.” The hands are in the air again, waving like swords, a veritable menagerie of motion, then they start pushing him out the door. Dave is less partial to that and finishes the job for the troll, closing the door behind himself.

He walks towards his horse, calming her and moving towards the stables at the side of the inn. Mostly full of donkeys, ponies, and other miscellaneous horses, the stables weren’t small by any means. Upwards of twenty stables are hidden around the side and back of the inn. He has to walk all the way to the last few stalls to find one to put Crow in. At the end there is a big clydesdale. Dave knew they were more common in Alternia than the Western Countries of Derse and Prospit, but he hasn’t ever really seen one up close, he only saw them when dignitaries came to visit.

“That is one big fuck-off horse.” He said quietly, he hears footsteps coming around the corner, probably the innkeep if he has to bet.

“Do not touch my fucking hoof beast.” The small troll pipes up from behind him.

“Just admiring it. It’s a big fuck-off horse.” He turns to face the troll. “I’m Dave. Didn’t catch your name.”

“I didn’t fucking throw it, is that a phrase for humans?”

“Yes?” Dave is beginning to wonder if this was a border town at all. The Dersian side border town had said they had lots of people heading to Alternia. This troll is acting like he’s never seen a human. Dave is beginning to have questions.

“It’s stupid as shit. You can’t throw a name.” He grumbles.

“I didn’t make it up. What’s your name?” Dave tries again.

“Karkat Vantas.” He finally concedes.

“Pleasure to meet you, uh, I think the troll at the border gate wanted me to say hello to you. Nep—” Dave starts to relay his message, he also moves to take the saddle off Crow.

“Nepeta?” Karkat cuts him off again, “Of course she would. Nosy grubshitting pile of idiocy. She likes to meddle. Ignore her.”

“Probably won’t be seeing her again anyway, I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“You’re going further into Alternia?” Karkat sounds shocked.

“Yes. I’m heading all the way through to Skaia.” Dave is fiddling with the straps on one of the saddlebags.

“Do you think they’ll let you through the second ring?” Karkat looks him up and down for a moment, and begins to grab feed for his and Dave’s horse.

“Second ring?” Dave realizes it may have been wise to do some research about Alternian travel.

“Sweet Mothergrub. Do you know fucking anything about Alternia?” Karkat stops pouring feed for a second. Dave shakes his head. “To get through Alternia you have to get through the hierarchy rings. There’s nine of them. Largely divided into the hemospectrum castes, and also the wealth levels. So you’ll get rust, bronze, gold bloods, and the occasional lucky mutant out here most of the time. And soldiers. Next ring up rust bloods and mutants aren’t permitted. And so on so forth, til the eighth ring, then shit gets weird. You don’t know this shit?”

“They don’t exactly teach Dersites the Alternian customs and travel expectations.” Dave excuses, focusing on finding a brush in his saddlebag for Crow.

“All we hear about here is how much of a utopia it is there. So, fuckmunch. Is it true?” Karkat turns from his horse to pin Dave with that glare again.

“Is what true?”

“The rumors.”

“Which rumor?”

“Any of them. Does it fucking matter? Enough food for everyone, no war, no slave soldiers. Seems like here every fifteen minutes the Condesce is trying to get us into a war. We’ve been shipping soldiers east towards Skaia for months, and they’re gonna start shipping them west soon enough.” Karkat grumbles, returning his focus to his horse.

“We have the occasional shortage of food, but the distribution method is pretty decent. There’s not a war. Yet, I should say. Some soldiers are bound to it by their family history, but they’re not like, chained or anything insane.” Dave finds the brush in his bag after digging for a minute and begins brushing. Sparing a glance towards Karkat he sees the troll is pouring feed into Crow’s feed trough. “Thanks.”

“You paid me to.” Karkat mulls over what Dave had said for a moment, “That sounds nice. Think you could smuggle me to Derse?” He says it like a joke, almost, but Dave has heard one too many jokes too be fooled by that.

“What the fuck?”

“I can’t cross any borders. It’s illegal.” Karkat stops to look up at Dave.

“We just met. I know nothing about you, plus you just said you crossing a border is illegal. You want me to smuggle you to Derse?”

“Well, trolls are allowed in Derse in your major cities. You have a whole section of the capitol city for them, right?” Karkat looks way too hopeful.

“Yes, but I’m not smuggling you all the way back to Dracon. It’s not happening. I’m leaving there. Did you catch that?” Dave stops brushing Crow.

“I get it, you’re a fucking runaway knight, coward of cowards, shamefucking nookcruncher. You stand like one, your horse looked ready to fight with you when those drunkards jumped you. Do you have a shred of honor left?” Karkat steps toward him.

Brandishing the rest of the almost empty feed bag like a maul.

“I’m not a fucking coward. And I’ve got plenty of fucking honor left, you shithead. I’ll take you somewhere safer. Sure. But not Derse. Prospit? No. They’d be looki—” Dave snaps and begins to ramble.

“They’re looking for you?” Karkat cuts him off for the fifth time.

“You cut me off one more godsdamned time, I’ll leave your ass. I’ll take you to Skaia.” Dave turns and huffs, putting the brush back in the saddlebag hanging on the side of the stable stall.

