Archive of Our Own ^beta

        You look down into the stillness of the water that you’re sitting in. You asked not to be washed, you can do it your own motherfucking self. Being purified is real important to this ritual, it’s the only thing standing in your way of ascension now. That’s all you want, ascension. It’s all you want.

        The water in the large tub is warm, at least to you. You feel the thoughts of would he think it’s cold? Would he shiver? Creep into your mind but it doesn’t last long. You snatch the train of thought by the throat and strangle it. You don’t need to think about Karkat, you're happy with his faith. You won’t let doubtful thoughts fill your mind, doubt leads you down the path of unrighteousness, kills Mirth and steals holy Rage. You will not let yourself turn on the Church. You have no unfunny feelings in your heart. You're happy with his fate, it makes you laugh even.

        The only thing that leaves your throat is a wheeze that can barely be passed as mildly entertained, let alone mirthful. You drag the sponge in your prong across your thorax. You sigh, there’s no need to be cruel to yourself. The bath is to wash away any lingering thoughts you have that could poison the process. It’s all in the grand punchline that’s written for you, unknown even to you, Their champion.

        The water is fresh, pure and holy, like you. You dunk your head in the water, submerging yourself for just a moment. Have you ever drowned a motherfucker? Couldn’t have, doesn’t sound like you. The fear slithering up your spine is just fear and doubt that’s waiting to be washed away.

        You say a prayer quietly anyway. You wait for a miracle, you’ve never had to wait before. You stop thinking about drowning.

        Leaving the bath feels…good actually. You feel clean, outwardly at least. Drying yourself off needs to be quick because you’ve already wasted enough time staring into the water blankly. You don’t zone out as much anymore but you guess it’s just another test for you. You don’t fear your own fucked up body at least so it shouldn’t be too hard to handle. Trolls are used to waiting for you, you usually take your sweet ass time doing shit. Tonight is different though, you can’t keep Him waiting.

        You don’t have any clothes with you in the ablutionblock, it’s not your duty to cover yourself, not for rituals. You give yourself just a minute to prepare your pan, just one. You leave the block which is thick in its darkness. That’s not for any ceremonial reason of course, Kurloz just likes to make it this way for his own entertainment and who are you to ruin his mirth?

        The light from the block you left in the only illumination there at all. No glass window panes, you can’t be trusted with them. You squint to find exactly where you’re meant to be sitting, you don’t tend to go anywhere Kurloz’s claimed and the unfamiliarity of it makes you just a bit uneasy. You lived in the same part of the tents with him for at least a sweep and you’ve never seen his small workshop so close up. There’s fabric stacked up in piles of half-sewn projects. He made nearly every outfit you’ve ever worn, not like you care all that much about the way you look(Excluding your paint). He has no need for piles other than organization as far as you can tell. You understand that at least, you need to put your horns in their own separate little piles, can’t just leave ‘em to mix.

        You find a mirror soon enough and decide to sit in front of it. You don’t look at your face, it feels more naked than the rest of you bare. Your paint means a lot to you, regardless of its importance to the circus. You need your paint anyway, Kurloz will bring it. Though it’s very quiet in here, you can’t even tell if he’s with you yet. Holdovers from being a ghost probably.

        After you think up your remark you know he’s there. You feel him before you hear him, a subtle little hum in the base of your horns to declare his presence to you. You don’t know how you forgot about the connection you have with him and his chucklevoodoos. You’d usually find it kind of amusing, you’d laugh, if you had the humor to. You should, you’re just psyching yourself out for no motherfucking reason. You settle for smiling into the mirror, not too much effort, you can think of something that makes you smile so you don’t commit any sins in the process of preparing your pan.

        The sense of the mundane reach of chucklevoodoos not in use coming closer is the only sign of you’ve got that he’s approaching at all. When he does step into the beam of light coming from the open block door he’s giving you a small smile. It’s genuine, but not the kind of smile of joy in a ceremony. The smile he has when he’s working, he takes his work seriously and takes a lot of pride in it too. You have no issues with him seeing you bare-bodied, only bare-faced. You try not to twitch knowing he’s perceiving you this way. There’s only one other troll who has.

        Kurloz is dressed like the bones of the dead, he usually is. He signs to you with skeleton gloves as he kneels next to you, Ready brother?

        Two words. That’s all. You nod. He bows his head to you like he’s bound to start praying at you at any moment. You don’t feel like you deserve it, you know what you’ve done for him. What you had to sacrifice to give him his body isn’t anything to disregard, you know that, but it feels wrong. You are a champion, not a god, you’re unworthy of praise. You will be worthy, once your trials have ended.

