thecapitol | Since your history of silence // Closed

People have been coming and going in the Training area since she first started drawing. Sprawled on her stomach, chalk dust coating her arms from elbow to wrist, she's gotten comfortable enough that she really doesn't care to bother them so long as they don't bother her in return.

When she hears her name being said, Terezi's head snaps up and her scribbling stops. She sniffs warily, taking in the older troll's appearance. This is Nepeta's ancestor. It has to be, and it hadn't escaped her notice at the Crowning that she had been sitting with Nepeta and the Vantases.

After a moment, she pushes herself into a sitting position and nudges her glasses a little higher on the bridge of her nose. "Wow, I feel like a celebrity. Who are you?"

Edited 2013-09-11 20:01 (UTC)

The Disciple half smiles, a passing laugh to her 'celebrity status' and kneels a little ways from Terezi. Her stylists will scold her for the chalk dust on her knees later but she doesn't think of that quite yet. She picks up a piece of chalk. With it, she draws her looping symbol--though she thinks the other girl knows it already. She is a spitting image for Nepeta and this girl knew Karkat well enough to know who Nepeta was she thinks. Still it's nice to be able to write it without a fear of it being used against her.

"The Disciple. I arrived just before that..." She pauses to think on what to call it, "Display. The Crowning. We haven't spoken yet and I knew your name from Karkat."

Terezi knows that symbol. How could she not? Still, she lets the troll write it, smelling the way the line loops and curves around--almost like a tail. At least it's appropriate, especially with all of the furs that she's wearing.

The mention of Karkat gets a wince from Terezi, but she grins afterwards, as if to amke up for it. "Ah. I'm sure he's regaled you with amazing stories of my awesomeness. If you wanted an autograph, you could have just said so!"

She picks up a bit of teal chalk, drawing out her own symbol next to the Disciple's.

She watches the symbol form curiously--but it rings no bells. Not like others. Whomever this troll was, they or the other half to their ancestor/descendant pair had not crossed her path. She sat back on her heels and raised an eyebrow. Letting her joke didn't really cross her mind. Terezi obviously knew Karkat had an opinion of her.

"He thought you were dangerous. Of course you are, you're a troll. But dangerous for Signless. Not to be trusted. But Signless seemed to."

Dangerous for Signless. Terezi's grin fades at that, her expression turning unreadable. Well, it wasn't exactly true, but it wasn't exactly untrue, either. She has to wonder exactly what he said about her...

"I figured Karkat would say that. He's mad that I changed my mind and didn't follow his plan." She picks up another piece of chalk, resuming her scribbling. "It was a shitty plan to begin with."

She doesn't really know what to say about Signless trusting her. That's pretty stupid, too, in her opinion.

Edited 2013-09-12 05:34 (UTC)

She watches her draw for a few moments before she reaches out to pick up a piece of chalk and idly sketch out Nepeta and Karkat on the ground in front of her. More advanced than Nepeta's usual drawings but not great given the materials.

"You were to protect Signless. That was the plan. Why didn't it work?" She really wants to have an answer. Is Signless an idiot for still talking with his murderer? Or is Karkat blinded by his pale feelings too much to see there might be another answer. She should probably be more upset with this girl for killing him really.

Terezi doesn't look up this time. She's getting a little tired of people prying into her motives and assuming the worst of her. She doesn't really expect much better from this troll either.

"Completely disregarding the fact that he was asking us to kill ourselves for the sake of his moirail--without so much as a thank you... Signless really doesn't deserve to be a Victor. He doesn't have any right to that title or the responsibilities that come with it, and I refuse to give him the opportunity to fuck it up."

"Wouldn't telling him you couldn't do that be better than promising and breaking the promise. I think that hurts more for him." She frowns and looks over at her, "And well... I agree that you shouldn't be held to keep him alive. He isn't your moirail. He shouldn't have asked you. But you didn't have to agree."

She starts drawing Signless and herself next below her Nepeta and Karkat. She shaves off the sweeps from herself and draws them like they were in his prime.

"Signless is a great man. But he wouldn't want to be Victor of a deathmatch."

