thecapitol | A dream I dreamed // OPEN

Entry tags:

A dream I dreamed // OPEN

Who: The Disciple & Anyone
What: Exploring the center from the elevator doors
Where:Training Center Elevator/Any Floor
When: Today, anytime
Warnings: Probably tears.

Too many hands had touched her this morning for comfort. A woman used to living alone and running if people came too close was not suited to strange aliens manhandling her or others insisting that her clothing be changed. Her hissing and tearing at the clothing they pressed at her just got hurt scared looks and she felt a pang. No stronger than grubs, these creatures with their clothes and devices held out pleadingly. Eventually guilt and a sense of inevitability made her take the clothes she was offered and let them pull the knots from her hair.

They called themselves humans when she asked. Humans. Aliens. Was she merely a creature to them, to be kept for their amusement, killing and playing their games. Hardly. She pulled on the only thing she had managed to save from their hands, a long skin and fur cape, and held it closed over the clothing. As much as she liked the leather and fur that adorned her outfit, she almost wanted to tear it off.

The Disciple did, at least, want to find out where she was being kept beyond these rooms. A way out was probably too much to ask at this point, given that they had subdued her before. Their words and explanations flew over her head, things she didn't know of or understand. They at least managed to explain the elevator to her and when she asked if she was to merely stay here, they encouraged her to go look around. Technology she didn't quite understand swept her up and down until her stomach was queasy and at each new floor, she surveyed the area from the elevator doors and occasionally stepped off to explore.

She's not as silent as she hopes with new clothes to adjust to and the ding that precedes her at every floor makes any hope of a silent entry impossible.

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The title is at least passingly familiar, and Nepeta nods. It's a little odd to imagine that she had an ancestor all the way back in the same time period as the Signless, but if Karkat could manage to get used to it than she could certainly manage to do the same.

"I think I've heard a little about you. Not very much though - meowst of the infurmation about the... rebellion? has been buried."

She's a little sad to be honest but not really surprised. She knows that Signless was deemed dangerous and heretical a sweep or so after his death. All mention of him destroyed save for what she wrote. Maybe that's what lived. Or maybe that was erased as well.

"I don't know what you heard of me. I can't imagine much survived that long. My words must be dust by then."

"Meowst of them, I think," Nepeta answers, even though she's certain that it's not likely to be a very comforting response. It's the truth though, and it doesn't sound like the Disciple had been expecting too much to have survived. All the same, Nepeta feels a little bad leaving things there, so she continues on a moment later.

"It's okay though! I can help remember for efurryone now."

The cat puns--hard to catch in spoken word unless you were the type to know it--immediately soften any reserve she had. Like her as a wriggler. Still a wiggler. Young.

"Do you even know what I wrote of?" She laughs, tilting her head. There isn't even much bitterness in her voice. She can teach. She can always teach.

Still very young, for all that she's seen and done things that no wiggler should ever be asked to do. But the Disciple doesn't need to know that. Not when the Capitol is hard enough to get used to without going into the part where Alternia is gone and none of them are ever going to be going back, not even the ones who haven't died or been killed. So instead of even trying, she simply shakes her head at the Disciple's question.

"No. But I can learn!"

"Well aren't you the eager student." She kneels in front of her now. Not that she was very tall to begin with but eye to eye felt better.

"I'd be glad to teach you. Time purrmitting."

She had told herself she wouldn't get attached to anyone. There was no point if she had to kill them when the time came. But it's a little different for her tiny descendant. There's too much of herself in Nepeta to ignore the girl. And if she wants to learn what Disciple wrote about, she had to tell her.

"Of course," Nepeta answers with a nod. "Not efurrytime is going to be goodfor something like that. But I'll be here when you want me."

Someone has to carry the stories into the future, and she doesn't think anyone else would be so willing to, except maybe Karkat and she doesn't really trust his idea of story telling. So she'll bear the past on into the future, for the sake of those who haven't heard it and the Time player who has yet to show up.

She smiles, a little harsh around the edges like she can't quite remember how to form her lips up in a proper happy smile. Oh. For all she's kidnapped and brought here to die--she never thought she'd smile like this. Her descendant wants to help her. To keep her words alive. She tilted her head to get a better look and nodded.

"I was the Disciple of Signless. Am still. That's where my title came from. My words were likely erased to keep his knowledge hidden." She taps Nepeta on the nose, "I don't know if anyone managed to keep them from fading."