        Kurloz wastes no further time, slinking off back where you can’t see him for a moment to retrieve the ceremonial garb you’ll be covered in. The idea of being covered is relieving to you, you don’t like being so tense. You aren’t tense usually, you didn’t used to be tense at all. Back when you were full of poison and your pan didn’t motherfucking work as it should. You need to remember that when you complain about being fucked up now, you were a lot worse, you could be worse, you won’t be. You can’t be.

        The fabric of what you’ll be wearing makes it hard to focus, it jingles with every soft movement of Kurloz putting the pieces on your body one by one. There are bells at the end of the sleeves he sews to the main piece he’s pulled over your head, which has no bells but does have small silver embroidered patterns resembling the scales on a sea-beast. There are bells on the ends of the black and purple pants he puts on you. You feel like a doll as he maneuvers and positions you and you try not to think about it. It’s not Kurloz, it's never Kurloz. He’s only doing what you’re made for and you shouldn’t poison yourself with it.

        Venomous, those thoughts are. Like motherfucking slitherbeasts. No not them, made in the visage of Their Holinesses, Crafted by Messiah Gleeful. Scales adorn the skin of such a holy motherfucking creature, beasts of fang and ocean. Unblessed be dwellers of the sea, who mimic the grace of those made by The Sacrificed Muse. You reject the thoughts you had to reject the thoughts you had to reject the thoughts you were motherfucking hatched with.

        You’re yanked right out of your thoughts by a sharp pain in your nug. Kurloz has a prongful of your hair clutched tightly as he tugs at you a few times. You cry out and push him away from you. You’re a lot stronger than him, virtue of being alive and having a body for so long. He just sits up and frowns at you, condemning you wordlessly. He could tell, probably, you don’t go quiet like that for no reason, you don’t go slinking off to the shadowy corners of your pan for no motherfucking cause. He gets you that way, cut from the same pin-striped cloth.

        Your motherfucking mind needs keeping, Kurloz signs to you, Save it for the ceremony, your lordship.

        “A brother’s trying,” You sigh, “Trust and believe brother.”

        You see his fingers twitch and his gaze soften. He has a tendency to try and coddle you, showing you visions of your potential with his chucklevoodoos as he rubs your horns reassuringly. You happily put up with it as a barely seven-sweep old pupa when he found you in your dreams, you sought it out when he got his body and you were desperate for contact. You don’t anymore, it feels like betraying someone and you’ve never been a hive-wrecker. You don’t know if he was thinking about his dead moirail then, but you were, morbid motherfucker that you are. You were trying to remember what his hands felt like, keep his voice in your mind so you never up and forget it.

        You situate yourself, getting more comfortable in front of the full body mirror leaning against the wall in front of you. Save it for the ceremony, you remind yourself. When Kurloz seems to be sure you were settled, he goes back to dressing you. You can’t do every part of the preparations yourself, you’re mostly not supposed to. You must have your energy conserved for the trial ahead, though physical energy isn’t really required.

        Kurloz takes his prongs off you, slipping back off into the darkness shortly to retrieve a brush.

        Ah shit.

        Well taught as you are, you allow the wave of dread to wash over you. You’ve always hated getting your hair worked on, brushing, combing, everything. Even letting the moirail you’ve taken to reminiscing about(against all better judgment) run his prongs through your hair made you flinch on every tangle they caught. You dig your claws into the wooden floor beneath you like a grown troll so you can at least bare it slightly.

        Kurloz takes his time taking the brush to your hair. You make little growls and hisses of pain as he detangles it. You’re not a pupa who doesn’t know any better, you know you should take care of your hair. You just don’t. Shit’s untameable anyway. Just like you. No matter the case it must get brushed for the ceremony. You already scrubbed the shit out of it until you got tired of pulling at your knots, need to get worked on with effort now.

        With a pained scalp and fluffy, brushed out hair the brush gets put down, much to your relief. The feeling that follows is joy, not pure like the laugh of a trickster, but more prideful. You’re more than happy to doll yourself for the Lord. To reach perfection, even if only outwardly, is the goal of every minstrel isn’t it? You want nothing more than to be worthy, though you aren’t yet. You cannot fool the king of fools, he will see what you lack beneath the surface, but it feels nice to make yourself all pretty and shit.

