Trolloled

“I am glad it is helping.” They’d said calmly after she’d looked away, worrying how they’d react. 

“It seems more responsible than Arty was.” The yellowblood had added.

“I…wouldn’t know.” He’d said awkwardly as he looked back at them, unsure how to respond to that.

Process had paused.

“It is the reason you have to do this. Don’t you resent it?”

Their tone had been merely curious, at least, not accusing.

“How can I resent someone I’ve never met?” She said honestly. 

“Eileit is the only one I’ve talked to, and they came to help Jikiro when I asked, even though they didn’t want to be found out. I mean…Xineck said it chose to die. Even if it caused all this, I can’t help thinking that’s kind of sad.”

Process had stiffened and looked away themself.

They’d never responded, changing the subject back to technology.

Maidel didn’t know if it was guilt, a belief he was naive, or something else entirely.

He guessed it wasn’t really his business.

His business was that soon, he’d work with Cherie to hopefully - hopefully - bring the city back in one piece.

That, and secretly transport the resistance trolls and their people to their new underground hideout, too. 

He didn’t know much about it except its location. 

He hadn’t wanted to know, just in case.

Maidel hadn’t told anyone about that part. Not Process, not Xrumon, not even Dismas. He loved his matesprit, but the brownblood was - technically - on the side of imperial law. 

He trusted his matesprit with most things. But he wanted the rebels to be as safe as possible. 

They deserved that after everything they’d been through.

It would be an extra power drain, but he’d poured more psi into energy storage to ensure it was doable, covering for it by telling Process he wanted to be on the safe side in case anything happened.

Which wasn’t a total lie. 

Her phone buzzed gently, and she took it out of her pants pocket and looked at it.

— sublimeConfection [SC] has begun trolling aspirationalCaretaker [AC] —

SC: Maidel?

SC: Sorry to bother you. But we’re starting soon, right? 

AC: Yes. I’ll be there in a minute.

He put his phone away and sucked in a breath. It would be fine. He didn’t have to see Cherie for long. 

They’d be with him when he got close to Civitrecce so their powers could sync up, but the two weren’t going to linger after the job was done.

For they had a second task to accomplish.

They needed to adjust the timeline so that the Fleet trolls still camped out around its perimeter wouldn’t quarantine and interrogate all of Civitrecce on sight, re-instituting its oppressive surveillance as soon as they could.

They couldn’t get rid of them entirely; that would cause more problems than it solved, and neither troll had a taste for violence anyway.

They could change what those trolls remembered - using Cherie’s psiionics. 

The idea disturbed the greenblood a bit, reminding him of when the circus clowns would use their voodoos on him. 

But he owed it to the Civitrecce trolls to protect them, and they weren’t changing anything else in the Fleet trolls’ minds. 

Those trolls wouldn’t be in pain, or even realize anything had happened; they’d have a seamless new set of memories, substituting their reason for being there with an earthquake they’d come to assist with instead.

An explanation that would help account for all the dead imperials that would no doubt be discovered on the city’s return, as well as the damage it had sustained from the gang wars. 

He teleported over to the cobalt’s room in Legion HQ. It was a short walk, but he’d already spent a minute or two steadying himself, and they did need to get going.

Right after they both absorbed the energy they needed from storage.

Cherie blinked as he appeared, then nodded. He could tell they were trying not to smile, and he appreciated it. 

Their smiles would always make him uncomfortable.

“You’ve run all the checks?” They asked.

She nodded. “I looked in on Fleet half an hour ago; they’re all in the same positions they were.”

The blueblood exhaled. “Good. Good. And I glanced at their systems’ schedules; no one new is due to arrive, no inspections planned.”

Maidel swallowed, but nodded. One of the things they couldn’t entirely plan for was some new ship showing up and throwing a wrench in things, but they’d tried to do it when that was as minimal of a risk as possible.

Well. No use delaying any longer.

“Let’s fuel up.” The greenblood said, and the blueblood followed her back to the storage rooms.

