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Entry tags:

(no subject)

Who: The Signless (

sufferist) & The Disciple (

scribes)
Where: A shady underpass
When: Uh. Sometime. Someday. A couple days after the people in the towers are rescued?
What: The second meeting between two trolls that were once lovers and are now enemies.
Warnings: None yet.

Disciple had searched for him for a long time after their first meeting. There was little that had been answered when they talked, if anything it had only brought about more questions. With time to process everything that had happened and been said, Di had to admit she wasn't particularly proud of how she had reacted to this Signless. She had let her emotions get the best of her, and had in all likelihood jumped to believe him too quickly. Partly out of shock, and perhaps a small part out of wishful thinking.

Yet she wasn't ready to draw any conclusions just yet. While her research had yielded nothing into the possibility of the dead being brought back to life, she acknowledged how little she knew and how little she had access to. There was one way she could find out the truth about this troll, but to do that she needed to speak with him once more.

Yet despite how hard and long she looked, she had not been able to find him again.

Unlike last time in which she had been able to find some direction, her attempts yielded nothing. Regardless, she wasn't ready to give up. It was strange then how she finally came across him when she wasn't searching for hints of his whereabouts. Or less she came across him, and more took notice of him. It had almost been funny to realize that he had been following her, and Di had to wonder how long it had been going on. Had she just not noticed? If so she was woefully out practice.

Whatever he case may be, perhaps this was exactly what she needed. She paid him no mind, hoping that he had not caught onto the fact she was aware of his actions. Instead she made her way to a less populated area of the city.

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Too much for her liking. Too much for her to ever feel like she'll really belong.

"I still don't know how it is that you are here, and I still do not understand why you are doing what you are." At least not wholly. His anger and resentment, those things she could certainly understand. She doubted few would feel otherwise after what he had undergone. What was still so hard for her to believe was that they would turn him towards these violent actions.

Was it revenge? Was it sprung from the disorientation of being in another place, in another time? Was he indeed working under the instructions of the Empire, TRIDENT, or someone else? Those were only a few possibilities she was sure, and none of them made sense in her head. What would drive the Signless she knew to hate and wish for the demise of even innocents?

Thinking about how he came to be here is a strange mental place. He doesn't fully understand it himself, doesn't grasp the implications - no one ever really gave him the specifics and for some reason he hasn't felt as if he needed them. He was given a new purpose almost as soon as he had awaken, and that was enough.

"I was brought back," he says, distantly. "I have memories of having been somewhere else in those sweeps, but that essence of myself was given life again."

A small part of her is surprised that this time he is giving her a answer, even if it's a vague one. Surprised, but grateful.

"Do you know who brought you back?"

"Yes," he says, and that's it. However, as he acknowledges his supposed savior, there is a quiet resentment burning in his tone.

It does not go unnoticed, and she considers that reaction. His curt reply gives her the feeling he won't answer the next question, but she asks it all the same:

"And who was it?"

It wasn't long ago that she last had her hands on him, and the thought of it still makes him furious. There is nothing he can do to fight against it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't enrage him every time that witch speaks his name.

"It was on the Empire's command that I came here. That's no secret."

So it really was the Empire. Which increased the chances that the Empire was somehow cooperating with TRIDENT. If Karkat's blood was indeed the way this body had been created, the Empire must have gotten it from them.

It was a strange feeling that filled her now. While she had highly suspected their involvement, to have it confirmed was something else.

"The Empire? Why are you working for them?" It made absolutely no sense to her. It was difficult enough to believe that Signless would act in such a way, but why would he do it in the name of the very people who had tortured and killed him?

Edited 2014-05-08 20:12 (UTC)

"I lost to them," to her, "completely and utterly. And they brought me back to serve. It's humbling, I suppose."

He stares into space as he speaks. He may sound resigned, but he doesn't sound at all pleased about it. Even if their goals have come to a place of alignment, he'll never be happy to be owned by the creatures that had done this to him.

"That means nothing."

No matter who he was.

"You don't have to serve anyone. Especially not the person who killed you." Di couldn't even wrap her mind around that logic.

"Our desires align now," he says quietly, not looking at her. The red light is baleful in the shadows. "I'm not doing anything I don't want to do on this planet."

For a moment she lifts her hand a bit, as if she's going to reach out to him but then she remembers what happened the last time she did that.

She dropped her hand by her side, and curled it tightly.

"Why have you given up on your old views?" She had originally thought it might be because of what had happened to him, but if that was the case it just made it all the more nonsensical that the Empire should get a pass.

