Chapter Text
Difficultly you turn your head, ending face to face with the small troll (at least from your perspective lying on the floor with her on top of your back, and compared to the height of Aradia and the other two trolls she seems slightly short) whose yellow eyes are looking directly at you. Her hair is short and wild, black like that of the rest of the trolls. On her head she wears an electric blue hat with a small white cat face drawn in the front, strategically placed under two holes for the horns that make them look like two cat ears. The paint is worn and slightly cracked in some places, making the drawn face look much older than necessary. It's the first alien you see that is dressed with more than only one color, and the olive green trench coat, too long at your point of view, stands out. At least this seems to do its job keeping at least a few minutes away from the freezing the slightly trembling alien.
":33 <* ac pounces on the unknown intruder, trapping her like an unsuspecting prey *".
Her voice is sweet, and for some reason it seems to combine with her adorable and catlike appearance. As for what she says... is she roleplaying? Why does she speak in the third person? What kind of name is AC? Is that even her real name?
While your head is still occupied in these questions, someone else seems to recognize the catlike alien.
"NePeTa?"
The female raises her head, and for a moment her mouth opens in amazement looking at the two trolls that just a few seconds ago you were leading.
":33 < gamz33? tavros? what are you doing here? where are the others?" she asks.
"uH, wE... sHE BROUGHT US HERE" the shy one says, and you can imagine how cold he is just by the way you hear his teeth chatter "w-wE DO NOT KNOW WHERE THE OTHERS ARE..."
You're pretty sure the other alien (the one with the white makeup on his face and the purple sign of Capricorn in his shirt) is about to speak, when suddenly the situation is interrupted by another voice joining the strange dialogue.
"wait!" You make an effort to stretch your head and your eyes finally manage to see Aradia, who runs to the place, her hair moves with the cold wind that started only a few minutes ago. She does not stop until she faces the alien dressed in olive green, who raises her head to look at her curiously "she is the 0ne I t0ld y0u ab0ut"
":// < ... oh..."
As comical as it may seem, that is the only thing she says, and, just a second later, you feel like all the weight is being removed from your back. Carefully you get up, shaking the snow off your body. You sigh and raise your head to see the olive troll, who now shrinks slightly, while Aradia directs a pleading look at you.
You raise an eyebrow with confusion. "What?".
":(( < ... i am sorr-i mean! *ac laments having attacked the kind alien... * " she murmurs, her sweet and kind voice is tinged with shyness and regret. And then you understand: oh god, does she think you're going to leave her out here just for that? Oh poor thing... it would never occur to you to do something like that, no matter how annoying or stupid the person was... You could never do something so evil.
You smile kindly at the worried catlike alien, carefully to not to scare her. "It's okay, I know you did not do it on purpose, I really... I don't really care" she blinks and her mouth opens slightly, she really seems surprised at how good you are taking things. A small childish laugh escapes from between your lips as the memories flow to you. "Besides, it's not even the first time that someone just pulls me into the snow," you say, gently rubbing the back of your neck; maybe you get a little bit too excited playing in the snow... just maybe...
The alien blinks again, before finally a childlike smile breaks through her face slightly flushed with a soft olive green blush, and she makes a sound that (you could have sworn) it sounds exactly like a purr.
":33 < * ac thanks the cute alien fur her help! *" she speaks again and...
... Wait, cute?
You ignore your new thoughts, and you make an effort to talk with the almost invisible blush on your cheeks being noticed as little as possible by any of the aliens near you.
"Y-Yes, err... you're welcome! W-Well, now we'd better go back home and find something to warm everyone, right?"
You do not hear the soft murmur that is Nepeta's laughter before she and the other trolls (most of whom at this moment had some kind of expression of surprise or curiosity on their faces after seeing the scene between you and the alien of olive clothes) nod slightly, many of them impatient to be closer to even the smallest source of heat.
"Then let's go," you say, turning around and, with the help of Aradia, beginning to guide the three new trolls in the road to the large and comfortable house of average temperature. Or at least that's the way it is until, in the middle of the road, the same alien from before, "Nepeta", decides to stand in the middle of the road, her head tilts slightly pointing towards a distant area of pines of the great fields of the property.
"What happens?" you ask.
"..." she makes a small pause while closing her eyes, her head is stretched a little more in the aforementioned direction. The position reminds you of when a cat tries to hear the sound of a prey in the distance.
":33 < there is someone else here"
...
