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Who: Dualscar and whoever's waiting for him
When: Today!
Where: The plaza
Style: Starting in prose, but I'll follow you.
Status: Open!

The scene is familiar, as this isn't the first time it's happened to Dualscar. He gasps like a landed fish, his hair matted down from water, as he sits up, disoriented. But there are a few things different.

Item one, he's missing his left leg below the knee, though the wound is healed.

Item two, he's not wearing his damn cape.

Item three, he's a lot calmer than he was the last time, though he looks around alertly at the people camped around the plaza, his fins quivering with tension. Everyone hated him before - nearly everyone - and he really doesn't know what kind of reception he's going to get.

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Argh, Summoner. Signless tenses a little when Dualscar mentions him, his fingers slowing a bit on his fins. But Dualscar doesn't seem particularly hurt or angry about what happened, just grumpy...

"And what do you think about that?" In his grief, Signless might have completely missed that point.

He is grumpy, but no, he's not hurt, and not even particularly angry. He notices that Signless has tensed up, and strokes his hair, trying to return the favour.

"Wwell, he's right, obvviously. It's wwasteful an wwrong wwhen a lowwblood is culled for no reason," he grumps softly. "I take exception to the idea that I'vve got to be culled to learn. But I suppose I'vve been party to somethin' I shouldn't havve."

Dualscar admitting he might have done something wrong in the past? Unpossible.

Signless pulls back a little at that, looking at Dualscar quizzically. Is he... is he saying what he thinks he's saying?

"So... you think what Summoner did... it was okay? You agree with the idea that he was just teaching you a lesson?"

Dualscar blinks at him. He's not really sure of what sort of relationship Signless and the Summoner have, but he would have thought Signless would at least talk to him about it.

"I'm not gonna say anythin' that invvolvves me dyin' is okay," he growls. "But I'm sure he wwas tryin' to teach me a lesson out a some kind of concept that this wwas in some wway good for me. He didn't tell you about it?"

"Oh, dammit!" Signless hides his face in Dualscar's shoulder, suddenly hopelessly embarrassed with himself. "He was trying to, but I didn't listen. I was too upset over losing you, and he was being so casual about it..."

There's a certain satisfaction in this. Dualscar cuddles him close with a soft shoosh, and imagines the argument that must have occurred between Summoner and Signless over Summoner murdering him.

"It's understandable you'd be all a glub ovver me bein' dead wwhen you came back," he says reasonably. "Summoner shouldn't a expected otherwwise, the smug dirtblood." He pauses. "Wwhat's he to you, anywway. Best as I can tell, he wwasn't evven hatched wwhen you wwere culled."

Signless leans into the shooshing, groaning quietly against Dualscar's smooth skin before looking back up.

"Summoner is my friend. We met here, but he's a good troll, a strong believer, an ally… and I got so angry with him, so upset over what he'd done…"

Signless scrubs his face with one hand.

"Don't call him a dirtblood."

"Wwell, like I said, that's natural on account a our close relationship," Dualscar says, chewing over that and barely even noticing Signless' rebuke. "So he's a followwer a yours, from after my owwn time? Or did he come to followw you after comin' here?"

"He was hatched sweeps after my death. He didn't even know I existed until he came into adulthood. But then he led a revolution in my name, under my teachings."

Dualscar blinks slowly. "Wwell, that explains a fuckin lot. I'm guessin his revvolution wwas a lot bloodier than yours, no matter that he upright claimed to believve in your vviews."

Signless was pretty surprised to find out about it too. "It was, from what I've heard. It was because of Summoner and his revolution that all the adult trolls left Alternia and it was left to the young ones and their lusii."

Dualscar didn't know about that, either. He nods, though, and falls silent with a frown. It must have been a serious rebellion for the Condesce to have taken such drastic steps as a result.

"No wwonder he's so fuckin' cocky wwhen it comes to sea dwwellers."

Signless gently paps Dualscar on the nose. "You aren't exactly Mr. Modesty himself, you know."

Then he hugs him again, relieved to have him back, and more or less in one piece.

"Yes, but I'm fuckin' royalty," Dualscar says, with complete seriousness. And he smiles as Signless hugs him, cuddling him back with a soft, happy sound.

Oh, Dualscar. You have a ways to go yet, but Signless is going to turn you into a nice troll yet, just you wait and see! It's times like this, when it's just the two of them in Dualscar's spa, that Signless wishes everyone else could see the troll he's been getting to know: the shy, awkward man who responds so well and so honestly to true, genuine affection, who is still learning how to touch and not hurt but is getting better every time, who just came back from the dead and actually learned something about the experience.

"I'm really happy you're my moirail, Dualscar."

Dualscar can't believe just how strongly he reacts to those simple words. He feels his wind tube close, and he feels a smile on his face, helpless and awkward. He had died believing his moirallegiance over, and it had hurt.

"I'm real..." The words stick in his throat, and he looks away. "Real glad that you feel that wway." No, that's not enough. He grimaces. Doesn't he owe Signless better? "And I'm also real happy that wwe're moirails. You'vve...changed my life."

Signless knows how much saying those words must have cost Dualscar, and he cuddles closer against his chest.

"I'm glad." He says it quietly, reverently, and begins tracing diamond shapes on Dualscar's broad chest again. "I'm glad you're learning how to be happy."

Learning how to be happy. So strange that Dualscar even needed to learn such a thing, but he's starting to realize, truly realize, that he never knew before.

He tucks his head against Signless' cheek and draws a diamond on his back, smiling faintly at his own childishness. He hasn't done something like that since he entered his fifth decade. But of course, Signless is so much younger.

"I'm glad that it's not one-sided, either," he murmurs. "That I givve you somethin' in return."

Wow, shush! Just because Signless is literally centuries younger than Dualscar is no reason to get uppity!

"Of course you do. If you didn't, this relationship wouldn't work at all." More diamonds on Dualscar's chest before Signless looks up, his red eyes bright and teasing. "No more capes while we're swimming, though."

"Wwell, I didn't expect it to wwork from the beginning," Dualscar reminded him, smiling. His chest tingles pleasantly where Signless has been drawing diamonds, and he tightens his arms around the smaller troll in a squeeze. "No more capes." He grimaces. "Though you can tell Darkleer if he's got a problem wwith me goin' wwith you in the ocean that chlorine'll scar my gills, wwhich is wwhy I nevver took you to the public pool!"

Signless actually laughs aloud at that. How things change, with Darkleer now worrying about him going out in the ocean!

"I prefer the ocean. I float better there, and there's all sorts of things to look at." He pats Dualscar's chest. "Leave Darkleer to me."

"He's actin' like a wworried featherbeast wwith his chicks all of a sudden, instead a the kind a black hatred I thought I saww before. Wwhat did you do to him?"

"I listened to him. And he was finally ready to listen to me."

He's silent for a long moment. "You're fuckin unbelievvable. I don't knoww howw you can be real."

"You're not the first highblood to say that." Signless appreciates the sentiment, all the same, and smiles up at his moirail.

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