Work Text:
-- tentacleTherapist [TT] began pestering grimAuxiliatrix [GA] --
GA: Rose
GA: Oh My God
GA: Rose
GA: Whats Going On
GA: Hello
GA: If This Prolonged Silence On Is Your Idea Of Some Sort Of Practical Joke I Have To He Honest I Have Yet To Find Anything In The Universe Less Amusing Than This
GA: Oh My God Rose Lalonde Answer Me Right Now
TT: Hi.
GA: Holy Shit
TT: Sorry.
TT: I was experiencing technically difficulties there for a minute.
TT: Dave required handling.
GA: What
TT: I had to throw a yarn ball at him to get him to desist.
GA: Wow That Actually Cleared Nothing Up For Me
TT: Sorry.
TT: I’d elaborate, but I have the sneaking suspicion it would only complicate matters further.
TT: He’s been handled, though, at least for the time being. If I disappear again, just assume something entirely innocuous like more yarn-throwing action is taking up the bulk of my attention.
TT: Until then, though, I am all yours.
TT: Hi.
GA: Hello
GA: Okay
GA: Wow
GA: I Literally Dont Know Where To Start Right Now
TT: I’ve heard the beginning is always a good place to kick things off from.
GA: The Beginning
TT: Quite.
TT: Just say whatever comes to mind first, I guess.
GA: Okay
GA: What The Actual Fuck Rose
TT: A strong start.
GA: What The Fuck Happened
GA: Where Did You Go
GA: What On Earth Are You Doing Right Now
GA: Because Even Though You Are Here Talking To Me Right Now I Still Cannot See You Through My Viewfinder And That Is Really Not Reassuring Me That Youre In Any Sort Of Good Situation Right Now
GA: Especially Considering What Happened The Last Time I Stopped Being Able To See You
GA: Not That I Have The Faintest Idea What Actually Took Place Then Other Than The Fact That Whatever It Was Rendered You Unable To Answer My Messages For A Distressingly Long Period Of Time
GA: Needless To Say I Really Did Not Appreciate Such Extensive Radio Silence On Your End At All
GA: And While We Are On The Subject Of Your Blackout Have I Asked What The Fuck Happened In Regards To That Yet Because That Is A Very Pressing Question Which I Really Need You To Answer Immediately
GA: Also
GA: Are You Okay
TT: Is that it?
GA: Not Even Close
GA: Have I Said What The Fuck Yet
TT: Would it make you feel better if I allowed you to say it again?
GA: Probably Not
GA: Just
GA: God
GA: What
TT: Alright.
TT: I suppose some contextualization of what happened in regards to the blackout would be a good idea.
GA: An Indescribably Well Advised One
GA: Certainly Your Best In Recent History
TT: Harsh, but deserved.
TT: Do trolls have mothers?
TT: I guess that's a fairly human-centric term. Guardians of some sort, I mean. Individuals who take care of trolls to varying degrees of competency when they are young.
TT: Prepare them to be flung into the forays of adult life and such.
GA: I Mean
GA: We Have Lusii
GA: Which Sounds Like The Approximate Equivalent To What Youre Describing Right Now
TT: Okay.
TT: I am correct in assuming your lusii is dead now?
TT: Sorry. That’s a fantastically insensitive way to phrase that.
TT: I only ask for clarification purposes. John mentioned that Karkat had talked to him at some length regarding the collateral damage commencing the game had on your session’s players and their respective lusii.
TT: Well, that's what John ascertained, at any rate. Apparently Karkat was rather broken up about the whole thing so his usually semi-incomprehensible rampages were rendered even less coherent.
GA: Yes Karkat Is Under The Impression That When He Ran The Code That Opened Up Our Session He Sent Out Some Virus That Preciptated The Deaths Of All Our Lusii
GA: Which Honestly Could Be True I Have No Idea But It Was A Side Effect Of Playing That Wouldve Happened No Matter What
GA: Our Universe Was Always Going To Be Destroyed Along With Everything In It At Some Juncture
GA: Karkat Was Simply The One To Push The Happenstance Into Action
GA: But Yes She Is Dead
TT: I'm sorry.
GA: Its Alright
GA: I Mean It Was Initially A Challenging Thing To Handle But It Happened At The Very Start Of Our Session Which Was Quite Some Time Ago Now So Ive Had The Opportunity To Come To Terms With It
GA: Certainly There Has Been No Shortage Of Distractions Since Commencing Our Session To Help Me Keep My Mind Off It At The Very Least
GA: And Like I Said We All Knew It Was Going To Happen At Some Point In The Game So I Was Saved From The Unpleasantness Of It Being An Unexpected Occurrence As Well
GA: Why Do You Ask
TT: Mine died, too.
TT: My mother.
GA: Oh
GA: Im Sorry Rose
GA: When Did This Happen
TT: Right before the blackout.
TT: It was the event that spurned all that into motion, actually. I had retrieved a cue ball from Jade's room some time ago and had kept it on my person for miscellaneous purposes when she contacted me to inform me that both my and John's guardian had been slain by Jack.
TT: In response, I was encouraged to look into said cue ball and ask some rather forthright questions regarding the benevolence of the Elder Gods.
GA: Oh God
TT: Quite. It went about as awfully as you can predict.
TT: Turns out the Gods are more than willing to dispense whatever information an upstart teenage girl should ask them for.