"Because I was wrong," is all he says. Just like before, he feels far away and outside of his own skin. He may be here but he doesn't feel alive. Maybe no one is meant to come back all the way.

Wrong. He was saying that had been wrong about his talks of equality, compassion and peace. Her heart twists painfully to see someone with his face, with his voice say such a thing. Her frown deepens and she drops her gaze, hiding her expression behind long and unruly bangs.

"Do you remember when we first met?" The question had two points to it. Back before she had begun to follow Signless, she had thought his words foolish. She had even doubted his sincerity. Thinking on it now, there was something almost ironic in the way their roles had been reversed. Where she had once been angry, bitter, and hostile, he now as. She wanted to remind him of that, how she had changed for the better and become someone happy with her life, and how it had all been because of his words. He had not been wrong.

The second was to see if he had those memories--knowledge that only Signless would know.

"Yes," he says blankly, gaze finally rising enough to see her face.

She had been hoping for something more than that, something that could give her a hint but she would just have to work with it.

"I didn't believe in your words then, but you didn't give up on me. Because of that I was able to find happiness. Many people were able to find happiness because of you. We saw horrible things, but we also saw many wonderful things in our travels. Some because of the encouragement you gave people, some by their own accord which proved just how right you were."

"Your bitterness was ignorant and childish in comparison," he says, some of his anger bubbling to the surface again. "You say you found happiness, but are you happy now?"

He knows that she isn't. He can feel it in her as clear as anything.

Di falters at that question, and instead focuses on his first comment.

"Perhaps it was, but it does not mean what you had to say is any less valid. What of Psionic? Was what he had undergone ignorant and childish? Was the happines he gain unfounded? What of all the people we came across and managed to help? Does that mean absolutely nothing?"

"And where is he now?" he yells, his temper boiling over all at once. His claws clench at his sides, as he suddenly moves towards her. "Where are the others? They're dead, if not worse. Just like all of us will be."

She jumped at the sudden explosion and pursed her lips, feeling her own anger begin to rise. She did not allow herself to raise her voice, however, and spoke in a low, if terse tone.

"Yes. He is dead. As is the Dolorosa. As are so many of our followers. So tell me, how is it that you think the best idea is to cast their lives aside? To work for those who made gave them such terrible ends? We're all going to die--of course we are. That is life but you make the best of what you have. You make it worthwhile, something you can be proud of, something that makes it worthwhile."

Edited 2014-05-08 22:13 (UTC)

"You have no idea what it means to die for this cause! You lived on where so many died, and you would expect them to consider it good enough!" he yells back, letting his voice rise without restraint.

At that some of Di's restraint finally did snap.

"I was ready to die for this cause! I always have been. I was supposed to, and I am ready to lay my life on the line for it and for you. Do you think I would be here if not? Do you think I would still be with the Sufferists after what they did, if not? I'm fighting back--" And there she cut herself off, face twisting as she almost said something she did not want to admit to anyone.

"I'm not going to pretend to know what it's like, but I'm not letting anyone's death be in vain." She had quieted again, feeling bleak.

"Everyone's death is in vain," he growls, unmoved by her own eruption of feeling, even though the air around them has started to glimmer with the energy of congealing emotion.

Her eyes traveled around them, wary of the strange look their surroundings had taken. She recalled the strange shield he had conjured on their previous encounter, and wondered if this was a sign he was about to do it again.

"That is not true. A death can come at the end of a long and fulfilled life. That's what we are working towards--so that every troll on Alternia can have a chance at that. As for those who died trying to achieve that...I can't speak for them, but neither would I demean those who fought for the cause by assuming that they all have regrets."

"This discussion is pointless," he hisses, evidently losing patience. He swings his hand through the air dismissively, turning away. "You have nothing to prove to me Disciple."

She didn't want it to end like this, with barely any more information than what she had started with.

She didn't want him to go.

Whether he was real or not, despite how deep some of his words stung, and despite the fact that all they were doing was arguing his presence was the only anchor she had in this life. It was only around him that she really felt awake, and that she wasn't just slogging through the "right" and moral motions and choices.

Figuring out who he was, and trying to save him from the Witch who held him tightly in her grip was the only thing that really felt real. It was the only thing that felt her own, and the only thing she had even the vaguest sense of direction with.

"Signless!" She spread her arms out to her sides, beseechingly. "When all is said and done, when you have killed all the people you've been ordered to...what will you do? What will you have gained?"