But now I'm a monster, my blood all runs cold

[carnagecarnival]

Who| The Grand Highblood and his unfortunate victims.
What| The Capitol has brought the Initiate's future in at last for this limited time opportunity.
Where| Dreaming worlds.
When| During the dream event.
Notes| I'm posting this with Initiate's account, but it will be GHB (comicalamity) that tags come from. Icons will be in the comments so if that's a pet peeve then steer clear.
Warnings| HUGE MASSIVE WARNINGS FOR THIS GUY, which is a reason he's getting a post of his own instead of going in the official log. Warning for possible genocide references, torture references, desecration of corpses, violences, language... the worst of things. Just be weary. (Also casual spacism.)

Day 2

It doesn't matter where you came from, it matters that you're here. It matters that you really don't want to be here...

The throne room is massive. It reaches upwards like it can compete with that of the sky. Its color and glimmer grasping at star's glory. Bones line the chambers, make up the walls, the ceiling, some still featuring their death hues. Some skulls with sharpened maws still agape, like they can cry out their respective agonies, even lacking tongues in their maws. The bones hang from the ceiling, interspersed with pleasant little lanterns and swaths of cloth and cloak.

Behind it all is a wall so smooth as to be glass. But for the sticky bits of color clinging to it, a brilliant collage. A motherfucking kingdom of dead behind him, and the living set before his beholding. Stained glass high, depicting various amusing executions and tortures, as well as shows of the holy scriptures, all cast light beautiful on the dark indigo room.

His throne sits, tall and imposing, the same hue as the blood of the last Highblood and made up from all them old bones long decayed and every Highblood come before. None of this is what makes the room terrifying. The source of choking, terror sits within, on that throne, lounging and smiling any way but kindly. He looms over, painted face a picture of fear, expression one of murder, and his claws the beauty what follows. He is something ancient, beholding something new with the same regard-- amusement.

"HIS BRETHREN DON'T OFTEN BRING NEW MOTHERFUCKING GIFTS," His voice booms. "Not ones such as this. NO, NO." He leans forward. "...You must be something... real goddamned special."

Day 4

He resides in the shadows of the conciousness, and as the world of dreams shifts into something of his grasp, he makes himself home in it. So many paths lead his way, once the world opens up to his will. A merry motherfucking guide is he, the ticket taker and ring master all in fucking one. He is a wraith in these dreams.

Where the little Initiate was not but speck of time and failures, a blotted mark in the swath of a thousand pages, a discomfort in his own motherfucking form... the Grand Highblood owns every gesture, every breath, every bit of his all too-tall body.

He sits, just as before, this time before the wall behind his throne. He paints with grace unearthly. He paints every horror in the mind of his new guest. And then he smiles wide. The Grand Highblood's fangs stick into every word. If it were more conscious, it would seem to be done deliberate. It's quite possible it is still, considering the way his slow calm hand gestures put his wicked, rainbow stained claws on display.

"It's so beautiful... ALL UP FULL OF FUCKING BEAUTY TO BE KICKED BY PLACE DARK AND RAPPED THE HOLY UNDOING BY IT BEING UP AND MOTHERFUCKING DONE. The rowdy raucous got to be stopped upon, cause a calm calamitous by the wicked revelations to be had. A REVELATION OF HIGHEST FUCKING ORDER WOULD MAKE APT AS ALL TO BE. He does think... OH BY HIS PAN HAS COME OCCURRENCE NOW! He thinks it missing only one thing singular." The Grand Highblood turns his head. "AIN'T YOU DOWN FOR THE RIGHTEOUS MOTHERFUCKING AGREEMENTS WITH HE?"

Day 7

His height is not easily processed. He is not particularly wide set, not big by the correct proportional measures. Fuck that, he says wordless by every step. No, his form simply fails to make sense to the functioning mind. He doesn't look like a person, he looks like something that happens to people.

And happen he does.