TT: They are not, though, as inclined to give said information in a way that can be comprehended by a human brain without it essentially blowing every fuse in the book.
TT: You win some, you lose some, I guess.
GA: Is That What Happened
GA: You Blew A Fuse
TT: Oh, I blew all the fuses.
TT: My heightened emotional state regarding my mother's death probably didn't help matters much.
TT: Nor did the fact that I had been dipping my toes in the water for quite some time, so to speak.
TT: They’re not the most patient of creatures even at the best of times, and by the moment of my mother’s death, they had doubtless become well aware of the pertinent threat Jack posed to the sanctity of the session and thus their livelihoods. I believe they saw an opportunity in me to make some real gains towards ensuring their safety, and the second I gave them an opening, they took it.
GA: How Do You Mean Took It
GA: What Did They Take
TT: Control of most essential parts of my consciousness, mainly.
GA: Holy Shit Rose
TT: Quite. I’m very grateful for whatever mechanism in my brain is preventing me from remembering the majority of this experience and only hope it remains in place for upwards of the next fifty years.
GA: So What Happened
GA: After They Did
GA: Well
GA: That
TT: Well, even before the grimdarkness fully set in, I had rather made up my mind about what to do with Jack.
TT: Retaliation of some sort seemed the most pertinent course of action.
TT: Given that the Elder Gods' whole modus operandi is going to whatever lengths necessary to stop Jack, being under their influence only increased the validity of this prospect in my mind.
GA: Oh So You Chose Literally The Worst Option Out Of All Potential Responses Then
TT: In my defense, I blame the Horrorterrors.
GA: Please Tell Me Someone With Even Half A Functioning Thinkpan Was Able To Talk You Out Of This
GA: Like Jade
GA: What About Jade
GA: She Seems Like The Sort Of Sensible Individual Who Would Put Her Foot Down At Even Vague Mention Of Such A Plan
TT: Oh, she is. And she entirely attempted to do so.
TT: However, the flaw with out primary interface of communication being via technology is that if she starts saying things I or the ancient gods possessing my body don't want to here, we can simply just stop reading her messages.
TT: So I did that.
GA: God
GA: Rose
TT: I know.
TT: I don't have much of an justification for it beyond the fact that I vaguely recall being angrier than I'd ever been before.
TT: And not entirely in control of my faculties.
TT: Describing my judgement as being a little skewed rather rewrites the book on vast understatements, I think.
TT: So it goes without saying that I made a few inadvisable decisions.
GA: Like Going After Jack
TT: Yep.
GA: And How Did That Go
TT: Well,
TT: In short, not well.
GA: I Mean I Ascertained As Much For Myself Considering You Were Reduced To The Closest I Think Ill Probably Ever See You To Abashed Just Then But Some More In Depth Elaboration Would Be Extremely Helpful
GA: Obviously I Dont Want You To Share Anything Youre Not Comfortable With Doing So But If There Are Any Gory Details Youd Like To Offer Up Id Be Beyond Amenable To Listen
GA: And Not Like Were Exactly Pressed For Time Here
TT: Hah.
GA: What
GA: Why Are You Laughing
GA: Thats A Very Unnerving Reaction To That Thing I Just Said Rose
GA: What Are You Doing Now
TT: Patience, young padawan. I'll get to that question in due time.
TT: To elaborate, though, I was storming around Skaia’s castle looking for Jack when John found me. He had seen his father head off to the castle and was attempting to catch up with him. At this point, the English language as he understood it and I were no longer on speaking terms, so I was unable to inform him of what I had seen in the cue ball. We had to wander around for quite some time before we finally stumbled across our guardians’ bodies.
TT: And Jack himself.
TT: We then attacked him.
TT: John died almost instantly. Jack flash-stepped and stabbed him through the chest.
TT: I died a few minutes after.
GA: You Died
TT: Yep.
GA: God
GA: God Rose
GA: Fuck
GA: Are You Okay Now At Least
TT: Entirely so. That pesky dreamself you kept going on about earlier came in good use in helping revive me.
TT: Which I suppose can serve as a nice segway in regards to your question of where I am now.
TT: I'm on Derse.
GA: Are You Dreaming
TT: I don't think so, no.
TT: Honestly, things are so distorted out here that it's hard to determine the exact state of my consciousness right now, but saying as it was my dreamself that got expended, I'm assuming this is my physical form here.
TT: Not that it matters all that much now, I guess.
TT: Does that answer all your questions?
GA: It Does Not
GA: And Something Tells Me That You Are Very Aware Of This
GA: What Are You Doing Now Rose
GA: Why Are You On Derse If Youre Not Dreaming
GA: What Are You Doing That Requires You To Throw Yarn At Dave In Order To Get Him To Leave You Alone
GA: Im Assuming That The Yarn Throwing Serves A Greater Purpose Than Simply What The Action Alludes To Here Of Course
TT: That would be a correct assumption. I was knocking him out.
GA: Was That Supposed To Reassure Me That Youre Not Doing Anything Untoward Here Because If Im Being Frank It Had The Exact Opposite Affect
GA: I Also Have About Fifteen More Questions Now
TT: Not reassurance, no. A misguided attempt at transparency, really.
TT: Though the longer I think about it, the more said misguidedness is revealed to me.
TT: I think this was a mistake.
GA: What Was
TT: Contacting you.
