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Hand outstretched to her familiar, the Rose Human smiles like a surgeon. Her face is a picture of arrogance, her lips curving not out of amusement, but from unfailing trust in her own gifted hands. Well, possibly a little amusement. Her eyes are bright and clear and fixed on a garish pink island, one of the several small obstacles made of the game’s code. A code easily broken.
Fingers coiled tightly around the Thorn, she raises it towards the dungeon, gathering her strength. Magic requires certain implements, yes, but their use is not absolute; her eyes close and her chest heaves a deep breath, as she calls up her own power to conduct the wand. Dark light licks up her arm.
The eldritch wands are very powerful—Rose is very powerful—and raising the island out of the sea, unmooring it from the roots of LOLAR, is actually as effortless as it looks. Another flick of her wrist and the foundations are crumbling. Her dark energies diffuse through the spaces between stones, tearing. Thick slabs of rock are strewn back into the sea or lay on the beach, colors shifting under the light rain. After a moment all that’s left is the mock-up of the Green Sun, and the floating girl, a tiny black dot eclipsing its brightness.
There’s a noise, an electric crack!, as the huge stone captchacard speeds toward the beach. It crashes on its side, half buried in sand. Sand that cradles Rose’s feet as she floats back down and lands, like it had been waiting for her all along.
Rose’s smile is now more contemplative than smug, and she’s clearly beginning to work out the next steps in the elaborate swordfight against her reality. Obviously, her attention had been somewhat divided by some conversation, pleasant but not entirely engrossing. She just stares at the giant sun, lost in thought. The time to strike: right fuckin now.
|PESTERLOG|
-- caligulasAquarium [CA] began trolling tentacleTherapist [TT] –
CA: wwho are you tryin to convvince wwith this ludicrous poppycock
TT: ?
CA: magic is NOT REAL
CA: wwhatevver youre doin its not real its somethin else outright entirely
CA: its fancy and impressivve and all but its not the fuckin figmental storybook claptrap you wwanna make out like it is
CA: so howw about you get off your high skyhorse
TT: Why do you keep addressing me as if I'm some sort of spokesperson for the reality of magic?
TT: You can't needle me into a defensive posture on the subject. I just don't care.
CA: youre not usin magic just DEAL WW IT
TT: Fine. You win.
TT: These are science wands. I am a charlatan.
CA: ok i didnt say that
CA: because i wwouldnt since its a total fakey lie
CA: im the one who has all the science power not you
TT: ?
TT: This conversation feels both familiar and surreal. Which I can only guess has something to do with you ruining it completely with your usual aplomb.
CA: hey im trying here maybe screwing it up is actually for the best
CA: wwevve already had this talk and it was a total wwaste a time
CA: that ended with you being a huge glubbin bitch
CA: im trying to avoid you getting all high and mighty so wwe can actually talk
TT: So talk.
TT: I doubt you have anything of interest to add to our alternate conversation, but I see no reason not to humor you.
CA: no wwonder kan wwas alwways so stuck on you youre just like her
CA: a big knowwitall wwho doesn’t recognize her place
CA: im a gogdamn prince and a gogdamn scientist testing my lethal hypotheses im not to be patted and coddled like a stupid wwiggler
TT: You still haven’t added anything of substance to what was an already tedious exchange.
TT: Unless you’d like to elaborate on your assertions regarding Kanaya’s fixation on me.
TT: I might not open a vein from boredom if that were our topic.
CA: leavve that coolkid shit to the asshole of time youre no good at it ros
CA: i can see you practically jumping out of your fin to hear more about your little girlcrush
CA: i thought you wwere passin on all that alien romance stuff anyhoww thats wwhat you told me
CA: or wwould a told me wwhatever
TT: One: You’re grossly overestimating my report with Kanaya and misinterpreting our friendship through your own sordid lens.
TT: Two: I took a pass on your specific advances, because you are completely unbearable and more than a little stupid.
TT: (If I were to actually channel Dave, as you allege, I would phrase that sentiment as “You are stone cold retarded.”)
TT: Finally: that was the worst fish pun I’ve ever heard.
CA: wwhatever ros youre so full of shit youre flirtin with me right now
CA: and youre totally flushed for the greenblood its actually really embarrassing to wwatch with you showing off your phony sorcery tryin to impress her all the time
CA: wwheres your self respect ros
TT: Okay. My patience has expired. Goodbye.
CA: no wwait
CA: i just want to chat im lonely caught on this stupid planet lousy wwith angels again like a fuckin fish in a barrel
TT: Hmm. There has to be a more satisfactory way to terminate this exchange.
TT: Ah, I recall now.
caligulasAquarium's [CA'S] computer exploded.
“Dammit Rose!”
Rose was only a little surprised by the sudden shout, but more by the stark new landscape she faced when turned toward the ocean: no color to the sky, just endless white flecked with reeling black-winged figures. Where the turtle-temple had been, there was now an impossibly tall gothic tower, like a medieval cathedral back on Earth. She tried to follow the ornate relief of its arches, higher and higher, but had to turn away from the intense illumination. When she turned her head and blinked, the back of her eyelids stayed seared with white spots.
