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For all of your life, you had one crucial, specific difference from any other troll you’ve ever known. The vast majority have at least one timer on their wrist or arm, counting down to the precise moment they meet their soulmate. Those timers lead them to someone their soul is bound to - that bond could be platonic, or in any quadrant, multiple quadrants, or none of them.
Some only appear on one half of the bond’s wrist, yet the bond still persists. Some have many, more than the five that make sense. Some don’t have a bond at all, but that’s normal enough if a little bit judged by others. Your deviation from the one to five soulmate bonds that are popularly accepted was far less ordinary, far less harmless, and far less tolerated - strong words, given how hostile Alternia was even to normal trolls.
In a word, the singular timer on your wrist was long. However, that’s a severe understatement, like claiming that the moons have been around for a while. It wasn’t just long, but absurdly, impossibly so - enough that it might as well be eternal or not present at all. It wasn’t just a few sweeps, nor even thousands like a fortunate highblood might live. It was tens of billions of sweeps in duration, such a vast span that your thinkpan couldn’t wrap itself around the sheer enormity of time, no matter how hard you tried.
You were forced to contend with it constantly - there was no escape from the branding on your skin telling you that your bond was farther in the future than Alternia was old. You were young when you accepted that you’d never live to see it tick down to zero - destiny or no destiny; no troll would ever live that long. That acceptance didn’t stop you from being devastated by it - you were supposed to have a soulmate, but they would remain out of your reach forever. The timers are supposed to act as insurance that you’ll certainly meet your soulmate; you’d never heard of a troll who had one and didn’t meet theirs - but yours ticked pathetically against its eternity anyway.
Your timer was nothing but a source of woe for you. Most trolls weren’t interested, platonic or otherwise, in anyone who’d never meet their soulmate, even though most trolls only had one soulmate and multiple quadrants. It was a mark of bad luck or of being undeserving of your soulmate, as most saw it…not that anyone else had met anyone in your situation either. You thought you’d be lucky enough that it would at least dissuade highblood slavers from taking you after you, barely an adult, got caught by drones while using your psionics.
The Empire always had at least some use for psionic trolls, and the more powerful ones were in high demand. The drones hunted psionic trolls, especially the most powerful ones, to sell off to the highest bidder. Your strange situation did frighten them off to some extent. Some did refuse to buy a troll with such a mark. But tales of the potency of your powers got out, and you got sold off to an indigo woman and her cerulean enforcer anyway.
You were only a young troll, barely grown - still small and frail, not yet having filled out. You were employed under the indigo as a mage - made to enforce her will through your unequaled power, power which only grew with time. She told you that, more than likely, the Condesce would eventually take you away, even with your seemingly eternal soulmate bond…but even so, she would get the use out of you that she could until that day. And she certainly didn’t hesitate to do what she could with your power.
You did her bidding because you knew no other choice aside from that or being brutalized, avoiding hurting others when you could manage to but being roped into her will either way. If you didn’t obey, she could make her enforcer take control of your mind or simply hurt you until you broke down - and you preferred to retain some semblance of your will over that. At least, you could do a little to mitigate the damage if your mind was still your own. Under her iron grip, sweeps passed, and your timer uselessly ticked.
At least until one day, she set you upon a small group of trolls that had supposedly been making trouble in one of her preferred ports. Three of them, all low or midbloods, as she showed you from a wanted poster. She described them to you and told you that they were to be killed or captured. If you killed them, you would bring her their bodies to turn into the Empress. Evidently, their trouble had garnered attention from trolls in high places. She would be pretty pleased with your owner’s work if you were to succeed.
One was a tall, imposing jadeblood woman who was often seen with a chainsaw and had an odd immunity to the scorching sun. Another, a short, stocky, wild-eyed, and equally wild-haired oliveblood girl with a penchant for stealth and a small size that belied her strength. And last, a candy red-blooded, mutant troll with a hood over his face and small horns. His words were so potent that he was rumored to have psychic powers, too influential to possibly be real.