“Okay. When? I need to pack fuckmunch, and disguise myself, I’m still a m—” Karkat cuts himself off. And they stare in silence for a moment. Then it’s very not silent all of a sudden. Bells start ringing and the sound of people’s footsteps rings through, talking and screaming fill the air around them even from their tucked away position at the back of the inn. “Shit.” Karkat turns and runs towards the front. Dave follows.

The street is flooded with trolls, and a few humans that Dave spots. Dave sees what he thinks is blood on some of the people rushing into the town. The bells are still ringing. Karkat rushes towards the entrance of the inn. His fingers wrap around Dave’s wrist and he stumbles as suddenly Karkat is tugging Dave along with him.

“What’s going on?” Dave asks once they’re inside. The inn is empty now, everyone having rushed out when the bells started ringing.

“The town near ours must’ve gotten culled. It’s about twenty miles north east of here. These clusterfucks have probably been running through the night.” Karkat is moving things around behind the bar now, as Dave is left at the front door. “Shut and lock it.” Karkat barks over his shoulder as he rushes into a door behind the bar.

Dave does as he’s told. And looks around at the inn, chairs are everywhere, pushed out, knocked over. Everyone seems to have bolted at the sound of the bell. Dave hears a knocking at the front door.

“Fuck off! We don’t take refugees in this inn!” Karkat hollers from the back room.

“Bastard!” Dave hears a woman yell from the front door. “You’re going to be next and you don’t have the pity to let us in for a moment!”

“Not a fucking shot, bulgemunch! Now get off my fucking property!” Karkat reenters the main inn room with a bag over his shoulder, he pulls money out of every nook and cranny of the inn, coin after coin bag being put in a larger one.

“My horse can’t leave yet, she’s too tired.” Dave says, trying to predict Karkats actions.

“I’m well aware, you idiot. I’m packing now. Go sort your shit. Sundown, and we’re gone. Got it?” Karkat looks fiercely at Dave. Dave’s never seen a look like the one he sees in Karkat’s eyes. It screams ‘I will survive this, so help me gods. You’re not fucking stopping me.’ and Dave has no words. And that alone floors him. He nods and heads towards the room he was given.

He scrubs his hand over his face. “Fucking hells,” he grumbles into the quiet of the room. “Nothing to do with it now, but to do it.” He mutters alou, then shivers. He heard Dirk say that about a million times. When he was really little, when Dirk had just become King, and throughout the rest of his life.

Dave knows if he thinks too much about Dirk, or how much he’s becoming like Dirk, he’ll freak out. So he looks out his window instead. It’s not a pretty sight. The sun is almost at its peak and there are still people in the streets, a few bodies, and guards with harsh plated armour and spikes on their shoulders. Designed to be intimidating. They’re not opening doors and knocking down buildings, they’re simply collecting the bodies, the dead and the still bleeding. They look to be mostly rust bloods from what Dave can see.

He knew Alternia was a place of horrors, but looking at bloodsoaked streets with trolls in horrifying armour standing everywhere, he can’t help but feel like he was lied to.

Chapter Text

Dave wakes nearly six hours later to a short sharp rapping at his door.

“Get a fucking move on. The cullers went to check the roads to the north and south. We have a chance to head east.” Karkat speaks through the door.

Dave is on his feet and at the door before he finishes. He opens it. “Give me five, then I’ll saddle Crow.”

Karkat looks startled and glances up and down at Dave, “Yes. Okay. Good.” He turns sharply on his heel, overbalancing, then he rushes down the stairs. Dave stares after him for a while, closes the door, and moves to his leathers resting in the corner.

It only takes him a few minutes to put on his second hand leathers after years of putting on heavy complicated plate mail. He doesn’t have much on him right now, and a big chunk of his belongings are in the saddlebags still attached to Crow’s saddle.

Dave heads downstairs where Karkat is fussing over a very large saddlebag on the bartop counter. Walking to where Karkat is standing, Dave takes light steps and gets the jump on the troll.

“Hell of a bag there.” He says, slightly loud.

Karkat jumps. “Fuck you.” He swings the saddlebag over his shoulder and exits the building with Dave at his heels. They turn around the building into the stables.

“Are those your favorite words?” Dave says as they come upon their horses.

“Fuck. You.” Karkat says with more emphasis as he begins hooking the saddlebag onto the saddle of his big fuck-off horse.

“You keep asking I might just let you.” Dave smirks, picking up Crow’s saddle.

“Oh! Shut the fuck up! Would it kill your rotted, demented, slurry pile of a thinkpan to be serious for about five minutes?!” Karkat snaps at Dave, spinning from where he’s finished buckling the saddlebag to the side of his big fuck-off horse. To glower at

Dave for a moment. Dave ignores him and hoists his saddle onto Crow.

“What the fuck’s a thinkpan?” Dave has honestly, despite all his schooling, never heard that word.

“I think the human word is brain.” Karkat mumbles towards his horse.

“Oh. Then probably.” Dave buckles his saddle, chuckling lightly. Fetching the bridle from the post he’d hung it on he buckles it onto her as well. Giving Crow a pat on the nose he turns to Karkat, who just finished bridling his horse. “What’s your horse’s name?” Dave asks softly.

Karkat had been grumbling quietly. “What?”

