thecapitol | (no subject)

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(no subject)

Who| The Psiioniic and YOU! Plus the Initiate.
What| The Psiioniic is in the Capitol. Humans are both disgusting and fascinating, and he has a horrible sweet tooth.
Where| The Capitol! Typically near shopping areas.
When| Todayyy.
Warnings/Notes| The Initiate being a violent, creepy clown.

Closed to the Initiate

The Capitol is large and bustling, and the Psiioniic isn't quite fond of it. He's gotten far too used to being alone, with just the stars and space bending around him to be used to anything like this. He stays close to the Initiate, hoping the large, imposing troll will help keep others away.

And he does, for the most part. Or at least the Psiioniic can believe he does, and it gives him a small comfort. He can focus on the objects around him, stopping at a few small shops so he can pick through things with the Initiate by his side.

Open

The Psiioniic has found heaven. Or, well, something close to the troll equivalent.

He's standing in a stall selling a variety of honey and other sweets, and he looks baffled. He's holding a sample spoon, the woman behind the stall looking nervous as he stares at her blankly. He keeps bring the spoon to his lips, chewing on it briefly before asking for another sample.

If someone doesn't stop him he's liable to eat all the honey in the store, and if anyone gets close they'll hear him making odd chirpy noises and see him blinking rapidly. He's just...he's very confused and conflicted over the honey, and he needs help.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There's no wonder at all that Terezi has found this place. She can smell the sweets from a mile away. (Not actually, but if presented with the question, she would solemnly swear that she could pinpoint the vortex of sugary confections to within a tenth of an inch.)

She's still in the midst of her exploration when she stumbles across the stand and it's delicious horde of sweets. However, that only holds her attention for a moment when she notices who is standing there. Her heart stops a little, familiarity wafting off the troll she's found. There's something a little off, but... It's been almost a year, and her memory could just be a little fuzzy. Right?

"Sollux?" She reaches out, touching his elbow, though she knows that calling his name should be more than enough. If it's actually him at all.

He jerks at the touch, springing back. He's momentarily panicked - he doesn't want to be touched, he doesn't want to be found or seen and he's spent too long on the run to take being snuck up on well.

It takes him a half-minute to calm down, and when he does he can stare down the troll. It's one he's never met before, and she's so young he wonders why she's approaching him.

"What?" What's a sollux.

It's immediately apparent that this isn't the troll she was looking for, especially when he jumps like that. She jumps, too, pulling her hand back.

"Oh. You're... not him." The disappointment in her tone is almost tangible. She was really hoping that this was someone she knew, Sollux in particular. Out of all her friends (friends being the important word here), she's missed him the most in the past year.

As such, she's not quite as abrasive as she might normally be when making introductions.

"Who are you?"

He frowns at her, hunching in on himself. He's immediately distrustful - something about her assuming she knows who she is sets him on edge.

"Apparently not," he grumbles. Chewing on his bottom lip, he eyes her more closely. She's older than Karkat, but not by much.

Who is this girl?

"You can call me the Helmthman."

She notices the lisp right off the bat. It's just one more similarity to add to the growing list. But no, this troll is clearly an adult. An adult troll with an adult title... though he doesn't much act like it. Even if he might be a yellowblood like Sollux--and she is starting to suspect that he is, she still wouldn't have expected this much nervousness wafting off of him.

"Helmsman. That's it? No name to go with that title?"

The Psiioniic stares at her, wondering how she could have the audacity to ask for his name. Hell, he can't even remember it half the time.

"Not for a wiggler I barely know, no. Ethpecially not one that hathn't thared her own." Though even then, she won't get his name. He's not sharing it with someone he's not quadranted with. He has no reason to trust her with that.

She wasn't necessarily asking for his hatch name, but she gets that impression from his response. Whoops?

She senses some irritation wafting off of him, but she's not overly concerned. He still doesn't feel like the violent type to her.

"Terezi Pyrope." She holds out a hand to shake his, grinning unabashedly up at him. She doesn't have a title yet, since those aren't usually earned until adulthood. It's a bit disappointing to think that she'll probably never have a title of her own now that their universe is gone.

"You're a lot more jumpy than I expected an adult to be."

It's not like he has any other names worth sharing.

He doesn't take the hand offered to him, instead tucking his hands under his folded arms. He's still scowling at her, and he's probably not going to stop any time soon.

"I'm thorry for not living up to your eckthpectationth."

"Actually, you're living up to them better than you think."

She doesn't retract her hand. It might seem awkward just leaving it there, hanging in the air as if expecting him to reconsider, but she doesn't seem to mind at all.

"Was is that you were eating, anyway?"

He's not sure how to feel about that.

He keeps frowning at her hand, hunching even further into himself. He just keeps finding her more and more distrustful.

"It'th...Earth honey. That'th all."

"Earth honey." Huh. That was actually one thing that she hadn't tried yet. (She had human coffee once, but Dave had made her drink it black. He never let her have it again after that.)

Maybe she's trying too hard. She relents on the handshake and instead turns her palm face up. "Can I try some, too?"

He nods, placing one of the spoons back into his mouth. He chews on the plastic for a moment, before stepping to the side so Terezi would have more than enough room to step up to the counter.

"Go ahead and athk for thome."

