05-18-2016, 09:19 PM
An unwelcome seedling of doubt crept into Jade’s thoughts, suspicion turning over and over like a puzzle she just couldn’t crack. She stared down at the decimated body of the troll seized by madness, its withered, ribby frame pickled with blue the very color of veins stretched under human skin, its face and chest shredded into unrecognizability.
The Witch’s eyes then swiveled towards the tunnel that slanted ahead of where they stood, ears pinned back and her hair sparking up a bit in staticky rings and curls. Countless wall carvings slithered across the long passageway under vines thicker than her forearms; green tinted an almost silvery, polychrome white from mingled breaths of frost and heat bungled and rolled in a phlegm-like haze. A palpable, horror-movie sort of gloominess dithered in the air, soundless as it glided across the bizarrely cut stone pathways.
“Are you okay, Valerie?” Jade asked, her expression flooded with worry. As she clasped his hands and assisted him to his feet, she was dimly aware of Grundy’s bulk shifting towards one of the larger passageways, lumbering steps mediated and slow. The others stood at odd places around them, hefting weapons while on their guard. Fuzzy and marred by the humidity, Jade’s sense of Space wound down seemingly endless trails that delved further and further within the mountain, searching for something which she could not place.
A sincere sigh came from Valerie as he regarded the shredded state of his splendidly green robes. “Oh, yes,” her friend chirped, an easy smile aimed her way. Jade had a distinct feeling that, if Valerie were to wander into a forest somewhere, little cute bunny rabbits and flighty sparrows would flock to him like something out of Disney. “I am none the worse for wear, Miss Jade, you needn’t fret. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for my garments.”
Genuineness warmed every word, his airy tone teasing the pitch ever higher, but there was a tension in the mage’s shoulders that Jade was not accustomed to. An unbidden apology leapt into her throat but, as if sensing her unease, Valerie’s shoulders relaxed, and Jade’s worries once again flew out the window, trailing behind on disturbed curtains of dust and slanting light.
They ventured on, footsteps echoing in light, muffled drafts against inwardly slanted walls which were smothered with vines. The painful knocking of Jade’s heart against her rib cage eventually abated, replaced by a bright curiousness and astonishment that simply grew and grew.
Still, she couldn’t completely brush away the feelings of apprehension stewing in her mind, stifled though they were by tremendous wonder. Tuberous frills, which might have glinted like intricate stained glass in the full, steady glow of the sun, fanned out across the ceiling, shining with all the magnificent hues of a peacock’s train. Jade’s Spectagoggles gleamed with a fretful, blurred red in the near-total midnight blue, wavering amongst the long, curving whorls of iceberg shades, constantly on the alert.
Ghostly, tattered shadows seemed to trail behind them at every step, claws which were yellow and gnawed down to the quick in slobbery crescents scraping against the slick granules that seeped into the rock of the tunnels. Eyes gleaming a hazy greenish-blue drifted in and out of the darkness and vine-covered passages, like roadside reflectors through a fog-muddled evening drizzle.
Her earlier relief after ensuring Valerie’s health, Jade recognized, was almost strikingly similar to shock, and the tips of her fingers jittered incessantly the further they descended, the scent of mildew and sickly sweet rot coiling stickily in her lungs.
Maybe that troll was just lost, she debated against the chill of dread sliding down her spine, noxious and purely mortal, And he went a little insane while trying to find a way out, which made him attack Valerie. There’s nothing that could have been done for him, he was just skin and bones…
Jade swallowed thickly around the vitriol regret churning in her gut, turning to look sadly up at the luminescent geometries of the prickly creepers coating the stalactites, their jutting shapes plentiful and glistening with crystal dew. A fleeting, irregular halo of light shimmered around her every once in a while as she walked, a winding, yellow-mottled vine inching noiselessly across the floor until it was far too close for comfort.
Unless, another part of her brain observed, in a know-it-all kind of voice that Jade immediately despised, Unless he was being influenced by something. The cold and the pressures of hunger, maybe, but look at those carvings— do those seem like natural cave formations? Does this feel like ordinary spelunking to you?
No, Jade supposed, not particularly. But it was too late to turn back— she couldn't even feel the surface anymore, no matter how hard she tried to scrape the surface with her spacial awareness. In all truth, Jade was not entirely certain if they could find their way back out, even if they truly wanted to. So, jumpy as she was, she took ahold of Bec’s bristly neck ruff in one fist and lightly gripped Rebecca’s hand with the other, only slightly uneasy about the Little Sister’s tuneless humming.
