Constants & Variables - Act 3.4

[nobrandhero]

Read on Dreamwidth under the cut, or over on AO3.

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"Rose, please rethink this." Kanaya hurried ahead of Rose and turned to face her, blocking her path. "I know these are literally alien matters to me, but I'm fairly certain you're taking a needlessly large risk."

Rose sighed and stepped around Kanaya. "You're meddling, Kanaya."

"Well, perhaps sometimes that is all right!" Kanaya caught Rose by the arm as she passed. "Perhaps I should stop holding myself back for fear of judgment and meddle when the situation calls for it!"

Rose narrowed her eyes. She could break away with ease if she wanted -- she could feel that Kanaya's strength did not come close to rivaling her own -- but that wouldn't solve the argument in the long-run. "This is not the most convenient moment for you to re-examine your flaws in the pursuit of personal growth."

"That is exactly the kind of judgmental nonsense I am trying to stop listening to!" Kanaya said.

Rose would have crossed her arms if she'd had them both free. "And when will you know that you're truly in the right, if the opinions of others suddenly mean nothing?"

"When my lack of action will result in the harm of my friends!"

One of Rose's computers beeped. "Shit." She shook Kanaya's hand off. "Let go a moment. The others might have found something, or worse." She grabbed the nearest computing device from her sylladex, which happened to be a small tablet, and tried to swallow her worry as she checked the newest string of messages from Dave.

-- turntechGodhead [TG] began trolling tentacleTherapist [TT] --

TG: in before jade or someone else lets it slip
TG: im kinda in a jam over here
TG: but shit is under control were cool this setback is so minor it cant even buy sopor slime without showing an id
TG: it has to let its lusus do all the cocoon shopping thats how minor this setback is
TG: just waiting on jade no big deal
TG: hows shit on your end getting some quality alone time with kanaya or whatever
TG: not that i want details on that crap unlike you who probably is dying to hear about all the weird shit i get up to with terezi
TG: which you will never be privvy to
TG: sorry for denying your dreams
TG: youll just have to settle for your creepy pervy novels
TG: hey maybe you and vantas can start a book club and swoon over all the erotic subtext together
-- tentacleTherapist [TT] is now Busy! --
TG: fine fuck you i dont need you to ignore me ive got a dead blockmate for that

-- turntechGodhead [TG] ceased trolling tentacleTherapist [TT] --

Rose facepalmed. "Goddammit, Strider." She closed Trollian and fought the urge to log out entirely, but the "Busy" status would hopefully be enough to ward off any other non-emergency notifications. At least it was probably safe to assume he didn't actually need her help if Jade was already en route -- especially when his rambles were of the bored variety instead of the nervous variety.

Kanaya watched Rose's computer, though the screen was turned away from her. "What's wrong?"

"He's fucked something up." Rose returned the computer to her sylladex. "Drastic enough that he's called Jade for help, not so drastic that he's not up to trolling me out of sheer boredom."

"You see how much we need you concentrating on the task at hand instead of straying off-path for your own personal quest? Already the other groups are struggling to finish their missions without hiccups."

"They can't afford to rely on me all the-" She froze, sensing an unmistakeable pang of approaching danger. She touched a hand over Kanaya's mouth, keeping her own lips tight, and shook her head. Kanaya seemed to catch on, as she stayed quiet and followed Rose to the edge of the corridor with light footsteps.

They huddled together and waited in silence, switching between glancing around and studying each other's faces. Kanaya stayed on high alert, but her breathing and movement was steady instead of quick in panic, as would have been more than appropriate given the situation. It might have been coincidence, but Rose couldn't help wondering if Kanaya was so calm because she trusted in Rose to keep them both safe.

A short line of drones passed one of the nearest intersecting corridors. Rose counted six altogether and none of them so much as paused long enough to spot the two intruders hiding in plain sight just down the hall.

She waited until she was sure the drones were a safe distance before murmuring, "We should be good for a while."

Kanaya straightened, still staring towards the hall that the drones came from. "Could we handle even one of those on our own?"

"One? Most certainly." Rose beckoned her to follow. "The reinforcements that one drone will alert? The probability of our victory gets foggier there."

"And you think you have a chance against the person who controls them?"

