The Apotheosis Of Mari Erebos - Chapter 70 - Soupspeaks (2024)

Chapter Text

The world burns, the clouds painted a sickly orangish-red as you push through the crowd flowing through the thick concrete gate. Around you, colorful blasts of lightning rain down from the sky, burning ships crashing into the forest and hills with explosions of dirt and fire that shakes the entire world. You hear children cry, parents desperately wailing as they are forced to abandon the waiting eggs and hatching grubs.

You run. Even as families are vaporized left and right, you run. You run and run and run, stumbling over shrapnel and rocks as starships and bodies rain down from the sky, the colony burning in a column of black smoke behind you. Around you, hunters laugh and jeer as they chase after young wrigglers and the elderly, chaos turning the peaceful hills into a bloodstained battleground. Graves and dirt and bones are churned up by the swirling vortex of blood and flame, and through it, you see something move within the clouds of smoke, a dark thing rising and falling like the back of some great whale.

Breath hitching, you duck down in the grass, keeping low to the ground as the screams and cries are soon drowned out by the mockery and roused shouting of hunters and the grinding roars of starships. The cacophony rises higher and higher, a sound of pain and cruelty and hatred loud enough to break through the heavens, and then, as if like a candle being snuffed out, all sound ceases to be, and the air grows still, the smell of rot and smoke forming a thick layer over the grass.

Rocks and broken bits of metal cut at your arms as you crawl through the grass, barely able to keep the racking sobs punching at the base of your throat at mere hitched whimpers, visions painfully blurred by smoke and tears. The aching ring in your head throbs and pulses in time with the beat of your pusher, amplified by the heavy silence.

You’re alone. You’re all alone. You’re all alone and you can hear the calculated footsteps slowly descending upon your hiding place. You’re going to die. Under the smoke-choked sky, you’re going to be killed and erased. You’ll never get to dance or sing or explore again. You’re going to die.

“Stand, child.”

A blood-stained hand reaches out from above the grass, and pale eyes stare down at you. The bloodied visage of an elderly troll looks down at you, and when you stand on shaky legs, you’re met with thousands of limebloods, their pale eyes filled with despair and bitterness.

“You are the last of us. The only remnant of our legacy.” Their voices are a mixed drone, empty and cold. “Only you stand between this world and the next.”

A massive, glowing maw rises from the blanket of ash and a single bright red eye bursts open with a blaze of hunger and malice and pure sad*stic hatred, and you’re looking down an endless abyss of layers upon layers of jagged teeth.

“Find the Anathema. Find our fallen sister within the darkness in the depths of reality. Piece yourself together again. Only when you become whole can fate have a chance of being altered, and this story can be given a happy ending.”

From deep within burns a rolling red and black flame, dark, charred hands reaching up from a vast throat with desperate, grabbing motions. Hot, rancid breath parts the grass in blasts of heat that sear like the sun.

“We depend on you, little one. All depends on you. If you do not wake up soon, rot and hatred will rule, and all hope for everything you know and will know shall be consumed.”

Engulfed in that blinding red light, all you can do is surrender yourself, closing your eyes as the creature rears up like a great and terrible serpent, rushing downwards in a torrent of fire and bloodlust. You close your eyes, but even then, your chest is racing as the heat engulfs you, burning away at your flesh and bones until not even your very soul can keep itself together-

A thick ozone smell permeates the air when you bolt up, panting as you shake off the most recent bout of nightmares. Looking around, you half-expect to see the bright red light from your dreams and feel that horrible, oppressive presence of whatever had tried to consume you, but instead, you’re greeted by the dirty white walls of your complex room, as well as the soft light coming in through the window. Your window garden is still, and water drips lazily from the tap. Everything is as it always has been.

“Thank god…”

The couch has gone cold and mist gathers on the windows, the sky outside the same shadow dark, ashy purple and blue cut through with the reflection of lights against the clouds. In the absence of rain, you can hear the distant bustle of Vilebirth residents in the distance, going about their business in the crowded streets.

Your early evening routine goes as it always does: you change into something that doesn’t smell like blood and sweat, take a shower, brush your teeth, and eat a lonely breakfast of egg toast and some fruit along with a mug of coffee loaded with the last bits of cream and sugar you have. The next supply shipment will be coming in a few days, and you know that if you want to restock your fridge, you’re going to have to either make it early or fight tooth and claw for enough to at least last a week. That’s not a promising prospect to look forward to, but in Vilebirth, the promising prospects are usually sh*t either way.

Cleaning up after yourself, you grab your bag, load your shotgun and stop by the small, broken mirror you hung up on the entry wall when you first moved in. You’re still as plain and unassuming as ever, literal NPC material. When you take off your glasses, you quite literally look like the default female settings in a video game.

Stowing Dealbreaker, you take a deep breath and open the door leading out into the complex.

Compared to the cleaner complex you used to live in with Altair, Davnek and Lydiah, this one, aptly labeled the Viridian Retreat, is a small, run-down place tucked along the corners of the outer reaches of Vilebirth. It’s a small place, choked in vines and bushes and small trees, grass and weeds nearly covering the walkways and brushing alongside the stairs as you walk down. The brown paint is chipped and peeling, but the walls are thick enough for privacy and it has a washing machine and some vending machines that’s always low on snacks. You’ve never met any of your neighbors outside of quick glances and silent passes in the corridors, and you’re more than content to keep it that way.

Leaving the shelter of the Retreat’s property, you walk down the dirt path and eventually come to the long asphalt road leading to and from Vilebirth that vanishes into the misty foothills. You’ll be coming back this way later, and behind you, you can sense the way all life falls silent beyond the concealed metal gate. The mountains are dark and ominous, barely cast in the faint light of Vilebirth further down the hill.

Walking along the road makes you think, as it always does every evening. It’s admittedly empty, and you don’t like how the silence leaves you alone with your thoughts, especially because when left alone for too long, your thoughts tend to get… unpleasant.

What am I doing?

You got a job back in a different Bloodhouse, but this one is less for outright entertainment, a cullpit where everyone just wants to see blood be shed. It pays decently well, well enough for you to afford some parts Sollux mentioned needing, but at the same time…

Why am I doing this? Stopping in the middle of the road, you look down at your hands. The cuts and scrapes you gained from last night’s fight are gone, but your hands are still shaking. You don’t know why you killed that man. You didn’t want to, but he wouldn’t stop hitting you. He refused to stop, and when you looked into his eyes, you saw that he didn’t want to. He liked it. He liked hurting you. A lot of people in this place like hurting you, and then you have to kill them to make the hurting stop.

Did he know what I was? I mean, my blood is a dead giveaway, but everyone assumes I’m just some mutated oliveblood or something… No one knows that we come in multiple shades of green…

Tilting your head back, you wish it were raining. Rain always serves as a good distraction.

Maybe that’s why even the mutants hate us. We brought them into this world, and now they have to live with the hatred just as much as we did… but when we died-

You nearly jump out of your skin as your palmhusk goes off with a loud buzz that’s only amplified by the oppressive silence, prompting you to nearly fumble it out of your hands as you quickly grab it. Thankfully, the person calling is someone you wouldn’t mind talking to right now, and you try to avoid letting a sigh of relief slip as you stop along the side of the road and lean against a tree.

“Hi.”

“Hey,” Sollux says on the other end, and you hear him yawn. “sh*t, wait, did I wake you up?”
“Nah, I usually don’t sleep in a lot anyway.” You shrug. “What’s up?”

“Not much, just wanted to ask you some stuff.”

“Havin’ second thoughts?” you ask, “I mean, I wouldn’t blame you-”

“What? No, I’m not-I just wanted to ask how we’re gonna do this. I mean, do I just walk through the gate and everything will be fine or-?”

“No. Absolutely not. Do not walk through the gate without me.” It comes out more commanding than you mean for it to. “Wait for me there. Without an escort, everyone will think you’re just some outsider coming in to cause trouble. Also, don’t use your psionics until we’re both outside of town. The residents here aren’t particularly fond of that.”

“Why? Don’t tell me I’m that popular there.” You can hear the sh*t-eating grin in his voice, but you don’t miss the underlying unease as he chuckles nervously. “I mean, come on, with how I look, I would probably fit right in. Have you seen these arms? I am no ‘ripped highblood stud’, if you know what I mean.”

“Ha.” You roll your eyes. “But no, just wait by the gate if you want to keep your limbs attached to your body. The fog won’t like it if you go in without me inviting you, either. It might end up keeping you here forever if you do.”

“Seriously, is that place alive or something? You talk like it is.”