He moves along lax and idle, no apparent place better to be. The battlefield is a well-tended park. His club-- a great wicked thing sharp spikes and a heavy swing and rainbow all over it-- is twirled like a toy. He wears his an armor, bone of bone, the last efforts of someone's attempt to end him then warped and crafted into his protection. Or really, just to inspire.

But it's the smug grin as he walks on through, like he's an immortal. It's the way his eyes go wide with childish delight, his grin matching, before he darts forward with a lightening fast acrobatic motion and gleefully swings his club at the first living thing he sees, making a great show of watching it fly into the distance if the body is not stuck to his club-- then he quickly shifts back once more to being something old. It sets him off against the world around. It makes it seem as though he's waiting for something bigger.

And then his eyes fall upon his next game.

Comments

Day 4

[pythianjudgment]

Even in a dream, Terezi is drawn to the colors, much like she was years ago. She doesn't yet have the sense to be wary. These dreams have been pleasant so far. Why should this one be any different?

The mood is darker and more tense here, but she presses on. Maybe some part of her recognizes who this dream should belong to. Maybe there's a brief flicker of hope in her chest, even amid the oppressive fear that works its way into every fiber of the dream. She exhales, trying to expel the tension, but it does little good. She presses on towards the swath of color.

There's a figure there--one that she easily recognizes, even though she's never smelled him like this before. In the same thought, her mind supplies both Grand Highblood and Kurloz, and she's the closest that she's ever been to acknowledging that the two of them are one and the same. She hangs back a few paces, only meaning to be an observer and not an active participant in the dream. She doesn't anticipate him turning to address her.

The voice alone makes her want to curl her toes in fright, but having the full focus of his attention is a kind of terror that Terezi has never experienced before. His meaning is perfectly obvious, and words are lost to her for a moment. She takes a step back.

"No," she says, finally finding her voice. She has to wonder where she found the gall to disagree. Maybe the terror was all in her head--the way that dreams are often so real, up until the moment that you wake. If she could only will the fear away from her, perhaps she could change the course of this dream. "I think... It doesn't need anything. It's already done well. Too much color could spoil it."

[comicalamity]

He looks upon her with a smile. It is a smile like he is in some deep dark secret she most assuredly ain't want him or anyone to know, but he knows it. There's a growl under his breath like something predatory, but there's no other sign of attack.

"Spoil it?" He repeats after her, the word rolling out on a drawl and click. "NOW, GIRL. Little sister motherfucking day sky. CAUTERIZING ROT-PLUCKED CORPSE. Turned a touch to leather, for no speech to be. BUT WERE IT SO. Were it up at to motherfucking be. WOULD NEVER A MUTTERANCE PASS FOR TOO. Much. MEAT."

His smile stretches ever higher, pushing back the fangs paint on to show his real ones.

"Falter flatter, but to be of motherfucking both? WOULD SUGGEST A NERVOUSNESS OF MOTHERFUCKING SORTS. All patter-pumped, a girl. DOES SHE FEAR HER HIGHBLOOD NOW? Does she work them worries woesome upon her sorry little pan?" He queries. He shifts enough that he can view her properly.

The better to see you with, my dear.

[pythianjudgment]

"It's not flattery," she protests, and the words aren't just lip service. She's always found Kurloz's paintings to be full of passionate emotion--enough to move a person. The Grand Highblood's are no different, even if the predominant emotion impressed is terror.

He asks if she fears him now, and she tenses, her hands drawing up with a hint of defensiveness near her stomach. There's no question about it. She does fear him. But this is only a dream. Only a dream. Only a dream. She repeats the mantra in her head, trying to push back against tension clenched tight around her heart.

"Do you need to ask that? Like there is anyone out there who knows you and wouldn't be afraid?"