GA: What
GA: Why
GA: Do You Think I Didnt Want To Hear From You
GA: Because That Is Most Certainly Not The Case
GA: The Past Few Days Of My Life Have Been Extremely Harrowing For Reasons Entirely Unrelated To You And Yet I Found You Were The Only Thing Able To Occupy My Thoughts On More Than One Occasion
GA: Which Sounds Trite In A Way I Did Not Intend It To Be
GA: I Just Mean You Disappeared In Such A Bizarre Way And I Had No Idea What Had Happened And As Insufferable As You May Be To Deal With On Nearly All Fronts I Mightve Missed Your Company Once Or Twice
TT: Kanaya.
GA: Yes
TT: Rambling.
GA: Sorry
TT: What's been happening with you recently?
GA: Wow
GA: Clearly Dying Hasnt Done Anything To Improve Your Egregiously Low Levels Of Subtly Then
GA: Stop Stalling
TT: Humor me.
TT: After all, like you said, it's not as if we're pressed for time here, or anything.
TT: Please? I gave you the gory details of my past few days you so ardently sought after. It only seems fair that you do the same in turn.
TT: I’m kidding, of course. You don’t have to clue me in to anything you don’t feel comfortable discussing, obviously.
TT: But I would appreciate an update if you’d be willing to give one.
GA: Fine
GA: You Remember Eridan
TT: Was he the one whose computer I blew up?
GA: Correct
TT: Then with great fondness, yes.
GA: Actually I Suppose Some Background Context Wouldnt Go Amiss For Me Either
GA: The Twelve Members Of My Session Have Been Staying At The Veil While We Attempt To Help Your Party Perform The Necessary Tasks And Generally Try And Get A Handle On Our Own Situation
GA: The Veil Is Spacious And Has More Than Enough Resources To Accommodate For All Our Various Needs But This Has Still Been The First Time Many Of Our Players Have Come Into Face To Face Contact With One Another And Certainly The Longest Time Weve Spent Around Each Other
GA: The Longest Some Of Us Have Spent Around Other Trolls In General
GA: Needless To Say Tensions Have Been Running High For Some Time
GA: You Know How It Is
TT: I mean, I think it entirely depends upon where this is going, but let's say sure.
GA: Youre Also Probably Aware Of This But For Some Time The Outcome Of Our Session Had Been Looking A Little Bleak
GA: Things Seem To Have Turned Around Now But Back On The Veil The Prospect Of Jack Finding And Killing Us All Seemed To Be A Very Likely One
GA: This Got To Some Of Us More Than Others I Think
TT: I'm assuming this is where Eridan factors in?
GA: Yep
GA: He Got It In His Head That The Only Way To Ensure Survival Would Be To Join Forces With Jack
GA: A Generally Inadvisable Idea But He Still Took Great Offense When Called Out On This
GA: A Fight Broke Out Between Him And Sollux
GA: Who Was At The Time Also Matesprits With Eridans Ex Morail Who Broke It Off With Him After He Asked To Be Matesprits With Her
GA: Im Assuming These Dynamics Only Added Fuel To The Fire So To Speak
TT: Wow. This is starting to sound like the plot of some cheap young adult romance novel I distinctly remember wanting nothing more than to set fire to after getting through the first chapter.
GA: Yes I Think Quite A Few More People Ended Up Dying Than Is Typical For A Novel Of That Nature But Yes Thats Not An Inaccurate Comparison
GA: Actually Who Am I Kidding I Know Nothing About Your Strange Human Literature Perhaps These Sorts Of Scenarios Are Entirely Commonplace
TT: Is that what happened?
TT: They died?
GA: Eridan Shot Sollux With His Wand
GA: The Fact That I Was The One To Alchemize It For Him Makes Me More Than A Little Responsible For This Whole Situation But Thats Really Not Something Im In The Mood To Deal With Right Now So I Digress
GA: Feferi Then Went After Eridan Next On Account Of Sollux Being Seemingly Dead
GA: He Isnt
GA: Well
GA: Its Complicated
GA: He Says Hes Quote Half Dead Unquote Right Now Which Doesnt Make A Whole Lot Of Sense But Then Again What About This Game Does
GA: Anyways
GA: Feferi Died
GA: I Witnessed The Whole Thing Happen
TT: Oh.
TT: I'm sorry.
GA: Oh Dont Worry Theres More
TT: Christ.
GA: At This Point In Time I Had Recently Retrived The Matriorb
GA: Its Sole Object That Can Bring About The Repopulation Of The Troll Race
GA: Eridan Blew It Up
GA: Im Not Entirely Sure Why But It Did Make Me Very Very Angry Possibly Comparable To How You Felt When Your Human Mother Was Killed So I Launched Myself At Him
GA: Turns Out Chainsaws Are Very Little Use Against Homicidal Wand Wielding Seadwellers
GA: He Shot And Killed Me Within Seconds
GA: Since Prospit Had Already Been Destroyed My Dreamself Along With It It Seemed Like This Death Was Looking To Be A Permanent One
TT: Saying as you're here talking to me now, I'm assuming this didn’t prove to be the case?
GA: Well No
GA: Turns Out Theres No Better Impetus To Monumental Self Discovery Than Getting Shot Point Blank
GA: Do Humans Have Rainbow Drinkers
TT: I don't recognize the term, no.