“Your horse, does it have a name?” Dave tries again.

“What kind of horse doesn’t have a name.” Karkat asks with a hint of disbelief in his voice.

“No decent one. What’s your horse’s name?” If he has to ask what this horse’s name is one more time he’ll leave Karkat. He doesn’t care. He’ll do it.

“Pinch.”

“Fucking— what? Pinch?” Dave sputters a little.

“That’s what I fucking said.” Karkat walks his horse – Pinch, apparently – towards a nearby stable’s door, which he then climbs on top of. It’s locked and doesn’t swing but it still looks insanely precarious and Karkat quickly puts his foot in the stirrup of his big fuck-off saddle on his big fuck-off horse named Pinch, of all things.

Dave simply hikes his foot up to the level of his stirrup and swings over the saddle.

“You’re a prick and a show-off.” Karkat says over his shoulder.

“It would be you who is the short person with a too-big horse. That doesn’t make me a show-off.” Dave smirks, nudging Crow forward to match pace with Karkat and Pinch who have started to make their way out of the now empty stable.

Dave is shocked to see they’re not the only people on the road, most are on horses, in wagons, or moving quickly out of the town. Dave sees only adults and older teenagers, and no children, which is the first odd part to him. The second is the white beasts walking next to many of the teenagers.

“Why are they leaving, and what are those things?” Dave asks Karkat as he pulls up next to him and Pinch.

“There was a culling, and they’re Lusii. Do you not have them?” Karkat looks at Dave strangely.

“Firstly, what’s a culling in Alternian slang terms? In Common it means something like slaughter. And no, I’ve never seen a Lusii in my life.” Dave replies.

“It means the same thing.” Karkat says solemnly.

“What the fuck? Wait— what the fuck! Is that government approved?” Dave raises his voice to get Karkat’s attention, his eyes look kind of glazed over.

It takes him a moment before he replies, “Yes.” It’s almost too quiet for Dave to hear. “The low-bloods occur too often in the slurry, so to keep population in check the Condesce orders cullings in the outer two rings. They work in rotations, there’s hundreds of small border towns along the outermost ring. They tend to work in patterns, culling the towns in a giant circle, and occasionally heading into the second ring to do a culling there. It’s safer there, technically, but it’s more avoidable here because it's trackable.”

By the time Karkat finishes they’ve exited the town on the eastern road. Dave and Karkat ride in silence for five minutes.

“I don’t really know what to say.” Dave exhales after a while.

Karkat just grunts quietly. Dave can’t interpret what it means so they continue to ride in silence. They pass into a forest by the time the sun sets. The creatures there are similar to the ones Dave knows, but he does occasionally spot larger versions of the animals he knows, pure white, with odd features, double mouths, extra claws or arms.

“You called it a lusii?” Dave asks Karkat, who is just a few paces in front of him. Dave nudges his horse forward to hear Karkat’s answer.

“Lusii is the plural, you grubshit. Lusus.” Karkat snaps over his shoulder.

“Ok, ok. So Lusii do what?” Dave spurs Crow to match pace with Pinch.

“Raise trolls after the trials. After they pupate.” Karkat says with an air of disbelief. Dave can feel his hackles raise from the sheer amount of judgment coming his way from the troll. He elects to ignore his new questions regarding the trials.

“No parents?” Dave asks. He almost pities trolls, they seem so isolated and lonely. He finds it hard to believe their society actually works based around a system like that. Then on second thought and based on observation he realizes it barely does.

“No. I guess not. Lusii tend to leave once a troll is an adult, kind of like parents. Somewhere before their second adult molt.” Karkat seems to stop his words short.

“Molt? You guys molt? Like snakes?” Dave’s eyes are wide.

“Yeah? You don’t?

“Nah dude, we just kind of keep growing.”

“Doesn’t that hurt?” Karkat looks a little concerned.

“I mean, you occasionally get aches and pains, but it’s gradual.”

“There’s some stages of continual growth for us. When we finish pupating, for one, we grow until about four sweeps, then we molt, and then there’s another slow growth stage until about eight sweeps. Then there’s no change until about ten or eleven sweeps, that’s the second adult molt. Twenty-two or three-ish I believe in your human years.” Karkat rambles on, but Dave tunes him out and lets him ramble for a while longer.

“The second adult molt is scary in the outermost ring, especially for trolls like me. Tinges our skin closer to the colour of our blood, turns our eyes the same colour. It will get— or would have gotten, I guess, me killed.” Dave tunes back in.

“Why would that get you killed?” He comments.

“I thought you weren’t listening. I’m a mutant. Blood color doesn’t fit, so that means I can’t go anywhere, or do anything. I got lucky with that dumb fucking inn, a place where I had the slightest inkling of power.” He is solemn, more than Dave has heard so far.

“I get the power thing, but the mutant and killing thing?” Dave schools his face, he’s already come to the answer. He knows it.

“They don’t want more mutants in the slurry, so they kill us.” Karkat falls silent after that.

Dave can’t think of a response to someone who has just escaped an inevitable death, and is likely marching towards another one. So the hours pass in silence.

