LIGHT SEER ⁽ ᵃᵖ ⁾

❝  perfect !    i won’t make you regret that, after all the harley-english hugs are the absolute best thing in every timeline and a true blessing upon the very foundations of the time-space continuum.  ❞

the laughter built up and filled her face with joy after her playful joke rolled off her tongue. was it really the time to joke around ?   of course not,  but this was the way jade calmed her nerves, she would admit shes nervous. she didn’t know what this bb gun was capable of, or if it even would be efficient enough to inflict actual damage on the reanimated corpses. the witch strung up the idea to attempt to double up on her ammo in her palms snap her fingers twice but gaining nothing but green sparks of electricity, a pout sinks on her lips.

❝  gotcha,  and if you need to retreat i still have the ability to teleport !!  so we can re-engage when you think its under better conditions. hmm,  while we wait for them to get in range how about we uh… catch up. there’s a lot of people here from different points in our timeline… and im curious to where yours ended up going…  ❞

with their battle strategy in order, things seemed to be looking well for the pair. two immortals, ready to fight the walking dead. how ironic. though, it seemed that luck continued to be a fickle mistress with jade’s line of questioning taking a turn for the grim. 

❝  ... Well, we have time.  ❞ 

rose hadn’t really wanted to have this conversation, not when jade was so empathetic to the pain of others  — and especially so, the suffering of her friends. telling her of the state of her own doomed timeline would no doubt upset the girl, but lying to her would also serve no purpose. ❝  Given the precarious nature of SBURB as a whole, different timelines colliding is not surprising, especially so in this city where all matters space and time seem to converge in a manner that makes very little sense. It its similar to a dream bubble in a way, with the ghosts of past timelines appearing and taking up residence.  ❞  

❝  well we  could’ve  but,    i think those weird people limited our power ! and i cant even fly anymore it sucks ! !  this would all be over in an instant if we had our cool spacey & light powers back. i could probably just shrink them into a jar or something that’d be pretty funny to look at honestly… although i think john right now is just freaking out with a hard on for all the ghost stuff going around. so i doubt we’ll get any help from him.  ❞

 she wondered if these zombies were easier to kill than those mid-tier imps that just jumped around her whole planet. the witch tapped her chin, this was a pretty cinema worthy catastrophic situation they had before them like man check it out— two badass god tier girls facing evil zombies and ghouls while their powers are limited to some unknown entity… that’s probably a total blockbuster— she should probably bring it up to strider later for those hollywood brownie points. the witch slung her gun over her shoulder with a grin on her lips, happy to just see her gal pal once again. she then flips open the plunger popping in two rounds of steel pellets.

❝  it’s kinda crappy that we have to reunite like this,   after this mess of a zombie invasion,  i’m gonna give you the biggest hug EVER !!!  you better brace yourself, rose, its going to be the  bestest   best friend hug of the universe and you are going to love it.  ❞

it was refreshing being around jade. 

her near limitless positivity, in contrast to rose’s own sharp tongue and dry wit, had always been a comfort in some way. even when faced with a horde of the literal undead, the witch’s exuberance soothed her in a way she hadn’t felt in a while. which made it all the more regrettable when thinking back on it, that rose realized that she hadn’t actually had a chance to speak to jade — at least in her own timeline — in three years. jade and john had rarely appeared in the dream bubbles that the meteor so commonly flew through, and even when the journey had ended, the reunion between the two groups had been impossible thanks to the condescension’s manipulation. jade had been an unfortunate target of her control, leading to a state of grimdarkness ? grimbarkness ? 

either way —  rose had died before the two could truly reunite. a genuine pity, she felt, and perhaps one of the sole positives this city offered. 

❝  We aren’t exactly suitably armed for this sort of apocalyptic situation, but I suppose our experience in the field of ‘world-ending events’ can offer some comfort.  ❞

a bb gun and a pair of needles were not prime examples of zombie-slaying apparatus but they’d have to make do seeing as how they didn’t have much else. it was as if they had jumped down to the bottom of their echeladder ( forcibly pushed down, really ) but hey, if they had managed to survive sburb at the age of thirteen, they could make it through this - especially since they still held some power thanks to the remnants of godhood the city had not taken from them. jade was an advantageous partner to have in such a situation too, given her skill in a hunt that she had held even from a young age. encountering her long-time friend in this city had been yet another positive turn in rose’s otherwise grim luck. 

damn, she loved being the new protagonist of ‘the walking dead’.

the last thing she had expected when waking up in a new city, a new prison ( had one not been enough ? ) was to be greeted by thunderous screams, crowds fleeing and the sight of literal zombies, but here she was regardless. wonderful. 

but really - fucking zombies ? and ghosts, might she add. ghosts that were incorporeal and therefore completely immune to her attack method of death by needles. so, she had been avoiding those particular nuisances - or at least, she was trying to. several of them had looked suspiciously like herself, and those ones were hard to shake off. it was as if they knew where she was no matter how far she traveled or how high she flew. unnerving, to say the least. 

but despite the situation being what it was, with the sight of one of the zombies being quickly decapitated with a particularly shitty katana before she could deal with it, the seer smiled. 