He reminded you of something, even when you could not see his face under the hood - but you didn’t have a fucking clue as to what he reminded you of. The little group wasn’t all too hard to find when you were sent out. Not at fucking all, however much you wished they’d merely slip away and be impossible to track down. You didn’t want to do this. You didn’t want to hurt them nor turn them in - especially not when their notoriety made it seem like they had real potential to disrupt things. But when they made it so easy for you, you didn’t know how to get out of it.
The mutant was in the middle of town, amidst a crowd, with the two women there to guard him. The jade held a massive chainsaw, and the olive had vicious claws. Unfortunately, however fearsome, neither of those weapons would do anything against your powers. You could blast all three into ash or chain them without them seeing you - your abilities had only grown in strength with time and proper feeding. You feared that growth and tried to suppress it, knowing that the Condesce would want any troll so strong as a battery for her ships, but it refused to be contained.
But the mutant was speaking, seemingly preaching to a gathered crowd, giving you a reason to pause. A confrontation in public would be messy, especially with so many trolls listening with rapt attention. Even your powers, strong as they were, weren’t perfect. A crowd like that could overwhelm you, especially given the other psionics and at least one cerulean present in the mix. Thus, you waited, pretending to be just another face in the crowd. And with little choice otherwise, you listened. He was preaching - speaking openly of equality across the hemospectrum, tolerance, and peace.
He spoke of a world you didn’t believe could exist, no matter how badly anyone wanted it to. And the world he told of sounded like something you - and many others - desperately wanted. But he was gentle, compelling, and open. Open about being a mutant, open about having a high price on his horns, open about the vision he had and how he found it in dreams, open about caring - even for the trolls who put him in the position of having to hide his face and run for his life. He described the dream he had for Alternia in such detail that, despite not wanting to, you found yourself imagining it. In your mind’s eye, you could see a world where you wouldn’t be enslaved for your mutation, and he wouldn’t be killed for his.
It was almost enough to make you run and join his cause then and there, fuck the consequences, fuck the future you knew was waiting, and you knew the crowd must have felt much the same. But almost was the key word - you couldn’t risk it. You wouldn’t dare face the consequences of simply running away, couldn’t risk having your mind and autonomy ripped from you again, or your owner finding out just what you were capable of and turning you over to something far worse. Thus, you waited for the three to run after their speech, avoiding the less-than-friendly members of the gathered crowd. You ensured they wouldn’t make it away from you with your power.
And thus, in an alley, you found yourself face to face with the rebel they were calling the Signless. His hood was down, and he was smiling - until he saw you, and the smile swiftly faded into shock. Even without the sparks crackling around your horns, he probably would have known what you were there for - and that there was no way any of them could stop you. With those sparks, he most definitely understood what was going on, and so did his companions, judging by how the jade went tense and the olive’s eyes went wide. This close, you could see that he was younger than he initially seemed, as was the olive girl he was traveling with - only your age, for all their influence.
You didn’t want to turn them in - so you hesitated. And that brief pause was all it took for the rebel to take control of the situation. With all the grace of a troll much older and more experienced than he could be, The Signless started talking. He was every bit as eloquent as kind. Every word out of his mouth only lengthened your pause and egged you to reconsider what you were doing. But he didn’t just preach peace and kindness - he reminded you, as best as a stranger could, of what you were. Psionic power ran through your veins, and for all that you were weakened and beaten and controlled, you could still break free.
No indigo strength nor cerulean will could match you if only you could get in one strike - and he didn’t even know just how potent you were. One strike was all you needed, not even a deadly one. They would never even have to see you or understand what was happening before it was too late, as he told you. You knew he was right. You knew you could break free, that your chains were as built of learned helplessness as of actual control. The Empire wanted you to believe there was nothing you could possibly do - and that wasn’t true. And thus, when you turned and left, you did so with your prisoners in manacles that were suspiciously easy to break free from.
Your owner and her lackey paused to praise you for your work and loyalty when they met you on the edge of town - and in a moment’s opening, you fired on them, and the rebels broke free. You didn’t kill them, only dazed them and struck them down, but it was enough. More than enough, even - getting revenge wouldn’t be worth wasting time. The four of you ran off into the wilderness, with you never intending to leave their sides again. All the while, for your slavery and your grand escape, the timer on your wrist steadily ticked. There was no way, you were sure, that you would ever see it reach zero.
