Davepeta ==> be separated

by 3_1416a

Summary:

Dave(sprite) and Nepeta get separated and live as individuals again.

Notes:

I really like thinking about splitting the sprites and letting them run around after it, so this is a bit of that. sorry if it's a little all over the place, I have a whole entire thing in my brain and I found it hard to put in writing lol

You sure were part of davepeta and you sure are separated.

Your name is Dave strider. Though with your other Dave walking around you guess your name is just davesprite, You hate that fact, but it’s not as strong as it was once before. It’s been so long that you don’t really think you care anymore. It certainly was way less confusing that way. Otherwise you’d have to use up your precious genius brain cells to think of another dave related title to give to yourself so no one got very very confused.
Dave the crow perhaps, because you were an impulsive idiot and you were separated from the crow and immediately asked dirk in the most uncool way ever to give you back your bird part.
Jade would probably understand where you are coming from because if she got un-dogged you think that too would be weird as fuck for her, but also you should really not think about jade right now.

Nepeta gets it, sort of, was inside your brain and all. Speaking of, she’s laying right next to you.

DAVE: was i like too freaked out and uncool when i got humaned and asked dirk to bring my bird part back

NEPETA: :33 < *ac cutely rubs her face against yours and hums as if she's thinking about your question*

NEPETA: :33 < you did look positively mortified when you realized you were wingless but i don't think it was that bad, it was as mortified as your strider stoicism let you

DAVE: damn ok man yeah fair i just remember dirk looking actually surprised and it doing something to my gut

DAVE: mostly because i havent fucking talked to the guy and that he’s a mini bro

NEPETA: :33 < yeah i kmeow

DAVE: yeah you were inside me and shittttt

NEPETA: :33 < *ac sports a wicked smile, ready to drop the best line in earth c’s history*

NEPETA: :33 < that's what she said.

DAVE: HA

DAVE: god Equius would kill me if he realized the fuckass jokes I brain blended into your head.

NEPETA: :33 < you kmeow he wouldn’t

DAVE: i know but also wow not being brain blended. I can say I can't see him in that way at ALL.

NEPETA: :33 < *ac licks her paws with pride* good! beclaws i don't share meowrails

DAVE: catch me shivering at the mere thought dawg

NEPETA: :33 < cat!

DAVE: are you gonna do that whenever i say dog?

NEPETA: :33 < :33

NEPETA: :33 < i’ll let you kmeow, i really enjoy the word cat! purrbeast was a lot longer

NEPETA: :33 < *ac frowns and gently paws at your face* but also we need to get some troll words into your thinkpan, it’s unfair i get stuck with human ones and you get off scott free

DAVE: didn't you already have the word cat? i think you just larped yourself too hard into believing purrbeast was the only option.

NEPETA: :33 < i mean yes cat is a word, but i didn’t use it that much befur, your weirdo human brain made me way more comfortable to use it.

DAVE: oh come on im sure i have some troll instilled in me

DAVE: i think due to bird i can probably imitate some of your chirps well enough that i dont sound like a dying wriggler

NEPETA: :33 < hehehe maybe!

NEPETA: :33 < i n33d to open your cranium open and s33 what words of mine stuck :3

DAVE: believe me i want to open your skull too bro.

NEPETA: :33 …

NEPETA: :33 < *ac looks shyly at the ground* do you miss being davepeta?

DAVE: dave inhales really fucking hard thinking about how they don’t wanna think about it man

DAVE: yeah a little but i… understand why we did it

DAVE: ok not a little fuck man i miss it a lot.

DAVE: but yeah i get why we did it, even if good old big blue is not boyfriend material for me i still could see how fucking miserably depressed he was

NEPETA: :33 < you mean

NEPETA: :33 < you mean

NEPETA: :33 < troll depressed B))

DAVE: haha holy shit i got you to add troll before random words that fucking rules.

NEPETA: :33 < hehehe

NEPETA: :(( < but yeah :((

NEPETA: :(( < i just really wanted him to not f33l that bad anymore, i take it that he and hal don’t talk about this like we do

DAVE: or eridan and sollux, dude how are eridan and sollux considering there is another fucking sollux here too

NEPETA: :33 < *ac sighs, slightly amused* him and his doubles, it's on brand

NEPETA: :33 < also bad, probably

NEPETA: :33 < i do miss sollux :(((

DAVE: and not eridan

NEPETA: :33 < you know i dont *ac humphs indignantly*

DAVE: i think you have a massive hate crush on that fish guy not gonna lie

NEPETA: :33 < *ac GASPS with pure OFFENSE* i so do NOT

DAVE: yeah man sure

You were sort of laying on your side and staring at her. Laying on your back sucked because of wings anyways. Why did you want the bird back again? Oh right — sense of normalcy or whatever.

DAVE: Do you ever actually feel like a cat

NEPETA: :33 < yeah

DAVE: yeah, i knew that

DAVE: talking is so dumb when i know the answers

NEPETA: :33 < *ac slowly blinks towards you to show affection*

NEPETA: :33 < but at least now we can do this!

She simply invites herself closer to you and nestles in the space you had in your torso, a low purring sound coming from her chest. You allow yourself to relax. Take that, every other Dave ever — being brain blended does a thing or two for your vulnerability.

NEPETA: :33 < anyways yeah, my lusus

DAVE: and growing away from any other sort of troll

NEPETA: :33 < mhm

DAVE: I wonder how the others would have turned out in your situation

NEPETA: :33 < *ac turns her head as a question*

DAVE: ac is fucking lying to me because she's all comfy cozed up in my chest and she can't actually do that

NEPETA: :33 < *ac humphs and pretends you didn’t just say that to her*

NEPETA: :33 < well i think

NEPETA: :33 < some of us would have turned out much worse, if we grew up completely away from trolls and with just lusii

NEPETA: :33 < like i think kanaya would have been fine because she’s used to being kind of isolated, but like-

NEPETA: :33 < tavros would have totally died if he had to scavange food dude. hundred percent

DAVE: damn dude that’s kinda dark

NEPETA: :33 < it's not!!! survival of the fittest or whatever!! 

DAVE: to be fair, who in the world survives that and comes out semi normal girl 

DAVE: like if you stuck john alone on an island, he’d end up talking to coconuts until one day he’d decide to start naming his socks

NEPETA: :33 < hehehe that’s adorable

DAVE: yeah he’d probably make a coconut best friend and then feel bad when it rotted

NEPETA: :33 < *ac giggles into your chest fur, the vibration of her purrs matching the little tremors of laughter*

DAVE: hey so like, when we were davepeta, did you ever think about how we used to call ourselves “we”

NEPETA: :33 < what about it?

DAVE: i think i miss that

DAVE: not because i don’t like being me again, but because it felt like there was no way to fuck up when it was both of us

DAVE: like if one of us was sad or dumb or wrong, the other just kind of made it ok

DAVE: i know that’s a weird thing to say because we’re still right here, but like

DAVE: it’s different now, you know?

NEPETA: :33 < yeeeeeahhhhhh ://

NEPETA: :33 < i know

DAVE: it’s like there’s a whole silence in my head that used to be you

DAVE: but i guess that’s the point right, we were supposed to get our own heads back

NEPETA: :33 < *ac presses her forehead against yours* i still hear your words in there sometimes though

NEPETA: :33 < sometimes i think something and it sounds just like you would have said it

DAVE: yeah i get that too, sometimes i’ll say a dumb pun out loud and immediately think “damn that was so nepeta of me”

NEPETA: :33 < hehehe you’re welcome

DAVE: you know what’s fucked up

NEPETA: :33 < what

DAVE: i think i miss the cat instincts

DAVE: like i catch myself almost wanting to chase laser pointers and then i realize i don’t have the excuse anymore

NEPETA: :33 < HA! that’s purrfectly pathetic of you

DAVE: yeah laugh it up furball

NEPETA: :33 < i will

DAVE: ok but real talk i do sometimes miss the way you thought

DAVE: it was really simple in a good way, like you always knew what was right or wrong by how much it hurt someone

DAVE: meanwhile i gotta turn everything into a fuckin postmodern internal debate or whatever

NEPETA: :33 < aww

NEPETA: :33 < well, now you don’t have to think that much, you can just ask me

DAVE: true, i’ll just outsource morality to my furry roommate

NEPETA: :33 < *ac gives you a mock glare and flicks her tail in your face*

She keeps purring, and you let her. You stare at the ceiling, at the small cracks in it that look like a constellation you can’t quite recognize. 

DAVE: hey nep

NEPETA: :33 < hmm?

DAVE: do you ever think about how weird it is that we got to exist at all

NEPETA: :33 < sometimes

NEPETA: :33 < sometimes i think about it and it feels really big, like too big to understand

NEPETA: :33 < but then i look at you and it feels smaller, like maybe it makes sense after all

DAVE: yeah

DAVE: i guess if there was any reason for any of that shit to happen, it’s probably this

NEPETA: :33 < mmmh

She yawns, which is very cat of her considering it's the middle of the day, and her tail curls loosely around your arm. You're not gonna let her take a kitty nap though, there are still some awesome weirdly personal talking points in that wonderful brain of yours.

DAVE: hey nep

NEPETA: :33 < mmmrrrgh?

DAVE: you ever think about how we never really got to be kids

NEPETA: :33 < *ac opens one eye, confused and a little sleepy* thats a strange thing to ask

DAVE: yeah well i’m built strange

NEPETA: :33 < *ac yawns* i gmeow that makes two of us

DAVE: yeah but like, i don’t know

DAVE: i spent so much time trying to act like i wasn’t one that i don’t even know what it would’ve looked like if i had been

DAVE: maybe i would’ve liked dumb cartoons instead of ironic ones

NEPETA: :33 < i liked dumb cartoons

DAVE: you didn't HAVE any cartoons cave girl

NEPETA: :33 < *ac giggles softly* i like the IDEA of dumb cartoons. The concept of them I made up in my awesome head B33

DAVE: lucky, all the stuff i made up in my head is ironic ugly nonsense

NEPETA: :33 < everything you make is already pretty cool to me

DAVE: damn okay don’t say stuff like that i’m too emotionally defenseless for that shit

NEPETA: :33 < hehe sorry

NEPETA: :33 < i mean it though

You hum in aknowledgement and close your eyes. For a while, there’s nothing but the quiet again. You can hear something outside.The hum of life beyond the little bubble you’ve built. You let your eyes close for a second. It feels safe, you never thought you'd get to feel safe..

When you open them again, Nepeta’s staring at you, like those pictures of those cats that are all eyes. Her tail is flickering

NEPETA: :33 < what are you thinking about?

DAVE: nothing

NEPETA: :33 < liar

DAVE: okay fine, i was thinking about food

NEPETA: :33 < *ac perks up immediately* food??

DAVE: yeah but i’m not cooking, you cook this time

NEPETA: :33 < unfair, you have opposable thumbs!

DAVE: and you have claws, that’s like nature’s utensils

NEPETA: :33 < i’m going to claw you if you keep saying that

DAVE: promise?

NEPETA: :33 < *ac makes a mock offended noise and smacks your arm with her tail*

DAVE: ow, assault, i’m calling the human rights commission

NEPETA: :33 < Your comission can also get my sweet sweet claws dont even try B33

DAVE: oh shut it Akwete Purrmus

NEPETA: :33 < hey! don’t call me that! That was YOUR fursona

DAVE: what, you started it. Besides, what's mine is yours. 

NEPETA: :33 < no i didn’t!

DAVE: yes you did, spiritually

NEPETA: :33 < you’re insufferable

DAVE: you know you love me kitten whiskers

That shuts her up for a second. Then she lets out an ugly cackle.

NEPETA: :33 < EW??? NEVER SAY THAT AGAIN???

DAVE: zero promises 

She sticks her tongue out at you, because of course she does. You resist the urge to laugh and fail miserably. 

DAVE: oh man you're hilarious

DAVE: i think if we hadn’t been fused, i wouldn’t know how to talk like this

NEPETA: :33 < like what?

DAVE: stupid

DAVE: but the stupidity aside, i think im just... happy. In a weird and fucked up vulnerable way

DAVE: so thanks for that i guess

NEPETA: :33 < *ac grins proudly* you’re welcome

DAVE: no yeah seriously you rewired my entire brain chemistry and now i feel things like a total loser

NEPETA: :33 < hehe you’re not a loser, you’re just emotionally developed!

DAVE: ew don’t say that out loud

NEPETA: :33 < *ac bursts into laughter and rolls onto her back, tail flicking wildly* you’re impossible!