        Kurloz is nearly done with you now. He puts this large purple neck ruffle around your neck, silver bells dangling from it. It’s a darker purple than your blood, it irks you. You think it’s probably a design choice though, not like you’d understand anything about that. You like the collar though, it makes you feel especially entertaining. You make so much music when you move now. You wonder if any of your friends would’ve liked it.

        In all honesty you don’t actually yearn for their lives to return. With only one exception that does not need to have his name in your mind. If you made enough sacrifices, if you tore into yourself enough and bled into enough jars, you could. But you don’t want to. They are where they belong and you will be where you belong now too. Heretics, all of them, blasphemers and oglers of a show they were never meant to witness. Only those who appreciate the holy show you put on deserve to live.

        Your paint is last, the mirthful smile you usually paint onto your face isn’t enough for the ceremony and you don’t know how to do the traditional face. Kurloz does though, he knows how to do a lot of things you don’t. The mime has to position himself in front of you to do it right, blocking your view of your currently bare face. It relaxes something inside of you once it’s out of sight. The jar of the paint sitting on the floor as he puts the brush your skin sits so close to you, like it’ll spill if you move an inch.

You realize how quiet you’re being again, you hate it. You talked more when you were melting your pan with slime. Your words feel stuck in your wind tunnel now, clawing at your vocal cords futilely. Your fingers twitch at the urge to do the same. No, no, you just got prettied up, can’t fuck that up now.

The strokes of the brush are slow and deliberate. Too slow for your liking. You know you’ve been stalling and sluggish and shit but Kurloz has no reason to be. His claws dig into the sides of your face every time you squirm, moving his prong down to wrap around your throat when he needs to paint those parts. You think about Equius, which makes you think about Nepeta. You remember their dead mugs, you stop thinking about them, when you start to feel like the air is thinning. It actually seems like your squirming is making Kurloz tighten his fingers around your throat.

When he finishes putting your face on and releases you you immediately push him aside to get a good look at your neck. No bruises, thank messiahs. Your eyes are then drawn to what he’s done to you, your face is painted to resemble that of howlbeast. It looks…off. Uncanny, like the face of a doll. Like you’re not built to wear it. It makes something shrivel up inside you, to think there’s another motherfucker more deserving of your paint. You know better than that, no matter how your acid sack turns. This is your right by blood and club, you earned it. You earned it, you mutter, you earned it.

Damn right. Kurloz signs in the mirror encouragingly.

Before you know it he’s moving your body around again, this time just to admire his own work. Pride is a virtue, so you let him with a lot less submission this time. He raises your arm to admire his seamless stitch work, runs his fingers through your detangled curls. He then tilts your face to face him again so he looks over it. At least he likes the way it looks on you. He pauses, holds your head in both hands the way you’d hold the head of one of the friends you actually liked a bit. All gentle, cradling and damn near pitying. He dips his head to kiss you gently on your freshly painted lips. You don’t stop him and he doesn’t linger. He locks his fingers with yours, quiet like he can be  anything but.

Then he’s gone. He withdraws entirely, slipping off into the darkness like the ghost he used to be. You feel the touch of his ‘voodoos recede and some of your dread along with it. You feel emptier and a little used, like an empty faygo bottle, but better in a way. You’re not naked anymore for one.

You pick yourself up from where he left you on the floor. You feel like a jester and god damn it that feels good. You think, if you try to stop being the miserable husk you are, you’ll be funny enough. The next thing to do is prepare your body on the inside, make you clean in stomach and skin. The easiest part as far as you're concerned.

You make your way out of the room, into the hall. You’ve only ever stayed in a couple of permanent structures in your life: your old hive as wriggler and The Big Top, where you are now. The halls of The Big Top are draped in vibrant cloth and painted one color each. This one’s cerulean, real hard color to get your claws. Some say that makes it prettier, you think all colors look miraculous.

        There’s no one in the hall(everything’s so empty now ain’t it?) but there are plenty of clowns in the mess hall it leads to. It’s chaos, it always is, with trolls fighting each other over food and seats and smeared paint and shit. There’s honking throughout the room, and it feels you with a sudden sense of belonging. A voice in mind has to remind you these aren’t your brothers and sisters. Whether or not you’re meant for higher or lower things, you’re more spirit than body. You’re more than them and they know that.

        You know they know that because when someone does notice you’re standing there they yell “He’s here!” It doesn’t do much at first, but eventually the noise, to your sadness, dies down as trolls take seats proper and stare at you.

