#maplepancakes

Title: Never an Easy Path

Author: maplepancakes

Fandoms: Homestuck

Rating: Not Rated (I would suggest T)

Pairings: John/Karkat, Jade/Dave, Sollux/Feferi

Words: 24277

Tags: AU, Medieval/Middle ages, Fantasy, fantastic racism, hurt/comfort, Incomplete/Dead story

Summary: John Egbert thought he knew how the world worked. He grew up on stories of the horrible trolls, who constantly invaded the borderlands and never showed mercy to a human. He knew he would become a great warrior who protected humans from these terrifying monsters. But what will he do when he actually meets a troll and learns that the stories he had known all his life weren't entirely truthful?

Why should I read it?: It's time to jump in the Way Back Machine to delve into the beginnings of the Homestuck Kink Meme! This is one of my favorites, though it has unfortunately been dead for going on two years now. Its a basic "Trolls and Humans must over come their differences to work together and eventually smooch a lot" premise; Shatterstag did a version of this as well (also unfinished), but I felt that maplepancakes story deserved a look at.

John is a 16-year-old mercenary-in-training, learning to protect the various people his village against Troll attacks. Karkat is a mutant as per canon, trying to survive his fellow trolls while scouting out the area around John's village for food. So of course, John shoots Karkat.

Now, this is written pre-Ascend Homestuck, during Doc Scratch's take-over, so John was still the darling sweet boy that some parts of the fandom still think he is, despite copious amounts of evidence to the contrary. John feels guilty about shooting Karkat and nearly killing him, so he takes it on himself to take care of him. The only problem is, if someone from town finds a Troll in their midst, Karkat would be killed on sight, and John would be in a ton of trouble. Thus starts the beginning of what I'm sure would have been an awesome fic about overcoming prejudice and John/Karkat smooches that we will, unfortunately, never get to see. Also there is some unrequited Sollux?Karkat that would probably wind up pale, given that Karkat/John is the main pairing, and Sollux<3Feferi is an secondary pairing.