But, then there was Valerie. Valerie, who spun round every glittering, humidity-speckled cavern that they found themselves in and murmured sweet words to the intricate greenery lacing over the rock, his face radiant and turning towards each luminous twig with all the special attention that a flower’s petal crown usually reserves for the sun. Balustrades of vines tickled with thorns trailed his every step, not precisely moving in any obvious way, but shifting still in veined, fluctuating rhythms of chilly color after him.
It was during one of their frequent breaks that Jade decided to ask him about just what the bioluminescent plant life was doing, here of all places, residing within the depths of a mountain in the very heart of a frozen wasteland. Their vast greenish-blue looseness settled in coils and springy layers across the rounded chamber of cavern space that they had paused to rest in, a bridge of flat, almost glassy stone dividing the abyssal drop-- a chasm, unfathomably deep-- on either side into halves. Jade approached him and slipped down beside where he sat with a rustle, legs dangling over the void.
“Valerie,” Jade ventured, the picture of seriousness; a keening whine presently came from Becquerel, the wolfdog’s paws scraping bitingly into the side of her leg. Swatting her errant woofbeast away, she continued, “Is there anything you can tell me— us about these vines? They’re everywhere, they have to mean something!”
Valerie’s mellow gaze drifted with some difficulty away from the multitude of climbing vines to meet her own. He fixed her with a dazed, almost sleepy look, a trickle of blue film flashing briefly, illumined and cool, over his eyes. “Mm? It is wonderful, yes? How, even in such a hostile place as this, a cosmically huge, perfectly tangled being can thrive?”
Nibbling idly on her bottom lip, Jade felt awfully confused by the sudden string of— in all likelihood rhetorical!—questions that had been asked of her. “Uhm. I guess?”
Bec nipped earnestly at her sleeve, tugging, and Jade once again had to physically coerce him into quitting it by lightly whapping him upside the snout. Really, he was getting senile or something, her canine guardian never would have been so anxious back at home! She silently thanked her lucky stars that he hadn’t decided to teleport them all to the moon yet, if he was even still capable of such a thing.
“And—“ Valerie mused whilst spreading his arms outward in a grand, all-encompassing gesture, seeming entirely undeterred by his conversation partner’s wriggling barkbeast, “Would it not be simply splendid to have such a vast consciousness spread out so very far, embracing all the world in its tender caress? To be enveloped in such a warm, friendly presence?”
The young girl’s hands, tangled up in a fistful of Becquerel’s snowy white fur as they were, stilled. For the first time, it seemed, she noticed the tension in her furry guardian’s body, the pulse of vibrant granny smith apple-lime electricity trickling along his stiff spine, warning and dangerous. A growl and the briefest flash of neon gums and long, shining incisors clued her in.
“To become a…. a tanglebuddy, if you will.” Valerie finished, smiling, always smiling, and all at once that single lost puzzle piece at the back of Jade’s mind clicked wretchedly into place.
For a moment, restless green remained level with serene blue. Then, a cold and wet brush of Bec’s snout along the underside of her ear urged Jade to jump to her feet, half-stumbling and nearly tottering into the long, black abyss stretched out before them. Blinking wildly, she scrambled hastily away, breaking the stalemate.
“If— if you’ll excuse me, Val, I’ll be right back, Karkat and Tartaros are at it again with the— the, ah, human communication ritual known as bickering,” she decided to judiciously ignore the fact that the aforementioned bickerers were actually on opposite ends of the bluestone bridge they were standing on, the void-black chasm pitching ever downward on either side as her ringing steps clattered on. Soldiering forth, Jade brightly chirped, “I’ll be right back!”
Grinning painfully, the lovely flower Valerie had given her feeling immeasurably heavy in her front pocket, Jade practically tripped on her way over to where Tartaros and— Brick? Stone?— Rock stood, the both of them milling about in a decidedly awkward silence. Rock, a vaguely interested look in his bright blue eyes, peered curiously at Jade as she shakily approached, the sunny smile on her lips fading fast.
Out of the corner of her eye, the Witch warily observed as Grundy and Valerie continued to be off in their own little worlds of distressing unanimity, their expressions blank and perfectly, horribly tranquil. They were on the same end of the little bridge, nearest to the dark entrance the group was to duck into next, while Jade, Rebecca, Tartaros and Rock all stood scattered about its center, Becquerel sitting loyally at the Witch's feet. Karkat, straggling behind as always, pitched a stone into the chasm on the total opposite end.