"Telling Karkat wasn't an option. We were forcibly separated into two different arenas. When I made the promise, I didn't know what the Signless was like. All I knew was that Karkat was trying to protect someone he cares about."

Just like she was, really. Terezi doesn't really care one way or another about Signless, but he's essential to Karkat's well-being. That's reason enough to try to keep him out of trouble--which includes the dangers that come with Victory.

"I found out in that arena, and no. He's not a great man. He's a hypocrite and a trouble-maker. No one should want him in any position of influence to begin with. Karkat just doesn't see how many problems he would cause."

She laughs. It's short and soft, almost overshadowed by the squeak of chalk as she adds in the heart between her and Signless now. Then the spade and diamond--and last the club, nestled within each other.

"You don't know who I am. I'm the Disciple. His Disciple."

She sits now, legs crossed and her grin wide with too many teeth to be friendly, but no malice in her eyes.

"And yes, he's a troublemaker. He's born to be one. But he's not a hypocrite. He believes what he believes wholeheartedly. A hypocrite says one thing and does another. His action match his words."

"So what quadrant were you two in before this all happened?"

Edited 2013-09-12 06:45 (UTC)

That question actually elicits a response from Terezi, a quick jerk of her head to turn her attention up at the Disciple and a stiffening of her jaw. She directs her attention back to her scribbling--nothing distinctive now, just color meshing up against color to make a pleasant coat of scent.

"Maybe you don't know him well enough, then. I don't really care what he believes. I only care what he does. A hypocrite can also do one thing and preach another, an important chronological distinction regarding these particular events!"

It probably doesn't escape the other troll's attention that she ignored the quadrant question entirely.

She rolls her eyes and runs her finger tips along the edge of her drawing idly, "I know him better than anyone. I'm his matesprit dear. But I suppose I cannot convince you of anything."

"But I don't know of the particular events you refer to."

She'll come back to that question again. Don't let yourself think that Nepeta's ancestor can be dissuaded from a romantic question simply by ignoring it.

"Quadrants have a way of blinding people to their mate's faults," Terezi responds dryly. There's a flat look to accompany that, but it's pointed at the floor and not at the Disciple.

"I'm referring to the reason that Alternia was terrible in the first place. He wouldn't have tried so hard to fix it if he didn't feel guilty about it being that way in the first place. Not that he had any business undoing it in the first place! Alternia was never going to be anything other than it was. All he really accomplished and all he was ever going to accomplish by speaking up was to get a bunch of trolls killed. If he had accomplished more than that, he would have doomed us all. So let's all be glad that he failed."

The Disciple listened. She really did. She knew her quadrant blinded her a little but really she knew how much of an idiot her Signless was. How he did stupid things. But it's not the time for that because she doesn't even understand what was being said.

"...I don't even know what you mean. If you--how was he to even know that his speaking up would kill trolls? The same trolls who had no hope before we spoke to them. Who did it out of a belief in someone." She spread her hands wide, confusion coloring her words and a tinge of regret, "How would he have doomed us all if he had succeeded? You speak of things neither of us knew as if they were facts we surely must have been aware of and used to base our actions on. Seeing the past flaws is easier than looking forward and hoping what you do is the right path."

"Are you judging him on the larger picture you have somehow? That is hardly fair."

"It's fair enough. He was the one who told me that he was aware of what he was doing. If he didn't know what his visions meant at the time, that would be different, and he should have said so."

She doesn't really want to explain more than that. It's not her place, and she doesn't know or trust the Disciple enough to have that kind of heart to heart with her.

"Either way, his hypocrisy has little to do with why I slit his throat. I was just pointing out that he's not as universally great as everyone seems to believe."

She looks at her for a moment and shakes her head, hands curling into fists in her lap. Her words are soft and sharp, whispered between them, "You're trying to tell his Disciple that he's not universally great--I watched him die. I am fully aware he's not universally liked. That not all find him great and that not all agree with him. I'm aware we failed..." She lets her words drift into silence for a moment.

"But that is of little matter here and now. So why did you slit this throat? Since somehow this went sideways from my original question."