One issue Process had run into was how to get the stored power into Maidel without implanting ports into her; Cherie could absorb energy naturally, but she didn’t have that ability.

They’d gotten around it by designing the wearable equivalent of biowire connections; technology that could store the energy temporarily and let her draw on it a short time later without overwhelming her. It helped that it was her own power to begin with.

He carefully slipped on the equipment Process had made - a neck band, some arm and leg ones as well - that had inserts leading into her blood vessels, and she put it on now, nervously aligning it in place with a little psi. 

It would be burned up and unusable after what she was about to put it through, but that was fine; it only needed to work once. 

Cherie’s eyes glowed a faint blue as they took in energy, sparks crackling near their lids and around their horns.

Maidel looked away. It reminded him too much of what they’d done before, and he couldn’t think about that now. He had a city to bring back.

“I’m ready.” The blueblood said, and in a breath, he took them to the spot he’d scouted beforehand.

The one he’d planned when he’d taken Platar to plant the beacon.

Clouds massed up above, but mercifully, they did not open up yet.

Santai Claria valley was of course low down - but it wasn’t entirely flat, and it had been shaped by trolls for a long time. Highways shot through it, ones that led to Civitrecce before and now stopped abruptly at its borders. 

Train lines, too, laid there suddenly cut off, abandoned and unusable after the city’s disappearance a perigee and a half ago.

Even the entire cavern beneath it had been taken away.

Though he’d been to the vanished city himself - made the trip there and back several times now - it still took the olive’s breath away as he and Cherie stood on the small hill outside the quarantine zone, looking at the yawning absence where the metropolis had once been.

Where, this very might, it would be again.

He took in a deep breath, energy humming in his whole body. 

There was the beacon; he could feel it. It had been activated.

There, across worlds, was Civitrecce. 

Moved to a universe where the empire had never been, where trollkind must exist in far more sparse quantities than they did here. 

There was Fleet and all their ships and sensors, their quarantine warnings, ready to destroy anything or anyone that came in or out.

First, to alter their memories.

He nodded at the cobalt.

A corona of blue leapt up around their horns and the highblood's eyes shut as they focused. 

They had already located the timeline they needed; now they had to suture the relevant part of it to this one without overwriting anything else.

Cherie, Maidel would admit, had always been good at such fine details.

After all these sweeps, they finally used that knowledge, that precision, to help instead of harm.

He could feel time stretch and pulled around him, malleable like clay, fluid like water; he could feel the change radiate out from the blueblood, the chronal shift seeping through the minds of what anyone emblazoned with a trident now remembered.

Quelling the city? No, they’d come for aid, for damage control.

Rebels? They knew nothing of their presence.

The artifice? A bad dream.

Caste resistance did not matter here; Cherie was not a psychic. They were reshaping how time itself was perceived by these trolls.

As they did, nearing the end of their efforts, Maidel reached out across universes.

Time seemed to slow for him, seconds becoming minutes as he felt every part of the city - broken and battered, but still there, still filled with several thousands of trolls - he felt its people in its buildings and its streets, their lusii, all the space every single thing occupied, the sewage system, the bunkers below -

With his power, he embraced them all, every atom, every subatomic particle, every precious living thing.

Beacon pulsing within her mind, thrumming through space and giving borders and measurements to where everything must go, she restored them to their native world.

The city reappeared in a massive aurora of lime.

The greenblood let out a single heavy breath, sweating and trembling from the weight of it all.

She fell to her knees, panting, and Cherie was quick to her side.

“Maidel - Maidel - please, are you all right?”

Didn’t matter. He wasn’t done.

He still had…the rebels to help.

“MAIDEL!!”

Panic…why was Cherie panic -

Gray. All around in the sky, encroaching on the city.

No! 

No, not now…

But he had nothing left. He could barely move.

The extra fuel had only just allowed him to do it without burning out.

He couldn’t…

Couldn’t do…

Just like the Takami Estate.

He heard Cherie take in a rattling breath.