        Sometimes it makes you feel like you are actually above everyone. Other times it makes you feel like a pariah. You miss the parade they threw you, trolls cheering and honking and spraying faygo everywhere as you pass. Now they give you the sacred silence of a mime, though you’re not sure any of them are.

        It doesn’t really matter though, you can’t eat with them anyways. You take a bow with your entrance, smiling at the crowd to encourage the same out of them. It takes the stillness from the air, some of them wave at you and honk as you pass, You greet every one of them that greets you and by the time you’re out you’ve brought the room back to happy chatting. You wish you were doing a sacrifice or a paint collection night tonight, they always get so rowdy then. You know they’ll get rowdy when it’s over, but you won’t be able to see the smiles on their faces, both real and painted.

        The room you’re actually meant to be in is the Her chamber. Where the only living person from wrigglerhood is. You see once bright eyes meet yours and a tired smile spread on no longer painted lips.

        “Whale you look fansea.” She remarks, sitting up in the chair she’s still chained to as much as she can. Her hair looks like it’d be hell to prepare. Good thing it never will be.

        You can’t help but smile at her as you close the door behind you. There’s not much light in the room(something about bathing in shadows to keep you clean for The Light.) You didn’t miss her in particular, in fact, the idea of her never crossed your mind once. But it’s not a surprise she isn’t dead either, she should be but not by your hand.

        “Getting ready for Ascension Fishsis.” You explain, taking your seat across from her. The table is larger than the both of you, built for the bigger motherfuckers you stand in the footsteps of.

        She’s quiet, not even glancing at the large plate of raw fish in front of her. She stares at you with tired eyes. They’ve only just barely gained their fuschia coloring. It’s on her for being so bold, her fault for bringing you down when you were on top of everything, her fault for thinking the empress would fall as easily. She’s a lucky heretic, you should’ve killed her right then, when they brought her to the Big Top. But something about the way she looked at you with so much hope, even if it faded right after, just snapped you out of something. This haze of anger and disbelief, it made you feel like nothing was real. Like it was all as fragile as cotton candy, like it’d take nothing to just tear it all into pieces. She was nothing, and she was real, everything was so real. It all felt so daunting, killing her but having to live with yourself after. She wasn’t a random lowblood like the rest of them, she’s Feferi. Right here, right now. Were any of those lowbloods real? Did their lives ever matter? Does the tears of a girl who was never really your friend in the first place matter more than whatever your answer would be? You haven’t taken a life since, not outside mandated sacrifices and even then.

        Bitch puts too many thoughts in your head. A living spectre of your past, sitting in front of you, sadly smiling. Her glasses are missing, you wonder how well she can see you like this.

        You don’t have a plate, there’s only a bowl of teal blood inside. Pure shit, not a mix of nothing. It’s a big ass bowl too, big enough to fit your face and then some. It’s only filled half-way though.

        “So it’s just you then,” She looks crestfallen, the faint joy in her eyes she had seeing you suddenly gone, “I’m happy one of us got to, efin if it’s just you.” She blinks dismay fluid from her orbs, head falling forward and pulling the gold chain around her neck taught.

        “What the motherfuck are you getting your cry on for here-sister?” You lean over the sacred bowl towards her, a smile never leaving your face.

        She’s a lucky bitch, she’s alive. None of the stupid motherfuckers who did what she did came back breathing. She won’t be for long though. It’s a shame, you think her head would’ve looked nice on your wall.

        …If she didn’t feel so real. Your smile nearly twitches off your lips and you rear back from her. Don’t think about it, that’s all you got to do.

        She lets out a shaky breath as she looks up at you. Tears are flowing out of her orbs now. You remember suddenly that you have a ritual to complete. You look away, she babbles your name. That’s why she’s here, temptation. You won’t hurt her, you won’t help her, because no matter what her color is, you’re above her. You’re above her death, that’s why she’s gotta live for just a bit longer. You raise the ornate bowl to your painted lips, parting them enough to the white from transferring. You lost enough from that kiss with Kurloz.

        You tilt the teal into your mouth and drink it all down. You barely even think about Legalsis the whole time, you remember how bad you wanted her. You just did to her what you did to your miracle moirail, you wanted her so much that you only had her head left unmaimed. Gorgeous wasn’t she?

`        When you’re done Feferi is gagging in between sobs. She’s never been all that sensitive about that kind of shit so you don’t know why cannibalism always got to her so motherfucking much. You put the bowl down and bring your prongs together in prayer.