“All I’m saying is that every hunter that comes here looking for trouble never leaves, and not just because the townsfolk don’t like outsiders in general. You came here seeking shelter, but if you come here with ambiguous intentions, it might not take kindly to that, and what happens in Vilebirth stays in Vilebirth.”

“I-you know what? I’m not gonna ask.” You hear him sigh through his nose over the phone. “So I just wait at the gate and don’t go anywhere?”

“Yeah. Just wait by the gate. Don’t try to go over it or cross it until I get there. Trust me.”

“Uh… sure?”

“Cool. See you then.”

It’s yet another dull and monochrome night in the lower levels of Vilebirth. The thick fog fills the air with golden mist illuminated by the distant lights. The walled sector glows like its own rusting city, small dots moving on the treacherous walkways and making the tiny windows of shining yellow, orange, red and blue dance. The clouds hang lower than usual, indicating a heavy rainstorm is on the way.

You lead Sollux past the destroyed ruins of the old complex you used to live in, past destroyed buildings and burnt explosion marks in the road, past displaced residents left homeless by the drone strike that had come not too long ago. Hungry eyes leer out from the shadows, and the sounds of wet crunching permeates the otherwise-eerie silence hanging over the fallout of the previous attack.

“So, like, is the cannibalism a normal thing orrrr…?” Sollux asks uneasily as the two of you walk through the weaving paths of cobblestones.

“Oh, please, if you think that’s bad, then you should see the body pit.”

“I-I’m sorry. The what?”

“The body pit where Vilebirth disposes of its dead. We don’t have a way to keep up with all the dead, and even with that, fresh bodies are still left for the desperate and depraved to indulge in.”

“Oh, great…” Behind you, you hear Sollux grimace. “That’s so nice.”

The two of you have thankfully made it to the less populated part of Vilebirth, crossing over the bridge built over a lake so low that it’s more islands of rocks and dirt and sand surrounded by low streams of water flowing in from the ocean. Two long-legged chirpbeasts walk along the bridge, probing at a discarded corpse with their beaks, and when they make eye contact with you, they take off, and you hear Sollux yelp as their massive wings buffer the air above his head.

“It’s not like our sewage system’s broken. Death here just happens too quickly for everything to keep up. Hell, a last-minute drone strike is supposed to happen tonight, so I guess the timing couldn’t be better.” You hurry him along before he can see the corpse. “And it’s not like we’re getting any money, and makeshift materials can only do so much.”

“There’s seriously no cleanup here?”

“Well, unless you count the janitors who drive the dead bodies out to the pit, then no. Usually the rain keeps the streets clean, but it can’t clear out the bodies. One time they blocked up the canals and turned the water sour. No one could swim or shower for a good week.”

“Damn.”

The two of you continue on in silence, passing by beggars on the street rattling pans or offering marred hands with bitten-off fingers, willing to accept money in exchange for sacrificing meat off their own bodies.

“Hey, little ones,” a particularly elderly troll rasps, rising out of the shadows. His thin body is wrapped in a thin, ratty blanket, but his hands, or what’s left of them, are painfully bony.

“Hello,” you say, just to be polite.

“Uh, hey…” Sollux mimics uncomfortably.

“Dull weather again. Not every good for these old bones, and with the shipments growing fewer and farther between…” He exhales, a truly sad and brittle sound, like the barebones whisper of wind against a leaf. “I’m surprised, really. Given how many of us are culled before we even make it out of the caverns, one would think that the overpopulation crisis wouldn’t be an issue here, eh?”

“I guess…”

“You youngsters have got it easy. Your young legs can get you all the good stuff.” He lightly taps Sollux’s shin and he goes as stiff as a board. “An old withered thing like me doesn’t have much to offer anymore. I can barely drag myself around.”

You cast a quick glance towards your companion and see that Sollux’s gaze has softened into one of vague pity as the elder looks up at him.

“You’re an outsider, aren’t you, little man. I can tell by the symbol on your shirt.”

“Um… I…” He looks over at you, and you give him a nod, and he turns back to the old man. “Yeah. I… I am.”

“We don’t have symbols in this place,” the old man continues. “We don’t have roles placed upon us, but we can’t get one even if we want to. Our only role in the Empire is to exist as a reason to continue to serve it, lest you end up here.”

There’s an uncomfortable silence. Sollux’s hand lightly grips the front of his shirt, crumbling the yellow symbol in his hand.

“You two look… hungry.” The old man holds out his hands, revealing only a few remaining fingers, the rest bitten down to scarred nubs. His clouded eyes fill with an almost desperate sense of urgency. “There was once a time where the old looked after the young. You’re both bright young wrigglers, it would be a shame for both of you to starve. I don’t have anything to offer, so let me at least do this…”

Sollux goes visibly pale, and you quickly hurry him along, ignoring the pitiful cries from the elderly troll. A few more beggars try to make offers for money, but you ignore them at most, only offering basic politeness in the form of saying “not tonight” as you drag him through the winding road, dodging others who cast out their desperate lines.

The desperation and hopelessness in the air mixes into a bitter slurry of misery and resignation, and you see Sollux’s eyes follow the sad, hunched figures with a mixture of unease and pity. His gaze remains that way even when you leave the maze of dilapidated hives and empty buildings, making it to the vast, flooded fields and farmland that rest on the outer reaches of Vilebirth, and once you make it to the dirt road, he stops and looks back.

“They won’t hurt you,” you say, “None of them have the strength to chase or hunt anymore. That place is their only source of safety, but if they die, then they usually end up rotting there. I think they know that by now, and in a way, offering themselves up like that is the only way they feel any purpose at all.”

“You know what? This is f*cked up. All of this is f*cked up! And I don’t say that a lot because everything is f*cked up, but this is, like, next-level f*cked up!” Stopping in the middle of the street, Sollux gestures around at the empty field and back at the impoverished sector the two of you have just left behind. “How can anyone live like this? How are you so calm about it? I know the Alternian mainland is also sh*t, but this is just-!” He makes a frustrated noise, rubbing the bridge of his nose, and looks up at you. “What are you looking at now?”

“Nothing, just… No one’s ever cared before.” You shrug. “Not enough to get upset about it, anyway.”

“Well, yeah! Some old guy just tried to ask me to eat him for money! Don’t tell me you think that’s normal! Hell, I’ve never even seen a troll that old before!”

“These guys are mutants. The Empire won’t want any of us among its military.”

“That’s not the point!”

“It’s not, but the Condesce is determined to keep this place as miserable as possible. We’re not even trolls to anyone outside of Vilebirth, and any mutant who leaves this place loses any edge they have here. Our only options are to try and leave and chase an empty, pointless dream…” Your mind traitorously drifts back to your former caretakers. “... Or just give up and die here. We genuinely don’t have any other choice, and there’s never been an indication of a third option.”

“And no one’s done anything?”

“No one hates mutantbloods more than mutantbloods themselves. Our existence is cemented as a flaw, and it’s been accepted as the truth of our existence.” A bitter smirk tugs at the corner of your mouth. “But if it makes you feel better, I like to think that we scare The Condesce since we’re a sign she’s not the master of genetics she thinks she is. To her, we’re a sign that she’s not the one in control, and that she’s just some tall brat with a god complex.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better at all.”

“Well, you’re about to feel a lot worse.” You gesture with your head towards the looming mountains. “Not too late for me to escort you back to the gate.”

For a moment, Sollux looks like he might back out, a choice you wouldn’t be able to fault him for, but then something in his expression shifts, and he sighs.

“Why haven’t you fought back?”

You nearly laugh at that. “I’m sorry, what?”

“You’re a limeblood, right? And you’ve got some crazy powers or whatever. Hell, you might be more powerful than most of the goldbloods I’ve heard about, so why don’t you ever… y’know…?”

“I could tell you, but I think it would make more sense to show you.” You gesture your head towards the mountains. “If you want.”

“But that doesn’t explain why-”

“I think showing you why I can’t do anything would explain it better than any way I could in words. But hey, if you wanna back out now, we can go back and you can pretend none of this ever happened.”

“Are you calling me a coward?” Sollux asks accusingly.

“Oh, no, I’m just saying that what I’m about to show you is pretty f*cked up.”

“My best friend died in front of me. I’ve been through my fair share of traumatizing things. I’m not a grub, I can handle whatever the hell you dragged me out here to see.” Marching up to you, he gets right up in your face. “I woke up hours before I usually do, snuck out of my hive, and dodged every bit of security I could to get here, and I’m gonna have to do it all again going home, so I might as well not be cluckbeast sh*t and just go through with it.”