Dave glances over to Karkat many times, taking in note after note about the man, or troll, he supposes. He mentally catalogues every feature. Horns, every troll has them, Karkat’s are nubby and rounded, unlike most of the other trolls he’s met. His eyes are grey. Dave remembers Feferi’s eyes, their grey colour, and the Condecension’s bright pink. He wears a cloak that has thick layers of grey cloth bundled around his neck and shoulders, silver chain just visible above his shirt, plain cheap cotton, and simple leather breeches and flat shoes with cloth wrappings.

“If you have something to say, fucking say it.” Karkat snaps. Dave’s eyes shot up to Karkat’s face. “But stop fucking staring.”

“Ah, shit dude, just enamoured with your glorious visage.” Dave snarks.

“Gog, you are full of shit.” Karkat rolls his eyes and re-focuses on the road.

Dave is reminded of his sister, her words before he left. He reaches into his leathers and pulls out the charm. A dull red light was pulsing from the bead. He stares at it and slowly watches as it fades to a mundane black bead again and returns it to the safety of his shirt.

They ride in silence until sunrise is upon them. Karkat speaks up.

“ Should we make camp?” He and his horse slow marginally.

“Travelling at night is safer, sleeping during the day is considerably more dangerous though.” Dave replies.

Karkat scoffs, Dave turns to look at him, “Trolls are semi-nocturnal. Sleeping in the early morning is probably the best way to go.”

“Fuck my training, you’re in charge now.” Dave steers Crow off the side of the road and into a grove of trees. He begins taking the saddle off of Crow so that she can rest. Karkat follows suit and it’s a few very short minutes before they both have tents set,

Karkat had apparently packed his own in that oversized rucksack of his. Karkat begins to set up like he would take a watch. Dave stops him, and sends him to his tent with an, “I have to train anyway.”

Karkat didn’t seem to mind the idea of sleep, considering Dave was probably much better rested than him right now, given that he’d managed to sleep before they fled, whereas Karkat had been awake most of that day already. And Dave trains, footwork, false parrying against a tree. Practices just a few feet away from their tents for an hour or so, before settling to sharpen and polish his sword and maintain watch.

Dave wakes Karkat a few hours later for his watch, and finds his own sleeping roll.

Chapter Text

Karkat is losing his mind. In a matter of twenty-four hours his life had gone from mostly secure, to risky, to insanely dangerous. He is tempted to blame it on the human swinging that stupid silver sword. He's spent his entire life being grumbley, stingy, and looking out for himself, and within ten seconds of seeing Dave he’s threatened people, been nice to a human, of all people, and is now trusting that same damned human to watch over him while he slept.

Karkat has met about four humans in his entire life. All of which were almost immediately taken by soldiers. He can’t quite place why he’d even bothered to help the man outside. He can hear the soft steps outside the tent and the clean swings of the sword through the air, as he slowly falls asleep.

“Yo.” Karkat feels a boot touch his leg, “Yo, wake up, your turn.”

Karkat rolls over to look up at the human staring down at him. Karkat takes a moment to look him up and down. He sits up and begins pulling on his boots as Dave leaves the tent. He grabs his sickles on his way out and finds the log Dave had been sitting on for his watch. He listens as Dave’s breathing evens from within his tent.

Karkat lets his mind wander for a few hours as he continually scans the area around the camp, he hears a few horses pass on the road not so far from them, and what sounds like a large group moving east. If he had to guess either highbloods traveling for a culling or soldiers being transported to the border. After about an hour of silence he stands, and begins stretching.

He takes a stance he’d seen in a book and begins attempting to practice with his sickles. Painfully aware of the fact that he probably looks like an idiot swinging like a fresh-molt grubling. After thirty minutes of swinging and jumping he hears a throat clear behind him. His entire body seizes for a second of fear before Karkat forces his standard douchebaggery.

“Have you had a single training lesson with those?” Dave stands just outside of his tent. Karkat had snapped at him for staring before. This looks less like staring and more like a dissection.

Karkat shifts awkwardly to stand up straight. “No. Not like I’ve ever had a fucking chance.”

“Here’s the fucking chance.” Dave moves towards Karkat as Karkat takes a step back. “Widen your stance.” Dave pulls his sword.

Karkat’s eyes widens as he takes another step back, no fucking way this human was going to kill him now. “Don’t you fucking betray me.”

Dave’s face is stony, and Karkat can’t see his eyes. “Killing isn’t what’s happening here. Training is. Widen your stance. Turn your back foot out.” Karkat obliges, “Good, I’ll go slow. Catch my sword.”

Dave lunges forward, Karkat lifts his sickle and attempts to hook Dave’s sword, but at the last moment Dave feints downward and knocks Karkat’s sickle upwards, placing the point of his sword under his chin. Karkat backs up fast.

“You said you’d go slow! Fucking bulgemuncher!” Karkat yelps.

“I lied. Be quiet.” Dave says evenly. He steps back and readies his sword again. “Try it again.”

Karkat does try. Again, and again, and again. Until Dave eventually calls it an hour later, and begins packing. Karkat is sore and bruised, Dave started smacking him with the flat of his sword about 5 minutes into what Dave called training. Karkat moves slowly when packing up his bag with his tent.

He throws his bag over the back of Pinch. Patting her gently on her flank as he goes. Dave gets on the back of his horse, then turns to look at Karkat.

