[OPEN]

[sleeplessinalternia]

Who| Karkat + YOU, later Karkat + Signless
What| Karkat isn't dead anymore. He's trying to find Signless to clear up a few things. (Unfortunately, Signless is busy learning about Rome.)
Where| inside the Training Center
When| after Karkat dies during Week Seven
Warnings/Notes| hells of swearing

Karkat... isn't dead anymore. Which was weird, because he quite vividly remembers dying and he doesn't remember anyone resurrection kissing him (not that he knows if that kind of shit would even work outside the Medium.)

The point was, however, that if he isn't dead then neither is the Signless probably and that meant that Karkat actually has the chance to clear up a few important things with the older troll--especially about that unintentional shoosh-pap, but about their shared mutation too.

Unfortunately, Signless evidently isn't part of the same "district" that Karkat had been assigned to, so in order to find him Karkat is going to have to venture out into the Training Center's common area.

Comments

[shambler]

R is going to learn how to tie his shoes or die trying.

...Bad choice of words but still. R doesn't care about strangling other Tributes with nooses or catching animals with snares or anything fancy like that. All he wants to do is tie his shoes like everyone else. Feel...normal. Normal for a walking corpse. Sorta-kinda normal. It's supposed to be like riding a bike.

He can't remember bikes, either.

The zombie shuffles into the Training Center at the crack of dawn, his feet dragging and scrapping on the floor. (His Escort's learning that he burns through shoes faster than her other charges. Funny thing about shambling is how fast you can wear down the soles). R's shoes squeak against the spotless floor as he tries to find the snare station again. It should've been here. Maybe they moved it.

Great. Now he needs directions because if it's not the status quo, suddenly he's shuffling in circles like a lost patrol.

R spots a male Tribute that looks almost zombie-gray in the distance. Zombie-gray's comforting, drawing him in. Considering the way he's not swaying or groaning, R bets he'll be a lot more helpful than another Dead, though. He swallows behind his muzzle, gearing himself up to gasp out a sentence.

"Gu...guhd morning..." R flops up a hand, trying to wave for attention. "Can't...find...stuff here? Can you...help?"

[sleeplessinalternia]

Okay, what the fuck is this guy? He's almost troll grey, but he's hornless and he's moving like the walking dead--only he's not glowing so hopefully he's not undead. (Which is good because Karkat hasn't seen a Kanaya or a weird adult Kanaya clone around and she's the only one he knows that knows how to fight rainbow drinkers and carcass swappers and shadow droppers and all the rest of them.)

"I have no idea about any of this shit," Karkat says, looking annoyed. "I just got here too. I wouldn't be able to tell you where they put shit even if I wanted to." His scowl deepens. "What's the hell with the muzzle? Do they think you're some kind of disobedient barkbeast?"

[shambler]

So no dice.

R opens his mouth to say something when the muzzle comes up. After that time with Eponine, R's surprised his Escort isn't following him like that girl might pounce out of the shadows and gun for the muzzle.

"Ugggh..." R groans (this time he means to groan, it's not some corpse thing). "It's safety...first. What's a bark...beast?"

Did he get that right? Are his ears working or are those the next to go? By now R's lurched close enough to see the other Tribute is gray and that's where familiarity checks itself at the door. There's something on Newbie's head, a splash of orange sprinkled on there that makes R want to stop and stare and he can't tell if it's supposed to be there or it's his stylist making a fashion statement with horns and monochrome. If it's Capitol fashion, you think it'd be way bigger. Those horns look...small.

No offense.

[sleeplessinalternia]

"They're a kind of beast," Karkat says, rolling his eyes because who the fuck doesn't know what a barkbeast is? "Quadrapedal, with a snout, they go 'bark' which is where they get their name from. Look, let me show you. Stay here."

Karkat goes over to the camouflage and grabs some paint, then comes back to where R is and proceeds to draw a (very crude) barkbeast on the wall.

R might be able to recognize Karkat's drawing as what humans would call a dog, if he can get past Karkat's undeniably shitty art skills.

[shambler]

Why didn't he just say "dog" in the first place? Although "barkbeast" is catchy in its own right.