The quietness of the Disciple's words gives Terezi reason to pause. It's not much, just a tilt of her head up by a few inches, the distracted way her scribbling slows. She frowns.

It wasn't really her intention to be cruel about the whole thing. She didn't take any pleasure from the death, in fact she rather hated it. Taking someone else's life into her own hands still felt too heavy of a burden to carry. It wasn't any better or any easier than the last life she took, and it was hard to keep rationalizing--even when she knew that he had to die somehow.

"I told you. He doesn't deserve to be a Victor, he doesn't deserve to leave the Games like that. I can't imagine anyone less suited to that position, and I plan to do everything in my power to keep him out of it."

Whatever piece of chalk Disciple had been about to pick up snaps and her head pulls up to look at her. Even if the girl doesn't seem to want to turn her way, she knows there's an effect.

"Then you should apologize to Karkat for betraying his trust in you. And he should apologize for forcing you to protect someone you did not know. Both of you are in the wrong here. If you don't want to protect him you should have left him. It was either a kill done out of mercy so someone else would not have killed him more brutually or done to spare the words Karkat would have slung at you to find out you left his moirail out to die alone."

"And to be honest, if it was your place to decide a victor, you would not be in this place with us, would you?"

"Actually, I would. We decide a Victor every time we step into that arena. Our actions are the deciding factor more than anyone else's. I'm not apologizing for anything I did in there, and you won't change my mind on that."

The way she says that is very final. She doesn't believe she's in the wrong, not really. Certainly not enough to warrant an apology.

"Have you seen the cuff on his wrist?" she asks suddenly, still not looking up. She shifts her position, backing away from the pool of color in front of her to give herself more room to draw. "If you have, have you asked him how he got it? You should probably know before you start dictating right from wrong."

"He spoke of it. He said it was something of a punishment. A mark. Of a troublemaker. A mark of a troublemaker like he's been marked for ages. He promised he'd be more careful. He knows he's being punished." She puts her hands in her lap.

"I'm not going to try to dictate right or wrong. Merely was trying to fix thing and figure out why Signless trusted you."

"I don't know why. He's cracked in the pan." She certainly wouldn't trust someone who had slit her throat for seemingly no reason, that's for sure.

"It's interesting that he left out the important context of his gift from the Capitol," she mutters. In her mind, it only proves the point that he's not getting the big picture here. Either that, or he just doesn't care what happens to himself--which is reckless at best and selfish at worst.

"It's true that they passed those out to all the troublemakers--directly after a broadcast that was deemed mandatory viewing. One of the Victors had tried to spark a rebellion of some kind during the Crowning. There were explosives involved, but I don't think anyone died. She was caught, and they tortured and executed her for our viewing pleasure. Public attendance for the Capitol, live-streamed to us. I'm pretty sure that they later used the same drug on us in the arena, so I can tell you first hand that it was a slow and agonizing way to go! But unlike the Tributes, she didn't come back."

For a moment, Terezi pauses, tilting her head to catch the scents around her. She can't do anything about the cameras and whatnot, but she can at least make sure that they're alone. "That cuff isn't just a mark, it's a warning. We don't need another Victor like that."

Edited 2013-09-13 14:52 (UTC)

The words don't seem to make sense after a little while. They swirl and make sentences and pictures in her mind but she can't quite focus on them. A public execution. Not in the Capitol, up on a flat plain. A sky red with the suns just about to rise--or just after they set? She can't remember because that wasn't important. It wasn't important for the time of night but she remembers torture and screams and red blood. Death pronounced and his body hanging and cuffs red hot and burning long after he died. And running running. She curls her hands in fists, ready to spring when she looks up, ready to run. But she's just in the training center.

She can't hide the tension in her body and the rough way she breathes, like trying to hold back a sob and the pant of a runner out of breath all at once. She does try to hide the tears starting to fal. She immediately scrubs them away with a rough hand, springing to her feet. It smudges the makeup that curls under her eyes in green triangles, swirls and dots. If she doesn't look at Terezi, the girl will never realize what happened.

