nepetaleijon | troll the ancient yuletide wait what?

troll the ancient yuletide wait what?

It is an ancient troll tradition -- one of the few that doesn't involve murdering each other -- to gather behemoth leavings at the turn of the sweep, to celebrate the end of an old year and the start of a new one. The Milliways trolls have divided the tasks between them; Karkat and Kanaya hunting a behemoth leaving, and Nepeta agreeing to stay behind and hunt for materials to decorate it.

Maybe Nepeta's hunt wasn't as dramatic as Karkat and Kanaya's -- and oh, is she ever going to paint that story -- but it was definitely as successful, and she's had some time in her cave to put some of her findings together into proper Twelfth Perigee's Eve decorations. Not all of them, though, which is why when she enters the bar by way of the rear door, she is carrying an enormous heap of assorted ... stuff. Strips of furry and scaly hide, feathers in bunches, things that might be claws, a few evergreen branches, and quite a lot of less identifiable things. Captchaloguing all of this might have been smart, but she's not sure she could find it all again.

Meanwhile Karkat has finished nailing the antlers they brought back to a crosspiece (accomplished while Kanaya was messaging Nepeta to come) and is now putting on the first round of decorations; he is (trying to) top each projection of the antlers with a candle. Since the antlers are twice as long as he is tall and a little higher than the top of his head, he may need the box Kanaya's holding off to one side patiently, waiting for him to give up. Periodically he equips his megaphone and invites the bar proper to an exceedingly multicultural fucking experience.

Anyone want to come have one? Drape a few chains of bird claws or demon bunny teeth over the antlers, or use the crayons and paper to make some slightly more human-friendly decorations. Or feel free to just stand there. And watch.

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Things are winding down. The trolls tend to hit their stride just as the bar starts to empty out for the evening, and by now Kanaya has zonked out on a couch as well; her day-loving ways have caught up to her.

The candles are low and starting to flicker out, multi-colored melted wax coating each individual horn as planned.

He likes it when things work out as planned.

Karkat returns from the Bar with a cardboard box full of the mysterious Earth delicacy known as pizza, which he slops carelessly beside Nepeta before slopping himself carelessly to the ground in the same way.

"HERE. IT IS PEPPERONI AND MUSHROOM, BUT I GOT MICE ON YOUR HALF, SO DON'T SAY I NEVER DID ANYTHING FOR YOU, FURBALL."

"I would nefur say that anyway," she says with dignity.

Or as much dignity as can be assumed when diving into half a pizza.

"Mmmm, peppurroni."

Karkat grunts amicably and gets a slice of his own.

As is traditional in these circumstances, he steals one of hers.

Mice are crunchy. "SO WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT OUR FAKE HOLIDAY? IS THIS ANYTHING LIKE PAST SWEEPS IN YOUR DANK CAVE?"

Crunch crunch crunch.

"It's ... diffurent." Thoughtfully. "Having so many other people around, instead of just being home with your lusus."

"YEAH."

"IT WAS WEIRD BEING THE ONES TO HUNT DOWN THE LEAVING, TOO."

It's hard. It's hard not being able to be a kid and having to try to be grown-up, and very few people understand.

"WHAT DID YOU GUYS DO? BACK IN THE NIGHT."

"Oh, you know. The mewsual."

She gnaws on a mouse bone contemplatively.

"Pounce would go out and drag back the behemeowth leaving, and we'd decorate it with feathers and t33th and stuff, and I'd paint pictures all ofur it, and we'd have something special fur dinner. I think last year we had roast rawrochs. With baleserpent dumplings."

"MY LUSUS ALWAYS WANTED TO MAKE A BIG RIDICULOUS THING OUT OF IT, IT WAS PRETTY EMBARRASSING."

Karkat will eat mouse kidneys, but not crusts; as he leans forward to toss into the box, he gives Nepeta a friendly shoulder bump.

She shoulder-bumps him back, gently.

"You miss it too, huh."

Karkat jerks his head back towards her and frowns, then leans in to close the gap and kisses her.

Edited 2012-12-23 18:43 (UTC)

~~Better than sullenly glaring at the pizza.~~

When the kiss breaks, she shifts a little closer to nestle against him.

"I've missed that."

""WELL, I HAVE SOME GOOD NEWS ABOUT THAT, THEN, I GUESS."

Without tight focus on this particular memory, the bar drifts a little; this was before the relocation, so there are plenty of subtle details that shift in and out of focus, based on their mutual subconscious recollections of the place. The decorated behemoth leaving shifts and blurs into a pair of snowy lions, and a cold draft flutters their hair.

