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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[He can't see it, but Nepeta's eyes sparkle with excitement and - relief. She's so happy, and relieved, and a whole slew of other emotions she's not entirely sure of, to see him again. She's not entirely sure how this place works yet. Their dreamselves should be dead, but here they both are, in the Land of Little Cubes and Tea, and Nepeta has no idea how or why they're here.

But they're here.

And that's all that matters.

She pounces, and doesn't bother softening her impact. She knows he won't mind.]

[Equius Zahhak goes down (and little cubes go everywhere) without a fight because it only takes him a split second to register the tacklepounce as not threatening and would only be dared by one troll in particular.

As dignified as he can, face first in broken sugar cubes:]

Nepeta, you're behaving childishly.

[Nepeta instinctively opens her mouth to retort "No I'm not!" - but instead, she clings tightly to Equius, refusing to move.

She never thought she'd be able to do this again, even in her dreams. Not with Derse destroyed and her dream self skewered like a choice cut of hornbeast.

And certainly not ever again in the Veil.

She'd been curious about the nature of this dream before, but she decides it's not important right now. She can look into that later. There are more impawtant things to do right now.]

[It had become like a ritual between them, her cheerful rejection of his scolding that he waits to hear but nothing comes. Blinking once behind his sunglasses, he pauses, only to find Nepeta is holding on even tighter than before.

It's all too startlingly then, how his memory clears and up until that moment he blacked out, arrow through his leg, Nepeta had been hiding away like he made sure of. ...oh.

In a dream where... their dream selves are supposed to be dead he slowly raises one arm up before he rolls them both over onto their sides. He doesn't make a move to disentangle them.]

It appears my moirail has me in her paws--, I mean clutches.

[Nepeta blinks at him, surprised, and then lets out a sudden peal of laughter.]

You were purright the furrst time! "Clutches" is a pawful word, you can't make any cat puns out of that!

[She pauses.]

No, wait! I don't have you in my clutches. I have you in my clawtches!

[He crosses his arms loosely, he can feel all of her energy behind him.]

That has already been well established.

[She giggles again and finally rolls off of him, choosing instead to latch onto one of his arms.]

You're just jealous because it's way harder to make your lame horse puns!

[HOW DARE YOU.

THIS? THIS IS DIGNIFIED SPUTTERING THAT IS NOT SPUTTERING AT ALL.]

That, a bl00-bl00ded being such as myself has no time for such foolish games.

Udder nonsense.

[What.]

[Nepeta bursts into another fit of giggles.]

Equius, you should stop all this purretense! I am your meowrail and I know you like your silly puns, so you can make as many as you want!

...Actually, I want you to make them!

[Her tone turns insistent in this last part; she might not ever be lucky enough to have a freak dream like this a second time, and with Equius dead she'll never hear any of his stupid puns again once she wakes up.]

...did you just issue me an order?

[Equius is looking at you, Nepeta. In that dumb open mouthed look of his that shows off his broken teeth. And the urgency is lost on him, well.

His memory isn't one of dying, not even close. It's of subjugation, of being put in his place, of sweat soaking right through his shirt and in this dream Equius doesn't know. Whether it was the shock or the apparent oddness of the very dream they're in, Mr. Zahhak has no idea.

But Nepeta's right, he's dead, here and there even if he doesn't remember.]

[Nepeta pouts for a moment, then nods firmly.]

Yes! That is an order, so make as many puns as you want!

If it were truly an order, it would not matter what I want.

I also find your tone lactating in authority.

I'm not good at giving orders!

[She hisses irritably and turns away for a few moments, but then she latches onto him again.]

Stupid.

[She's not quite sure who she's talking to, Equius or herself.]

You are childish and ridiculous.

[Nepeta wasn't acting quite like he expected her to, today. Maybe it was the dream. It's not as if there were piles of crap anywhere.

He lifts the arm she latched onto again to bring her face to face with himself when he rolls onto his back.]

But you are not stupid, you are my moirail. I canter even begin to imagine what I would be without you crouching in my quadrant.

[...And that's what gets her. Nepeta begins to sob, burying her face in his shoulder. She tried so hard not to cry.

But, well, she really isn't crouching in his pale quadrant anymore, is she?]

[Of all the things he was expecting, tears were the last thing. Taken aback, Equius can only watch her crowd her face into his large shoulder.]

Nepeta?

[Staring at his free arm, he moves slowly, just until his arm is hovering over her small back.]

What are you doing?

[She continues to cry wordlessly for the next few minutes, and the sugar ground beneath her face tinges green and becomes a sticky mess with her tears.

Finally, she manages a deep, shuddering breath, and she pulls away from Equius.]

Nothing! I'm okay now, see?

[She smiles weakly.]

You're a horrible liar.

I'm blue with shame.

[He's a liar. If there is blue in his cheeks, all over his face it's because he is alarmed and uncomfortable. In all of their sweeps together, Equius can count the times he has seen Nepeta shed sickly dark green from her eyes.

With great focus, he just barely grazes her back with his hand.]

I'm just sad, I guess!

[A pause; time stretches on to what Nepeta feels like is forever.]

...I'm worried if I say it, you'll disappear.

It is just a dream.

This in itself is extraordinary, considering the destruction of Derse.

You will see me when we are both awake.

...possible present murdering rampaging of our superiors regardless.

No! No, we won't!

[Nepeta begins to cry again, making a sound similar to that of a cat in pain - a sort of yowl that dissolves into more sobs.]

[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!

1st Pounce

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/hee

8D

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/couldn't help self

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

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