“I’m not joking around, Sollux.” Dropping all attempts to keep this as light-hearted as possible, you meet his gaze. “You’d be the only one who has ever learned about this. You are aware of the weight that comes with that, right?”

“And I’m not joking around, either,” he counters, “I want to know the truth about what happened, but if you’re going to keep trying to be cagey about it, then can you blame me for not fully trusting you when you’re about to lead me into the f*cking boonies miles from anyone who knows me? If I die up there-”

“You won’t.”

“And how do you know that?”

“Because I lived up there as a grub.”

A gust of wind rolls over the fields, carrying the smell of rain. The mountains continue to loom, privy to this conversation between you and someone who should by all accounts not be given access to the knowledge you’re about to dump on him. You don’t even know why you wanted to show him in the first place, but he’s here now, and it seems that the two of you have reached a mutual crossroad.

“What.”

“I lived up there as a grub, and I survived up there until I had my first molt and I ended up in Vilebirth. There is nothing up there left to kill anyone. It’s all gone. It’s been gone for a very long time.”

“How the f*ck do you manage to become weirder every time I learn more about you?”

“It’s one of my many weird limeblood gifts. You coming?”

“Yeah. Yeah, you know what? f*ck it.” The two of you continue up the dirt road towards the edge of Vilebirth. “It can’t get more f*cked up than this, so why not. Surprise me. Blow my mind.”

“Oh, it can always get more f*cked up.”

“Great. How fun.”

The two of you continue in silence up the dirt road, and as you approach the backwoods, fog slowly flows down the mountains and through the thick trunks of the trees. The cloudy sky makes everything look even more unsettling, and the silence is so thick that you can cut it with a knife. It’s even worse than it was when you left.

Dirt becomes asphalt, the fog becomes a gray soup so murky that you have to fire off flashes of psionics in front of you in order to gage where you’re going, and the road becomes cracked and bumpy as ancient roots turn up soil and push through what would’ve been a road to a city further up the mountain. Behind you, Sollux stumbles and curses on the uneven terrain until you hold out an arm to stop him before he eats sh*t next to you.

Up ahead, the road ends with a single rusted metal gate, creaking quietly in the wind. Beyond is vast miles of misty moors so clouded by fog that the mountains look like they’re rising out of clouds instead of the ground. The air smells strongly of ozone.

“Please don’t tell me it’s not all the way up there.”

“Chillax, it’s not at the peak. It’s still pretty high up, though.”

“Great. Lemme guess, I have to fly you up there since you don’t have any climbing equipment or whatever.”

I’m sorry, what?

“Mmhm, right, right, because I’m the one who was tripping over bumps in the road the whole way up here.”
“Because you said I couldn’t use my powers! We could’ve cut the trip in half if I flew us both up there, but-”

“Oh, yes, because you know these mountains like the back of your hand. You’re 100 percent the one here who’s been up to the peaks.” You roll your eyes. “And you’re totally the one who knows how to navigate in fog so thick you wouldn’t be able to see your hand if you held it up in front of your face.”

Sollux rolls his eyes back at you, looking up at the mountain. “Well, I’m still probably faster than you.”

This mother- You find that you still can’t bring yourself to be angry at his quips. All of them lack the typical venom and mockery you’re familiar with. No, you find yourself amused by Sollux’s sharp tongue, the way he talks to you like any other wriggler his age. Sure, you have a sneaking suspicion that it gets him in trouble a lot, but hey, better than a sugary fake liar.

And maybe, just maybe, you want to see if he can walk the walk too.

“Okay, smartass, if you’re not going to take this seriously…” Dark energy writhes from your shoulder blades through the fabric of your shirt and you take a running start and vault into the gate, and with a burst of black wisps, you feel your wings carry you higher, and you look down at Sollux as you climb higher. “... Let’s see if you can keep up with me, then.”

“What the-HEY!” You look down and see Sollux take off after you, leaving a trail of red and blue lights behind him as he slowly closes the gap. For someone who doesn’t really give much of a f*ck about anything, it seems that he gives quite a large amount of f*cks about keeping up with you.
You pick up speed and dive down towards the stretch of forest barring the lower hills from the highland moors further up the mountain. Sollux curses in protest and gives chase, the two of you becoming streaking comets of color as you weave between the trees, scattering clouds of condensation and whipping up dead leaves. The trees have not moved from their places, and you weave through the tight spots with ease, using the shadows to slide through the small windows in the branches and trunks.

Sollux, on the other hand, fares about as well as a baby chirpbeast learning how to fly. You can hear him cussing up a storm behind you, forced to fly around the trunks to avoid crashing into them, and in this tighter space, he can’t keep up the continuous bursts of speed that could put the two of you at a more even pace. The fog converges, the land sensing the presence of enemy blood as it awakens to defend what lies at the heart of the moor. Even if your associate isn’t a threat, the dirt and grass and mountains remember.

Angling up, you kick off a tree and launch yourself through the thick canopy of leaves, rising higher and higher into the foggy sky. Behind you, you see a flash of light as Sollux follows suit, the two of you climbing higher and higher until-

Clear air meets your face and you rise above the first layer of fog, a sea within a sea of gray. Above, the mountains loom higher and higher, so high that they vanish through the ceiling of clouds that envelops the western coast of Alternia. The moons shine brightly tonight, casting a colorful glow that bathes the surrounding clouds in a shower of pink and green light.

The two if you glide in silence for a while, and you slow down enough so Sollux can close the gap, and you look under yourself as he comes up behind you.

“Who’s dragging who’s butt now?”

“Ha.”

Through the fog, a large shadow rises out of the murk, and you quickly fall back and nudge Sollux to the side before he can crash into it. Upon closer inspection, you recognize the rust and geometric patterns in the aged metal, and feel a slight twinge in your gut as more appear, rising out of the clouds like the fins of sharks.

“We’re here.”

“What the hell?” Stopping in place, Sollux hovers in front of the shape, staring up at it with uneasy curiosity, and he looks at the others. “What is that?”

“I’ll show you. Come with me.”

Diving down, more and more of the mass reveals itself, a thick hull and broken port windows. The exterior is rusted away, revealing the metal and screws, but the bright fuschia paint still lingers in some places. The old starship still bears the worn symbol of the Empire, a horizontal trident.

“Holy sh*t…” Sollux murmurs under his breath as he follows behind you. “Is this what I think it is?”

“Yup.”

“But how?”

“The onslaught against the limebloods wasn’t a silent affair. It was an all-out war.” You fly alongside the port side of the ship, revealing a jagged burn in the side, too precise to be the work of a goldblood. It cuts directly through the exterior of the ship, the turrets and laser cannons reduced to hardened, shapeless masses.

Littered throughout the tall grass and reeds of the lower moors are dozens of downed starships, from slave carriers to battleships so big they reach the clouds. They creak ominously, as if taunting you as the two of you land.

“What happened here?”

“A genocide happened.”

“I mean, yeah, but…” He looks up apprehensively as the two of you pass under the shadow of one of the larger ships. “How did so many of these get downed?”

“We fought back.”

You lead Sollux into one of the smaller ships and the two of you walk through the winding corridors, past pipes that no longer hiss and wires that have gone dead. You feel a sharp pulse in your head, but you shake it off and keep going. Through the creaking of the ship, you swear you can hear the shouting of the workers and through it, something else. Something dark and ruthless.

“Where are you taking me?”

“This ship was a research vessel. It was also an interstellar prison for prisoners of war and traitors.”

You stop, feeling guilt mixing with the unease in your stomach. You don’t know why you’re really doing this. Do you even want to show Sollux the truth of what happened to your caste, or are you only trying to have someone share the burden of knowledge with you? Are you being selfish? You probably are. Wait, no, you definitely are.

“Mari?” Sollux’s footsteps stop behind you. “You good?”

“... You don’t have to stay. You’re not obligated to know any of this.”
“Why the sudden heel-face turn?” he asks, but you notice a particular lack of snarky humor.

“... I’m being selfish right now, that’s why.”

“Yeah, well, I’m pretty f*ckin’ selfish, too.” Walking past you, Sollux steps over some fallen rubble. “I doubt coming out here’s any more fun for you, either.”

“Yeah, but-”

“Mari, it’s fine. I figured it was pretty bad, and I’m pretty sure it’s gonna get worse. I’ve seen people die in so many ways already.”