At least until the Signless gave you doubt. They called him Signless, his beloved oliveblood Disciple, and their companion Dolorosa - titles born of the public’s love for them. The Dolorosa had even raised the Signless from grubhood, captivated by him before he could even speak to preach. Even in private, they abandoned their previous names - calling themselves Sign, Dis, and Rosa instead. Soon, with your permission, they gave you a title of your own - The Psiioniic, a name you could be called with pride. Like them, you left your previous name behind and called yourself Psii instead.
Sign was shockingly covered in timers. His wrists and arms up past his elbows were thoroughly decorated with them. He must have had a dozen at the least, and it fucking baffled you. Five was considered the reasonable maximum; for all that most trolls only had one, but apparently, he hadn’t gotten the memo. Dis wasn’t far behind in number, having quite a few of her own. Platonic, romantic, fulfilled, and unfulfilled, they had them all. Signless even had a platonic one for Rosa, and Rosa had none at all. To your shock, he and Disciple each had one for you, neither sure what relationship they would indicate. Knowing that gave you hope, knowing that he and Disciple had timers for you - even unrequited ones. Perhaps you weren’t as unlucky as you once feared if yours just didn’t happen to show up on you and did on them.
The Signless and the Disciple both had multiple timers as long as yours, unfulfilled and likely never to be. Neither of them even had guesses about why - but unlike you, they both, Sign in particular, had quite a lot of hope. About many things, including the timers on their arms, that seemed so impossible. Signless had faith that one day, like any ordinary timer was supposed to guarantee, he would meet the person on the other end. He had hope of defeating the Empress, of living out a natural lifespan for a mutant, if not longer, of bringing the peace and joy to Alternia that it entirely lacked - but apparently, in another version of the world, had. He spoke of that world with deep fondness and hope, and Dolorosa and Disciple followed in his footsteps.
Signless’s hope was so fervent that it spread among his group - to the Disciple, to the Dolorosa, and to you as your new name became increasingly known among the public. You had hope for the future and for the rebellion’s goals. With that group, sweeps passed, and your timer ticked. Everywhere you went, Sign won trolls over and swayed them into believing in his vision. High and lowbloods alike were convinced by him - and you defended him, even fell into a relationship with him and Disciple. When words wouldn’t persuade them, psionics would keep them away. Between you, Dolorosa, and Disciple - and yes, Signless himself - you were more than formidable. There were few, if any, trolls on the planet who could contest you all put together.
Sign’s words and his sickles, your power, Rosa’s chainsaw, Dis’s claws. You felt nearly fucking invincible with all of those things together. Like you all could take on the world, and you could win. He loved so fucking dearly, loved the world, his companions, loved you - and you, like an idiot, loved him and Disciple back. None of you cared about the vague possibility of your soulmates in the distant future. That odd sense that Signless was almost something carried with you - but you didn’t care about that either.
Your soulmate was billions of sweeps away, the vague sense of familiarity even less relevant to your life now - and he was right with you, warm, joyful, and kind. It was enough to enrapture you in all-quadranted adoration with seemingly no effort on his part…as he did to too many trolls, to the point of becoming an in-joke. And that success and joy went on for sweeps as your timer ticked on. Fomenting revolution, being in whatever relationship you wanted with him and with Disciple without worrying about quadrants and norms, traveling Alternia, preaching love and compassion.
War broke forth, and even though your side had so little chance, it seemed like real progress. You had everything, so it seemed. But even though you felt invincible, in the back of your mind, you knew it would likely come crashing down someday. And one day, of course, it did - like a house of cards you thought was sturdy and were foolish enough to sleep in. You knew, you knew it would happen, yet it still shocked you and hurt you. You fought your best, you did, you all did - but it was useless, in the end. There were too many psionics, fearsome warriors, and force leveraged against your little rebel squad.
There was no way to really resist, but you certainly tried. For your efforts, you were chained along with Dis - forced to watch your mutual love, your hope incarnate, die in agony. Signless screamed into the void, angry in his final moments despite the love and forgiveness he’d had, screaming his last sermon to an uncaring crowd. Your timer ticked, and you were sure you’d never see the end - wouldn’t see another night, given how things were going. Your hope, so bright before, was gone. Dead, burning irons around his wrists, an arrow lodged in his chest, his bright red blood staining the ground.