        “Thank you, Lord, for the time you up and blessed a brother with to partake in such a ceremony, thank you for stilling the prong that held a gold fork to my throat, thank you Lord.” My fingers were locked the way they were with Kurloz

        Your eyes are closed, you can’t bear to look at her really. You have to, you know you do. When you open your eyes and your rectangular pupils meet with w-shaped ones, you stomach it. You stand up from your seat and grab the gold chain on her neck, pulling her towards you. She strains against the chains on her wrist, tying her to the arms of the opulent seat.

        She doesn’t look scared, she looks more like her pumpbiscuit shattered into a million pieces. You move from your place across her to undo the chain, getting a gasp from her. You can feel the hope radiating off of her, you don’t look into her cuttlefish eyes.

        “Clamzee?” She asks as the heavy chain falls from her neck.

        “It’s time motherfucker.” You tell her, patting her on the head like a barkbeast.

        She looks up, shifting as you start taking off the chains binding her wrists, “Reely?” She smiles, you can just hear it in her voice.

        “Yeah sister, hope you’re ready to get your ascension on.” Chain after chain, cuff after cuff, she moves even more, stretching out her arms and prongs. She looks so much more weak than she used to, her stocky body, once filled out and plump with privilege thinning out from refusing her meals. There are scars from the battle scattered across her form. You guess the both of you got your scars asserting your authority.

        Once fully free from her chair she attempts to bring herself up to her feet, failing miserably and pitching forward into the table. You help her up, now having passed the first trial, you can help her stand up on her strut pods. She thanks you weakly, shaking and struggling to go anywhere without holding your prong. You just smile back at her, finding her struggle a little funny, even if she’s realer than the rest of anything else around you.

        You lead her out of the room with a chuckle, she’s smiling back at you. Her hand is colder than corpses. She’s frigid, but her smile is warm. The trolls in the cafeteria pay her little mind, a punishment befitting an attempted usurper. She has not an ounce of power over anyone in this room, or anyone in the empire for that matter. No one will ever listen to her again. She doesn’t seem to care all that much, if the look on her face is anything to go by. She regards the clowns as little as they do her like the bitch she is. No respect in her. The expression on your face shifts a few times, but in the end it settles on a lazy smile. No need to get your cod-piece in a twist, she’ll get hers and you will too.

        Feferi starts looking around once you take her down the cobalt hall and into the jade painted one next. It’s a real illegal color and it gets boarded up when The Condesce makes her sweeply visits. It leads to a room painted the same, but with patches filled in with olive, not much of the paint to go around and all.

         “Clamzee where are we going?” She finally asks when you close the door behind you. She’s still punning for some reason, even in the face of this situation.

        “Just gotta make a motherfucking offering ‘fore I get on to the ceremony.” You explain casually, not seeing a reason to lie to her.

        She nods like she understands, like she comprehends what she clearly doesn’t, “Is there somewhere I can sit?” She asks, swaying on her feet and shaking all the while.

        “There surely motherfucking is sister.” You feel like you're setting up a punchline, guiding her weak body to sit on the lavish chaise on the far side of the room.

        It’s real fucking fancy in here, it’s a special little place for special little heretics. It’s so unnatural compared to the way the rest of The Big Top is decorated. Gaudy tables and chairs and paintings and rugs. When she lays herself on the chaise and sighs you see her visibly relax as you back away. It must remind her of those wader palaces she’s spent her wrigglerhood in.

        You don’t think she feels it when the floor beneath her resting place shifts, rising slightly up. Her body weight triggered a cage to lower from the ceiling and floor. Her eyes are shut as she rests her tired body so she only really notices when the metal bars meet and her cage begins to rise.

        She calls out for you, and you just stare up at the prison in awe as it carries her up into the ceiling and closes right afterwards. You’ve only been in The Big Top for a very short amount of time and you’ve never really seen that happen before. The silence that follows her absence nearly sends chills down your spine. You shake your head, determined to focus on what’s important, the ceremony can’t wait any longer.

        You make your way out of the room, down the jade painted hall and then down the olive painted one. The eerie silence isn’t only broken by your footsteps and the jingling of the bells you’re adorned in, but now also by the muffled sounds of rollicking clowns filing into the stage room through halls adjacent. It eases you, in a way that serves to only put something fearful in your heart again. You could convince yourself that this is any other day, that they expect you as their champion today and nothing more, that you’re performing for them. But lying is a sin, you can’t be lying to yourself before entering the holiest room in the motherfucking empire. You murmur a prayer under your breath before you walk down the hall with a renewed sense of dread. You feel chucklevoodoos, many in number, as you approach the doors. Your prongs shake as you push them open and you try to will them into stopping.