“You don’t understand-”

“Then make me understand. I-ugh, this is gonna sound so corny-I… want to understand.” He grimaces at the delivery. “I asked for this, and I don’t like being lied to, so…”

“Sollux, you don’t get it-”

“Then make me get it! I’m not gonna get sh*t if you’re being all cryptic and cagey all the ti-!” He pauses, and groans, running a hand through the hair on the back of his head. “Crap, I’m being a total hypocrite right now…”

Come on, you idiot! You already dragged his butt out here! Stop trying to puss* out and it through!

Oh, sure, traumatize someone else so you don’t have to suffer alone! How noble and altruistic, you deserve a f*cking award for that! You should be drowning in awards for how kind you’re being right now, disillusioning him to everything he knows, how sweet!

“... You see that door over there?” You point to a heavy metal door at the end of the hall. It’s a lot more heavily rusted than the others, and the small window is broken in. Through the metal, you can hear the sounds of pain and struggle, but you know you’re the only one who can.

“Uh, yeah? Why?”

You can’t show him! You’ll traumatize him for life!

You have to, or you’ll be forced to walk on eggshells around him forever. You’ll always be alien to him if he doesn’t understand. You’ll never be anything more than a freak and a liar if he doesn’t know the truth.

He’ll hate me if he knows the truth.

And? Then that makes him like everyone else.

Are you seriously blaming him for something he never did? It’s not like either of us were alive for this. I just have this stupid, useless ability to see everything that happened!

Exactly. You two will never truly understand each other if he doesn’t understand you.

Closing your eyes, you take Sollux’s hand and open the door. Hot, thick air blasts your face and you wish you could drown out the sounds you hear and the things you see through the cracks in your vision, but the grip on your hand is grounding, however f*cked up the situation might be.

You don’t have to look, but you force yourself to open your eyes. If you’re going to show him the first of many unpleasant truths, you might as well take the plunge with him.

The room is dark and dingy, with rusted wires and pipes zig-zagging across the ceiling, and the many work tables are covered in messy stains and scratches and burns in the metal. Some of the gurneys and medical tables still have little broken skeletons in them, the bones burnt and tossed awry from when the ship crashed and everyone inside passed. The edges of the leather straps are dark and frayed, and the rolling trays have tools in dusty, stained trays. Hanging from the disintegrating pink wires is a broken set of helmsman goggles, the lenses cracked and bloody.

At the far end is a large glass container connected to pipes stretching out of view, filled with a dull green chunky liquid. The air smells horrible, like musk and rot, but there’s also a potent sour chemical smell that makes your eyes water and your head spin. The result of sweeps of horrible things that happened down here in the belly of this ship, just like it is in so many others like it.

You don’t want to see the things you can see, but when without the graphic details of what happened all those sweeps ago, the energy in this room feels foreboding and sick, the cruelty and fear still lingering in a vile cloud that turns the stomach and sends shivers down the spine. It’s a place that no one wants to find, a storage folder of bad things buried deep in the places no one can go poking around.

Neither of you say anything as you close the door. The walk back through to the moor is done in silence, and the two of you stop by a small pond so Sollux can splash water onto his face. He looks like he’s about to be sick.

Stones engraved with names cover the landscape surrounding you, and when you stand up on a rock, they cover at least three hills, small white flowers winding around the weathered surfaces. Some have been broken and chipped, but the graves of the Western Colony are still in mostly one piece. It helps that no one aside from you has been up here in a long time.

“You good?” you ask, tilting your head to the side. Sollux looks up to answer, but the moment the two of you make eye contact, he suddenly goes pale and is violently sick into the grass. You don’t know what to do other than gently rub his back and avert your gaze so you can at least give him some privacy in his moment of lacking dignity. It luckily doesn’t last long, and you gently pat his back a few times as he coughs and shudders, splashing more water onto his face.

“Better?”

“Those were wriggler bones.” Sollux wipes the water off his face and looks up at you in horror. “Those were wriggler bones in there.”

“Good observation,” you reply.

“And that tank was full of- and all the stains-” He looks up at the stones, noticing the names carved into them. “And all of this is-”

“Yes.” You nod, and Sollux slouches over, pressing a hand to his mouth as he retches again. “That was how the limebloods were punished for going against the Empire. If I had to guess, that’s the fate most rebels and deviants meet.” You let out a tired sigh. “I don’t know who made these graves, but every single one is for the casualties of the liquidation of this single colony.”

“Oh god,” Sollux says weakly, pressing a hand to his head. “When you said you didn’t like sleeping in sopor, I didn’t think-”

“-that it was because I would be sleeping in a synthetic copy of what used to be my ancestor’s bodily fluids?”

The look on Sollux’s face makes you feel bad, and you sigh again, stuffing your hands in the pockets of your shorts. You don’t know how to divulge any of this to him. You could lie and soften the blow, but you know by now that he would give you that sharp-eyed squint and not trust what you have to say. The truth is horrible and ugly and sharp like a rusty, stained knife, but it is the truth, and Sollux seems like the type that doesn’t like gentle, beautiful lies.

“I wanted to tell you the gentler version, but I didn’t know if you would believe me or not. I would have to lie a lot to sugarcoat all of this, and I’ve always been the type to just rip bandages off.”

“Well, f*ck me, guess I can’t complain without being a massive hypocrite.” Wiping the back of his mouth, Sollux slowly sits up, staring out into the fog with cloudy eyes. “I don’t know why this is f*cking with me so much. Alternia’s full of ugly sh*t like this, if you know where to look.”

“Who knows, maybe you’re one of the rare Alternians with a heart even for the radical.” You hop off your stone seat and hold out a hand to help him stand as well. “It only gets worse from here.”

“Oh, goody, how fun.” Sollux’s voice drips with sarcasm, a sign that his sudden vomiting session hasn’t taken the edge off him one bit, but when he takes your hand and hauls himself up, you can still feel it shaking, just a little. He looks over his shoulder at the wall of fog and shudders. “But just to feed my own curiosity, how does it get worse, exactly?”

“Easy,” you say, pointing further up the hill to the massive structure rising out of the mist like the back of a dead whale. “I’ve only shown you the crust of this horrible sh*tshow pie we’re sharing. All the really bad stuff’s gonna be going inside of the colony.”

“So you mentioned other colonies?” Sollux asks as you lead him up the outer walls of the colony.

“Yeah?”

“If there were other colonies, didn’t they have ways to escape or something? Wouldn’t the Empire have been smaller back then?”

It’s a steep, fully horizontal climb, and you end up having to use your wings more to pull yourself up the side of the wall than actually fly. Sollux, to his credit, has some tact to his name, as he doesn’t comment about it, easily drifting alongside you and occasionally slowing down to wait for you.

“The Empire was in its earlier days when all of this went down, but it still outnumbered the limeblood population.” He makes it to the top before you and hauls you up after him. “We didn’t have a constant stream of of-age soldiers compared to them, so we had to make do with what we had available, which turned out to not be enough.”

“Why were there-whoa.” Any further questions are cut off as Sollux peers over the edge of the wall, looking down into the chasm, eyes going wide as his mouth freezes mid-sentence in a small gasp of awe.

It truly is a sight worthy of some marvel. Waterfalls cascade from old pipes and flow off slanted ledges, and the dull grays and browns have been painted over by the various shades of green as grass and flowers and weeds of an endless variety occupy the concrete structure. Ancient trees have torn free from the hard surfaces, their trunks covered in curtains of moss and ferns. The entire way down is like a vertical forest, a place that paid enough respect to nature to be enveloped by it instead of dominated.

“Pretty impressive, huh?” You stand beside him. The sound of the water falling down into the depths of the colony’s outer crust is somewhat peaceful, echoing in the silence of the mountain’s foothills.

“I-yeah.” For once, Sollux seems to be unable to cook up a sarcastic quip. “Yeah, this is… really something…” He tilts his head back, taking a deep breath. “The air is so clear up here. This is nothing like the main city.”

“The plants cultivated in the colonies required very little light. They’re extinct now outside of the ones growing in the moor.”

“Okay, you’ve got me,” Placing his hands on his hips, Sollux turns to look at you with a small, but genuinely impressed, smirk. “I’ve literally never seen anything like this before.”

“That’s because all of these colonies have been wiped out. This one is the only colony left standing, if you can call it that. If you think this is big, you should see some of the pictures of the other colonies. This one’s small compared to the underwater ones.”

“There were underwater colonies, too?”

“Where do you think the sea-dwellers got it from?”

Sollux stares, then looks away. He sounds somewhere between stunned speechless and trying not to burst out laughing.

