#eriferi

“Should we do anything about him?” Kanaya asked dubiously.

“Of coooooooourse we should!  He’s totally encroaching on our turf!”

“Technically, our turf is the house, and he is perfectly within his bounds so long as he stays in the yard.”

“Says you!  You never leave the house.  I leave the house all the time, and the yard is part of my turf!  Besides,” she continued as Kanaya rolled her eyes, “aren’t you curious about Feferi’s mysterious suitor?”

“Frankly, no,” Kanaya replied.  “It’s none of our business.”

“Yes, it is!  Think of it this way.  If this guy actually manages to work up the courage to talk to Feferi, and they form a matespritship, don’t you think there’s a possibility that Rose’s mom will talk John’s dad into letting her keep him?  He’s well-bred, and it’s not like anyone in this household dislikes trolls.  This place is practically a troll zoo already!  So it is our business.  We need to find out all we can about this guy so we can take the proper precautions if he happens to suck.”

“You can do as you please,” Kanaya sighed.  “Personally, I don’t think he’s a threat.  If he really is human-shy, he will most likely refuse adoption anyways.”

“Fine, be that way,” Vriska huffed, jumping off the table.  “We both know you’re just afraid to leave the house.  We wouldn’t want Miss Prissyclaws to get her pretty troll clothes dirty, not when her dear Rose made them special with her fancy knitting needles!  But whatever, that’s fine.  Someone needs to stay here and hold down the fort while I engage in the dangerous reconnaissance work!”

“Yes, of course,” Kanaya replied, smiling slightly as Vriska slipped out of the small troll flap near the bottom of the kitchen door.  She stalked along the side of the house, crawling stealthily on all fours in a manner more appropriate for a feral troll than a domestic troll of her class and dignity.  Keeping her eyes on the violet blood, she took up a post behind the trashcan and waited.

It was about an hour before he finally moved to leave, and Vriska snapped to attention, watching him carefully grip the bark of the tree with unclipped claws as he slipped down ass first.  He glanced back towards the upstairs window, which looked into the bedroom John’s dad now shared with Rose’s mom, and Vriska saw Feferi slip out of view.  The violet blood frowned and turned to meander dejectedly down the road.  Smirking, Vriska snuck out of her hiding spot and followed, keeping a fair distance between them as she trailed him through a series of quaint neighborhoods and into town.  He avoided the busier downtown district, sneaking through sketchy alleyways and abandoned car lots and stopping outside a rundown pizza place.  Vriska lurked in the shadows, slowly growing bored as he rummaged through the dumpsters, throwing bits of food out onto the pavement.  She had hoped for something more interesting from Feferi’s highblooded mystery suitor.  Finally, he jumped down and gathered the food he had collected, shoving it into a plastic bag he had extracted from the pockets of his ratty jeans.  She sighed and snuck after him as he set off again, thinking about cutting the reconnaissance short and heading home as he led her into older neighborhoods that were rotting away with abuse and neglect.  It was becoming clear that Kanaya was right.  Despite his good breeding, he was just another homeless stray.  Nothing interesting about him at all.

She paused as he slipped through the boards covering the doorway of an abandoned brick building.  From the strength of his scent around its perimeter, Vriska knew instantly that this was his territory and he wasn’t keen on visitors.  She hesitated; if she chose to ignore his markings and venture onto his turf, she was asking for trouble, but now that the stakes had been raised and an element of danger introduced, she didn’t want to turn tail and head home.  That would be the boring thing to do.  She had come this far already and had nothing to show for it, so how could she possibly turn back now?  Smirking, she slid between the boards and into the entranceway.

The top floor of the building had partially collapsed a long time ago, by the look of the settled debris obscuring most of the hallway.  There was a flight of stairs beyond the rubble, but a well-trafficked path in the dust on the floor led her past the stairs to the room at the end of the hallway.  The door was cracked opened, and she peaked inside.  It looked to be a cluttered old kitchen, full of empty glass jars, pots, and pans, fallen drawers and old recipe books.  Beside the door, a set of wide pantry shelves lined the wall, still covered in old wooden crates and cans of questionable foodstuffs.  She heard voices inside, and, cautiously, she snuck onto the lowest shelf, thanking the dust for muffling her movements as she picked her way behind the clutter.

“—why the hell they let humans put a collar on them and tell them what to do all the time.  It’s undignified!  We should be ownin’ humans, not the other way around.”

“But, humans are bigger than trolls, and, uh, they’re more dexterous with their thumbs, which are slightly more opposable than ours are.”

