The Mother

Dropped!

     [ shewhotends ]

          That’s definitely a jade-blood up ahead.

You stalk her from a safe distance, ensuring she doesn’t seem overly-hostile. She’s your superior in the hemospectrum, after all, and while she doesn’t outrank you by a TON, she’s still someone who you shouldn’t technically cross. Once you observe her do something DECIDEDLY GENTLE AND GRACEFUL, you relax a bit, then sidle up to the older troll and clear your throat.

   But what? What are you gonna say? Look at her face. No, you can’t even bear to look. Her eyes…nothing’s worse than those eyes. It’s like you were suddenly back there, sitting on a throne of broken bones, surrounded by the gruesome murals you painted.

   For a moment, everything had gone back to the way it was years before – and you loved it. You can’t deny that in that second, when the sounds of horns were louder than ever, you didn’t feel euphoric. It was horrible. It was orgasmic.

   And so, with a newly-found determination in your eyes, you look back at this woman. A ghost of your past, haunting you now, when the world was on the verge of collapse. You look back at her, and…

   “….But if I don’t motherfuckin’ try, what changes? Nothing, that’s what. Between trying to stop something from motherfuckin’ happening and sitting the motherfuck back and letting the wicked ignorance spread through my bones, I think I know what the motherfuck I’d choose. How about you? Is the only thing you’re motherfuckin’ nurturing now your despair? Cause that’s not the you I motherfuckin’ remember.”

   You’d never really understood before. And that makes it all the worse.

   And, in a way, you don’t really understand now, either. Was it, was it simply because you were too childish? Were you still like that, ignorant of what it meant to be a member of society? Had you not learned at all?! Her eyes were so…so condescending. There was no belief there. Where there was once faith, there was not a single shred of understanding of what you wanted for her. For everyone.

   It made…your insides boil.

   “I won’t let him motherfuckin’ kill me. I heard it being talked up that the motherfuckin’ revival is shut down…all it’ll take is motherfuckin’ experience, of which I have far more, entrenched up in this bitch as I was.” Your words are colder now, but less steady…in fact, your body has begun to shiver. Horribly.

     honk.

   “And I won’t have him comin’ the motherfuck back…THEY NEVER COME THE MOTHERFUCK BACK AFTER I’M DONE WITH THEM! YOU NEVER CAME THE MOTHERFUCK BACK, YOUR LOWBLOOD FRIENDS NEVER CAME BACK!! I’LL TEAR HIM APART AND SHOVE HIS MOTHERFUCKIN’ F–”

   No. With a horrid, hollow sound, you ball your hand into a fist and drive it directly into the side of your head, stopping yourself from slipping. You’d gone so long without slipping, so why now? 

   You couldn’t let the horrid honking noises drown out what it truly meant to be you. Especially not now.

Crazy. Violent. Out of control. Her hand pressed up against her mouth to hide her expression, but it didn’t mask the horror in her eyes.

“I cannot seem to make you understand. He’s very hard to kill. You should know this. You go after him and all that’ll happen is that you’ll die, I’m certain of it.”

   She’s crying. And it’s all because of you. All because of what you let happen.

   “…Yeah. I motherfuckin’ disgust me, too. I must have lived in the Hive for years now, me and the Empress. All of a sudden, everything was just up and motherfuckin’ gone. All we had was each other.”

   So instead, you just talk. You’re so good at that. You’ve always been good at talking, although before, it used to all be nonsense. The Grand Highblood should always love the sound of his own voice, as much as he loves himself, right? How disgusting. No matter what, this is all you are ever going to amount to. 

   “It took us both way too motherfuckin’ long to realize everything we’d done wrong. And if was far too motherfuckin’ late. I can’t get my wicked change on and make everything right again. But…I ain’t gonna motherfuckin’ hurt you. If I could make everything good, I would. But you know better than anyone that all I’m good at is making things break the motherfuck apart.”

Even so, his speech was interesting, if unbelievable. He had simply decided to absolve himself of his many crimes? Ridiculous. There could be no such redemption. Some acts could not be cleansed from ones hands. That very last statement finally moved her to speak, though quietly.

