[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

lazy action tagging a-gogo

[xanthous]

[He's been dead for a few days now. He had been on his own when he died, and he had fully accepted his death - he really just hoped that bear went down with him.

He didn't want to be brought back, but he was, and now he has...what? Free time? He hasn't had time to himself in far, far too long.

What the hell is he supposed to do?

He finds himself in the training center, and he's about to hobble his way to somewhere with something besides a bunch of shitty weapons when he sees Karkat.]

Fu-!

[Ah, shit. He hopes the freakishly familiar troll doesn't notice him. You'd think someone familiar would be comforting, but it just makes him...anxious.]

Re: lazy action tagging a-gogo

[sleeplessinalternia]

[Karkat hears a voice that sounds almost familiar. He turns to see who said that and his eyes go wide.]

Sollux? Holy fuck, did the aliens grab you too?

[He squints.]

What the hell happened to you, dude? You're even more ridiculously tall and spindly than normal.

[xanthous]

[Fuck.]

Uh.

[He shuffles awkward, tugging at the hem of his sleeves. (He really doesn't like the clothes offered to him, but at least he had some choice, and he's really glad for sleeves. He really hates the way his bones are so visible under his skin.)

But worse then his self-image issues, this short, nub-horned troll is talking to him and thinks he's someone else.]

I'm not...whoever you think I am.

[sleeplessinalternia]

[Karkat eyes him dubiously.]

You're not Sollux Captor? Really? Because you sure as fuck look like him, only bigger. [The bare minimum of a pause.] At least vertically.

Seriously, Sollux, this is not the time to fuck around.

[tis_allgood]

Cuthbert isn't one to stay cooped up for too long, so it's very shortly after his resurrection that he's out and about poking into everything and learning his way around.

He is delighted to see a familiar face, especially when it seems they're not going to have to kill each other any time in the immediate future.

"Karkat! Cry your pardon for leaving you alone in there, I was caught up in my own trap. Though I would not admit that to every person I meet."

[sleeplessinalternia]

Karkat doesn't quite smile, but his scowl vanishes. "Cuthbert!" He makes his way over to the human boy. "Yeah, well, it looks like we both had our thinkpans so far up our respective wastechutes that we were gargling with abdominal digestion bile." He shrugs. "Someone broke into the hideout and when I tried to take him out he killed me first. I think he got Signless too."

He looks guilty and for good reason. If he hadn't gotten cocky maybe they could have both survived.

[tis_allgood]

"We are both lucky to get a second chance, say true. We might have both ended up in the clearing at the end of the road."

He glances around at the equipment they're meant to train with. He's familiar enough with most of it, and guess at the rest. After just dying in the arena he's in no hurry to fight again, even if his instinct is to keep training or risk being too weak to defend himself.

"Did you come here for a reason?"

[sleeplessinalternia]

"Looking for Signless," Karkat says, looking a little embarrassed. "I... I've got some stuff I need to talk to him about. Troll stuff. You wouldn't get it." After a moment he adds, "Have you seen him?"

[shambler]

[OOC: Gonna throw R at this when I can, did you prefer brackets or prose?]

[sleeplessinalternia]

[OOC: Either is fine really! Prose is what I'm most used to.]

[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?"

[thebestoffense]

Volanz was conflicted. On the one hand, another troll was probably six times as likely as any of the aliens to stab him in the face for no apparent reason. This one he'd seen in the glitzy recaps actually killing, unlike the weird adult that had tried to talk to him.

But on the other hand, that was sort of... not comforting, but something vaguely similar. Familiar. There was an honesty about the hostility that Volanz missed. Nobody'd swore at him, or threatened him, or really done anything to tear him down since he'd gotten out of the arena. Like... not at all, not even in the unintentional and thoughtless way his highblood friends had. It was weird. In this flood of frightening alien bullshit, the sight of another (even probably hostile) troll kid was something besides just slinking around at night trying to avoid people.

He would always have time later to tell himself all about how bad an idea this was.

In the meantime, he approached.

"So," Volanz said awkwardly, hooking one hand around the back of his neck and looking somewhere a foot and a half to the stranger's left, "I guess it's not all aliens here."

[sleeplessinalternia]

Karkat turns around to see another troll--one that he'd never seen before in his life, actually. This new troll is almost of a height with Karkat, but his asymmetrical horns are longer and sharper. He's probably also six, if Karkat is any judge of it.

"Tell me something that isn't completely obvious, dipshit," Karkat growls. It bugs him that there's this random troll kid here and not anyone he knows. He's starting to think none of his friends are here and he can't decide whether or not that's a good or a bad thing.

He wonders if this troll saw him die, if he knows Karkat's a mutant. He'd have tried to cull Karkat by now if he did, wouldn't he have?

[thebestoffense]

Volanz didn't even flinch. This was territory he knew, though most of the time he was being called names in text and not in person. The jump wasn't too hard to make.

"Well," he said, "I haven't been around real long yet so I don't really know a lot of stuff that is not blindingly obvious? You probably know that there are a couple others of us here. I met one, but then I died and I have kind of not been all that excited to run into an adult if I can avoid doing that."