You watch her laugh, and something in your chest unclenches. It’s not that heavy kind of release. Relief. A steady hum in your ribs. A sense that maybe you’ve both been carrying the same kind of weight for too long, and it’s finally starting to fall off piece by piece.

DAVE: you know what’s weird

NEPETA: :33 < what?

DAVE: i used to think we were gonna stay like that forever

DAVE: like davepeta was it, like that was the end of the story

NEPETA: :33 < me too

NEPETA: :33 < i thought we were one person forever, and that that was how it was supposed to be

DAVE: yeah

DAVE: but i think maybe that’s the point

DAVE: like, we were supposed to learn how to be okay with being apart again

NEPETA: :33 < *ac nods slowly, her ears drooping just a bit* yeah

NEPETA: :33 < it’s still weird though

DAVE: yeah it is

DAVE: ...do you ever wish we could be them again?

NEPETA: :33 < sometimes

NEPETA: :33 < but then i look at you and i think maybe i already am, just not all at once

DAVE: damn that’s deep

NEPETA: :33 < i’m wise beyond my whiskers

DAVE: you’re ridiculous beyond your fur

NEPETA: :33 < *ac pretends to swipe at you, her claws just barely grazing your shirt*

DAVE: rude

NEPETA: :33 < deserved

You grin. She’s right. You deserved that one.

DAVE: hey nep

NEPETA: :33 < yes?

DAVE: i’m glad we did it

NEPETA: :33 < separated, you mean?

DAVE: yeah

DAVE: i miss being one person but i think we’re better like this

NEPETA: :33 < i think so too

DAVE: yeah

DAVE: we’re still kind of one anyway, just in two places now

NEPETA: :33 < *ac smiles softly, her tail curling against your arm again*

NEPETA: :33 < yeah

The random word vomit session between you two is not over yet, but apparently, its nepetas turn now:
Her face has changed, ever so slightly, you are surprised you know what she looked like before, but you guess its sort of like looking in a mirror for your subconscious, you have seen her before as much as you’ve seen yourself.
Her eyes are more red, like yours used to be, your eyes are green now, not that anyone but her has noticed that with your sunglasses but they are. her nails grow in orange and the nails in your bird talons grow in green.
it’s nice that a part of you will never be away from each other. You instantly cringe at the thought because wow dave sappy much? but also fuck off brain dave your brain was blended with hers you deserve to feel like that.
She has some weird looking fuschia lines on the sides of her neck.

NEPETA: :33 < hey

NEPETA: :33 < you kmeow i’m trans right

DAVE: yeap

NEPETA: :33 < You remember aaaaaaaaaaaaaaalll about it don't you?

DAVE: yeap half my brain being trans is probably what cracked my own egg. nonbinary beam square to the head.

NEPETA: :33 < ...

NEPETA: :33 < is it bad i want to change it a little?

DAVE: oh? how?

NEPETA: :33 < *ac buries her face in dave's chest with a slight sense of shame*

NEPETA: :33 < i dont know! like! i was so sure i was a girl.

DAVE: yeah and i was in denial land about not being a boy

NEPETA: :33 < but then, now, having used they them when we were one. i think I'm not… fully that?

DAVE: oh?

NEPETA: :33 < *nepeta roars with uncomfortablenes*!! I dont know!! want to try to use they. Maybe it? 

NEPETA: :33 < just anything but he. gah i dont know its all so confusing B((

DAVE: I can do that no sweat dont worry your little kitty furball of a brain about it

NEPETA: :33 < it’s weird :((

DAVE: yeah i know B(

DAVE: *dave puts his arm over nepeta in a reassuring manner*

DAVE: gender is so fucking shit man

NEPETA: :33 < ugh yeah :((

DAVE: on the bright side we now share custody of the they pronoun

DAVE: we are like the coolest venn diagram. I have he you have she and they is our beautiful baby they

NEPETA: :33 < yeah :,33

She gets out of your hold and lays on her back.

:33 < we should go outside

She decides out of nowhere. So you guess the word vomit session over at long last

DAVE: we should?

:33 < my friends are alive now arent they? :,33

DAVE: oh right yes today was the lets fuck up the laws of the world beyond belief and revive people, that’s good yeah we should or well maybe you wanna go on your own have some one on one troll time

:33 < nope :33 you’re coming with me!

DAVE: man

DAVE: do we ring up equius or something?

:33 < *ac closes her eyes and tries not to throw a massive tantrum*

:33 < i dont kmeow, he s33ms purrtty disconnected from a lot of stuff and i don’t think he’d take very well to being near that many other trolls who he didn’t really

:33 < connect with?

DAVE: you are the therapist not me

:33 < *ac hits you gently in the face*

DAVE: ouch hey

:33 < not a therapist!!

DAVE: yeah i knowwwwww

DAVE: at least ask him we don't want him to feel left out and shit

:33 < yeah

She starts typing. You see the sadness in her eyes at what her moirail has become. You remember he’s always been a bit depressed—or at the very least not mentally sound. Troll pity and all that was pretty easy to flourish when a highblood just lets you take his horn.

But it seems he has gotten worse. If it makes you feel weird, you can’t imagine how it makes Nepeta feel, especially since it was your dumb crow brain that kept pushing against being separated at all.

You are such a major asshole, man.

:33 < ok yeah he doesn’t want to

DAVE: so off we go?

:33 < off we go :33!

 

=> Be Dave some time later, talking to some trolls.

You sure are. Or, well, you really aren’t.

You half mumble some “hello”s and some “sup”s and just sort of awkwardly stand there as Nepeta gleefully hugs every troll there. You also try to ignore how hard they all seem to be staring at your wings. Can’t a man-thing be a bird around here? Move along guys, not a zoo.

Maybe they think humans also get wings with godtiers, but that they are fleshier and have feathers. That would honestly be really funny.

You catch a glimpse of Eridan and Sollux; they are holding hands, which is certainly a sight to behold. You nod in sympathy at the almighty brain-blend dependency—a force so strong it makes those two hold hands. Even if they fucking hated each other, they should know a lot of shit about the other one by now, so that makes sense.

Nepeta notices them at the same time you do and goes running to them. She cheerfully picks up Sollux and spins him around while he screeches to be put down on the ground. She then pointedly half-assedly says hi to Eridan and sticks her tongue out at him, lol.

You and Nepeta walk attached at the hip because of course you do. Except when they want to have moirail time with Equius, because god knows you don’t want to intrude on that can of worms.

And it’s pretty obvious that people (except for Sollux and Eridan) are wondering why Nepeta has a human/bird lap dog just trailing around her in the middle of the ever-so-awaited troll reunion. This is horribly awkward and you hate every second of it. Thank you very much.

And here comes the crown jewel of the awkward and horrible bullshit: Nepeta sees Feferi.

She lets out a really high-pitched noise and does that cat thing they do when they want you to come close—like “mrrawww”—and leaps towards her. Feferi does some fish-gargling sound in response. Nepeta just launches herself into her arms, and Feferi catches her without breaking a sweat.

This is the actual worst.

You awkwardly and slowly trail after her, and she’s rubbing against her and purring. And boy, would you be jealous if your brain wasn't having ten different meltdowns at the same exact time.

You remember Feferi. You remember her really well. Not only from whatever memories Nepeta had of her, but also from her own brain.

Nepeta remembered being spirited with her; in turn, you also remember that exact same thing. So you’re like a fucked-up nesting doll that remembers being Nepeta and also being Feferi. This sucks big time.

With Nepeta you can totally say you want to open her skull open and crawl back inside and it’s horribly chill because she just laughs and says she wants that too—mutual post-Frankenstein's-monster attachment.

But Feferi doesn’t fucking know you. And you know her. This sucks.

You don’t really know what exactly they are talking about, but you do see how comfortable both of them are, and how you feel like the world’s most awkward third wheel. And you cannot abscond, because you are Nepeta’s emotional support big bird, and because you also miss Feferi.

You don't want to leave. Despite how unneeded you feel right now, because you just miss Feferi too.

You miss her a lot. You guess you’ve felt like this once—sort of, with the different versions of your friends and all—but this is not the same at all. Because this is still YOUR Feferi.

FEFERI: Nepeta sorry if t)(is is a bad question! But w)(o is t)(at next to you!? 

And she points at you- ouch, if that doesn’t fucking hit a nerve, even though you are very aware she has absolutely zero reason to know about you at all.

And honestly, she's being plenty polite to this weird random creature, so kudos to her for not calling you stupid in second one of knowing you (rip Jade, skill issue you suppose).

:33 < oh this is dave! we were spirited together just like me and you were!

DAVE: yup, we were a weird crow cat combo right after your sprite with nepeta stopped being a thing

DAVE: stole your girl more like stole your brain mate

Nepeta laughs and Feferi sort of blinks in a confused manner—yeah ok.

FEFERI: O)( it is a pleas)(ore to meet you!

She shakes your hand enthusiastically, and you totally should tell her that she does not know how to measure her strength against humans at all. But you don’t, because the contact is nice. Holy shit, you are acting like such a creep.

NEPETA: this is my dave because if you see another dave walking around without all the bird stuff they’re not the same guy

FEFERI: oh, just like there are 2 solluxs?

:33 < yeah sort of!

FEFERI: )(E)(E)(E ok!

DAVE: we should stop calling them the 2 sollux that probably drives them up a wall

FEFERI: i s)(oald probably go talk to t)(em bot)( after catc)(ing up )(ere!

DAVE: one is with eridan though, is that like ok?

She stares at you, blinking—oh right, you aren’t supposed to know any of these people beyond pretty surface-level shit. Crap.

FEFERI: O)( rig)(t! nepeta’s memories!

DAVE: right, sorry, that probably freaked you out

FEFERI: no its fin-E! but yes, a )(eiress s)(oald always strive to do better and become a better version of )(erself!

You want to tell her to not say that, but you see Nepeta lightly pawing at her—okay yeah, she’s the better option in that department.

FEFERI: eridan is still my friend, all of t)(ese people are my friends!

DAVE: it’s fine if you need a second or two though

FEFERI: y-ES! but i don’t!

FEFERI: anyways! it's a pleasure to meet you dave!

FEFERI: and as ALWAYS it’s awesome to sea you nepeta!! glub glub

:33 < prrrr!

:33 < we should hang out more furrfery :((

FEFERI: w-E s)(oald!

FEFERI: i don’t t)(ink t)(ere’s muc)( for me to do )(ere anyways.

FEFERI: aside from catc)(ing up in all that )(as )(appened and stuff,

:33 < which we can absolutely help with! :33

:33 < in the midst of our hanging out :33

DAVE: nepeta any more desperate and you would have killed her with second hand embarrassment.

:33 < HEY you want to hang out with her too mister i know it!

FEFERI: )(E)(E)(E you do?!

DAVE: uhm yeah you look cool

DAVE: and also you are really tall two shorties like us could use the help to reach high places

:33 < thats a lie they can fly and i can climb!

DAVE: nepeta im going to actually cull you

:33 < HAHA you say cull now :33 troll word spotted

DAVE: damn…

FEFERI: )(OP-EFULLY now that we live in a new place we can R-ED-E-FIN culling as something more caring!

FEFERI: )(e)(e)(e but im GLAD to sea you two get along so sw)(ale!!! t)(oug)( i guess it is expected from being a sprite!

:33 < just like us two :33

FEFERI: yes nepeta! i must admit! i also missed you a TON!

:33 < yessss :33

DAVE: i mean i don’t think sprite status makes people instant best friends

DAVE: if we can take a certain blue guy as reference

:33 < yes… hal is ignoring equius… *ac grooms herself with a twinge of sadness*

FEFERI: o)( i did wonder w)(o -equius was spirited wit)(! a )(uman friend of yours?

DAVE: uh sort of, yeah

FEFERI: i'd LOVE to meet )(im!

:33 < he’s kinda really out of his element right now but i’m sure eventually he’d love to m33t you :33

DAVE: or maybe not

FEFERI: 38O w)(y not?

DAVE: sorry, uh hal is from the?

DAVE: actually how much do you know about all of everything because we might have to save this convo for lore dump hang out

FEFERI: i am aware t)(at t)(e condesce )(as been krilled alongside lord englis)(!

DAVE: oh yeah

DAVE: well hal comes from a like? alternate timeline?

