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Your name is Saulia Rusrra and you are only 4 sweeps old. You are 4 sweeps old and you've already learned how to patch yourself up far better than anyone your age should.
You have your neighbors to thank for that.
Your neighbors are, like you, lowbloods. Though none of them are quite as low as you. Well. Thanks not exactly right: there are some who are also Maroon Blooded, like you, but unlike you they have almost all been lucky enough to manifest powers. You have yet to display any. That makes you lower than the lowest here.
You don’t really get it at first, why they seem to enjoy picking on you, until one day you see them getting treated the same way they treat you by a group of highbloods. You stay in the shadows and don’t make a sound until after the highbloods have had their fun. The group of lowbloods is a mess, you're not sure what to do at first.
But then something in you just clicks and you find yourself patching them up. That’s the first time you use your skills to help other Trolls. It’s not your last.
By the age of 6 sweeps you're seeing Trolls being brought to you almost everyday, patching them up and sending them off without much complaint. You can’t complain, it’s the only way to avoid needing to be tended to yourself. Though sometimes your not so lucky and you end up on the wrong side of a fist from a highblood looking for a cheap laugh. But, for the most part, you’re left in decent condition.
That’s not to say you don’t know how to fight, you've learned over the sweeps how to defend yourself. You just know that fighting against a highblood would end with you so very, very culled. So you don’t fight anyone to much higher above you, not unless you have to.
Naturally it’s surprising to you when a highblood stands up for you. The first time it happens is at your own hive. The highblood in question is there to thank you, or at least that’s what he tells you as he cleans off his quarter-staff. It’s still got blood on it from the Troll he just bludgeoned. Said Troll had been attempting to harass you, unhappy about the scar you couldn't do anything to prevent. Luckily for you your highblood in shining armor showed up when he did.
You learn then that your savior's name is Thiago Helder and a teal blood.
Just before you turn 8 sweeps and are taken off planet with Thiago to return to the home-world you declare your Moirail-ship with each other. You exchange fairly simple tokens, you give him a ring with a small stone set in your blood color, he gives you a necklace with a stone of his color. You always wear it, no matter what.
When you both finally get on the ships to head “home” you are not together. You find yourselves separated and it almost kills you.
You wish that was only emotionally.
When you get on the ship at first you think it’ll be OK. You don’t recognize most of the Trolls your boarded with. You actually think for a short time that you might be able to get through the ride without issue. The ride takes around a week. It’s not too terrible an amount of time but you quickly realize that there are, in fact, Trolls here who know you. You just missed them initially but you recognize them all too quickly when they call you by your nickname: four horns.
How you hate that name. You don’t even actually have four horns, there just shaped oddly. Your horns have always been a sore point with you, as you're fairly certain you have some kind of mutative formation. They look like two sets, but in reality there connected, the same horn. That never stopped other Trolls from jumping to conclusions and teasing you over it. It’s when you hear that name that you know you're in trouble, and there’s no Thiago to help you.
There’s six of them and you are alone. It’s two low blooded trolls you recognize and four you don’t. They corner you and it’s only a matter of moments before the first punch is thrown. You honestly don’t recall much from those moments; you bite, you punch and kick and even use your horns in a nasty headbutt at one point. You do know you end up on the ground, feet slamming into you as you curl up trying to protect yourself.
You honestly think for a moment that you're not going to get back up from this for a moment. And then they stop. Or rather, they are stopped. For the second time in your short life you find yourself saved by a highblood. Although this time you’re not sure he even realizes he’s helping you.
You don’t even realize you're supposed to be terrified of him. You just stare at him in wonder from under your arms as his massive arms swing, sending your attackers flying.
You don’t even realize till later that the entire time he was breaking them he was laughing. You didn't even process that what he was doing would send most Trolls into waves of terror so strong they couldn't move.
All you felt as you watched him was awe. Awe so strong you just stared at him as he fought. When he finally stopped there was more blood then you had ever seen in your short life. Your minorly horrified at yourself, horrified because all you can think is: he’s hurt and now I have to help them too.
You sit up and wait for him to do something. He’s older than you but not by much if you had to guess. Maybe a sweep or so. He’s also in a uniform that finally manages to send a chill down your spine: a subjugglators uniform. To your shock he doesn't continue on his rampage when you stand up and approach him. Instead he just stares at you calmly, almost serenely.
You’re both messed up, bleeding from cuts and your blood colors are so obvious to each other it’s almost painful in a way. You wonder how he feels, knowing he saved a Maroon blood for probably no good reason. You start to open your mouth to ask him why when he cuts you off with the dumbest grin you've ever seen and one word:
“Hey.”
His name is Behram Nortur, you’re so lost for him it hurts.
You find yourself bandaging him with shaking hands, but not out of fear. Words come easy to you with him for some reason, but it’s not the same as with Thiago.
