09-20-2015, 08:29 PM
Jade really hopes that she will be able to get in touch with Karkat again, because it sounds as if he could really use someone levelheaded to talk to. She can’t remember much of Gamzee, or even if she ever interacted with him personally, but she knows that some bad stuff went down in the trolls’ session that had to do with the juggalo troll. Hopefully, when they all come together at last, nothing too terrible will happen.
That is, if she manages to stay alive that long. That would be a real bummer if she didn’t!
Abandoning her metal pot and the lingering embers of the fire for the moment, Jade wanders over to peer outside of the cavern again. The world is still just as it was before, snow and frost cascading down and cluttering the ground with their bulk. There is an unsettling lack of visibility; if someone were to stand about six feet from where she is currently standing, she is quite sure that she would not be able to see them at all.
She wonders why the snowbeast from earlier did not clamber down and finish her off while she had clearly been knocked out cold. It would have been easy— if Jade had been the snowbeast, she would have certainly done just that. Maybe it has something to do with her proximity to this cavern, although she can’t imagine why such a large creature would be scared of a little grotto.
Then again, as Jade’s gaze roves over the scale-like indentions that have been carved into the earthen walls, she ventures if it might not be so much the cave itself that warded off the snowbeast but the fearsome creature who dug it out to begin with.
Jade sniffles a bit, soon after wrapping the tail ends of her god-tier hood around the lower half of her face again. She won’t be using her chat client for a while yet— and, besides that, it is very cold. It wouldn’t do for her to develop a severe case of pneumonia by piddling around without any precautionary measures taken to prevent it.
She sure does miss having her Grandpa around to remind her of this kind of thing. While most of his stern lectures were grating and often had her wanting to vacate the premises as soon as possible, Jade wishes he could be here to tell her a thing or two about surviving in the frigid cold. In fact, she’s sure that her Grandpa would know how to adapt to and conquer these elements, and that he would have a tower already well on its way.
Unfortunately, her Grandpa has been dead for a long time now. Ever since she was a little girl, his stuffed corpse had stood before the fireplace in her tower’s foyer, always ready for a good strife session or with a speech already prepared to be delivered, Becquerel sleeping soundly at his feet.
Bec. She misses Bec, too. Her best friend in the whole wide world who, even when merged with that horrible, homicidal carapacian Jack Noir, had refused to kill her. She wants to see her best friend again. He was such a good dog, too, always trotting at her side when she was exploring the island and nosing around for any stray mechanical bits and bobs when she was attempting to cobble together a cutting-edge, innovative device. Even when she had wanted to venture into those ruins on her island, Becquerel had only wanted to protect her when he’d prevented her from doing so. No matter how mad she got about it at the time.
None of this is any good. Jade is sad, cold, and her clothes are unpleasantly wet from the melted ice. She just wants to go home— this isn’t a fun test of her survival skills anymore, no matter how many times she has tried to convince herself of that. She doesn’t even think she could muster up the motivation to join in any old cause while in this universe, even if she tried or really wanted to.
Jade stares unhappily at her hands, willing them to create some kind of distraction from her recurring troubles. Surprisingly, she hasn’t started bawling her eyes out yet— they sting a tiny bit, but other than that they are blatantly dry. Her head hurts. She can’t tell if it’s from this universe’s confounding atomic make-up or from all the worries churning about in her skull like sea sludge.
A discouraged whine slips past her lips as she plops her head into her hands. Gosh, when did everything become so darn complicated?
If only she had done what her Grandpa had gone to the trouble of doing for her and constructed some kind of bot. For instance, instead of a dreambot, a fully-mechanized body capable of carrying out real conversation and adventuring like he always used to do. Her Grandpa must have been a fantastic man, full of spirit and courage, and she’s sure he would have made a great guardian if only he had stayed alive long enough to do so.
Her actual guardian, Bec… she knows that he is technically a part of her now, what with the pointed ears pricking up from the top her head, but his entire personality had been erased because of that very fact. She still gets canine urges to chase cats and eat weird, strong-smelling dead things, but she isn’t about to do any of that and it isn’t the same at all.
Snuffling wetly to herself and dragging a sleeve over her eyes, Jade tries to throw off all of the negative emotions weighing down on her usually chipper mood. Another snuffle answers her, warm and more like a good-natured sneeze than a pitiful snivel. There is then a heavy metallic clink from directly in front of her, like two dense steel-toed boots touching down onto the ground.
Green eyes wide, Jade looks up. A tin man is stood before her, rectangular lenses shining a merry red like headlights through her mental fog. He has an impressive mustache over his upper lip and a bulky blunderbuss held aloft in his sturdy grip. At his side, a large white dog yawns, flashing a startling neon green tongue at her.