DAVE: point is his world was pretty taken over and fucked up by the the condesce

FEFERI: 38( o)(

DAVE: not saying you are like her! but like, yeah

FEFERI: i DO look very similar to )(er yes

FEFERI:38(

NEPETA: :ƐƐ < :((

DAVE: B(

FEFERI: w)(ale i will try my best so t)(at people can sea t)(is )(eiress is not anyt)(ing like t)(at giant W)(AL-E!!

DAVE: haha yes get them

:33 < :33

FEFERI: t)(oug)( i guess i'm not a )(eiress to anyt)(ing anymore

FEFERI: w)(ic)( is GOOD!

DAVE: it’s fine if you are upset about it man

FEFERI: t)(anks! but i’m not! t)(is new world of yours is incredible! a )(eir would only )(arm it!

FEFERI: anyways i’m going to go TALK to t)(e rest!! i’ll )(ang out wit)( bot)( of you later!

She leaves, her hair is really long. You absentmindedly go and try to touch your own hair. And yeah, your hair is short. Right.

It feels almost alien against your fingers, the cropped ends still coarse from when you last hacked them shorter. You remember when it used to brush against your neck—back when it wasn’t just “yours,” but something the fusion had carried, too. The ghost of that memory lingers like static under your skin.

You look at Nepeta, who seems to have done the exact same thing. Lmao, get fucking got girl.

Her tail starts thrashing around.

It’s a little too expressive for how calm her face looks; you’ve learned that’s her tell. You could read her tail like a heartbeat now, all twitch and panic and longing compressed into movement.

NEPETA: :33 < I miss her :((

DAVE: .

DAVE: yeah

DAVE: i know.

NEPETA: :33 < yeah

And that’s all you say about it.

The silence that follows is a weird kind of mutual mercy. Neither of you needs to pull at the thread that’s already unraveling itself. There’s nothing new to say, not really. You both just let it ache quietly between you, like a bruise you’ve already poked too many times.

==> Be Dave a GOOD chunk of time after

That’s a horrible way to measure time, and also can we be anyone else for once?

You are indeed Dave, and it is a good chunk of time after. You don’t think that much has happened — that, or you just aren’t looking for the stuff that's happening.

The days blur into this strange, muted stretch of sameness. The air here always smells faintly metallic, like blood and ozone. There’s routine, but not comfort — just patterns that fill the space where purpose should be.

Something surely happened to John or Jade, but you wouldn’t know! Because you are avoiding them, thank you very much!

The thought alone makes your stomach twist. You don’t even know if it’s guilt or exhaustion anymore. Probably both. The kind of avoidance that builds itself into a habit until it feels like instinct.

You and Nepeta made yourselves a hive-slash-house a while back. It would have been really easy to do it in like three seconds with the help of the god tiers, but you do not want to do that! Besides, manual labor seemed to have helped Equius focus on stuff, so it worked out in the end.

The place smells faintly of dirt and paint, the walls half-covered in sketches and scratches that count as “decor.” It’s small, uneven, alive. The kind of place that creaks when you walk, that carries your echoes in the wood. You think you like it that way.

Speaking of Equius, Nepeta is over at his place right now, so you are just honestly sitting here and realizing that wow, you need more friends. You linger around Nepeta all day and that’s mostly all you do. You should go talk to the other trolls, though you can see how some of them are confused about how good of an image you have on them, since you are the random human kid. Maybe this is why Hal was avoiding the shit out of Equius — it’s easy as hell to cling to the other person with claws (or talons!) and forget to, like, do your own shit. This is not to say you are all that unhappy with your current situation, but yeah. So it just feels sort of weird.

Weird in that slow-burn way that creeps up on you, not in any loud or catastrophic sense. Just quiet dependency, the kind you only notice once you’re already inside it. Nepeta fills the silence too well. You let her.

Tavros is the shit though. You should talk more to Tavros and get him to drop the world’s absolute worst fucking bars.

That mental image alone gets a laugh out of you — like, actual noise from your throat, which is increasingly rare these days. You wonder if Tavros would freeze up halfway through a rap battle again or if he’s learned how to weaponize that awkward pause. That’d be art.

You lazily look at some paper on the table, completely blank. You got it so that Nepeta could draw, but she’s the embodiment of cave girl and drew on the walls anyway, so there’s just drawing shit laying there.

The table is littered with doodles that look half-feral, all smudged graphite and paw prints. You swear one page has bite marks. She says it’s part of her “process.” You let her win that argument because she had literal claws out.

You could try and draw, you guess. You don’t know if you… still know how to do it?

Your fingers twitch around the pencil automatically. The muscle memory is still there, hiding somewhere beneath years of disuse. The weight of the pencil feels heavier than it should — or maybe you’re just hyperaware of how unfamiliar creativity feels now.

It’s not like the game gave you plenty of room to draw. You don’t think you did anything in that period in which you were alone either. Nothing more than just sort of… linger. It never crossed your brain to try and draw because the game was still happening. No matter if things were stale and three years was plenty of time, the game was still happening — why would you waste your time with stupid shit in the middle of it?

You don’t know why you still think of art as a waste of time. Maybe because when everything used to be on fire, distraction felt like sin. But now the quiet is worse. It leaves you with too much space to think.

You stand up and stretch your wings a little as you pick up the notebook. Your first thought is to try and draw Nepeta, and you quickly shut it down because you sound like a teenage girl with her first boyfriend.

Her face flashes uninvited in your mind anyway — sharp smile, lazy eyes, those ears that twitch at every sound. You feel stupidly sentimental for even thinking about getting the shape of them right.

You can just draw random shit that’s not Nepeta-inclined, which sadly also rules out your funny as shit fursona that sort of stopped being ironic halfway through.

If you try and draw Feferi, does that make your teenage girl swoon disease worse or better?

…You figure that probably worse.

You grin, because of course it’s worse. Of course you’re gonna do it anyway.

You shut that down and sit down with the newly acquired notebook and pencil. Now that you think about it, you don’t think you’ve seen Feferi that often. Nepeta is going crazy about it, saying that she needs her to live with you guys or she’s gonna go on a hunting rampage and deplete this planet’s fauna. You are being far more chill about it, but you totally get it.

: “S)(ore I'll )(ang out with you guys 38)”

She says as she proceeds to disappear off the face of the fucking planet. You gotta give it to her — that’s hilarious.

Nepeta has pestered her (“casually :33” she said, even though she totally was not chill about it) and she just said that she was busy and that she was “s)(orey s)(e couldn’t )(ang out 38((“ which you can totally buy, given how she is like a proper submarine and is probably just herding random fish like sheep ten million miles underwater.

You can practically hear Nepeta’s offended yowl echo through the chat logs, the kind of sound that makes your eardrums rattle. You told her to chill. She didn’t chill.

You decide that by the laws of whatever bullshit is convenient to you, drawing Feferi-adjacent shit is not off the table, so you start just trying to doodle whatever the fuck you remember from her brain. Is it an invasion of your privacy if it was shot into your head without you asking for it? You hope it's not, but it probably totally is.

The pencil scratches slow and deliberate, the shapes coming out more as ghosts than lines. Every curve feels like memory trying to resurface through static.

First you draw her lusus, which is to be honest a horrible place to start. You could draw a little cuttlefish or something, but noooo, it’s her big complicated lusus. Way to go, Strider.

You tap the pencil against your lip, like that’ll make it any easier. It doesn’t.

Gl'bgolyb is, to no one's surprise, a nightmare to draw — and also a nightmare to remember in general. Like, okay yeah, thanks for telling me the world is gonna fucking end before I can make any change, mom. Also, please don’t scream or my friends will die! Fun!

There’s a dark humor to it now, distant and detached, the kind that only comes from having lived too long after the apocalypse to still be scared of it.

You remember how stressed out feeding her made Feferi, and even Eridan. Feferi wanted to change Alternia to be less cruel, and yet had to perpetuate its violent nature through orphaning some trolls and feeding her lusus. You don’t think it made her that sad to do it — a bit conflicted and a bit stressed out on having everything be on schedule, but not sad. And that’s one way of thinking, for sure.

She lived on the edge of empathy and duty like it was a tightrope. You respected that, even if you didn’t understand how she didn’t crumble under the weight of it.

Thinking about lusi dying should evoke more sadness, but you guess she got desensitized to it. She’s sort of like you in that way, you guess. Guardians die, the world keeps moving.

That realization hits a little too hard. You stare at the page longer than you mean to. You don’t add anything.

Big monstrous guardians, who seemed like they could defeat everything — and yet they died in a surprisingly simple way. They warned you from the start that you had to be ready. You guess the only difference is that Feferi’s lusus didn’t beat the shit out of her.

Maybe if she did, she would have survived the game.

.

You don't think about that more than you have to.

You try and make it look like less of a really big ball and more like a fucking nightmare. If Feferi can think humans are all weird and stupid (which you KNOW she does), then maybe you can think her mom is a fucking nightmare!

Artistic justice, probably. You shade harder, almost angrily, until the page looks like something alive might crawl out of it.

You do remember thinking, for a fraction of a second, “wow this girl is a chump.” Mostly because how couldn’t you? Her views were idealistic and misguided, too hopeful and unrealistic, and she did not actually do anything to try and exercise those changes under the defeated guise of “the world will end before I can,” while forgetting she was wicked strong and also the literal apex predator, aside from the Condesce.

But it left as soon as it came, because it was not a really good way to live, was it? Holding the lives of people in your hands, knowing that your world would end, knowing that even if it didn’t you would have to battle for your life one day — for a right to exist and for a right to change a society that has been stuck in its ways for a bajillion fuckin’ years.

You tilt your head as you look at this fucking glob. It’s just a glob with eyes and has “*ominous shit whispered to your thinkpan*” written over it. That's Gl'bgolyb, alright.

The sight almost makes you smile. Almost.

You move on to try and draw some arguably cuter cuttlefish. Which, by the way, who the hell named those? “Cuttlefish” — dude, that's a squid.

You remember how she just? Liked to coddle these things, putting them in her home and letting them do whatever in it. She justified it to herself by saying she was “protecting them,” even though she was fully and totally aware that there wasn’t much they were being protected from.

Her house was just lonely.

The word sits heavy in your head, like it’s echoing from a deeper place. Lonely feels too human for her, but maybe that’s the point.

How could it not be? Every single fucker lived on land, and the one guy who lived in the water with her ALSO sort of lived on land. She lived in hiding — she was the heiress, god fucking dammit. People would always treat her differently, and there was the off-chance sparkly Satan from fucking outer space stopped by and decided she should explode.

You pause your scribbling. It’s almost absurd when you think about it — a girl born royal, raised in isolation, her only crime being optimism.

Of course her mom protected her, monstrous lusus privilege and all. But she’d have to face it eventually. One day she’d have to fight a battle that the other guys in the session won with multiple people helping. She was meant to do that on her own one day. That’s a derangedly impossible uphill battle.

The cuttlefish actually ended up looking cute as fuck. You draw a little spark around them and wonder how fucking bad being brain-blended is if you 1) find squid cute, and 2) are actively drawing more cutesy shit around them. What a pansy. You would definitely get your ass kicked for that.

You think Nepeta would call it “character development.” You’d call it regression. Tomato, tomato.

It’s a weird thought because you know Nepeta is ten million times more cutesy than you could ever stomach to be, and that even so, she is a badass who hunts her own goddamn food — but that can’t apply to you. For some reason it can’t. You just have to be… how you were meant to be.

Maybe you should just ditch the they shit altogether. You still use he every so often anyway. So you are still kind of a guy. Aren’t you?

The thought slides in quiet and sharp. You don’t push it away fast enough. It lingers, unwelcome but familiar, like static that never fades.

You decide to not think about any of that ever again in your life, and instead go down an arguably weirder route.

Time to draw Eridan fucking Ampora.

Not a good portrait of him of course — if Nepeta found that she would just maul you — but like a shitty, funnier Eridan. You remember some of him, well, a lot of him. Shit sucked for real.

He was the only other fucking living being near her. He was the only other seadweller she could talk with. He was her first friend.

And maybe that’s what doomed them both — isolation wrapped in friendship, two people orbiting each other out of sheer proximity and shared pressure.

She did try with the morailigence and she did try to not let the guy go full genocide. And she succeeded! And then there was nothing after that.

She loved Eridan — not in the same way he wanted, but she loved him. And it was impossible to navigate when the guy had so many insane ideas. It feels sucky that he wanted her in another quadrant for so long, it feels sucky how he just jumped the gun (ha) and started a spiral of “this is the worst thing to have happened to me,” it sucks how he killed her.