[comicalamity]

He barks a laugh. It's a cacophonous rasp, echoing in the dark though there is no wall what the sound can ricochet off of. She tells the truth and lies all in one. This is apt. Of course it's motherfucking flattery. "HOW MOTHERFUCKING AMAZED YOU WOULD BE. So shocked the canal, the bonnie boats so up and heard play thusly host to a crew of them wired ghastly. GONE GOTTEN THEM SORRY SICK SEEKERS." The contrast of his fluctuations is greater than she knows of his youth. The whispers are oh so gentle. The heights are shredding. "She is right," He answers slyly. "BUT SHE IS... all a motherfucking sorts... WRONG." So many who'd much rather dance with denial. But he felt and knew and held it close. And of course, she did specify those who know. "But do any of the vermin false-venerated truly up and know? NO. No, he thinks not." His eyes narrow at her, even as his smile stays up. "BUT HE THINKS. Oh he does so suspect. THAT POSSIBILIES MAY UP AND BE AS THE COMING DUSK. They may yet learn."

Day 2

[sizeofyourbaggage]

It can't compete with the sky. Nothing can compete with the sky, not to someone who's lived and breathed it for as long as Sam has.

But it catches Sam's attention anyway, and he swoops in, looking over everything with an absent frown before he catches sight of the impressive figure making itself at home on the thrown. It's not the troll's expression that fills Sam momentarily with dread - though it's definitely related - it's the face itself. Sam knows that face, or what it used to be, what it might have been.

Sam's wings flutter briefly in agitation - they do that now that they're real, he's discovered - but he dismisses that with a flick of them, settling down on the ground and half tucking them behind him.

"Special, huh? You'll have to judge for yourself. What name are you going by now?"

With everything Kurloz told him, he probably shouldn't be so bold with this guy. But it's a dream - an element of a nightmare, maybe, the Capitol looking to fuck with Sam's head just like he's been waiting for. Mock him with what Kurloz could be if he goes back, if Sam isn't good enough to save him, but they don't know what he and Terezi have planned.

It's just a dream, and Sam won't be cowed by it.

[comicalamity]

The winged creature descends and he beholds it, head lifting and eyes flashing with recognition. It's not for Sam, no. It's for a brazen creature of sky touching down before him. It's for the motherfucking familiarity ripe up about this unholy shit show of a scene. Wings like a bird. Like an angel this time. He is not cowed. He's amused at the nerve. Almost as amused as he'd been by the Orphaner's drone-like get-up until the fishfucker opened his mirth dry maw. Sam speaks. He examines with a scrutinizing eye. Then he laughs, head thrown back as he does so. He concludes by leaning on forward in his throne, head tilting slightly to the side. "HE IS THE JUDGE AND FUCKING JURY WHOLE OF THIS ENTIRE GRANDSTAND FROLIC PLATEAU," HE says. "Rest assured, little brother. IN ASSURANCE DO BE OF MOTHERFUCKING REST THAT HIS MOST HIGH AUTHORITY, YOUR DEVOTED MOTHERFUCKING AJUDICONTUSORATOR... is all about making motherfucking acumen by what he and his most divine descended self knows about the doing for." He leans back in his throne, claws tapping one after the other in rolling rhythm. He takes his time. They still and he lifts his chin. "HIS MOST HIGH HILARITY. His levity. OH MESSIAHS' BLOOD AND SPEAKPIPE. His Highness. MASTER MINATORY. 'Wait, please, don't cull me'..." He drawls. "AIN'T TO BE GRANTING NO RIGHT BY DECEPTIONS TO BE, LITTLE BROTHER. Thinking you know full god damn well who I am apt to be. BY COGNITION PANWISE HE THINKS YOU RIFE WITH THE MOTHERFUCKING KNOWING."

[sizeofyourbaggage]

Something twists in Sam’s chest when the troll calls him brother. Oh, Sam knows that he doesn’t mean it the way Kurloz did, that it’s a speech pattern and not a claiming of any kind of relationship, just like he knows that this guy isn’t the Kurloz he knows, but it affects him just the same.

