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The first thing you note: they are all gorgeous. The kind of pretty where if any of them spoke to you you’re sure you would perish on the spot.
Promising legislacerator, indeed.
Your guide is one of the younger acolytes, looking fresh even in her basic white garb. She is accompanied by an older, stern-faced auxiliatrix wearing those drapey jade-and-black robes they all do, looking high and haughty.
The former looks as cool as a tuberfruit, save for twitchy lips and thigh-tapping fingers. The latter hardly disguises her irritation, a nebulous thing that proves to have infinite reserves, rising and falling but never subsiding completely.
A student trails behind and she heaves one hell of a hefty sigh. When the acolyte’s clear, airy voice becomes inaudible over the general clamor, somehow her exasperated exhalation can be heard above it all. You are sure Alternia spins on its axis by the force of this one jadeblood’s perpetual annoyance.
Honestly, if you were not you and were being forced to co-chaperone a sea of young officers of the law, you’d probably be like that, too. Which is to say, if a group of trolls stormed your living space under the guise of “educational field trip,” supervised only by Instruct Tesale, you’d be pretty pissed. Which is to say, Instruct Tesale sucks at learningblock management outside of the learningblock. So you feel for the auxiliatrices.
You make the effort to stand tall and look attentive and professional in your spiffy teal suit, since none of these other hellians will.
It’s not that hard, anyway; the Caverns are a genuine point of interest for you. Latula Pyrope, full of that curiosity that lends you the status of a young prodigy at the Acadaggressemy.
And the same curiosity that will get you killed one night, your instructors are sure.
Overall, the Brooding Caverns aren’t at all what you expected going in (literally). Beyond being a giant branchwork of caves, of course, but even then they’re a larger, more intricate system than you ever thought possible.
Fascinating in itself is the way they are structured. Yawning atriums pinch off into narrow, one lane tunnels. If you were able to see the floor plan, you doubt it would look too different from a colony crawler farm.
You’ve always wanted one of those. But having the little buggers escape and infest the dorm is a very, very good deterrent. Could make for a nasty prank, though!
Stairs aid in travelling from one level to another and divvying up the wide open spaces are walls of drone spit up, sturdy and squishy. It seems impossible for a drone to navigate the Caverns, especially this far underground, and you wonder if the jadebloods built this themselves.
Where they’ve been left bare, which isn’t much in terms of surface area, they are most definitely a Color. Maybe blue, purple, or gray? Or more of a brown-ish beige? You’re actively looking at it, but no matter how much you do, it does not offer up any secrets.
Perhaps it has learned the art of being uninteresting. Did that come before or after it was patchily painted?
By a multitude of hands over time, time, time. Shapes and colors that might mean something to someone who is not you.
This is what your eyes track as the acolyte leads you through tunnels that would be unnavigable otherwise. An easy feat, seeing as the paint seems to reflect light, glinting in some places and glaring in others. You’re staring, feeling like an intruder when you realize oh, that’s the splotchy red heel of a hand, tiny and pudgy; the long blue tine of a finger; the empty arc of a life line, yellow showing through the fate line tucked up against it.
You’re lucky to be running in the middle of the pack. Classmates with no sense of personal space herd you along where you might have stopped. To feel the weight of the auxiliatrix’s disapproval this late in the game would shatter your illusion of a perfect student and crack you beneath.
It’s that thought that pulls your head out of the fluffy condensed sky water and sets you back on track. Eyes forward, watching the back of the acolyte’s bobbing head, framed in a halo of soft light as she brings you into another cavity.
It’s… an old style shopping center? Or what would count as one here in the down under. The constructs here have been painted less abstract and more to look like storefronts. The wide space curves around a bend up ahead.
Water drips and plinks and puddles in the same divots it has for centuries. Hanging from the ceiling, foliage fills up much of the empty space above your head with a lush spectrum of pinks. The subtle geoforming by troll hands merely enhances the cave’s natural beauty. This whole place is stunning, really. You never knew that the underground could be Alternia’s secret haven for a select few.
Any wistful longing that infiltrates your thoughts is dispersed by the reminder that the surface is the place you need to be. You have plans. A purpose. More of a direction than a number of your classmates, you’re sure. Now if you only knew yourself better, you’d be set.
While you were lost in introspection, a squabble had broken out between Instruct Tesale and a kid with very, very pointy horns. Holy fuck, they must have sharpened them to get tips like that.
You don’t know them. By name, that is. Maybe you’ve passed them in the halls once or twice, but who knows. More importantly, who fucking cares.
Argument: There are specific things you’re here to see, this is not one of them.
(You’d add that this also isn’t their hive, don’t go kicking off your shoes and running around wherever you wish like a hooligan.)
Counter-argument: This place is historical, and looks much more interesting than a fat bug or some books. Students have the latter of those forced upon them all the time.
(Horns That Could Kill a Man spitting facts out here. The blatant disrespect for the Allmother isn’t necessary, though.)
Rebuttal: There are only so many hours in a night.
(True. But—)
Interjection: But enough to have a break from being herded around like packbeasts.