Because Feferi adored Eridan. You think Eridan adored Feferi too. And it just wouldn’t work out, not how either of them wanted.

You know she doesn’t hold it against him. You sort of wish she did. Like girl, that guy just broke your heart! Quite literally! Girl, your organs!!!

But he is her friend — her first friend. She owed a lot to him, you know that.

And you hate how that kind of love makes sense to you now — the kind where forgiveness isn’t earned, it just happens because it’s easier than staying angry.

You squint your eyes and look at the stupid little bastard on your notebook. It's really funny how stupid he looks. You still have it, Strider — you can still make stupid and ugly shit for fun.

That realization feels weirdly good. Like breathing out after holding your breath too long.

There’s a knock at the door. Your wings get all puffed out in alarm because you don’t know who that could be.

It’s not Nepeta because she doesn’t knock- she just barges in. Why would you expect anything other than that? She's a cave girl, dude.

Equius doesn’t knock either - or well, he doesn’t even touch your door because he tries to be extra mindful not to fucking break it, which is appreciated. So even if the door is open, he just loudly announces his presence and waits to be let in like a vampire.

And who the hell else even visits you? Jasprose sometimes? But she is also like Nepeta and refuses to knock ever in her life. You don’t think anyone else visits you. That’s so fucking scary.

You are about to just sit incredibly still and pretend you aren’t there (like a pussy), but you hear a voice.

FEFERI: Nepeta?

Holy. Shit.

They should call you fucking Houdini with how you fucking apparefied her in your fucking hive.

-turntechGodhead began pestering arsenicCatnip-

TG: NEPETA.

TG: NEPETA.

TG: NEPETA.

TG: NEPETA.

AC: :33 < *AC WALKS IN VERY CONFUSED, AND ANNOYED THAT YOU INTERRUPTED THEIR CUDDLE TIME*

TG: DONT TELL ME ABOUT YOUR BOYFRIEND I DONT CARE.

TG: FEFERI IS HERE.

AC: :OO < WHAT!

TG: NEPETAAAAAAAAAAAAA

TG: FEFERIII IS HEREEEEEEE

AC: :OO < WHAT

TG: FEFERIIIII

AC: :OO < FURRFERIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

TG: anyways yeah have fun with the boyfriend

AC: :OO < AUAHAUGHAGHGHGHHGH AC MAKES A NOISE AKIN TO A CAT BEING STRANGLED.

AC: :33 < YEAH yeah i will enjoy my time with equius :33 i really will :33

TG: lol ur seething

AC: :33 < I WILL GOOOOOO BE HAPPY WITH MY MEOWRAILLLLL

AC: :33 < do tell me how it goes :33

TG: will do boss.

-turntechGodhead ceased pestering arsenicCatnip-

You flashstep towards the fucking door in a very normal and calm and collected way, and answer in that manner too. Your pulse is hammering, wings twitching like live wires, but sure — you’re totally cool about it.

DAVE: hey feferi

FEFERI: o)(! Dave, rig)(t?

DAVE: yeah that’s me good old dave strider

DAVE: nepeta is not here right now, but you can come in if you want

FEFERI: Will t)(at reeelly be alrig)(t 38( ?

DAVE: of course of course my house is your house mi casa es tu casa

DAVE: you know what they say the sprite of my sprite is my sprite

FEFERI: )(E)(E)(E well don't MIND M-E t)(en!

Hell fucking yesssssssss.

She looks around your house with glee in her eyes, so much glee you can almost ignore how she has eyebags — almost! It’s that same old Feferi brightness dimmed under a thin film of exhaustion. You can practically feel the static hum of her energy just being in the room again. It feels like something’s breathing again, like the world’s color saturation got cranked up a little too high.

FEFERI: T)(is place is R-EELY tall! )(ow come?

Oh yeah, me and Nepeta were kind of coping with massive fuchsia blood living-with-us syndrome and we didn’t want her to crouch forever and ever.

DAVE: lets me stretch out my sweet old wings

DAVE: we also want to put a scratch post wall thing for nepeta so she can sweet parkour around the entire place without actually tearing it to shreds

FEFERI: T)(AT SOUNDS LOV–EELY!

DAVE: sweet as hell is what it sounds like yeah

DAVE: sweet sweet home or sweet hive as my buddies the trolls say for sure

You try and smooth down your fucking mood ring feathers to look chill and collected. Spoiler: it does not work. You look like a molting parrot trying to flirt with a deity.

DAVE: I don’t think Nepeta will be back for a while, but im here to listen

DAVE: I also

DAVE: we do have like a sweet fucking uh

DAVE: pool thing.

FEFERI: 38O?!

DAVE: its a pool but also like a fucking aquarium thing

DAVE: like those fake mermaids there are in some places where you can sit all chill inside and then a girl is like mermaiding around a huge tank like that

DAVE: shit you have no idea what that means

DAVE: it’s like a pool but also an aquarium thing so you can chillax in water and we can kinda just be inside and not get dried up like raisins

DAVE: well i would get dried up like a raisin fun human fact for you we get fucking wrinkly if we are in water for too long

DAVE: well nep is more neutral to water but it panics me the fuck out when my wings get wet they are super heavy and i feel like im gonna sink like the worlds saddest and more feathery rock

FEFERI: )(A)(A you sure do talk a LOT!

DAVE: hell yeah i do thats the strider charm baby we can’t shut the fuck up

DAVE: anyways that like exists if you want it

FEFERI: W)(Y would you guys build somet)(ing like THAT though?! 38?

DAVE: dude are you kidding

DAVE: because you are fish central and love water and mi casa es tu casa or whatever

38O

FEFERI: for M–E?!

DAVE: hell yes dude for you

DAVE: nepeta tried to put in some shit she knows you liked

FEFERI: O)( MY COD!

She picks you up and spins you, and this feels right, this feels so fucking right. Hell fucking yesssssss. Wow, you are acting like such a fucking weirdo. But it’s fine. You’ll allow it. You think even Bro would allow it if it meant seeing someone smile that hard.

When she finally lets you down you take her to the thing — it has been filled with water and filtered for a while now, in the off chance Feferi showed up. Which she did. Fuck yes for being prepared and also coping.

It’s pretty good all things considered: a big hole in the ground coated with some stuff that made it be not dirt. It has a filter and shit, you don’t really know how it works or what the hell you’re talking about, but you know Equius liked working on it.

Aside from making a giant fucking hole in the ground with his bare hands like a rabid animal, he also quite enjoyed building the filter to keep the thing all clean and nice. You might not see the guy the same way as Nepeta, but fuck if that isn’t your like, boyfriend-in-law. You like seeing the guy happy.

You should probably ask Nepeta if you guys are like matesprits or something. You should definitely ask that. That’s not where this train of thought should be going actually.

She runs past you, her hair flowing, and dives into the water. With how big she is, you imagine there’d be some sort of splash, but there isn’t — as if she and the water were one or something. You quickly come to your senses and go down the underground little room you made next to the tank, with some Equius-brand speaker things and shit so that you could talk without screaming, so that sound would enter the tank at all.

She waves at you and does a little spin. You wave back.

DAVE: is the water nice?

FEFERI: )(E)(E)(E YES IT IS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I CAN H–EAR YOU R–EELY W–ELL TOO!

DAVE: yeah man that’s the equius brand machinery shit we can talk while im dry as fuck and you are fishing around

DAVE: thats so awesome sauce dude im glad you enjoy this thing

DAVE: but yeah right now that I took you to the fish living room you can talk about whatever it is you wanted to talk about

FEFERI: oh right.

DAVE: uh oh quirk off thats some sign of nasty shit.

FEFERI:)(e)(e)(e, it’s not bad!

FEFERI:I just wanted to talk to nepeta about some t)(ings that were bot)(ering me 38(

FEFERI:I know s)(e’s not my moirail or anything but still, I had a feeling s)(e might get it 38(

FEFERI:I did NOT want to IMPOS-E T)(OUG)(!

FEFERI:Are you two moirails or somet)(ing?

DAVE: Dude

DAVE: for being from a polyamorous culture nepeta is incredibly fucking monogamous

DAVE: she would rather the world explode again before leaving Equius.

FEFERI:glub glub glub glub i assumed so! Still was wor)( it to ask! People have changed a LOT since i got revived

DAVE: our relationship is just being sprited dependency for now

FEFERI:oh yea)(, it makes you want to stay with t)(em all the time doesn’t it?

DAVE: absolutely

DAVE: which is why nepeta was ripping her hair out trying to get a hold of you

FEFERI:38O

FEFERI:s)(e WAS?

DAVE: dude they sounded like a military wife talking about her husband who left for war

DAVE: “dave when will i see furrfery, i miss furrfery, its been so long since i’ve seen her :(( ” and so back and so forth

FEFERI:38O ?!?!?!

DAVE: B) yeah

FEFERI:WOW!

FEFERI:I did NOT EXP—ECT IT TO BE R–ECIPROCAT–ED!

DAVE: dude why the hell not what is there not to love about you

FEFERI:)(E)(E you’ll make me BLUS)(!

DAVE: woups sorry

FEFERI: Its not that I T)(ink there’s something wrong with M–E!

FEFERI: I just t)(oug)(t since s)(e already had YOU s)(e wouldn’t really N—E—ED M–E!

FEFERI: S)(e seemed so )(APPY with you! 38( ! I didn’t want to insert myself where I wasn't N–E–ED–ED!

DAVE: wow dude that’s so fucked up

DAVE: like horribly fucked up

DAVE: we have wanted you here since day one but since we woke up in different batches and weren’t default together from the start we didn’t want to force you into our weird codependency playhouse train

DAVE: you were also out there adventuring and shit and we didn't want to read as clingy girlfriends who can't go two seconds without their bfs answering their snaps

FEFERI:W–E 38O?!

DAVE: ah fuck yeah i guess the horned green cat is out of the bag

DAVE: i share all of nepetas memories and that DID include you two being fefeta

FEFERI:O)(

FEFERI:O)(?!?!??!

DAVE: yeah

FEFERI:so you R–EM–EMB–ER being M–E?!

DAVE: yeahhhh sorry that’s my bad im sorry this random human thing has been inside your head it really wasn’t on purpose

FEFERI:AR–E YOU DUMB?

FEFERI:DON’T B–E DUMB!

FEFERI:ALL THR–EE OF US KNOW HOW SPRIT–ES WORK!

FEFERI:I WONT HOLD T)(AT AGAINST YOU STUPID! )(E)(E)(E!

FEFERI:DAVE: glad to know my “im being creepy as fuck” spiral helped no one then haha

FEFERI:T)(OUG)( I WOULD LIKE TO SEE YOUR BRAIN.

She gets really close to the glass, right in front of you, her razor-sharp teeth smiling as she looks at you. She looks like some fucking deep-sea cryptid thing, haloed in bubbles and soft blue light, eyes wide and ancient and kind of terrifying. For a second, you forget to breathe. You forget to move. You forget that you’re supposed to be the chill one here.

FEFERI:It’s a s)(ame I can't.

Her eyes are sharp, and the center burns bright green — alive, too alive. You would let her open your skull if you could, just to see if that color could spill into your brain. But she’s right, you can’t. Bummer.

DAVE: well now that you know im very well versed in feferi world history

FEFERI: )(E)(E)(E

DAVE: what did you want to talk about with nepeta?

She stops doing little twirls and spins in the water, the soft hum of bubbles dying down as her face sours. Her fins flatten against her head, the light rippling off her skin like it’s retreating.

FEFERI: W)(ale…. Not being attached to nepeta wasn’t solely me not wanting to interrupt or get in t)(e way of stuff.

FEFERI: I wanted to try and get along well with t)(e rest of t)(e people )(ere,

FEFERI: aside from exploring t)(is planets water of COURSE!

DAVE: how did that one treat you are the fish good and shit

DAVE: did they even think to add fish or did they just appear out of nowhere like was it on the god-tier checklist? 

FEFERI: life often starts at the sea! they probably just APP–EAR–ED!

FEFERI: but it treated me pretty SW–ELL! I R-EELY love t)(is new place!

FEFERI: But…

DAVE: There’s always a but

FEFERI: I don’t think anyone really wants M–E around!

DAVE: Oh thats not true

DAVE: its not me soothing it you its like factually not true

DAVE: me and nepeta have leagues of pent up “i want feferi around” withdrawals akin to smoking 40 cigarettes at the same time

FEFERI: )(e)(e…

FEFERI: whale I’m glad you guys still like me!