“Maidel, I know what I’ve done. I know I’ve hurt you. But right now I need you to trust me.”

The blueblood said, almost eerily calm.

“I’m taking your enhancer. Please don’t stop me.”

How could she? She could only stare dumbly as the blueblood slipped off her bracer, the one Eileit had given her, and slipped it on their own dark gray arm.

She could only stare as they sat down, hands gripping the dirt for dear life, and rainbow light crackled like lightning into existence around the massive cloud of gray, beating it back somewhat - but not entirely. 

The same light rose off of Cherie’s small body, and their eyes shone with it. A different power from their psi - similar, but not the same. 

“Liehde was given a gift. Now I give it back.”

They laughed, sad but accepting.

“I give it back to the Body!” They cried. “All of it!”

More and more swirling light rose, until Cherie was just a silhouette in a maelstrom Maidel had to avert her eyes from or go blind.

Several moments passed.

Maidel opened his eyes.

Cherie lay passed out in the dirt, their dreadlocks splayed everywhere.

He looked up.

The gray had gone.

He could…he couldn’t feel any psiionic power from the blueblood anymore.

It had been used. Completely spent.

A few green tears trickled down her freckled face.

Far above, it began to rain.

Real lightning struck nearby them now. They should go.

Maidel took the enhancer back as he began to get soaked. He breathed deeply, in and out.

He’d probably burn himself out a little doing this, but the two of them had to get away. He wasn’t abandoning Cherie.

With the most effort it had ever taken him, the olive teleported them both back to Legion’s HQ.

The world tilted sickeningly as he did, and he crumpled to the ground, trying not to throw up.

They’d…done it.

Blood dripped down her cheeks, but Maidel hardly felt it.

She closed her eyes.

She’d done enough for now. She could help the rebels later.

Cherie had done more than she’d believed they could, and paid dearly.

Yet it was worth it.

They’d made the right choice.

She sighed delicately, toying with the golden-colored jewelry around her neck - not real gold, a bronzeblood like herself could never afford that.

Not that the lowblood cared. Mijuta had never been very materialistic.

Ever since Nyzere had met her three sweeps ago, they’d been charmed by her seriousness, her clarity of purpose.

She never wavered from her devotion to the old religion she led in secret, the Adherents of the Celestial Body, keeping it alive while continuing to let the empire believe it had died off.

Did they believe in it too? 

Well. That was a question they’d never fully been able to answer, to either their own or her satisfaction.

Gods, spirits, fae. The world was full of many a strange thing, no doubt about that, even accounting for all the fake sightings and tall tales. They’d run into a few supernatural things themself on their travels.

While Nyzere did not revile them as the empire taught trollkind to do, they were still not sure if such beings deserved to be revered or given any other special treatment.

They figured it was like being almost lime. Some trolls hated and feared them for it, a few thought it was a sign of something special.

From all they’d seen, it was just a blood color like any other.

But who knew? The more they saw, the more they realized one lifetime couldn’t ever witness all there was in the world, nor come close to understanding it all.

So they still weren’t sure about the whole religion business.

Thus here they stood, ocean spray occasionally splashing their face, side by side with a woman they half loved and all liked.

Speeding toward the continent that apparently held a fragment of the force she’d spent her life worshiping.

“Cut itself off…” She murmured, as if hearing their thoughts - impossible, Miju was a flatscan, not a spark of psi to speak of. Though it was rude to bring that up; her lips always thinned when anyone did.

“That feels…wrong.” She said hesitantly. “Doesn’t that count as self-mutilation?”

Nyzere shrugged. “I always thought the ‘body’ was more of a metaphor, oui? A concept to help us understand the incomprehensible. We can’t really know the divine, if I remember right. What’s the doctrine say? We’re like cells or something and the Body is the souls of everything put together?”

She half-laughed at that, but looked up at them with a chiding expression.

“You’re simplifying a lot, Zuzu…but it is a little like that.” She admitted, then pursed her lips. 