“Something’s wrong with Valerie and Grundy, you guys,” Jade said, careful as anything. How on earth could she ever hope to explain this to them, this funny notion that slipped in her head silent as a cat burglar? It felt disturbingly as if her heart might just stop beating altogether, what with how hard it was beating against her chest.
“You are just now seeing that?” Tartaros asked, not unkindly, but Jade tossed a nervous glance over her shoulder anyway at the pair of bleary-eyed whackadoodles, the steady gleam of the plants not unlike a hospital’s impersonal glow all around them.
The dog-eared girl wrung her hands together, the stars of her pajamas unusually dim under the fractured bluish light. “No! I mean, yes, but... It’s complicated. They’re acting different. Haven’t you noticed?”
They stared at her for a long moment, long enough for Rebecca to grow bored and attempt to braid some bulbous flowers she had picked into Bec's fur. Then, as if unsure about how much he should admit to keeping track of, Rock shrugged his blue-clad shoulders and opened his mouth to speak—
A loud, resounding crick-clap-snap rang out like the vulgar blaring of an air horn during a fancy garden party. Once the initial split-second shock had worn off, all heads swivelled towards the source of the unholy sound just in time to see the section of ground separating the bulk of the group from Karkat dissolve into a gaping, open-mouthed fissure, sharp rocks echoing on their way down into the tumbling blackness. The wideness of Karkat’s eyes, distant from where the rest stood, appeared almost rust-colored.
Adrenaline jacked up in her skull, Jade raced to the edge of the ravine, a sinking feeling rising within her chest once she realized that she couldn’t teleport such a great distance. Before she could even consider the option of flight Karkat had begun to vehemently pace and grumble, an explosive sigh whistling through his teeth.
“Of course this kind of bullshit would happen to me of all the hapless adventurers the universe had its pick of. I hope you’re happy, Harley, because being stranded has got to be one of the most eye-opening experiences I’ve had with this happy-go-lucky group so far! Totally life-changing. I am having so much fun, trapped over here, while you all gawk at me like a bunch of well-oiled fuckcrumpets. Look at my face, I’m even smiling! Just perfect.”
He trailed off with a slightly hysterical hand gesture, which was made all the more rude for its hystericalness. Jade shook her head, grinning despite her nerves, carefully eyeing up the distance and backing up a bit so that she could maybe take a running leap. It was a pretty big gap, but she supposed she could manage it.
And then the decision to cross over was taken from her.
“— FUCK, WHAT THE FUCK IS—”
The cherry-blood’s long stream of words and demonstrating was soundly cut off as something leapt suddenly from the obscurity of the tunnel behind him. It was a new troll similar to the one from earlier, all ribs and with a ghastly, nitrogen-chilled pallor to its skin, but this time it seemed that the troll had brought friends. Six pairs of fever-bright eyes glistened in the dim light, moving impossibly fast as their scrabbling, withered limbs wrapped Karkat up and dragged him away, the horned kid wildly clawing and slicing with his sickle in the dark.
It lasted for all but a few seconds, enough time for the report of a bolter to ring close to her ear, the lingering curls of dissipating shapes barely decipherable across the divide before dissipating entirely, like smoke. A fluttering, rabbit-kick panic flared up in Jade’s stomach, her skin crawling as she threw herself forward, a furious array of green sparks tearing up her limbs—
Only for her long hood to be caught up in a strong, clammy hold, her suddenly explosively violent expression turned to face the bland, sawdust eyes of Solomon Grundy.
Blank and blue.
“Let - me - go!” Jade shrieked, taking ahold of the fabric of her hood and wrenching it free from his grip. Abruptly, horrifyingly, Jade thought she might be liable to try and take his head off, but was able to calm herself in time. A deep, shaky breath rattled in her chest, accompanied by a fervid glance directed across the rift, and then inevitably back towards the faces of her friends.
The faces of her friends, and also the strange, uncharacteristically empty stares of Grundy and Val. It was dreadful that, even though Jade knew that on some level her friends were still there somewhere, she could not bring herself to refer to them as such in the privacy of her own mind. Not when they looked so vacant, so assured and with their true natures coolly, securely hidden behind their eyes.
“Where have they taken him?” Jade asked, tremulously, fear and disbelief budding in her mind like a poisonous seed.
Valerie smiled, the peacefully composed façade neatly covering up so much more that was sinister, murky, and aligned with the steady drip, drip, drip of melted snow off in some dank corner of the cavern. His voice resounded with a pleasant, lyrical certainty when he answered her, breathy and simply delighted.
