Chapter Text
February 11th, Year 1 of Sweep 2
Your name is Rose. But not that one. Because you are a different Rose from the one with which most people are acquainted, it might be a good idea to introduce yourself:
You have a variety of INTERESTS. You have a passion for RATHER OPAQUE SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE and can wax on for hours about DARK MATTER AND DYSON SPHERES and SIMULATIONS AND MARITIME NEANDERTHALS. You enjoy creative writing and are NOT REALLY SECRETIVE ABOUT IT, but that is mostly because there is nobody to show it to and you have not learned to have a SENSE OF SHAME about these things. You have a fondness for ALIENS AND HUMANS IN ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS, perhaps because both other people and emotionally intimate relationships are slightly unfamiliar and you are attempting to encounter them in the various forms of “The Other”, but you do tend to PSYCHOANALYZE YOURSELF a little too much. One might say that you like to SEW, insofar as you do a lot of STITCHING and work with NEEDLE AND THREAD, but mostly the stitches are fixing your clothes or closing your wounds.
It may clarify matters some to state that your full name is ROSE HARLEY. This is apparently something that is worthy of being remarked upon, although it seems fully natural to you. Of course, you have been living on an island all by yourself ever since your grandfather got sick and died, so there are probably a lot of things that seem normal to you that are totally weird to everyone else. Like the fact that you are your own nurse, which made your friends very worried for you when they found out about it. You sort of gathered from your stories that this was not the usual thing, but your stories also had CANNIBALISTIC SPIDER BEINGS and EERILY-AFFECTIONATE XENOMORPH-TYPES, so it has not always been clear to you what was true and what was just a convention of genre.
Another unusual thing about you is that you are dead. Apparently you were supposed to have a GREEN-AURA’D MUTT, but your grandfather dropped the ball on that one and never found it. This fucked up your timeline tremendously but, in fairness, just as much damage was done by the dislocated meteors of yourself and your compatriots. Who are also dead.
Not that this will mean terribly much. You are not the protagonist of this story, but merely a temporarily-prominent supporting character who will stay around for some time in order to propel certain events in the direction of other events. Perhaps you will be revisited in the future, but you are a Maid of Blood and not a Seer of any sort, let alone a Seer of Time, so you do not know. You do not even know that you are just a supporting character.
Then again, most people don’t know that about themselves.
Anyway. What will you do, tropicalThaumaturge?
===> ROSE: Talk to Karkat
Before you died, you had never even heard of a troll. Apparently they were unable to communicate with doomed timelines, which yours had become as soon as your meteors had gotten off-course.
After your death is a different story. The effervescent land of the dead is apparently full to the frothy brim with trolls (not to mention aliens of other stripes), and you were simply ecstatic to find out about this. You have met a few Karkats in your time, but this is the only one who is still alive. That may be the cause for his relative amiability but you have too few data points to make a meaningful conjecture on the matter.
Whoops! You’re getting lost in thought instead of doing the thing that you were intending to do. Again.
Let’s try this again. You go back to check your screen and note the angry capital letters that have been staring at you for the last several seconds.
CG: TAKE YOUR TIME. I’LL JUST CREATE A WHOLE FUCKING UNIVERSE WHILE I WAIT.
CG: LIKE, OH, YOUR UNIVERSE.
Oh. You must have been zoning out. And now Karkat’s ranting. Well, there’s only one way to deal with that. There’s a topic that you needed to broach anyway. Let it never be said that you are familiar with the word “tact.”
TT: And kill it. Kill it with cancer, Karkat.
TT: Like you’ll be killed.
CG: NICE TRY. I’VE HEARD WIGGLERS WITH BETTER COMEBACKS.
TT: 6_9
CG: OH VERY FUNNY. USE MY SIGN TO MAKE A… WHAT THE FUCK KIND OF FACE IS THAT ANYWAY? A MENTALLY-DERANGED FINBEAST?
TT: It’s a crab.