R obediently stays put, entertaining himself by throwing in a gentle, almost lazy swaying from side to side as he waits for Newbie to come back. His head wobbles up and turns to watch as the other Tribute begins scrawling all over the wall. He's about on par with the few zombies R's seen trying to draw, like they're testing a phantom memory by mashing their fingers into dirt and trying to doodle. This guy has more purpose behind it, though.

That doesn't change the fact that the drawing looks almost abstract. It probably would've been considered modern art, pre-zombie apocalypse.

"You mean...dog?" R realizes he better say something else. Pretend like he totally gets the drawing. Be polite and all that jazz. "It's...very...nice. You're...a good...artist."

[sleeplessinalternia]

Karkat rolls his eyes. "It's shit. But it got the point across." He looks R over, frowning. "What the fuck are you, anyway? You're trolloid and your color is almost right, but you're definitely not a troll. And you don't move like the human aliens do."

[shambler]

So much for trying to be polite about his drawing skills. The look R shoots him was already lost at "trolloid" and being told he actually had a color. Usually it's the other way around. He's supposed to be squishy and pink.

"Was...human." Aliens? "I'm...a...zombie. My name's....Rrr," R adds, a little bit like he's trying to rush past the whole walking corpse thing because that's always been an awkward subject.

[sleeplessinalternia]

Karkat frowns. "What the fuck's a zombie? And what do you mean, 'was human?' Do humans pupate into zombies or something? Or, no, wait, you guys are mammals, aren't you? Do mammals even pupate?"

He makes a huffing noise. "Well, whatever, Rrr. I'm Karkat. What the hell were you even looking for, anyway?"

[shambler]

R's gaping like an idiot at Karkat and he doesn't even care for a change. "Pup...pate?"

He has to stop and get a second wind, still hung up on "pupate" and "mammals". It's like hitting a speed-bump going seventy, if he could still drive. What's the deal with Karkat? Like, he's human too, right? R stares at the horns again, thinking those are probably really, really important and drawing a blank. The zombie takes another noisy, animal-like whiff and hello, something's up. Whatever he's getting from Karkat, it's not hitting the usual buttons. The hunger's confused, not sure what to make of him.

R has the vague sense he better get caught up here or he'll be left behind. The zombie eventually gets the memo and snaps his mouth shut.

"Uggh, I was...looking for...noose...station." R's surprised he actually got out a sentence, no thanks to Karkat. "Practice...ing."

[sleeplessinalternia]

"Yeah, pupate," Karkat says. "You know, when you go from one stage of life to another? Fuck, mammals must really not pupate. That is so weird."

(Humans in general are massively weird, though. Just Karkat's luck to be stuck somewhere that's filled with them.)

"Nooses are a good idea, though. I got both my culls by strangling them. How did you get yours?"

He says this almost conversationally, like he expects that of course R killed someone in the arena and it's not something he should be too bothered about.

[shambler]

R's still struggling along after Karkat. "That's...just...Life?"

And then Karkat has to be casual and brag, R understanding the world "cull" because he's heard some of the soldiers back home say it - right before they got over-run by things like him. "Cull" he gets. It's short, fast, clean like a headshot from a sniper rifle. If he was alive, the look R would give Karkat would probably be anything from angry to haunted to shocked, maybe all three at once to give it flavor because who brags about this? Instead R only manages a dumb look.

"I ate...mine," R moans, ashamed. His hunger's not sorry, but it's never sorry. It's just greedy. R is two seconds from killing his first impression here with Karkat by being too honest. "Not something...to be...proud...of."

[sleeplessinalternia]

Sorry, R, your indignation is going right over his head.

Karkat winces. "Yeah, that's kind of gross," he says. "I mean, okay, we eat grubs, but they're like specially farmed, they weren't supposed grow up to be people."

Noose station, noose station, where's the fucking noose station.

He frowns. This would be a lot easier if he could read the human written language.

[shambler]

Somehow "kind of gross" isn't as bad as "get away from me, you cannibal freak", so yeah, R can roll with that. Not much he can do about the new red meat diet. The zombie grunts and shuffles after Karkat as they start looking for the noose station, winding their way through the pillars and wondering if Karkat means grubs like, insects, or it's another slang like barkbeast and there's another kind of grub R isn't familiar with (he was busy picturing Karkat with handfuls of maggots, only classier). There's probably a trick to picking up what Karkat says. R spends a lot of the trip trying to catch up to the faster Tribute and staring holes into his back.