After a moment of trying to cope with the headache-inducing glare, she opened her eyes, careful to shield them with her hand, and tried to focus on an earth-bound humanoid shape. It seemed to be the source of the unending noise that sounded like a water-soaked sponge trying to speak. She sought a name to attach to the otherworldly strange and immanently punchable face before her.
“Eridan. What is going on?”
“You bleww up my computer, Rose,” he whined. He was certainly no less petulant in person. “And wwe wweren’t done talking, so I came to you.”
“And you brought the carpet bombing of Dresden with you? What is all this?” She tried to make out the details of the birdlike things flying behind him, but couldn’t before the brightness became too much.
“This is my glubbin planet, LOWwAA. Wwrath and angels. Dream bubbles are wweird, you can move places around. Believve it or not, you’re the first person to vvisit me here.”
No sooner than he spoke of dream bubbles did the cheerful brightness of her own Land rush away behind her, taking consorts and stones alike, replaced with more negative space. Rose felt like she was standing in a black and white film strip as it began to burn under a projector’s bulb.
“I can’t imagine why it wasn’t a more popular tourist destination, it’s so pleasant. And you’re such a charming host.”
The troll didn’t look much like what she’d anticipated except for the sneer. His purple getup and dismissive expression actually seemed familiar; Eridan looked like he was from Bushwick by way of Betelguese. To be perfectly fair, with the scarf and the wand and the smolder in his eyes, he looked a great deal like her. It was a disconcerting thought.
Before he could make a reply, she interjected, “So, why am I here? I know you’re desperate for company, but is there a purpose to entrapping me into your idiosyncratic version of Limbo?”
Eridan’s posture shifted and slumped, more tired, more resigned. He looked around, his head low, and he seemed confused as to how, or why, he got there himself. Above, what Rose now gathered were Sburb’s bizarre notion of angels grew more numerous and screechy. The clamor was piercing and shrill.
“I dunno, Rose, it looked like wwe had a pretty dark thing goin on there for a wwhile, so I thought you should be wwho I invvited first. But I knoww, I knoww,” he raised his hands, one open palmed and facing Rose, the other loosely grasping his science stick. “You aren’t into me like that or somethin. That’s fine. Happens evvery time. I just spent so much time in the game alone, I don’t wwant it to be like that anymore.”
Rose always thought of Eridan as pitiful, but seeing his solitude first-hand, the harsh terrain he’d travelled alone, maybe this was the first time he was pitiable. It must have been difficult to face such a planet, no quarter and no comrades; that it was a situation entirely of his own making seemed less important.
“All Sgrub, evverybody wwas busy wwith their own stuff, and I too much goin on here to leavve myself. I had to make sure shit wwas handled, right? Wwell, a little help from my friends shouldn’t a been too much to ask, but wwhenevver I trolled em, they kept blockin me. Just me and these fuckin angels for wweeks!
“And after, wwe wwere all together again, and they still acted like I wwasn’t there! Kan made me this wand and…”
He might have been holding a slug, judged by the sheer disgust on his face as he looked down at his grasping hand. One smooth motion and the wand was gone, pitched away toward the cathedral door. It struck the stone ground and clattered to a stop against the gray flags.
“I do get it. I knoww I suck reel bad. I knoww I’m a pain in the bass to be around.”
“Resuming your nautical punning doesn’t really mitigate those facts, you know.”
“Yeah, just another shitty thing that makes me the wworst. But it’s too late to change noww. I’vve been fuckin things up, pushin people awway for so long, I dunno howw to quit it. I’vve done some... awwful stuff. Evven if I could change or be someone else, nobody’s around to notice anywway. I don’t wwant to be like this, and I’m sorry for all the carp I’vve pulled, but it don’t matter. I’m just stuck, Rose.”
With that one word, stuck, she understood his predicament for the first time. What it would mean to be friendless and trapped, a patient strapped to a cold table, staring down the scalpel and crying out without a sympathetic soul in earshot. She could vaguely remember that fresh panic from when she was all by herself in a null spot of paradox space. How it felt that first time she tried to reach John and got only silence in return. How small and solitary and stuck she felt.
Before, Eridan’s psychology had seemed too simple to really interest her, too disparate to offer any points of empathy. But it was clear they did have some things in common, and if circumstances had been slightly altered, perhaps they would have been mirrors to each other. What really would have become of her, in his position? Forevver alone, a cliché for sure, but also a glass cage with no hinges to at which to pry. Maybe she would have done unspeakable things, actual horrors, instead of the occasional shameful turn of desperation. After so long without anyone who cared, she too would have been beyond caring.
Rose looked on his cowed body, his need naked on his face, with new eyes, slitted against the glare of a world built to torment him beyond enduring. She felt sad, for him of course, but mostly for herself, for the possibility of a girl twisted monstrously under the weight of futility. A girl who knew that the secret of being alone was also being irredeemable. The thought reverberated through her, an echo with a deep, unidentified source; she was suddenly and strangely terrified, but knew no reason why.
