Ok but like, no, when I say nothing changes I mean NOTHING CHANGES. (I mean the only thing I’ve found to disprove this is the lime on GH’s wall where there is no purple but EVERYTHING ELSE)
Because again, I will be ETERNALLY FRUSTRATED that the connection between the limes, Karkat’s mutation to candy red, and the cherub’s blood was one of those dropped threads that permeate Homestuck
So like, we know that Calliope does permeate a Lord English run universe in small forms (just look at Doc Scratch’s outfit, the limeblood, the painting of faces to show their “true selves”, the ties between the church and theater and her love of stories) She’s THERE in small amounts (not even gonna mention the cufflinks)
So judging by the timeline and how focused the Condi was on perpetuating the clowns on Earth despite obviously not being one herself, and how the Clowns because a hard troll roll niche before she served English, there’s some emotion here. The GH was probably one of her first and eventually longest troll companions. His entire job is making sure the lowblood’s don’t get uppity, and there’s trust implied there.
And yeah there’s the occasional not purple clown. But they gotta earn there way in. There’s an olive class that tends to surface pretty heavily in the church who gravitates towards the hunting parties, tends to kill off whoever’s feeding the church best when they do like the place was just being held for them. A few yellowbloods who’ll wear bees instead of clothing who get in cause it’s one part crazy to two parts hilarious in their inevitable death. Browns who’ll run some impressive animal shows and blues who’ll beat the crap out of themselves with stunts meant more to do harm than avoid it and come out the other end whole and laughing.
But they aint REALLY clowns, for all that they got the faith of one. They may be circus, but they aint clowns. They aren’t allowed to paint their faces. But someone’s gotta run the rides and stands in the dark carnival, and they know what’s to become of them and believe anyways. Fucking CARNIES, who make sure there’s clothes and food and crap the real entertainers don’t want to fuck with
But it’s not a hard stretch to imagine a lime or two falling in with a couple of baby clowns when the church it just starting to be a thing.
(Don’t even get me started also on the Caniborn sign. Derse, Rage, a wavy snake like design with dashes through it that’s SCARY Calliope like, and LIME)
And limes are loyal and true and maybe their moodiness is seen more like capriciousness, and the color of their blood ticks off something RIGHT in the GH’s brain and when he goes “That’s OURS” the Condi like… she’s building and empire, fuck, she don’t have any time or attention for lowblood politics anyways, that’s the GH’s biz, so like SURE, if it makes him happy, not like they show up that often anyways.
And the Church is a celebration, and the purple’s the flesh. The brother wins in end afterall, and he is said to exalt in the destruction of all. A clown trains as much in song and dance and celebration as much as they do bringing death, for the world is a stage and they endeavor to bring him entertainment in all things. They are the jugglers, the acrobats, the glasswalkers, and ringmasters. Activities meant to awe and maim.
But the sister can not be forgotten. Worshiped, no, only a fool worships a god who can not bring you victory, but she must be acknowledged. And she has shown her blessings on these few trolls with her own true flesh, marking them for worship, and the GH delights in their presence.
These limes, they KNOW a fucking troll, in ways downright precognitive. Housed with a class meant to main and kill, the limes keep his little flock soothed and in line without prompting. While his clowns go out and fallow the empress’ orders, keeping the lowblood scared and culled down, and the brother happy with the carnage, his limes sit tight, running scandalous shows that delight the sister’s love of all things and the ways a troll can fit with another.
Lime’s are the BUSKERS. Telling true fortunes with stone and card and star, sleight of hand and magics, contortion and puppeteers. They draw in the crowds and coin in ways his clowns can not. In it’s prime, the circus brought slaves and sacrifices not in shackles, but waited like an open maw for the brave to come and chance the show of a lifetime, taking thrill in the chance of it. Leave with your life, and you may leave with a greater gift still, in memories and futures told and stories to tell.
(and for all that everyone is trained in the theater and the kill, there is a divide, and balance for the twins, and PROSPERITY)
And then the Signless comes.
The GH thinks nothin of it, in the tents, but when he has orders to hunt the upstart down, he knows the fucker true.
Knows the blunt little teeth and rounded horns of a brother meant to get under the skin. Knows the way the lost and weary are grouping around him. For all there there is not sign upon him nor a face the Grand Highblood could put to one, the troll knows him, calls him by a name he’d thought nearly lost to time and the sea and is not surprised.
The Empress’ order are the Empress’ orders, and he turns the boy to her, for all that he wish he could hide him in the fold. For all the rebel is to old to take well to the Church’s brand of love. Execution is not a surprise either, but a hardship the Grandhighblood will not come to enjoy for him, and he stays away. Too, he ignores the rumors of his blood running red, for there is not a fiber within him who would accept rust what he knows to be kin.