Dis, at least, escaped. Maybe it was the sermon Signless preached in his final moments, forgiveness and rage worming into the mind of her would-be killer. Perhaps it was her anguished cries at the loss of her dearest love; maybe it was the meddling of fate itself - but the Executor stayed his hand, couldn’t fire his bow and let her escape into the wilderness. You weren’t so lucky - not even fortunate enough to die like the Signless. No, your power was too great for that. Too useful.
Like when you were barely grown, the bad luck of your timer - and even your involvement with the revolution - didn’t spare you the fate you’d spent so much time afraid of. Instead, you were sold off to the one troll stronger than you could ever be. She wanted your power and, without a doubt, wouldn’t let you resist, much less rebel. Under her care, unlike with your previous owner, you would be well and truly trapped. The Empress herself would own you, as you’d known since you were old enough to understand the potency of your own abilities. And, as you knew she would, the Empress took full advantage of having a troll with your sheer power under her gaudy thumb. At the very least, she didn’t make you directly hurt anyone.
Instead, she chained you in a nest of wires animated by her Life, gagged you, stripped you down to damn near nothing, and used you as a battery to fuel her flagship so she could go conquer worlds - pulling power from you in agonizing pulses no matter how you tried to resist. Trapped there in your own hell, sweeps passed, and your timer ticked. You powered her ship to atrocity after atrocity, unable to do a thing against her - should you resist, she could overpower you, crush your will, and force you to do her bidding anyway. That is, if she didn’t just push your power out of you with the wicked wires that dug into your skin, wrenched your energy from you bit by horrific bit.
The Empress was sure not to let you move, speak, or take a breath deeper than the tiniest bit you needed to make it to the next. It was agony and nothing else - constant torment to sap your will, to ensure you’d never mount the strength of body or will to do anything about it. All you could do on the rare occasions you managed to summon some strength was yell and cry. Even that minor transgression was reason enough for her to exact more cruelty on you, with the clear intent of breaking you entirely. Sweeps passed. Your timer ticked uselessly.
All you could do was track the time as sweeps passed and your timer ticked and lord one final hope over all her torments. You would, at some point, grow old, weaken, and die. You were sure there was nothing she could do to stop that. Your only victory would be your inevitable death, but that was one thing you believed she couldn’t take from you. As your body finally began to give out, you heard the Empress descend into your foul little engine room with a wicked grin on her face, showing her cruel teeth. She placed a hand on your chest, growling at the grime accumulated there since she didn’t bother to keep you clean and focused.
Life, pure power, pushed into you - revitalizing, rejuvenating, extending your lifespan. You thrashed, screamed, fought - but all you managed to do was pour more power into her ship. Your best efforts would only give her more energy to stamp out any trace of the sentiments the Signless once preached with you standing loyally at his side. She grinned, even more wicked than the last one, as she worked. But it wasn’t until she was done, and you’d exhausted your precious little energy with your screaming, that she spoke.
“Aging won’t save you, beach. I’ll just pump some ’a my lifey shit right into your pusher, and you’ll power my ship as long as I feel like,” the Empress declared, voice like chips of ice and eyes even colder, “the only way you’re gonna die will be on my terms.”
She turned, laughing, and left - and something in you broke. The last hope you’d held on to, believing there was some escape, crumbled away. You knew at that moment that you would never escape. Death itself couldn’t save you because she would make you live forever. There was no use to resistance, nothing to look forward to, not even old age. No troll was meant to live forever, but you would - or at least, as long as she wanted you to.
Once, you dreamed that maybe you’d be able to see your timer hit zero in a better future you’d helped to make. You dreamed you’d be rewarded with an eternity with your loved ones for your work. Now, you wanted nothing more than to die and never live long enough to see your soulmate. Signless was killed before his timer could tick down, and Disciple probably passed away as well - why couldn’t you have been blessed with the same?