“f*ck… f*ck, I wish I could tell Eridan this, he would literally sh*t himself if he knew-”

“I’m sure he would.” You gesture with a finger and spread your wings again. “C’mon, we gotta head down. There’s a maintenance tunnel that leads into the colony.”

“Can’t we just, I dunno, find a way in through the main entrance or whatever? There’s got to be some other opening, right?”

“We could waste our time looking for one, but where’s the fun in that?” Launching into the air, you tuck your wings and dive. “C’mon!”

“I don’t think this is supposed to be ‘fun’!” Sollux calls after you, and you hear him jump from the edge and dive down after you.

The descent is somewhat tedious, with you using your wings to catch the updrafts that flow up from the darkness and using the outstretched trees and rusted walkways as means of landing and taking off again. Sollux follows after you, his psionics adding some warm reds to the dull teal and gray shadows as you make the slow descent down into the walls.

“So, like, there weren’t just land-dwelling limebloods?”

“Nope. Some lived in the sea, and that’s where most aquatic and amphibious blood colors hail from, and then there were the land-dwelling colonies, where you get your bronzebloods, olivebloods, tealbloods, ceruleanbloods and indigobloods, and then there were the mountain-dwelling colonies, like this one. Goldbloods and rustbloods hail from those specific bloodlines.” You land on a pipe, steadying yourself as you prepare to take off again. “Who knows, maybe you’ve got blood ties to this place as well.”

“Are you sure you’re not making all of this up?”

“May something strike me down if I am.”

“So did all mountain-dwelling limebloods have wings, or is that just another Mari-ism?”

“Didn’t know I upgraded to verb status.” You give your wings a flex before launching into the air again, landing on a walkway several meters down. The harsh clang echoes through the canyon-like walls. “But I don’t think there’s ever been a limeblood with wings before. At least, to my knowledge.”

“You really do get weirder with every new thing I learn about you.”

“It’s a talent.”

“So why were there so few of you?” he asks again.

“Well, brutal liquidation of entire colonies notwithstanding, we just couldn’t keep up with all the deaths. We don’t have the same genetic makeup as everyone else. It’s similar, obviously, but we don’t have the same defenses that would prevent an incestuous slurry from having… very bad consequences if we applied the same practices here.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, with you guys, your genes are a result of getting all mixed up inside the Mother Grub. Like a smoothie. Or, like, cake batter or something.”

You lower yourself down onto a pipe and jump down to a platform. The rusted nails give way under your weight and you just barely make it to another pipe, watching it clatter down into the darkness below.

“You guys are so mixed that it’s never a true copy. It’s always going to be something new, just with similar components, but hey, if we apply that logic to every living thing in the universe, it’s always like that. It’s hard to explain without visuals, but we’ll get to that soon.”

“Wait, no, you can’t just leave me with that!” Sollux continues to press, chasing after you. “You can’t just say cryptic sh*t like that and then not clarify!”

“Little bit of advice: if you want people to remain interested in what you want to say, say something super cryptic and weird, and not even the worst cynics will be able to resist coming back and asking what the hell you mean. Works every time!”

“I-!” Sollux starts, but he trails off, quietly grumbling to himself as you dive down between some pipes.

The two of you eventually land in one of the maintenance tunnels of the colony, the darkness barely cut through by faint yellow and orange lights lining the ceiling. The metal doors leading into the interior have been blasted open, whatever psionic defenses lingering as faint wisps. Surrounding the entrance are scattered weapons, some belonging to the Empire’s main arsenal, while others are sleek and carved from ivory white and ebony black materials, their edges stained with color. Limeblood weapons, and you wonder if Dealbreaker was made by the same smith or technician who crafted them..

The tunnel opens up to a barred gate, and beyond it lies the outer reaches of the colony’s lower levels.

The air is still somewhat fresh despite the age of this place, and the air is oddly chilly. Bright white lights shine down on damp concrete floors, turning the atmosphere a strange, cool gray. The only other colors are from signs which faintly blink with bright neon hues, occasionally letting off bright blue sparks.

“This is insane…” Sollux whispers as you walk through the bars, and the two of you are scrawny motherf*ckers, so you don’t even have to exert effort to squeeze through. The ceiling blinks with tiny lights like stars, warm lights shining up from abandoned homes. Debris and trash litters the roads, and the metal roofs and painted walls are covered in water damage and burns. Withered, damp parchment covers the walls, the contents once printed on them having been worn down to nothing.

“You might be the first non-limeblood to enter this place in literal ages,” you say as the two of you start walking again, “They stopped letting in trolls on the hemospectrum after everything went south and the Condesce started pushing for an annexation. She apparently really hated when they called it that, but it was literally an annexation.”

The lower levels of the colony are decrepit and dingy, and the two of you end up walking through this urban maze of metal and concrete for what feels like hours, but you have plenty of time to kill and plenty more to say. Even if you don’t know if he believes a single word coming out of your mouth, Sollux’s eyes still shine a little brighter with wonder as you lead him through the ruins of the colony, telling him how everything works and answering the questions he has. It’s surprising that he’s listening at all, you never took him for the type to be much of a listener, but you suppose he has been a lot more open-minded than you initially gave him credit for. You never really thought you would have the chance to show someone this place for the simple reason of sharing your world like he shared his. It’s nice.

In every alleyway and window, you see snapshots of a life that was snuffed out. Wrigglers younger and smaller than you running through the streets, residents walking through the streets and airing out laundry and tending to the lusii and just… living. They had all just been living. You can’t help but wonder what life would have been like for you if you had lived in that era. Would you have lived down here? Would you have had friends with the same blood color as you? Would you have had guardians who looked after you?

The path leads up to the upper floors of the buildings, and the two of you are soon roof-walking together, crossing over wooden planks and over the metal sheets that make up the awnings over windows. Sollux is a lot less confident than you are, usually floating over these gaps while you walk over them. In his defense, you’ve been doing this kind of thing for fun much longer than he probably has.

The roads lead deeper into the lower sector, which is suddenly flooded with warm lights and a significantly less dreary atmosphere. Strings of dead, crystalline bulbs hang between the rooftops, and you push open a door that opens up to a wide stretch of living complexes. Ventilation systems remain silent and the windows that aren’t broken and riddled with bullet holes are cloudy. And yet, even without having to look, this place feels lived in, as if the presence of life has yet to leave the rooms behind the glass. Below, the floor is partially concealed by a layer of dust.

“Wanna see something cool?”

On thin wires stretched between the buildings are strings of small, crystalline baubles. Lighting your hand with some energy, you partially concentrate it into a ball and toss it onto the wire, in which all of the lights suddenly illuminate with a bright green that travels down the wire before fading out of sight on the opposite end.

“Is there anything you can’t do with your psionics?”

You think for a moment before shrugging. “I can’t levitate things.”

“Seriously?” He co*cks a brow at that. “That’s, like, the first skill goldbloods learn.”

“Well, I don’t know how. I tend to drop things when I try, so I kinda just, y’know, use my hands.”

“Out of everything you’ve told me in the last hour, that is somehow the thing I’m having the hardest time believing.” He crosses his arms. “You mean to tell me that you’ve never once used any telekinetic abilities?”

In what wild world is this harder to believe than everything else that I’ve been saying?

“Well, hypothetically, I could, like, wrap my psionics around things, but it’s easier to do that with big objects versus, say, a pebble.”

You’re admittedly starting to feel a little self-conscious about the whole thing. You’ve gone on long enough not using that specific ability, you didn’t realize that it was such a big deal to not be able to lift sh*t with your mind.

“That’s basically how it works,” Sollux says matter-of-factly, “You kinda just…” He holds out his hand towards a metal rod, and it slowly glows red and blue before lifting off the floor. He spins it a couple of times before dropping it off the edge, where it clatters against the ground not long after. “It’s pretty easy once you… get the feel, I guess? I dunno, that’s how my lusus described it, but he’s kinda, y’know…” He taps his head. “... fried up here.”

You try to copy what he did, mostly just so you don’t look like a total dweeb in front of him. Concentrating on a wooden slab by your foot, you try to at least lift it for a few seconds, but only succeed in making it glow. It shudders for a moment, glowing a faint green, and you grumble quietly and increase the power input, closing your fist to try and “grab” it. Instead of floating up, it lurches upwards with violent force, smacking you directly in the face so hard you can’t even curse.

Sollux doesn’t even try to hide his amusem*nt at your massive f*ck-up, doubling over with a harsh bark of laughter as you stumble back in a delayed reaction to the sudden explosion of pain arcing outwards through your face. All you can do is glare at him out of the corner of your tearing eye as he doubles over, the emptiness of the colony filling with his rough cackling and your muffled cursing as you press your hands to your face, which is burning with more than just pain.