FEFERI: I guess it’s t)(e rest…

FEFERI: Sollux and i broke it off, w)(ic)( makes sense but it’s still weird.

DAVE: which one?

FEFERI: Bot)( of them )(a)(a

Her laughter bubbles up from her throat like a sound that doesn’t know if it’s supposed to be a laugh or a sob. It twists somewhere in the middle.

FEFERI: the fused one is as depressed and defeated as sollux always is but it’s paired up with Eridans brain doing ten million acrobatic piruettes into everyt)(ing being unfixable and t)(em both being useless or w)(atever

FEFERI: and it just makes me upset. How the first time we’ve actually talked in so long is this

FEFERI: we talked when we were sprites and we talked right now to let me know they think i should publicly execute them for being s)(itty

FEFERI: I didn’t have a chance to talk to him t)(roug)(out the game w)(ile dead because i found out he was out with Aradia!

FEFERI: but it turns out another more dead version of my own sollux did exist! and he got brain fused with my ex moirail before he even talked to me!

DAVE: double sucker punch of shitty fucking situation i see.

FEFERI: I don't want to be MAD at them

FEFERI: but t)(ey BOT)( seem to be convinced I S)(OULD be

FEFERI: It’s like dealing with Erifis)( at his worst all OV–ER AGAIN!

FEFERI: I can see how upset t)(ey get w)(en t)(ey get near me.

DAVE: And the other sollux?

FEFERI: it’s neit)(er )(ere or t)(ere 38(

FEFERI: )(e's nice to me and all, welcomed me back and got a bit emotional about it )(e)(e…

FEFERI: but )(e )(as moved on from a lot of t)(ings. me included i guess 38P

DAVE: im gonna kill him

FEFERI: NO!!! >38(

FEFERI: It’s not in a BAD way

FEFERI: Of course I can see that )(e too hated how I died.

FEFERI:  I can tell t)(at )(e’s very SAD and D–EF–EAT–ED! And I can see )(e still CAR–ES!

FEFERI: )(e just moved on! W)(ic)( is ALLOW–ED!

Her fins twitch, trembling with emotion, the water around her shimmering faintly like it feels what she can’t say out loud.

DAVE: i still should just kill him

FEFERI: NO!

DAVE:*dave sighs and hits the saddest most defeated little pose in all of the universe*

FEFERI: )(E)(E)(E

DAVE: And i'm assuming that's not the end of it and all

DAVE: theres plenty of fuckers here theres some other cans of worms we gotta open right now and by cans of worms i mean people and by open the can i mean maul them

DAVE: wow nepeta is the worst brain influence ever

FEFERI: )(e)(e)(e….

FEFERI: W)(ale most of the troll stuff is pretty straig)(t forward… I did like seeing Kanaya again but s)(e seems really busy 38(

FEFERI: It’s upsetting how one of my deeper relationships changed while i wasn’t looking. And it feels… Bad. Kanaya )(as c)(anged a lot..

FEFERI: And t)(en t)(ere’s the )(umans…

FEFERI: Your?

FEFERI: Cod what was that weird word again?

FEFERI: Brother?

DAVE: ehr.

DAVE: we havent talked about it and i prefer it stays that way forever

DAVE: hes like an alternate reality version of my kickass bro but hes also a different person that i can read even less and who seems to have absolutely zero interest in me we're like two satellites in different orbits

DAVE: hes also a weeb and its like come on man dont drag his image though the mud you should be cooler

DAVE: he and real dave can be best bros forever or whatever and i can just just completely seal that can of worms hes not my actual bro and im not actual dave so both of us have resigned to just not talking about shit at all god bless america

FEFERI: s)(orey 38( didn’t realize it was a sore spot!!

DAVE: No no no yeah its fine what about dirk?

FEFERI: well…

FEFERI: )(e and t)(e ot)(er girl!!! ug)()()( glub glub

FEFERI: *Feferi does some weird )(and motions trying to gesture )(ow weird it is!*

DAVE: lol nepeta fucked up both of us.

FEFERI: )(e)(e yeah…

FEFERI: I can feel t)(eir tension when t)(ey see me.

FEFERI: I can feel it from a lot of the humans, and I try to pay it no mind!

FEFERI: But those two. It feels so…

FEFERI: Bad.

FEFERI: .

FEFERI: You remember being me, right?

DAVE: yeah

FEFERI:.

FEFERI: It’s like I'm back with my lusus.

FEFERI: And I love )(er, and s)(e’s my lusus, and I miss )(er. And I feel so fucking alone.

FEFERI: Because I'm t)(e )(eiress. And I s)(oald be able to do somet)(ing about t)(is. But all s)(e w)(ispered to me, sweetly and lovingly, was t)(at i wasn’t going to live long enoug)( for it to )(appen.

FEFERI: And )(ere i am! Still alive, still a )(eiress not in practicality but from t)(e point of view of everyone else! I don’t t)(ink t)(ey sea me as anyt)(ing else t)(an a possible liability

DAVE: ah fuck yeah

DAVE: the hemospectrum doesn't even exist anymore but they keep treating you like a big scary fuschia

FEFERI: it’s not even T)(AT!

FEFERI: I don’t get it! T)(ere was anot)(er fusc)(ia blood w)(o led t)(e final battle against lord englis)(. No one seamed to look at )(er like t)(ey look at me…

DAVE: wait hold on rewind slow and reverb

DAVE: you, you were on that final battle with the rest of the dead versions of you all?

FEFERI: ? yeah 38?

DAVE: Holy fucking shit. Holy fuck.

DAVE: hold on i need to-

A horribly embarrassing squawk escapes you. Sweet fucking job dave. You try to stop making weird fucking sounds, but they keep coming out and your wings feel all wrong and puffed up and wow maybe you should have stuck to being a full human. You would ask for the bird out of you if you weren’t too much of a fucking pussy to talk to dirk still.

FEFERI: Dave 38O?!?

Shes pressing herself against the glass, yeah ok it’s fine, your brain is just on bird mode overdrive and you are legit so chill about everything, forever, yes.

DAVE: sorry sorry my bad my mistake

DAVE: my brain got hit by a ten million metric tons of metal when i thought about what you just said

DAVE: i like. Nepeta was with me because we were the same thing and we were too busy fighting the shit out of that thing i dont.

DAVE: im realizing we didnt even think to search for you or like-

DAVE: realize you were there at fucking all

DAVE: I know neps was with you when you guys exploded again like talking and shit but christ

DAVE: I watched that green bastard blast so many versions of us out of fucking existence and one of them could have been OUR feferi.

DAVE: i just

More bird sounds, who brought the damn fucking aviary to this stupid function? Concealing emotions is so fucking hard when your body just starts doing shit you can’t physically fucking suppress at all. This did not happen to you when you were a sprite. Sprite you was still wicked good at maintaining the chill and collected demeanor.

Is it because you are alive now? Or is it because being fused with others actually broke your brain enough to make you become a sad loud feathery piece of shit? This is so pathetic. This is so stupid. When you stopped being a “man” you didn’t think it would actually strip you away from all your bravado. What good are you now you stupid game guide? Supposed soldier? The noises won’t stop fucking coming, and maybe demeaning yourself in your head is not helping.

DAVE: it’s just freaking out my bird brain and shit

DAVE: i guess im not used to not really knowing where my brain buddy was at xyz time period

DAVE: which honestly just makes me look really fucking lame

DAVE: just sort of ignore any noise i make being half a fucking crow isn’t all its cranked up to be when they little bastard decides to be chatty.

FEFERI: 38( ok

FEFERI: but I can )(ANDL–E myself dave!

FEFERI: I know it mig)(t not seam like it from )(ow easily i died BUT-

DAVE: no no i get it

DAVE: i know

FEFERI: I don’t t)(ink you DO!

FEFERI: You )(umans are so weak and fles)(y and soft!

FEFERI: I was t)(e )(–EIR–ESS!

FEFERI: the very L–EAST I could do was )(elp in a battle MANY OTH–ERS were participating in!

FEFERI: A battle YOU and N–EP–ETA fought in!

DAVE: you could have died

FEFERI: So could YOU!

FEFERI: So could EV–ERYONE!

DAVE: yeah

DAVE: sorry your reasoning is sound and my hornless head is like going haywire

DAVE; do you.

DAVE: resent not fighting the Condesce ?

FEFERI: 38//

FEFERI: A little.

FEFERI: I feel like i S)(OALD have helped with that

FEFERI:  Since I was born, I s)(oald )(ave foug)(t )(er.

FEFERI: If t)(e world ended like my lusus said, and if I survived in t)(e same way, i still would )(ave foug)(t )(er. I doubt s)(e would not )(ave cared aboat anot)(er alive fusc)(ia just swimming around

FEFERI:I don't t)(ink I wanted to do it. But I really s)(oald )(ave

FEFERI: From the very moment I was born it was decided I s)(oald do it.

DAVE: and then you didn’t

FEFERI: yeah

FEFERI: I t)(ink I'm sort of glad.

FEFERI:I t)(ink t)(e idea of actually doing it, despite being raised for it, just.

FEFERI: Scared me.

DAVE: .

FEFERI: I still s)(oald )(ave done it, scared or not, my lusus prepared me for it, my blood prepared me for it, i wanted to c)(ange t)(ings and in t)(e end i was not)(ing more t)(an a stepping stone.

FEFERI: Is it self absorbed to say I wanted to play a more major role? Irregardless of )(ow muc)( I would )(ate it?

DAVE:.

DAVE: I don’t think it is.

FEFERI: 38(

FEFERI: T)(e )(uman kids keep getting weird w)(en t)(ey sea me

FEFERI: I'm the furthest away I could be from being LIK–E )(--ER!!!!

FEFERI: they didn't seem to MIND the girl who was actually the Condesce in another reality!

DAVE: hm…

DAVE: I guess she just didn’t look all that similar.

DAVE: With the braids and all

FEFERI: T)(ey s)(ore talked alike >38( t)(at s)(oald )(ave made t)(em more on guard

DAVE: She was also dead

FEFERI: I was also dead!

FEFERI: I died!

FEFERI: And I know a lot of us died and I know I s)(oald be used to it and not care t)(at muc)( but!

Some water gathers on the corners of her eyes, and it floats up. Tears, you realize a beating second too late.

FEFERI: I died.

DAVE: I’m sorry

FEFERI: You don’t have to be, It's not your fault, or anyone's fault

FEFERI: I s)(ould have been less NAIV–E and STRONG–ER, but t)(at’s not t)(e point 38(

FEFERI: I just wis)( t)(e )(umans )(ere realized i am not a mini Condesce

DAVE: Im not saying you should change yourself for them because honestly they should suck a bulge about it but

DAVE: maybe doing your hair would help?

FEFERI: glub glub glub… I have T)(OUG)(T aboat it

FEFERI:  But I don’t know )(ow to.

FEFERI:And nepeta doesn’t know )(ow to, and I ASSUM-E you don’t know )(ow to eit)(er.

DAVE: caught so fucking red handed i know jackshit about hair

DAVE: shit who the hell can we even ask

DAVE: Equius?

FEFERI: *Feferi does a suprised double take!* -Equius?

DAVE: oh yeah man i mean she’s nepetas moirail and all and he knows how to do a lot of weird shit i wouldn’t put it past him to know how to like braid hair

FEFERI: Would t)(at be ok t)(oug)(? 38(

DAVE: why wouldn't it be?

FEFERI: I remember -Equius being a bit )(ung up on… Blood

FEFERI: and last time a part of me talked wit)( )(im we sort of…. --Exploded 38II

DAVE: oh right yeah

DAVE: ok i think explosion was just guiness record worst luck ever

DAVE: and with the blood thing i think being a sprite helped him get rid of that

DAVE: half human brain who thought the whole thing was frankly really stupid

FEFERI: Speaking of )(uman )(alf, didn’t t)(at one not-

DAVE: like you holy shit yeah right. shit hal is like dirk and dirk probably has ten million backup plans on what to do if you happen to turn out to be evil or something

DAVE: but like it’s Equius

DAVE: Nepeta can explode him with their brain if he starts being weird about it

FEFERI: 38(

DAVE: i could try and bullshit my way through it too though

FEFERI: No no! your solution makes sense

FEFERI: We could ask )(im

FEFERI: Do you really t)(ink t)(at’d )(elp?

DAVE: *dave shrugs in a chill manner even though he’s admittedly not that chill right now*

DAVE: I don’t know those guys that well, but that’s like my baseline guess on why they would think of you as dangerous

DAVE: That and how you’re huge.