Silence, that was the best word to describe Terezi's situation at this moment. She was cold, lost, and with only the sound of Eridan's footsteps in the snow to accompany her in this strange white place where she was. Her nose had gotten worse, and now that strange sticky liquid kept coming out every time she tried to breathe deeply. The few colors that her defective sense of smell still allowed her to detect alternated between the white of the place and the dark brown of the strange trees against which she had more than once crashed, leaving to her unappreciated companion of violet blood to guide the way.
And suddenly the footsteps stopped.
"WH4T-"
"shut up, i heard somethin"
And indeed, he had; Eridan had just heard the footsteps belonging to a small group in which, he did not know, there were several of his companions and the ‘human’ alien who was guiding them around the place at that moment. The male troll kept his rifle high and cautiously approached the area where the sound came from.
What happened next was very confusing for the teal-blood troll located a little further back. Probably if someone (someone with the same orientation skills that she had at that time) had described the next scene she/he would have started describing the great crack of a nearby tree branch moving away and a scream, immediately followed by what sounded like a hit, and more screams and shrieks of varied voices. Familiar odors immediately came to the troll female's nose, slightly diffused by her momentary loss of her sense of smell. The first one was the purple... deep and strong purple, with slight traces of facial paint and old smell of faygo... olive green, dew and wet earth, wild herbs of her home planet... bronze and slight traces of lusus' hair, burgundy, death, earth and ashes... yes, it definitely had to be them. However, there was something else, a smell that she could not recognize as familiar... (f/c) and... (your favorite fragrance)?
Terezi muttered something in confusion, but she soon was interrupted by a not very friendly grunt and a too familiar voice...
"fuck, get awway from me fuckin land dwweller!"
And another one not so familiar...
"What the hell?! Is that a rifle?! DOES HE HAVE A RIFLE?!" Terezi could not understand why the voice reacted like this for something like a rifle, in Alternia the weapons were something more than normal for anyone who was lucky enough to be able to afford one... or get them by other methods. She muttered something again, her confused head beginning to spin and her arms and legs starting to feel stiff from the deep cold.
You separated for a moment your look from who, you thought so far, was the most rude and obvious sign of your cultural difference with the alien race and you turned to look at the other female alien. Obviously she was cold; she was trembling, her cheeks and nose were illuminated with a teal blush, but the strange color did not prevent you from feeling sympathy and concern for the alien on the verge of freezing. God! What the hell was wrong with these aliens and the short clothes?!
Now a little bit more worried you managed to contain your anger with the strange alien with the violet cape and the glasses and... gills? Shit, you should ask later. Instead of that at that time you made an effort to fix the situation with the male, who, although he did not seem to take anything sympathetically your words and refused your insistent attempts to help him get up off the ground (where he was since you had accidentally hit him with one of the branches of a nearby tree due to panic by his weapon the first time you saw him), he did not make too many criticisms (at least not out loud) when you offered to take him to a warmer place. And the reason clearly ran through his body in the form of violent chills, slowed slightly by his apparent warm clothes, scarf and cape (well... that was a progress...).
Meanwhile the rest of your companions of another species seemed to try to warm up the female who, you just noticed, wore some strange red glasses (maybe that was how the alien sunglasses were?) and explain her the situation. Once everything seemed to calm down a little more you came back to somewhat uncomfortable direct them to the way to your house, luckily without no more interruptions on the way there...
...
Nepeta purred complacently, approximately fifteen minutes had passed since the strange alien had brought them to her hive, and the olive-blood alien had enjoyed each one of the seconds in front of the "fireplace" (that was how (y/n) called the strange but amazingly warm construction), wrapped in soft and warm blankets as if they were the best in her whole life. The others also seemed to be enjoying the new warmth; Tavros and Gamzee were wrapped in blankets, sitting together on the "couch" (another one of the strange words of the alien), Eridan was standing in a corner, wrapped in his own cape after repeatedly rejecting (in a way that Nepeta did not think was kind) the blankets of the alien, and Terezi seemed to start to recover slowly, her face was a little bit less teal, while she clung to her own blankets not too far from the olive-blood troll.
A noise came from behind, and the lowblood turned to see how Aradia (who incredibly seemed to have been protected from the cold thanks to the strange clothes of the alien) and (y/n) walked towards the room talking, the concern made the alien of strange pink skin frown.
"The snowstorm is starting again, if we want to have any chance of rescuing the rest of your companions we have to go now..." Aradia nodded with an aura of concern on her face to the words of the female alien, who spoke again thoughtfully.