“Are you gonna need a boost to get on her back, or do you have it?” He smirks looking over his shoulder. Karkat glares at him, hikes up his foot and desperately tries to pull himself onto Pinch’s back. It’s not graceful, but he does manage it on his own. He looks up at Dave and sneers.

Dave laughs, and turns Crow towards the road, Karkat follows him. They ride in comfortable silence for a few minutes before Dave decides to start talking again, it’s as though he can’t shut up. “So, this next border, will it be as lax as the country border?”

“Tch, doubtful. You got lucky. Normally there’s more guards than just Nepeta. She’s nice. They won’t be.” Karkat said, almost having to shout. Dave’s horse was easily faster than Pinch and Karkat had to stay just underneath a trot to keep up. “Could you fucking slow down?”

“Horses’ pace. Not mine. How are we going to get past them?” Dave slowed anyway.

“When we cross we’ll become the next court level’s issue. We can try to escape and keep moving that way.”

“And when we have to make our way back through going down the levels?” Dave stopped Pinch short to look at Karkat. His face was steely, still hidden behind the dark shades.

“I don’t know. My plan was Derse or Prospit. Not Skaia.” Karkat says quietly.

“Could we go around?” Dave asks. “Go around through the second ring, avoid the cullers and then go east into the bottom ring once we get around?”

“It might take too long.” Karkat’s mind immediately goes to the impending war, they tend not to ship slave soldiers through the upper rings, but circle them through the outer-rings. He remembers when the Condesce’s army started rounding up lowbloods to ship them to Skaia, there’d be huge swathes travelling west.

“What’s the other reason?” Dave pulls his horse right next to Karkat, almost so their leg’s hit against each other as they ride.

“Soldiers will be headed that way.” Karkat silently hoped Dave wouldn’t press any further.

“They won’t go through the center?” ‘This motherfucker.’ Karkat groaned internally.

“No, they’re lowblood soldiers, they can’t go through the upper rings.” Karkat quietly pushes his heels slightly against Pinch’s side, spurring him just slightly faster. He heard Dave sigh behind him.

Their silent ride picks up again. Dave eventually moves forward enough. Karkat kept himself entertained by rattling off every insult he could think of for stupid, ignorant human. Some brilliant, ‘Lackadaisical fucking assclown’ being his top contender, and ‘Shitfucking disdainful dumbdumb’ being a disgraceful teeteringly intrusive thought. Karkat is securely focusing on the 15 feet of road ahead of him, avoiding the sheer amount of bullshit that would come if he focused on Dave to insult him.

“So, and just let me get this straight,” Dave begins, Karkat audibly groans, “Shut the fuck up, the plan is to get captured and escape? To get across the borders?” Karkat hates the idea, but it’s the best one he's come up with so far.

“Yeah, you’ve got something better?” Karkat narrows his eyes at the human, feeling justified in glaring at him directly now, he continues to rattle off insults, ‘Blithering dickwad’ He’s almost proud of that one.

“Going off the road isn’t an option?” Dave asks.

“If you wanna be fighting monsters every hour feel free to fuck off into the wilds of Alternia, the only people who can stand to live out there are those grubshitting olive bloods, and they don’t keep the beast population in check in the slightest.”

“How bad are the beasts?” Dave asks, and Karkat’s idiot senses begin tingling like electrocution.

“No.”

“No they’re not bad?” Karkat can hear the fucking grin.

“No!”

“No Dave, you’re not as big of an idiot as I thought, we should go through the wilds?” Dave turns around to look at him from Crow now, and Karkat can see the grin.

“NO! It’s a horrible fucking idea, we’d never even make it to the 4th ring!”

“Well at this rate we’re not gonna make it into the 2nd ring. Have you forgotten I’m a knight?”

“You might be a shitty knight, who knows why you deserted! Maybe you were ashamed of how shitty you were and thought you’d try to make it in Skaia?”

“I’m training you, aren’t I?” Dave is still wearing that smug fucking grin. Something about his grin is bullshit to Karkat, and he hasn’t placed it just yet, but once he does, he’ll make sure to wipe it off his stupid fucking face.

“Smacking me around with a sword isn’t training, it’s bullying.” Karkat snaps at him.

“So much for that legendary strength of the Alternian trolls, so hardy, so resilient, strengthened by the horrors of their country!” Dave carries on til Karkat is officially fed up. Drawing his sickle he leaps off the back of Pinch towards where Crow and Dave are only 5 feet away.

“You flaming ignorant piece of shit!” He screeches as he goes flying, Dave turns just in time to get tackled off his horse to the ground.

Chapter Text

He hits the floor with a solid thud, grunting slightly with the impact and the weight of the troll on top of him.

Dave is prepared for a quick slice of the blade. An easy death. He thinks he’s earned that much. So when Karkat’s knuckles smash across his jaw followed by a blade that barely scratches the surface of his cheek he’s stunned. Dave locks his legs behind Karkat’s knees and rolls him over.

“What the fuck!” He spits at Karkat as he pins him.

“You piece of shit!” Karkat thrashes his arms attempting to escape where Dave has his wrists trapped. “You don’t know fucking anything!”