Just like that laugh. Sam’d spent a lot of time trying to get Kurloz to laugh and smile, just… not like this.

He shakes his head, rolling out his shoulders - shake it off, he’s gotta shake this off, and he launches himself back up, hovering in the air to give himself something else to focus on.

“Only by reputation,” he replies. “I met a ghost of you once, but I’m pretty sure he was more for show.”

Day 7

[metalicarus]

His next game comes in the form of something flying. He's barely half the monstrosity's height but it doesn't make him waver. Instead, right before he's in range of that great club, he fires the blaster in his hand, a long and jagged stream of electric energy flying out from the end and aimed straight for the GHB's chest.

Jet had gone looking for Initiate on the off chance he'd find his brother and be able to talk to him.

He'd found this instead.

This wasn't his brother, this was the twisted and mangled version he feared to be. The future he'd mentioned in passing. Jet didn't have any proof beyond the vague recognition he felt, but that was all, it was all feeling. Just as simply looking at the hulking presence brought more feeling than sight to him, his gut more than his mind told him this was the monster that wasn't supposed to happen. Initiate wanted this version stopped.

Jet would just have to cut him down in Kurloz's place.

"I've heard the bigger they are, the harder they fall...but I think the bigger they are the uglier they get applies better to you."

[comicalamity]

What joy. Another itty bitty little motherfucking bug as all so to devour. All these flying motherfuckers. One think they'd learn to stay the fuck down. He moves far faster than someone his size should be allowed. He's nearly a blur as he falls back to avoid the blast-- oh, he has fought far too many guttervein psionics and far from being the fuck enough. They used to write their names in his flesh and in return he painted their lives. This is nostalgic is what it up and is. He swings around bring a sharp kick in from over. Whether it hits or not, it flips him back onto his feet in time to bring another jubliant swing. He doesn't seem to mind that it misses. He straightens up tall again. The better to view this flight-cursed creature. "LITTLE MOTHERFUCKING EARLY FOR FLIRTING, AIN'T YOU GOT IT AT YOU TO THINK?" He laughs. "Bitty brightveined brother, you ain't even brought him an elixir."

[metalicarus]

Once upon a time, he'd been limited to Mach 5 speeds, now he could break into speeds that almost no other thing on Earth could accomplish, although it wasn't easy. It's these speeds he relies on as the boosters in his back spread like wings and give him the extra agility to dodge and weave through the hits. Even like that it's narrowly missed, the guy's barely even trying but he's huge and that was all that mattered.

One hit and Jet was likely to find himself six feet under and ready to bury when he hit the ground. For now, he flew higher, much, much, higher than the towering monster's head, though Jet still found himself needing to be wary of those enormous horns.

"Sorry, don't sit around drinking with mass-murderers, you'll have to find yourself another date." A quick setting-switch on his blaster and the next time Jet pulled the trigger, it wasn't lightning that came out, but balls of plasma aimed right at GHB's head.

Day 4

[silberfuchs]

Even if the hulking Troll's horns weren't a dead give away, the preaching, fluctuating speech would mark the painter as Kurloz. But it's not Kurloz, not as Albert knows him. It's him from another timeline, one that will no longer come to pass. He's nothing but a picture in a book, a cautionary tale. A nightmare.

Albert just doesn't know who's.

He approaches the Grand Highblood carefully, stopping at a respectful distance from the throne and surveying the giant's handiwork. It's blood, for all it looks like paint. Trolls blood comes in a rainbow of colors but forms of his own fears and failings are on the wall simply in their hue; stains of indigo, teal, and sanguine, Human red.

To ask what the painting is missing is to ask to be culled and so he doesn't, instead remaining his several steps away and cocking his head to regard the piece as if it's a simple art gallery instead of the dark halls of nightmare.

"It suits you," is all he says.