GA: Theyre Quote Monsters Unquote Defined By Their Proclivity For Sunlight And Thirst For Blood
GA: Both Of Which Are Generally Speaking Unusual Traits For The Average Troll
GA: Theyve Become Something Of A Staple Of Trashy Novels In Troll Pop Culture But They Apparently Have Real Life Basis
GA: And Also Im One Of Them Now
GA: So
TT: Ah.
TT: Yes.
TT: Humans have something similar.
TT: They're called vampires.
TT: Though I'd always thought them to be entirely fictional beings. Perhaps I was wrong, though.
GA: I As Well But Apparently They Are Very Real And Its Genetic For My Lineage
GA: Or Something
GA: Im Still Unsure On The Ins And Outs Of It Right Now
GA: Anyways Though So One Of The Add Ons To Being A Rainbow Drinker Is Something Akin To Conditional Immortality So I Woke Up A Few Hours After Eridan Shot Me
GA: Then I Found Him And Cut Him In Half
TT: Excuse me?
GA: With My Chainsaw
GA: I Also Punched My Ex Morail In The Face And Kicked The Troll Who Had Recently Gone On A Sobriety Induced Rampage And Killed Two Of Our Party Members Off A Cliff
GA: So
TT: Wow.
GA: That Does Seem To Be A Good Way Of Summing This Situation Up Yes
TT: And I thought the past few days had been eventful for me.
TT: Are you okay?
GA: Im Conditionally Immortal Now
GA: So If By Okay You Mean Alive Theres Not Much I Could Do To Alter This State Anymore
TT: It isn't.
GA: Youre Still Deflecting You Know
GA: You Have Yet To Answer My Earlier Question
TT: And you aren't right now?
GA: Why Are You On Derse
TT: Can't a girl spend time in her dream kingdom? Does there have to be malicious intent behind this?
GA: I Dont Consider Your Actions Malicious In The Slightest
GA: That Would Imply Theyre Directly Detrimental To Anyone Other Than Yourself
TT: ...
TT: Touché.
TT: Do you remember my plan?
GA: Which One
GA: You Had A Lot Of Them
GA: Most Of Them Were Generally Ill Advised
TT: The one regarding The Tumor and dropping it into Green Sun.
TT: You were particularly adamant in regards to the fallibility of it as I recall.
TT: I think you were hung up over the fact that I would get killed while performing it.
TT: Or, as it stood at the time, my dreamself would.
TT: Though we seem to be back to the former scenario now considering all that transpired with Jack.
TT: I'm okay with it, by the way.
TT: I can imagine my actions might allude to otherwise but I am actually thinking very clearly here. Certainly a lot clearer than I have in recent weeks.
TT: I'd hate to think of myself as someone willing to parade some convoluted martyr complex around, but I've done the math, so to speak, and come to the conclusion that this is pretty much the only way things can go if we want even the slightest chance at beating Jack. With the Green Sun still intact, he retains all his powers as First Guardian, thus rendering him practically unkillable.
TT: Destroying it is the only way we can hope to neutralize him.
TT: John and Jade have both already God Tiered, so both of them are far too valuable to the team to lose at this point. Between their increased powers and conditional immortality, it seems a misguided choice to squander such a player so soon in the game by have one them sacrifice themselves and die what will assuredly be a Heroic death.
TT: They’re infinitely more useful alive, and I think it’s in all our best interests to try and keep them in that state for as long as possible.
TT: That’s not even to mention the innumerable list moral compunctions I have with sending either one of my best friends off on a suicide mission.
TT: That leaves only Dave or myself theoretically able to perform this task, and, as with John and Jade, I’m hardly inclined to subject him to this fate.
TT: So. You can see how the logic follows.
TT: I must say, a silence of this length is unnatural by your standards. Is this payback for my earlier absence?
TT: Kanaya?
TT: Are you there?
GA: Have You Updated Trollian
GA: Pesterchum
GA: Whatever Humans Use
TT: I think so. Why?
GA: Call Me
TT: I'm not sure how good of an idea that is.
GA: Oh Right Sorry I Forgot You Had Written The Dictionary On Good Ideas
GA: Your Plan To Go Travel To The End Of The Known Universe And Blow Yourself Up With A Bomb Is Really Illustrative Of That
TT: Ouch.
GA: Pick Up
-- tentacleTherapist [TT] has an incoming call from grimAuxiliatrix [GA] --
Derse is colder than Rose remembers.
Granted, it does feel like she's lived an entire lifetime since she last set foot on the planet—and, if you squint just right, that sentiment can be applied in a literal sense as well as a figurative one—so perhaps her recollection of this places is a little fuzzy, reduced to vague washes of purple-tinted gothic architecture, but the cold is so pressing, so bone-chilling that she honestly finds it hard to think this could've been something she forgot about.
Maybe it's just circumstantial. She wasn't lying when she said she'd made her peace with what has to happen next—at least with the inevitability of it; after all, if not her, than who?—but still.
But still. It’s not an easy thing, wandering around a planet at the edge of the universe, bomb with the timer already counting down in tow, entirely alone. It's not easy being thirteen and realizing that, in two hours and exactly five seconds, you are going to die, and you are not going to come back.
One hour, fifty-nine minutes, and fifty-five seconds. Fifty-four, fifty-three, fifty-two—
Rose shakes her head a little. It's not helpful, thinking about her demise in such quantifiable terms. After all, this has to happen—she knows it does, knows it more than anything else she ever has known—and sitting around twiddling her thumbs watching the numbers tick ever-closer to zero isn't going to make the wait go by any quicker. Or easier. Especially easier.