        Immediately there are cheers accompanying your entrances. Clowns already seated stand, those who aren’t raise their hands as they cheer for your arrival. You bask in their attention, these are your people, and if they aren’t you can pretend for just an hour or two.

        The stage beneath you is painted and stained and plattered with various colors, not a drop of pink, not yet. You look back up at the crowd and give them a big smile, hands raised. The noise that you receive in response makes the urge to start juggling or somersaulting across the floor worse. You can’t ruin your paint.

        A loud boom cuts it all off. Putting every one to silence and making you whip your head around to see what made it.

        Sitting on a throne at the back of the room is The Grand Highblood himself. The biggest motherfucker around, as far as you’re concerned, and your ancestor. His chucklevoodoos tug at the strings of your mind, he practically has his own gravity. You’d known he was there, he’s well and truly hard to miss, you were just avoiding the sight of him. He doesn’t make the weight of everything you’ve done press down onto you, threatening to crush you like looking at the hope in Feferi’s eyes and watching tears stream down her face. You tend to think less around him and you really don’t like it. Makes you feel numb, angrier. Not now for some reason but you feel uneasy looking at his hulking form. Like you’ve done something wrong but not indulging in your wrath. The fact that he had to slam his club down on the arm of his throne is helping. You smile at him anyway, your harlequin paint might not fit it well, but you have it anyway.

        The Grand HIghblood peers down at you and smiles back, mildly amused as can be. His paint is that of snarling and sharp teeth, but it fits his smile, it belongs on his face. You bow at him theatrically before making your way center stage.

        “Brothers! Sisters!” He begins, turning his attention up to the audience, he gathers the applause with just as much ease as you do. You think it might be a sin not to, at least for him. “Tonight, a most blessed member of our family ASCENDS!” He announces, pride filling his voice as he raises his club in the air.

        The riotous racket your people make for you is breathtaking. Your prongs are still shaking, sheer force of will not stilling them, and your thorax feels tight. You know, deep down what’s going to happen. You’ve never been so scared of ceremony before. Have you ever been this scared at all?

        “Let’s get this shit started!” He calls, slamming his fists into the arms of his chair.

        A couple of trolls, bound and chained themselves, take that as a cue to pull a lever, hidden just near the entrance you walked through. Loud mechanical noises mix with the sounds of the unruly clowns in the seating areas. It’s so loud all of a sudden, louder than usual anyway. You’re used to being loud and being heard. You’re used to talking over others and letting others hang on your words, words that aren’t ever yours. Words you repeat from scripture or the words of those who tell you what the Messiahs think. The Lord hasn’t spoken to you in so long; did he whisper or did he scream?

        You see how everyone seems to look up at the high ceiling so you look as well. A section of the ceiling opens and a cage lowers slowly from it with a weak looking sea-dweller shaking the bars fruitlessly. Feferi looks like a chirpbeast in there, one that won’t stop fluttering around and causing a ruckus. It blends well into the general ruckus in the room.

        The sight of her shoots something sharp into your chest. You feel like there’s something in the back of your mind, desperately screaming at you that something terrible is happening and you need to leave. You don’t know why, seeing as you knew this was going to happen. You’re fulfilling your destiny now, this is what you’re meant for. This is the fucking punchline to the whole unfunny joke of your life and everyone is going to fucking laugh but you. Deep breaths. Deep shaking breaths goddammit.

        Your mind is so horrifically clear, it’s so hard to think of the trapped girl screaming your name the way you do with all your tributes to the Lord. Shapes, colors, sugar, and motherfucking noise. It's all motherfucking noise. Noise noise noise,from every motherfucking direction. You regret not appreciating the moment the room was commanded into silence.

        You can’t be thinking on all this shit now, you need your pan clean. You were either to give away your clubs or the last piece of the troll you used to be. You were such a pathetic thing then, so easily crushed underfoot by your peers. You were nicer too, it was a lot harder to think but in a way you enjoyed. Holding conversations was hard and you did anything you could to keep people from just up and leaving you. You couldn’t remember shit and everything felt just as fake. Soft and miraculous, no matter how shit anything was. No no. That’s the troll Feferi thinks of when she sees you and you hate that. It’s not like you remembering the way you were when the haze over every part of your reality collapsed either but that’s the real you. It has to be.