"I should hope I have at least a chance." She came to a halt in the middle of the hallway, facing a door for the first time that didn't lead to stairs. "Especially seeing as she's just beyond that door."

Kanaya tensed and darted in front of the door, holding her arms out to block Rose. "Then you should stay far from here. Don't even tempt yourself to go in there."

Rose stared Kanaya straight in the eyes. "Please don't make me fight you too, Kanaya," she said quietly.

Kanaya's arms fell to her side and her entire posture drooped. "This matters that much to you?" she whispered.

"My lusus told me for my entire life that I must cast aside my heritage and never approach my ancestor, that I'll never be strong enough to take her on." Rose cupped one side of Kanaya's face. "I need to finally confront this. I need to end this chain as a fuchsiablood."

Kanaya caught Rose's hand. "What will we do if you're taken over by the glitch?"

"If it will put your mind at ease, I truly don't think I will be."

"Then what will we do if you're dead?"

Rose smiled. "You'll finish what I couldn't."

"Rose, don't do this." Kanaya's voice broke.

"I swear," Rose whispered, "I wouldn't be acting entirely for my own selfish desires if I didn't sense that this is necessary in some way."

"I-intuition or y-your Seer ability?" Kanaya visibly swallowed, keeping her face stiff.

"At this point, the two have grown so intertwined that I can't tell the difference."

Kanaya wrapped her arms around Rose. "Please don't kill yourself."

"I have zero intention to." Rose kissed her cheek. "I won't make you watch this. Wait for me and please don't let the others interfere if they find out?"

Kanaya clung to her tightly. "A-all... all right. If I'm not allowed to meddle... no one else will either."

Rose nodded and extracted herself from Kanaya's grip, facing only a little resistance. Kanaya stayed rooted in place, but she didn't stop Rose from slipping past her, only turning her head to watch after. Rose could feel her gaze even as she stepped through the door, all the way until it closed behind her.

Most of the ship's design felt almost monotonous in its unchanging scenery, but the block Rose stepped into broke all previous patterns. It was set up almost as an observation deck: three of the four walls were transparent and looked out onto the ship's immediate surroundings, which just then were Alternia's nighttime skies. Watching a planet approach or the stars flash by must have been quite an experience.

An adult troll clothed in a black and fuchsia dress stood staring out the windows, her back to Rose. The empress looked over her shoulder.

It was like staring into a mirror that showed her adult self instead of her present form: the Luminary had the exact same horn shape as Rose, as well as a similar facial structure. Her body sparked with static, though she suffered fewer distorting graphical glitches than Gamzee or Daveglitch had.

She only looked a couple of sweeps older than Rose -- old enough for her eyes to have changed from gray to fuchsia, but not all that much older. Rose wondered if that was a side effect of being possessed by the glitch or if another factor was at work.

"1 d0+n't kn0w how t^he helL y0u're here," the Luminary said, her voice distorted by a robotic filter, "but ifFf y0u don't l=eaVe 1'm gonna hav/e t0 k1ll y0u aNd that'd kin%da su#ck for boTh 0f us."

Rose cocked her head. Clearly the glitch wasn't exerting complete control over the empress, unless it had adapted a rather different style of speaking. "I'll give you credit for sparing your would-be sucessors from life as a glitch's puppet," Rose said. "That's impressively selfless for someone in your position. Unfortunately, I don't have time for a well-meaning death." She equipped her best needles. "I'd appreciate if you'd just surrender, but I will be your downfall regardless."

"S0r*ry, g1rL." The Luminary turned to face her. "I th_0ught be1Ng em(presS s0uNDed c%00l as hell toO, but thi$ iSn't so#meThiNg y0u acTua/lly wa!nt."

Rose smiled bitterly. "You're right. I don't. But my wants aren't what's important here."

The Luminary pulled a rifle from her specibus, holding it at her side. "S0u_nDs liKe you'r%e jusT a fuck1ng duMm*y t0 me."

Rose raised her weapons. "The worst part is that I can't actually argue."

* * *

Dave gaped at the Sufferer, too off-guard to remember he should even attempt an air of indifference. "Oh my god, you're supposed to be dead, what the fuck."