It doesn't matter to Nepeta that the Disciple's smile is a little harsh around the edges. It's still a smile, and that's enough for her. They might be expected to fight to the death but that doesn't mean they can't still enjoy the smaller things as well.

"I nefur really was much of a histerrorian," Nepeta answers with a shrug. "I know some who might have been interested, but I they liked archeology better anyway."

"Honestly it's expected. So what were you, if not a histerrorian?"

She settled onto her knees right there on the hard floor in the middle of her floor's lounge. It wasn't as if she wasn't used to sleeping and sitting on hard rock, this was practically luxury. And it doesn't even occur to her to move to the couches.

"I nefur really got the chance to specialize," Nepeta answered. "There would have still been a couple of sweeps befur we had to go join the fleet. I liked painting though, even if it isn't something that would be very useful to the fleet."

And roleplaying is probably somewhat less so, although she doesn't mention it. It seems a little awkward to do so under the circumstances, even if she'd never gotten into the more extreme sorts of roleplaying.

"I supawse it would be best to just say I was a hunter."

"I was a hunter as well." She admitted, "And I liked painting. Though like you, it was rarely useful. I don't know what I would have done with my life had I not met Signless...I mostly just hunted around my hive and read."

Which isn't very exciting she thinks.

"I sold the pelts and things and we rarely went hungry. Useful when you're traveling."

It might not have been very exciting, but as far as Nepeta's concerned it doesn't need to be. Not every troll can boast an exciting life, even when things are so very dangerous on Alternia simply as a matter of course.

"I can imagine!"

"Indeed! I suppose I'm grateful for Signless coming near me, or I might not be the troll I am today." She's certain she wouldn't be, in so many ways, but she accepts the good with the bad.

"I certainly wouldn't see quadrants the same way.."

There's always some good to come with the bad, although Nepeta doesn't see a need to mention it to the Disciple. After all, she probably already knows, so what's the point.

"How did you see the clawdrants befur?"

She hesitates, then spreads her hands wide.

"It's more how I see them after him. I suppawse I saw them as definite things with clearly defined borders and I think that's what most...trolls see them as. But he and I..." Her gaze drops a little as nostalgia slips into her voice, "We blended them. He could make me love him and be furious in the same day, and lusus pale the next. Ashen in turn for those he needed it with and He for I. I called him matesprit because it was easier than coming up with some new word. I would say I am all of his and none all at once. Fur all I was pale fur him, his diamond was Psiionic."

"It's hard to say how I see them, but I suppose I could put it as quadrants are guidelines for relationships. It's okay to break them and it's okay to have more than one person for a quadrant. And to decide to change them. But everyone has to be okay with it." She nods once, then pauses, "...I realize that was more than you asked about."

It might not have been quite what Nepeta had asked about, but it's not bad either. She's not really certain she can understand the blurring of the quadrants that the Disciple is speaking about, but she's young yet and there is time to learn. Right now, however, she's mostly just confused about it all.

"You can do that?"

"Well..." She shrugs a little, "We did. I don't know how well it would work for others but it really did work for us."

There's another considering silence as Nepeta turns the concept over in her head. It's interesting, she has to admit, but she can't really figure out how it would work. Still, she would have been a very poor Heart player if she couldn't at least recognize that it might have worked for them.

"Well... I suppawse if it worked it can't have been too bad."

"As I said, it wouldn't work fur everyone. It...simply worked for us." There's a little pause, of course it was weird. Weird and strange but perfect for them.

"Is there anyone in your quadrants?"

Weird, yes. But weird isn't always bad, and besides, Nepeta is pretty sure the Disciple wouldn't lie about it not working. (It's still strange, of course, but that's probably not going to change for a while.)

"Well... maybe," she answers after a moment. "We haven't really talked about it yet, though."

"Oh...is it sort of on the fence or just assumed as a quadrant without really talking about it." Honestly, she could sympathize with both. Pretty common problems in the romance world.

"It's meowre that we haven't really talked about if we actually are?" Nepeta answered after a moment of silence. "But we did go out together the once, if that means anything."

"Well I suppose it's better sometimes to let things happen as they might. But you might have to make a move at some point. Or, well, you know, ask if it's a relationship or just a fling."

She pauses, "Red, black or pale?"

There's another moment of silence at that. Nepeta knows what it is, of course, but actually saying it out loud is something that she has yet to get accustomed to, if only because she's still a little hung up on her flushcrush on Karkat.

"Well," she begins, "it's not black and it can't be pale beclaws I already have Equius for that. So I guess it's red."

A dream I dreamed // OPEN

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