“Ain’t no way…” Sollux gasps, coughing as he wipes the corner of an eye. “N-no f*cking way… you-you can do all of those other things, but you can’t do something so elementary that grubs do it by accident?”

“Yeah, yeah…” You glare at him with teary eyes and he doubles over again, prompting you to kick the slab of wood at him. It bounces harmlessly off the side of his shoe. “Shut up…”

Your face aches just as much as your pride, and you’re pretty sure your nose is bleeding. Sollux is still giggling like a lunatic once the pain subsides, and you give him a reproachful glare until he partially regains control of himself.

“Are you done?” you ask. Blood drips from your nose and you snort it out onto the floor.

“Dude, you… you do realize that you just hit yourself in the face with a wooden plank, right? It was pretty funny.”

“Mmmhm, because I’m sure you mastered that ability perfectly,” you grumble back

“I mean, it’s still a pretty basic skill. You’d have to, like, actively avoid learning it not to know something as easy as-”

Taking a few steps back, you get a running start before jumping off the platform and onto one of the rooftops nearby, hitting it with a loud bang that makes Sollux jump, shutting him up. Not wasting any time, you use the momentum to kick off, wall-running to the next platform before kicking off, throwing in a flip just to see the shock on his face as you land with feline grace on the other side.

“Mari, what the hell are you-?”

“Look!” you call back,”No wings!”

“I’m sorry, okay? You’re going to get yourself killed!”

You ignore him, jumping from one platform to another, running on pipes and using the ventilation as added steps. You do have a mild scare as one comes loose just as you kick off, dropping to the floor below, but it doesn’t last long, and you don’t lose your rhythm as you continue to parkour your way across the rooftops.

You can’t lift things with your mind, but you’ve been running on pipes and jumping rooftops ever since you first came to Vilebirth, and this place, isolated and empty, is the ideal spot for practicing. Balancing on railings and leaping from rooftops is something that runs in your blood. This type of extreme movement just feels right, and with each jump and calibration of your own body weight, you manage to parkour your way across the gap in the buildings, making up for your former blunder as, with a final leap, your feet meet concrete again and you stand upright, turning around.

“Let’s see you pull that off without your powers, sh*t talker!” you call across the chasm.

“I said I was sorry, okay?” he calls back. “I’m just gonna fly over there!”

“What? Scared you’re going to fall to your death?”

“I think sane people usually are when it’s a literal possibility!”

“It’s easy! One would even call it elementary!”

“God, you’re so petty!” Sollux complains. “Come on, I said I was sorry, okay?”

“Sounds like someone’s just a puss*!”

“Oh my god!”

“puss*!”

“Oh, wow, so mature! My think pan is exploding from how mature you’re being right now as we spea-!”

“Puuuussyyyyyyy!”

“Mari, I swear to-!”

You take a deep breath and cup your hands around your mouth. “PUUUUUUUSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSYYYYYY!”

Sollux flips you off from across the chasm, and you see him start to pace, faintly muttering to himself. Nothing’s stopping him from just flying across, but his pride wins out and he glares red and blue daggers at you as he takes a few steps back.

“While I’m still not culled, Sollux!”

“Shut up, I’m working on it!”

To his credit, Sollux doesn’t immediately die. He does, however, stumble across the roofs with the grace and balance of a baby hoofbeast with three legs, and you hear him curse and shriek every time he seems close to losing his balance. You’re obviously not going to just let him fall, but you do watch him clumsily make his way towards you, giving you a grumpy scowl every time you hide your mouth behind a wing.

“You’re such a bitch, you know that?”

“Pot, kettle.”

“Up yours!”

“You first.”

With a final push, Sollux tries to make the final jump, but you hear the screech of metal as one of the slats slips under his foot, and he ends up falling short. You hear him yelp and reach out a hand, grabbing him before he can fall.

“You know, this was a very convoluted way to ask if you could hold my hand.”

“I wasn’t-!” Sollux glares at you, before lowering his head. The yellow tint on the tips of his ears is the only indication that he’s not entirely mad. “Okay, fine, I was being a dick back there. Happy now?”

“You can make up for it by teaching me.” Standing up, you brace your legs and haul him up with you. “I’m sure I can learn.”

The upper levels of the lower sector are thick with overgrowth, a much more wild place decked out with walkways and small homes built into the winding trees rising into the air. The water flowing through the canals and collecting around the spires of living areas is clear, and you see small, silver fish flash beneath the surface, their scales catching on the lights of the colony’s walls.

“Wow, this…” Sollux reaches out and turns a dusty game piece over between his fingers. “... This was all built by trolls who lived thousands of sweeps ago? All of this looks more sustainable and complex than current era tech!”

“I mean, starships existed back then. You really think the Empress was going to let her enemy show that they were more advanced than her?”

Sollux continues to marvel at the middle section of the colony, and you don’t miss the repressed desire to geek out over everything as you lead him through the connection tunnels. You’ve never seen him with this kind of wonder in his eyes before. It suits him.

“And there were more of these? All of these were made by limebloods?”

“Yup. They were a lot more primitive when they were first made, but once the colonies established peace and learned to maintain communication with each other, they were able to modernize everything into what you see now.” You gesture around you at the massive tunnel.

“What do you mean by ‘established peace’?”

“Well, the colonies used to be at war with each other, apparently. Lots of conflicts. Kinda like the one going on between the sea-dwellers and land-dwellers, but more over territory and resources n’ stuff. But then there was this big war that got a lot of people killed, and then they realized that the whole war thing was stupid, and eventually, the colonies connected and everything eventually smoothed itself out.”

“You are being very liberal about your caste’s dirty laundry.”

“Why should I lie to you about it? I’m not about to lie about my caste more than the Empire has. I mean, I never said they were perfect.”

“Wouldn’t it make me think less of them if I found out that they used to have wars with each other and sh*t?”

“Does it, knowing everything else?”

“... Touché,” Sollux concedes, lifting his hands in surrender.

The two of you follow the metal walkways through the tunnels, and the deeper you go, the more depressing the atmosphere becomes, radiating off the bullet holes and bloodstains on the wall. As beautiful as the colony is, it’s also a mass grave, and the lightened atmosphere from before is doused as you finish the trek up to the next level of the colony.

“And this is the middle district. It was more of a business hub and community for artisans and archivists.” You gesture around at the broken signs and rusted, dingy gild and glam that no longer shines. Broken easels and beads litter the floor, the wooden shops and booths burned and smashed. You can see soldiers marching through these streets, training their guns and weapons on everything that moves. You hear screams, smell smoke and burning parchment, feel the ground rumble with the force of the imposing armies growing louder and louder until-

“Mari?”

A hand on your shoulder jars you out of your stupor. You run your dry eyes, blinking. You’re back in the dimly-lit walkway, and Sollux tilts his head into view.

“You good? You started spacing out and your eyes were glowing for a sec.”

“Y-yeah…” Rubbing your face, you shake out the remaining jitters. “I’m… I’m good. Just… getting stuck in the past, y’know?”

“Does this happen a lot?”

“Usually in areas that have seen a lot of death and stuff. Just shake me and I’ll snap right out of it.”

“You’re being very flippant over something like this. It doesn’t bother you that you can see a bunch of people dying?”

“I’m used to it by now.” Gesturing with your head, you jog a little ways ahead to get him moving again before he can say anything else. “But yeah, anyway-”

You keep talking throughout the entire walk down the street, and you lead him up the stairs to a broken door. The surface is caked in hard water and rust, but you’re sure it was once ornately decorated with painted decor and carvings, cut through with gold accents. Dust and rubble collects around dented, charred metal.

“And this is the Archive.” You spread your arms open, gesturing at the grand door. “Where all history and documents from our known history up until the genocide is stored. Or, well, was stored. Everything in there is just ash now.”

“What was in there?”

“Books, data logs, paintings, musical recordings, pretty much everything that could be stored away. But every bit of artistic and written history is gone now, all burnt to ash.”

“Everything?”

“Everything.”

“Oh,” Sollux says, looking over your shoulder at the dimly-lit Archive. “That… that really sucks.”

“Yeah… But I guess it would’ve made it too easy for me to understand what I am.”

The two of you keep walking, and the mood has gotten significantly worse than it already was. Sollux sticks closer as the two of you pass through the broken rail tunnel leading to the upper floors of the colony. Upon leaving the shadows, the two of you pause.