Not that this is hard. Rose is many things, but afraid to die isn't one of them, especially if her death will result in such a metric gain for everyone else.
She's not afraid. But—well. But still.
Maybe that's why she texted Kanaya. After all, if still speaking in metric terms, there was little to no value in contacting the troll; while Rose is relatively certain that Kanaya would've appreciated some sort of update regarding her personal wellbeing after her rather abrupt departure earlier, she's even more sure that any assurances she could've given the troll in regards to her safety would've been entirely blown out of the water by the following admittance that she was mere hours away from getting herself killed again, this time for real.
As it is, that stood to be true. Practically down to the letter.
So, no, there was really no point in texting Kanaya. Sure, Rose might've wanted to, maybe a little more than she'd even admit to herself, but what good did any of it do when she was always going to have to say goodbye at the end of it?
What good would that do for Kanaya? Kanaya who Rose was able to ascertain just how deeply she cares for the people in her life before she even learnt the troll’s name. Kanaya who has lost half her friends in the past few days, witnessed an all together too large number of them die with her own eyes. Kanaya who has ben shot through the stomach and resurrected, Kanaya whose first instinct following Rose's explanation was to ask if she was okay, Kanaya who will not waste a second of time before assigning the blame for Rose's death on her.
Kanaya who, as much as Rose would love to pretend otherwise, clearly cares about her. At least enough to be upset about the prospect of her dying for real.
Rose is many things, but she does not want to be selfish. Turns out, that particular trait might've developed without her noticing it.
Goddamnit.
She's sitting on the edge of one of the low-lying walls, kicking her heels against the purple brick and trying to focus on anything other than the bomb on the ground in front of her or Kanaya's sudden silence or the strange, tight feeling in her chest, when Kanaya's call comes through, lighting up her Hubtopband. The notification hovers on the screen, flashing at her, almost mocking.
Rose is many things, and indecisive has never been one of them, but clearly there's a first time for everything.
Because on one hand, there is no point to picking up. The conversation will be needlessly painful and will probably render Rose somewhat emotionally incapacitated, incapable of making clear, rational-minded decisions, and with Dave still hovering on the peripheries, still trying to get Rose to let him accompany her—not to mention her own resolve hanging on by a thread in regards to telling him no—it is absolutely imperative she is able to make rational-minded decisions right now. And besides, it's not like she really wants to say goodbye to Kanaya. The two of them have grown to be good friends throughout the session, and the notion of having to speak to her for the last time makes something hard and heavy take shape in the pit of Rose's stomach. It'll be so much easier to treat this mission as one of simple necessity, one with no greater challenge to it than executing it right if Rose does not have to hear Kanaya try and persuade her to call it off—because she will; Rose knows she will.
Or tell her goodbye. Honestly, Rose isn't sure which one would be worse to hear.
But on the other hand, well. On the other hand, Derse is a very big, very quiet, very empty planet, and Rose has never done well with feeling like the smallest person in a given space. She has never done well with feeling alone. And she cannot talk to Dave—is not even sure she wants to talk to him right now, what with the whole strength-of-will-holding-on-by-a-thread thing—so Kanaya seems like the next best thing.
Not that Kanaya is second best, or a replacement, or anything else to that effect. She is her own entity, really, a stand-alone individual, someone who has transcended all the definable planes of personal importance Rose has established for herself over the course of the past thirteen years; someone who she—
Well, someone who Rose really doesn't want to have to say goodbye to. It's easier to think of it like that, at least.
The notification flashes some more. The seconds on the timer tick down. A cold, dry wind picks up from somewhere, blowing dust across the cobblestones.
Rose picks up.
There's a blast of static, some incoherent mumbling on the other end—clearly the reception in the Furthest Ring isn't all that it's cracked up to be—before Kanaya's voice finally sounds.
"Hello?"
Rose's heart drops to her knees. She closes her eyes.
"Rose? Are you there?"
Kanaya sounds panicked, though admittedly Rose doesn't have much of a frame of reference to judge this by. But even then, Rose knows her tone by instinct, like she has the even the subtlest of Kanaya’s intonations pre-memorized, written into the very fabric of her brain. There's an unmistakable layering of tension to her voice, a strange lilt to her words, an almost-surpressed tremor to the vowels, a million other cues that Rose somehow already knows so well.
Kanaya is afraid.
It hits Rose then that this is the first time she's ever heard her voice, and this realization fills her with an inexplicable warmth that even the chill of Derse can't tamp down on. A second later, it hits that this is the first time, yes, some strangely important milestone in their friendship, but this will be the last time they speak, too. And then, just like that, the cold is back, filling up her bones and limbs and every available atom of space in her lungs.
She breathes in and out once, steadily, measured. This is necessary. This has to be done to win. Kanaya will understand that.
It's not like she has a choice not to.
"I'm here." By some force of will she didn’t eve know she possessed, Rose manages to make her voice come out completely steady. Perhaps the Horrorterrors are throwing her a bone, doing one last favor before she goes. Thoughtful of them, really. "Hello."
"You are, without a doubt, the stupidest person I know. Are you aware of this?”