“Why, to the Spring, of course.”
The Witch’s eyes then swiveled towards the tunnel that slanted ahead of where they stood, ears pinned back and her hair sparking up a bit in staticky rings and curls. Countless wall carvings slithered across the long passageway under vines thicker than her forearms; green tinted an almost silvery, polychrome white from mingled breaths of frost and heat bungled and rolled in a phlegm-like haze. A palpable, horror-movie sort of gloominess dithered in the air, soundless as it glided across the bizarrely cut stone pathways.
“Are you okay, Valerie?” Jade asked, her expression flooded with worry. As she clasped his hands and assisted him to his feet, she was dimly aware of Grundy’s bulk shifting towards one of the larger passageways, lumbering steps mediated and slow. The others stood at odd places around them, hefting weapons while on their guard. Fuzzy and marred by the humidity, Jade’s sense of Space wound down seemingly endless trails that delved further and further within the mountain, searching for something which she could not place.
A sincere sigh came from Valerie as he regarded the shredded state of his splendidly green robes. “Oh, yes,” her friend chirped, an easy smile aimed her way. Jade had a distinct feeling that, if Valerie were to wander into a forest somewhere, little cute bunny rabbits and flighty sparrows would flock to him like something out of Disney. “I am none the worse for wear, Miss Jade, you needn’t fret. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for my garments.”
Genuineness warmed every word, his airy tone teasing the pitch ever higher, but there was a tension in the mage’s shoulders that Jade was not accustomed to. An unbidden apology leapt into her throat but, as if sensing her unease, Valerie’s shoulders relaxed, and Jade’s worries once again flew out the window, trailing behind on disturbed curtains of dust and slanting light.
They ventured on, footsteps echoing in light, muffled drafts against inwardly slanted walls which were smothered with vines. The painful knocking of Jade’s heart against her rib cage eventually abated, replaced by a bright curiousness and astonishment that simply grew and grew.
Still, she couldn’t completely brush away the feelings of apprehension stewing in her mind, stifled though they were by tremendous wonder. Tuberous frills, which might have glinted like intricate stained glass in the full, steady glow of the sun, fanned out across the ceiling, shining with all the magnificent hues of a peacock’s train. Jade’s Spectagoggles gleamed with a fretful, blurred red in the near-total midnight blue, wavering amongst the long, curving whorls of iceberg shades, constantly on the alert.
Ghostly, tattered shadows seemed to trail behind them at every step, claws which were yellow and gnawed down to the quick in slobbery crescents scraping against the slick granules that seeped into the rock of the tunnels. Eyes gleaming a hazy greenish-blue drifted in and out of the darkness and vine-covered passages, like roadside reflectors through a fog-muddled evening drizzle.
Her earlier relief after ensuring Valerie’s health, Jade recognized, was almost strikingly similar to shock, and the tips of her fingers jittered incessantly the further they descended, the scent of mildew and sickly sweet rot coiling stickily in her lungs.
Maybe that troll was just lost, she debated against the chill of dread sliding down her spine, noxious and purely mortal, And he went a little insane while trying to find a way out, which made him attack Valerie. There’s nothing that could have been done for him, he was just skin and bones…
Jade swallowed thickly around the vitriol regret churning in her gut, turning to look sadly up at the luminescent geometries of the prickly creepers coating the stalactites, their jutting shapes plentiful and glistening with crystal dew. A fleeting, irregular halo of light shimmered around her every once in a while as she walked, a winding, yellow-mottled vine inching noiselessly across the floor until it was far too close for comfort.
Unless, another part of her brain observed, in a know-it-all kind of voice that Jade immediately despised, Unless he was being influenced by something. The cold and the pressures of hunger, maybe, but look at those carvings— do those seem like natural cave formations? Does this feel like ordinary spelunking to you?
No, Jade supposed, not particularly. But it was too late to turn back— she couldn't even feel the surface anymore, no matter how hard she tried to scrape the surface with her spacial awareness. In all truth, Jade was not entirely certain if they could find their way back out, even if they truly wanted to. So, jumpy as she was, she took ahold of Bec’s bristly neck ruff in one fist and lightly gripped Rebecca’s hand with the other, only slightly uneasy about the Little Sister’s tuneless humming.