Both jadebloods have been standing by, watching. The elder is reared back like a serpent ready to strike and the younger wears a look of the same indignation, albeit watered down. They stand nearly shoulder to shoulder, the acolyte is that tall. Their matching looks of disdain, of superiority, (painfully) drive home the fact that you and your class of fellow feral woodland wrigglers are a collection of boneheads, to put it nicely. To think, you’re a step above them on the spectrum!
So Instruct Tesale bargains with Pointy Horns and the trolls who took their side like they’re three-sweep-olds, and now you have been promised the chance to return to this little outdoor (indoor?) mall after you have seen what you were actually brought here for: the Mother Grub, as well as the most expansive, most in depth archives this side of the hiveworld. You can’t say you’re too upset about the outcome.
The actual Brooding Caverns (where there’s more breeding, less brooding, same caves) are nothing less than a marvel. The sight of what very well could be the location of your earliest nights stuns your entire group into silence, jades included, though this has to be a familiar sight to them. It’s one of those things, those things that never stop being breathtaking. Not the distance, several inches of glass, nor your mates’ blurry figures in your periphery can possibly detract the weight of what you’re seeing.
The jades move together, operating like a well oiled machine, no room for error. None of them are fazed by the terrain of worn rock, studded with myriad grubs in every stage from hatching to pupation. They dot the ground like landmines, but are so much familiar clutter to the weaving, wheeling, stepping, almost dancing auxiliatrices going about their work. All dressed identically, sporting the same short cropped hair, sisters. The Mother Grub sits like a prized centerpiece amidst the organized chaos. She’s a huge, hulking creature, yet still the curvature of her bone-white form has an air of gracefulness and dignity.
Your elder guide clears her throat, the first trollmade sound in that little olive grub’s life, even if they can’t hear it. The younger acolyte startles, then begins to speak. Her voice carries the same reverence you feel, with an extra twinge of pride. You continue to watch the grub as they roll to and fro, coated in slime and legs waving wildly in the air. It’s only another moment before they’re toed right side up by one of the jades, whose arms are otherwise occupied.
There’s reluctance to leave the viewport when the time comes. In fact, more than a few just. Don’t move. Entranced. Maybe you’re one of them. Who’s to say? But, as Instruct Tesale is so quick to remind everyone, there are only so many hours in the night.
The archives are rather underwhelming after that, but you give them some grace. The active propagation of your species is a hard act to follow and books can only be so interesting. Even the illegal ones.
Your troop is joined by the jadeblood who takes care of the place, appropriately titled the Archiver, who you think is there more to make sure you do not ruin anything than to feed you information. Kudos to her for being the first to introduce herself, though.
As you suspected, there are illegal books down here. Both that were not at the time they were written and contraband that has never seen the light of the moons.
Even so, it’s a slightly chilly and forgettable experience.
Before drones became a thing, it was actually the norm for one to go out and buy the things they needed from a brick and mortar building. It’s not impossible to do nowanights, but why would you when it can be brought right to your hive?
These buildings might not be brick and mortar, but they’re replicas of the ones that were. They had to have been built around the same time, you’re sure of it, but these have been better kept than the ruins of crumbling infrastructure back on the surface.
Once you are released and allowed to return to the street of stores (thus freeing the huffy auxiliatrix from her torture) everyone with a lick of sense makes a buzzbeastline for the shop that boldly advertises confections. You don’t know about your peers, but you, for one, are starving. Your last “meal” was shitty instant coffee right before departure, waaaaaaaay too early in the evening. You can already imagine how good that small portion of corn syrup will feel when it hits your bilesack.
The outside is painted an alluring wash of pastel, and the inside sticks to the aesthetic. It’s a quaint place, and the troll behind the counter can’t be much older than you. She’s the only one working, looking unnerved by the sudden flood of customers.
Trolls’ priorities come to light when you bypass the line to the counter for the one to the single ablutionblock, which is nonexistent.
After a quick in and out, you slot yourself into the aforementioned counter line, grateful for the extra time to peruse the menu and the selection on display in front of the cashier.
Almost everything on the menu has a higher fructose concentration than you bargained for. If you wanted to get yourself stupid, you would guzzle soporifics. Everything looks so good, though.
You’ve been confined to one corner of the menu, which is irritating, but maybe you are just hangry. Probable. It doesn’t look like there’s anything else available or— Hey, you know the back of that head!
You wait until she turns and you can see her in profile, just to be certain, because there is nothing more embarrassing than thinking you recognize someone in public and it isn’t actually them.
Once again, you’ve found yourself behind the acolyte, same one, for true. All long limbs and sweeping horns and half-lidded eyes, but not demure in the slightest this up close. Imposing would be more accurate.
She turns back to face the troll behind the counter, and it’s the hind end of her skull for you again. Shame. The curve of her profile was like woaaah.
“Oatmeal raisin, sugar free, please.”
Half your thinkpan grinds ruts into the mud of your gray matter over the fact that her voice is a lot more gravelly when she’s not projecting it and by Gl'bgolyb is it angelic.
The other half, the better half, pings with the knowledge that there are secret menu items.
So when she steps away, you take her place, smile, and say, “The same thing as her. Please.”
Chick at the counter (her name tag reads “Honore”) assesses the line behind you before shrugging and reaching down to retrieve your order. Honore slots the biscuit into a little paper holder before handing it over to you.