With dawning realization: "Oh that's right, I'm asl33p."

Beat.

"What kind of good mews?"

"I HAVE MY BODY BACK. EVERYTHING IS BACK TO NORMAL."

"I MEAN, I HAVE MY FAKEY FAKE FRAUDULENT MILLIWAYS GHOST BODY BACK, AND EVERYTHING IS BACK TO NORMAL EXCEPT FOR BEING FORKED OFF OF THE ALPHA TIMELINE."

"Oh!" She sounds more startled than anything else. "How?"

Shrug! "HOW DOES ANYTHING EVER HAPPEN? SHENANIGANS."

Something comes into focus on the wall; his door. It's shaped like a hexagon, like a six-sided stone slab, and the symbol for Blood gleams redly from grooves hacked into the rock.

He glares at it. There's nowhere for him to go back to. He shouldn't have a door anymore. Let alone one so fucking ominous.

If Nepeta notices it (or can see it at all), she's ignoring it with great panache.

"So where are you now? Sl33ping?"

He shrugs. "I GUESS. THERE WAS SOME KIND OF PRIMITIVE HUMAN BLOOD RITUAL GOING ON AND IT SORT OF... TIPPED THE BALANCE. I WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF TALKING TO KANAYA AND THEN I WAS OUTSIDE FLOPPED OUT IN THE MUD LIMBS AKIMBO."

"SHE TRACKED ME OUT THERE AND DRAGGED ME INSIDE TO GET CLEANED UP."

Karkat's subconscious is used to a static wardrobe, but now that he's reminded himself, his clothing blurs and adjusts. Black jeans (instead of the stiff canvas cargo pants he usually wears), lightweight grey sneakers instead of his heavy black clodhoppers, and a dark grey t-shirt with the ~ath logo, and short sleeves.

Hr frowns. "AND THEN I GUESS I PASSED OUT? IF I WAKE UP DISCORPORATED AGAIN I AM GOING TO FLIP MY IMMATERIAL SHIT."

If this dream-bubble thing is going to keep happening, he needs to be consistent about sleeping in sopor.

Edited 2012-12-25 03:45 (UTC)

"I should come ofur," she says firmly. "To make sure you don't wake up discrawrporated."

"WELL, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT IF I AM?" he says, practically. "I WILL MESSAGE YOU WHEN I'M AWAKE AND LET YOU KNOW THE SCORE."

"Rawr, fine." Slightly sulky; her tail lashes side to side, but only once.

"COME ON, DON'T BE LIKE THAT, I HAVE SUCCESSFULLY MADE THE LEAP OUT OF YOUR IMAGINATION INTO THE MATERIAL WORLD, THIS SHOULD BE A TIME OF CELEBRATION."

"That's the whole point," she starts.

Whatever the whole point is may have to wait, as Nepeta has just vanished.

SIIIIIIIGN.

Fine whatever.

The dreambubble grows more diffuse, without a second person to anchor it. Karkat slips out the backdoor of the bar as it tries to morph into the computer room of the lab; he has no interest in going back there. Outside light erupts from the lake, and smoke from the peak of the mountain; plentiful frogs leap out of way as he kicks through the long grass. He strides along...

...comes to the sandy strand along the lakeside...

the beach rolls and pitches, a hot wind blows, and time and space yaw around him

its

chaotic

being aimless, in a place like this

the shimmering technicolor satellites he and kanaya saw in the sky of a dying world, a human year ago, swim into view, and out of it

some majestic horses gallop by, for no adequately explained reason

the wind whistles around his ears...

....something glints in the sand far off, and...

...and then suddenly he is falling, rolling down the dune, squawking and sputtering and trying to stop himself, but he can't because his legs won't work, they feel... invisible, and there has got to be a better way to say that and he SHOUTS

and there is a warm weight draped over his legs from the knees down, and the faint rumbly noise of someone purring.

And the faaaaintest suggestion of claws hooked into the fabric of his jeans, as though to anchor the sleeping catgirl against any jostling.

Between that and Kanaya weighing down his shoulder, he isn't going fucking anywhere.

This is completely unacceptable.

He begins to grumble, and automatically the jadeblood begins to sleepily pap at his face and whisper quiet shooshy noises; he settles for seething silently, and before long he is so angry that he falls back asleep.

Which is definitely a thing that can happen to people. You are just so angry you spontaneously pass out. This is science.

This time there aren't any dreams.

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troll the ancient yuletide wait what?

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