Her voice is smooth and clipped at the same time; Rose can almost hear her typing quirk reflected in the careful enunciation of her words, as if she’s capitalizing each out loud, too. Kanaya doesn’t have an accent like Rose imagined she might, but there’s a very un-humanlike melodic note to her voice, an unfamiliar way in which the consonants and vowels blend together seamlessly. Certainly, it’s a far cry from the voices Rose grew up hearing—her mother’s flat drawl; her various tutors’ Bostonian or New Yorker accents, always shaky with nerves at being in such a strange house so far away from everything; her own voice: soft, dry-edged, higher pitched than she would like—and Rose cannot help but be entranced by it for a second.
Then she reminds herself of where she is, of what’s about to happen, of the timer still ticking away beside her, and she brushes that all aside.
"Skipping the pleasantries, then."
Kanaya doesn't even laugh at that like Rose hoped she would. Instead, she just takes a long, somewhat shaky inhale. "Please don't do this."
Rose swallows. Hard. She grasps at the straws—anything to avoid talking about this, her plan, what's inevitably going to happen in now one hour, fifty-five minutes, and thirty-six seconds—and finally grabs ahold of one, gripping onto it with relish. "You know, I don't think it was your fault, what happened with Eridan."
"What?"
"You made him the wand as gesture of goodwill. It was a gift for a friend. You hardly could've predicted the gory details of what he was going to do with it."
“This is what you want to talk about right now?" Kanaya says—snaps, really—and Rose has to bite her tongue against the wash of guilt that fills her at the sound of the suddenly jagged edge to the troll's voice. Necessity, she reminds herself; this is a necessity. ”Eridan Ampora?"
Even though Kanaya can't see it, Rose shrugs. "What else is there to talk about?"
She snorts once, delicately. Rose thinks Kanaya might be the only person she knows who she’s ever heard snort delicately. “Oh, I don’t know,” the troll says, something hot and sharp practically dripping from her words, echoing out through the Hubtopband and bouncing around the inside of Rose’s skull like loose pinballs. “I was thinking we could embark upon a detailed takedown of this idiot plan of yours would be a good first step. What are your opinions?”
“I think that would be ill-advised.”
“Do you?” Pure derision floods Kanaya’s voice for a second. “Do you really?”
It hits Rose then that out of all the times she’s imagined what it would be like to hear Kanaya’s voice for the first time—and, if she’s being honest, she imagined that scenario a lot more than was appropriate, strictly speaking—she never thought the troll would sound so unrestrainedly angry.
Angry at her. Angry with her. The nuances hardly matter.
For a second, Rose debates apologizing. Apologizing for her earlier disappearance, apologizing for what she’s going to do now, apologizing that she had to continually drag Kanaya into her messes while still keeping her at an arm’s length, making her bear witness to all of Rose’s catastrophic decision-making processes without ever letting her help in the way Rose knows she wants to.
Apologizing for being selfish because, really, how else can this be defined?
“You’d be wasting your breath,” Rose says, and she hates the way her voice comes out, so flat and dull compared to Kanaya’s, so apathetic, so unemotional. She hates that she sounds like she doesn’t care about this—about Kanaya—in the slightest.
“I would rather do that than sit idly by and watch you carry out this ludicrous course of action.” Static cuts up Kanaya’s sentence in the middle. Or maybe it’s just her voice breaking. Rose really, really hopes it’s the former; she knows for a fact that if Kanaya starts crying, her already tenuous resolve will snap into a billion pieces. “Personally, I don’t think I’d be able to look myself in the mirror ever again if I did latter.”
You’re not the one who should feel bad here, Rose wants to say; what comes out is nearly a poorly-timed joke about vampires and mirrors, but she manages to divert it into something a little less tasteless at the last second. “I’m going to do this.”
She hears Kanaya take another long, shuddering inhale.
“I’m going to do this,” Rose repeats, perhaps to solidify the concept further. “Regardless of what you or anyone says, regardless of how you attempt to convince me otherwise, I am going to go through with this plan.”
Kanaya falls dead silent on the other end. Rose can’t even hear her breathing now, and she is filled with the irrepressible urge to keep talking, to stave off the sudden silence as best as she can.
“You know this is the right thing to do,” she says. “Even pushing aside such arbitrary concepts for a second—it’s the necessary thing to do. We cannot beat Jack if he has his First Guardian powers. I don’t do this now and I’ll only be pushing my ultimate demise off a few months or years, as well as the deaths of John and Jade and Dave—”
And you.
“—and all your party members as well. It’s a fate I cannot allow myself to be complicit in. I cannot let myself stand idly by when I have the means and ability and expendability—”
“Don’t.” Kanaya’s voice sounds again; it’s no longer derisive, but now there’s a new, raw edge to it, an emotion Rose doesn’t even know the name of filling her words. “Don’t you dare tell me you’re expendable.”
Rose feels the back of her throat start to tighten. She moves the Huptopband away from her face for a second to clear it. “I meant in the practical sense,” she says after the pause, willing with every scrap of restrain in her body for her voice to come out steady. “And if you want to detach all sentimentality from it, the reason Dave can’t do this instead of me is because he’s far more an adept fighter than I am. He—”
“That’s not true.” Rose can almost picture the troll shaking her head. “That’s not fucking true, Rose. I know it. You know it. You’re just looking for excuses here.”
“I’m not going to send my brother off on a suicide mission. I couldn’t live with myself if I did.”