She addressed the troll, a distraction from this odd panicky feeling. “I know how difficult that must have been, Eridan. I understand what that’s like, to be backed into a corner and do things you aren’t proud of,” she said softly, coughing once, stepping forward and reaching to touch his hand. She didn’t make it before he jerked back, confused and full of contempt.
“Wwhat?” he stammered. “No you don’t. You’vve got no idea what I’m like. If you did, you’d know I don’t wwant your stinkin pity. The least you could do after fuckin me up so bad is hate me properly.”
“I? How in Skaia did I do you any harm? Unless you’re still upset about your computer’s untimely and explosive demise.” She smiled and tried to make light of his odd rejection. Perhaps his hate for her ran deeper than she imagined, and it would take more for him to let the beginnings of mutual consideration take root.
“No, but that wwas pretty shitty of you, Rose.” His whole posture sagged, long arms and shoulders sliding down and lengthening his shadow. Behind him the angels squealed and swooped, but never came any closer. Was that his doing? Maybe the concentration needed to keep them at bay was weighing on him. “It wwas your stupid fakey fake magic and smarmy bullshit that put all this in motion. You practically fuckin killed me wwith your own pink squishy hands.”
“Pardon me, you’re dead?” Her tone was light and unconcerned, a retreat to amused disinterest, fake as magic itself.
These weren’t the rules she believed governed these situations. She honestly hadn’t anticipated game attributes that would force her to into the unpleasant company of ghostly hipsters. Her consideration of what sort of post-death existence might have been written into the game certainly wasn’t exhaustive, but it was incredibly unlikely that this was it.
“Wwell, yeah, Rose. Wwhy do you think I’m here? Fucking Kanaya sawwed me in half with her lipstick.”
The sheer stupidity of such a statement taken at face value shielded her somewhat from the shock of it. But not enough to keep her from feeling it viscerally like the reverberations of a huge bell rung close to her body. Her heart knocked against her ribs. Her Kanaya? Who was always so… reasonable? Yes, she was coming along in her human cultural studies and clearly had a natural aptitude for snark, yet to Rose she appeared basically kind. It didn’t make sense that her gentle friend, whose only goal matched hers –to get everyone out alive– would stoop to murder someone she had previously treated with annoyed indulgence.
Although Eridan was intensely self-absorbed and somewhat dimwitted, he could still read the confusion passing over Rose’s face and the horror her voice held as it questioningly whispered a dear friend’s name. His death didn’t mean much, oh no, but the descent of a kindred soul to mindless violence? It was like a spade marking a spot on a treasure map. Such a clear shot to needling her into proper caliginous emotion was a boon he wouldn’t refuse.
“She didn’t tell you, huh? Some friend, meddlin in your business but keepin hers a secret. Wwell it’s true, she fuckin flipped her nub and attacked and killed me. Wwhat do you think about that?”
The fact was Rose couldn’t. Yes, she was aware that the trolls were a violent and dangerous species, on an intellectual level. But her stomach was still tying itself in knots and her pulse hammered in her temples. Kanaya is different, she thought, a pleasant girl, a good friend, not capable of harming her own teammate, no matter how useless and aggravating and…
It finally struck her, like a swift kick to the head. She felt incredibly foolish. “Why did she do that, Eridan? And what does it have to do with me?”
He’d perked up a bit, relaying the news of his foul end, but now sunk again; his expression was a mast hit by lightning, cracking and tumbling.
“Wwell she made me that wwand to defeat you, I wwanted to showw you the power of science in person, but wwe all know that wwasn’t happenin. There wwas no hope of getting off that glubbin spacerock, except the one. So when Sol and Fef and then Kan tried to stop me, I used my wwand, and I stopped em first.”
“You aren’t making sense. What did you do?”
He’d looked positively hangdog before, but there was no contrition now. He practically shouted it, horrified and proud. “I fuckin killed em, Rose. Burned a hole straight through Kan and Fef with some righteous fuckin empiricism!”
Speaking it aloud, he seemed again to struggle again with its weight, and his voice came softer. “So I guess I can understand wwhy Kan killed me back.”
Rose’s wand was in her hand and pointed at him in a blink of an eye. Her arm was straight and steady while the tip of the needle wrenched Eridan off the ground, immobilized and alarmed. Prehensile wisps of darkness curled around him, lit against the washed-out sky.
“Wwhat the hell Rose? Put me down!” He croaked, pleading. “She’s back again, alivve. I thought you’d knoww! It’s no big deal!”
Rose paused. Could she trust him? Was Kanaya alive, dead? No matter. The Thorn’s point twisted a little circle in the air, the darkness pressed in and Eridan screamed.
“I’m sorry, I’m glubbin sorry, Rose, you knoww that! Come on! Wwhat do you care anyhoww? You’re dead too. Or are you sleeping? Wwhich Rose are you?”
Her surgeon’s smile, again: cold, cutting and capable.
“Let’s find out.”