The jadeblooded girl is staring at you as you make way for the next person in the queue.
You stare right on back. You know, like an idiot.
It’s not like there’s an abundance of seats, so you’ll inevitably end up sharing a table with someone, anyway, but your bilesack still slurches when she tilts her horns toward one of the remaining empty ones, motioning you to follow.
Dragging the chair out with your heel makes more noise than you intended. You pretend as if no such godawful sound has graced your auriculars.
She sits her ass– wait, her kind are probably more of the “derrière” type— down on the chair across from you. She can’t see the tapping of your shoe against the floor from this angle, or your sweaty palm-on-pants wipe, which is a W in your book.
Damn nerves.
In your defense, you weren’t the one staring at strangers. What kind of freak weirdo behavior is that. Why does society allow attractive trolls to not only get away with that, but also expect you to feel flattered and swoon when they do. You are just sweaty.
The acolyte’s pupils are still mostly gray, but circularly striated with jade. Like yours. Except yours have teal. Because you’re not a jadeblood. Hashtag facts.
“So.”
“Why did you get that?” she asks, like the question should've been obvious from the get-go.
“Um, was I not supposed to?”
“No, because who would willingly eat the sugar free version of something when the superior version is right there?”
“I dunno, girl, I’m not a huge fan of sugar highs, so this,” you wave the cookie around for emphasis, “is my ‘superior version.’”
Taking a bite of her own, she pulls a face.
It seems a bit like bait, but you bite. “If it’s so bad, why didn’t you get something that’s actually good?”
“I am not allowed.”
“Bad business decision to have a shop full of things a majority of your customers can’t eat.”
“I am not allowed, but some are. It depends.”
“Depends on what?”
She pauses, shrugs. “It depends.
“I would, if I could. Though I think the conviction is more rooted in the rebellion than anything else.” Her empty hand shoots out in front of her as she snaps up, back ramrod straight. “Porrim Maryam.”
Her fingers are far closer to you than the middle, so your own arm is bent at an acute angle when you respond,
“Latula Pyrope,”
and go in to bump your fist against her loosely curved knuckles.
…Wow, okay, that was not as rad as you thought it’d be. While Porrim’s hand withdraws back to her space, yours has found its place pinned between your knees. You peek to see if she’s looking at you, but she’s not, though her lips are doing something weird. Almost like that funky eating movement you see in anime sometimes.
To your left are your classmates, eating, most on their palmhusks, and a few jades. The two bloods don’t mingle.
To your right sit more of your fellow patrons. Honore and the counter lie back a ways, just at the edge of your vision.
Clearing your throat, you twist to gesture at Honore. “So, like, is she ‘you’ or ‘some?’”
Porrim leans forward, eyebrows raised. “Pardon?”
You fish-on-land gape your way through the rewording of your question.
“No, she is not,” Porrim does her best to covertly point to the cashier. “She has been to the surface,” she continues, her voice clearly laced with such an evident, bitter envy it stuns you.
You hadn’t even noticed— the one behind the counter is dressed differently, holds herself differently even, and greets the jades identifiable as acolytes differently than the acolytes do amongst themselves. They are the ultimate clique, and she is not a part of it.
“Honore’s a postulant,” she says, which has the exact opposite of its intended purpose.
These kinds of… social, um, things are most definitely not your strong suit, but damn if they’re not interesting as all get out.
Porrim does you the courtesy of acting like she’s forgotten the whole very awkward, very failed introduction, even as you pan plays it back to you in an endless loop of cringe.
She indulged you in conversation, though. The first casual one you’ve had in a while. Talking just to talk instead of it being a transfer of necessary information.
And she continues to do so, for what must be a half hour.
Porrim’s diction strikes you as odd— as you listen, you identify it as the lack of conjunctions, trading loose speed for clear annunciation. It’s alluring. Not to mention her casual vocabulary; it would put many legislacerators you know to shame.
Beyond the how she converses, the what is fascinating, in a mundane sort of sense. She tells you snippets of her own life, so different from yours. You show her pictures of Pyralspite (old ones, you haven’t seen that great lump in half a sweep).
Odder, she asks you if you would like to hang out later.
The desire is there, but the rule follower in you trips over itself when she suggests things like time and place.
There’s a certain stoicism to her; like an aloof meowbeast. You’re scared of running her off by being too immature, too excitable. Loud and obnoxious is your style, but out of place here in the underground.
Logically, you are very much aware that breaking your general code to appease (impress?) a girl you seriously just met is not smart. But what the hell!! The rules are just suggestions, anyway!!! Maybe you’ll spraypaint “fuck t3s4l3” on a wall and dump some colony crawlers in their sopor while you’re at it.
Her directions are terrifyingly confusing. The best you can get is “the other side of the hoofbeast’s shoe, second entry on the right if you’re coming from the other half, it’s the fifth in the opposite direction.” Which does fuckk all in making a lick of sense to you.
Asking for clarification gets you nowhere. Porrim gets even more flustered than you are, keeps repeating “the hoofbeast’s shoe,” like it’s some code you should understand.
“Bitch, what hoofbeast’s shoe?” Your elbows are on the table and you face a mere few inches from hers.