But, then there was Valerie. Valerie, who spun round every glittering, humidity-speckled cavern that they found themselves in and murmured sweet words to the intricate greenery lacing over the rock, his face radiant and turning towards each luminous twig with all the special attention that a flower’s petal crown usually reserves for the sun. Balustrades of vines tickled with thorns trailed his every step, not precisely moving in any obvious way, but shifting still in veined, fluctuating rhythms of chilly color after him.
It was during one of their frequent breaks that Jade decided to ask him about just what the bioluminescent plant life was doing, here of all places, residing within the depths of a mountain in the very heart of a frozen wasteland. Their vast greenish-blue looseness settled in coils and springy layers across the rounded chamber of cavern space that they had paused to rest in, a bridge of flat, almost glassy stone dividing the abyssal drop-- a chasm, unfathomably deep-- on either side into halves. Jade approached him and slipped down beside where he sat with a rustle, legs dangling over the void.
“Valerie,” Jade ventured, the picture of seriousness; a keening whine presently came from Becquerel, the wolfdog’s paws scraping bitingly into the side of her leg. Swatting her errant woofbeast away, she continued, “Is there anything you can tell me— us about these vines? They’re everywhere, they have to mean something!”
Valerie’s mellow gaze drifted with some difficulty away from the multitude of climbing vines to meet her own. He fixed her with a dazed, almost sleepy look, a trickle of blue film flashing briefly, illumined and cool, over his eyes. “Mm? It is wonderful, yes? How, even in such a hostile place as this, a cosmically huge, perfectly tangled being can thrive?”
Nibbling idly on her bottom lip, Jade felt awfully confused by the sudden string of— in all likelihood rhetorical!—questions that had been asked of her. “Uhm. I guess?”
Bec nipped earnestly at her sleeve, tugging, and Jade once again had to physically coerce him into quitting it by lightly whapping him upside the snout. Really, he was getting senile or something, her canine guardian never would have been so anxious back at home! She silently thanked her lucky stars that he hadn’t decided to teleport them all to the moon yet, if he was even still capable of such a thing.
“And—“ Valerie mused whilst spreading his arms outward in a grand, all-encompassing gesture, seeming entirely undeterred by his conversation partner’s wriggling barkbeast, “Would it not be simply splendid to have such a vast consciousness spread out so very far, embracing all the world in its tender caress? To be enveloped in such a warm, friendly presence?”
The young girl’s hands, tangled up in a fistful of Becquerel’s snowy white fur as they were, stilled. For the first time, it seemed, she noticed the tension in her furry guardian’s body, the pulse of vibrant granny smith apple-lime electricity trickling along his stiff spine, warning and dangerous. A growl and the briefest flash of neon gums and long, shining incisors clued her in.
“To become a…. a tanglebuddy, if you will.” Valerie finished, smiling, always smiling, and all at once that single lost puzzle piece at the back of Jade’s mind clicked wretchedly into place.
For a moment, restless green remained level with serene blue. Then, a cold and wet brush of Bec’s snout along the underside of her ear urged Jade to jump to her feet, half-stumbling and nearly tottering into the long, black abyss stretched out before them. Blinking wildly, she scrambled hastily away, breaking the stalemate.
“If— if you’ll excuse me, Val, I’ll be right back, Karkat and Tartaros are at it again with the— the, ah, human communication ritual known as bickering,” she decided to judiciously ignore the fact that the aforementioned bickerers were actually on opposite ends of the bluestone bridge they were standing on, the void-black chasm pitching ever downward on either side as her ringing steps clattered on. Soldiering forth, Jade brightly chirped, “I’ll be right back!”
Grinning painfully, the lovely flower Valerie had given her feeling immeasurably heavy in her front pocket, Jade practically tripped on her way over to where Tartaros and— Brick? Stone?— Rock stood, the both of them milling about in a decidedly awkward silence. Rock, a vaguely interested look in his bright blue eyes, peered curiously at Jade as she shakily approached, the sunny smile on her lips fading fast.
Out of the corner of her eye, the Witch warily observed as Grundy and Valerie continued to be off in their own little worlds of distressing unanimity, their expressions blank and perfectly, horribly tranquil. They were on the same end of the little bridge, nearest to the dark entrance the group was to duck into next, while Jade, Rebecca, Tartaros and Rock all stood scattered about its center, Becquerel sitting loyally at the Witch's feet. Karkat, straggling behind as always, pitched a stone into the chasm on the total opposite end.
“Something’s wrong with Valerie and Grundy, you guys,” Jade said, careful as anything. How on earth could she ever hope to explain this to them, this funny notion that slipped in her head silent as a cat burglar? It felt disturbingly as if her heart might just stop beating altogether, what with how hard it was beating against her chest.