With Thiago it’s all fuss and and nettling each other. With Behram you fuss but in a different way. You can’t help but worry he’s too soft, that he picks the wrong sides to defend. He chose you over the highbloods, even if they attacked you for no reason. In this world that won’t fly. You know it and he just doesn't seem to care. You learn quickly that he’s stationed to this ship, as a subjuggulator in training. His job is to keep you all in line, and he’s usually pretty good at it.
Your blood-pusher hurts when you learn this. You realize fairly quickly that your red for him, but you also realize it can’t work. He wouldn't be around, at least not until his training is complete. And on top of that you have plans of your own, you want to put your skills to use and that means staying on planet.
That doesn't stop you from hanging around him as much as you can for the week you’re on the ship. You rationalize it to him as concern for his injuries, despite how minor they are.
You’re pretty sure he sees through that. You are also sure he doesn't care.
You exchange means of communication before you leave the ship. You don’t see him when you set foot on the ground, but you know he’s watching in his own way. It hurts to leave, but you rationalize the pain away. After all, you don’t even really know him that well.
By 9 sweeps you've been training as a medic at a local harbor. It docks both ships from the sea and sky, and you hate yourself a little for it. You find a black lover quickly among your peers, a blue-blood whose skills rival your own.
The first time you see her you feel like your breath was knocked out of you; she’s stunning. For almost a full minute you're convinced you might even be red for her, but that ends just as quickly as it comes. She turns to you and as soon as your eyes meet she gives you the most condescending look you have ever seen, her lip curling just enough to reveal her perfect fangs. When she opens her mouth to speak you realize you don’t like her at all. By the time she’s done talking you realize you hate her more than any Troll you have ever met in your entire life.
Her name is Issala Tunder, and she’s your first and only black love.
Her earing sits high on your ear, and your’s sits even higher on hers. She always needed to remind you of your place, even with tokens.
Issala loves to lord that’s she’s your first over you, though that doesn't last long after she sees you with other Trolls. Her taunts of being the only one in your “important” quadrants start to sputter out.
That is until she realizes you're not really with them, you're just using them to distract yourself. For nearly another full sweep you don’t hold down a single red lover for more than a handful of weeks.
The only thing that saves you from Issala’s taunts is that you’re at least trying to be with other Trolls; so far she’s only bothered with you and you can tell she’s lonely.
You’re fairly certain your inability to make a red connection is because you can’t stop talking to him. You've both tried seeing other Trolls in your red quadrants, much to your Moirail’s annoyance. Neither of you want to admit that it’s just not working with others.
It’s not until you’re 11 sweeps and you finally find yourself a part of the military that you accept each other. You resign yourself to a long distance relationship with him, content for now knowing you are at least together, even if not physically.
You’re not stationed on his ship, you’re not even supposed to be anywhere close to his location.
It’s why it shakes you up so much when he’s in your quarter’s doorway, less than a week after you boarded you’re ship, that you just stare at him frozen in shock.
You don’t think either of you say more than a handful of things to each other for the rest of the night.
Come morning when you finally pull yourself from your blissfully stupid happy daze you finally learn that he transferred to your ship. You’ll finally be together.
You give him a ring, and in return he gives you a set of earrings you never want to take off. For half a sweep you two are nearly inseparable; but good things don't always last.
You get “promoted”, he gets reassigned. Your sent back to the academy, as an instructor. Your time as a Vivisector for the military off-world was short, but well received. As a reward you're given a choice as to where you will teach.
You chose the port you first waited in.
This time you can’t sit still and wait. This time you start pulling strings, trying to find ways to be with him. He’s been assigned to another planet altogether: he’s to fight, to conquer.
It’s then that you join the Medibattens. You tear and mend your way through battlefields, advancing up the ranks to positions a lowblood such as yourself should never achieve. You use your knowledge from both vivisection and your studies from your time at the harbor and put it to use.
You are quickly respected and feared by your peers. By 15 sweeps you’ve done what most wouldn’t think possible: you become a head of the Medibattents. Not in charge of all of them, but still in charge of a section. That’s something no Rust-Blood has ever done.
You are able to be with him on the battlefield, and you find yourself oddly alright with that.
By 17 sweeps you are forced to retire back to your homeworld, after all, you're getting old now.
You return to teaching at the academy for another 2 sweeps.
You stop teaching and run a small clinic in your “retirement” at the age of 19 sweeps.
Most Maroon-Bloods by this time are on there way out.
They all still visit and talk to you, never once batting an eye at how obvious it is you're not going to stop growing older and older, eventually failing them all. None of them end there quadrants with you. You're still there’s and they are still your’s.
You love them all, even if they are being foolish and wasting there time with you.
You manage to keep going until an impressive 29 sweeps. You die from what most Trolls find pathetic: old age.
But you do so with something most Trolls would envy: your quadrants never leave your side when it’s your time. They stay with you until your end, and you think they might even try to remember you when you're gone.
And really, that’s all you can ask for.