“Oh, god…”

The upper floors of the sector had once been clean, the place where overlookers greeted visitors and maintained security and controls of the sector’s primary mechanisms. It’s smooth tile and sterile white paint cut through with murals and artistic splashes of color. Plants still grow in glazed clay pots of jade, cream and ebony, living off the moisture dripping from the busted piping.

“If we had gone in through the main entrance, this is where you would’ve entered if you were a normal visitor.” You point to the sealed metal doors. “Those are the proper way in and out of the colony, but they got seals off for obvious reasons.”

The lights, sterile white, flicker ominously, illuminating the bloodstains and burn marks covering the walls and furniture, and the two of you carefully maneuver around broken glass as you make your way to the control room.

“And this is where everything is controlled. Technicians worked here to make sure all the systems remained up and running.” You give him a light nudge. “Maybe you could’ve worked here if you were a limeblood.”

But Sollux doesn’t reply, walking over to the bloodied control panel and staring out the window that overlooks the entire colony. You walk over to join him, and the two stand in silence, contemplating the view.

“It’s so empty.”

“Yeah.”

“Everyone died? There really were no survivors?”

“Yes. No one was spared during the attack, and they made sure no one escaped.” You close your eyes, wishing you could unsee everything you had seen the first time you went up to that hill. “It was a slaughter.”

Sollux doesn’t reply, instead staring back out the window. The two of you spend a few more moments in silence before he speaks again.

“Did you live here? Before you came to Vilebirth, I mean.”

“I was born here, but I didn’t stay very long. I made my way out through the maintenance tunnels and lived in the forest for a bit before stumbling into town.” You look around at the bleak, empty landscape. “It was always very quiet up here. It’s so quiet it could drive anyone mad.”

“What do you mean, ‘born here’?”

“That’s what I’m going to show you next, if you’re ready to move on.”

“I… yeah.” The two of you walk away from the window, but out of the corner of your eye, you don’t miss how Sollux looks back at the darkened colony as he goes. “Yeah, I’m ready.”

“And this is the Eyrie. This is like the Brooding Caverns, just… smaller.” You gesture around at the cavern, leaving Sollux to gawk as you lead him to the shore. “This is where all the grub stuff happened.”

The Eyrie is anything but “smaller”. The ceiling rises up high into the air, lined with blinking white lights that illuminate the lake with a pale glow that softens the shadows cast by the looming stalagmites and stalactites. The rocks are a collage of various shades of grays and browns, faintly sparkling with small deposits of minerals. Your footsteps echo as the two of you come to a stop, and you reach into your pocket and turn on your palmhusk flashlight.

In the center of the chamber is a massive lake filled with clear, blue water. It’s so pristine that you can see all the way to the bottom, but you know that despite the illusion, it’s very, very deep beyond the drop-off. It flows in from small canals leading in from other tunnels scattered around the edges of the cavern, and to your left are small pools collecting on the edge of the lake, where the eggs would be gathered to incubate in the warm, nutrient-rich water until they hatched. The surface is as still as glass.

In the middle of the lake is a strange mound that faintly glistens as you shine the light of your palmhusk onto it, revealing a colorless, cloudy blob the size of a small airship. Long strands of dried mucus cling to the sides, and you see similar ones clinging to the walls and upper walkways above the lake. The air smells like cave water and rocks.

Much like with the control room and most of the colony, there are no bodies present, but the broken, bloody eggshells in the rocks and mud are more than enough to tell the story of what happened here. The scattered grub horns in the tunnel connecting the Eyrie to the colony were also an indication that the cruelty had not ended with the adults and wrigglers.

Sollux has nothing to say, pressing a hand to his mouth as the two of you stare at the broken eggs, and you shift the light back up the dead mound sitting in the middle of the lake.

“What is that thing?”

“The Primordial Sac. It was what the limebloods used to make their grubs. From what I’ve seen, they would give a DNA sample and it would just make an egg or two for them. It would also make its own randomized genes for us, keeping the gene pool fresh and growing.” You lower your light back to the eggshells. “And now it’s dead. Everything here is dead.”

The cavern is silent, and you turn to look up at Sollux. He simply stares out over the lake with wide eyes, his hand closing around his pant leg.

“Hey.” Without fully meaning to, you reach out and gently brush your hand over his knuckle. “You okay?”

“... No,” he admits weakly. “I’m really not okay right now.”

“Hey, it’s fine, you had nothing to do with this. You weren’t even hatched when this happened.”

“I just… I dunno. I know everything I’ve been told is probably a lie, apparently there was a pointless genocide, and on top of that, now I know what I’m going to be used for when I get hooked up to one of those starships.” He presses a hand to his face. “I don’t know how to feel about anything.”

You stand there with him for a while, the conflict over whether or not this was a good idea still raging in your head. The chamber is silent, the corpse of the Primordial Sac becoming a shadow within shadows as you turn off your light and lead him back towards the faint light of the tunnel.

“If it makes you feel better, I don’t blame you for this.”

“It doesn’t make me feel better at all,” is all he says in response.

The rain finally comes as the two of you make your way down the moor towards the road, harsh, icy sheets of it that turn the moors into a solid expanse of light gray as it roars down the mountains. In the distance, you can hear the rumble of the air strike and see the flashes of fire as it rains down, but it seems to be concentrated on the lower sectors. Either way, it sends both of you bolting towards the gate and down the road, making it back to the Viridian Retreat just before the first roar of thunder tears across the sky.

Unlocking the door to your complex, you let Sollux hurry inside and close the door behind you, locking it for good measure. To your chagrin, you forgot to clean before you left, so there’s still blood spots on the couch and a mess of boxes and packages on the floor. Your place does not look presentable for company in the slightest, but it’s too late to do anything about it.

“So yeah,” you say, walking past him and turning so you can look at him. “This is my place. It’s not much, but, y’know…” You shrug. “It’s not much.”

Your place really isn’t much. It’s small, with dirty white painted walls and a small kitchen. The couch is a dirty blue one that came with the room, and there’s a small wooden table against the wall. Through a large window, the pale light of the moons slowly fades away as they start to sink under the eastern horizon. Your bedroom is down the hall, and equally small room with a mattress like rock and the worst insulation you can think of.

“I don’t have a lot right now. I hope you like cup noodles, because that’s all I have until-”

“We can’t just brush all of this off!” Sollux bursts out. “We can’t just… pretend like everything is fine! Everything is the complete opposite of fine! There is a massive quadrant strife between what’s fine and what isn’t fine! How the f*ck am I supposed to feel now? I just saw something that I’m pretty sure I was never supposed to see, and it’s probably one of the worst things I have ever seen, and you just expect me to act like all of it is normal?”

“How do you feel now?” you ask.

“I dunno? A lot of things I feel like I shouldn't? Grubs dying and people being killed is a part of life where I’m from! It just happens to lowbloods because our leader’s a massive bitch who hates everyone without gills! I shouldn’t feel so bothered so why do I?” He stresses a hand through his hair. “And I can’t even be upset cuz I feel like I needed to know this? I dunno, man.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want an apology! You didn’t even do anything wrong! If anything I should be apologizing on the behalf of all the dead people who ruined your life!” With a groan, Sollux flops backwards onto your couch. “All of this just sucks.”

“Like you said, it’s just a part of life.” Turning on the stove, you start heating some water and grab the last two cup noodles from the shelf. “This all happened a long time ago. Getting mad at you about it would be pointless because you had no stake in it. Hell, you grew up thinking that my blood color was evil or whatever, so it’s not like you magically somehow knew that this is what really happened.”

“But-!”

“I showed you this because I wanted you to know what knowing me pertains. There’s a lot of things Alternia doesn’t know about its history, and it’s my word against the Empire’s. No one’s going to want to believe me if I tell them, and I can’t show anyone. I only showed you because I trust you not to immediately turn on me because of something so trivial.”

“You’re surprisingly okay with all of this,” Sollux says bitterly.

“I mean, I’ve had my whole life to come to terms with it.” You shrug. In truth, you don’t know how to feel about this any more than he does, but you don’t want to admit it and make him feel worse. “It’s just a part of me now. Plain and simple.”

The distant rumble of laser fire shakes the walls, making the ceiling lamp rattle softly. Sollux keeps his gaze glued to the floor, giving his arm a light squeeze as he does.

“Hey, don’t feel too bad. It’s not like I blame you for not knowing.” The water finishes boiling and you pour it into the cups, using dirty plates to hold them closed as you wait for the noodles to cook. ”You and I grew up in very different worlds, so obviously we’re going to know different things. You’re not to blame for any of this, and hey, you didn’t try to immediately invalidate everything I told you, so maybe you were the best person to tell.”