ROSE LALONDE ( HOMESTUCK )

your local depressed gay™

may or may not have destroyed earth because she played a sketchy video game with her three other friends. sorry about that. 

during that game, she was possessed by eldritch abominations, became a god & then died, to name a couple of memorable moments. it was a pretty wild time all things considered. except the dying part. she could have done without that. 

this is so sad, alexa play orchid horror. 

she’s a lesbian, harold. 

big fan of psychoanalysis, creative writing, knitting, playing the violin & wizards. 

wizards are fucking amazing and if you don’t think so then you’re just wrong, that’s the tea !!

rose is currently a recovering alcoholic on top of dealing with the trauma of dying ( plus everything that happened before her death ) so she has some shit to face. give her time. she’ll get there.  

  ❝ you know how it is, sits right between ‘are we there yet’ and ‘holy fucking shit’. yes, this is the new time measurement system i have discovered in all my time as a time player. i’d really prefer it if you refrained from calling me a genius. i am extremely humble, after all. ❞ falling into this pattern feels like throwing on an old shirt; warm, familiar, slightly off-putting. he does want to stand closer to her – hug her, though he’ll never say that aloud, so he won’t – but he’s always been good at being incredibly awkward. he’d feel more comfortable slinging insults at her again.

dave gives her a solemn nod. whatever words he wants to say – genuinely say – seem to be stuck in his throat. perhaps if he tells a joke his bones will ring with her laughter. perhaps if he told her the truth she’d laugh at him anyway. ❝ this place is pretty shitty, ❞ is what he settles with. ❝ though the fact that we have running water is a bonus. don’t know what i’d do without it. but i don’t know. it seems pretty similar to our earth, save for the literal furries wandering around the place and all the other freaks. kinda like if alternia and earth had a fucked up love-child of some description and then tolkien adopted and raised it. ❞ 

          ❝ Oh, absolutely. I’m fully aware of the profound humility you posses. I’m glad to know this city hasn’t changed that admirable character trait of yours in the slightest, so I’ll refrain from calling you ‘Doctor Strider’ for the time being. Wouldn’t want to ruin your image, now would I? ❞ Her smile was coy, eyebrows raised with hand was placed lazily on her hip as she chuckled to herself at his usual banter, at their usual pattern. It was refreshing, better than thinking about the more daunting facts ( why was she alive, why was she here, what the fuck was going on ) in her mind. 

  ❝ oh, fuck off. ❞ dave groans, throwing his head back and closing his eyes to the sky. but he is happy, he really, really is, to see her, even if he’d rather roll over and die than admit that aloud, so he won’t. he clenches his hands, because he just doesn’t know – which rose she is, what she’s been through, if he’s even allowed to hug her. not that he even knows if he’s physically capable of the latter, anyway.

he rubs the bridge of his nose, ignoring the feel of the faded bruises, and the corner of his lips lifts ever-so-slightly. ❝ i don’t know. a fuckin’ while, i reckon. not as long as the others, but so far i seem to be the only one from a totally non-depressing timeline, so there’s that. i don’t really know shit beyond that, because believe it or not, i like to mind my own fucking business. small nose and all that. ❞ he takes a second to huff a breath of laughter and shuffle his feet. ❝ what the fuck is up with you, jared. ❞

          ❝ Ah yes, I truly understand your situation now - a fucking while. Thank you Dave, I’m so grateful for your assistance in the matter. ❞ she was only toying with him as she always did, and he knew it. Regardless of troubling circumstances, they had standards to maintain and the situation was bothersome enough as was. They might as well pull something positive from it, even if it was just speaking to one another like ‘old times’, so to say. It was interesting what he said though - a non-depressing timeline. Rose’s hopes, it seemed, were granted ( what else was ‘non-depressing’ if not for the alpha timeline ) and Dave had succeeded where she had failed. That was good. He deserved that much. 

he somehow had the feel she was prodding into his head to look at the exciting banter between her older guardian self and the other not-so-decent author on public social media. probably she was, may vision omnifold be cursed.