“What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

“I guess basically what I mean to say is, uh, humans have more biological advantages over trolls, when it comes to a species owning another species, than trolls have over humans.”

“Bullshit!  Trolls have a million biological advantages over humans.  We’re smarter, more sophisticated, and no one can pretend we don’t smell better.  The only reason humans think they got anything on us is ‘cause they’re bigger and stronger, and even that’s by a slim fuckin’ margin.”

Vriska stopped when she caught sight of the violet blood, who was sitting in a padded crate beneath a table, his back to her.  Across from him, facing Vriska, sat another troll.  He was a lowblood by the look of him.  Vriska’s eyes widened as she examined his horns, which were by far the biggest pair she’d ever seen.  With horns like those, he could probably do some heavy damage, but judging by his posture and demeanor, he didn’t know how to use them.

“Maybe, instead of getting so worked up, you could stop thinking about it,” the lowblood suggested, nibbling on the crust of a discarded pizza.

“How can I stop thinkin’ about it?  They’re all over the fuckin’ place!  Everywhere you look is humans, humans, humans!  You know what I gotta go through every day to get you this food?  They look at me like a piece’a fuckin’ meat, Tav, they all wanna own me because they think it’s so damn prestigious to have a violet-blooded troll.  I’m like a stupid goddamn dog to them!  And do you thank me?  No, you just complain the whole damn time.”

“I don’t really complain that much...”

“Like hell you don’t.  You shoulda seen your face when I dropped this bag in front’a you.  You’d think I was bringing you a pile’a horseshit or somethin’.  No respect for all the work I do for you.”

“It’s not because I don’t respect the work you do, or in any way fail to value the things that you do to, uh, sustain my existence, but...”

“See, there you go, putting buts on the end’a your sentences.  There’s always a fuckin’ but.  I guess riskin’ my life and freedom isn’t goddamn enough.”

“No, no, I mean, what I mean to say is, I’m sometimes worried that this food isn’t the most, uh, nutritiously oriented for, um, Posean, especially at this crucial point in his development...”

“Oh, right.  The fuckin’ wiggler.  I shoulda known that’s what you’d be prattlin’ on about.  Where is the little shit?”

“I, uh...hmm.  I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?  Goddamn it, Tavros, you have one job!  I’m out there bustin’ my ass for you and that vile grub and you’re here lazin’ the day away not even takin’ care’a the thing like you’re supposed to.”

“He was here just before you came...”

“Are you sure?”

“Oh yes, I’m most definitely sure about the fact that he was somewhere close to me before you came.”

“So, what, he ran away ‘cause I showed up?  What the hell, why does he even hate me so much?  We have the same blood and everything.  I’m more like his ancestor than you are.”

“Uh, well...to begin listing reasons, you’re not very, um, nurturing, and—“

“Shut up, Tav, it was a rhetorical question.  If he wants to hide, fine, what’s it matter?  He’s not gettin’ any food.”

“No, he should eat, since he didn’t this morning—“

“Why didn’t he eat this morning?”

“I, uh, don’t really know...because he didn’t want to, I guess?”

“Goddamn it, would you quit letting the little fucker walk all over you?  Grow a spine, you worthless waste’a mothering instincts.”

“...I’ll go look for him.”

The troll with the big horns, Tavros, awkwardly hoisted himself onto the edge of the crate.  As she watched him gingerly lift his leg over the side, Vriska realized that something was wrong with him.  His right leg was limp and unresponsive.  He leaned against the crate, scanning the room for the wriggler to minimize the energy he would

have to exert to retrieve it.  Vriska ducked further into the shadows, watching him curiously, as his eyes passed over the shelves.  Now that she was looking for it, she noticed that he was peppered with hints of a harsh lifestyle; besides his apparently problematic leg, there was also a scar that ran along one of his cheeks, and his movements were hesitant and defensive, like those of a beaten animal.  He sighed when his visual search for the wiggler failed to bear fruit, looking at the other troll dejectedly.

“You want me to go look for him, don’t you?” the violet blood huffed.  “If you can’t go chasin’ after him, you shouldn’t let him wander so far away.  Why do I gotta do all the fuckin’ work around this place?”

Vriska shrank as low as she could into the shadows, sneaking backwards to hide more completely behind a half-disintegrated cardboard box as the violet blood started trudging about, grumbling to himself as he looked over and under things.  She felt something cool bump against her hand, and she looked down.  To her horror, a small, violet wriggler was looking up at her with beady little eyes and an awful little frown.  She looked quickly back at the violet blood, who was slowly making his way towards her, and, panicking, she grabbed the wriggler and shoved it roughly down the shelf.  It made a small, angry noise, and before she could pull her hand away, it bit her.  She swallowed a yelp and withdrew her hand as quickly as she could, just barely in time.