"Okay." Terezi approaches the counter once the older troll has stepped aside. After a brief exchange with the woman, she procures one cup of honey and proceeds to have a taste for herself. She's a little hesitant, having heard from Sollux what Mind Honey had done to him once upon a time. But she doesn't have any latent psionic abilities, so it's a reasonably safe experiment on her part.

And an unfathomably delicious one, too.

"Wow... Can I live on this forever? I'd like to do that. Cancel my meals from now on, I'm eating Earth Honey for the rest of my life." Not really, but it is pretty good. Her attention diverts from her spoon back to The Helmsman's face. "You must be pretty psyched about this. All the flavor, none of the psychic backlash, huh?"

Terezi, that's really not something to joke about.

One day he will stop frowning at everyone he meets, but today is not that day. He frowns throughout all of her rambling, shuffling awkwardly. He doesn't like people. He doesn't like other trolls, he doesn't like humans. He doesn't like those weird quadrupeds he's never spoken too.

Mostly he just doesn't like talking or interacting with anyone, regardless of who or what they are. He's had such limited communication over the past thousand sweeps, that dealing with people is just. Draining.

"I think I'd rather blow my brainth out inthtead of thtaying here, but thure. It'th great."

Out of all the responses, that wasn't one that Terezi was expecting. She pauses, spoon halfway from her sample cup to her mouth. The smile fades to quiet confusion and contemplation as she sets the spoon into the cup.

"...Why? I mean, sure, it sucks! But there has to be a way home somewhere. If we can just figure that out, there won't be any need to stay here at all."

Oh, Terezi. You'll come to learn someday.

Straightening up, the Psiioniic tosses his spoons into a small bin on the counter. He doesn't look at her as he does, and he's not sure why. She's just a child. It doesn't matter what she things.

"Becauthe I'd rather die. That would be better than going back."

She doesn't get it. Trolls are so fundamentally based in survival, it's difficult to imagine one that doesn't want to live. If you didn't have the will and the desire to survive on Alternia... you just didn't, and that was all that was ever really said about it.

She's quiet for moment, honey cup all but forgotten in her hands. Something feels unsettling about this. Foreboding, even. But she's not sure what.

"What happened? Why don't you want to go back?"

Tuts. He doesn't want to tell her. He doesn't have to tell her, but...nobody has really asked him before.

He rolls his shoulders, wary. He doesn't know if it would be a good idea to tell her, or a horrible one. Some trolls are not to be trusted.

"I don't think you would underthtand."

No, he doesn't have to tell her, but there's no way that she can hope to understand unless she tries. It's not her place, but she wants to know. She wants to help, if she can. He reminds her...of someone that she couldn't help.

"You don't know that I won't. Give me a chance."

He doesn't answer her immediately. He's quiet for a long, long moment and he just...stares at Terezi.

He shouldn't trust her. Trolls aren't to be trusted. They're all as violent and self-absorbed as it's possible to be.

"What do you know about helmthman?"

Terezi has to think hard about that one. Sollux never talked much about it. Whenever he did, he was always vague about it, like he really didn't want to go into detail. It had always made her curious, but never enough to warrant causing him discomfort.

"They are usually from lower castes: yellows and reds. They're assigned to ships based on their psychic ability. Beyond that...Not much else. One of my best friends was a really powerful yellowblood, but he never wanted to talk about what would happen when we joined the fleet."

"Probably becauthe he had no real idea what would happen," he mutters. And, yeah, he definitely sounds bitter as all get out. He rubs his temples, grumbling under his breath for a moment. "Being a helmthman ith probably one of the worthe thingth that can happen to a troll."

"Well, none of us are really certain what goes on in the fleet." Though she suspects that some have a better time of it, than others. But once you find a niche, its all smooth sailing from there, right?

...Maybe not, with the way that the Helmsman is talking. Maybe she was being too naive. But she doesn't plan on making that mistake again. It matters very little in the long run, with their universe gone and trolls all but wiped out. But she still wants to know.

"How is it so terrible? What happens?" She pauses for a moment, then: "Tell me... Please?"

"Figureth," he says with a derisive snort. It doesn't surprise him that the children don't know what's in store for them. Why should they know? They don't need to - nobody has a choice in what happens to them in the fleet.

"A Helmsman," he starts, straightening up, "is a pthychic troll typically gifted with thome form of telekinethith. They are attached to a thip through bio-mechnanical wireth, and their energy ith funneled through thethe wireth and powerth the thip. They're altho connected into the thhip networkth, and can control variouth functionth of the thhip. It'th a painful protheth, and thome trollth die before they're finithhed being connected."

He watches her, waiting for a reaction.

Terezi, to her credit, is silent. She's not sure what to say. She knows that most bluebloods wouldn't care about a few casualties. There were so many reds and browns and yellows, they could easily be replaced by another.

But that's not how Terezi feels about it, and this sounds too akin to torture for her to be okay with it. Maybe she had always known it was going to be bad, but a system this big is difficult to change. Her only real hope for Sollux was that his skills would save him from being treated poorly, which isn't much of a hope at all. She's almost glad that they never got a chance to enter the Fleet.

"How long were you... How long have you been a Helmsman?" she asks, quietly now. It's not difficult to miss the sympathy in her expression.