His eyes are clenched closed, and as Dave is looking at the small troll struggling he realizes he’s crying, red tears, barely opaque, but still red tears streaming down his face. “What the fuck?” He loosens his grip the tiniest bit. Karkat lunges towards him again, somehow getting his hands on Dave’s throats as he flips them ass over teakettle.

Dave feels the pressure on his neck and it takes him a solid second to realize what’s fully happening. He grabs his sword and yanks it out of its scabbard. The noise startles Karkat enough he pulls away. Retreating back towards where he dropped his sickles.

Karkat’s cheeks are flushed a ruddy grey-red colour, and he’s breathing heavily. Dave feels the blood weling in his mouth again and spits it onto the ground. The troll freezes from where he’d been crouching towards his sickles as he looks up at Dave’s face and gasps.

“What?” Dave steps toward him into an offensive stance. Karkat’s eyes are searching his face when they lock onto his eyes. He gasps and stumbles back a few feet before falling onto his ass. “Can’t stand the sight of blood while you try to kill someone!?” Dave steps forward again, and Karkat scrambles back further.

“You’re like me.” Karkat says quietly with wonder.

Now Dave steps back “What?” They stare in silence for a second, Karkat’s posture relaxing, before they both tense as they hear hoofsteps, they turn towards where their horses were standing and find them off towards the road scared off by their fighting.

They dash towards their horses and pull them into the thick brush off the side of the road, hiding themselves and their horses effectively, Dave turns back to the path realizing that the world looked a little brighter. Then he spotted them. His shades. Knocked askew at some point in their fight, he’d been too focused on not dying to realize.

“Shit.” Dave muttered underneath his breath

“Shit what? Shit what?!” Karkat whisper screamed back at him.

“Shades.”

“The shitty shades?”

Dave instinctively turns to glare at him, realizing a second too late that it gave away his eyes. Karkat gasps.

“I didn’t know humans had mutants.” Karkat whispers.

“We don’t.” Dave turns to look up the road, he sees soldiers marching, he’d gotten lucky with Karkat, no real knowledge of Derse, no real information on who wore the shades or why, he couldn’t risk these soldiers seeing them. “Gods fucking damnit.”

Karkat knows instinctively that Dave is there. He’d just been there, where else should he be. And when he blinks in confusion Dave is there again. Shades in place obscuring the bright red eyes Karkat had seen a second ago.

“What the fuck?” Karkat says, slightly louder than he should. Dave claps a hand over Karkat’s mouth. Karkat freezes, Dave’s hand is warm and smooth, and almost painfully covers his mouth. But the touch itself shocks him bad enough he doesn’t make any motions to escape.

The watch in silence as the soldiers march by. Karkat can’t read Dave’s face especially with the dark shades in place over the crimson eyes Karkat can’t seem to get out of his head. In the brief amount of time he’d seen them they’d been intense and shocking, frustrated, but not harsh. Eventually Dave’s hand falls away from his mouth. Karkat follows the motion and sees him reach for something under his collar, a leather band of some sort, Karkat can’t see what’s on the end of it from the way Dave's hand is clasped around it.

Karkat’s thoughts fly to the necklace under his shirt. The symbol of the signless, his quiet, quiet hope that someday things would be different. He gets distracted by his thoughts of a better world for just enough of a second that the marching soldiers fall out of his mind. Until Dave makes a sharp inhale. Karkat snaps up to see what Dave had reacted to.

“What is it?” He asks.

“Chains,” he breaths out, then clears his throat, “I mean, the chains. Do soldiers here transport prisoners in mass?” Dave asked, focusing intently on the slave soldier’s ranks.

“Those aren’t prisoners. They’re soldiers, slave soldiers.” Karkat looks at Dave with confusion.

Dave is glaring at the people carrying the chains. Karkat spots his fingers twitching with anger.

There is a slight yelp from one of the trolls marching in chains, one of the trolls walking alongside the chained trolls lashes out with a whip. Dave stands, one hand goes to his sword, the other to the necklace around his neck. The ring of metal begins to sound as Dave moves to pull his sword from its scabbard. Karkat stops them from getting noticed this time, pulling Dave back down to a crouching position and putting his hand over Dave’s to push the sword back into its scabbard. Dave glares again and Karkat can imagine the eyes underneath, flaming red with frustration.

“We can’t help them.” Karkat felt the guilt flare in him. That’s why he wore the necklace he did, he wanted to help. Whatever necklace Dave wore clearly also meant him helping these trolls, and he was willing to do something about it. Karkat felt himself flush with embarrassment. He pulled his cowl around his face releasing Dave’s arm and hand. Both of them kept their eyes steadily trained on the ground until the soldiers had passed by. They waited until they disappeared along the horizon, and even then they didn’t come out of the bushes.

“We’ll go through the wilds.” Dave declares. Then turns to lead his horse further through the woods. Karkat stands and turns to call him an idiot or do something to get this human to listen. Dave is standing there, still, looking at him through the shitty fucking shades, face flat and unyielding. He holds Pinch’s reins out to him. Karkat just quietly takes them and follows Dave into the forest.

Chapter Text

They’ve been walking north for a little longer than an hour before Dave turns them west, the forest is still too thick overhead to ride, so they walk in silence. Karkat studies the back of Dave’s head. Blond enough to be white. Pale skin that is actually more coloured than his hair. And Karkat can’t forget the eyes. They remind him of what he’s doomed to once he gets his adult molt.