[comicalamity]

It's a nice thought of Albert's, that with Initiate there and around, the future sitting before him could never come to be. A nice thought, but not a true one. In the span of a thousand different timelines, he exists. Inevitable. Undeniable. Necessary. He is a wish granted and price paid in one. The Highblood's brows rise up, appraising. It is not an answer he expected, but he seems amused nonetheless. "Does it now?" He drawls in a breath. "TELL HIM. What got the gumption up about to be of a brother. WHAT ASSUMPTIONS HE GOT TO PRESUME BY MOTHERFUCKING SOURCE. What all put in pan for the wicked shit to be all the motherfuck like that?" He didn't give the details of his person out willy nilly. Sure he was known. He knew he was known. Wasn't a chucklefuck in the goddamn empire as didn't know his title and only slightly less as didn't know it synonymous to all things unrighteous by their sinner selves. But fame is different from knowing. "TRULY, HE IS ALL KINDS OF CURIOUS. The meowbeasts he could fucking kill, he tells."

[silberfuchs]

Alternate timelines don't concern Albert here, only the one he's participating in. There may be a great many out there, one for each and every choice from mundane as turning left instead of right to monumental as the Earth never being formed. In this timeline, however, where Kurloz and Albert were both brought to Panem, the Grand Highblood only exists as a cautionary tale of a future never to pass. Undeniable, maybe, but not inevitable.

And certainly not necessary.

This being a dream, Albert feels at ease. Or at least he tells himself he does. There's something undeniably frightening about the Highblood purely in his bulk and the way he conducts himself. Graceful, powerful, and moreover unconcerned with his place. It's clearly not a struggle for this Troll any longer. He knows what he's for, like a predator on the hunt. He is forever in his element. But it's simply a dream.

"Beauty from carnage, art from death." Albert shrugs, his face impassive, as if he truly does understand and his analysis is merely for anyone watching. Perhaps that's true; he was coined God of Death on his own world, a machine of war. In some reality, he supposes he could have embraced it at his lowest point. They never allowed him to die, and if he and his family hadn't escaped he can see that future where he's no better than the Highblood, reveling in death and painting the walls with blood.

A monster.

"The end of life giving birth to something new." No matter the violence.

day 4/jul 29

[biiowiired]

It was easy to pull the throne room from the Grand Highblood's memories, even easier to place the Helmsman there, in the state he was in when he was finally captured: beaten down and subdued. He was still the Ψiioniic in name and mind, but his punishment was already set. Soon, a change in title would be in order. There on the wall was his future, an installation of paint and gore depicting a broken rebel trussed up in fuchsia biowires. The Condesce was a nice propagandist touch, an extra dose of fear. Psii's stomach always roiled at the thought of sea dwellers.

Strong highblood arms circled around his own and held him up to view the painting properly. He could barely stand on his own two feet after the beating he'd taken. Rudimentary psionic suppression gear webbed over his head, but the red and blue sparks dancing around it warned that it would have to be replaced before he overloaded it. Psii was the most powerful mage they'd seen. The Empress would be pleased.

His head was swimming with pain, and at first he didn't register that he was being asked a direct question. He opened his mouth to speak, hoping something would come out, but his mind was blank. Blood dribbled from his lips and clotted his words.

Fuck this.

He wadded up the metallic taste and spat derisive yellow on the painting, ruining a perfectly rendered tyrian high heel.