CG: THAT’S THE STUPIDEST “CRAB” I’VE EVER SEEN. WHERE ARE THE CLAWS?
TT: Where do you think?
CG: I THINK THE CLAWS ARE BURIED IN YOUR GANDERBULBS, SINCE YOU CAN’T SEEM TO SEE WHAT A CRAB ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE.
You have an extremely witty response for this, but you are interrupted by a blow to your head.
When you retrieve your senses, you are hanging from the ceiling, suspended by your neck. The noose is not actually tight enough to totally strangle you, but it is really uncomfortable.
Still better than actually strangling. Then you have to wake up all over again.
From your position you can see the computer screen, just barely.
TT: WHY 4R3 YOU W4ST1NG YOUR T1M3 K4RK4T?
CG: DAMMIT, SHOULD HAVE KNOWN.
TT: TH1S 1S WHY YOU DON’T DO 4NYTH1NG WORTHWH1L3.
CG: TROLLING IS ALWAYS WORTHWHILE.
TT: YOU W4ST3 YOUR T1M3 4RGU1NG 4BOUT CR4BS. J3GUS.
CG: JEGUS YOURSELF! YOU’RE THE ONE WASTING TIME PRETENDING TO BE SOMEONE ELSE. HOW DID YOU GET ACCESS TO HER ACCOUNT ANYWAY?
TT: 1 JUST KNOCK3D H3R FROM TH3 K3YBO4RD. SH3 W1LL G3T B3TT3R.
CG: BETTER AT WHAT? CRABS? COMING UP WITH SCATHING INSULTS?
CG: BECAUSE SHIT, THAT WAS TERRIBLE.
TT: B3TT3R TH4N B31NG D34D.
TT: 4LTHOUGH… 1 DONT R34LLY L1K3 TH3S3 R3PORTS ON H3R D3SK… >:[
CG: YOU KILLED HER? DON’T TELL ME, SHE BROKE SOME OBSCURE LAW FROM HUNDREDS OF SWEEPS AGO?
CG: WAIT. “KILLED” HER OR ACTUALLY KILLED HER?
TT: N31TH3R 4CTU4LLY. 1 D1DNT T4K3 TH3 T1M3 TO T13 4 PROP3R KNOT.
She turns back and grins at you, mouth full of shards, then returns her attention to the computer.
You wonder what she’s going to do about the documents that she licked.
TT: 1 DONT R34LLY R3M3MB3R WHY THOUGH. 1T W4S SOMT3TH1NG 1MPORT4NT, 1 TH1NK.
TT: 4ND B31NG 3X3CUT3D ONC3 1S NO R3SP1T3 FROM JUST1C3.
TT: SH3 C4M3 B4CK. SO SH3 H4S TO B3 M4D3 D34D 4G41N.
Of course, if she really wanted to kill you for good then she could find a way. Your hunch is that she’s getting antsy, and wants to exercise her skills without really hurting anyone.
Or she’s flirting black with you. Which is not necessarily a bad possibility. Nor a good one. You don’t really know how you feel about it. But there is a reason that you have continued to leave the third-floor storage room window unlocked.
CG: BECAUSE SHE’S A GHOST RIGHT?
CG: OR IS THERE SOME OTHER FUCKERY THAT BRINGS PEOPLE BACK TO LIFE? OR GHOST-LIFE? OR WHATEVER?
CG: I THINK I MIGHT HAVE FALLEN ASLEEP FROM SHEER BOREDOM AFTER THE THIRD OR FOURTH RESURRECTION.
CG: THAT SHIT GETS OLD.
TT: W3… SHOULD F1ND 4NOTH3R QU3ST B3D HOW3V3R.
CG: WHAT HAPPENED?
TT: DO YOU F33L S1CK 3V3R?
TT: R3C3NTLY?
TT: >:[
CG: I FEEL SICK FROM ALL THE IDIOCY AROUND ME.
CG: MAKES ME WANT TO CHUCK UP MY GRUBLOAF.
