vatheon | floating goatchild

Who: Karkat and the Psiioniic, with mentions of Gamzee in the background (with mun agreement).
Where: A random street in Vatheon.
When: Backdated to Thursday (the 17th).
Style: Action.
Status: Closed.

[Lousy stupid goddamn moirail. Those are Karkat's thoughts as he storms through the streets of Vatheon, cursing his luck alongside the ill-behaved troll child who's run off without word, permission, or even a note. Not that he'd be eager to see what awful cluckbeast scratch Gamzee's younger self would produce, hell no, but it would be something better than the brat wandering off somewhere. This is what he gets for not paying attention when the kid was out playing.]

[Parenting: harder than it looks. Even if a "parent" isn't really what he'd call himself this week, technicalities set aside too. It's not their normal moirallegiance, either; if Karkat uses the term, it's more by association this week than through speech or actions. The point is just that he feels responsible. Without the usual memories to guide him, and youth inducing a wide streak of "I'm a little shit who clubs people in the knee", someone has to keep Gamzee in line.]

[Now if only the kid left some kind of sign of where he went. Karkat must look awkward, pausing every so often to peek out from under his hood, hand shielding his eyes as he does. There's a reason he's tried to stay inside as much as he can. And okay, blood may mean next to nothing here, but he'd sooner avoid awkward questions should anyone recognize him who doesn't know well enough to get the deal there.]

[But let's say blood and eye color weren't a thing he has to think about this week. Let's say he wasn't doing the awkward routine to try and shield his irises from view. It's still unlikely that Karkat would be looking up to search for Gamzee when for once he's at a height distinctly shorter than his own. It's by chance entirely that something bright catches the edge of his vision, and without thinking, he looks domewards--]

What the squawking fuck.

[--and spots the little terror in a floating ball of red and blue energy. That answers more than a few questions, but still raises others. He glimpsed a yellow grub on the network, but was that Sollux or Psii? Not that he can imagine the Psiioniic pulling this, but in either case, he needs to figure what's going on.]

[All this, in short, is why the Psiioniic would see some dude clutching his hoodie as he runs up. A grey-skinned dude, in fact, of the same height as Signless. Same nubby horn bumps under the fabric too, if his ancestor's ever gone without horn holes - Karkat usually leaves the hood down.]

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[The bitterness catches him. There's probably someone out there who could overlook it, or not care, but that someone is not Karkat: he flinches to hear it. Not simply because he got things wrong thinking the Psiioniic had no knowledge of the curse, either. The worst is going to come, indeed.]

... No. No I'm not.

[There's a lot he could tell him, but who would want to dump the info on a person that they get enslaved as a glorified ship engine? He looks down and his arms fold over his chest.]

It is fucked up. At least last time this happened I don't recall having to worry about people's memories being messed with. Even if other chaos decided to show up right then.

[He motions up at the sky.]

What did you find him doing?

He was being loud and rude. Highblooded. I had no intention to deal with it, and he found himself in the sky.

[ He's happy for the subject change, looking up and floating it up even higher. It might end up bouncing off the bubble at some point. ]

Is it really so common here? That the highbloods deign to quadrant so easily with mutants and gutterbloods?

[His gaze does lift back up then, eyebrows low, until--]

Shhhshshshh! Shoosh, you loose-flapped moron! Do you want people to overhear?

[Is there anyone else around?]

You don't just go using that so freely. I mean, fuck, okay, the humans don't get it, but it's not your place to just go spilling that like you jabbed a knife in my side as a bizarre crosscultural greeting. And was that really the wording you had to pick? Jegus tapdancing Christ.

[His arms refold, and the corner of his mouth quirks down like a stitch has been put in to hold it tight.]

I guess you could call it common, and long stories abound, none of which are your business. And yeah, he's loud and rude: he's a kid whose lusus didn't give him enough attention and he hasn't mellowed out yet.

[ Psii doesn't seem particularly impressed with Karkat's concerns. It was hardly as if his blood was some kind of secret when Signless went about as he was, and given that he was both unchallenged by the alien race and under the protection of a highblood--something that Karkat apparently usually enjoyed as well--he had a hard time being as concerned as he might usually. ]

Alright.

[ He is not conceding any points when he says that. He might have a hard time mustering up sympathy or empathy, but he's genuinely interested in this strange troll that looked so much like Signless.

His voice is soft and level when he speaks again.]

So the remnants of the race nearly reach his ideal, the world he dreamt of, but I can't talk of blood. That is completely rational.

[It made more sense in his own head, okay. A grumble rolls around the back of Karkat's throat to hear Psii call out how rational it is. How does he put it? He does know the humans don't really care. Most trolls don't either. Signless, yes, is flagrant about it as it gets here, and the two hardly look unalike. There's been times when he's bled around other people and nothing's come of it; when his murder was broadcast on the network, he more had to worry about people causing chaos by going after his killer than anything over his blood.]

[It does sound stupid when put that way.]

[He turns his back to the Psiioniic. While a mark that he trusts him not to harm him, for trolls, it's more that he doesn't want to look at him.]

It's an ingrained response. Just because I'm not dead for it doesn't mean I like to talk about it or have people go, "oh hey, Karkat, your eyes sure aren't the color they usually are!" And words like that would bring up stupid questions I don't want to answer, because you may not have noticed, cheery fun time chat jamboree is not the association I'd pick for them.

[ That actually makes quite a bit of sense to Psii. Nothing said a man had to like his blood, not even when they weren't subject to the the dangers of caste discrimination.

After all, Psii hated most things about himself, and that surely hadn't magically changed. He doesn't realize that it never really will. ]

Then I won't talk of it anymore. [ A brief pause. ] No troll is to be judged for the color of their blood, but for their deeds and actions.

[ From the way that last sentence is rattled off, he's very obviously paraphrasing something. ]

It goes two ways, both to exalt and denigrate.

[ Oops, accidentally slightly zealotous. He might mean it well as a good way to alter the topic, but he's no skilled socializer.

Gamzee casually bounces off the top of the bubble. ]

[Well, that's a... weird way of dealing with the topic. Karkat blinks once, head tilting just to the side.]

You think you have to tell me that much?

[Nonetheless: this guy really is a follower.]

The Signless didn't teach me anything new there. I have seen good and bad from all shades of the spectrum: idiocy and success both from the same individual. I didn't lay out tasks for my team as whose blood is the prettiest color; I pointed their talents at what they were good for, and I drove them to success that way.

And watch what you're doing! I assure you that Gamzee will have enough damage to the pan when he goes back to normal without you adding any now.

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