nepetaleijon | (no subject)

(no subject)

Three hours, Future Karkat said in the memo.

That gives her enough time to build the fire up, and heat water for tea, and try rearranging the fur pile, and wish she had time to hunt and roast something so she could offer him food when he comes, and consider running down to the bar to get cookies or something, and change her mind, and change her mind again, and rearrange the fur pile again, and finally perch on the rock outcropping outside her cave to see if she can see him coming.

And dive back into the cave as soon as she's sure she does.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Good."

Beat.

"I nefur said it was my ancestor."

"ARE YOU SURE?"

"Yes because I was trying to lead up to that carefully! And then you were all BLAR BLAR DREAMS ARE STUPID and I decided NOT to tell you, so there."

Hrmph.

Shifty. "WELL, IT CERTAINLY IS A MYSTERY THEN."

Man, it is like Sweep's Eve here with all these topics he doesn't want to talk about. He pretty much has the field clear to change the subject to any one of a dozen uncomfortable subjects. "LOOK, JUST BECAUSE ALL THREE OF US HAVE MYSTICAL REVELATORY DREAMS AT THE SAME TIME DOESN'T MEAN THERE IS ANY NEED TO SUBJECT OUR SUPERSTITION GHOSTS TO AN AEROBICALLY STIMULATING JOG ON THE ROTATIONAL ESPLANADE OF CREDULITY. CAN WE JUST RESUME THE NARRATIVE OF WHAT THIS PHANTOM TOLD YOU? "

Her mouth opens a little to say something like you had one too? before she thinks better of it.

Slowly: "She -- there was a lot she didn't tell me exactly. There was a cave, right around here only I tried to find it again and I couldn't, with ... with paintings on the walls. Telling the story of our ancestors."

Karkat doesn't say anything; for once he keeps his everlasting maw shut. He leans back on the fur pile until he's sprawling, and lets his eyes crawl over the markings on Nepeta's own walls--shapes traced in the soot, or sketched in charcoal and ash from the fire, or in ochre or blood or etched with the acidic ichor of the demonbunnies.

Without really thinking about it, she shifts further into the pile and curls on her side, teacup forgotten on the cave floor.

Low: "How much of it do you remember?"

"I WAS PRETTY BUSY DYING AT THE TIME," he says.

Her turn to not say anything.

He hasn't answered her question.

"HE WAS JUST A PUSHY ASSHOLE I HALLUCINATED HASSLING ME WHEN I WAS TRYING TO LAY DOWN AND DIE AFTER MY DENIZEN POISONED ME," he says, shrugging. JUST BUGGING AND FUSSING AND MEDDLING ABOUT ALL THE THINGS I STILL HAD TO DO. HE WAS A PAIN IN THE SEEDFLAP FRANKLY."

"So you didn't ... he didn't show you anything about when he was alive? What he did?"

That ache is starting in her again, hopelessness congealing into a cold lump in her belly.

"Who his furiends were?"

"NO JUST A LOT OF NOISY GARBAGE ABOUT MY RESPONSIBILITIES AND HOW I HAD TO DO ALL THE THINGS HE COULDN'T DO... THE FIRST TIME IT WAS ABOUT HEALING THE LAND AND SAVING MY OWN LIFE AND THE SECOND TIME I GUESS IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE SOMETHING ABOUT GAMZEE. I DON'T KNOW, IT WAS LIKE HE WAS TRYING TO PISS ME OFF."

"I GUESS THAT IS WHAT MADE ME REALIZE," he says grudgingly. "ABOUT HOW EVERYTHING IS FUCKED UP AND BULLSHIT. WHY I HAD TO STOP IT."

She nods, silently.

The hell with silence. "He realized it too. When he was our age. Maybe a little older."

"YEAH, I FIGURED AS MUCH, AND OBVIOUSLY THERE IS NO WAY YOU COULD GET AWAY WITH COMPLAINING ABOUT IT ON ALTERNIA WITHOUT BEING MURDERED HORRIBLY, SO I ASSUME THAT IS WHAT HAPPENED."

"He started an uprising."

Soft; almost reverent.

"Traveled the world to tell efurybody what he remembered. About the world before. And they listened, people listened. He had an enormeows following before the highbloods caught him."

"OKAY..." Karkat says nervously. The obvious sincerity in her voice is making him ten times as uncomfortable as anything before.

"And she ... my Ancestor. She was his Disciple. She followed him everywhere, and she wrote down every story he ever told, and --"

She bites her lip.

Maybe she shouldn't be telling him this.

",,,NEPETA I SWEAR TO ALL THE INAPPROPRIATELY-FONDLING OUTER GODS, IF YOU KISSED ME BECAUSE ONE DEAD POSSIBLY FICTIONAL NOOKSNIFFER CARRIED A BLAZING SCARLET BRAND FOR ANOTHER ONE A BILLION IMAGINARY YEARS AGO THAT WILL BE THE SADDEST THING I EVER DID HEAR."

She bristles a little.

"That wasn't why, you big jerkface."

"OKAY, WELL, IF YOU REMEMBER, THE MYSTERIOUS QUANDARY KNOWN AS WHY IS THE ENTIRE REASON WHY WE STARTED DOWN THIS CULL DE SAC OF DUBIOUS REMINISCES AND SPOOKY SPECTRAL FORERUNNERS, SO. IF IT WASN'T IN IMITATION OF THE STERLING EXAMPLE OF SLOPPY GHOST MAKEOUTS, THEN... WHAT?"

"I'm trying to tell you. Because when we talked before I ran away and I found this cave with the whole story on it, and she was there, and we talked, and she understood because she had to watch him die."

That ... came out a lot sharper than she meant it to.

"YEAH, BUT I STILL DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW THAT TRANSLATES, NEPETA, THAT IS THE WHOLE IDEA HERE. I MEAN IF ANYTHING, WOULDN'T THAT MAKE YOU MORE DETERMINED THAN EVER TO DIG IN YOUR PAWS AND DEMAND I DON'T GO GET MYSELF MASSACRED?"

"HONESTLY I FEEL LIKE I STARTED OUT WITH A DIM GUESS OR AT LEAST HOPE FOR WHAT IT WAS ALL ABOUT BUT THE MORE OF THIS STORY I HEAR THE MORE BAFFLED I GET ABOUT THE WHOLE THING."

"The thing was -- there was a chance you could go and not die. But you were ... like I said. Scared. You thought for sure he was going to kill you and you were going to try anyway. And there was nefur any way I could have talked you out of it, any more than she could have talked him out of doing what he did."

She's looking down again, talking to the fur a few inches in front of her nose. "You couldn't have stayed. I didn't get that until I talked to her. If you'd stayed here, if you hadn't gone back and tried to save him ... you would have broken."

Karkat, once again, looks distinctly uncomfortable. "I THINK THERE IS JUST... ONLY A CERTAIN MEASURE OF MISERY AND SELF-LOATHING ANYONE CAN CHOKE DOWN THEIR SHAME GULLET IN THIS LIFE. EVEN ME. AT A CERTAIN POINT YOU HAVE TO START KICKING BACK OR DIE INSIDE."

"Yeah."

She shifts position, lying on her stomach with her head almost hanging off the edge of the pile, hands under her chin. "And I didn't want you to die inside either. But ... I knew if you went back to try to pacify Gamz33 while you still hated yourself fur -- fur everything else -- you wouldn't be able to do it. He'd kill you. And whether you meant to or not, you'd let him."