onepassingnight | 1st Pounce

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1st Pounce

[...It really hasn't been all that long since she's had a regular dream, but it feels like it's been forever. Derse was destroyed, after all, so by all right she shouldn't even be dreaming right now.

But that's okay. Given what's been happening lately, dreams that shouldn't be are pretty low on the list of weird stuff.

In her dream, Nepeta is the huntress. It's her. She's back in the Land of Little Cubes and Tea, where the ground is made of sugar cubes and waterfalls are made of every sort of tea imaginable. She's crouched behind a small hill of sugar cubes, watching for prey.

And should she see any living creature at all, she will pounce. Will you see her, green and gray against the white of the sugar cubes, and approach her from behind - or will she tackle you to the ground instead?]

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[And fiddlesticks, that scares him and what kind of moirail is he right now if she's. Why is she - unless.

Something happened. Happened to... to her? Did something happen to her.]

Nepeta, Nepeta you hid, didn't you? I know you did, you listened to me, you did what you were told, I saw you. I saw you obey me, so why are you.

[And he starts to choke on his words, blurring together too fast and he's sweating, sweating heavy and he needs a towel badly right now and his mind is racing and he remembers finding the highblood and mistaking him for Pyrope and the arrow when he kneeled and everything was so hot and indulgent, making his skin burn blue.

Gamzee had been his friend but he knew that had been wrong. But then he woke up and he was right and Equius saw that and he embraced him and all the cruelness and superiority and he was so purple, emanating such richness and superiority and it had reaffirmed everything Equius had believed in. A part of him had ached at that, a part had said no too quietly in the back of his mind to pay attention to anything but the swell of yes, yes, yes.

And suddenly he can't remember being able to breathe anymore when that string was pulled tightly around his neck.]

I couldn't let him get away with it.

[Nepeta growls the words out lowly; were it anyone but Equius she was speaking to, her speech would be nigh unrecognizable as speech.

She can't really remember after all that well. She remembers getting to the end of the grate just as Equius slumped over, pouncing, the painful force of Gamzee's grip as he raked her own claws across his face -

And then pain, and then nothing.

...Maybe that's why she's dreaming, she thinks hazily. Maybe it's not so much a dream but a hallucination, caused by blood loss or concussion or anything else Gamzee might have done to her after catching her. Her own mind, trying to keep her calm as she met her end through the same means as her moirail.]

[He remembers the crack of the arrow. He remembers his posture, how he seemed big, bigger, taking up all the space he owned over Equius.]

You're speaking in the past tense.

[He remembers pleasure, shameful pleasure curdling under his skin when he talked down to him, when he regarded him as the waste of a troll he was in the presence of his better and the blue that rushed first to his cheeks, making him too hot, too startled, he could have never lifted a hand to him and then the string was around his neck and everything was too much. Too much indulgence, too much horror and hot syrup running its way through his stomach he had wanted but then.

The world went black and while his feelings hadn't been proper at all, disgusting wretched glorious and sweet what had happened had been proper. Gamzee was free to do with him as he pleased, what happened between them was proper and troll-like but then the pit in his stomach finally appears because Nepeta and she was never meant to be involved and what happened to him does not matter but this is his moirail and

he didn't live up to his quadrant afterall.

And that is a big damn problem.]

[He goes rigid underneath her. Because something is very close to snapping.]

[Nepeta nods, just once, barely perceptible. She reaches up and removes Equius' shades, sits up straight, and for once there's no playful sparkle in the green-blooded troll's eyes.

Were she anyone else, she'd question why what must surely be a figment of her own imagination doesn't know what happened. Maybe that's her imagination's way of softening the blow. And now she'd gone and ruined it by talking about what happened.]

I should have gotten there faster. You were probably the only one strong enough to stop him, but...

[She trails off, and that she chose not to insert a cat pun into the word "probably" speaks volumes about her mood. She's pretty sure the only way Equius would've been able to attack Gamzee at all was if he'd gotten to her first. She knows her moirail better than anyone else, after all, and the fact that someone as powerful as Equius died at all is enough to give her a more or less accurate guess as to what happened before she arrived.