FEFERI: )(EY! 38(

DAVE: haha not in the bad way

DAVE: you are like well built and strong looking and tall as shit

DAVE: the other dead ghost girl was tall yeah but a lot skinnier and scrawnier

DAVE: and honestly not that tall compared to you which is a bit baffling you are like technically younger right?

DAVE: does being dead for too long like shrink you?

FEFERI: )(e)(e))(e i don’t think so!

FEFERI: I think I just )(ad good luck!

DAVE: if you keep growing at a normal pace you might be taller than the condescence dude

FEFERI: I don't know if t)(at's good 38/

DAVE: shit youre right thats probably what the other guys are thinking when being weird around you

DAVE: you are younger and bigger and would probably way more dangerous than the final fucking boss they just fought

DAVE: but you know what feferi you know what?

DAVE: fuck what everyone says that is so metal B))

DAVE: you could be so tall and i could perch on your shoulder like a shitty scrawny parrot

FEFERI: )(E)(E)(E

FEFERI: we could do that RIG)(T NOW probably!

DAVE: oh yeah i would not weight a singular grape to you right now or ever

FEFERI: Grape? 38?

DAVE: small little purple food bullshit

FEFERI: )(e)(e)(e

DAVE: huge water beast and the scrawny parrot

FEFERI:  And t)(e cat! glub glub

DAVE: and the cat we cant forget about the cat

FEFERI: I R–EELY do want to get along wit)( everyone

DAVE: i know

FEFERI:But it’s pretty stupid of me to t)(ink t)(at's an attainable goal, isn’t it?

FEFERI: People will just dislike eac)( ot)(er

DAVE: idealistic or not i wouldn’t call it stupid

DAVE: it's nice to think shit will work out

FEFERI: I suppose 38)

This is the actual best case scenario, you thought it’d be weird and unbalanced and that the fact that she cannot read your head while you can read hers would drive you up a fucking wall, because your head is a maze of random uncategorized bullshit you can’t bring yourself to talk about ever and the only real solution was to just get fucking fused with someone else. But you think you could tell her stuff, you think you could for fucking once maybe verbalize shit to her, or nepeta can be that bridge probably. The point is. This feels right. In a way no other shit normally feels right. You should ask nepeta if big horse is available to help with your little mermaid who brushes her hair with forks situation

-turntechGodhead began pestering arsenicCatnip-

TG: nepeta B))

AC: :33 <   dave! :33

TG: shit with feferi is going so fucking smoothly and awesome and we have this metaphorical cat so in the metaphorical bag

TG: its absurd how in the bag it is

AC: :33 <   YAYYYY :33

AC: :33 <   ac starts doing some rolls on the floor out of excitement!

TG: hell yeah roll your heart away

TG: but aside from my government assigned catch up i did want to ask some shit

>AC: B33 <   shoot away my dude B33

TG: are you still with equius?

AC: :33 <   yes :33 we are done being in the pile though, just hanging out all cool and chill B33

TG: ok thank god

TG: we wanted to see if we could go over there?

AC: :OO <   :OO

AC: :OO <   :OO

AC: :OO <   :OO

AC: :OO <   how come?!?!?!

TG: well long story cut the fuck short feferi is sort of upset that people keep looking at her and seeing sparkly alien piece of shit empress

TG: and we figured maybe a new hairstyle would hep

TG: problem is that the three of us know jackshit about how to braid hair or style it at all

AC: :33 <   and Equius kneows! :DD

TG: yesssssss

AC: :33 <   let me ask him let me ask him!!!

AC: :33 <   even if he says no im making him do it because he needs to interact with more people >:((

AC: :33 <   and get used to you both since you aren't leaving me any time soon!

TG: hell yeah emotional support bird and great white shark

-arsenicCatnip went idle-

DAVE I’m asking nepeta if we can go over to Equius’ place right now

FEFERI: 38O!

FEFERI: T)(ank you V–ERY MUCH!

FEFERI: T)(e SOON–ER t)(e B–ETT–ER!

DAVE: yup yup yup we are speedrunning this shit

-arsenicCatnip is no longer idle-

AC: - -> It’s Equius.

TG: hi big man B)

AC: - ->  Hello Dave

TG: doesn’t being in green text bother you?

AC: - -> Not really

TG: oh ok then you’re the boss

AC: - ->  I am no boss actually.

AC: - -> Heard you and the heiress want to come to my hive?

TG: Me and feferi yeah

AC: - -> My apologies, Pei%es, yes.

TG: did nepeta tell you why we wanna go over there?

AC: - -> She said, and I quote: “it would be purrety funny to see Dave explain it on their own”

TG: of course they did that what do i expect

TG: we want to ask you for a little favor

AC: - -> A favor?

TG: yes

TG: feferi wants to braid her hair or like at the very least do something with it and we have fuckass clue how to do any of that

AC: - -> Hmm.

AC: - -> I do not think I am the most appropriate troll to ask this

TG: you so are

AC: - -> I might accidentally hurt the

AC: - ->  I might accidentally hurt Pei%es

TG: no you wont you can measure yourself so well dont sell yourself short

TG: machinery is not the sturdiest shit ever and yet you manage to build a fuck ton of shit

TG: I think you are just too in your own head about it

AC: - -> Thanks for the compliment on my work Dave, still, i think it would behoove you guys to ask someone better than me.

TG: are you refusing because you don’t want to or refusing cause you think you’ll hurt sweet precious feferi

AC: - -> does it matter?

TG: well yeah because feferi is an actual tank my dude

TG: Out of all the people you would accidentally hurt she’s like down at the very bottom

AC: - -> …

AC: - -> I suppose that is true.

TG: so could we

TG: *tg does puppy eyes at you even though you totally cannot see them at all because of his sweet shades*

AC: - -> ehr.

AC: - -> *CT who is currently using AC’s handle does not see you do anything because of the aforementioned glasses.*

AC: - -> *but nods in an affirmative matter anyways*

TG: yesssss thank you man

TG: my brother from another mother

TG: my homie

TG: my local shades enjoyer

TG: we’ll be there soon B))

TG: also maybe put some towels down or something feferi was in the water and i honestly don’t know how long itd take for that glorious mane to dry up at all

AC: - -> Ok

turntechGodhead ceased pestering arsenicCatnip

DAVE: we got a date set up in equius’s sweet old home feferi!

FEFERI: 38D!!

DAVE: id offer you my hand to come out of the water in courtesy but i think that would just drag me to the bottom of the water biblically accurate mermaid style

FEFERI: )(e)(e you humans say such weird things!!

DAVE: Am i really human if i got these sweet inconvenient pair of limbs on me?

you go up the stairs before waiting for an answer because you could just see feferi getting ready to jump the hell out of the water anyways, shen she gets ready to do it her fins get pressed back onto her face as if shes making herself more fucking aerodynamic or something

You are out in the sweet outside and you see her just jump out of the water like a fucking dolphin or those salmons when they go upstream, it’s honestly really cool. She then proceeds to shake her head like a dog, damn who asked the zoo to show up to earth c.

shaking her head obviously does nothing as she starts squeezing her hair dry while walking up to you. she doesn’t lose the thread of the conversation and picks up where you left off

FEFERI: i WAS WOND–ERING W)(AT T)(OS–E W)(ERE!

DAVE: my sweet old wings all humans have them they just have to unlock their inner chakra through many trials and tribulations they are like a prize if you think aboat it

FEFERI: You are D–EF–ENIT–ELLY lying to me!

DAVE: haha yeah

DAVE: I got sprited with a crow before i got sprited with nepeta so ive been half crow brain for a while and i didnt want to let go of it

FEFERI: )(a)(a is sprited just a verb now?

DAVE: absolutely

DAVE: our sprite family tree is fucked up as hell we are doing like ten thousand piruettes around it

FEFERI: Aradia was part frog for a w)(ile! due to t)(e infamous spriting

DAVE: one of the pioneers for sure

FEFERI: But s)(e used a lot more ribbits t)(an you’ve used w)(atever sound your feat)(er beasts make

DAVE: did you forget my bird brain freakout three seconds ago? honestly i'm hurt

FEFERI: )(E)(E no t)(at doesn’t COUNT

DAVE: crows say caw caw btw thats the most copyright free normal ass sound crows can do

DAVE: though i do have a sick party trick ready on the back of my throat that only makes it slightly hurt

FEFERI: 38O?!

DAVE: say something

FEFERI: T-EST T–EST!

DAVE: T–EST T–EST!

FEFERI: 38O?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!

DAVE: hahaha hell yeah

DAVE: crow secret hidden power

DAVE: evil wizard who cast spell of copy your voice like a creepy little bastard

FEFERI: T)(AT’S SO COOL!!! 38D

DAVE: thank you thank you i’d be nowhere without my fans my fans who love me for my inconvenient wings and uncanny ability to copy your voice if i try and focus real hard

Walking doesnt feel that tiring when you are talking throughout the entire thing, though you do have to lock back into trying to get to Equius’s place consciously once the autopilot part is over, you are pretty sure you probably know where it is, it’s not that hart to miss, its pretty high up and you wonder if he did that to mimic his own big hive or HALS tall as fuck flooded(?) apartment.

DAVE: have you seen Equius’ new place at all?

FEFERI: NOP–E!

DAVE: well i know you never got to see his actual hive but it’s very similar

FEFERI: 38O! it’ll be nice to sea arc)(itecture t)(at’s sort of alternian!

FEFERI: Not t)(at I don't LIK–E it )(–ER–E but!

DAVE: no yeah man its so cool

FEFERI: It's so cool 3B)

DAVE: BO?!?!?!?!?

FEFERI: )(e)(e)(e if we are part of t)(e nepeta sprites CLUB toget)(er I s)(oald pick up some t)(ings from you!

DAVE: hell fucking yes this rules so hard

DAVE: i fear that if i tried to copy you i would commit troll identity theft with the horns

FEFERI: )(e)(e)(e

DAVE: i mean i can glub but it sounds pretty strained with my previously showcased sweet sweet bird vocal cords and all

FEFERI: 38O

FEFERI: 38O

FEFERI: 38O

FEFERI: W–E–EL NOW YOU )(AV–E TO!

DAVE: oh man do i

FEFERI: DONT ACT LIK-E T–-ELLING M-E T)(AT WOULDN’T L–-EAD TO M–-E ASKING!!!

FEFERI: you just wanted to S)(OW OFF your GLUBBING didn’t you!!!!

DAVE: oh man you totally caught me

DAVE: i want you to hear my gargling fish noises and then launch me to the stratosphere for doing them really wrong

DAVE: dave rolls out worst glub ever asked to leave earth c

FEFERI: )(E)(E COM–E ON! I’m S)(ORE you’ll do it GR–EAT

FEFERI: it cant be )(ARD–ER T)(AN LITERALLY COPYING A VOIC–E!

DAVE: man

FEFERI: COM—E ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GLUB GLUB GLUB GLUB

DAVE: man

FEFERI: glub glub glub glub glub

DAVE: g

DAVE: no man i cant im gonna insult your lusus in fish language at this rate

FEFERI: Are you STUPID? its not t)(at )(ARD its just GLUB GLUB glub glub 38))

DAVE: oh well fuck it if you launch me i can fly anyways

DAVE: glub glub glub glub

FEFERI: )(E)(E)(E)(E GLUB GLUB GLUB GLUB!

DAVE: glub glub glub

FEFERI: Glub!

DAVE: glub (????)

FEFERI: glub glub glub glub glub glub glub glub!

DAVE: glub glub glub glub glub glub glub glub glub glub glub glub glub glub glub glub

FEFERI: )(A)(A)(A w)(y did you put a RHYT)(M in t)(ere?!

DAVE: my fish bars are sick man i dont know what to tell you

DAVE: sick fish bars call those fish sticks

FEFERI: )(e)(e)(e

FEFERI: ok we s)(oald stop being fucking stupid

DAVE: damn you kiss your lusus with that mouth?

FEFERI: 38?

DAVE: that would be a banger line if you were used to human sentences

FEFERI: I’ll B–ELI–EV–E you!

FEFERI: even though I S)(OULDN’T!

DAVE: why should you not believe my testimony on the random shit i say being funny

DAVE: feferi i promise im funny you have got to believe me

FEFERI: )(MMMmmmm i can’t )(--EAR you all the way up )(--ERE!