“No matter what, I’m worried for this part. The compass said it was from the Spine…the crossroads. Pure, ethereal beings come from there, ones not used to our world, who might be easily corrupted. But…”

The look on her face was full of wariness and longing alike.

“I have to know. I have to at least see it. I wonder what it looks like. I wish your spyglass could make it out.”

“Too far, Miju.” They reminded her gently. “You know that’s out of my range. For now.”

She nodded, then walked back toward the stairs down to their cabins, shivering in her floral print tank.

They were out of the Coast of Fangs’ waters now, and things were getting a bit chillier.

Nyzere wasn’t as cold, but they followed her, ducking their head to avoid bonking it on the ceiling as the pair descended.

“Dinner’s up soon.” Kafuul called from the kitchen, the finned tip of his tail sticking out into the communal living space. 

Mijuta nodded before realizing the violet couldn’t see her. “Thanks, Kafuul.” She called back.

“You better thank me, I had to leave most of my spices behind and I’m still making this fish taste good, ‘cause that’s what I do." He fired back at them proudly.

Nyzere smiled and Mijuta called back “Thanks, Kafuul,” again in a placid tone that made her humor hard to read, but Nyzere struggled to not crack up.

“I better not be detectin’ lip, sister! I will tell Nye all your embarrassing wriggler stories!” He retorted in a jokingly threatening tone.

“They already know half of them!” She called back.

“Maybe a third.” Nyzere said, trying to be generous, even though it probably was half.

Kafuul wasn’t that much older than them and Mijuta, but he still treated her like a little signmate. The two had been raised as Adherents from a young age, taken in by the sect as wrigglers due to their visible mutations.

Mijuta at least could pretend she dyed her hair, and while being a psiless lowblood was unusual, it wasn’t unheard of. She only got minimally hassled most of the time.

Kafuul, though…

His blood was closer to purple than true violet, his fins shimmered like stars, his hair was white, and he had a long, slender tail. His fully purple eyes didn’t help either.

Of all Alternia’s castes, tails were tolerated the most in seadwellers, but their more traditional members were merciless about those they saw as unworthy of their blood color - especially a cusp.

All of that, while usually considered worthy of close scrutiny if not outright culling, was nothing as to the true crime he’d been hatched with: magic.

He was the only mage the Adherents currently had, the others having been executed by the empire or died of other causes over the sweeps.

His domain was powerful - he could call upon the stars themselves and the other aspects of the cosmos - but he himself didn’t have a lot of inherent energy.  

It had only been a perigee and change since he’d pushed himself to near burnout with a spell that had almost been the violet’s undoing.

He was close to fully recovered now, but it had been terrifying to watch.

Nyzere never wanted to see him bleeding from the nose, mouth, and gills again.

“Zuzu?”

“Nye?”

They both spoke at the same time, and from the concerned look on their faces - Kafuul now out of the kitchen and standing close to them - the olive cusp’s memories must have bled into their expression.

“I’m good.” They said with a smile, recovering quickly.

They didn’t like others to worry about them. It only caused problems, like it had when they were young.

There were far more important things to think about anyway.

Mijuta’s lips thinned and her ears twitched slightly, and Kafuul gave them a sidelong glance, but neither troll questioned them.

“How do you think Dolcez is doing?” They asked cheerfully.

“Ayyy, who cares.” Kafuul groused as Mijuta set their places for dinner and he brought out the plates of fish and stewed yams, tail twitching irritably.

“Far as I care, these Legion folks can keep them.” He said, before cutting a piece of tuna off and taking a bite.

Mijuta looked slightly amused. “Why do you dislike them so much, Kafuul?”

“Do I need a big reason?” He shot back after swallowing.

“They’re annoying. Spoiled. Can’t believe they of all trolls have the founder’s bloodline. I boosted their psi because I had to and they gave me big dumb soulful eyes the whole time. Hate when trolls do that.”

“The trials of being pretty.” Nyzere said lightly.

He made a disgusted noise as his fins flared for a few moments.