"We have checked the north area of the property... so if they are around here they have to be in the south ..." she said and then nodded, as if she was trying to reinforce her confidence in her words "I'm going out"
(y/n) gave a small smile to Aradia when the troll immediately offered to go with her, quickly followed by the small olive-green alien, who jumped like a rabbit at the slightest thought of finding her lost moirail. She gladly accepted their help, but had to reject that of the other troll guests, who were clearly also eager to help their lost friends, but it was even more clearly for (y/n) that it would not be good for them to return to the cold so soon.
So the young human quickly got some warm clothes for the catlike female alien, and the three went out again, hoping to find the rest of their companions.
...
Feferi was not cold. No, she really did not feel cold at all; the cold had stopped long ago, replaced by a strange feeling of numbness in her arms and legs, and in general most parts where the cold had attacked to the fuchsia-blood, and yet she could not say which one of the two (numbness or cold) was more unpleasant.
The sensation of rigidity remained while her companions surprised welcomed the arrival of Aradia and Nepeta, along with the strange new alien. Feferi would have liked to interrupt the dispute that immediately arose among her companions to say that she thought it was quite reliable and kind from her to invite them all to her hive to warm up, but she felt too dizzy and numb to get up from the ground covered with the strange, white, cold earth. Why was she still trembling? She did not feel cold anymore... She was no longer cold...
Why did she not stop shaking?
Why did her legs and arms feel so numb?
Why did she feel so... dizzy?
...
You were right, you were COMPLETELY RIGHT: they were there. And you were a fool by thinking that you could just go and convince them all to go with you... agg, it had already been luck that none of the others had attacked you simply by approaching them from behind! Why the hell did you think you could convince the rest of them just by being nice?!
Ok... sincerely you could not have had space in your chest for nothing but happiness and pride when you saw Aradia and Nepeta meet again with their partners, who for the first time since the scant five minutes that you had been here seemed to have happiness on their faces just by seeing again their lost companions, and their attention seemed not to be completely focused on their more than obvious discomfort due to the cold.
It really was a shame that you had to be there...
You sighed as you watched the small discussion between the group of aliens in front of you, while you leaned against a tree, among other things afraid that some of them would attack you if you try to talk with them, while secretly listened to the conversation, pretending to watch to another place...
"WHAT THE HELL GIRLS? HAVE YOU GONE CRAZY?!".
"Karkat, Please Calm Down. Clearly They Are Just Trying To Help Us"
":33 < it's true karkitty! she's nice! why can't you come too?"
"D --> Nepeta, I'm afraid that this time I share the opinion of the lowblood, it could be dangerous for you".
You recognized the familiar sound of a childish grunt before the female olive troll's voice spoke again ":(( < i can defend myself!"
"i am with her"
"aa?"
"OH MY GOD, DO YOU REALLY BELIEVE HER? WHO THE FUCK TELLS YOU THAT ‘THAT’ IS NOT GOING TO ATTACK WHEN SHE HAS US WITH HER?!"
‘That’?! What the fuck?! That's it! that guy just crossed the line! You quickly stood up, for the first time being face to face with the alien who is simply treating you like a serial killer and had referred to you like an FUCKING ANIMAL!
"Sorry, but to begin with, I AM NOT A ‘THAT’, and you can not talk to me just like that" you said, your fury clearly legible in your voice. However, the alien in the gray sweater and with the extremely high voice did not seem intimidated.
"DO YOU THINK I AM AN IDIOT?! WHO THE HELL ARE YOU TO COME HERE AND TRY TO TAKE US WITH YOU? YOU HAVE TO BE REALLY A MORON IF YOU THINK WE'RE GOING TO FALL FOR SOMETHING SO FOOLISH!".
"What?! Why should I want to do something like that?! I'm just trying to help! You clearly need some kind of heat source right now" you said, pointing to the way the other aliens trembled and shivered violently, near to you and the stubborn alien with rounded horns "Unless, of course, any of you have a strong desire to have HYPOTHERMIA" you practically ended the sentence shouting.
That did not seem to do more than just annoy the other alien, who finally started shouting REALLY LOUD (later you would thank to god for being in the middle of nowhere and that nobody could hear the embarrassingly loud discussion). You in turn kept responding with all your strength, which ended pretty quickly in the two locked in a noisy discussion. Well... to be honest, things may could be getting a little violent at that point...
Flop.
Your screams, complaints and insults are suddenly stopped by a thud, like something falling on the snow, and you both turn at once to look at the strange troll dressed in fuchsia...
... who is lying on the ground, unconscious