[comicalamity]

This brings back memories. A yellowblood in his block. An execution just completed and massacre of the watching followers to follow in grand finale. Paint on his fingers and the faint imagining of it all being so much brighter. The Ψiioniic spits. The Grand Highblood grins. "HA! Perfect. ALL RIGHT THE FUCK ON BY BELONGING TO YOU! Say true, might have an eye. MIGHT HAVE KNOWING AS WHAT MAKES RIGHTEOUS UPON IMAGE THUS. A good-for-nothing at her royal highnesses motherfucking feet." He rises up to stand, towering. His eyes are narrow and head tilted when making his way about the yellowblood. His true mood shows through then, just a touch. He leans in and reaches out suddenly. He grasps the Ψiioniic's jaw roughly, claws digging in. "HE COULD OFFER YOU A MERCY AND YOU WOULD NOT EVEN FIND IN YOUR WITHERSOME BEAT ORGAN TO APPRECIATE THE GESTURE. He could provide a freedom absomotherfuckinglute but you could not. EVEN. Motherfucking. FATHOM. The generosity as all it would require." The smile on him slips into something bitter and twisted. "SHE WANTS A PISSBLOOD ALL FOR HER OWN. She desires service as what she could have a thousand others made all to attend for in your lamentable stead. IT'S A MOTHERFUCKING HEARTBREAK. A tragedy. WERE IT UP TO HIS MOST HIGH AND HOLY, YOUR HEAD WOULD BE STUCK UPON A PIKE, SKIN STRIPPED ONCE PALED IN A THOUSAND SWEET DEATHLESS DROWNINGS AS TO FORM THE FLAG OF YOUR REVOLUTION'S SURRENDER. Done and done in harshest form and it would still be a motherfucking mercy, you ken?" He snorts humorlessly and jerks his hand and thus the Ψiioniic's head. The claw of his thumb leaves a cut. Let it scar. Let her Imperiousness throw her shrill screaming fit, every last fucker of this wretched cult belongs to his inquisition's red hot dismembering implements whether she motherfucking believes so or not. He does not appreciate his things stolen from him.

[biiowiired]

He sucked in a little instinctive gasp as fingers strong as a vise shot out of the dark and grabbed his face. He'd expected Her Imperious Condescension's most reliable (terrifying) land dwelling enforcer to be angry at him for spitting, but this was a surprise.

First he had to repress a shudder. The painting was true, then. He would not be culled, but used. The Empire really was quite efficient. His power would give any ship an edge, and it would be a waste to cull him. The Grand Highblood would not be overseeing his installation. Likely the task was too technical, or the Empress didn't trust him with her new battery. Psii would have been intrigued to know this before, that they had their disagreements, but now he merely sagged before the huge troll. The Grand Highblood's cut made him wince, but he'd seen long ago the threshold of his own pain increased against his will.

"It would be a merthy," he finally whispered, the cut searing red-hot when his jaw moved. "But it'th not going to happen."

He sounded almost sad. Torture and death were better than a lifetime of servitude; he ran away from that to begin with. But he received no vision of his own death, and he knew he would be alive for quite a while yet. He had always been the bearer of bad news, even to himself.

"Altho, we never thurrendered."

Being punished for correcting a highblood was the least of his problems. Signless was a corpse on a flogging jut; Psii could not escape, either. The fear and anxiety of being caught was in the past. Self-preservation was pointless. It was almost a relief to be dead inside.

Day 4 (howls neon bible lyrics)

[crabmunicator]

Karkat's dream was easy to twist this way. A mash between the Lands of Pulse and Haze and Tents and Mirth, brought together bloody with tents on stone between his red rivers. Make it a wrong turn, or maybe those stone structures weren't as safe, but he's found himself solidly in subjugglator territory.

Light steps, listen, wait, draw back, hide, move--these are the steps he takes, reminded almost of arenas past, particularly the dark corridors of his first full one. But no, the walls are too colorful; there is sugar on the air; the fear threading through him is more than his own.

It's easy, so easy with this one: he's already been touched, after all.

So when trying to get out turns into stumbling into the Grand Highblood's own chambers, there should be no dearth of imagery to draw from. Dead friends in all colors, deaths of his own, betrayal and hurt, and the tainting of every goddamn indigo he's known. His feet won't move. His lungs seize. He has to get out, has to back out or move along, sneak past, but he can't before this enormity: hair longer and shaggier than any, horns a towering wave, a figure that even seated would surely dwarf him. He feels small in a way he hasn't since the Black King, but the difference then was that he was prepared with a full team behind him.