but still it wasn’t what mattered at the moment, not when there were things and notes concerning the complex mechanics of the game he couldn’t access at all due to his ‘newfound’ guardian status. funny how he’d think it would make things easier -if not, it was harder. harder to live with the awareness that death would look for his head like it did with marie antoinette, with the only difference that they were the ones leading a falling revolution, and not the ones trying to stop it. there was a hum from his lips, a sound of acknowledgement of the context she was giving -namely, the first time being already known to him. he remembered the tumor. the timer. the explosion, the green sun. but when he woke up, he was sitting on the green of a park with the sun peeking through tree leaves and the scent of sunscreen against his nose, with rose right next to him writing the very first draft of what he’d see becoming a great literary saga, remembering the true past like he’d remember a vivid dream and glancing the fake past like he’d gliss over unneeded details.

he had to take the glasses off for a moment, one hand holding onto the golden frame and the other rubbing the bridge of his nose, albino eyes in a squint as the shift in light did indeed bother him. fucking sun.

“ don’t worry, i pretty much signed up for this shit being unclear unless going for baby steps, from the very moment we started playing. ” a sigh. he admittedly didn’t expect things to get so complicated after their deaths -if he knew that was going to be the outcome, he’d probably suggest trying to keep surviving until the time was right. but he had the feeling that would be going against the game, against the greater schemes, against the light of his rose’s sight. he felt… useless, somehow. “ i am aware that the lack of people covering mine and jade’s role would have brought some discrepancies, but we clearly overlooked, when being granted with the children to send in the future, that their aspect could have been subject to change and that they wouldn’t inherit ours like normally you would inherit something within the genetic code of your bloodline. it’s not about some mild changes that could just be tossed aside like bathrooms, aspect related shit’s more serious. ”

things just liked to be extremely complicated. or extremely favorable towards tyrannical trolls, he didn’t really know which definition sounded more doom-inducing. he could feel groans bubbling from his lips, the frustration rise alongside the sudden motion of impatience -perhaps easier to link to lacking his daily input of caffeine through his system. perhaps he was just deluding himself of that.

there was a clear click of his tongue. he could see the potential. how it grew, how it was indeed hope-festering -and how it got cut short because of what rose described as a literal non-birthday massacre lacking only of some tragic scene kid music in the background. “ clever move. it’s just a pity that it ended up having you branch into a doomed-wait what. ” what. why was he having that nasty sensation of scratching all over his spine returning like in his own most vivid nightmares. why now. why again -panic. that was panic. that was definitely a rush of motherfucking puppet-induced panic, but worse than the infamous smuppet pile -one specific demonic spawn level of it. “ w-what do you mean cal was in the meteor, he should have been destroyed with the old universe, not in makara’s hands. ”

          She hadn’t wanted to upset him, but the truth was the truth and in her mind, it was necessary to bring up this unnerving fact for the sake of uncovering whatever hidden realities existed in their world, realities that had escaped the Seer and the Knight of both universe A and universe B. At least his reaction proved rather quickly that Dave had always understood that there was something amiss with the puppet. She had too, but never had she experienced the fear that inflicted her brother whenever its mere name was mentioned. Cal had always been a prominent force in the discomfort that Dave felt towards puppets - his existence in Derse, within Dave’s room was proof of this - and this coupled with the fact that it had never strayed far from his less than friendly brother - well, needless to say, this reaction was understandable. Such fears would never fully disappear, regardless of age. No, they were buried within ones self in an attempt to forget their very existence. 

          ❝ I don’t know how it ended up on the meteor with us, because you are correct in say we left it behind, but Makara most certainly had Lil’ Cal within his possession last I checked. I may have been... intoxicated for the final stages of our journey, but I remember that much distinctively before my own problems got in the way, as well as from what little pieces of conversation I can recall that I had with Terezi and some of the other trolls that had encountered him. He was, if anything, an elusive bastard. ❞ 

          According to Terezi, the puppet had been on the meteor before the death of Vriska, back when Gamzee had apparently ‘snapped’ and began his pattern of erratic behavior. Had the puppet played a part in his behavior as well? According to the other trolls, Gamzee was once a rather peaceful boy, albeit peace induced by a toxic substance. Could Lil’ Cal have influenced him as well as Dave’s brother? It was all very possible now that she was thinking about it. ❝ We must consider that the puppet may have had some sort of power, likely negative given its choice of company, that compelled it to constantly appear throughout our session. It was, in all regards, a puppet - but most certainly a puppet that had been put there for a reason, a purpose. ❞ she stopped, a moment of realization hitting her. The puppet’s company - it made sense. ❝ - your brother spent most of his time with you initiating combat, right? Those constant brawls you had on the rooftop... What if the puppet was the cause of that? What if, theoretically, Lil’ Cal was making him make you fight in order to prepare you for Sburb? ❞

          First death and now imprisonment - truly she had been cursed by the malevolent spirit that one would call ‘luck’ - and she was supposed to be a Light player of all the aspects available. Her very domain was luck, and yet here it was, fucking her over at every given opportunity. Lady Luck or whatever it wanted to be addressed as, at this point in time, was no longer an ally to the Seer. But not all was doom and gloom ( maybe she should have been a Doom player ), since she had happened across her brother of all people - not once, but twice - one older, the other just as she remembered him. 