“And I couldn’t—” Rose hears Kanaya’s jaw snap shut, almost sense her swallowing back the words, and something wrenches deep within her chest. “Has it ever occurred to you that he might hold similar sentiments towards you? That he might awaken after being knocked out to find his human sister dead and feel entirely to blame for it?”
This has occurred to Rose—several times in the last hour alone—and as awful as even the thought of causing Dave any extended amount of pain makes her feel, she forces herself to brush it aside every time it surfaces. Dave will understand, in the end; he knows Jack’s power just as much as she does—seen it firsthand, for Christ’s sake—and he will understand the metric value of her decision here.
Because it’s about metric values and metric values aline. Emotions are not something that can be quantified, weighed against one another—at least not something Rose is able to do right now—so she refuses to think in terms of them anymore.
And, besides, if she does, well. There goes that pesky resolve.
“He will understand,” Rose says aloud. “It will hurt him, yes, but he will understand.”
You have to understand, Kanaya. You have to understand because I cannot do this if you ask me not to, I cannot—
“Please.”
Fuck.
“Please what?”
“Don’t.” Kanaya clears her throat. “Please don’t do this. This isn’t the end-all-be-all course of action here. There has to be another—we can find another way to neutralize Jack, to take out his powers. It’s not—you don’t have to get yourself killed here, Rose, that doesn't have to happen. Just—give us time. Come back and give us time to think this through properly.”
“I've thought this through already.” She has. She has, she has, she has to have. “This has to be done, and it has to be done now. You know this.”
On the other end, she’s fallen silent once more. Rose’s chest clenches again.
“Kanaya,” she says. It’s a beautiful name. Rose had always meant to tell her so. “You have to understand this. Please.”
“Why—” Kanaya lets out another long breath. “Why does it have to be done by you?”
And for a second, Rose considers being pedantic—ever keeping everyone at arm’s length, then—and reminding the troll of why it has to be her: because John and Jade are God Tiers, because Dave is too good a fighter, because even if they were expendable, all three of them are too far away now to be able to complete the task with the degree of immediacy it needs in the first place.
Because this is the culmination of something greater than Rose, for all her dalliances with the Elder Gods, for all her relentless puruists of the Sburb's secrets, could ever hope to understand.
Because Rose is okay with dying. She’s okay with this. She’s going to be okay with this.
“Why does it have to be you?” Kanaya says, voice soft now, all the anger, all the rawness stripped from it, and Rose has the funny impression that they might be talking about a little more than the Green Sun all of a sudden.
But that doesnt matter. She doesnt have the capacity to let that matter. Not when it’s an hour and forty-seven minutes until the bomb will explode. Not when she’s leaving so soon.
“It’s going to be okay.” Rose says, letting her body curl in on itself a little, shoulder slumping, head hanging down. She closes her eyes against the light from the Huptopband, the flashing of Kanaya’s chumhandle, her imageless profile picture, the green of her contact name the very same shade that’s been well and truly burned onto Rose's brain by now. “Everything is going to work out fine.”
“No—” And the rage is back, shooting through the microphone in the Hubtopband and straight into the center of Rose’s head, down her spine, lighting up every nerve ending in her body with something scorching and indescribable. “No, it won’t. You’re—Rose, you’re going to die.”
“I know.”
“That—how is that your definition of everything working out fine? How?”
Because you’re going to have a better shot at living, Rose wants to say. So she does.
Because, really, what does she have to lose at this point?
Kanaya takes her shakiest breath in yet. Her exhale is much in the same vein, too. Rose tries very hard not to listen to it. Of course, she fails spectacularly, and her own throat seizes up again, and—and no, no, fuck no, she is not going to cry right now. She is not going to cry right now.
She is not going to cry because it is more imperative than anything else in the world right now—even more so than taking this stupid bomb and blowing a hole in the universe, more so than saving her friends, more so than killing Jack—that what is about to happen does not hurt Kanaya any more than it has to, and Rose knows that her bursting into tears will only add more full to the fire, so to speak.
She has already been selfish enough by calling Kanaya in the first place. She has already subjected her to her roundabout, tangential confessions and poorly-constructed excuses; to do anything more would be inexcusable.
To hurt Kanaya in the first place already well and truly crosses the threshold of inexcusable, really, but it has to be done. Rose knows it has to be done, and she knows that, deep down somewhere inside her, Kanaya knows it too.
“I’m sorry for calling,” Rose says, voice soft, because necessites aside, this still isn’t fair, and she knows it. She thinks Kanaya probably does, too. “This isn’t fair.”
“I called. I called you.”
“I picked up.”
“God—Rose, I wanted you to, I—I don’t—don’t do this.” Kanaya’s voice tapers off at the end for a second, crumpling up like a paper ball. The inside of Rose’s nose starts to prickle. She grits her teeth against it, hard. “Please—please don’t do this. Don’t die.”
Rose closes her eyes again. Somehow she feels like that will make this easier.
“Thank you for reading my walkthrough.”
“I—” Rose can almost hear Kanaya faltering at the sudden topic change. “What?”
“Thank you for reading my walkthrough,” she repeats, eyes still closed. “It was nice of you.”
“It was a good walkthrough, Rose, what are you—”
Rose is many things, but ready to say goodbye to Kanaya Maryam will probably never be one of them. As it is, though, sometimes tasks must be completed even before one is adequately prepared.
And it will only get harder and harder the longer she listens to Kanaya ask her to stay. She knows this.