“This one!” At some point, you had both dropped into whisper-shouts.
“This what?”
“This— oh.”
Yeah, you’re both facepalming.
So, as it turns out, the Hoofbeast’s Shoe is this cave, dubbed so because, surprise, it’s shaped like a hoofbeast’s shoe.
“You want me to meet you on the other side?”
“Exactly. Second entry coming from the… you know what, I will meet you there. No need to worry.”
You feel every need to worry, particularly about getting lost and being found wandering where you do not belong. Are escapades like these always so loosely organized?
All too soon, other jades (probably the ones with wrist timepieces) rise and collectively migrate towards the door.
You had speculated that the Caverns’ permanent residents were not pleased to have outsiders mucking about their underground haven, but the refusal of entrance to the dining hall is something else altogether. Porrim had walked herself (and you, milking every drop of time spent with her like a troll in the desert dying of thirst. You just feel like there’s more to say, alright?) there.
Upon arrival, she’s greeted by a younger jade in white with a cinture around her waist, who politely flaps her hands in your direction. You helplessly tell her you have literally no clue where you’re supposed to go, and earn yourself a glossy tri-fold map. She taps your destination twice with a ragged-nailed stub before shutting the door.
You’re lucky to have eaten at the cafe earlier. Some of your mates weren’t so lucky as to have the foresight. There’s some snacks passed between hatefriends, but neither Acadaggressemy resources nor Instruct Tesale offer food. Their style of schoolfeeding follows Alternia’s principles, after all. It’s every troll for themselves.
It’s not horrible. By tomorrow morning you’ll be back to the same old schedule, which includes three meals a night and food a rustblood could never hope to afford. The thought rankles you, sometimes.
So while your perfectly superior cookie doesn’t tie you over for long, you don’t try cursing out any of your lovely hosts. Even if they just about slammed a door in your face.
The shared respiteblock and accommodations you and your fellow recruits have been offered is meager, sparse in comparison to what you are used to. It is not a lack of funding; these cavern jades live modestly.
You try really, really hard to keep your jittering under wraps. The group goes about their nightly routine. Everybody changes into the sopor resistant pajamas the Acadaggressemy provided, holding up towels or clothes to shield their pal’s nakedness. Some have no shame. Hatefriends chatter in adjacent recuperacoons while others brush fangs in front of a crooked mirror, spitting into the rickety sink. The exposed pipes rattle with the force of gushing water when they rinse.
Someone a few places ahead of you in line comments on the rust. You think it adds character. These are the conditions the lower castes live in, and they seem just fine with it.
Instruct Tesale turns off the lights after a quick headcount, assuring everyone is in their coons. Nerves skyrocketing and unable to repress a smile, you wait.
And wait.
…And wait.
What can’t be any longer than a half hour or so feels like eternity. It’s so tempting to jump the gun with the chorus of snores echoing around you, but you won’t let the anticipation make you stupid.
Silently, you slip out of the coon. It was comfortable enough, but it wasn’t your one at the Acadaggressemy, which you’ve come to think of as hive. Sopor slides off the PJs in chunks, plopping onto the floor.
Deep, deep in the underground, there is no need to fear the sun. You were always secretly a creature of the day. Most of your hivework gets done by sunlight filtered through heavy curtains.
There are “rumors” that jadebloods can withstand the sun more than other trolls. It’s actually a fact, you don’t know why they call it a rumor. What you are interested in is rainbowdrinkers, which are obviously very real creatures that are most definitely not a wriggler’s tale. What are they like? How do you become one? You’ll have to ask in a very non intrusive way, of course.
The jadebloods will be milling about in spite of the sunlight seeping through the mouths and crevices of the caverns. You and your peers are located deeper down, so as to be comfortable. The map makes more noise than you expected a piece of paper to produce when you unfold it, but whatever.
You peep around the corner, looking left and right to make sure the coast is clear. A fitting score plays in your ears in the absence of external sounds, likely the consequence of too many trashy films in a buddy’s trashy dorm.
It is early afternoon. Every sensible troll down this deep is not on Alternia but wherever it is you go when you dream. Or don’t dream, which is a scarier thought.
You’ve been trailing your fingers behind you as you go, just feeling the way textures change beneath the tips. The rough, porous walls meld into smooth stone and back again.
It’s so quiet. You can’t hear your pump biscuit, but it definitely has a higher BPM than usual.
And there is this creeping, shaky smile that keeps attacking your face. You look like an idiot. You are an idiot.
Porrim said she’d be waiting, and true to her word, there she is.
By Gl'bgolyb, this feels scandalous. Sneaking off to meet up with a girl you just met totally breaks the code of conduct. It’s even giving you the jitters, and you are far from a rules stickler.
As she herds you into the restroom (public, but intended for a single occupant), the persistent grin falls from your lips. You are so an idiot.
So caught up in the excitement, and you don’t even know what this is for.
The tumult of thoughts and feelings hits you like a high speed scuttlebuggy. Like, what the hell, she probably asked you here to pail. The sign’s right there.
If she’s about as old as you, then she isn’t of the age for the drones to come knocking either. Not like that’s ever meant much— you know from unfortunate firsthand experience how frequently and without regard for anyone or anything your classmates fool around. But you… haven’t.