          A gift, perhaps, to apologize for all the shit she had been put through recently - though, she most certainly had deserved it, at least in her eyes. 

“ that, and your love for writing pretty much turned you in a much better version of j.k. rowling. you know, since differently from her you have all the coherence, all of it. ” and that would remind him the intense discussion between the two wizard-wielding authors happened on twitter. a great time to be alive, with popcorns and beer and half of his entourage perched over his shoulders to see the lalonde pragmatism flow to annihilate the enemy -and consequent questioning of his own levels of patience if he could endure a conversation with her.

plot twist: most of the times, he couldn’t.

but the news still wasn’t making any of the shade of worry lower down -if not, it seemed to bring the polar opposite effect as colorless lower lip would get bitten, anguishly, hating the ignorance bestowed onto him by the place, by the guardian status, by pretty much everything. it was prime levels of frustration being brought to the table and being only mildly crowned by the undeniable fact that the strider-lalonde line was doomed to be emotionally constipated of some sort. “ i- ” hesitation. “ i do not get much of it, honestly. he’s ascended, right? the fact he’s not real -it’s bound to his aspect, right? he’s not an hero of time? ” bad sign, very bad sign in his agenda. he knew what the lack of heroes of space and time in a session would bring. he knew the risks, he knew the cheats. differently from john, he would read the goddamn manuals.

and yet it appeared, some semblance of pride on a small smile -he knew dirk was good. he knew bro used to be, that something happened and must have screwed with his brains to the point of extreme cruelty on a touch he remembered a little bit gentle, a little bit kind. he knew there was something wrong besides the shitty anime shades. he was starting to assume it was the puppets. it had to be the puppets, he still found those things repulsive. “ he’s a good kid. he cares about others. whatever happened to him when he was bro is a mystery but… this is the proof something happened and changed him. mildly reassuring to say the least. ”

          The mention of literary success made her blink for a moment, the idea of her work on wizards that she had written at the age of twelve likely being published almost embarrassing to think of - but even more interestingly, she had fought with J.K Rowling on Twitter? That woman deserved it undoubtedly, but Rose had more pressing issues to discuss than her other self.

       ❝ I’m sorry Dave, this is likely very confusing when I say it all out of context. I’ll try to explain better. ❞ But where to begin? Her eyebrows furrowed once more in thought - Scratch, Aspects, their ultimate Prize - she could piece it together, it was just a matter of making her own thoughts understandable. This was Dave though, he could at least follow her when she rambled to some degree. ❝ - so our session was a loss from the beginning with the bomb and the prototyping of Jack with Jade’s dog. In order to remedy this, we chose to initiate the Scratch and thus, created your universe. ❞ He likely knew that much with his time aspect, but the full story needed context. ❝ It seems however, that the session that began in your world was also flawed, though in a different sense. It was more like a void session, one that wouldn’t produce anything without outside interference- which would be us. The main example of how their session was ‘void’ was due to what you just said. They didn’t have a Time or Space player in their group. Roxy was given the title of ‘Rogue of Void’, grandpa Harley was ‘Page of Hope’, John’s grandmother was ‘Maid of Life’ and your brother was ‘Prince of Heart’. Therefore, they needed us just as much as we needed them. ❞ 

          She briefly remembered arriving in their planets, seeing first-hand the lack of denizens and the skeleton imps that had prowled through the lands - prototyping had no effect as it had happened after their entry, not before. ❝ The plan was to get to their session and make it a session of eight rather than four. Jade had used her powers to shrink our functional Skaia and our Battlefield, as well as our Genesis Frog - and our arrival would mean their session would no longer be without hope. ❞ Another pause, trying to think of what was necessary to mention and what could be left out. The journey on the meteor certainly wasn’t needed to enlighten the elder Strider further. ❝ But yes, by the time we arrived, they had already ascended. Unfortunately our plan didn’t work out in my timeline. The Witch took control of John’s grandmother and Jade - who had the Green Sun’s power - and things just went to shit, basically. ❞