“Listen,” Dave begins, Karkat startles slightly at the noise in the steady quiet, “just, what you saw. My eyes. Ignore it. Don’t bring it up to anyone.”

Karkat almost laughs, “You’re not the only mutant, you know.”

Dave scrubs his hand over the bottom half of his face, “No, it’s not,” he sighs, “I’m not a mutant. It’s something else and we can’t talk about it, so just. . . forget you saw anything.”

Karkat hums in agreement and watches Dave’s shoulders relax the slightest bit, Karkat feels the sun beginning to fade right as the trees cleared out. Karkat takes one look across the plains in front of him and decides he already doesn’t like the Middling Wastes.

Karkat managed to avoid wide-open spaces for most of his life, and isn’t happy to be in one. The breeze picks up to a consistent jostling of air around him. His cloak flutters as does Dave’s cape. He sees a few large lusii moving off in the distance.

They mount their horses to ride in silence, unfettered by trees or the knee high scrub-brush. The quiet sway of the plants lulls Karkat into wandering thought, until Dave, forever an annoyance, interrupts his peace.

“What’s most dangerous out here?” Dave asks loudly from his horse.

“How the fuck am I supposed to know?” Karkat grumbles in return.

“We’re traveling through your country and you know nothing about the wildlife?” Dave continues to guide Crow forward but turns to look at Karkat from over his shoulder.

From the angle Karkat can see the bright ruby eyes peeking out behind Dave’s shades. “I never left the town.” he mutters quietly, it feels heavy when he says it out loud.

“Born and raised in bum-fuck nowhere. I can’t imagine.” Dave chuckles and looks ahead. A tiny moment of light air buoys around the two men.

“Becaue you’re so much fucking better, Douchnozzle Dave,” Karkat jokes in return and hears a breathy laugh in return. Karkat gives a small smile in this moment of what could almost be called friendship, “Where are you from?”

Dave feels the smile he was wearing melt off his face at the question, the first real one Karkat had asked about his past, who he was, anything beyond the initial desperate ‘can you help me?’. Dave isn’t quite sure what to say, but he forces lightness in his voice and lies. “Oh, nowhere special.” Apparently Dave had not inherited his mother’s clever tongue, Rose must’ve stolen it in the womb, because the air goes dead and Karkat doesn’t reply.

Dave knows the name of every damned town in the entire country, as well as their imports, exports, governors, taxes, and every other godsdamned thing about them, but he couldn’t think of a single one to save his ass in that moment, and so the two men settle back into silence. Disappointment filling the air around them. Dave desperately combs his mind hunting for a conversation starter that won’t end in absolute destruction of his façade.

“Do you have surnames in Derse?” Karkat asks tentatively, clearly trying to find a bridge that won’t collapse.

‘Gods fucking damnit.’ “Yes.” Dave replies.

“Do you have one?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

‘Fuck it, let’s try the open your mouth and pray thing.’ “Strilonde.” Dave internally mourns his intelligence as it turns belly up in the sun and flops like a great grounded whale, bloated and dying with no chance of recovery.

“Weird. Are all human names like that?” Dave turns to look at Karkat, he screws up his face when he says the word weird, scrunches his nose and furrows his brow. Dave steps on something inside him before he has the chance to acknowledge what it is.

“No. What’s yours?” Dave returns Karkat’s volley, Roxy once taught him a similar method to dealing with people ‘Every little thing is a game. The steps of the dance, the posture, the tiny little turns and inclines of the head. But especially words. Words are some people’s favourite game. It doesn’t have to be your favourite. But you do have to be the best at it.’ He never was the best at it.

“Vantas.”

“Trolls don’t have parents, how do you get your last names?” Dave feels an itch in the very far back reaches of his mind at the name, but he was never enough of a scholar to know things on Alternian history, beyond their endless passive war with the overseas country of Beforus and a vague recollection of almost ancient titles that apparently still had beings living under them to this day.

Karkat, Vantas apparently, is silent for a moment. “A variety of ways.” He decides on finally with a hint of a waver in his voice.

“Care to expound?” Dave pushes further, holding Crow for a second to match pace with the troll and his big fuck-off horse.

“Highbloods get picked from the caverns based on matched signs, they inherit the names of their ancestors, if they have them. Lowbloods either pick them themselves or find something with their sign that tells them.” Karkat explains softly.

“Signs?”

“Jadebloods assign them, there's magic involved. I’m not so familiar with the magic bits.”

“Oh. Like the Condescension’s weird H?” Dave asks, trying to understand, not realising the error until the words had already tumbled unbidden from his mouth.

“How the fuck do you know what the Condesce’s symbol looks like?” Karkat looks at him sharply.

Dave freezes.

Chapter Text

-+Karkat’s P.O.V.+-

Karkat knew this strange Dersite man was lying from the get-go. There wasn’t a universe in which he wouldn’t need to. But the nature of the lies are what caught Karkat’s attention, and what holds it now.

Dave didn’t open his mouth to respond.

“Dave. How do you know what the ever-flying fuck the Heinous Batter-Witch, Empress of Alternia, the Condescension’s symbol looks like, I don’t even know what it looks like, no one but her inner court does, how the fuck do you?”

