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"Ampora, right?"
Karkat lifted his head to face the guard, his hesitation stiffening his face into a dispassionate mask.
The guard - a Violetblood with a shaved head, short, sharp and jagged horns, and frayed fins - smirked, ogling at him with a spark in their eyes. Karkat couldn’t recognize their sign. And he found himself not caring.
There's no more use in hiding, his brain whispered, you're due to step into the culling block in an hour or so, if you're lucky.
And yet… he couldn't just say yes. But does it even matter? He wore his sign on his sleeve, literally. There was no discretion in these Alternian Navy fatigues.
"You're wearing Dualscar's sign on your arm, kid," the guard confirmed, "That Aquarius is unmistakable."
"Of course," Karkat nodded, a bitter, teeth-bared smile pushing through the legendary facade of patience he'd practiced since he was a wiggler.
A grin was the reply from the guard - their teeth, too, were bared, but unlike his, their grin was purposeful, wide, probably trying to be intimidating.
Karkat wasn't fazed. He was more than used to it.
"What's your hatchname?" they asked.
A scoff escaped him. "Does it concern you?"
"Of course it does, kid!" The guard leaned on the taller slab meant to be Karkat's headrest - and winked. Fucking winked! If he wasn't chained, if his sword wasn't confiscated, he would have stabbed them. "It's not every day you see an Ampora waiting for the culling block."
"Lucky you," Karkat said sarcastically, clenching his fists, "Congratu-fucking-lations on your front seat audiency of my execution."
"Sassy, are we?" the guard chuckled. "Your ancestor didn't swear so much."
Not this bullshit again! They were baiting him, he knew. But what's the harm in making conversation? He'd end up a candy-red smear on the culling block anyway. And Alternia would breathe a sigh of relief as they rid the Empire of the last remaining mutantblood. The ex-Violet, disgraced, crippled mutantblood the Signless Revolution didn't even want.
You're wrong! His other side insisted, foolishly, digging into his brain with mental punches. The Revolutionaries are going to - no, Eridan is going to save us!
Fucking idiot. He was going to die. Vantas - probably going by a stupid title like "Signless 2: Electric Boogaloo" now - was not going to save him. He and his traitorous grubfucking rebellion had left him and Aradia to rot here forever, just because - well, he didn't even know. He couldn't even think about it, what with the Navy failure still fresh on his mind. How his stamina had failed him. How he’d shivered and stiffened at a mere 1,000-meter depth. How he'd had to yield before his opponent could draw blood. His brain was just desperate, desperate for this to be a mistake and not the betrayal he should've expected.
What was he to do, anyway? He couldn't run. Better die a (reportedly) quick death via culling than fail an escape and be tortured.
"What's your deal, Ampora?" the guard asked, apparently bored of waiting for him to make up his addled mind. "High treason? Fornicating with a Fuchsia? Or with a Rust? ...wait, are there Rustbloods in the Navy?"
"I'm not in the fucking Navy," Karkat found himself snapping. "That's my deal."
The guard's mouth turned into a big "O". "You failed the selection?!"
Slap! Slap! They were hitting the slab with one hand, leaning on the wall with the other as they doubled over, cackling like a mad troll.
"Oh- oh, hohoho- hahaha ! That's rich! Dualscar's descendant can't even get into the Navy!"
For what felt like centuries, Karkat waited for the cackling, then laughing, then snickering, then wheezing, then coughing, to subside.
"Man!" The guard threw themself onto the slab, using it as a chin-rest, arms dangling down the side where Karkat was sitting. "No wonder you're getting culled."
Karkat glared at them, but the bulgereek was fucking giggling now.
"How did you even mess up so hard?!" A wheeze. "Even I passed the Navy selections! Ahahaha! I gotta tell my gang!"
The laughter grew louder, louder, louder- then it stopped in a sigh of bliss, followed by the guard sliding down the slab to sit in a place Karkat thankfully couldn't see. "What a day…"
At this point, he tuned their mutterings out. There was no clock in sight, but he knew his death must be approaching soon.
What had he achieved in the meager nine sweeps of his life?
Karkat put his chin on his hands, and his elbows on his lap. Thank goodness the chains were long.
Hmm… well… things only started getting exciting when he was seven sweeps old.
He befriended a bunch of future rebels. Discovered he'd developed a blood mutation. Learned how to hide it from everyone else. Unlearned casteism. Lost all his Violet friends (not that he'd had many in the first place). Lost his ability to walk and swim and fight without excruciating pain.
Wanting to join the rebellion. Being left to die by said rebellion. Failed the Navy selections. Being dragged by - with - his mentor to certain culling. He knew the Preceptor, too, was going to end up on the block.
What a true fucking champion, he groused inwardly, burying his face in his shackled hands, what a colorful life I lived.
Perhaps he wished he'd had more time with Eri- no, not him! - with Aradia, wished he could thank her for everything she'd done for him… but the past is the past. He promised himself to think of her on his last breath.
"Attention: Karkat Ampora, Prisoner, Cell 2789, is requested for Culling Block J."
The guard hemmed and hawed at his hatchname before dragging him out of the cell.
"The legendary Karkat Ampora, everyone!" they jeered for a final time, giving him a round of mocking applause before the gates to the culling block. "You're lucky Dualscar isn't here to cull you himself, kiddo. You're an embarrassment."
The gates creaked - this is it, he thought. This is it. Think of Aradia. Think of your friendship. Think of your last days together… waiting for the rebel ship that never came, cruising at breakneck speed to the Navy base, holding each other so tightly you both could explode.
Somehow, the warmth of companionship gave him the last burst of uncouth energy - another way to cut his ties to the Violet caste forever.
"Don't worry, shitstain," Karkat muttered as the gates parted like the maw of a hungry lusus, "I'll return the favor when I meet him."