        You couldn’t give up your clubs, they represent everything you are now. Everything you’re designed for. You’d have no way to carry out Their will, no way to entertain and delight the bloodthirsty troll you share a color with, no way to feed the insatiable hunger inside you.

        The heavy doors that usually only open when The Grand Highblood wants to make an entrance slam open, cutting off the cheers and grabbing everyone’s attention. In the doorway is a very impatient looking empress. Her Condescension has her gold culling fork slung over her shoulder as she walks in.

        “Are y’all finally reedy to get this ship over with?” She doesn’t call out to the crowd for a response like you and your ancestor would, instead aiming her question at the two of you specifically as she makes her way center stage.

        She pauses her walk towards you to cruelly rap her trident against the bars of Feferi’s cage, making it swing with the force. Feferi tumbles from her feet to her hands and knees, already unable to keep herself up. The Condesce snickers to herself childishly as she moves onwards. You don’t make way for her, this is your ceremony after all. She takes your lack of yielding relatively well, she only flashes her fangs at you.

        The Condesce cocks her hip impatiently as The Grand Highblood scowls at her for interrupting their festivities by making her entrance early. Disrespect might just be a seadweller thing from the looks of it.

        “We motherfucking are getting this shit started,” He growls before beckoning you with his free hand to stand closer under Feferi’s cage, “The offering is being made.”

        You go where you’re told obediently, no matter how you feel relinquishing the stage to the tyrian. You look up at Feferi, who’s clutching a bar of her cage tightly in an attempt to pick herself up. Stubborn wader, she has to know this is the end for her by now. Anyone who could want her dead right now is in this room. No respect in her.

        The Condesce takes a look around, clicks her teeth impatiently and taps a non-existent watch on her wrist. Your fingers twitch with the urge to tear into her, you steel yourself instead. There are other bitches to bleed. You turn to The Grand Highblood instead, who closes his eyes and raises his hands, preparing to lead the circus in prayer. You instinctively bow your head before remembering your place above the laymen that surround you. You instead lift your head to the sky, hands locked together, eyes closed.

        “Great Messiahs, take the last of this motherfucking wriggler and leave only a grown troll in your wake, bring the claws that serve you by your side as they should and accept this offering he makes to you, bless our brother on his holy path, guide him on his mission to lay at your feet;” He stops, allowing you to speak your part of the prayer.

        “Messiahs, I give my appreciation on you for showing me the Light, for showing me what a motherfucker was truly capable of. A brother has already dedicated his life to you and now wishes to go beyond the second his pusher up and quits on him. Take this offering as a gratitude for your most wicked of blessings. Amen.” You finish, opening your eyes and blinking back any dismay fluid that may threaten to spill. Crying on the stage is not something uncommon, but mostly reserved for those farther away from the holy Light the Messiahs cast down.

        Amen. The crowd follows after you in blessed unison. Fuck, your bloodpusher is swellign with the love you have for the church. You hope that only blessing befall them before you go.

        “Can I cull this beach now or is there moar clownfish bullship I gotta sit through?” Her Condescension jeers, flipping some of her wild black hair over her shoulder. You can see the way Feferi’s body jerks her with alertness, how she scrambles to do something, anything.

        The Grand Highblood smiles at the empress instead of lashing out at her like you would’ve, a wicked grin for the love of bloodsport rather than ritual, “Go right on ahead.”

He stands from his throne, which should be the cue for everyone to stand along with him, but they already are so they begin to start causing another holy racket in response. Except you, your eyes are trained on the caged princess. Your bloodpusher is beating hard and your acid sack is twisting and twisting up. Why can’t you calm down? Why can’t you calm down?

An equally wicked grin erupts across the pink painted lips of the ruler. She smiles with her big, sharp, shark teeth as she spins the fork in her bejeweled prongs. The crowd is going wild for her and she eats it up just as much as you do. She doesn’t wait much longer to do what she came here for, the right to cull a usurper is hers, surpassing your right to kill anyone who impedes you on your holy duty. You made the choice to give her up though, you could have kept her in the circus, locked up and alone until her spirit broke and they could use her as labor.

You could’ve given up your clubs, your mind unhelpfully reminds you as the empress sends the sharp prongs of her golden fork into the cage. Feferi screams, she shrieks as the trident heads for her. Her culling is more than merciful, and she dies very quickly.