She wants to punch him, because that is the stupidest reason to die she has ever heard, or - witnessed, but instead she shakes her head. She's the cheerful one, dammit, and she's going to work through this for as long as she's got left.]

...But I guess that doesn't really matter now, huh? I mean, it worked out for the best, I think! I told you we'd see each other again, and here we are, so it's almost exactly like I said!

[He's dead. He's dead. He'd gone in a manner that was socially acceptable and he's dead. He was weak and the situation was convenient and most of all he was selfish because Gamzee was finally there and he let himself want too much, he let himself beg without outright begging for it and none of that would have mattered because he is dead and Nepeta is here with him and there's no way unless -

He doesn't so much as blink up at her when she takes off his sunglasses. His eyes are still, almost hardened.]

And where will you be when you wake up again.

[Say it. Tell me. Because they both already know, Equius is only going to see the dark backs of his eyelids.]

Um.

[Nepeta fidgets a little. This is going to make Equius angry, she just knows it. He does hate it when she doesn't listen to him. And this time the consequences are enormous.]

I already told you, remember? I couldn't let him get away with it. So I...pounced out of the grate.

[Equius is many things. One of them is a hypocrite. A hypocrite of skill many would marvel at, even more impressive is his ability to overlook how much of a hypocrite he is. And right now it's easy. Because all he can do is see blue and his veins are more prominent than ever before he sits up, easily and topples Nepeta off of him without touching her.

He's going to go off to a large mountain of sugary cubes and without missing a beat, STRONGPUNCH it and watch it cave in on itself.

He wishes there were imps. Imps everyone. Foolish inferior things, they bruised and blemished and he could hit them all.]

[Nepeta watches the mountain crumble for a few seconds, and then she bounds over to Equius and peeks up at him.]

I think we should have a feelings jam.

[Even though she made this proposition, she's already crouching to tackle him in case he refuses. Being someone's moirail isn't always pleasant!]

I refuse.

[NO IT ISN'T and Equius doesn't even wheel around when he grounds it out. Instead he walks farther off and in the distance, bright blobs of color suddenly appear.

It's not long before they approach closer, jibber-jabbring in impish tongue as they do. Their stay isn't very long however, they go sailing and screeching back up into the air once they meet Equius' fists.

If you give him ten minutes, chances are he'll create a pile of defeated imps for you |D]

[Nepeta frowns and, in typical Nepeta fashion, decides to bother him incessantly, even while he's beating the ever-loving tar out of the imps.]

Equius! This is really impurrtant and we NEED to talk about it, because you are dead and I think I am purrobably going to die soon, and even if you are not real you are still my meowrail!

[PUNCH. PUNCH. PUNCH. PUNCH.

-wait.]

Don't be absurd.

[He knocks out another imp without even looking at it. It lands heavily in a heap atop the others. It is without a doubt a pile of IMPS.]

I am as real as the pain caused by my bulging muscle.

[Nepeta tilts her head inquisitively, and gives the pile of imps a good long look.

Then she crouches low, wiggles her rear end for effect, and pounces.]

[Whether or not he had punched through the aggression that had snapped in his blue blooded veins, it doesn't matter because his moirail's safety predominates over everything else and he goes down, much like before. Except this time in the pile of imps.

...]

Fiddlesticks.

[Now nothing is sacred.]

[Nepeta laughs and sits on Equius' chest.]

If you want me to get up, you have to make me!

[But she's fully confident he won't, so she continues to speak.]

Okay, so furrst I need to say something really impurrtant!

I know you're angry, but it's okay! I do not regret what I did at all. I would be the crappiest moirail in the entire unifurse if I didn't try to avenge you! And that is all there is to say about the matter.

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1st Pounce

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oh I messed up the formatting too that time...i am the failboat, it is me

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