Sweeps passed. Your timer ticked. You powered the Empress’s ship half-willingly as you didn’t have the mental strength to resist any longer, nothing to gain except more pain in struggling. Sweeps passed, millions of them. Your timer ticked slowly part of the way through its first billion, with tens of billions yet to spend. Gradually, the faces of the Signless and the Disciple faded from your mind, no matter how hard you tried to cling to them.
You repeated Signless’s sermons in your head, over and over, trying to remember them - if you were going to be in this future, you wanted to carry his words with you. But in time, those faded too. In time, you forgot your names, those given to you by your lusus, your lovers and friends, and the adoring public whom you once cheered with your sparking light shows and protected against drones. It was as though you’d only ever known the ship’s bowels and were only ever the battery of the Empress. You were only the Helmsman, you knew nothing more, and forgetting hurt a little bit less than holding on.
No troll’s mind was meant to live so long, endure so much, or be alone for such vast periods. Some part of you was glad to forget - there was nothing to miss if you couldn’t remember, nothing to grieve for if your mind was too gone to recall or feel. But you couldn’t forget quite enough to stop missing the smiles of lovers you barely remembered. You couldn’t break quite deeply enough to let go for good. The hope and desire Signless passed on to you when he first met you still burned in your heart.
The faintest vision of a world where you could have lived a life governed only by you. You still dreamed of it in the tiny winks of sleep that came to you, and it tormented you without end. You still cried when you woke, for the life you were forced to live and that you couldn’t remember enough of your dreams or your past to be any comfort. The dreams that once gave you so much hope now felt like nothing but mockery in this endlessness. Sweeps passed, your timer ticked, and you suffered.
Sweeps passed. Your timer ticked. Sweeps passed. Your timer ticked. Sweeps passed. Your timer ticked. Sweeps passed. Your timer ticked. Sweeps passed. Your timer ticked. Sweeps passed. Your timer ticked. Sweeps passed. Your timer ticked. Sweeps passed. Your timer ticked. Sweeps passed. Your timer ticked. Sweeps passed. Your timer ticked. Sweeps passed. Your timer ticked. Sweeps passed. Your timer ticked. Sweeps passed. Your timer ticked. Sweeps passed. Your timer ticked. Sweeps passed. Your timer ticked. Sweeps passed. Your timer ticked. Sweeps passed. Your timer ticked. Sweeps passed. Your timer ticked. Sweeps passed. Your timer ticked. Sweeps passed. Your timer ticked. Sweeps passed. Your timer ticked.
The first billion finally exhausted itself, and nothing marked it. There were still tens of billions more to go. There was nothing but the ticking, the pain of the wires pulling from you, and the cold, dim room you were kept in. The only break in your isolation was being visited by the Empress when she came down to place her hand on your heart and extend your torment. When relief came, there were still tens of billions of sweeps left - but you’d long since stopped caring about the time or anything aside from that dream that lingered in your mind. It had become so hazy that you could no longer put it into words, even if the ability to speak hadn’t deserted you millions of sweeps earlier.
One day, she demanded too much of you - for you to leap back to Alternia much faster than you possibly could into the teeth of the Vast Glub. Willingly for once, you poured all your strength into her request, hoping it would be too much, hoping it would just kill you. It might have, it might not - but psychic power tore through your mind, the Empress’s pet monster in agony and rage, and blessedly ended it. The Condesce could extend life as far as she pleased, but she could never restore it. Your last thought was that you’d finally won. She couldn’t, after all, make you live forever - and you didn’t die on her terms.
For a long time, there was nothing - maybe the haziest touches of memory, of shifting feeling. But you were all too happy to ignore it, to rejoice - to the limited extent that nothingness could - in being and feeling nothing after so long of being kept alive against your will. And then, billions of sweeps later, you find yourself sprawling out on something that feels alarmingly like…grass.
Sunlight, not burning but warm and gentle, beams down on your face. It doesn’t make any sense, you’re dead, it’s over, you don’t want anything more - but the feelings don’t fade away like the hazes did, even when you try to push them away. Frustrated, you open your eyes, and the sun almost fucking blinds you despite being so much less intense than the one you’re used to. You roll over onto your side, groaning on instinct - it’s too bright, too warm, what the hell is happening - and then you hear something.