“I’m really not.”

“Yeah, well, if you know anyone better who won’t use all of this against me, then hook me up with them. I would like to meet them.”

Sollux doesn’t reply, and when the noodles are done, you hand him a cup and a fork and the two of you eat in silence. The noodles taste bland and the soup powder has grown old. Outside, the rain continues to pour, further adding to the awkward, gloomy mood.

The ceiling fan creaks quietly as you watch it spin in listless circles, the rain outside smacking against the glass and covering it in a blurring torrent. The forest outside is nothing more than a blur of gray shadows and the air is cold.

Sollux got the couch for the day, given how late in the evening it was when the two of you made it back to the complex. You had no idea how much time had passed during your tour of the colony, but when you made it back, it was already the early morning, and you could see the faintest hints of daylight turning the clouds a faint grayish-blue. He insisted on taking the couch, and after letting him shower and giving him some fresh clothes, the two of you went your separate ways and didn’t say anything more.

You still don’t know if you made the right choice. Part of you still feels like you should’ve never taken him up there, yet part of you knows deep down that not doing it would’ve killed you inside. You wanted him to know the truth. The thought of having to lie about everything, of having to let him believe everything the Empire has said about your blood color when the truth is right there… You think you would’ve genuinely gone crazy.

Turning onto your side, you watch the rain, feeling your insides turn. Apologizing wouldn’t undo everything, but you don’t want to go on letting him think you did this because you hate him or something, and god forbid he thinks you blame him for any of this. You don’t blame him, you truly don’t, and after everything that happened when you went to see him, you can’t bring yourself to think that he’s that type of person. He is definitely, without a doubt, a snappy, cagey, sarcastic, pessimistic prick, but the line stops there. Maybe he’d laugh at you for tripping over a cobblestone or something, but you don’t think he’d find something like an entire caste being wiped off the face of the planet funny.

Sitting up, you stretch and walk out of your room, heading down the hall to the main area. To your surprise, you’re not the only one having trouble sleeping, as Sollux is sitting on the couch with his knees pulled to his chest, watching the rain fall outside.

“Hey.”

He jolts, turning to look at you as you walk out of the shadows of the hallway. “Hey.”

“Having trouble sleeping, too?”

“Yeah, but that’s nothing new.” He rests his chin back on his knees. “I wasn’t getting any sleep any time soon even if I hadn’t seen a bunch of dead wriggler bones and broken eggs.”

You wince slightly at that.

You know you don’t deserve to, but your body acts before your head does, and you’re walking over and talking before you can think.

“I’m sorry for bringing you with me. I shouldn’t have shown you all of that. I mean, I know I’m the one who suggested it, but that was a bad call on my part and irresponsible.” You look down at the floor. “I’m sorry.”

You expect him to agree, to snap at you about how this was a terrible idea, and you would have to agree with him, but to your surprise, he doesn’t even look angry, just tired and even guilty.

“Nah, don’t beat yourself up over it,” Sollux says wearily without turning to look at you. “And I’m the one who thought sending you to a museum with an anti-limeblood propaganda display was a good idea, so I guess we’re even now.”

The two of you sit in silence, but to your surprise, eventually Sollux huffs and moves over.

“You can sit, you know.” He’s trying and failing to sound like he doesn’t give a f*ck. “It’s your couch.”

Taking a seat on the couch arm, the two of you sit and watch the rain together, the sky growing a paler and paler shade of gray. Fog collects on the glass, droplets cutting through it in wavy cracks.

“Hey, can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

“What’s it like?” Sollux asks quietly. “Being the last of your kind, I mean.”

Oh, he’s pulling out the big questions.

“It could be worse,” you lie, “I wasn’t born during that era, so I don’t really have anyone to miss. I mean, how can you miss people you’ve never met? I know what I could’ve had, but I can’t miss something I never got to experience.” You shrug. “I guess it’s kind of hard to say. If I had grown up in that era, or if the genocide had been more recent, I probably would’ve had a different answer.”

“Is it… lonely?”

“I’ve been surrounded by other people like me my whole life, so it’s never really crossed my mind. I’ve certainly never been alone.”

“You know what I mean,” Sollux presses, giving you a sideways glance.

sh*t. Looks like he’s more perceptive than you thought.

“... I mean, I guess it would’ve been nice to know kids like me, and not, like, ghosts of kids like me. I never really… got to make friends since most wrigglers my age get killed early on.” You laugh quietly. “I mean, who would want to be friends with someone with this much baggage? I’m not well-liked by the locals of Vilebirth, even if they don’t know what I am. I’m the weird kid who never stays close by and cares too much and has to fight and kill to keep her head above water. I say weird sh*t and think weird things and don’t act like a proper Alternian should or whatever.”

You stare out the window, watching the rain continue to fall.

“I mean, who would willingly want to be friends with someone like me?”

“... I want to be your friend.”

Now you’re sure that you’re hearing things, but when you turn to look at Sollux, his rapidly-growing expression of panic tells you otherwise.

“What?”

“I-I mean-what I’m trying to say is-f*ck.” Sollux seems to be having an especially hard time looking you in the eye, fidgeting with the blanket you gave him. “I just-never mind, forget I said anything-”

You notice the way his ears are faintly dusting with gold and give him a light tap on the shoulder.

“Go on. I promise I won’t laugh.”

Sollux stares at you out of the corner of his eye, and exhales through his nose, shoulders drooping as he closes his eyes. “Look, I’m not good with words, so I’m only gonna say this once, okay?”

You nod, and he hesitates before taking a deep breath.

“Now don’t get me wrong, I still don’t do ‘friends’ a lot. I don’t know why I feel this way around you, and I still don’t get you. All of this-“ He gestures around him and then at you- “Has only raised more questions than answers about you and… and everything I’ve ever known but… I dunno, I just… Uuuuugh!”

He presses his hands to his face with a groan, turning and walking away with his back to you. You hear him mutter something, and you tilt your head.

“... Yes?”

“My point is, I don’t get you, but you’re… cool, I guess? And if you said that you wanted to hang out some more…” He fiddles with the hem of his shirt, keeping his eyes glued to the floor. “… Then I guess I wouldn’t hate the idea too much.”

You blink. That was not what you had expected his answer to be. “So… we’re friends now?”

“I mean, I guess?” He shrugs, trying to maintain his nonchalance. “I dunno. See it however you want, I’m not in charge of how you feel.”

“Which means you don’t find me annoying or weird? You actually believe that I’m not lying to you?”

“Oh, no, you are super weird,” Sollux says, then grimaces. “But I guess… you’re not… too annoying… And you, y’know, didn’t give me sh*t when I f*cked up last time so…” He shrugs. “Y’know, you’re not an asshole or whatever…”

Is this really happening? After everything that’s happened to you, is something good finally happening? Has the one thing you’ve wished for finally coming to pass?

“You really mean it?” You lean in closer, unable to keep the excitement out of your voice. “I’m not weird enough for you to ditch me? We’re really, actually friends?”

“Yeah, yeah, I do!” Sollux snaps, scrambling backwards, “What do you want from me? To bear my soul like a thirsty teenage girl ripping open her shirt at her favorite rock star’s concert? Because we are not that close, sorry.”

You keep staring, and eventually he sighs, looking down at his hands.

“But I guess, if I had to slap any label onto you, you’d be a… a close acquaintance. Someone I can trust. You’re not getting anything more than that out of me.” He turns and gives you a sharp pout. “There, I said it! I said the thing! Does this stroke your ego? Did you have fun wringing all of that out of me?”

You don’t really know what ‘happy’ feels like. You’ve never really gotten to feel anything above mild enthusiasm ever since that night on the train, but if you had to take a wild guess, you would assume it would be similar to this bubbly warmth forming in your stomach. He trusts you. He doesn’t think you’re full of sh*t. Maybe he doesn’t want to say the word, but if he’s okay with you seeing it as a friendship, then you’re willing to see it that way until something changes.

“I’ll take what I can get.” You rest your cheek on your knee and give him a small smile. “But I am really happy that you see me that way.”

“You-!” Sollux stares, flustered and confused, but when he finally figures out that you’re not talking out of your ass, he turns to look down again, clinging to his legs. “You’re still really weird.”

Sitting down next to him, you lean back against the couch. The rumbling of the distant drone strike has died down, the faint roar of engines fading into the distance.

“I’m very aware of that, thanks.”