TT: R1GHT.
TT: T3LL M3 1F YOU 3V3R 4CTU4LLY DO TH4T
CG: WHY? IS THERE SOME KIND OF PLAGUE I SHOULD KNOW ABOUT? SOMETHING NEW TO KILL US ALL?
CG: THERE’S NOT NEARLY ENOUGH THINGS HERE TO WORRY ABOUT, AFTER ALL.
CG: A PLAGUE VIRUS IS ALL WE NEED.
CG: HURRAY, DEATH BY HEMORRHAGIC FEVER!
CG: I CAN’T FUCKING WAIT.
TT: …
TT: NO
TT: 1TS NOT US
CG: THE HUMANS?
TT: C4N YOU W41T? 1 N3D3 TO F1ND 4 SH34F3SC4NN3R.
CG: SURE. WHATEVER, DON’T HAVE ANYTHING BETTER TO DO.
CG: FUCK, TEREZI. I MEAN, IT’S NOT LIKE WE’RE ON ALTERNIA ANYMORE.
CG: BUT ASKING SOMEONE IF THEY FEEL SICK?
TT has pestered (1) Dox to CG
TT: 1M SORRY 1F TH3R3 1S SM34R1NG.
TT: 1 H4D TO L1CK 1T TO G3T 4 B3TT3R LOOK.
CG: WHAT’S THIS?
CG: MEDICAL DOCUMENTS? WHAT THE FUCK IS ALL THIS?
CG: WHAT THE FUCK.
CG: WHAT THE FUCK.
CG: WHERE DID YOU GET THESE?
TT: TH3Y W3R3 ON TH3 D3SK H3R3.
CG: JUST NOW?
Terezi scrolls up, briefly reviewing the chatlog thus far.
TT: 1 TH1NK TH4T SH3 W4S T3LL1NG YOU 4BOUT TH1S
CG: WHAT THE FUCK, NO, SHE WAS MAKING FUN OF MY FUCKING HANDLE.
CG: THAT’S ALL SHE WAS DOING.
CG: THIS CAN’T BE RIGHT.
TT: 1T PROB4BLY 1SNT
TT: 1M SUR3 1T 1SNT
TT: DONT WORRY 4BOUT 1T
TT: JUST… L3T M3 KNOW 1F YOU F33L S1CK
CG: I’M FINE. DON’T WORRY ABOUT ME. THE ONLY SICKNESS HERE IS A BAD CASE OF THINKPAN MELTING FROM SHEER IDIOCY.
CG: I’M JUST. FUCKING. FINE.
CG: WHAT DOES A HUMAN KNOW ABOUT THIS SHIT ANYWAY?
CG: FUCKING NOTHING
CG: I WOULD RATHER GET A MEDICAL OPINION FROM FUCKING GAMZEE THAN A HUMAN.
“Gamzee… does know a lot about anatomy,” you offer. Terezi responds with a growl.
You’re still not sure what you’re doing here. Besides hanging. You are not even sure if that was properly pitch, if pitch is a quadrant that you’re terribly interested in.
TT: FORG3T 4BOUT 1T.
TT: HUM4N R4MBL1NGS.
CG: THIS IS HOOFBEASTSHIT.
CG: I’VE ALREADY FORGOTTEN ABOUT IT.
CG: SEE, FORGOTTEN.
TT: R1GHT
TT: GOOD
CG: WHAT WERE WE TALKING ABOUT? I’VE FORGOTTEN IT.
Terezi sighs. She cuts you down, lets you fall to your knees, and leaves without saying anything.
You wish that you had some good news that you offer her. That’s why your Seerish doppelganger got you started on the topic. Between the two of you, however, the best news that you can offer is that you don’t know. Or that, if you’re right, he won’t get sick for a few years yet.
But you’re not the Maid of Blood for nothing. You know blood, and you know that Karkat’s isn’t red for nothing. He’s missing something. And someday, it might just kill him.