The Acadaggressemy’s curriculum is beyond difficult, but you have been rewarded for your studiousness with good marks.
You don’t know how the jadebloods’ regime is, but if it’s anything like the Acadaggressemy’s, well. Even if you don’t understand, how can you begrudge her the use of the meager time she has away from the Empire breathing down her neck?
The worst would be the yuck of having to stumble through a long winded “no.”
You have to believe she would respect that. You’re no character witness, but she’s been a decent girl so far.
Getting lost in your own thinkpan is so easy, sometimes, that tuning back into your surrounds leads you to question just how long you’ve been staring off into space like, you guessed it, the giant fucking Idiot you are.
Behind you, Porrim eases the door shut with a click. So only a moment, then.
“Question of the night— or day, I guess. We got the who, what, when, and where, but what about the why?”
“Well, I am going to kill you.”
Everything inside you goes still. Except for what might be the thin edge of the wedge in terms of a panache.
You don’t have the energy to fend off a troll of any size or blood right now.
Sighing, you inquire, “Why?”
“You know too much.” When you don’t respond, she adds, “Like how I would eat sugar simply to be rebellious.”
To be perfectly honest, that hadn’t struck you like any sort of deep dark secret when she told you. It still doesn’t seem like one; maybe she’d get reprimanded for saying it in front of the wrong troll?
Or maybe it’s like if you were to disparage His Honorable Tyranny, or question the law, or talk back to your superiors.
Or maybe her passing remark about rebellion isn’t limited to the trivial.
Maybe she’s like you.
You knew there was something about her.
Wait. Does she know something about you? How could she? She’s no cerulean, but could she be a mutant mind reader?
“You smell like anxiety,” Porrim whispers. “I was only joking about the bloody murder, I promise. Unless you intend to tell someone of my impure thoughts.”
Finally, you turn to face her. Porrim’s hand has not left the door handle, and from your practice gleaning things from body language, you think she looks less sure of herself than she did before.
If you felt so inclined, you might give her a strained laugh and a “good one!” As it is, the joke was funny enough to make the Highblood piss himself, because the punchline was fear or violence or both. You are not the Grand Highblood.
You can, however, offer solidarity. The words are hard to form, even harder to push past your lips, because they’re self condemnation.
“I won’t tell. As long as you don’t tell anyone that I have similar thoughts.”
Some of the tension seeps from her shoulders. “Only once in a while.”
“Certainly not every other night. Pobody’s nerfect.”
“Excellent.” Her face pulls taut, teeth glinting in the low light and eyebrows arching in exaggerated amusement. “Now that we have both confessed to treason, in our pajamas, it is probably best to remind you that culling was not my intention.”
You track her movement, curious rather than wary, as she crosses the room. Porrim winces when she plops down heavily on the stone floor by the sink.
It is a pretty desolate square box of a space. Load gaper in one corner, sink with a cabinet below and a row of lights (one of which is out) above, a door.
Kinda like a prisoner’s holding cell.
“Okay, but for real. What did you bring me here for?” you ask, lowering yourself down close, but not too close, to her. The chill of the rock sends a shiver up your spine and sticks to your legs in a way it didn’t with the toughened pads of your feet.
Porrim doesn’t answer immediately.
“If I am to be perfectly honest, I am doubting myself.”
“It’s cool, girl. I’m totally down for just sitting, talking, shooting the breeze or whatevs.”
“Oh! Yes, that is fine, as well. But— and I have only ever done this with my sisters, so I am starting to wonder if it is too forward or untoward—“ She trails off, instead turning to the cabinet.
The door blocks your view of what is in there, but she withdraws quickly, treasure in hand: a jade sequinned box, opened to reveal what looks like a makeup kit. An expensive one at that.
You whistle appreciatively. “Whoo whee, is that the [insert funny refrance here] palette?”
“We provide the resources for many grub-based products. We receive some of the food, materials, and tools are what we receive in return.”
“Huh. So the Empire does take care of some of its own, in some ways.”
“Oh, no, I would not say it is the Empire. Most shipping and trade is handled by trolls we can bargain with.”
Also in the caboodle is a plastic tin of sewing needles, some various colored threads, and a couple vials of ink.
She tells you about her favorite, not particularly allowed hobby, engaging you in another wonderfully pointless conversation. Your bloodpusher soars.
This close, she smells like tea tree oil.
Also among your discoveries: she has read some of the trashiest and most forbidden rainbowdrinker romance novels you could conceive; you actually have several perigees on her age-wise (ha!); her hatch day falls under the second bright season, the twenty-first, to be exact; and she believes every troll should have another for whom they do not feel hate, but rankling disgust (this last in reference to one of her cloistermates, Astena, a mouth breather).
Using her talk of Astena as a springboard, you make an athletic and graceful leap into asking, “So what’s with your whole cloister deal?”
You can tell by the way she ogles you that you did not stick the landing and have fallen flat on your ass like the behemoth fool you are.
Her voice comes out in a clipped whisper. “I’ve been with Drexel and Astena practically since hatching, Tarsis since I was four sweeps old, and Lisieu since I was… seven? Eight? Somewhere in there.