He paused, then added, "Well, I guess I do know that it is really hard to get people to understand symbols? I argued with this lady about clothing and things but I don't think she got it. She thinks I should wear blue and... well. Maroon."

It's the most roundabout way in the world of telling Karkat that he is probably the boss. It's a normal assumption for him. When you're usually the low man on the hemo pole and haven't seen them bleed copiously yet, the snarly person probably outranks you.

[sleeplessinalternia]

"Shit, does she want to see you culled? Oh wait, she probably does, evidently we're fucking reality tv gladiatortainers now."

Yeah, Karkat's not surprised this kid's a maroon, what with all the deferential body language. He's fucked if he tells this kid his own blood color. Let him find out on his own.

"Yeah, I've met them. The helmsman's a lithpy bulgestain who looks stupidly like this kid I know and claims he was in the Condesce's ship. Signless isn't too bad for an adult, even if his pan is cracked. I'm actually looking for him."

Fuck, he hopes that if this kid didn't see him die then he didn't see him shooshpap Signless either.

[knifewithnoname]

The girl was in the actual training area, jumping off wooden blocks and rolling back to her feet.

Well that's what she was supposed to be doing, sometimes she just fell in a heap but there were mats and that was what practicing was for.

No trees were going to get the better of her next time.

When she saw the alien troll she grinned, he had been one of the few not completely stupid people she had met in the arena.

Except when she went over to him she wrinkled her nose. "You did be shrinking."

[sleeplessinalternia]

Karkat glares at the human child. "I am getting really fucking tired with the comments about my height or my horns. Really fucking tired. Who the hell are you?"

[knifewithnoname]

Wow well he was ruder than he had been in the arena. "I did no even be mentioning your horns even if they do be looking stupid and I did be seeing another troll alien with bigger cooler horns than yours but I did no be saying nothing before at all but you do be mad at me anyways."

She wrinkled her nose, "And now you can no even be remembering me, did your brains be shrinking as well?"

[69problems]

It's only natural that the Signless's explorations should eventually lead him here. This building is huge, bigger even than the communal hivestems he sometimes saw from a distance on his travels, which is good because he doesn't like staying in one place for too long and a large area to wander in is exactly what he needs.

It took him a while to leave his room, though. There was so much there to explore -- he now smells strongly of cinnamon, thanks to whatever the hell buttons he pushed when he was messing with the shower -- and finding an outfit to his taste took forever, and then he had to go back and find shoes he didn't hate too (very difficult) when a frightening alien woman told him he was not allowed to leave his rooms without them, this place was not a barn.

He's got on a loose black tunic top, annoyingly strappy black sandals, and black pants that are just a bit too shiny for his taste but the closest he could find to leggings. He'll have to have a talk with whoever stocks his closet. Later, though. Right now he's got someone he really should be talking to.

"Karkat?"

[sleeplessinalternia]

Karkat turns around. "There you are," he says, with mixed exasperation and relief. "Holy fuck, I've been looking all over for you. There's a couple more of us, both lowbloods--some maroon kid I've never met before and this adult who looks like this yellow kid I know and he claims he's the fucking Condesce's helmsman. And Cuthbert's here."

He looks Signless up and down. God, that outfit was ridiculous, although at least it was a nice sensible black. (Karkat had had a bitch of a time himself finding anything to wear in his closet and had ended up with billowy black silk pants and a soft grey sweater.)

"Look," he says. "Is there anywhere we can go that's private? I need to talk to you about shit. Especially what happened just before we died--because I didn't mean what I did. I was just trying to get you to stay quiet."

[69problems]

The sweater reminds him forcefully of Kankri -- Kankri Alpha, anyway. At least it's not red, though he has a feeling Karkat wouldn't be comfortable in red, knowing what he knows now about him.

"What floor are you staying on? I'm all the way up at the top, but we could probably talk privately in your room." He smiles softly. "And I know you didn't mean it, not like that. You're six sweeps, you can do better than me."

He resists adding that Karkat really does need a moirail, though, because those anger issues aren't going to talk about themselves.

[pinklady]

Oh, hi Mark Karkat.

Chibi-Usa was in the center, training with a sword, just like Haruka-san. The sword she had was a bit heavy, and she tired after a few blows, so she was sitting for the moment, catching her breath and wiping the sweat off of her brow.

She'd not been doing bad this time, in the Arena. She actually got pretty far. And then someone killed her. She didn't know who. Apparently her death was too boring for television. Just as well. She definitely needed to train.

Man. She just hated being here.

[sleeplessinalternia]

Oh fuck it's that girl he killed.

It makes sense she'd be back from the dead. He was back from the dead. Karkat wondered if she knew who'd killed her. What the hell were you supposed to say to someone you murdered? Thanks for the sopor-less fabric recoupercoon I looted off your body, my friend really liked it?

(So yeah, Chibi-Usa, have an awkward troll boy staring at you.)

[pinklady]

Well, it takes a few minutes for Chibi-Usa to realize someone was looking at her. Slowly she turned to look at the...horned guy.

"...Hello?"

Her look was one of general annoyance at the situation, as opposed to her annoyance being directed specifically towards Karkat. Thankfully. Hopefully.