[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

[sleeplessinalternia]

Karkat blinks. "No. I like both pretty much equally. Most trolls like both to a greater or lesser--preferring one almost exclusively for certain quadrants is... weird's not the right word. Kinky, I guess. It's like only being attracted to trolls with a certain kind of horn or of a certain caste or having an obsession with their nubs. Their perambulation nubs," he specifies quickly, not needing anymore horn jokes.

[tis_allgood]

"What other nubs would you be talking about?" Again with the sarcasm.

"I would not judge you for drawing backhanded, 'tis simply not something one speaks of openly where I'm from."

[sleeplessinalternia]

Karkat blinks. "Drawing backhanded? I draw with my right frond." And not very well, he doesn't say. "What does drawing have to do with anything?"

[tis_allgood]

He shakes his head. "A man who draws backhanded can still fire his gun, but not so well as another man. 'Tis a phrase we use for a man who prefers to lie with other men."

[sleeplessinalternia]

"That's stupid," Karkat says, with a dismissive little snort. "Pailing with other men doesn't give any different a result than pailing with women." He bites his lip before adding in . "Or, anyway, that's what I've heard."

(He's six sweeps. Even in human years that's still only thirteen. It's perfectly legit that he's never pailed.)

[tis_allgood]

"Oh, so now the truth comes out. You don't actually know!"

Not that Cuthbert knows either, but he's willing to pretend he knows for the purposes of winning this non-argument.

[sleeplessinalternia]

"Look, I'm only six," Karkat snarls. "Most trolls don't start pailing until they're at least seven."

[tis_allgood]

"Six? I would have thought you thirteen or fourteen mayhap. Or is this yet another of the things that simply don't translate between us?"

This is a fine distraction from the possibility of asking Cuthbert what he would know about it.

[sleeplessinalternia]

"Probably," Karkat says, "because the only troll I've met that was that old was Signless. Your planet's solar sweeps much be a fuckload shorter than Alternia's if you think I'm thirteen."

[tis_allgood]

"Has it occurred to your shrunken, deficient mind-box-related area that in this, and many other worlds, you are the odd one and that my assumptions are not an insult on thee?" Bert is finally losing it a little with Karkat's tone and veiled insults.

[sleeplessinalternia]

Karkat can't help it. He shoves at Cuthbert. "Shut up," he growls.

(For those of you who are playing at home, this is Karkat-ese for 'I'm embarrassed over something stupid I said or did but I'm sure as fuck not going to admit it.')

[tis_allgood]

"Am I hurting your feeling receptors?" He pushes back, two can play at this very immature game.

"Or is six sweeps not old enough to teach thee manners?"

[sleeplessinalternia]

"What the fuck is a feeling receptor?" Karkat growls, shoving again. "And I'm not the thee who needs to be taught manners, Cuthbert son of Whoever."

[tis_allgood]

"Mind what you say, Karkat son of None That He Knows, you would not want to give me offense."

There's more than enough things to grab and hit with in the Training Center, this is probably a bad place to start a fight.

[sleeplessinalternia]

"Oh yeah," says Karkat, "well, thee would not want to offend me."

Fuck, he's so annoying. Karkat wants to grab him by the collar, pull his stupid face down and--

Oh fuck no. No, no, no, no. He did not need this. Not with an alien who didn't get quadrants. Not with an alien who was his fucking ally. Fuck.

[tis_allgood]

"Or what? You don't look fit to take out a grub let alone a true man."

Bert is going to posture all over this.

[sleeplessinalternia]

"Hand me a pair of sickles and I'll show you what I can do," Karkat snarls.

[tis_allgood]

"Is that your weapon of choice? I would want to give you the advantage you so desperately need against me, even when my guns have been taken away."

He even goes so far as to crack his knuckles in preparation. This could be the fight he really needs right now.

[sleeplessinalternia]

"Yeah," Karkat says through clenched fangs. "You could say that."

He stomps off to the weapons rack to go looking for the pair of sickles he'd demonstrated his fighting capabilities to the Gamemakers with--although since those were sharp, it would probably be a better idea to find a pair of blunted practice sickles.

[tis_allgood]

Most of Bert's best weapons are distance weapons, but he's also much more dangerous with them, so things will probably end better this way. Instead, he picks up a spear with a practice tip. He's not as effective with something like this, but also not as likely to draw Karkat's blood.

"There, a weapon I've little training with. This should put us on roughly even footing. Less embarrassment for thee this way."

i'm stealing all kinds of sickle-fighting shit from cultstuck because wow, that fic has good sickle

[sleeplessinalternia]

Seeing Cuthbert choose a spear with a wooden shaft, Karkat is tempted to use the same sharp sickles he'd had before when he was demonstrating his skills to the Gamemakers. But no, he might have to hook his sickles around Cuthbert's arms or neck and he doesn't actually want to hurt Cuthbert too very badly.

Aha! There they are, a blunted practice pair. Perfect.

Karkat stands in the forward open stance, second position and waits for Cuthbert to make his move.

[tis_allgood]

Bert swings immediately for Karkat's feet. Or nubs... whatever the proper term is for the things he stands on. He's not taking it too seriously yet, he has no idea what Karkat can (or will) do to him at the moment. He's been taught to think of his feet, and there's not much chance of Karkat taking it too seriously, he thinks.

Maybe if he's lucky he can show Karkat a few of the things Cort taught him first hand.

[sleeplessinalternia]

Karkat springs up and to the side, neatly avoiding the spear. "Nice try," he says dismissively.

[tis_allgood]

"I wouldn't want to bruise your sensitive thorax."

He is fairly sure a thorax is a bug part, and that what he said could be construed as insulting. That's how he means it, at least. He didn't want to be entirely on the offensive, but if Karkat wouldn't fight back directly he had no other choice.

The second strike comes crosswise across the body, and this time Bert is turning with the spear so that he can use the momentum to strike again on the back swing.