“Since those respective times, I have not gone a single night without seeing their faces. They are my closest hatefriends and confidants. They will accompany me every night of my life and be the last faces I see when my work is over.”
Wow. “Damn. How do they pick who you’ll be, uh, cloistered with?” Is that a verb?
“I am unsure. Though, I imagine I will have to create some myself, when I am older.”
“Do they miss you when you’re not with them, like this?”
“Would it make me look bad if I said it was something like a habit?”
“Not at all.”
She takes an antiseptic wipe and draws the needle through her pinched fingers. “Do you want to go first?”
“Uhh.” You’ve never been a huge weenie around needles, but you’ve also never stabbed someone with one multiple times in succession. Or had the same done to you. Porrims has made it clear you are totally free to opt the fuck out without judgement, but screw that. You’re nearly nine sweeps old. If you don’t live now, when will you ever? “Like, me tattoo you first, or you tattoo me first?”
She shrugs. “You can do me first, if you are nervous. Have any ideas?” When she stretches her legs out, leaning back on hands, you peek at her skin for reasons totally unrelated to any sort of crush you most definitely do not have. Yep.
And you can see, in these little patches of easily coverable, she already has some ink. Her body is a temple and this is how she chooses to decorate it.
Some of the lines are crooked, wobbly. But they’re beautiful. How are you supposed to compete with that? Noting the placement of each tattoo, you wonder if she has friends who are into it, too, or if getting very comfortable in very uncomfortable positions is one of her talents.
“I would love to mark you up with a dragon but, uh,” you giggle, actually fucking giggle what the fuck. Your palms are sweaty and you try to covertly wipe them on your PJ bottoms. “I don’t have that kind of skill.”
“I am no exceptional artist myself.”
That’s probs BS.
You consider. She deserves something beautiful, elegant, like her. But, again, the number of times you’ve tattooed someone is zero and the only artistic activity you’ve ever participated in is doodling crude depictions of your instructors' faces to show your classmates.
Hm. You’re also thinking that if you put off your own, you’ll get too caught up in the eughh instead of how downright cool and badass it is and cluckbeast out. “Eh. I’m short on creative juice right now. I volunteer as sacrifice.”
“Please. It is hardly that painful. Depending.”
This time, you don’t hide your looks. “Experience?”
“I was going to say location and experience. You have control over one”
“But there are so few places that look cool but are also, like, inconspicuous, you know?”
Porrim hums assent as she crawls over to the wall, ripping a generous amount of load gaper tissue from the dispenser. “Absolutely.”
You sit very, very still as you wait for the needle to break skin. You don’t want to do something stupid like, dunno, move and make her miss and then she accidentally ends up stabbing you through the arm and then you have to chop it off because there is ink in your blood or something.
Oh.
Honestly the worst part might be the sensation of her pushing at the skin to keep it tight.
You still don’t want to look, arm locked out and fist clenched. Porrim advises you on how often to redip and when to wipe.
It prompts you to look; you didn’t realize there would be blood. It’s not much. A few drops of teal rise from the stained surface of your skin.
Still enough the grip claws of cowardice around you. So you blabber at her, about the more personal aspects of your life, this time. Not like she doesn’t have enough info to get you punished already.
You talk about the woodlands of you wigglerhood, the friends you had but never met, about Pyralspite and how much you miss it. How the wrestlangers promised to keep it in good care until you graduated (or didn’t).
About how you know you’ll earn your title and rank somenight, because failure cannot be an option for you. Sure, you’d be dead, and the mental integrity of ghosts is debatable, but you wouldn’t have just failed yourself. You would have failed anyone and everyone you could have helped, and you do want to help trolls. The system is flawed and unjust and if you’re the only one who can see that then maybe there is a reason.
Porrim asks if you’re religious.
“Not like the clowns. Not like any established religion, I guess. I think there’s a little nugget of truth hidden somewhere in each belief system, ‘cause that’s how things tend to work. Very rarely will something materialize from nothing.”
“Do you believe in the Messiahs?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“The Empress’ god-lusus? The horrorterrors?”
“Well, the Empress’ lusus very much real. And if it’s true what it is capable of…”
“The Demoness?”
“Could be a combination of wishful thinking and old conspiracies, but possibly.”
“The man on the moon?”
“Gracious. Why the interrogation?”
“Just curious.”
“What about you?” you want to know. “What do you believe in?”
You like how she chews on it for a moment, thoughtful.
“I do not think I have figured that out yet.”
Fair enough.
The tides bring you back ‘round to lighter tones as Porrim alerts you that she’s nearly done. You’re thrilled at the thought, hoping against all hope that you haven’t made a horrible mistake.
It’s an itty bitty noodle of a creature that snakes around veins and the knob of your elbow. The dragon twists and turns on itself, such a sinewy thing, nothing at all like Pyralspite’s solid bulk. No wings, either. It looks more like the dragons you’ve heard of from East Alternasia.
It’s nothing like you expected, but all of what you’d hoped for. You twist your arm this way and that, studying it, recalling the way her fingers brushed against your skin and the careful way she pierced you with the needle. Absorbing the whole experience, not just the result of it.