“Hello, my dear girl!” Grandpa chortles at her, voice remarkably full of sentiment despite the tinny filter in place behind his faceplate. His barrel round chest emits a strange whirring noise, jilting faintly in an artificial imitation of breathing. A burst of heated air ripples out from underneath his steel hunting cap and the bolts locked into his neck, indistinct exhaust fumes blowing into the air and curling up around his face.
Jade blinks up at him, mouth agape in her astonishment. Then, a slow, hesitant grin spreads across her face, a tad wobbly but definitely there. Her hair frizzes with green sparks in her excitement; her ears become pricked and alert.
“Grandpa!” Jade shouts, throwing her arms around the robot standing before her in a tight hug. Her head hits his metal chest with enough force to topple a one hundred pound boulder over, but he remains steadfast and Jade is unhurt due to her god-tier strength.
Becquerel noses at her side and Jade releases her robotic grandfather to tug him into an embrace as well. She shoves her face into the wolfdog’s thick white fur, giggling delightedly when Bec huffs against her ear with a long-suffering burst of air.
Standing, Jade scratches behind Bec’s two pointed ears, sinking her fingers into the soft fur there. The wolfdog’s bright green tongue lolls out as he shoves his muzzle into her palm as if to say, ‘Cut that out, you silly human. You have a mission report to give!’
Now fully at attention, Jade beams happily at her grandfather. She’s so used to seeing him dead with an electrical fire burning at his back that this change is a little astonishing, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t glad for it! Also, she thinks that she might actually be about as tall as he is, now! Wow, it’s been a really long time since she’s last spoken to him.
“Grandpa,” Jade says, trying to sober up her happiness but ultimately failing to do so. “I don’t know what to do! We’re in this Omniverse place and Karkat’s here too and I don’t know about anyone else and I just— ugh! Everything is so difficult. I think that I might want to try and build another tower here so that I can conduct research in the labs, but I can’t use my Space powers so that’s going to be tough. It just… really stinks! What should I do?”
By the end of her long stream of complaints, Jade finds that her breathing has become a little rough. Snuffling again, she pulls the fabric of her hood-tails down and rubs at her raw nose. Ugh, being upset is gross.
Grandpabot seems to understand her frustrations though, and gives a short bob of his head in acknowledgement. The high-tech mechanisms that control the movement clack ominously, causing Jade to cringe a little with worry. It would totally suck if he were to fall apart on her, mostly because she isn’t sure that she can obtain any of the materials to put him back together again.
“That is quite the problem,” Grandpabot returns. A stiff-fingered hand comes up to twiddle at his mustache, and Jade marvels at how this AI knows to replicate such menial expressions of emotion. It’s immensely interesting, but she thinks that it might be using up energy that could be utilized more efficiently elsewhere. “But you’ve certainly got the right idea, poppet! Building a home in the most hostile place possible is a fine plan, if you ask me— it nearly guarantees no unwanted visitors!”
Jade pouts at him, crossing her arms across her chest like a petulant child. He’s just not getting it! “I don’t want to be alone, though. This place is filled with vicious snowbeasts, too!”
Grandpabot looks at her, the rectangular lenses of his mechanical chassis glowing with a medallion of orange intensity at each of their centers. “A satisfactory challenge for a Harley!” Somehow, this suit of nuts and bolts seems absolutely delighted by the prospect of being torn to pieces by abominable snow monsters.
Bec snorts in agreement. Traitor!
“Uuuugh,” Jade groans, covering her face with a hand. She’s glad that she summoned them, but her Grandpa has always been eccentric. She doesn’t think he was very practical in life if his attitude now is anything to go by. Becquerel is just being a big, dopey goofball.
A frown twisting over her lips, Jade toes at the nearby metal pot with a foot. A little bit of lichen jelly rests at the bottom, already congealing into some vile half-frozen substance. It jiggles a touch to the right with a disgusting ‘squirk’.
Finally, after the gross goop has finally been jostled around to Jade’s satisfaction, she turns to look out into snowy wastes once more. There is a lengthy pause.
“I guess you’re right,” the Witch of Space finally admits, shrugging her shoulders and then squaring them doggedly. A small smile tugs at the corners of her mouth. “Besides, it’ll be totally cool to show my cool house off to Karkat when he shows up! I can’t wait, he’s gonna be so impressed. Clown troll, too!”
With a hearty skip added to her step, Jade fastens the twin tails of her god-tier hood around her mouth again and heads out into the chaotically tumbling snowfall again. Grandpabot follows behind, his footfalls heavy in the snow, crunching loudly and leaving deep indentations in his wake. Becquerel runs off ahead, circling back around towards Jade and snuffling at random dips in the snow as he trots from one place to another.