"I understand. Talk to Karkat. Okay?" Harshly spoken as every muscle in her body tenses to fly from the training room floor.

She may not be able to see the tears, but Terezi can certainly smell them. The sudden crisp olive scent is jarring. The adults all seemed so much sturdier than anything she could hope to imitate. They didn't flinch or cower. They didn't cry.

The guilt hits her like a sudden pang in her chest. She doesn't know this troll, but she doesn't want to chase her off in tears.

"He doesn't want to talk to me," she responds, only for the sake of answering her question. Then she hesitantly pats the ground. "...You can sit down. We'll talk about something else. Anything."

The Disciple doesn't sit, not yet, still trying to calm herself enough to face her. She can't face anyone like this, showing weakness in her smudged makeup and tear tracks. It's only a comfort that Terezi doesn't ask for explanation for her sudden standing or clipped words. A little comfort but still, not asking is better than making an excuse.

"He would. I think he does. After tempers calmed, much can be said that would not before." She forces her voice to steady. It trembles a little at the end, adrenaline still racing, but she slowly drops back to her knees and looks over the mass of chalk drawing. She isn't sure what to say or talk about after that.

What did she used to talk about before she spent her sweeps alone. Surely the troll she was isn't buried that deep.

Terezi relaxes just a little when the Disciple finally kneels down again. It at least means that she's not poised to run like she was before. Though at this point, Terezi isn't sure what to say to keep the conversation going.

She doesn't know anything about the Disciple other than what they've already discussed--and most of that she considers to be off-limits at the moment. The only other clue she has is that she's Nepeta's ancestor...which she hopes means that they share a love of quadrant-talk. After all, she was trying to pry into Terezi's a few minutes ago, right?

"I don't know. He said some pretty terrible things to me." She shrugs it off casually, reaching for a few pieces of chalk. Next to the Disciple's picture of Karkat, she starts to draw. "I would have thought he was black-flirting with me if I didn't know that his hate-boner was reserved for someone else."

She could have probably drawn Dave here, too, but that wouldn't be nearly as accurate for the present Karkat. Instead, a scratchy picture of Cuthbert starts to form. Once that's finished, she starts making an image of Fraysong below them. "Pretty sure they're pitch-like-crazy for each other, but they've got the Initiate auspisticing for them. I really don't understand the point."

She watched her scribble quietly, letting the rhthym sooth her a little. It was easy to fall into watching someone draw or write. Cuthbert, that one she met on the first day. The Initiate...She rolls her eyes. Him being ashen and good at it seemed terribly unlikely. What a horrible choice to keep things in check. Wrinkling her nose in obvious distaste, she looked over at Terezi.

"Doesn't everyone say terrible things from time to time. I'm sure you've said some terrible things yourself." She scribbled out a spade, "And just because he hates someone doesn't mean he won't blackflirt to be honest. Or that he intends to."

"That's why there are so many problems with that quadrant to begin with and I doubt ashen is the Initiate's specialty."

Terezi knows well enough that she's said some terrible things before... But for some reason, hearing Karkat insult her like that struck a raw edge. For all of their bickering, she'd never heard him mean it like that. And it hurt. More than she expected it to.

"I don't know," she responds, focusing more on the second line of comments than the first. "Smacking them up-side their heads seems to be a pretty resourceful method of mediating those two." She has to admit... for as bad as she had imagined the Initiate would be with this auspistice thing, he's actually got a pretty good handle on how to get them to shut up.

As a bonus, the Disciple seems to have taken to the shift in topic a bit, so she keeps going...

"It's more that I can't figure out why either one doesn't want the concupiscent quadrant to begin with. They're not spoken for, they're not necessarily unhappy as far as I can tell? I don't know, maybe I just bad at understanding these things!"

She taps the chalk in her hand, a green just too bright and just too blue tinted to be her own. The distraction is easy, she feels her body relaxing into normal steady awareness. For a brief moment she's marveling at the color they made without having to use blood or ash to tint but the moment passes and she looks up at Terezi. Swapping the green for teal, she sketches out Terezi beside her Karkat. Fingers smudge the teal into varying depths and shades easily until it resembles the girl in front of her.