“You are just now seeing that?” Tartaros asked, not unkindly, but Jade tossed a nervous glance over her shoulder anyway at the pair of bleary-eyed whackadoodles, the steady gleam of the plants not unlike a hospital’s impersonal glow all around them.
The dog-eared girl wrung her hands together, the stars of her pajamas unusually dim under the fractured bluish light. “No! I mean, yes, but... It’s complicated. They’re acting different. Haven’t you noticed?”
They stared at her for a long moment, long enough for Rebecca to grow bored and attempt to braid some bulbous flowers she had picked into Bec's fur. Then, as if unsure about how much he should admit to keeping track of, Rock shrugged his blue-clad shoulders and opened his mouth to speak—
A loud, resounding crick-clap-snap rang out like the vulgar blaring of an air horn during a fancy garden party. Once the initial split-second shock had worn off, all heads swivelled towards the source of the unholy sound just in time to see the section of ground separating the bulk of the group from Karkat dissolve into a gaping, open-mouthed fissure, sharp rocks echoing on their way down into the tumbling blackness. The wideness of Karkat’s eyes, distant from where the rest stood, appeared almost rust-colored.
Adrenaline jacked up in her skull, Jade raced to the edge of the ravine, a sinking feeling rising within her chest once she realized that she couldn’t teleport such a great distance. Before she could even consider the option of flight Karkat had begun to vehemently pace and grumble, an explosive sigh whistling through his teeth.
“Of course this kind of bullshit would happen to me of all the hapless adventurers the universe had its pick of. I hope you’re happy, Harley, because being stranded has got to be one of the most eye-opening experiences I’ve had with this happy-go-lucky group so far! Totally life-changing. I am having so much fun, trapped over here, while you all gawk at me like a bunch of well-oiled fuckcrumpets. Look at my face, I’m even smiling! Just perfect.”
He trailed off with a slightly hysterical hand gesture, which was made all the more rude for its hystericalness. Jade shook her head, grinning despite her nerves, carefully eyeing up the distance and backing up a bit so that she could maybe take a running leap. It was a pretty big gap, but she supposed she could manage it.
And then the decision to cross over was taken from her.
“— FUCK, WHAT THE FUCK IS—”
The cherry-blood’s long stream of words and demonstrating was soundly cut off as something leapt suddenly from the obscurity of the tunnel behind him. It was a new troll similar to the one from earlier, all ribs and with a ghastly, nitrogen-chilled pallor to its skin, but this time it seemed that the troll had brought friends. Six pairs of fever-bright eyes glistened in the dim light, moving impossibly fast as their scrabbling, withered limbs wrapped Karkat up and dragged him away, the horned kid wildly clawing and slicing with his sickle in the dark.
It lasted for all but a few seconds, enough time for the report of a bolter to ring close to her ear, the lingering curls of dissipating shapes barely decipherable across the divide before dissipating entirely, like smoke. A fluttering, rabbit-kick panic flared up in Jade’s stomach, her skin crawling as she threw herself forward, a furious array of green sparks tearing up her limbs—
Only for her long hood to be caught up in a strong, clammy hold, her suddenly explosively violent expression turned to face the bland, sawdust eyes of Solomon Grundy.
Blank and blue.
“Let - me - go!” Jade shrieked, taking ahold of the fabric of her hood and wrenching it free from his grip. Abruptly, horrifyingly, Jade thought she might be liable to try and take his head off, but was able to calm herself in time. A deep, shaky breath rattled in her chest, accompanied by a fervid glance directed across the rift, and then inevitably back towards the faces of her friends.
The faces of her friends, and also the strange, uncharacteristically empty stares of Grundy and Val. It was dreadful that, even though Jade knew that on some level her friends were still there somewhere, she could not bring herself to refer to them as such in the privacy of her own mind. Not when they looked so vacant, so assured and with their true natures coolly, securely hidden behind their eyes.
“Where have they taken him?” Jade asked, tremulously, fear and disbelief budding in her mind like a poisonous seed.
Valerie smiled, the peacefully composed façade neatly covering up so much more that was sinister, murky, and aligned with the steady drip, drip, drip of melted snow off in some dank corner of the cavern. His voice resounded with a pleasant, lyrical certainty when he answered her, breathy and simply delighted.
“Why, to the Spring, of course.”
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Gamzee Makara Wrote:S’aight. After all, dogs have a tendency to motherfuckin’ bite.