“What the fuck?” someone grumbles, almost as grumpy as you feel, and it can’t be who it sounds like - it’s impossible, but so is the fact that you’re here.
You force your eyes back open despite the brightness, despite not wanting to be here. If this is some dream or hallucination, you don’t want it to end - but you have to know if it’s real. You can’t wait even enough to enjoy it, you have to see it.
Lying only feet from you, looking like you feel, is him. Signless. It has to be. You thought you’d forgotten what he looked like, his name, his voice - but seeing him, you know. You know it’s him, and the olive slowly sitting up behind him, looking like someone woke her from a catnap, is Disciple. The cape, the way he brushes his short hair out of his face, the expression he makes when he grumbles at the sun and the heat and the field you’ve come awake in and mumbles what the fuck is going on like anyone else knows. And then he doesn’t get anything else out because you manage to coordinate your long-unused limbs enough to hug both of them like you’ll die a second time if you let go.
You didn’t think you could really move and you didn’t want to - but now, all you can do is be all too fucking glad. You didn’t want to live any longer, but you’ll fucking take it if you can have this. Signless and Disciple hug you back tightly as they can, and you break down. You sob into Sign’s cape and Dis’s shoulder like a wiggler rather than a seasoned rebel, and it would be a lot more embarrassing if Signless didn’t start crying right after and Dis only a moment after him. Rosa finds you only minutes later, all but stumbling over herself to hug you three, purring and grinning and crying.
Sign babbles, damn near speechless for the first time you’ve ever seen - all of you laughing, holding each other, thanking everything or nothing at all for this second chance. Despite everything, you have each other again, and that’s all you want or need. You thought even death or dreams couldn’t reunite you - but here they are, living and solid and real, every bit as perfect as you remember. Or at least, so you think until you’re found a little later by a group of much younger trolls and aliens.
You get an explanation from them - somehow, you were all part of some game that created this new world through them and their efforts. You’re the ancestors of that group, the reason they made it. And now, it’s over - and since it ended, those who were involved but didn’t make it have been popping up randomly, for seemingly no reason except to have a second chance at being alive. You’ve even got a descendant somehow, who you take absolute joy in getting to know over the next few new-Earth days. It’s all so much to take in that you forget your timer altogether. You don’t even notice it now, tuning out the endless ticking like you did before your death.
You were sparse on details about your time on the ship when you told your partners what happened after you were separated. You spend your time reacquainting yourself with your past loves and friends, getting to know all the new things and people this world has given, even as new ones arrive. This world has given you back the memory, identity, and autonomy you lost, so you can wait a little before confronting it. You also avoid the return of a specific Empress, letting the young ones deal with her. It is funny to hear that her revival stripped her of her more unnatural powers to the point where any of them can and do easily handle her.
You live, and you forget for a brief little while. You watch with delight as Rosa finds a one-sided soulmate bond with some lawyer-hunter who once admired Signless and carried his sign and happily roll with your new life. At least until a few new-Earth weeks later, the enigmatic young prophet Terezi asks you and your companions to join a couple others on a walk. She feels that more new people will show and that you and your little crew should be there when they do. She’s usually right, and you like outings anyway, so you go gladly. Even the worst weather Earth C has is lovely to you - you’ve certainly reveled in your fair share of squalls already - and this is far from the worst, with the sun beaming warmly down like it did the day you were reborn.
Sign holds your hand idly - a habit he certainly had in your first life but indulges far more often now - as you walk, he chats with you, Dis hanging off his other side and interjecting occasionally. Dis talks less since her revival, having lost the habit during the many sweeps she spent alone and silent, but she’s improving with time. She’s getting back some of her former, happier self, much like you. You’d live like this with them forever if you could. And then the copse of trees you’re walking through parts to reveal a clearing, a confused teal troll amid a bit of a pile glances over. She makes eye contact with Signless, and both freeze - him mid-sentence, her in the middle of hugging another troll the same way you and Disciple grabbed Signless when you awoke.