You’ve never seen fusicha blood in real life before, your pan comments just as uselessly as the royal paint drips down from the cage and into your hair. You just got that shit brushed out, you pan notes as you begin to hyperventilate. Why the fuck are you hyperventilating?

The Condesce whoops, “Coddamn! I haven’t culled a guppy my color in forebber!” Her sharp smile only gets wider as she pulls the weapon from the cage. You’re more focused on the sight of her body(her body her body her body) as it crumbles to the cage floor.

A part of you panics but another is happy you weren’t the one to do it. Maybe it’s the fact that you’ve never seen a fuschiablood die, maybe it’s the feeling of her tyrian blood(colder than ice, colder than corpses) falling onto your face, but seeing her like this, even from afar, is disturbing. You knew this was going to happen, you’ve known since the day she told you over the internet what her caste was and what that means, so why does it feel so jarring?

“Whale, sea you beaches later, I got an imperial fleet to command.” She whips her hair around as she turns on her heel. She struts out with just as much audacity as she walked in with. The crowd is still riotous from the sacrifice, they don’t even stop cheering when the doors slam shut behind her.

The Grand Highblood moves to pull the lever near his throne further down, making the cage lower slowly from the air. You make way for it’s decedent, her ascension is nearly over now. She’ll experience it through you now.

After an impatient slam to the wall above the lever, it comes careening down, hitting the ground with a loud crash. A sharp blade of horror stabs into you and you can’t stop yourself growling. You rush towards her broken body, the door of the cage opening when you force it to with nearly half your might. She wasn’t even strong enough to open a door. What a horrifying idea. She was meant to be stronger than you, she was stronger than you. You hold her body in your fists, her flesh not giving against your prongs until your claws break her skin.

She’s cold, icy, calling her colder than corpses would be funny since she is one now. Her cuttlefish eyes are vacant and dull. You’ve looked in the eyes of plenty of dead bodies, some of them you grew up with like her. In a lot of ways it’s the same, it’s just meat under your prongs, cold cold meat. It’s meat you knew though, meat who didn’t care about you but was at least a little kind to you. Karkat was warmer than she is, you cried holding him. You can’t remember if was regret or joy or relief that you’d finally just fucking done it.

This feeling though, the feeling of having taken something that wasn’t yours and not apologized. The feeling of guilt, guilt like lying to your lusus about doing your hivework. Not remorse, no, you’re not mortal enough for remorse but too mortal for detachment. You wish that numb angry feeling was still in you. You wish you were still as mad as the day she struck you down.

You know what you have to do though, you start dragging her body out of the prison you led her into, kneeling to the ground again for the next part of your ceremony.

The Grand Highblood is leaning over you, the clowns in the audience have come rushing out of their seats like water, crashing into each other in their hurry to get closer ot you and it’s all so fucking loud loud loud. You growl and snarl at anyone who comes near, which is everyone. They don’t care, you’re meant to be hostile. You don’t become the Lord’s champion by being sweet as faygo.

“Open your pan brother.” Your ancestor booms, grabbing you by the horns and shoving your head down. Why did you ever like the chaos? Why did you ever like the motherfucking noise noise NOISE?!

You do as you’re told obediently, like the good kid* you are. The moment you reach out with your ‘voodoos you’re instantly snatched and tugged and pulled by the tendrils of your mind in hundreds of directions and goddammit it hurts. It hurts in a way nothing has ever hurt you before. You roar with the pain as your claws sink into the flesh beneath you. You can’t see anything as your mind is wrought with images of you hurting the motherfuckers you love over and over. You’re seeing them die again and again and hearing nothing but screeching. It’s loud loud LOUD LOUD. Your thinkpan is loud, the room is loud, you're loud. You’re so loud that you feel your throat going raw with the effort to scream.

You force yourself to quiet by biting down on what’s being held in your claws. You bite into flesh you can’t see. Mindlessly, like an animal, like a bleating sea beast made for the shores. You rip a chunk of the flesh out as you’re lifted up from the ground, it’s tough, but you’re a killing machine and the hands pulling you up are unrelenting. Like the motherfucking pain itself. Not one of the pans inside you let up for a moment.

        You chew, you swallow, you shake and you hyperventilate and you scream until you can’t anymore. Until the only thing you can do is bleat like a wriggler, like a kid* who’s calling for a lusus that will never ever come.

        And then as the numbness becomes literal and you stop being able to feel your own tremors, your vision, once blinded by the vision of the horrors you’ve done, ebbs. All you're left with is darkness as you finally, miraculously, ascend.