curtains fall and bruises form [active / open]

[hatchedleader]

Who: Karkat Vantas, Vriska Serket
Where: The Parlor
When: Night 002
What: Karkat Vantas arrives in the house, and is quite a bit less baffled than he should be-- probably because, at this point, he's more or less used to multiversal fuckery.
Warnings: Karkat.

Comments

[visioneightfold]

Vriska hadn't really been looking to end up by the parlour again, but there was only so much a troll could do without getting bored, and there wasn't any real danger to her--not here, anyway. The burned sap couldn't fly and the monsters that could were mysteriously prone to crashing and breaking their necks or missing and savaging each other when she had to deal with them.

Okay, so it wasn't very mysterious, she did it on purpose.

The point was, they weren't the singing ghosts of human pupas, and that was good enough for her. She was only half-looking for more people, but she had a pleasant moment of surprise at the recognition of a figure in the entryway--a figure familiar enough, actually that it took her a second to be appropriately surprised.

Then she froze.

Was that--?But it wasn't even a question

[hatchedleader]

He jerked hard, the sudden voice startling him possibly far more than it should've-- and then it sunk in that he knew that voice.

What the...

"... Vriska?!" Oh, great, that's just perfect. Not only had he been swept off to some bizarro-land alien hive, but apparently the only other person there was Spiderbitch Serket. "What the fuck-- how did you get here?!"

[visioneightfold]

"Fuck if I know." Vriska made no bones about not caring, and she pinned him with her eight-pupilled stare, displeasure and growing indifference intermingling for just a second. "But if you move now, I'm not saving you!" This was accompanied not by any look of concern but by a sharp, almost unsettling grin. Spreading her blue wings, she took to the air, fluttering lightly in the hallway where he could see her. The faerie dust sparkled in her wake, adding an aethereal element to her presence.

It was almost enough to counteract the effects of her personality.

"If you weren't such a huge insufferable prick, you'd almost be cute when you're scared like this. Just like a newly hatched pupa, fresh from his cocoon!" The second part went unsaid. It went: And fresh for the culling. But she wasn't going to let him die. There was no good from that. She might have been taking a moment to appreciate her position of power over him, however. She savoured it. "Well, you should know there's a monster in the fire there, and he 8n't gonna slow down

[hatchedleader]

Fuck fairies. And fuck Vriska, for that matter. But something about the entire situation made him pause rather than outright reject her babbling, for once; well, nothing about the situation made any damn sense in the first place. For all he knew, she could be telling the truth. Was his pride worth his life...?

Okay, there was honestly no question of that at all.

"... okay, fine. Tell me how the hell I get by this thing without getting roasted." It was a command, not a request.

[visioneightfold]

Vriska just smiled back. Being in a position where she knew more than Karkat wasn't all that special. It was pretty much all the time. Nothing new there! But this? Being in a position where she knew more, where she had all the cards and he had none of them? Having him shut up and listen to her?!

It felt nothing short of delicious.

"It's pretty simple! Simple enough, anyway. When I tell you to run for the hallway... you run.

Got it? Great!

Then........ run!"

She dove for the fireplace, brilliant wings flaring as she banked to taunt the thing in the hearth, the heat hitting her in a solid wave, intensifying as she got nearer, searing her lungs, her her throat and eyes--and right on cue, up it came. It was tall, deceptively so, its flesh burnt and blackened, eyes burning hot as coals as it stepped from the flames. And its voice?

The harsh, terrible voice of smoke and black char.

"I'm going to help you."