“Pretty! Overrated. Yeah, I look good, but that’s no reason to gape at me. Just act like a normal person, Spine and all its stars.” He complained, then ate more fish with a grumpy expression.

Nyzere chuckled.

“Guess we’ll be meeting one of those stars soon, huh?”

“Supposedly.” Kafuul said, in a tone of disdainful skepticism. 

“I’m suspicious, Nye. A piece of a cosmic divine force cutting itself off willingly? I believe you - I’m sure you read the compass right - but I don’t trust like that. Maybe it’s already corrupted, like Miju fears. In that case we might have to put it down; it could be just as much of a problem as the grayshifts.”

Nyzere winced as they ate some yams. They saw his logic, but…

“Would it really be that bad?” They asked quietly. “If it was more like us? Maybe it got curious.”

Kafuul let out a long, skeptical breath.

“Nye, I know you’re still new to all this, but you have to understand: mortals and the divine aren’t meant to mix. We can learn from it - worship it - but all that’s a mirror so we treat each other better. You don’t actually expect to meet the Body, or any of its servants. 

You’re not supposed to; no part of it is meant to take a solid, physical form. It’s against the natural order.”

“That’s what people say about mages.” The lime cusp said, even more quiet. “That’s what they say about me.”

An awkward, tense silence descended.

It endured until Mijuta sighed and patted both their hands some moments later with a slightly sad smile.

“Let’s not fight. There’s still so much we don’t know, okay? We need to speak to it before we decide on anything.” 

The other exchanged looks, but nodded silently, before the three finished eating in silence and went their separate ways.

The cyborg felt adrift, clinging to a raft he had to constantly repair to keep from sinking.

He’d kept most of his people and the refugees alive, but food supplies were running low, even with the gardens he’d had trolls cultivate and the animals some trolls had managed to hunt on trips outside the city.

Even if they were supposedly due to return to their native universe soon as was the news from that greenblood, Maidel, and the tealblood she was working for…what then?

Despite the damage his choice had done - though the Grey Mob had finally almost beaten QPIN at last - Jastes refused to go back to how things were before.

For the first time in his life - for the first time in everyone’s lives - they’d tasted what it was like to live without constant surveillance. 

Without the yoke of the trident pressing down - forcing them into columns, into too-long shifts at factories - they could truly live.

He would go back to his original universe. But he would not go back to misery.

Even now, he sat and rested only because he’d spent the last few hours covertly gathering more parts and supplies for a project he was only trusting a select few trolls with: the expansion underground, building a tunnel to an entirely different cavern where his drones and droids were setting up shop at this very moment. 

He could control multiple bodies and program-selves at range with barely a flick of conscious thought now: it had become automatic. 

With the protection of the robot this ‘Legion’ organization had sent him for the refugees and Phasma here on the surface assisting the Mob, he could spare them for that work and to keep it a secret. 

He didn’t want anyone knowing where they were. Not the empire, not the Grey Mob, not a single other soul. 

Many Civitrecce lowbloods had died. Others had refused to come down. Some had left the city entirely, searching for whatever else this new universe might have to offer. 

Much as it hurt, he knew he had to let them make their choices. He could only help trolls who wanted to be helped.

And if he was entirely honest…he was relieved to not be responsible for a whole city.

He would admit - if only to himself - that he never could have done that. Not with any real success, anyway. 

Maybe even Torvah couldn’t have managed it. Not with how complicated things were now.

He paused. His proximity alarms and cameras had caught -

Oh. It was just Phasma.

The half-drone crashed through the wall and directly into the yellowblood, knocking the wind out of him and slamming him so hard into the opposite wall that part of it crumbled around him.

What?

This shouldn’t be possi -

It grabbed him, unfurled its massive buglike wings, and jumped through the roof, breaking it into pieces as it shot through into the air.

“Why!!” He shouted, all his questions condensed into that one word as his head spun from what had just happened, frantically trying to figure out if he’d messed up altering Phasma’s code after all -

“Is it such a fucking mystery?” The hybrid breathed, voice vibrating with quiet fury as it stared him dead in the eyes.