What comes after is worse.
HE HATES that fucking daywalking BITCH of a Jade who caused this mess. For all that the boy had no sign she’d given him, he was still family, ripped from their tender arms before he’d even had the chance to know himself, raised not in a hive, but like an animal in the fields and what came from the other side was an abomination. HER ignorance was HIS downfall, and in his grief there is no hurt upon her that seems enough, and for his brother’s life he tasks his empress with bringing the hurt down upon her in his name, and when he surfaces from prayer, he knows not what becomes of her.
Even calling him friend in one hand, the Empress comes up with her saltlicking shits and desecrate his tents with the other, purging his flock of what she herself deems dangerous, and there’s nothing he can do to stop her.
He too is a leader, has nipped worse things from his own kind and knows the necessity of paranoia. In the Sweeps that fallowed the one lamb who’d been snatched by the wolf, he’s seen the chaos caused and knows it for it’s awful implications even in it’s beauty. He understands, and the Empress’ ORDERS are the Empress’ fucking ORDERS.
(at least she has the fucking decency, to give them dignity. When he scream for order it comes, and the rest die not in fright, but quick and painless and blessed with bowed heads and proper paints, as their patron would have wanted them. They hold no fear for their place in the carnival, but oh he will miss them so)
(he understands, but he HATES. For his grief holds long and true and EVERMORE, and for all that he loves his eternal Empress, he can not help but fall to aching apathy of her, burned. It is not his humors that keep the water breathers from leaving his space alive, and that is all she’ll get from him for now)
Time passes, and the church never becomes what it once was again. Without their balance, it’s cruel and dull and lacking something vital. The Empress tries at her apologies, for all she never says the words. Sacrifices for his gods, colonies on planets full of tents and merriment, lessons for his purples back on the homeworld so they come to him smiling and painted.
And once, sweeps and sweeps and sweeps later, when he feels so old time stops mattering, he’s surprised.
The armada, all of it, sits on Alternia’s swing, and there are more lights upon her when she’s dark than he can ever recollect, but she sits there still, even unchanging. Normally they would not come for this sweeps exiled. They come to the empire. But the Empress’ lusus has done something foolish, and the Empress too sits shivering in her throne from something nearly catastrophic, and she’s still shaking her anger and fear from the nearly of it.
So the empire is here, and when they pick up the writhing mass of bodies packed together on the moon, sweating and stinking and fighting and loving amongst themselves, he’s there too, watching the waves of color from above for his own enjoyments of the youth of it.
Colors are as they do, and tend to group together as they should, and his eyes stray to his first glimpse of his new family, from curiosity of the spectacle more than anything.
To far away to see signs or paint, still he knows the curve of some horn and loves the splash of colors and their clothes and the way they already joke among themselves.
There are less of them than the other shades, saying their goodbyes, as they know better, keeping their loves and their hates to their own, but some do stand apart, and there, THERE is a horn here knows, for he’s seen it nearly every day, and his laugh booms out over the crowd, loud and shaking and well used, wild enough to cut through the clamor. Eyes turn upon his frame quick like, and their fear oozes up through the air like smoke.
Eyes turn up to him, and he knows the one who’d been huddled up to his own rare and precious scion.
Knows the blunt little teeth and rounded horns of a brother meant to get under the skin.
Knows the way the lost and weary are grouping around him in goodbye.
For all there there is not sign upon him that he can see nor a face the Grand Highblood could put to one, the Grandhighblood knows him, and is surprised.
To far away, to far in the clarifying dark of the hold to know actions done in specifics, but his eyes never leave the troll as time passes, and eventually a split is made and direction is set and it’s abundantly clear the specifics of a plan for a troll with no place.
Ballsy, that, if he’s any good. Imagining that the voice of the Empire might spare him, if he shows himself useful. She would probably have to laws what they are. But the boy would never make it long in the Threshicutioners.
He knows his limes, his ones made for the teachings and the people.
Assassin he could be, as any who learns to fight, but not happily. And her trust might never be won, knowing what he is. A cold shameful death in the night by his classmates if she’s smart.
He puts forth the orders to the Carnies what’s good at pushing these papers and puts his body to work letting the drones know he’ll cull his own failures, as the church always must, and waits for the new lambs to come in.
(Red. Motherfucking Red. Not rust. Red. He’s the sister’s sure enough, but Blessed by the brother. It’s a sign, that the limes are set to step up again, for the brother is no good without his sister to conquer, and so to the church without it’s love. Meant to LIVE this one, by word of both the gods, and so he shall.)
(Can you believe this is just the BACKSTORY)
(By all means, WRITE if you want. This is YET ANOTHER of those things where I have ALL The world building, but can’t OC to save my life, so it dies a horrible, sub written death. I could talk about it for hours, but never actually write it.)
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