   But your crimes were still your own. Nothing you ever did would change that. And so, for a moment, you clench your fists, something bubbling up inside of your stomach…and then relax them, as you had done thousands of time before. Slowly, you lurch forward, lowering yourself onto your knuckles to be on a more even level with the other troll.

   For a moment, you just stare into her eyes, which were already filling up with emerald tears. How horrid…hers was a face you hadn’t seen for so long, and yet…and yet. And yet you lower your head, shaggy mane obscuring your own eyes as you lower yourself even further. And, as if prostrating yourself before a monarch, you, the Grand Highblood, bow down before the lowblood you had once condemned to damnation.

Instead he knelt, still almost her height on his knees if one included his horns, then bent forward further still. Dolorosa stepped backed further, out of reach from those terrifying, powerful hands. His skin was so clean that it was impossible to miss the myriad of scars.

A few tears spilled out, unbidden, her throat closed. It wasn’t enough to have him like this before her, it would never be enough. If anything, it unnerved her to the point where she stood shaking, arms wrapped up around herself.

He couldn’t give her son back to her. He couldn’t do a damn thing. Her voice was tight and rough when she finally spoke.

“You disgust me.”

   Your voice is soft – when had you even arrived? You were always one for surprises, even now. Even after everything that had happened. It wasn’t entirely something you’d ever learned to control, you were simply good at being spontaneous. You’d tried to keep low for the duration of this madness, but curiosity got the better of you; you just had to go out.

   And what you found among the rubble of some abandoned battlefield was a face you weren’t ever expecting to see again.

   It wasn’t like you meant to creep up behind her like that. In a way, maybe you were uncertain. You’d admitted your past crimes, and you’d always done your best to make up for them. But when it came to facing them directly, well…was that something anyone could do?

   Could you even be blamed for being so nervous?

   “What a motherfuckin’ mess, huh? I guess, in a way, I’m at fault, too. I’m from up there.” You point up at the city floating above, just to make it clear. No, you weren’t from around here. This place was ‘fake.’ But it sure seemed real enough to you.

It was a palatable, visible reaction- over the course of her stay here, he’d made her life a continuing hell, only tempered by the fact that at least she did not having someone playing in her mind while he laid down mark after mark on her body.

And yet, even as she closed off her body language, arms cross over her chest, already cringing away, she noticed that his clothes, his skin- they were all clean, all plain- all except his makeup on his face. No bloody stains, proudly displayed as claims of power.

Oh. He was from the other city, the one that came to destroy them. Small irony that it was the one place he was less of a destroyer.

shewhotends

You somehow knew this day would come. You watched as people in your city prepared themselves for what would shake the foundation of both worlds. You floated up (or down) into the other Hive City, searching more for your identical counterpart in hopes of stoping her tyrannical regime. After spending so much time in your own Hive City, you knew the error of your ways. You understood the importance of forgiveness, of compassion, of kindness. All the things the Signless once preached that you had come to abhor. 

Your quest to find your other half was stopped short when you spotted a familiar figure in jade. Even now, seeing her always put a heavy, regretful feeling in your heart. Floating mid air, you slowly descended down before her, landing lightly on your feet. 

A figure she knew came down from the city above, hovering some feet away before coming closer, settling on the bits of rubble. Dolorosa crossed her arms in a clear signal- not interested. The empress in her own city was bad enough, cavorting with his craziness.

Well fighting was normal for you to see, sure enough. Just look at all those people fighting and dying…and you’d give a laugh at yourself for realizing that they’d all have to be killed twice for them to be taken out of the running of well…world’s next top city or whatever was going on. 

However, a familiar face in the other city sealed the deal on you not really feeling up to having a fight. You’d approach with that smirk on your face and just gesture to all the chaos around the two of you. 

     “Here we are, at a war again. That’s twice now. Two cities, two versions of the same individual, and I heard that if you die twice, you’re gone for good. This is almost two much, right?”