And that’s the greatest part. Honestly, the ablutionblock’s lighting is pretty shitty, but it is a semi-public ablutionblock so that’s kind of to be expected. Worst case scenario, the dragon looks like runny purrbeast diarrhea under moonlight. But you’ll still have the memories, as wigglerish as it sounds.
“I love it,” you tell her, all teeth and scrunched up eyes.
“That is good! I am very glad about that.” She says this with a giggle (an actual fucking giggle oh gods) that could be construed as being amused by your enthusiasm but sounds suspiciously like nervousness. You would know.
Her fist connects with yours in a much smoother display of comradery than before.
Ah, layers. Like onions, or ogres, though Porrim is anything but.
You feel so very awake. This late in the day and you feel more energized than you did last evening.
“Your turn! Any ideas?”
“Surprise me. Although I will request you pick something and place small,” Porrim says.
“Like where?”
“Extremely effective surprise. Perhaps an ankle?” Shifting so her right ankle is exposed to you, she tucks her left leg under that one.
“Isn’t that dangerous? ‘Cause you, universal you, jadebloods, go barefoot?”
She shrugs, looking rather unperturbed. “The creeps who look at others’ feet cannot do anything about it. And besides.” Porrim has offered you a polite few close-lipped smiles before, but here she gives you a real one, less demure and more fang. “I would love to get something big one night. I am saving room for that.”
Porrim guides you through the first couple pokes, her hands gentle but firm around yours.
You’re glad she worked on your nondominant arm, because while it isn’t outright in pain, it definitely aches.
“Of course, I will be serving the mother grub just like every self respecting tealblood goes into law i do not want to but i will my only other choice is a rightful culling she intones solemnly thinly veiled anger courses underneath
“I will grow up, become an auxiliatrix and they will call me nothing less than dutiful. I will hate watching them die, I will hate killing them, the poor defenseless grubs.”
You’re kind of glad she’s not the one with a needle in her hand right now.
There’s a period of quiet after that. Solemn anger, you believe, in her case. Mostly concentration is yours.
Pushing away the difficult truth is not the way to handle things, but you’ll have time to mull on it later.
For now, you merely make sure you’re redipping often enough to keep the pigment strong.
One final wipe and you break yourself from the focused trance to take in the product of your labor.
Porrim does, too, bow that she has an unobstructed view. The way she lights up makes the breath stall in your lungs.
It’s quite unimpressive, really, just a sun depicted in simple shapes, but heck if you aren’t proud of it. And she seems to like it, which is the important part.
The next minute is filled with appreciation. For the art, first of your own and a new addition to her gallery, and for each other. Somehow, you know you’ll always be hung up on this day.
Porrim carefully places the two used needles into a water bottle and screws the lid on tight.
You pick up the jade and teal spackled tissues, balling them up and tossing them towards the garbage receptacle. You miss. Porrim, closer, leans back to put them in their rightful place.
She goes about cleaning up the rest of her supplies as you watch, eyes following her movements while your mind drifts.
The finality of it all has your chest constricting with an emotion you can’t identify. Unsurprising— you are not well versed in deciphering emotions, particularly your own, but. This aches if you focus on it. The befuddling product of Porrim (you don’t even know her castename. You don’t want to).
This is the type of bond wigglers form on the grungle gym. Short lived, regardless of how much of a spark.
You wrap your arms around her in a quick hug, hooking your chin over her shoulder to disguise your yawn.
Meaningless, because she stifles one of her own after you pull back.
Porrim’s eyes are filled with sorrow, or at the very least disappointment. You hope it’s about you, your impending departure, with a foolish, selfish desperation.
Slumber comes easily, when you finally slip back into the recuperacoon. Without being able to gauge time by the celestial bodies, all you can do is hope to get enough rest to be functional tomorrow.
The next evening, Instruct Tesale lines you up like wigglers during schoolfeeding. Which is kind of what you are. Porrim is there. You hold eye contact until you accidentally bump into the troll in front of you and are forced to relocate your focus to the floor, mumble an apology, and try not to think about how you’ll never see her again. She’s a fond memory to think back on, nothing more. The experience is good practice in not getting attached.
—
Sweeps and sweeps later, but not so many as to cause grief, you, Redglare (Neophyte Legislacerator, top of your class), find yourself amidst plebeian rebels. Your mission: tamp down the rabble rousers by whatever means necessary short of death. These are the kinds of folks the empire wants alive.
You work best solo, something your superiors have taken note of and come to sorely respect. A sharp mind honed for high stakes moments of action makes you competent and independent. Since the incident in which your temporary partner got in your way and, subsequently, nearly lost his head for it, your assignments have looked like this one.
It’s you, the crowd, and the criminals you’ve been sent to apprehend.
Stealth is the name of the game here, and you are at the top of the leaderboard.
Pyralspite is a hundred miles away, but it would come if you called. You hope it won’t come to that.
When you catch a glimpse of them, the rebels, the obligatory no fucking way rings in your head, stupid and futile because it can be and is. The lovely sweep of her horns, the way she holds herself, that way you envied, like she knows her worth. Now there’s a new air of… confidence? wariness, certainly, but an indescribable surety, stolidness. There is something different in the set of Porrim’s shoulders beneath her jade and black mantle that you can’t quite place.