"Maybe he doesn't want to hate him like that." She points the chalk at Terezi, "Maybe he has his eye on someone else for that quadrant. Or he believes that a human can't be his fated quadrant. Any number of reasons you might want someone to step in."

Terezi presses her lips together sternly when the Disciple starts to draw her next to Karkat. She still doesn't want to go down this road. It's too hard to explain how complicated the situation is...and how much it hurts.

"I'm pretty sure it's more likely that he doesn't know what he wants. From anyone." She takes a bit of teal chalk and draws an X between the pictures of her and Karkat. "Either way, I'm not going to be part of it. I don't need that." Again. Once was enough already.

She narrows her eyes at the x and smudges it out immediately. "Don't rule out things. You're young. Who knows how you might change and how he might change. I'm not suggesting a quadrant for you two--I barely know you two. But time changes much and you shouldn't insist that things will never change. No one knows their quadrants on sight."

She leaves the space perfectly blank there and taps it with chalk, "I won't speculate in drawings if you would rather I not. Whenever I could hope to understand two wrigglers as enigmatic as yourselves."

"I think I know myself well enough to know what I want and don't want." And Karkat's quadratic problems are definitely on her Do Not Want list. For all of his noble and romantic qualities, it doesn't mean anything in the face of his insecurities and indecision. She's just so tired of thinking about it. Sometimes she's almost jealous of him for being younger than she remembers. It means he's still blissfully ignorant of their falling out.

"I already know how he changes and more importantly how he doesn't change. I don't want to deal with that again." She draws the X again, more firmly this time.

And once again Disciple slowly but deliberately wipes it out again.

"Oh yes because you know your entire future at the age of...can't be more than seven sweeps. I'm not demanding you find a quadrant with him at any point in the future. Just don't consider your life decided at such a young age. You're teal, you have hundred of sweeps ahead of you. Perhaps you'll never find anything with him. Perhaps you'll both grow up and whatever holds you two to be so...hateful--will be changed. You simply cannot know based on how you feel right now..."

"I suppose you're from later than him. Like I am from Signless. So he changes in some way you don't like and there was something between you that broke? Or there might have been if he hadn't changed." She picked up on that 'again'.

"You know, you really suck at this gathering information thing. You don't know me, and you're really bad at pretending to know me." She draws the X again, this time over the image of herself. Let her try to erase that.

"I don't want anything to do with him like that. It's not that difficult of a decision to make! And quite honestly, I doubt he wants anything to do with the stone-cold dry-nooked bitch that used to be his friend, so it's a win-win on all sides!" She doesn't really believe that. At least, she hopes that he doesn't feel that way. Because even though she's fundamentally tired of his romantic bullshit and his personal issues, she still doesn't want to lose him as a friend.

She does erase it. The whole picture, all of them she's drawn so far and then draws Terezi again, in the outfit she wears with more skill than she showed before. Perhaps she's trying to prove something or she's simply put all her effort into this one picture simply because she marked over the other.

"Of course I don't know you. I don't pretend to. I would say the same to my descendant or Karkat or any of you. You're young, the world ahead of you."

And she doesn't realize the fundamental flaw in those words.

"...It's a little sad you're so sure of that. Why would he have entrusted Signless to you if he did not trust you. Why would you have taken on the burden of a person he asked you to if you did not want anything to do with him?"

"I don't know. Why does anyone do any stupid thing that they decide to do?" she mutters, giving the new drawing a skeptical expression. She doesn't mind the older troll drawing a picture of her. It's pretty nice by all accounts... just so long as she doesn't go making more implications from it.

"Like I said: We used to be friends. But he pretty much threw sweeps of friendship in my face without giving it a second thought, if I haven't made that obvious!" Not that she blames him. She didn't exactly explain her reasoning to him, but what was he expecting by confronting her in the middle of a public event? Discretion was never really his strong point, was it?

"...Why do you care so much? It's not like I have any relation to you."

