echidna | ❄ sixth reminder

❄ sixth reminder

[ morning ; 1338 benny road ]

[ Jade can't help but feel something is wrong this morning when she wakes up. She feels like she's missed something, almost like she's been asleep for a long time. She stumbles out of bed, feeling a little fuzzy, noticing the changes to her room. The window's been repaired, there's a backpack that she didn't have before with half finished homework on the desk. She doesn't really start to feel concerned until she looks at the calendar on her wall, which has been flipped over to October.

That can't be right.

She grabs it from the wall, bursts out into the hallway still in her nightgown and clutching it to her chest. ]

Karkat? Gamzee?

[ phone ]

Hi Mayfield! Long time no talk! Or maybe we did talk, but it wasn't me me, it was creepy drone me. I'm not really sure what happened, I can't remember anything since, hmmm, a couple weeks ago, I think, after the zombies. I don't remember going home, or being here, nothing! It's kind of scary, but I'm glad that I was a normal creepy drone and not a murderous creepy drone. I really hope that doesn't happen to me again. Have you ever had something like that happen to you? Not even just droning but, I don't know, something reeeeally creepy where you almost... don't exist. It's kind of scary.

Oh, and apparently I'm a girl scout now, hehe.

[ afternoon ; your front door ]

[ There is some pretty persistent knocking at your front door right now. If and when you get around to answering it, you will find Jade on your doorstep, wagon stacked high with boxes of cookies behind her. She is looking particularly adorable right now, all dressed up in a girl scout's uniform. ]

Hi!! Do you like cookies?

[ phone; fail filter to eridan ]

Eridan? Hi, um... how are you?

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What happened?

Well, so...it turns out I'm not the only troll to ever have such a low blood color, because there was one other a long time ago who had the same color I do.

He somehow escaped culling, too, and he grew up and went around saying a lot of things and making a whole lot of promises and ultimately succeeding at nothing except for dying a gruesome tortuous death and being such a failure that his name and existence were wiped from all the records and just about no one gave much of a fuck. Except he was also good at one other thing, and that was getting some suckers to buy what he said who believed he was really going to fulfill all the impossible promises he made.

The entire reason I am alive is because of those gullible shitheads who think I'm here to do what he said he would do instead of just being a second sickening mistake on the part of the mother grub. So I have a life and I have a lusus and I have a shitty grey martyr sign to remind me that every day I'm a waste of sweeps of effort and hope because I was supposed to grow up and fucking save all of us and fix every problem in the entire universe while I'm at it and I don't know how to do that and I'm not even particularly good at anything and I don't even have the common decency to at least have an excuse for failure like getting roasted to death on some irons.

You know, he sounds like a shitbag to me but at the same time I'm nothing compared to him besides a spectacular disappointment. Whoops, you spent generations waiting for your leader, well here he is, that's right, this jackass. We know you're disappointed so we're throwing in some free instructions for ritual suicide along with his appearance, hope that helps.

That's how I feel, at least, which you're free to rightly judge as selfish and pathetic when I know everyone needs me and I should be dead anyway so maybe I should man the fuck up if I never exactly had anything that was mine to lose, huh?

[ Wow, now that's really a lot to take in. Jade 'hmm's and 'ah's thoughtfully where appropriate, nodding her head now and then. ]

It doesn't sound selfish or pathetic to me. That sounds like a lot of responsibility to give someone, especially when that someone is young and still figuring things out. [ She scoots closer to him, places a hand on his back and smiles gently. She doesn't know if she really gets all of it, but she feels like she understands a lot more. ] It's not very fair, when you think about it. I think that you sound really brave, and strong, for even trying in the first place. A lot of people probably wouldn't even do that! And it isn't even just trying, because you have succeeded a lot too.

[He leans automatically into her touch, feeling a little surprised and a little shaken that he actually said all of that out loud. Her words are nice, and on some level he knows it's true. It was never fair to ask this much of him. But it's also not so easy to forget a lifetime of self-doubt.]

I just wish they had someone who really could save them all. But they're stuck with me. And the worst part of it is...

[He looks away, feeling a little ashamed of himself, but in this deep enough that he can't bring himself to care whether he seems pathetic. It will be hard to face Jade after this, but part of him has really needed to talk to someone for such a long time and he doesn't want to stop.]

I mean, for a long time, I would've given anything to just...fuck, I don't need to be Feferi. Give me a blood color like Aradia's, give me a shitty lowblood symbol and let me type in a shitty lowblood color and get shoved around all the time and grow up to fail at becoming a threshecutioner and generally lead a shitty lowblood life...I don't know. For a long time, I hated whoever decided to make me like this. There's a great punchline to that joke if you know anything about the ectobiology component of the game, by the way. I sent my own wiggler self back to be born and for a minute I didn't want to.

But you know, for all of that? I think I wanted to believe that I really was special and I really should be their leader and I really did deserve their respect. So no, I don't think I was brave and strong. I think I was arrogant and I think I wanted them to need me, and now they're stuck with me because there is no one else.

[ As he goes on she slowly winds her arms around him, hugging tightly and resting her chin on his shoulder. ]

Maybe that's true, I don't know. Even if it is, that's not all of it, right? If it had just been from arrogance, or pride, you would have ditched your friends when things got tough!

[He really appreciates that embrace right now, although he doesn't do much to show it besides not shifting away from it.]

I couldn't do that. But it's not like it did them a lot of good.

God. I'm just a tightly wrapped bundle of issues upon issues just waiting to burst and I recognize how pathetic I sound dwelling on them like this. The pity me crap is getting almost as tired as the self-hate.

I'm sorry. I haven't always been this bad.

You don't have to apologize! Everyone has issues, and I think talking about them is a very good thing. [ She sort of wishes she could be more like Rose, at least as far as the interest in therapy was concerned. Maybe then she would know just what to say, but she hopes that what she has said has made some impact, even if it was just a small one. ] Do you feel a little better?

It doesn't mean everyone hears about it from everyone.

[He sighs a little testily, but honestly, having her just listen is probably more helpful than anything Rose would do. He doesn't want to be dissected or feel like something is wrong with him. He's just tired of having to feel this way all alone.]

Yes, I guess. Better, if slightly humiliated.

A little humiliation is good for you, it builds character.

I've had a lot of character built for me recently.

It's about time.

[ She presses her face to his neck and laughs, feeling oddly flattered that he's shared all this with her. ]

It goes without saying you don't need to tell anyone any of this.

Cross my heart and hope to die.

I don't want you to die. Just keep your word hole shut about this.

It's a figure of speech!

Oh. Pretty fucking morbid.

[Now he's shifting a little for her to let go; he's reaching his limits of the emotional openness he can handle and he's feeling a little uncomfortable now.]

[ Jade lets go without protest, even puts a little distance between them on the bed. ]

I thought trolls liked being morbid.

We do. Although if we made a promise saying we hoped to die, it would mean we were actually planning to die if we broke it.

It's rarer with humans.

Mm, yeah, you have a point there. I don't really intend to die, [ she smiles, leans in to nudge him with her shoulder before leaning away again. ] but that's because I don't intend to tell.

[ so sinister, jade. ]

Good.

Well. Thanks. I should probably...go get ready for school or something.

Oh yeah! [ Skipping school is definitely not something she will do for a long time, maybe never again. Jade slides off his bed, pausing to press a quick, sisterly kiss to his forehead before scurrying out. ] See you at the bus stop!

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❄ sixth reminder

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