She has changed, and so have you. Grown into yourselves. All the same, you find yourself tumbling horns over heels all over again, pitying and proud.
After the assembly, long after you were supposed to take action, when the majority of the gathered trolls have dispersed, you, little Latula Pyrope, breathe deep and gather your courage to approach.
She’s rolled the heavier fabric of her sleeves up to rest above her elbow. The oddly-tinged skin beneath sports new whorls of ink. They look professional. Nothing like your sloppy, shaky work.
“Porrim?”
She does not need to turn toward you broadside— she was on high alert, aware of your presence as soon as you stepped within fifteen feet of her and her cohort. Porrim levels you with a scrutinizing glare. Are her eyes a paler yellow, now, too? You gulp.
The unkempt oliveblood (clurch property) is on their feet in the beat of a pusher. Those claws look nasty. They look nasty.
The psionic (imperial property) is more discreet in their defense, but invisible pressure settles heavily on your shoulders and the atmosphere becomes staticy and oppressive. You’ve worked with psionics before, albeit with certain safety measures. You’re lucky your head hasn’t already been popped like a grape in your complacency.
The small one with the worn, tattered cloak (blood mutant) hides their face, but their body language is far less hostile than their companions’.
“Can we help you?” he asks, congenial. Damn, you can really feel those eyes on you, making your scalp itch with the creepy crawlies. Or maybe the psionic is melting your skin off and the pain just hasn’t kicked in yet.
Only then do you remember the uniform. Like an idiot. Fuck.
The jadeblood (deserter) does not hold any recognition in her eyes. Have you really changed that much?
Her skin is glowing, lit from the core. Double fuck.
“It’s— it’s Latula.”
Impeccable poker face, that chick. My, how long your fangs have grown!
…Who’s to say she even remembers you? On a whim, you tug down your right glove, prying it from your sleeve to reveal the faded dragon. You have no hopes of finding her sun with the way she’s decked out.
Porrim stares, comprehending but either doing so slowly or simply not caring.
Voice at what most would call indoor and you would call whisper, you try: “You left the caverns.”
“I did.”
“You got out.”
“I see you did not.”
“Hey,” you say, “This was my choice. Imagine how much I can do from the inside.”
“Look at how much I have done,” Porrim says, contemptuously. “How much harm have you caused in your reformation efforts? Hunting, torturing, culling, all in the name of furthering yourself so you can what. Tweak some documents?”
You know what you’re doing. You know what it is all for. You can see it in your mind’s eye. Her harsh digs shouldn’t hurt as much as they do, but alas. Matters of the heart have always been impediments on a troll.
The one with the cloak (you’ve heard it’s red, not like rust but bright hot and burning) raises a hand before interjecting. “I have no clue what’s going on right now. But I would like to talk about it. Somewhere more private, maybe?”
“That would be nice,” Porrim says.
“Latula? Pyrope, is it? We have a boat, waiting at the docks just down that way. You’re free to come with us, but,” he glances around at his companions as if checking to see if it’s alright to speak for them, “We really should be heading back.”
Time has smudged details, you’re unsure if you gave Porrim your castename. If you did, has she told her clade about you? Ice water trickles through your veins at the thought of what it might mean if that isn’t the case.
The oliveblood smacks him (Signless, they call him) around the head with a warning hiss, crying, “Dumb dumb!” Pointing to you, voiced significantly more hushed but dangerous all the same, “You’re here to arrest us. That’s the only reason you could’ve been at the sermon. I want answers here, now.”
“And if it comes in the form of cuffs?”
Porrim’s skin flares bright again. You rush to amend yourself.
“Kidding, kidding, I won’t. Pinky promise. It was a joke in bad taste.”
“It sure was, Latula. How can we know you are trustworthy? As much as I wish to converse with you, the safety of my wards,” Porrim gestures at the other three, “Comes first.”
“Wards?”
“My grubs, yes.”
“Grubs?”
“That is what I said.” At this point she’s just goading you. You’re pretty sure.
“It looks like we both have some things to explain. I suspect there’s a tale to be told concerning both your grubs and your… rainbowdrinkerness,” you hesitate, but she doesn’t correct you. You knew they were real! “If the offer still stands, I’d like to take you up on it.”
Porrim looks to each of her so-called “grubs” in turn and each offers a little nod, however hesitant. She extends a hand to you, which you take with some trepidation.
“It is good to see you again, Latula. I am the Dolorosa, but you may call me Porrim,” she says, a wry quirk to her lips.
“Charmed, Dolorosa! They call me the Neophyte, Redglare. But you? You can call me Latula.”
The other three don’t think you can hear them whispering, saying things like oh, she’s not a REAL legislacerator and canny are you sure. What you can understand of it sparks anger in your gut. Lowly neophyte, your ass!
Promptly, you bow at the waist, twisting Porrim’s hand in yours so your lips find their mark on the back of her palm. What can you say? She’s only gotten hotter since your last and only other encounter. She tastes earthy beneath your lips.
Her so-called grubs shut right up.
You can be rash, you can be flirty. You are the charming suitor, it is you.
Her laugh is surprising, but a welcome grate on your auriculars.