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Though she wasn't the first person they'd ran into by a long shot, she was the first who was set up in such a manner.
"'Exposition: five boonbucks'," Dirk read aloud. "'The Sylph… is… in'."
The girl sitting at the stand — a blueblood, clearly, which meant something Terezi didn't want to think about — perked up.
"Five boonbucks, as in, I'll pay you five boonbucks to listen to me!" she eagerly explained. Terezi raised an eyebrow.
"You're that insufferable that you have to pay people to hear you you talk?"
The girl glared at her. "No."
"Can we get your name?" Dirk asked, leaning one hand on the stand. She smiled.
"Sure! Aranea Serket, Sylph of Light, at your service."
Serket. Like…
Terezi put the idea out of her mind. That wasn't important. What was important was that the girl must have been one of the Players.
"Do you know about Latula?" she asked, leaning forward. Dirk shot her a questioning look. She ignored him.
"Latula Pyrope?" Aranea asked. Terezi nodded. "Well, yes! She was one of my sessionmates. Our Knight of Mind. Truly a radical troll. She managed to work past her disability—"
"Disability??" Terezi repeated, frowning. Aranea's smile didn't drop as she continued.
"Yes, Latula lost her sense of smell in a tragic accident. But her dragon lusus taught her new ways of smelling, using other sense organs such as eyes and ears, which awoke for her entirely new experiences, and allowed her to prove that any handicap can be overcome."
Truthfully, Terezi had tuned out after the first sentence.
She'd failed. Unequivocally, irrevocably.
"Okay, give me the boonbucks and shut up," Dirk said. Aranea opened her mouth to say something, but wisely shut it again, handing Dirk some strange currency. "We'll be going now."
"We will?" Terezi asked. Dirk clasped his hand around her wrist.
"We will."
They walked until Aranea was completely out of sight, then sat down on a nearby bench.
"She was pissing you off that much, huh?" Terezi said, trying to sound jokey, but falling half flat. Dirk blew a short breath of air through pursed lips.
"Sure," he said. She knew he knew she knew it was a lie. "Latula?"
"My descendent," Terezi said. "I never met her. Of course not. But… I saw things."
Dirk cocked his head like a curious baby animal. "You saw things."
"Like… Like visions," Terezi elaborated. She wound her fingers together, then pulled them apart. "I didn't know much, but I knew her. She… She liked to skateboard, and game. She had a matesprit who she was really fucking happy with. She held her own like no other in her session. I wanted to protect her."
"But you couldn't, could you?" Dirk said. Terezi grit her teeth together, trying not to let herself get choked up.
"Of course not. There were thousands of years between us. What could I do?" She smacked her fist against her leg. The pain was dull and not at all satisfying. "What could I do?! I tried! I left her my things! I wrote her notes! I made sure she had a good lusus! But I failed, obviously, I fucking failed! You heard what Serket said about— her accident, her disability— She's just like me, Dirk!!! Can you imagine any worse of a fate?!"
For a long moment, he was silent. He lifted his hand, hovering over her shoulder, only to pull it away, sitting tightly in his lap.
"You tried," he said. "Nothing else you could have done."
"I wish I was like you," she muttered unthinkingly. Immediately, he flinched, hard.
"No you don't."
She sighed. Her gaze stayed glued to her hands. She couldn't stop staring, though she tried.
"Whatever," she muttered. "It's not like it matters. What-ifs won't get me anywhere."
"They won't." She heard him fidget in his seat. Aw. Anxious, huh. "There's nothing to be done about it, so don't dwell on it."
She leaned her head back up and cracked a grin at him. "You're so shit at comforting."
His eyes widened just barely beneath his shades, and he looked away, scowling. "I-I wasn't trying to comfort you. Fuck off."
"No, no, it was sweet, really," she said, grin growing wider. "Didn't know you had it in you, you know."
"I don't!" he insisted. Quickly, he stood from the bench, hands balling into fists. Pointedly, he avoided looking at her. The tips of his ears were salmon-pink. "Fuck you. Christ."
"Nyeheheh. Wouldn't be so mad if there wasn't weight to it, riiight?" She sidled up close behind him, leaning her chin on his shoulder. He pushed her away without a moment's hesitance. "Ruuude."
"I'm nice as hell," he deadpanned. She snickered. They began walking in earnest, on the road to a destination neither of them knew.
The walk was silent for several minutes, save for the crushing of gravel beneath feet.
Still, Terezi's mind raced.
"Do you think you did good?" she asked. Dirk turned his head to look at her, then looked away.
"At what?"
"At raising your kid."
She watched in real time as each of his muscles tensed.
"What's it matter?"
"I'm just curious."
"My ass," he muttered. A couple moments passed, then he groaned. "I did good preparing him for the Game, that's for sure."
"But it's not just about the Game," Terezi said. Dirk pushed his shades closer to his face, eyes obscured entirely.
"It is."
"Is that what you think?" She turned around, walking backwards, in order to look at him face to face. "I didn't learn about the Game until sweeps after the accident."
"Which is probably why you spent most of your life fucking around," Dirk spat. Terezi's teasing smile dropped as she looked him up and down.
"How old were you?"
He winced. His hand went to his side, fingers ghosting the hilt of his sword, but never gripping.
"…Thirteen."
She did the mental conversion from "years" to sweeps quickly, then found herself wincing as well.
"Eesh."
"What?" Dirk asked. Defensive. "Dave and his friends had to play it at thirteen. It's only fair I learned about it at the same age."
"Do you really think it's about fairness?" Terezi replied. "Or is it about justice?"
"I don't care about justice," Dirk said. "I care about winning."
"You were never going to win," she replied. "You were never going to play. That's why you had to make him your puppet, right?"
"I didn't do that."
"You did."
"As if you have any fucking room to talk!!" he snapped. Faster than her vision could process he shoved her forward. She fell to the ground with a loud oof. "Weren't you just telling me how you fucked up your charge forever?!"
"It takes one to fucking know one, Strider!!!" she yelled up at him.
His expression was unreadable.
After a moment, he helped her back up.
They didn't speak.