"Sorry for being so inconsiderate." The maybe-probably-Sufferer cleared his throat but it still sounded as if it was difficult for him to form words. "Next time I'll try to bite the dust in time not to disappoint some random pupa." He raised his head with a quiet groan and the chains attached to his cuffs rattled as he shifted as much as his restraints would allow. He looked only eight or nine sweeps at most. "The fuck are you doing here?"

"Thought it looked like a good place for a slam poetry meet, don't ya think?" Dave gestured an arm at their dark and empty surroundings. "Nah, dude, a couple of goddamn drones threw me in here, probably because they mistook me for you. The hell else do you think happened?"

The Sufferer didn't react, staring hard at Dave with an unreadable expression. "You're a mutant."

Dave slapped his shades back on, reinstating his pokerface with them. "Oh yeah, well, you're the, uh... the Sufferer or whatever, so I think you count as the bigger surprise around here."

"That's my new title, huh?" The Sufferer frowned. "The old one already sounded like shit, but guess I could always use a little extra salt in the wound."

Dave stared a moment. He'd kind of been expecting a challenge to his assumptions, not a confirmation. "Fuck, my friends are gonna be so damn smug that you're real, let alone alive somehow. Dude, how the hell have you survived this long?"

The Sufferer sighed. "I don't fucking know and by this point I've stopped fucking caring."

"Seriously, man." Dave peered closer at Sufferer for signs of age -- he couldn't be young -- but he still looked no older than nine sweeps. "Defying a natural lifespan aside, everyone thought you got executed."

"Wouldn't know what they told anyone on the outside, but I'm not surprised if they spread a fake rumor about my death. No one stages a rescue for a corpse." The Sufferer scoffed. "Not that my captor is sane enough to think that logically."

"What, the empress?"

"Shut the fuck up." The Sufferer fixed Dave with a glare so harsh that Dave took a step backwards. "I meant the goddamn piece of shit controlling her that kept babbling about loops and time."

"Oh, cool," Dave said, standing up extra straight to try to recover from his stumble. "You know about our good friend the murderous glitch from hell."

"That bastard's public knowledge now?"

"Eh, kinda-sorta not really." Dave turned his hand one way, then the other. "How the hell'd you figure out the Luminary's possessed and she's not just more same ol', same ol' psycho highblood at work?"

"Because Roxy was my best friend before she became the damn empress. The thing calling the shots right now ain't making decisions she'd ever fucking approve of," the Sufferer said, his voice heavy with spite.

Dave paused. "Okay, was kinda expecting to hear something about static and robotic voice filters. That there just sounds fucking sad." He stuck his hands in his pockets. "Wasn't your whole rebellion about taking down the government, empress included?"

"That's generally what rebellions are about, kid."

Dave cocked his head. "What, so you start one up knowing your friend's at the top of the chain?"

"Didn't realize it was her 'til the end." The Sufferer sighed. "Shit was complicated. Long story."

"Neither of us are going anywhere, dude, and your stories sound more entertaining than mine." Dave shrugged.

"Whatever." The Sufferer was quiet for long enough that Dave was pretty sure he wasn't going to continue, then he said, "The last empress just got dethroned when Roxy contacts me on Trollian with some fucked up quirk and begs me to kill the new fuckin' empress. I never hear from her again and assume some other heiress musta offed her in order to take the empire. No idea why she told me I oughta drop everything and overthrow the goddamn government if it's too late for her anyway, but I figure, hey, the government wants me dead either way. Might as well give them a real reason to cull me."

Dave nodded. "Kinda sounds like you tried to overthrow the government on a whim."

"More or less."

"Badass, dude." Dave raised an arm. "I'd fistbump you if that were feasible on your end."

The Sufferer's mouth twitched into the slightest smirk. "Yeah, we kicked a lot of ass and were pretty damn near unstoppable. Could've taken down the entire system."

"So what went wrong?"

The smile faded. "I fucked up," he said, voice hollow. "You can use your own imagination to figure out why I'm stuck here now."

Dave shifted his weight and frowned. "Uh. That's gotta suck bulge, man."

"Thanks for stating the obvious so I don't have to." The Sufferer's gaze traveled over Dave from top to bottom. "You wanna make yourself useful, kid?"

"Depends on if I feel like it."

"Kill me."

It took a couple of seconds for the words to even sink in, then Dave waited an extra five seconds for some indicator that he'd misheard or that the Sufferer just had a morbid sense of humor. "Why the fuck?"