“There you are, you slippery little bastard!” the violet blood said, following the sound of its growl and latching onto it rather aggressively.  “No biting,” he commanded as it snarled venomously, dragging its little feet against the wood of the shelf in a vain attempt to escape.  Dropping a few curses, the violet blood turned and tossed the squirming wiggler at Tavros.

“Eridan—!“ Tavros yelped, nearly losing his balance in his panicked haste to catch the wriggler.  He somehow managed to grab it out of the air without falling over, and he cradled it protectively against his chest, sighing as it began to wail.  He threw Eridan a smoldering glare as he set the wailing wriggler into the crate.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Eridan snapped.  “You know he was gonna bite me if I held onto him.”

“I don’t think I would blame him much,” Tavros grumbled, sliding back into the crate.  He dipped out of sight, and Eridan rolled his eyes as a melody of shooshes, coos, and purrs rose above the sound of the wriggler’s cries.

“You’re spoilin’ him, Tav,” he growled, approaching the crate and leaning over the side.  “He’s gotta learn to take it.  Can’t have him growin’ soft and comfortable like some sorta pathetic domestic troll.”

“Or, uh, let me guess, like a smelly sludgeblood, particularly one that can’t even do anything...which is to say, like his birthtroll,” Tavros said, reappearing with the wriggler clinging to one of his large bull horns, a piece of pizza hanging from its mouth.

“See, this is why highbloods don’t breed with lowbloods.  Lowbloods don’t know how to raise wrigglers right.”

“Well, in that case, maybe you shouldn’t breed with lowbloods, if you, uh, dislike the manner in which we raise our young so much.”

“I’ll keep that in mind next time I think about helpin’ a lowblooded cripple out for a night,” Eridan snapped, poking the wriggler’s full cheeks.  It snarled and spit pizza onto his hand, and he grimaced.

Tavros smiled slightly.  “I think that really you’re just jealous, because it’s obvious that he likes me much better, and you probably wish you could handle him without getting bitten, like the way I do.”

“I’m not jealous,” Eridan grumbled, exhaling moodily.  After a paused, he commented, “But I gotta say, I coulda done better.”

Tavros glanced at him, briefly examining his face, which was turned away from Vriska so that she couldn’t see his expression.  There must have been something melancholy about it, because Tav offered him a tiny but sympathetic smile and murmured, “But thanks anyways, I guess, for the pizza and for, uh, everything else.”

There was a pause, and then Eridan sighed.  “Yeah, sure, what can I say?” he said.  “I guess I’m turnin’ into a fuckin’ philanthropist.”  He grabbed the horn that wasn’t serving as a wriggler post and pulled Tavros towards him to press a kiss against his forehead.

“That, uh, might not be the best word to use to describe the way you are, but if it makes you feel better...”

“Shut up,” he spat, climbing into the crate and flopping over, disappearing from Vriska’s view.  “I’m gonna sleep.  I’ve had a rough day, like usual, and if that wriggler wakes me up, I’m gonna chuck it across the room.”

“Threatening your offspring is maybe not the best way to get him to like you.”

“No, you know what?  We’re all going to sleep now.  No one’s gonna be wakin’ anyone up, ‘cause we’ll all be sleeping,” Eridan growled, reappearing above the edge of the crate.  He grabbed the wriggler and tugged, and Tavros winced as it hissed and clawed at his horn before popping off.  Eridan dropped it into the crate gracelessly, and then he grabbed Tavros, pulling him down with him.  “See, it’s communal nap time, like the ancestors used to do.  C’mere, cuddle with me.”

Vriska heard Tavros sigh again.  There was a few seconds of rustling, and then suddenly a yelp and a loud snarl, and the wriggler was lobbed over the side of the box.  “Eridan!” Tavros snapped, sitting up, but Eridan grabbed him and dragged him back down.  There were sounds of a lukewarm struggle and a few sharp exchanges, but slowly the commotion died down from inside the crate.

Vriska waited silently for a few moments, eyeing the wriggler, who eyed her back.  It made a small noise and turned, sneaking away to climb into the empty cabinets under the sink.  Deciding that she had waited long enough, she stealthily picked her way over the clutter to the door and left.  Night had fallen before she arrived home.