DAVE: oh it’s on

You quickly take a few steps back, slightly confusing feferi, before jog a little towards her to fly a little. You perk yourself on her shoulder as if you are a giant parrot. Hell yes, you point to a direction and she gets the hint and starts walking there, shark taxi baby

DAVE: I said you should take me at complete face value when i tell you something is funny by human standards

FEFERI: 38O!!!!

FEFERI: )(A)(A

FEFERI: w)(ale )(umans mig)(t be purrety unfunny for all I know 38P

DAVE: wow you did not go there

DAVE: im done im destroyed i wont make it tell nepeta that she cant eat my featherly carcass

FEFERI: T)(en I’ll F–E–ED you to the FIS)(

DAVE: the cycle of life truly is wonderful if i dont get eaten by garfield i get thrown to the guppies

FEFERI: )(uman words again! funny level keeps D–ECREASING!

DAVE: aw fuck no come on coach give me another change i wont fuck it up could you really do this to your parrot thats unfair

DAVE: all i should be worried about is polly getting a cookie not about getting demoted to unfunny territory what will become of me after that

FEFERI: I assume t)(e cookie is ALSO a )(UMAN T)(ING

DAVE: if i say no would that make my situation worse or better

FEFERI: D—------EFINITELLY WORS–E!

DAVE: i cant win what kind of fucked up zoo matchup is this how could the crow win against the daughter of cuthulu

FEFERI: you s)(oald give me MON–-EY everytime you say somet)(ing )(uman

DAVE: coach come on what the fuck did i even say that one time

FEFERI: Daug-

FEFERI: Daug)(ter?

DAVE: oh shit yeah

DAVE: ok you know how your lusus raised you and shit

FEFERI: Yes 38?

DAVE: a “daughter” is what Gl'bgolyb would have called you if she had human words

DAVE: daughter for girls son for boys

DAVE: I would have said kid for neutral but that's sort of just a word

DAVE: offspring for neutral I guess

FEFERI: 38O!!!!!

FEFERI: I’m a DAUG)(TER!

DAVE: you so are you so are

FEFERI: Are YOU an offspring?

DAVE: fuck man i mean im here somehow

DAVE: but i dont have a dad (??)

FEFERI: dad is lusus RIG)(T?

DAVE: ding ding ding right in the money

DAVE: My lusus is dead but also he wasn’t really a lusus he was just like the kickass older hatchmate???? he was more like a big troll taking care of me than an actual lusus

FEFERI: I sea I sea

DAVE: oh hey we’re here

You get down from her shoulders and leave a 10/10 taxi review as you sort of shake your wings a little and knock on the door. Not even two seconds later nepeta comes barreling out and tackle pounces you into the ground.

DAVE: oof

DAVE: Hi nepeta

NEPETA: DAVE :333333333333333333333333333333333

DAVE: so wise so wise as always

NEPETA: FURRFERY!!!!!!

She kinda steps on your gut to stand up and launch herself onto her next victim, truly like a real cat, you let out some undignified squawk because that little paw fucking hurts dude, nepeta ignores you completely but someone else definitely hears that squawk. You are back on your legs before you can really process it, you truly don’t weight half a grape to these people

EQUIUS: D --> Are you ok?

DAVE: yeah im so chill thank you big man B)

EQUIUS: D --> I should tell nepeta to be more mindful of others when she gets e%cited.

DAVE: would she even listen to you dog? i think tackling people and then kicking said people when she wants to move on is something you cannot harddrive out of her

EQUIUS: D --> every behavior can be corrected with enough tries.

DAVE: ok counter argument, its plenty adorable and shit

EQUIUS: D --> she hurt you

DAVE: its not like a life or death hurt its more of a ouch man what the hell and then we move on hurt

EQUIUS: D --> hm.

EQUIUS: D --> this might be my fault, i apologize Dave.

DAVE: Hey hey no dude its fine im so chill and fine she just stepped on me a little

EQUIUS: D --> If i corrected that habit beforehand…

DAVE: there is no conclusive evidence it would have done any difference

DAVE: besides im sure you didn’t even notice it COULD hurt

EQUIUS: D --> I didn’t

DAVE: see? we are so chill

DAVE: tough love is my cup of tea anyways whats a bit of love without some kicks to your gut or whatnot.

EQUIUS: D --> ...

He stares at you, weirdly, you can sort of read him better than you thought you could, but that doesn’t mean much when his face is always somewhere in the spectrum of “pissed off or in pain”, he’s not talking but there’s a sound-

EQUIUS: D --> Sorry.

He snapped his teeth off. what? he does that shit when something upsets him but what the hell else could have upset him from that interaction? He knows he can’t make nepeta more sophisticated or whatever you thought he was completely over that.

The high pitched giggles behind you stop as nepetas fucking moirail sense activates and climbs on top of the guy and opens his mouth like a weird monkey grooming another one.

NEPETA: :33 < equihiss!!! What happened >:((

EQUIUS: D --> hohy

NEPETA: :33 < *nepeta realizes you cant talk with your mouth open and lets you close it*

EQUIUS: D --> I said sorry.

NEPETA: :33 < what happened?

EQUIUS: D --> nothing. You guys should come inside.

NEPETA: :33 < equius >:((

EQUIUS: D --> I can tell you later.

She deflates on top of his head.

NEPETA: :33 < ok :((

NEPETA: :33 < uhm yeah come inside guys!

EQUIUS: D --> you guys can settle down while I look for a brush and something to tie the hair with.

NEPETA: :33 < I can do that! You need to go rinse your mouth with water!

NEPETA: :33 < also give me your t33th i want it, i kmeow its still in your mouth

EQUIUS: D --> ?!

EQUIUS: D --> Nepeta that as an insanely l00d and depraved thought!

EQUIUS: D --> I will not give you my t00th!

NEPETA: :33 < Yes you will B33

NEPETA: :33 < because i asked B33

EQUIUS: D --> No

NEPETA: :33 < yes

EQUIUS: D --> No

NEPETA: :33 < yes

EQUIUS: D --> No

NEPETA: :33 < yes

FEFERI: can you guys stop being STUPID and do w)(at you need to do

NEPETA: :33 < h33h33 yeah right sorry furrferi

EQUIUS: D --> My apologies uh

EQUIUS: D --> Pei%es.

FEFERI: Apology accepted let’s get going and get t)(is )(air BRAID-ED!!!

Before actually doing anything nepeta does in fact reopen the guy's mouth again and fish out the shattered remains of a tooth on her own, then she pulls at its other half still in the guy's gums and tears it out. Equius doesn’t flinch but you see how blue in the face he is and how much he’s sweating. This is horribly gross to you and this is why you don’t interrupt their moirail time ever.

Nepeta leaps off with a victorious leap (and with her fingers coated in blue) while Equius calmly walks in the other direction and finds whatever it is he wanted. Feferi sits down on the ground and pats down beside her signaling you to sit with her. You do.

FEFERI: is my )(air still too W–-ET? I would )(ate to sully )(is new )(IV-E

DAVE: actually i think it somehow dried quite quickly, that's some crazy work honestly

FEFERI: does )(uman )(air not dry t)(at fast? 38O

DAVE: not really it takes a hot second for long hair to get dry from what i’ve heard

DAVE: i mean my hair would probably dry that fast but that's because it’s short

DAVE: is hair drying fast a seadweller thing or a troll thing

FEFERI: )(MMmmmmmmmm

FEFERI: It MIG)(T be a seadweller thing

FEFERI: I am not s)(ore t)(oug)( 38?

FEFERI: I )(aven’t )(ad muc)( c)(ance to C)(--ECK

DAVE: yeah i don’t think that many trolls you knew irl regularly submerged themselves in water

FEFERI: glub glub EXACTLY!

DAVE: do you have any ideas of what you want with your hair?

FEFERI: Not reelly 38I

FEFERI: I don't want to look like t)(e ot)(er fusc)(ia girl t)(oug)(

DAVE: one singular big old braid might do the trick then

DAVE: and then you no longer have to freak it down ariel style and having long hair you brush with forks

FEFERI: II )(ave no clue w)(at t)(at means

DAVE: honestly me neither i never watched the actual movie i just saw some clips out of context

FEFERI: W)(ale w)(atever it is I just )(ope it looks GOOD!

FEFERI: W)(-ER-E did -Equius learn )(ow to do )(air ANYWAYS 38?

DAVE: the dude has long hair man

FEFERI: )(e never does anyfin with it T)(OUG)(

DAVE: good point yeah

DAVE: nepeta sure as hell didn’t teach him

FEFERI: AND I doubt )(e learned FOR )(er, s)(e always )(ad S)(ORT )(air and would )(ave )(AT-ED it being done

DAVE: maybe he learned it for himself but was like “oh no im a male highblood and thats like girly”

EQUIUS: D --> Long hair is not traditionally feminine for trolls Dave.

You definitely don’t jump out at all when he says that, and you definitely also don't squawk out in alarm. When the hell did he get there? you don’t know. But you know that this didn’t make you feel as bad as it should have, deep in your subconscious you know that the guy is pretty harmless. It’s not the alarm of someone sneaking up on you, its like a bug climbing up on you. startling? fuck yeah mean obviously, but it won’t lead to your ass getting kicked.

EQUIUS: D --> Sorry Dave.

DAVE: you gotta warn a man before you butt into conversations dude

EQUIUS: D --> I’ll keep that in mind.

EQUIUS: D --> Anyways, long hair is not traditionally feminine, at least not with land dwellers

FEFERI: 38O t)(at’s really interesting because its D—-EFINIT–ELLY a feminine t)(ing for sea dwellers!

EQUIUS: D --> I suspected so.

EQUIUS: D --> If Dave had that misconception while having been in the brain of two trolls it had to be for a reason, the reason being that nepeta has little to no regard for any societal rules and that your societal rules aligned to his.

DAVE: oh ok then

DAVE: how the hell do you know how to do hair then?

He lets out a series of weird trrills as he starts gently picking Feferi's hair and sitting behind her.

EQUIUS: D --> May I Pei%es?

FEFERI: Y–ES you MAY!

EQUIUS: D --> Sorry if I sweat.

FEFERI: sea t)(at’s a land dw)(aleer t)(ing i don’t get 38?

FEFERI: sweat is JUST salt water

FEFERI: W)(y would I find it GROSS? 38?

EQUIUS: D --> Doesn’t nepeta find it gross?

FEFERI: *Feferi lets out a )(-EARTY laug)(*

FEFERI: Nepeta may call you a sweaty weirdo but t)(e statement doesn’t really )(ave any weig)(t to )(er

FEFERI: It’s just to mess wit)( you 38)) ot)(er people call you sweaty weirdo so s)(e just picked it up, s)(e deals wit)( WAY more actually gross t)(ings

FEFERI: UNL-ESS dave made )(er actually dislike it 38P

DAVE: I do find sweat sort of nasty but like i don’t think it’s that bad

DAVE: besides i don’t know if my sweat nastiness translated to her head as “I understand objectively why people might find it weird but still don’t share the notion” or just as “ew sweat”

EQUIUS: D --> Yes, it is quite hard to tell what personal beliefs integrate into the individuals once they’re split

EQUIUS: D --> Also to answer your question Dave.

EQUIUS: D --> Both halves of me knew how to do hair.

DAVE: BO oh what Hal too?

EQUIUS: D --> Yes, Hal learned when he was small by watching tutorials online, with the hope of one day being able to braid Ro%y's hair.

DAVE: oh wow

DAVE: wait roxy has short hair though

EQUIUS: D --> Yes, he half e%pected her to grow it up more by the time they met in real life.

DAVE: lol rip the guy

FEFERI: and t)(e -EQUIUS part?

EQUIUS: D --> hrgk…

EQUIUS: D --> It isn’t hard to figure out what to do with hair, I already knew how to do it with cables.

EQUIUS: D --> When i repaired vriskas arm i had to keep her hair out of her injuries.

EQUIUS: D --> She was unconscious for a long period of time so I couldn’t ask her to help me keep it sterile.

NEPETA: :33 < ac prepares to pounce on her meowrail while also being careful to not spook him and make him pull at furrferis hair*

NEPETA: :33 < you should have just cut off all her hair though!! less trouble!

EQUIUS: D --> Hello nepeta.

EQUIUS: D --> It was not my place to decide that.

DAVE: wow i kinda forget you have like history with vriska and shit

FEFERI: It is quite easy to forget Y–-ES! if i wasn’t sprited wit)( nepeta i would )(ave never GU–-ESS-ED!

EQUIUS: D --> sprited?

DAVE: new verb for our convenience

EQUIUS: D --> Language is not yours to mold.

EQUIUS: D --> Whatever.