Now, this beast turns to him, and his fear is plain for the taking.

"Oh god." He's barely audible, voice somewhere between whisper and squeak, and his feet finally move to press him hard up against a back wall like they want to press through it. He can't, though, boundaries too solid only when he wants otherwise, and his mind is set with surety that he's going to die.

[comicalamity]

It is only because his fear is so damn delicious that he does not rise nor turn. It is only because he has been gifted such a plethora of beauty and wonder and things what spin thought sponges. He revels in it like a cool cloth upon a fever. A singular sweet mercy wrought by one most motherfucking calamitous. He knows who it is. He knows immediate. It sings in his bones. Every nerve in his body to his pan is a motherfucking livewire. The red of his eyes is the blood of the blasphemer. "Sufferer," He breathes. There ice on the air for that breath. On that breath there is fever. The wall is no longer beautiful. It is no longer of any sort of consequence. His whole world is this dismal whelp of a creature. "YOU'VE BEEN AVOIDING HIM. Now why the motherfuck is that...?" He rises up, standing tall, and it's not all unlike the touch down of a tornado. This eyes narrow to slits. "SPEAK UP, MOTHERFUCKER!"

[crabmunicator]

The Grand Highblood doesn't even have to look for him to be terrifying, but what hold put him against the wall snips cleanly once he rises. He sinks, ass to floor, shaking visible for the great height and fear set in him for him, greatest of Makaras.

It helps nothing of his ability to process. Sufferer? Avoiding him? What does he mean? He never avoided his ancestor, but--no, didn't Initiate do that before, referring to himself in the third person? But then, why Sufferer?

The shout wipes clear his wondering.

"I'm--" God, swallow, squeeze eyes shut but no no don't disrespect by not looking, look at him, oh god. "I'm not the Sufferer. I haven't--he's--He's my ancestor."

His hands are curled tight where they sit against the floor, nails digging pinpricks into palms. He can barely breathe, mind flashing warning at him that he's going to die, he's going to die, it's going to be awful and he'll be less than paint because what does this mutant gutterblood mistake of a husk deserve above a dirty drain? Nothing, nothing, he was stupid to ever think otherwise, and why or how the Grand Highblood would be here to remind him means nothing next to the fact he is.

Day 2

[talltaleteller]

Curiosity can easily outweigh common sense when something so absolutely fascinating is there to distract you. And what need is there for common sense in dreams, anyway? That's all that this was supposed to be, a fancy dream, something to play in and explore, so why not explore the scary, colorful, trollish place?

Felicity makes her way through the bones and color (blood, must be blood, but is really blood?) just brimming with curiosity, eyes wide and taking it all in, but the closer she creeps to the main event, the more anxious she feels. She's being watched. She's being judged. She's probably being found wanting. And what she finally stumbles out in front of, huge and looming and horrible and yet familiar, would have plenty of reason to judge her. She feels very small and very insignificant and very much less enthused about how interesting this whole situation is. "N..nope! No, no, I'm... I'm not special! I-I-I...." But what she is is something that's not coming to mind and certainly not managing to make it past her lips.

[comicalamity]

She's right to feel judge, entering his tent. Before the days in which His Honorable Tyranny was appointed, the judging seat belong to the most high of the high. He owns the fucking courts that the legislacerators do wicked work in. She wanders into the den of wolves, this curious little hopbeast. Brings him to mind the lucky feet with wonder, what oh what did the hopbeast think of the illustration of apparent luck. Maybe he will ask. "OH NOW? But you are. VERY FUCKING SPECIAL IS THIS CREATURE BEFORE HIM. Ain't seen much all like you."