“Do you really - ” It wrenched one of his arms off and threw it aside as they flew higher. “ - have to fucking ask?”

Jastes paused, hardly caring about the mixed yellow and silver blood coming out of him, the distant pain of severed flesh and metallic bone.

“You got someone to undo my restraints.”

“Bingo.” Snarled the half-drone, and it threw him hard, hard enough he only had time to curl up and throw up a quick forcefield as he made a small crater in a sidewalk, scattering screaming trolls who ran from the impact.

Ow. He felt the pain more now. 

Jastes struggled to move, his whole body shaking, barely even able to register the loss of his arm given everything else.

Who had undone his work? Why would they do such a thing?

How had Phasma gotten them to agr -

It landed on his body with a sickening crunch of bone and metal as over three hundred pounds of hybrid stood on him, disintegrating his forcefield.

Oh. He might actually die from this.

Jastes coughed up a mix of yellow and silvery blood.

Well.

Maybe he deserved it.

And he had spare bodies.

He had -

The cyborg passed out.

—

Jastes was surprised to wake up in the same body Phasma had attacked.

He still hurt a lot. His throat was dry as a desert.

But he could feel his nanotechnology slowly repairing his body, rebuilding his arm, row by row of metallic cells.

They were back underground, he could tell, as he blinked blearily and looked around.

He was…yes, he was on his cot. He still hadn’t had time to upgrade to a proper recuperacoon, and the refugees needed them more anyway.

Phasma walked back in the door and shut it behind them, eyebrows raised.

“I’ll give you one thing, Verdan, you recover quickly. I thought you’d be out for at least a few more hours.”

“Why’m I notdeads.” The yellowblood slurred, coughing a bit.

The hybrid snorted. “And bring this place crashing down around me? No thanks. 

No, you get to live because you’re too much trouble to kill, and because this experience has hopefully taught you a fucking lesson.” It drawled.

“Uhh.” Jastes said, his brain still working slowly. “Sorry.”

Phasma cracked up.

“I bet you are! I bet you fucking are, you idiot. As for your earlier question: you’re not the only one who can mess with code. I made a trade with someone I knew wouldn’t fuck me over, and here I stand, free of your shit.”

Jastes knew he should probably be angry, but all he found in himself was a sense of guilt and a gnawing realization that he probably shouldn’t have restricted Phasma’s behavior to begin with.

He’d just…

He hadn’t wanted to take any chances.

He hadn’t wanted even more of his trolls hurt. Not again. Not when he still had no idea where half of the original resistance had gone.

No one had found their bodies, but even QPIN hadn’t had any information on them.

But…he should have at least tried to reason with the hybrid, he realized.

Phasma sat down on the floor with its oddly prim pose, legs crossed as it leaned forward, the long part of its silver-black hair waving slightly. He almost smiled for some bizarre reason.

It rolled its eyes at him in return. 

“And as for your dumb fucked-up pitchcrush on me - ”

“What? No!” The cyborg protested, his mouth now healed enough to talk properly despite its dryness. “I don’t - why would you think that? That’s crazy!”

Phasma looked at him, then loomed over the cyborg and opened its mouth wide, smiling at him with all those gleaming black teeth.

Jastes felt a flush creep across his cheeks that he knew with a sinking feeling wasn’t embarrassment or anger.

“Oh god.” He muttered, now yellow to the tips of his ears. “What’s wrong with me?”

“Oh, grow up, you’re not the only troll in the world to feel some kind of way when a freak flashes their fangs at you.” They said in an unimpressed tone as they sat back down. 

“I couldn’t care less what you’re into, I’m just not interested.” 

Jastes covered his face with his hands. “I didn’t ask you to be. Ugh.”

Phasma laughed at him.

“Have fun with that, Verdan. Back on topic: you owe me for what you did. I’m leaving, but I want to be able to come back here if I need to, and I want the best disguise tech you can make.” 

Jastes sucked in a breath, but he knew he couldn’t deny Phasma. It was right.