Oh the duality, this was great. 

But your smirk would soften into something a little more gentle as you let out a low chuckle. 

Among the looks of shock, dismay, apathy, and unbridled aggression, worn on the faces of many smallish pink and brown faced aliens, there was a familiar, grey face. He came closer, and for a moment she fell back a step, the smirk unnerving her. Her captors had made sure to tell her what had befallen her child’s friend. Was his mind now a shadow of its former self?

But then the expression faded, and a gentle smile grew, more familiar to the jadeblood, and that small chuckle, deep- how she missed the sound of friendly troll voices.

“It has been too long, and our lives too hard, since our separation.” 

Dolorosa carefully avoided dwelling upon the event by naming it, moving closer still to him, to slowly embrace him for a hug, even slower still patting the backs of his shoulders. It had been so long since the touch of another troll was her true, free choice.

“Oh, of course! You looked a lot like Kanaya from a distance! I got a little excited, and sort of got ahead of myshellf.” 

The stiffened posture, she noticed that immediately, and moved to lay her trident into a relaxed position, fins flickering forward in a gesture of relaxation. 

“I am Dolorosa, Kanaya’s ancestor. And yes, I did know and meet her on a few occasions, though only briefly. I spent far more time with Mindfang in particular than anyone else, being passed like a shiny toy.”

It was more than a little difficult to reign in her hostility at one born into a power position, but her caste won out eventually. She was just too young (and her caste too rare) to show more than a little nervousness.

Feeling perhaps a tad lost, mentally, of course– Feferi hadn’t gotten lost too many times in the particularly drab area of the city– she’d taken to wandering about. The place was a bit upside-down, at least in her eyes, clever gaze wandering, and lips sealed. It was all a tad forlorn looking, a small, very dead troll with her trident clutched close to her chest like a teddy bear.

It was from a distance, that she spotted a pair of horns that looked very, very familiar. A small gasp flooded her lips, and in her glee, Feferi paid no attention to the difference in the outfit, the stature. The figure she thought she knew was far away, and the silhouette matched someone she wanted to see. So, at full speed, she took off, still clinging tight to the trident, glubs of obvious glee spilling from her mouth like an overfilled bathtub. 

“Kanaya! Kan– Oh.” 

Frozen in place, it was easy to see that this figure was far, far too tall, too grown up. Not Kanaya. Groaning shortly, her eyes shut tight, cheeks tinting fuchsia with some form of embarrassment. 

That blush, though, made her frown and stiffen, even in the presence in what was clearly a child and therefore hardly a threat to an adult troll. 

Of all the faces she never expected to see before her ever again—let alone in this city—there she was.  The jadeblood whom she had considered nudging into the flushed quadrant at one time was within an arms reach from her now.  Would she apologize for the games?  For getting her killed?  Whenever had she been the apologizing sort?  Mindfang was not going to start now.

“It’s 8een a long time.”

She did not reach out to the woman and hoped the sound of her voice would be enough to make her turn around.  There was no hidden sentimentality, only the base desire to cause mischief and to challenge herself by playing her games without powers.

“Not long enough.”

Already Dolorosa felt the sense of someone creeping in her mind, peeling the tissues away to peer inside and read her thoughts, pluck at her strings and use her body to work a will that was not her own. It did not matter that the woman before her likely had no powers at all- the mere doubt of the fact was enough to spin the jadeblood’s psyche.

It was her, it was really her! Her actual, honest to goodness ancestor! Who would have thought that they would ever meet, let alone in a situation such as this?! Had she seen her? Should she hide before she made a complete fool of herself?

Kanaya wrung her hands, unsure what to say to the troll she had admired and emulated for so many sweeps, but now, as she stood before her, she had gone mute. She wanted to say something, tried but immediately closed her mouth, then tried again to unfortunately opposite results.

“Hello,” you offer in a return greeting, before abruptly being cut off by a veritable stream of words. Patiently, you wait for it to end- this might be the first time the little thing has ever seen an adult troll.