“Good might be a stretch. In retrospect, it was a questionable piece of literature. Chock full of all sorts of self-aggrandizing teenage delusions of competence—mastery, really. I well and truly though I had the game figured out within days of playing, which is a little embarrassing, considering how—well, how I have managed to prove myself wrong time and time again. But it means a lot that you read through it all the same, and its childishness aside, I’m grateful for its existence if only because it served as the impetus for you reaching out to troll me."
“Rose—”
She presses on. Stop and she’ll never start again. “I don’t think I believe in fate.” Then gives a snort of her own, nothing like the noise that came from Kanaya earlier. “God. I’m about to die and I’m talking about fate. How nauseatingly chiche.”
The back of her throat tightens some more. Rose does her best to swallow around it.
“But, no, I digress. Fate is—well, it’s a nice concept to entertain, but it doesn’t hold much water in reality, though perhaps that perspective is simply a side effect of being one of the individuals to orchestrate the destruction of an entire universe.” Rose thinks of snow and waterfalls and bloodstained black-and-white tiles before giving her head a little shake. That’s the wrong universe. That’s the wrong goodbye. “Regardless, though, I think certain things happen for a reason. Meetings, conversations, events—most of these things boils down to being mundane and irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, but I think there are one or two instances that have some—some external significance. Some greater importance. Though—” and she gives another laugh, short and sharp, catching in the back of her throat for a moment, “—perhaps this is just some self-aggrandize part of me speaking. Or maybe a reflection of my desire for things regarding me to have a greater cosmic significance than initial appearances might suggest.”
“Rose, I don’t—”
There’s a crack to Kanaya’s voice, a deep-set fissure running the length of every word she’s able to get in edgewise, and just listening to it makes Rose’s chest ache so badly it feels like she’s suffocating.
“What I’m trying to say is I’m glad we met.” Rose speaks loudly, drowning out both the sound of Kanaya’s shaky interjections and the own dull roar of her blood in her ears. She can’t. She just can’t. “Out of all your friends, I’m glad you were the one who decided to troll me. Perhaps—perhaps there is no greater cosmic significance to our meeting, but on a personal level—for me, it meant something. It meant quite a—quite a bit.”
The inside of Rose’s nose burns. She swallows again.
“Sincerity has never been my strong suit,” she says, and now she’s speaking softly, words mumbled together even though it is just her and the bomb on this moon and there is no one here she has to be quiet for. “Doubtless this is something you’ve ascertained for yourself during our conversations. But I mean it with as much genuineness as I know how to exude when I say I am grateful I got to spent any amount of time as your friend. I—I could wax poetic for an extended period of time if I put my mind to it, but just know that—that your capacity for bettering people by simple proxy is—is untold, as is the, um, the nature in which you fight so tirelessly and thanklessly for your friends and—and I hope these are qualities you will nit easily give up after I’m—because I think they are very important, and very rare, and they have endeared me greatly to you, not that—well, for all that’s worth to you, I guess.”
“Rose.” Kanaya’s voice splits in two, splintering open along the middle. Rose can hear each of her breaths: ragged, short, unsteady. “Please.”
Rose sucks in a breath that’s only half-there; it’s like she’s breathing in pure nothingness, a depressurized void filling her lungs, rising up to claw at the back of her throat.
“This isn’t your fault,” Rose says, barely above a whisper now, and hears Kanaya draw in another fractured breath. The void opens up to fill her who,e chest; she feels oddly as if she is standing on a precipice, seconds, inches away from collapsing in on herself. “I know you will do your best to believe otherwise, but this isn’t your fault. There is nothing you did to bring about this chain of events, and there was nothing you could’ve done to stop it. Please—please remember that. For my sake. I—”
And there are a million things she could say next, innumerable iterations that really boil down to mean the same thing no matter how you look at it.
She could say it. She could say it and it wouldn’t matter; in ninety minutes she’ll dead, blown to oblivion, wiped from the framework of the universe like a dust stain on a pane of glass.
In ninety minutes Rose will be dead and in just as many days—probably less, if she’s being realistic—Kanaya won’t remember her in her totality, much less pause to give thought about their inconsequential parting words. None of that will matter to her.
Because when she thinks about it, it’s not so much that their conversations, their interaction, their relationship ever had some indescribable significance to the universe around them. It’s that the significance is indescribable to her.
To Rose. To Rose and Rose alone.
It’s easier to handle from that perspective, at least.
So she could say it. She could, but she doesn’t.
“—I’m glad we became friends. I’m glad I met you.”
“Please—”
Rose disconnects the call.
—
In the end, Rose gives in to selfishness. She dies alongside Dave, her hand in his, their shoulders brushing as their world is incinerated around them.
She dies alongside Dave and wakes up a god, and there are about a billion and one things that need her immediate and undivided attention when she and her brother touch down on the meteor, haloed by searing green light, clad in new robes Dave won’t stop calling “sicknasty god PJs,” but the only thing Rose finds herself able to focus on one thing in particular: Kanaya’s face as she stares up at them, eyes wide, lips slightly parted, remnants of some deep-set breed of exhaustion slowly falling form her expression as pure, unadulterated shock takes over.
Rose does the only thing she feels she can do that won’t result in some embarrassing emotional display on her part: she smiles at Kanaya.
And slowly, still with her eyes blown wide and her brows smashed together and her lips moving like she’s voicing a thousand questions in silence, Kanaya smiles back.