"You both lack communication to be honest. You don't tell him what upsets you and he gets mad and says the wrong things. Then neither trust because neither will be the one to say anything. Clear communcation would solve half of Alternia's problems."

She does not draw conclusions at that drawing, glancing up at her as she selects a more olive shade to draw Nepeta with, "And no you do not, but I was never very good at keeping my nose out of quadrants. And to be frank you two could use something to help. Unless you really want to lose the friendship entirely?"

"There's no quadrant for you to stick your nose into in the first place." She sounds irritated at having to repeat herself about that, but the last part kills most of that. She doesn't want to lose Karkat's friendship at all, but it's hard to keep being his friend when he's making everything so frustrating.

"He doesn't want to listen. I could tell him my reasons over and over, and he still won't listen. He never has. He always thinks that he's the only one who knows anything about anything. But if you want to butt your head into that brick wall, sure! Go ahead. Have fun. Let me know when you get tired of it."

"Ashen maybe with the way you two act." She points out and then rolls her eyes, "If you don't want to hate him and he doesn't want to hate you, then ashen is where we shall lay this until you two are back to proper."

Disciple shakes her head and if no one knew better, she might be teasing, "Terezi. You are aware that I am fully versed in the brick wall that is a Vantas. And to be fair, I think you two have that in common. At least in this case."

"We're not laying it anywhere! Jegus, you're as bad as he is!" She shoots the Disciple a look, clearly aggitated. "My quadrants are my own, so stop just deciding what you think it should fall under. I don't want him in any quadrant. Not ashen, not pale, not flushed, not black. He's my friend--or used to be, and that's it. If you want to help with our friendship, fine. But stop making it out to be a quadrant. Because the instant he latches onto that is the instant I stop dealing with either of you."

She doesn't say much to the rest of it. She's too irritated to tease, and she doesn't care if the oliveblood thinks she's a brick wall. She damn well will be on this topic if she wants to be. It's her love life, and no one can tell her otherwise.

"I'm not claiming it as a quadrant dear Terezi." Her tone is more harsh than teasing at this point, the dear perhaps a pointed reminder of her age and wisdom. Or simply a choice.

"I'm saying that ashen feelings are what I have and ashen is what you need. Not every feeling is quadrant worthy, simply a word to assign to the things that need to happen. You two need someone to mediate and that is what ashen is. Whatever does or does not happen after mediation occurs is not my concern, I simply want to help stop you two from hating each other when neither really seems to want to."

She's still glaring at her when she finishes, but gradually the expression softens to something closer to a sulk. She doesn't want to admit that she's right, not verbally, but Terezi can understand the sense that she makes of it. Maybe she's just too wound up from dealing with Karkat all the time.

"...Alright," she mutters, grudgingly. "But don't let him hear you say that. I mean it; he won't let it go if you do."

"Perish the thought." She snags the red chalk for a moment and adds the red glasses to the abandoned picture of Terezi, smudging it to a nice smooth color and drawing her sign below in a looping flourish of red. Then soft and quiet as she wipes her hands and readies herself to stand, she looks Terezi in the eye.

"Signless was tortured and died in an execution like the one you mentioned. Don't mention it again, please."

That bit of information catches Terezi's attention, draws the sulkiness out of her expression. She's not sure what to do with it at first. The Disciple was so horrified earlier... her curiosity wonders if the older troll was made to watch. It wouldn't be an unreasonable thing to ask, and it's not as if she personally cares about Signless's death. No one would expect her to, anyway.

She almost does ask, but once again--the older troll was so horrified by it. Terezi doesn't really want to do that to her again. She opens her mouth, then closes it again, frowning.

"...Okay. I won't," she finally answers. "I just thought you should know." So it doesn't have to happen again.

Maybe one day she'll speak of the details of that day, but now would not be the time. She nods quickly and firmly, standing in a smooth motion. Oh her stylists would be so upset with the chalk smudges all over her but she doubted they'd use this outfit again as it was. Waste.

"Thank you. Have a nice day." She bobs her head in acknowledgement, turning to leave.

Since your history of silence // Closed

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ashen overture, let her soothe your butts

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