Raising her hands into the air, Jade focuses on the ground before her, the wide open space and all the dimensional irregularities contained therein. She envisions a tower there, almost imperceptible against the revolving blizzard all around.
This is going to be so great.
That is, if she manages to stay alive that long. That would be a real bummer if she didn’t!
Abandoning her metal pot and the lingering embers of the fire for the moment, Jade wanders over to peer outside of the cavern again. The world is still just as it was before, snow and frost cascading down and cluttering the ground with their bulk. There is an unsettling lack of visibility; if someone were to stand about six feet from where she is currently standing, she is quite sure that she would not be able to see them at all.
She wonders why the snowbeast from earlier did not clamber down and finish her off while she had clearly been knocked out cold. It would have been easy— if Jade had been the snowbeast, she would have certainly done just that. Maybe it has something to do with her proximity to this cavern, although she can’t imagine why such a large creature would be scared of a little grotto.
Then again, as Jade’s gaze roves over the scale-like indentions that have been carved into the earthen walls, she ventures if it might not be so much the cave itself that warded off the snowbeast but the fearsome creature who dug it out to begin with.
Jade sniffles a bit, soon after wrapping the tail ends of her god-tier hood around the lower half of her face again. She won’t be using her chat client for a while yet— and, besides that, it is very cold. It wouldn’t do for her to develop a severe case of pneumonia by piddling around without any precautionary measures taken to prevent it.
She sure does miss having her Grandpa around to remind her of this kind of thing. While most of his stern lectures were grating and often had her wanting to vacate the premises as soon as possible, Jade wishes he could be here to tell her a thing or two about surviving in the frigid cold. In fact, she’s sure that her Grandpa would know how to adapt to and conquer these elements, and that he would have a tower already well on its way.
Unfortunately, her Grandpa has been dead for a long time now. Ever since she was a little girl, his stuffed corpse had stood before the fireplace in her tower’s foyer, always ready for a good strife session or with a speech already prepared to be delivered, Becquerel sleeping soundly at his feet.
Bec. She misses Bec, too. Her best friend in the whole wide world who, even when merged with that horrible, homicidal carapacian Jack Noir, had refused to kill her. She wants to see her best friend again. He was such a good dog, too, always trotting at her side when she was exploring the island and nosing around for any stray mechanical bits and bobs when she was attempting to cobble together a cutting-edge, innovative device. Even when she had wanted to venture into those ruins on her island, Becquerel had only wanted to protect her when he’d prevented her from doing so. No matter how mad she got about it at the time.
None of this is any good. Jade is sad, cold, and her clothes are unpleasantly wet from the melted ice. She just wants to go home— this isn’t a fun test of her survival skills anymore, no matter how many times she has tried to convince herself of that. She doesn’t even think she could muster up the motivation to join in any old cause while in this universe, even if she tried or really wanted to.
Jade stares unhappily at her hands, willing them to create some kind of distraction from her recurring troubles. Surprisingly, she hasn’t started bawling her eyes out yet— they sting a tiny bit, but other than that they are blatantly dry. Her head hurts. She can’t tell if it’s from this universe’s confounding atomic make-up or from all the worries churning about in her skull like sea sludge.
A discouraged whine slips past her lips as she plops her head into her hands. Gosh, when did everything become so darn complicated?
If only she had done what her Grandpa had gone to the trouble of doing for her and constructed some kind of bot. For instance, instead of a dreambot, a fully-mechanized body capable of carrying out real conversation and adventuring like he always used to do. Her Grandpa must have been a fantastic man, full of spirit and courage, and she’s sure he would have made a great guardian if only he had stayed alive long enough to do so.
Her actual guardian, Bec… she knows that he is technically a part of her now, what with the pointed ears pricking up from the top her head, but his entire personality had been erased because of that very fact. She still gets canine urges to chase cats and eat weird, strong-smelling dead things, but she isn’t about to do any of that and it isn’t the same at all.
Snuffling wetly to herself and dragging a sleeve over her eyes, Jade tries to throw off all of the negative emotions weighing down on her usually chipper mood. Another snuffle answers her, warm and more like a good-natured sneeze than a pitiful snivel. There is then a heavy metallic clink from directly in front of her, like two dense steel-toed boots touching down onto the ground.
Green eyes wide, Jade looks up. A tin man is stood before her, rectangular lenses shining a merry red like headlights through her mental fog. He has an impressive mustache over his upper lip and a bulky blunderbuss held aloft in his sturdy grip. At his side, a large white dog yawns, flashing a startling neon green tongue at her.
“Hello, my dear girl!” Grandpa chortles at her, voice remarkably full of sentiment despite the tinny filter in place behind his faceplate. His barrel round chest emits a strange whirring noise, jilting faintly in an artificial imitation of breathing. A burst of heated air ripples out from underneath his steel hunting cap and the bolts locked into his neck, indistinct exhaust fumes blowing into the air and curling up around his face.