For a moment, you have no idea what’s happening, but you know better than to interrupt. Then he slowly picks up his wrist, and you see that one of his longest timers - one he showed you when you met, matching by a difference of a mere minute or two the sheer length of your own, has reached zero. It’s her, you realize. She’s the one marked by that long, long, seemingly impossible mark. She springs up from her position of nearly squishing the other troll, and you see that she’s got a face not unlike Rosa’s soulmate. Seemingly baffled, the shorter troll next to her gets up as well - on habit, you look over at him, mostly curious about the newcomer.
He looks, in a strange way, way too fucking much like Signless. Maybe he’s Signless’s descendant’s counterpart, one of an order of trolls your companions suspected, but didn’t know, might surface like the rest of you. His gaze flicks over to meet yours, and the effect is instant. A faint buzz sounds from somewhere, and then eerie silence befalls your mind - it’s strange, confusing, you don’t know what’s happening - and his wide eyes fall to his wrist. Uncomprehending, you drop your gaze to your own marked wrist, and then it clicks. Your timer has hit zero, the billions upon billions of sweeps exhausted. The ticking that’s been occupying the back of your mind since you were a grub is gone. The troll that fate has been waiting for since you were born on Alternia is finally here, and you have no fucking idea what to do or say.
It all makes sense, now. Signless felt so familiar, so close to something you couldn’t quite grasp. It was this troll; it was always him that Sign reminded you so much of - this troll is his counterpart. The sheer span of your timer’s ticking - it was tracking the death of your universe, the entire lifespan of another, the youth of this one. The strings of fate, for all your doubt and hopelessness, have led you to the spot you were always going to find yourself in. It all fits so perfectly, too perfectly, and you almost hate it. Everything you went through, wonderful and hellish, led you here. You suffered on that ship for untold, uncountable sweeps, thinking there’d never be hope again - and now you’re here. You hated everything for so long, alone and in agony, just to get here.
But you push away your anger at what you were forced to face to find your fate, at least for now. You’ll have so much time to confront it, with all indications being that all the survivors of the Game and those revived by it will simply live forever in their primes. This is your reward for your previous life, for the part you played, and you will enjoy it. At least, as soon as you figure out what to do, and anyone unfreezes from the collective shocked silence.
Then another troll, one of a few new faces in the clearing, a tall fuchsiablood who immediately makes you nervous, breaks the silence. That is, by leaning over the shoulders of the teal and your brand-new soulmate, glancing in confusion at Signless, and then letting out an absolutely comical, cartoonish gasp of shock, hand flying up to point at him. That, for some reason, breaks the spell. The mutant she’s got a hand on the shoulder of, your soulmate, starts laughing. Almost shoves her, fucking grinning, and your estimation of her as a threat immediately diminishes. She laughs too and all but fucking runs over to, after the briefest possible pause for consent, sweep Sign up in a hug and right off his feet. Evidently, you, your companions, and your soulmate aren’t the only ones with timers that went on far too long.
In your distraction at the lively scene, you don’t notice him approach - but you jolt when you feel a hand plop on your shoulder, and he’s there, grinning at you. You don’t wait for him to initiate. You sweep him up in a hug of your own because why the fuck not. He laughs again, and this time you laugh with him, all of you laughing like fools as Dis drapes herself over Sign and his evident new soulmate…s, as the teal, who looks quite a bit like Terezi, refuses to be left out. The fuchsia pulls another gold who looks like you in, and you barely pause before all but dragging him over to the rest.
Introductions and cautions that you don’t intend to leave your current partners behind and don’t expect him to if he’s got any can come later. Confronting your pains, learning his story, and being serious can all wait. For now, all of you can just laugh and fucking rejoice that you’re all, finally, in the same place as Signless drags the two of you in to be hugged and you end up somewhat squished between the two Vantases.
You have a future even longer than your timer was ahead of you, with your partners and soulmate, in a world much like Signless once dreamed of. There’s no war in this world, no famine, and little, if any, hatred. Nobody has a fuck to spare about the hemospectrum; this isn’t a world that’s ever even known scarcity. This is and will continue to be your reward. Sweeps will pass, and your timer won’t tick - as you’ll spend them with this whole new circle of people you’ve found, all survivors given a second chance. Even when you felt indestructible like nothing could stop you, you hadn’t dreamed of an outcome this good - and now, you intend to enjoy it.