[talltaleteller]

She's here now, and the way out seems so, so far away. Even if she were to run, he'd just chase, wouldn't he? Logic is working in tandem with her fear to keep her rooted to the spot, all eyes on this enormous troll-clown. So enormous. Impossibly enormous. She'd thought that Initiate was the biggest of the big, and he's nothing, in comparison...

"W-w-well that's a relative thing! Where I'm from... I'm just the same as everyone else, right? Just the same!" A deep breath in, and she lets it out in a panicky-sounding laugh. "So... so maybe I should go! Yeah, maybe I should go!"

EXECUTION SPECIAL EXTRAVAGANZA

[69problems]

The smell of burnt flesh is not one Signless is unfamiliar with. He grew used to the scent in the several weeks he spent in the Mall Arena with an arm seared by oil. At first he thinks that's where he is, curled up in the pile in the food court he shared with three other trolls. He tries to curl deeper into the pile -- he needs to conserve what little energy he has -- and finds that he can't move. Something is holding his arms trapped above his head.

He opens his eyes.

Before him swims a crowd made up of the faces of hundreds of trolls, blurred and indistinct the way faces that don't matter are in dreams. It's less a crowd and more a mass of color that writhes and shimmers like a mirage or a hallucination brought on by fever. The scent of burnt skin is stronger now, and he realizes with a wave of nausea that it's not three week old char but fresh.

As soon as he realizes that, he starts to feel the pain of it. In the arena his burn was so severe that most of the nerves were burned straight out of him, leaving his arm numb and aching but not the agony he feels now. He tries to scream and no sound comes out. He tries to kick, reflexively struggling, and finds his bare feet touch only the air. The angle at which he's seeing the crowd makes sense now: he's not standing so much as suspended. The momentum of his kicking slams him back against the stone of the jut behind him -- the jut -- and he feels a sudden throb of pain from fresh flogging marks.

He knows where he is now. He never saw this scene from this angle, but he's seen the pictures and heard the descriptions and and he has that feeling of not-quite-déjà-vu that comes with his visions. A face swims out of the crowd, breaking away from the volatile mash of color and solidifying into a tall dark shape with a bone-white mask where the face should be.

"Kurloz," he gasps, but he can barely hear it over the indistinct murmurs of the watching throng and the rushing in his own ears.

[comicalamity]

His grin has not yet formed. There's none of the anticipated release or delight in him as he watches the Signless burn. There's a want he can't name, a lacking of fulfilment that don't end no matter the writhe and wince, the sting of whip. He is hungry for something and it is an itch under his claws and he can't fucking figure it out. All he knows is that this motherfucker is the source. This troll is the only what stands in his way. The wretch speaks his name. There's the urge to scream. Let him deafen the rabble rousers and empire's servants alike. Let all torturers and executioners bleed out from their fucking hearstalks. He wishes to scream his fury and strike. But no. He won't do that. He'll not let no one see him motherfucking bleed unwilling. He'll not offer recognition to a name as this fucker shouldn't even up and know. That no one in this damn world ought up and know. He will watch this motherfucker die and allow the name Kurloz Makara to die with him. "Ought we strike the irons hotter, infidel? OUGHT WE SEE YOU TO MOTHERFUCKING SING?" When he speaks louder, the rebels gathered round roar. Fear, fury, anguish. He incites cry in a crowd that can't do shit for action. Ain't that just motherfucking fitting.

[69problems]

It hits him with a sickening clarity that he can't beg. He can't appeal to this troll who is a twisted reflection of his moirail, and it isn't even because he thinks the Highblood (for this must be the Highblood) won't listen. Even through the pain and the haze of dreams he knows, vaguely, that this is not private. Nothing is private in his life anymore.

Fine. If he can't appeal to the better nature he has to pretend he doesn't believe is there, he can at least keep this from going the way everyone else has told him it does. Even if it hurts (fuck, it hurts), he won't let that drive him to the blind rage it might have if this was his real execution. If it kills him, he won't.

"I'll sing. I-if you want."