Jade blinks up at him, mouth agape in her astonishment. Then, a slow, hesitant grin spreads across her face, a tad wobbly but definitely there. Her hair frizzes with green sparks in her excitement; her ears become pricked and alert.
“Grandpa!” Jade shouts, throwing her arms around the robot standing before her in a tight hug. Her head hits his metal chest with enough force to topple a one hundred pound boulder over, but he remains steadfast and Jade is unhurt due to her god-tier strength.
Becquerel noses at her side and Jade releases her robotic grandfather to tug him into an embrace as well. She shoves her face into the wolfdog’s thick white fur, giggling delightedly when Bec huffs against her ear with a long-suffering burst of air.
Standing, Jade scratches behind Bec’s two pointed ears, sinking her fingers into the soft fur there. The wolfdog’s bright green tongue lolls out as he shoves his muzzle into her palm as if to say, ‘Cut that out, you silly human. You have a mission report to give!’
Now fully at attention, Jade beams happily at her grandfather. She’s so used to seeing him dead with an electrical fire burning at his back that this change is a little astonishing, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t glad for it! Also, she thinks that she might actually be about as tall as he is, now! Wow, it’s been a really long time since she’s last spoken to him.
“Grandpa,” Jade says, trying to sober up her happiness but ultimately failing to do so. “I don’t know what to do! We’re in this Omniverse place and Karkat’s here too and I don’t know about anyone else and I just— ugh! Everything is so difficult. I think that I might want to try and build another tower here so that I can conduct research in the labs, but I can’t use my Space powers so that’s going to be tough. It just… really stinks! What should I do?”
By the end of her long stream of complaints, Jade finds that her breathing has become a little rough. Snuffling again, she pulls the fabric of her hood-tails down and rubs at her raw nose. Ugh, being upset is gross.
Grandpabot seems to understand her frustrations though, and gives a short bob of his head in acknowledgement. The high-tech mechanisms that control the movement clack ominously, causing Jade to cringe a little with worry. It would totally suck if he were to fall apart on her, mostly because she isn’t sure that she can obtain any of the materials to put him back together again.
“That is quite the problem,” Grandpabot returns. A stiff-fingered hand comes up to twiddle at his mustache, and Jade marvels at how this AI knows to replicate such menial expressions of emotion. It’s immensely interesting, but she thinks that it might be using up energy that could be utilized more efficiently elsewhere. “But you’ve certainly got the right idea, poppet! Building a home in the most hostile place possible is a fine plan, if you ask me— it nearly guarantees no unwanted visitors!”
Jade pouts at him, crossing her arms across her chest like a petulant child. He’s just not getting it! “I don’t want to be alone, though. This place is filled with vicious snowbeasts, too!”
Grandpabot looks at her, the rectangular lenses of his mechanical chassis glowing with a medallion of orange intensity at each of their centers. “A satisfactory challenge for a Harley!” Somehow, this suit of nuts and bolts seems absolutely delighted by the prospect of being torn to pieces by abominable snow monsters.
Bec snorts in agreement. Traitor!
“Uuuugh,” Jade groans, covering her face with a hand. She’s glad that she summoned them, but her Grandpa has always been eccentric. She doesn’t think he was very practical in life if his attitude now is anything to go by. Becquerel is just being a big, dopey goofball.
A frown twisting over her lips, Jade toes at the nearby metal pot with a foot. A little bit of lichen jelly rests at the bottom, already congealing into some vile half-frozen substance. It jiggles a touch to the right with a disgusting ‘squirk’.
Finally, after the gross goop has finally been jostled around to Jade’s satisfaction, she turns to look out into snowy wastes once more. There is a lengthy pause.
“I guess you’re right,” the Witch of Space finally admits, shrugging her shoulders and then squaring them doggedly. A small smile tugs at the corners of her mouth. “Besides, it’ll be totally cool to show my cool house off to Karkat when he shows up! I can’t wait, he’s gonna be so impressed. Clown troll, too!”
With a hearty skip added to her step, Jade fastens the twin tails of her god-tier hood around her mouth again and heads out into the chaotically tumbling snowfall again. Grandpabot follows behind, his footfalls heavy in the snow, crunching loudly and leaving deep indentations in his wake. Becquerel runs off ahead, circling back around towards Jade and snuffling at random dips in the snow as he trots from one place to another.
Raising her hands into the air, Jade focuses on the ground before her, the wide open space and all the dimensional irregularities contained therein. She envisions a tower there, almost imperceptible against the revolving blizzard all around.
This is going to be so great.
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Gamzee Makara Wrote:S’aight. After all, dogs have a tendency to motherfuckin’ bite.