EQUIUS: D --> You should not have room to forget that heiress

EQUIUS: D --> Sorry. Pei%es

EQUIUS: D --> You have seen Vriska with her prosthetic

EQUIUS: D --> You were there when I gave Tavros another pair of legs.

FEFERI: glub glub glub i mean Y–-ES but t)(at’s presicely t)(e T)(ING!

FEFERI: You made t)(e SAM–-E t)(ing for Tavros!

FEFERI: I US–ED to t)(ink t)(at was just w)(at you DID!

FEFERI: Like, you would do t)(at for EV–ERYON–E!

FEFERI: Irregardless of if you LIK–ED t)(em or NOT!

EQUIUS: D --> I would.

DAVE: Dude you arent helping

EQUIUS: D --> But it’s the truth.

DAVE: yeah but like

DAVE: you def have a weird thing with vriska

EQUIUS: D --> We were neighbors

FEFERI: So you guys TALK–ED a LOT!

EQUIUS: D --> reasonable assumption but no not really.

FEFERI: it was NOT an ASSUMPTION!

FEFERI: I KNOW from being N–EP–ETA that you DID!

DAVE: or that you just mentioned her weirdly often for how often you mention no one at all

FEFERI: Until Aradia!

DAVE: eugh don’t even remind me

His hands stop moving.

DAVE: or him dont even remind him

DAVE: aradia aside you like

NEPETA: :33 < yes guys equhiss likes vriska more than he likes most people this is old news

NEPETA: :33 < except he wont admit it >:((

EQUIUS: D --> I do not.

EQUIUS: D --> I can not like someone who has done

EQUIUS: D --> Everything she has.

EQUIUS: D --> I simply share a thing with her.

DAVE: That she knows you’re trans?

EQUIUS: D --> .

EQUIUS: D --> Yes.

FEFERI: but wit)( bot)( me AND Dave knowing w)(at N–EP–ETA does, it’s not suc)( a big secret anymore!

FEFERI: Alternia is D–EAD!

EQUIUS: D --> Yes.

FEFERI: so in T)(–EORY t)(ere’s nothing K–E–EPING you TI–ED to )(er anymore!

DAVE: yeah like everyone here is like an ally and im pretty sure transness overrules cisness right now.

DAVE: i mean theres theres nepeta theres you

DAVE: theres me i guess

DAVE: theres the other dave probably fuck if i know

EQUIUS: D --> Dirk and Hal as well.

DAVE: oh shit really?

DAVE: oh i mean fucking yeah dirk is super fucking easy to clock i dont know why im acting surprised

DAVE: more reasons as to why hes nothing like my kickass bro

You see him lightly chew on his lips while nepeta caresses his face, what the hell is even making him nervous

DAVE: actually isnt Hal a robot how is that guy trans

EQUIUS: D --> Hal was dirk at one point.

EQUIUS: D --> He too has memories of being born wrong, different body or not its still a part of him.

DAVE: damnnnnnnnn yeah i do have to admit i don’t really know that much from the guy aside from he’s like also a version of my bro but better and cooler than dirk could ever be

EQUIUS: D --> .

EQUIUS: D --> .

EQUIUS: D --> Roxy is also trans

DAVE: and the sky is blue those were so obvious

DAVE: at least alien wise it’s hard to clock you guys

DAVE: i wouldn’t have guessed any of you weren’t cis.

FEFERI: I t)(ink thats everyone rig)(t 38? in t)(at case I think you still get out-cised

DAVE: oh come on no there has to be something

NEPETA: :33 < I think callie uses they too! :33

DAVE: epic one more for the team

DAVE: feferi when the big transgender war starts you are gonna have to fight against us or become you have to make your decision you pick the blue pill and become trans or the red pill and fight all the trans people that come to you like fucking walkers from zombie movies

NEPETA: :33 < h33h33

EQUIUS: D --> Ha

FEFERI: 38? ????????

DAVE: I told you i was hilarious by human standards

FEFERI: 38O

EQUIUS: D --> That was not funny at all. But hearing you say absolute nonsense so passionately is amusing.

DAVE: BO ?!?!?!?

DAVE: hey!

You devolve into more stupid bullshit: who would win, a billion meowbeasts or all the Pokémon? This is a much more interesting debate than lions because these are aliens, so surely they stand a better chance. Equius says he “Calculated every single outcome and not once do the meowbeasts win” and Nepeta just tackles him into the ground in revenge for her hypothetically fallen billion meowbeast brethren. Thankfully, Equius lets go of Feferi’s hair before he gets (lovingly) mauled, but she tells them to stop being dumbasses and get back to it. Equius immediately stops pretending as if Nepeta can even get him down on the ground and continues with his god-given task of braiding that girl's hair.

DAVE: how are you doing this shouldn’t that hair be like horribly super tangled

EQUIUS: D --> Troll hair is different.

DAVE: you can’t explain away every crazy thing with “haha troll” dude thats not fair

EQUIUS: D --> I just did

DAVE: >B(

EQUIUS: D --> Seadwellers are built to be amphibious, it would be stupidly ironic for their hair to 1) not dry quick 2) get easily tangled in every random doohickey in the water

EQUIUS: D --> It’s legitimately built to detangle really easily

EQUIUS: D --> Which is why i can’t just braid it and leave, I need to tie it with something

DAVE: can you braid human hair and not tie it? does it just stay done anyways???

EQUIUS: D --> ???

EQUIUS: D --> Yes.

EQUIUS: D --> Land dweller trolls too

DAVE: huh

EQUIUS: D --> you truly don’t know the slightest thing about hair do you

DAVE: ok look at my short hair and tell me how i would know anything

EQUIUS: D --> Ignorance is not e%cusable, even more when its about your own body

EQUIUS: D --> Humans…

DAVE: Hey! don’t give me the exasperated humans tone you were sprited with one!

EQUIUS: D --> Sort of

DAVE: sort of?

EQUIUS: D --> You said it yourself didn’t you? “ actually isnt Hal a robot?”

DAVE: oh

DAVE: he’s still like human adjacent you cant lie to me

DAVE: me and neps had the cropped ears and so did you! erisol had long ears and so did fefeta

DAVE: cropped ears meant certified human presence in there

EQUIUS: D --> I suppose so.

DAVE: haha gottem

He uses the hairband (at least you assume it's a hairband, maybe it's just a random fucking band he has for metal) on his wrist and ties it up. And wow, you didn’t expect it to look that much shorter, and you also didn’t expect the guy to finish that fast, but you guess one of his defining traits IS just being good with his hands. Ha, that’s what she said, you’d high five yourself if it wouldn’t make you look like the world’s biggest dork ever.

DAVE: you look super kickass like that

DAVE: not that you dont look kickass always but you know

What kind of fucking compliment even is “kickass” Strider????????

FEFERI: )(E)(E)(E

FEFERI: people B–ETT–ER be friendlier w)(en I wear T)(IS!

EQUIUS: D --> I wouldn't place my bets on it. But you do look great

FEFERI: 38/

DAVE: oh come on they probably will be

DAVE: they need to warm up to her and also break that mental link they have and thats helped by different hair and all

EQUIUS: D --> Yes, I see your point.

EQUIUS: D --> But Pei%es’s hair is not the only issue. She's tall, well built, and has sharp teeth.

NEPETA: :33 < Equihiss! >:((

EQUIUS: D --> I am not saying this to demotivate Pei%es.

EQUIUS: D --> I simply say you must manage your e%pectations.

EQUIUS: D --> Most kids from Dave’s session might have no problem with Feferi.

EQUIUS: D --> But Dirk and Ro%y might never be able to let go from their idea of who the Condesce is

EQUIUS: D --> It’s was easier to stray away from it because of how skinny and scrawny her pre-scratch version was

EQUIUS: D --> And how she acted like a total joke.

EQUIUS: D --> But Feferi’s build is bound to start their fight or flight, even if they don’t intend for that to happen at all.

FEFERI: 38(

DAVE: B( ugh man who cares shes not the same bastard shes like vaguely related to the bastard but newsflash every troll ever is related to a major asshole it came free with being trolls

EQUIUS: D --> I am aware, I am just saying to manage your e%pectations. A hairstyle change might not smooth everything over instantly

EQUIUS: D --> Ro%y is friendly enough to let go eventually, but I’d say to just give up on Dirk

DAVE: B/

EQUIUS: D --> I know of him, how his brain works, and how he’s in constant alert something will somehow just get him

EQUIUS: D --> Karmic debt for being a piece of shit

NEPETA: :33 < :OO

EQUIUS: D --> Any and all interaction he has with Pei%es will be coated with his self sabotage and intense urge to make himself feel worse about stuff that doesn’t matter anymore.

DAVE: christ do you have like beef with him or something

EQUIUS: D --> It’s objective.

FEFERI: W)(AL–E…

FEFERI: ON–E out of TWO isn’t a bad D–EAL!

FEFERI: once my ot)(er FRI–ENDS get L–ESS busy too I’ll S–EA t)(em as well!

FEFERI: I just need a S–ECOND to get used to t)(his place

FEFERI: 38) glub glub

DAVE: its fine if you feel bad about it yknow?

DAVE: can't believe we are in a whole new planet and our social circle as of right now is the brain buddies plus Equius

DAVE: except for Nepeta i guess because she do be hanging out with people like damn girl doesnt everything feel wrong and weird whats your secret are you on socializing catnip

NEPETA: :33 < h33h33… Well I also have my qualms about a lot of stuff :33

NEPETA: :33 < but it’s good to try, i know a lot of others are also weirded out by things turning out so well

NEPETA: :33 < but it’s like furrferi said! we just need more time to get more integrated and used to shit :33

EQUIUS: D --> Nepeta languag-

NEPETA: :33 < once stuff falls more into place and things stop being so hectic we will feel better :33

NEPETA: :33 < I mean everyone must be purrty busy with being revived and all that

NEPETA: :33 < but once everyone settles into their own most mortem skin we can hang out like we used to B))

FEFERI: I mean, i don't t)(ink we -EV-ER got a c)(ance to just )(ANG out given )(ow most irl stuff was MID GAM-E!

DAVE: i think my problem is more than post mortem heeby jeebies but you will thrive for sure

NEPETA: :33 < don’t be silly i'll take you to hang out with me B))

NEPETA: :33 < and also irl and trolling shouldn't be all that different :33

NEPETA: :33 < and if it is different we can rise against the adversity together like a pack of cool meowbeasts

DAVE: you were so close to making a wordy encouragement but you had to add the pack stuff

NEPETA: :33 < :33

NEPETA: :33 < nepeta wiggles body ready to pounce on dave*

DAVE: *dave thinks oh shit oh fuck im gonna get pounced on im gonna pretend to be bigger than i am to intimidate the lioness*

DAVE: *and dave opens up their wings trying to confuse the animal into thinking they’re a really big animal thing that will fuck her up *

FEFERI: *feferi watc)(es silently as once t)(eir fig)(t is over s)(e can win against w)(oever ends up victorious and get double t)(e reward 38D*

DAVE: feferi is NOT doing that because she’s like a shark were even are we like geographically

EQUIUS: D --> uh

EQUIUS: D --> *Equius affirms that Pei%es is more akin to a frog than a shark given how she can breath on land.*

EQUIUS: D --> *so the most possible geographical location is probably some sort of forest*

DAVE: *dave says thank you omnipotent horse narrator that is also somehow in this forest*

NEPETA: :33 < the mighty lioness reassesses her choices once she sees the totally sick and cool little gay pose the crow struck

DAVE: BO?!

DAVE: the crow asks what the hell the lioness means by gay this is such a manly and intimidating pose

NEPETA: :33 < the lioness says nuh uh

FEFERI: *feferi tries to egg on t)(e ot)(er two to fig)(t already so s)(e yells from a distance “t)(at’s kind of mean!”*

DAVE: pft-

DAVE: *the crow asks in perfect english* “damn lioness i didn’t know you were homophobic.”

NEPETA: :33 < *the mighty huntress sits down and licks her paws as she speaks*

NEPETA: :33 < i'm not, i did not say little gay pose as an insult

NEPETA: :33 < if anyone is homophobic its YOU for TAKING IT as an insult

DAVE: *dave gasps*

FEFERI: *t)(e crowd OOOOoooos even t)(oug)( t)(ey aren’t really aware w)(at )(ome of p)(obic means but it s)(ore read as important*

And you guys somehow just ended up doing that for an embarrassingly long amount of time.

if anyone asks, you won the rp animal death match