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Burning. The ocean, her ocean was burning. How could this be? How could this happen to her? She was only 413! She still had so many big plans. So many trolls to help and lives to save. She was Feferi Peixes and she was too young to die!
As a meteor bore down on her as if it had a personal vendetta to kill her Feferi’s too short life and reign flashed before her eyes.
She’d had big plan for the throne since she was four sweeps old. At the time Beforus and its inhabitants had been living in a sort of paralysis. Nothing happened and status quo was God. It was BORING and stupid because trolls could be and had been so much more. They could rise up together to travel time itself rather than just stars and galaxies. But, no. The poor, pitiful population was content to waste away their tiny lives vacationing with their quadrant mates and posting selfies of themselves on the internet. Absolutely pitiful.
At the young age of six sweeps Feferi had claimed her rightful place on the throne when her predecessor died in her sleep. She’d been very old, so though no one could say how long a fuschia could live no one had questioned the Empress’s death. Which was really for the best because if anyone had questioned her death they’d have soon found the source to be poison.
By nine sweeps Feferi had completely revolutionized Beforus. She’d abolished the caste system, engineered a way for low blood trolls to live longer, eased the always tense relationship between one caste and the next and even managed to put down several awful religions centered around sacrifice and soporifics. In short she had created a Utopia which would surely be looked on with envy by all the star systems.
Unfortunately life in Beforus was not nearly as glamorous as it looked. Centuries if not millenia of caste oppression and hatred could not be wiped out completely. Plus, Feferi didn’t really want it wiped out. Lowbloods were so tiny. They came into existence almost as fast as they burnt out. How could they know what was best for them? How could they gain wisdom and experience when they died so young?
And what of trolls who hatched disabled, or Gods forbid, mutant. They’d have no place in Beforus and would forever be outcast by their peers for they’d be neither low nor high. That just wouldn’t do! Lowbloods and those disabled by injury both physical and mental needed not only to be cared for, but coddled and guarded as if lives were at stake because they were. Beforus was never going to be great as it could be if lowbloods didn’t support those higher than them.
Thus, by the age of ten, Feferi had instituted culling centers as well as culling laws. Any troll olive and under, mutants, and the disabled were required by law to be culled. But even that wasn’t enough. She needed to ensure the lowbloods were well and truly happy and that took testing. Blood draws, hormone checks, brain scans, physical fitness tests and a whole array of other exams were put into law. As for those who saw the treatment as overbearing and cruel? Well, obviously they were messed in the pan too. Anyone with just a tad of sanity would be able to see everything Feferi did, she did for her trolls.
Ten sweeps brought Feferi’s first quadrant mate: A scarlet blooded mutant by the name of Karkat Vantas. He was SO mutated that not a single troll alive or dead had ever had his blood color. The poor dear, how lonely he had to be. Of course she’d culled him right away, he needed her. He actually thought he could be a law official! How cute! It was as if he thought he were a teal. Such an adorable, tiny troll Karkat had been. He’d had such big dreams, but he was too different to ever realize those dreams. Better he stay by her side where it was safe.
When culling had turned into a love Feferi would not define by quadrants she couldn’t say for sure. To her it was as if one day she had woken up to find she cared about Karkat as more than just a cull. And of course he cared her about the same way. How could he not? She was the Empress and she was his everything. If not for her he’d die mateless and alone. Only she could truly love him and his mutant blood. He might say different, but in his heart he knew he was too pitiful to be hated and too hated to ever be pitied.
On her 15th wriggling day she took Karkat’s virginity just three perigees after he turned 5.
The night after she took his virginity Feferi made the mistake of having their combined material sent to the mothergrub via drone.
One sweep later Karkat was dead. It was all his fault. That stupid jerk had the gall to say he’d fallen in pity, pitch and pale with three trolls. Had he not been listening to her these past six sweeps? Had he not appreciated everything she had done for him? She had saved his life, made her his right hand and indulged his every silly fantasy. She had been his mate when no one else ever would and he DARED to claim he loved others? BULLSHIT! Karkat was hers and he was always going to BE hers. That’s what he deserved to be, what every fucking troll on the planet deserved to be. SHE was their Empress and every troll was going to listen to her because she ALWAYS knew best.
It only took a perigee for the culling centers to take up the practices of electro-shock therapy, restraints, corporeal punishment and brain surgery. If trolls didn’t know what was best for them, she was going to make sure they learned or died trying. Perhaps that was cruel, but it was for the best. After all look what had happened to Karkat. He’d had died to tragically when his love had gone unrequited by all of the three he had pined for. Suicide was such a terrible way to go. If only she’d been there to stop him, maybe, just maybe he’d still be alive.