After a few minutes, R realizes that Karkat's looking at the signs a little too long.

In fact, it's almost the same look R gets when he's trying to strain something wishing he could read. Really? They're both illiterate here?

"You...can't read?" R blurts, then rushes to cover it up by groaning because that was a little rude. "Sorry. I mean..." What does he mean? "Uggh, I....assumed."

[sleeplessinalternia]

"I can read," Karkat says irritably. "I just can't read Human. It's really stupid, we've got really similar spoken languages, but your human letters don't make any sense at all."

He still has some paint left from the camouflage station, so he finds the nearest flat surface (which happens to be another wall) and starts painting symbols, going from right to left:



"See? That's how my species writes things."

[shambler]

That was some weird looking writing, R staring at it and there isn't a light-bulb moment going on behind his corpse's face. All he gets from it is it looks pointier then the stuff he's seen on faded posters and ads back home, all sharp ends like spears and razor curved edges slicing along the wall. The paint starts to run.

"Oh," R said. Okay, so Karkat really could read and write after all. But - "Still...can't find the...noose...station."

Maybe that's catty. R hadn't been aiming for catty. The groan popped out like that, though, the zombie looking dimly surprised. Guess he's more frustrated than he realized. Being unable to tie his own shoes is a bigger sore point than he thought, R casting about for something more tactful to say.

[sleeplessinalternia]

"Yeah, I know," Karkat says, running his hand through his hair in frustration. It only serves to make his already messy hair messier. "Look, the noose station probably has rope. We'll look for rope."

[shambler]

R shrugs. Sounds like a plan (sadly it's a plan he didn't think of, but hey: zombie).

"How are you...on...nooses?" R asks, figuring maybe he'll work up the courage to ask about shoelaces even if it's a step down and you can't exactly "cull" anyone tying your shoes.

[sleeplessinalternia]

Karkat shrugs. "Okay, I guess. I dunno, I used a garrote in the arena when I was strangling those kids, not a noose. I knew a girl back home though who was really good with them, though." His voice takes on a wistful note upon mentioning the girl.

[shambler]

That doesn't sound like a good way to die. R isn't entirely sure what the difference between a noose and a garrote is - don't they both use knots? - but he'll take Karkat's word that it's effective.

"You...like her?" R asks, deciding he rather talk about girls than who strangled who.

[sleeplessinalternia]

The grey of Karkat's cheeks takes on an almost imperceptibly slight reddish tinge. "Terezi? She's a justice-obsessed, giggling menace!" He looks away from R, at his own feet. "Yeah, maybe a little."

From his expression and tone of voice, it's obvious that he likes her a lot.

[shambler]

They might be two different species, not even going into one's alive and the other's a walking corpse, but the way Karkat says Terezi's name sends something familiar shivering up R's spine. He peers down at the troll, his face fighting its way into a smile behind his muzzle, rigor mortis be damned.

"That's...good. You should...ask her...out...?"

R can add Matchmaker to his list of possible jobs. Maybe he'll be better at it than Stand-Up Comedian or Zombie Apocalypse Survivor.

[sleeplessinalternia]

"Why would I want to do something like that?" Karkat asks defensively. Then he sighs. "I can't anyway. She's not here. I don't even know if she's still alive. Things were pretty crazy when they snatched me up."

[shambler]

The question is why wouldn't R - or that's how R saw it, anyway. Maybe it was a troll thing.

"That...sucks," R says, sympathizing. He resists the urge to slap a cold, heavy hand on Karkat's shoulder and give it a pat. "Maybe...you'll see her again? Then...ask."

R skates by the fact Karkat could be dead in a month, once the next Arena rolls around.

[sleeplessinalternia]

"Yeah," Karkat says. "Maybe." And then he'll be obligated to kill her in the arena. He's not sure if he wants Terezi here--though this whole resurrection thing does make it a little better.

He sighs. "Let's go find your stupid nooses."

Rope, rope, where is the rope?