“Done.” He said, nodding.

It smiled slightly.

“Good boy.” It said condescendingly, and he flushed a bit again, hating himself for it.

“You stop that.” He grumbled.

“Why, because you like it too much?” The hybrid retorted with a yawn. “I’m owed some entertainment.”

“Anyway.” Jastes said, then coughed, determined to change the subject. “Bring me some synthetic flesh or spare tech, and I can start on that.”

Phasma looked amused, but nodded, and got back up and walked out of the door, shutting it again.

Jastes stared up at the stony ceiling.

What a mess.

And it was all his fault.

Everything was, really.

Not that that was news. 

No matter what he did - no matter how many people he saved, how clever he was with his tech and his powers - he always seemed to make the worst choices when it mattered the most.

Was that how Torvah had felt all those sweeps ago? Did they regret sealing the artifice away? 

He hadn’t asked. He hadn’t wanted to hurt them.

Maybe it wouldn’t have made any difference.

Maybe nothing he’d done really had.

Not yet.

But he couldn’t stop here.

Something had to change. He had to change something.

As the cyborg lay there, his body slowly repairing itself, he realized what he needed to do.

—

“Are you serious.” Xineck said, the maroon man’s tone flat as he, Edri, Uthern, and Jastes met in one of the cavern’s small rooms a few hours later.

Jastes nodded calmly, now fully mended and changed into unruined clothes.

“Of course I am, Xin. I need to step down, and if you’ll accept, I want you to lead inste -“

“Shut the fuck up.” The redblood muttered. “Just - fuck it, fine, you have a point. But it’s not gonna be just me. That hasn’t worked too fucking well, now has it, only one of us assholes calling all the shots.”

He took a deep breath, touching his fingers to his forehead, then looking at the other three trolls.

“If we’re really making a whole new settlement, we need to do better than that. We owe it to our people.”

He nodded at Uthern and Edri. 

Uthern nodded back, and Edri smiled in approval.

“If we’re really doing this…” Xineck sucked in a breath before letting it out slowly. 

“Then I want us to have a council. We’ll get some reps from our refugees, too, some new blood, at least two trolls of every caste we’ve got so everyone is represented.”

Jastes smiled. It wouldn’t solve everything, but it was a start.

“I’ll still be in charge of technology, if you’re okay with it.” He offered. “I was always better at that anyway.”

“Nah, I was thinking of putting you on janitorial duty.” Xineck retorted with heavy sarcasm, which made Edri cough-laugh and Uthern smile slightly.

“Get your head out of your shiny metal ass. Of course I still want you on tech. Who the fuck else would I pick?”

Jastes laughed, feeling lighter than he had in a long time.

Then a polite knock came from the door, and they all looked over.

“Come in.” Jastes said, curious.

Quinne - in her maroon disguise - came in, shut the door, and turned her psiionics off, tail waving back and forth in excitement.

Her red and white eyes were happy, and she had a big smile on her pale gray face.

“I jus’ heard from that greenblood girlie; they’re gonna have us back in a few nights! She’s workin’ double-time with some Civi troll called Process who said, uhhh - ”

She screwed up her face, then said ‘ah’ and continued.

“They said ‘Hold strong, Jastes. We have a troll manipulating time who will help take care of the fleet’s response to Civitrecce coming back. Still, ready your people.’”

“Or somethin’ like that.” She added with a shrug. “You guys got any snacks?”

The clearblood had actually put on a little weight since he’d met her, becoming less malnourished. It cheered Jastes to see it.

It cheered him to know that despite how badly he had messed up, it wouldn’t be for nothing.

He tossed Quinne a pack of fruit rollups from his sylladex, then turned away, so the others wouldn’t see a few yellow tears running down his face.

Which only enabled the mutant to jump on him, cackling as she bowled him over and he squealed in surprise. 

The other resistance trolls laughed too.

“I gotcha!” She crowed. “I got ya, Jas! One hundred percent gotten!”

“Yeah.” He agreed, smiling through his tears.