Needless to say Feferi had burned the body to make sure no one got any ideas about looking closer and seeing that the bruises around Karkat’s neck looked more like fingers than rope.
She made Sollux her cull half a sweep after Karkat died. The poor guy was in denial over Karkat’s death. He’d rant and rave that she had done something to him and that he’d find out what it was if it was the last thing he did.
How could she say no to a request as sad as that? Especially since the guy was such a kinky little shit. Oh the things he looked at on the internet. Really, it hadn’t been hard at all to convince him into being shown what she’d done to Karkat. She’s simply said she’d tell the truth and he’d came running to her.
Unlike Karkat, Sollux didn’t die. He was of heartier blood than her poor, precious mutant had been. Even so being deprived of oxygen for ten minute had not been kind to the formerly powerful psion. It was a damn shame he’d gone blind and needed to be fed through a tube to survive, but at least he’d gotten his wish of finding out what happened to his friend as the last thing he did.
Sollux’s death brought a long lull of peace sometimes spiced up by a conflict or quadrant mate. For instance, at around 50 sweeps she met up with a violet by the name of Eridan Ampora and entered a moirailship which had lasted three sweeps before he’d gotten to clingy. All he had ever wanted was to spend time with her and he couldn’t understand that she was the Empress and that she had a planet to rule. If she had to suddenly cancel a pale jam it wasn’t because she didn’t want a date, but because other trolls needed her attention. Worst of all he seemed to think it was fine if HE canceled dates on HER. What did he have to do except stare at books in his stupid library? Black flirt with Vriska? Well, the joke was on him because Vriska Serket had better things to do than flirt with him. Empire things. Hell, ANYTHING really, as it was growing more and more obvious that he was co dependent and cling. Really, it was a relief when he had finally broken of their relationship and gone to mope. Of course that hadn’t stopped Feferi from visiting him now and then to remind him of what a great catch he had fucked up. For some reason he was never pleased to be told he had made mistakes. Weird. If she didn’t know better Feferi would think Eridan didn’t WANT to be told what was best for him. Impossible of course. Every troll wanted what was bet for them and she the only one who knew what that was.
When Feferi next reached a milestone it was when she was 405. On that day a middle aged jade blood had brought two grubs to her doorstep: A fuchsia and a scarlet blood. Almost 400 sweep had passed since Karkat had died, but Feferi recognized where they must have come from in a heartbeat. How could he not? She’d recognize his nubby horns and her own beautifully curved ones with her eyes closed. The question was not who the grubs were descended from, but how they had come to be so many sweeps after Karkat’s demise. It had to be some kind of freak accident, a mutation Karkat’s genes had fucked up centuries later. In the sweeps to come she would swear she heard Karkat laughing at her. That bastard.
In the moment Feferi would not allow herself to be fooled again. Her heiress she brought into her hive while the mutant she set out to be culled by the jade blood who’d delivered him. However,before the jade went about her duties she gave the troll a very specific list of instructions: Assign him a moirail and when he was of age have him neutered and fixed so that his genes could never sully the slurry again. And thus Kankri Vantas and Meenah Peixes started down the road to life and Feferi began down the road to the end of hers.
Eight long sweeps passed. In that time Feferi found out about several familiar faces. Obviously she wasn’t the only one who’d contributed to the slurry. Still, it was odd how long it took for the descendants to show up. Normally only a lowblood generation had to pass, not centuries. Perhaps Karkat’s genes had fucked up the slurry than she first realized? If so it was a good thing she had, had the foresight to make sure Kankri was castrated.
In addition to the familiar faces met, Feferi also raised and groomed Meenah. She taught her proper manners, to act like royalty and what it was her duties would one day consist of. Meenah was, of course, unwilling to listen at first. Stubbornness ran through her blood and two fuchsia’s living together was always risky. Fortunately, stubborn as Meenah was, she was impressionable, young and had her limits. Lock her in a white room with no windows and a cerulean blood with mind powers and it’d was inevitable the girl would reach her breaking point. It was just as inevitable that she’d abdicate and run for her pathetic life. Meenah was cool and all, but Feferi had big plans in mind and they would not be dashed by one stubborn and rebellious grub.
Or so she’d thought, but then the meteors had descended and there was no mistaking the sign on the one that was seconds from taking her out. It was her own of course. Meenah had decided she wanted to rule after all.
In the second before she died Feferi wasn’t surprised to feel tears on her eyes. Not only had she been right all those sweeps ago when she had first striven to make trolls better, she had succeeded. Her descendant was taking her out with a meteor. If that wasn’t glubbing awesome nothing was.