“When she visited Dracon years ago,” Karkat can taste the lies in the air, “ I saw her in her carriage,” Another lie, her royal bitchiness would never ride in a carriage, “she stepped out for a moment on to Dracon’s palace steps,” according to Dave he lived nowhere important, the capitol of the entire fucking country seemed a little important, “I saw her before she entered the palace completely.”

“I’m not a fucking idiot,” Karkat said tersely, “ I know when someone lies. Will the truth get us killed?”

“What?” Dave sounds shocked.

“If I know, or someone finds out whatever the fuck you’re lying about, will it get us killed?” Karkat asks. The ringing silence afterwards is telling. Karkat counts the footsteps of the horses, falling in time with each other while he waits for Dave’s response. He can’t figure out how he would know that about the Condesce, the properness in giving her the full title of Condescension without the shortened version. He knows what the sign is, it’s the Peixes symbol. Of the twelve of legend. No-one alive has ever seen it besides the Condesce, the Heiress, and the high court, according to the propaganda.

“Yes,” Dave interrupts his train of thought. “ the truth might get us killed.”

“Shit,” Karkat mutters, “I won’t ask then.”

Dave's head snaps up to look at Karkat. “You won’t?”

“If we get captured and I don’t know it’s safer.” He says quietly.

Dave nods and pushes Crow forward, ending the conversation swiftly.

Karkat follows silently, mind reeling. He knows Dave is a knight, well trained, efficient, and from Dracon. Probably high-born, given the training. The access to the Condesce, the strange politeness granted that theory merit as well. So some random high-born knight up and left his cushy safe home to travel through the worst country on the planet. None of it makes sense in his roiling mind.

“How...,” Dave starts and stops, “how did you come by the tavern?”

“I got lucky. Some jade blood pulled me out of a slum, raised me at the tavern for a bit. She left.” Karkat says quickly.

“Some jade blood?” Dave presses.

“She was just some troll who saw this little shitty kid without a lusus. She pitied me,” Karkat deflects, “I don’t even remember what she looks like.”

“She gave you the tavern?”

“She vanished. I claimed it. When someone dies in Alternia their shit is open grabs.” Karkat tries to call her face to mind, and receives nothing notable. He tries to call anything from his youth to mind and barely recalls the slums he was in, nothing worth remembering he supposes.

“She raised you?”

“I guess.”

“Kind of like a mom.”

Karkat tenses.

“Not really no. She left me in that inn.” His tone is clipped.

“Did I say something off?” Dave stretches out his leg to bump Karkats ankle on his horse. Karkat jolts away and Pinch sidesteps to match. Putting distance between the two men.

“Just. Reminded me of something.” Karkat looks up to watch the last of the sun shudder over the horizon. “The beasts will come soon.”

“Scared?” Dave teases.

“I don’t know what to fucking expect. There aren’t really any beasts in the first ring.”

“I thought most trolls were raised by beasts. With the exception of your situation.”

“Lusii from the plains of grubcaves are very different from wild lusii.” Karkat neatly sidesteps the topic.

“I see. We’ll do our best to avoid them.” Dave says softly. And the two fell into silence.

-+Dave’s P.O.V+-

Karkat is practically useless in observation at this point. Something about what Dave said threw him off and he hasn’t quite been able to reseat himself yet. Dave can tell. The troll’s shoulders are stiff and his eyes are unfocused. Fingers under the cowl of his cloak, on the necklace. Karkat isn’t paying attention. So Dave turns his eyes to the skyline. The last inklings of sunlight dip underneath a flat horizon.

Dave hears a low howl and turns his head to trace the sound. Karkat jolts back to the present. Snapping his head towards the noise. A harsh half-bark half-yip sounds from the alternate direction. Dave rests his hand on the pommel of his sword as a cacophony of bizarre animal noises surround the two. Then suddenly falls silent. The barking lasts a moment longer than the rest of the cacophony.

“Jegus, what the grubfisting fuck is that?” Karkat yelps as his horse shuffles slightly.

“How should I know, you’re the local. Also, shut the fuck up. Calm down Pinch.” Dave hisses sharply.

“I fucking can’t asswipe! How the shit is your horse so calm?

” “Battle trained.” Dave internally facepalms. ‘Of course the civilian’s civilian horse is gonna spook at wild beasts. Of course.’ Karkat doesn’t respond. The strange barking comes back, closer. “Timaeus preserve me.”

“Timaeus?” Karkat intones.

Dave doesn’t respond, just pulls his sword, and rounds Crow on where the barking is coming from, putting Karkat and Pinch behind them.

Dave spots it, four eerily white, spined jackal-looking beasts lurking ever closer to the two horses. Dave curses every god in the sky as the jackals split to circle the two men.

“Turn around and pull your sickles.” Dave commands. “I don’t know if your footfucking ass didn’t figure it out, but I’m not a fighter.” Karkat bickers.

“Get over it.” Dave hears Karkat spin Pinch around to face the oncoming beasts. There is a quiet ring of metal as Karkat unsheathed his sickles and then impossibly loud gibbering barks . The first of the beasts, moving with impossible speed, launched itself from the ground toward Dave.

-+=+-