"Why the fuck do you think? You'd wanna keep living after sweeps locked up in these things?" The Sufferer pulled at his cuffs enough to make the chains rattle. "If I could've done it myself, I would have by now."

Dave stepped closer. He wasn't actually sure how he felt about killing someone in cold blood, but hey, the Sufferer should've died sweeps ago (and wanted to), so why not? Dave faltered as he made contact with the Sufferer's neck. His skin was warm and moved in synch with his breathing. Fuck, maybe he could have handled the task with a sword, but Dave couldn't just press down on that. "This is fucking stupid."

"You're not gonna do it?" the Sufferer said wearily.

"Nah." Dave reached up. "Instead of unnecessarily drastic shit, maybe we should just start with busting out of here."

"Wait, don't-" The Sufferer yanked his wrists as far from Dave as the chains would allow, but not in time to stop Dave from touching one of the cuffs in search of a weak point.

The metal burned as if it had come straight out of an oven, somehow maintaining its heat even sweeps later -- because trolls had too much damn freetime to design torture devices, clearly. Dave yanked his hand back. "Shit!" He stuck the worst of the damage into his mouth.

"You're not a very smart pupa, are ya?" The Sufferer's stare was infuriatingly unimpressed.

"Shut up. Oh my god." Dave sucked on his aching finger, for as much as it barely numbed the pain. There was no way he'd be able to tear those cuffs off with his bare hands. "Tell me that shit's less fucking molten on the inside."

"Can't say I've had the pleasure of touching the outside for comparison, but 'fucking molten' ain't too far off from what I've got. Now do you get why I want you to kill me and get it over with?"

Dave examined the wound on his finger. He'd touched the metal for less than a second and already it was showing a mark -- and it still fucking stung. If anything was gonna convince him that maybe there were worse fates than dying, having that kind of heat applied to his skin nonstop was probably near the top of that list.

All he had to do was hold his hands against the Sufferer's throat until he stopped breathing. That was easy, right? Except first he had to lift his arms and admit he was willing to go through with it. "Man, I never killed a troll before," he mumbled.

The Sufferer grew still, then he sighed. "Forget it."

Dave tried not to relax or show any other signs that he'd never been so relieved to not have to murder someone.

"Got a name, kid?" the Sufferer asked.

Dave fought to regain his pokerface, anything to reinstate his faltering confidence, and said with no inflection, "Dave Strider."

The Sufferer's head snapped completely straight for the first time. "Is that a fucking joke?"

Dave scowled. "Hey, fuck you, my name is awesome."

"You're damn right it is. Because it's my name."

Dave's mouth went dry. Great, so the Sufferer was real and so were ancestors. "Well, one of us is gonna have to change, 'cos there are way too many Daves running around already."

The Sufferer smirked, just a touch. "I just meant Strider, you purposefully obtuse shithead," he said. "How'd you get that name?"

"Yeah, I might be your descendant."

"I don't buy into that crap."

"It sounded like dumb highblood shit to me too, but I can't really argue at this point, seeing as I just found a Strider who looks kinda like me with my horn shape and my blood color." Dave shrugged. "What're you called if you're not a Dave?"

The Sufferer considered Dave for a moment before he said, "Dirk."

"Sweet." Dave nodded. "Can I call you Dirk instead of Sufferer or am I being too presumptuous to even ask?"

"If I never hear 'Sufferer' again, it'll be too soon." Dirk rolled his eyes. "Ain't such a thing as presumptuous around me, kid, so don't worry about highblood etiquette."

"Thank god, that was awkward as shit anyway."

"Look, kid-" Dirk hesitated. "Dave. Even if the ancestor-descendant thing were real, I never sent any genetic material to a mothergrub. Even if I'd bothered trying, she'd never have accepted it. I don't know how you got my name, but it's literally impossible for us to be related."

"And under sane circumstances, you'd be totally right." Dave wandered next to Dirk and leaned back against the wall. "But unfortunately we're both ghost goo clones and normal reproduction rules don't count for us."

Dirk watched him out of the corner of his eye. "I'm pretty sure I'm finally losing my fucking mind, 'cos otherwise you just said a mouthful of goddamn nonsense."

Dave laughed. "Bro, that is not even half the nonsense I can spout at you that's actually totally truthful."

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