Second Blood

[speakveryclearly]

[Today you have something different: Rather than a face peering into the camera, you have a full body view of a young woman standing to the left of the shot, with her right hand on her hip. Said hand glows bright white, like the rest of her body. If you haven't seen her before, she's probably a pretty surprising sort of freak to see when you turn on the communicator.

The center and right part of the shot are occupied by the wall, to which she's attached an off-white poster, landscape orientation, with the following written on it in large letters of bright green marker.

* As Your Potential Leader A Complete Stranger In All Senses
* Proposal To Further Factionalize Already Fractured Population
* Plans Will Only Be Revealed When Or Rather If Any Group Is Gathered
* Initiative Is Our First Enemy Rather Than The United Earth
* Conflict With Other Armies Also A Welcome Possibility

It's attached to the wall with a piece of clear tape on each corners and one in the middle of each long side as well. Close examination will note that it appears there is a second identically-sized piece of paper hidden under it.]

Hello, Transports. I'm Kanaya Maryam. Apart from those who saw my arbitrary self-introduction, you probably don't recognize me as anything but an alien interloper of an age you judge as inappropriate. Even though you have absolutely no reason to trust me, I'm going to ask you to do exactly that, because Exsilium has a terrible leadership problem.

[She's pointing to the second bullet now.] Lots of Transports have been trying to create an army out of members of Exsilium's already perfectly fine existing army. This hasn't worked up until now, but I am somehow absolutely certain that when I do this it's going to be totally different.

[Third bullet:] My plans are so fantastic that they have to be kept confidential and will only be revealed to members of the army once it forms - whom, by the way, I will accept and reject at my discretion even though my goal is to unite Exsilium.

Oh, and did I mention - [fourth bullet] - that I want to overthrow the Initiative first, even though we're fighting the United Earth. Because that's my intention, to fight the people who brought us together and control whether we even stay or leave, let alone go back in time.

And by the way, all the other armies that have already been forming - they're getting in the way of my plan, so we're also going to fight you if you go against us.

[Both her hands return to her hips as she stares at with her head cocked and her lips stretched thin.] Tell me, Exsilium, do you think that sounds like a good plan for anyone to execute? Especially if she's an alien, an undead, a "teenager" [finger quotes], or the like? Or would you advise me to stick with the perfectly good hundreds-strong army that we already have, and take it up with the administrators of the Initiative if I really insisted upon doing something. Perhaps would you go so far as to say that I sound... stupid? If so, that's good, because I have some appalling news for you, which I've just delivered wrapped in your planet's particularly loathsome form of verbal irony.

[In a sudden, too-quick motion, she reaches up with both hands to rip off the poster and reveal the paper underneath it, filled up entirely with these four words:

This Is Stupid
Stop

She neatly folds the old poster three times and throws it away in a waste receptacle off screen, and then stands up straight to address the camera again.]

It does sound stupid, because it is, and so do you. Stop.

[The video ends.]

Comments

[action]

[honkalypse]

[Because, really, he doesn't stray far, usually.]

Wicked telling at them what's being what, bitchsis. That will get their pans all down with the understanding.

YOU'RE ALIVE...

[speakveryclearly]

[She sets the tablet she held in one hand aside and with the other pulls him by the arm to sit down next to her on the couch. This is still taking her a while. She is a little too busy stalking Eridan to really figure out how regularly he has been leaving and is still not sure whether she should ask. Let them have their feelings jams in private piles for all she cares. Yeah. Not bitter. Not jealous. Ha ha ha.

Her envy doesn't show. Not right now. He's here. With her on the couch.]

I think my oral cushions are going to fall off if I feed them much more.

[honkalypse]

They don't be up to needing no more right now. Give at them too motherfucking much and they'll only up and spew that shit right back at. Got to be staying up in them what for being good.

[And the food metaphor suddenly became less savory...]

[speakveryclearly]

[It was Gamzee. Was it ever savory? A thin thread.]

Some of them have. It almost keeps all that talking from making a woman thirsty.

Almost. [And then she latches onto his neck, a bit like a magnet clicking into place; unsurprising and familiar.]

[honkalypse]

[If it was unsavory, Gamzee just made it reach new depths.

And he almost misses the warning, but at the last moment tips his neck. A small, animal sound escapes at the bite, that is somewhere between pained and thrilled. This is good. This is real. This means she won't leave.

His breathing goes fast and heavy and he licks his lips, eyes fluttering. But he doesn't pull away; wouldn't dare.]

[speakveryclearly]

[Her eyes fall closed as she reaches up to cradle his jaw. Her hand hovers over his skin - the light from it touching his paint, her hand not. She could tell him what to do, touch him, and he would listen. That's good.

Also his blood. That is also good.]

[honkalypse]

[He would listen, if only because he dreads what would happen if he didn't. Perhaps not quite as much with Karkat here, but there's that fear that Karkat will disappear.

Gamzee doesn't struggle, though he does turn slightly away from the touch with a hiss. His fingers clench into claws and he lifts his hands, about to dig into her in turn--]

[speakveryclearly]

[She lifts her head up, sated, and flinches with tension. Her hands fan out at her sides, as she prepares herself for his righteous retribution. She's pretty much done with video responses for this incredibly long-running post anyway.]

[crusthatecean]

[And choosing this moment to walk in.]

Hey, Kanaya, can I borrow your--

Holy shit.

[honkalypse]

[Well shit.

Gamzee just holds his position, halfway to clawing at her face and with his neck open and bleeding. He has no idea what to do now.]

[speakveryclearly]

[Okay Kanaya. You're a rainbow drinker. You can do this. You are a real life/undeath alien lesbian vampire.

You can make this not awkward.

She slightly adjusts her position to be more firmly sitting down, though her torso is still definitely tilted towards Gamzee, and turns her head to Karkat with only an only moderate resemblance to an antlerbeast in the frontal illuminators.]

Borrow my what?

[crusthatecean]

Nevermind. What are you doing?

[honkalypse]

All what it's telling at your lookstubs we're doing?

[Was that the right answer? Pretty obvious she had her fangs up in him... He's still got his breathing going fast and hard, even.]

[speakveryclearly]

I was drinking his blood?

[Yeah, Maryam. STICK TO YOUR GUNS.]

All supernatural and so on.

[Now IN FOR THE KILL.] What were you going to borrow?

[crusthatecean]

It was a rhetorical question, I can tell what is happening here.

[Marching over he is a tiny ball of purposeful anger.]

Okay. No. I am putting my hoof down on this fucked up codependent bullshit. Kanaya, you should know better, he is practically malnourished here, how is he supposed to be your breakfast buffet when he can't even feed himself?

[honkalypse]

I've been better about being down with the remembering.

[He has, but he says it defensively, glancing at Kanaya like he's afraid she might disappear.

[speakveryclearly]

[Kanaya crosses her arms resentfully. Like Karkat's one to talk about knowing better... okay, actually he's right, she should know better, but fuck the alpha timeline is quietly written in her sharpening glow. It all comes back to that.]

I have done the codependent-ascertaining-whether-Gamzee-Makara-has-eaten routine before. I thought I was supposed to stop concerning myself excessively with that now.

Also, I think you're drastically underestimating the amount of blood this troll possesses. For a change of pace, try overestimating. Which I can pretty much guarantee you will not be able to do. [She would know. She's had so, so much of this stuff and the motherfucker never runs out of it. It is in her stomach basically all the time - still a small store remaining from even more voluminous past asylum incidents.]

[crusthatecean]

Thanks for the disgusting mental image.

I'm sure there are other assholes with a lot of blood? Try Feferi or something.

[honkalypse]

[He makes a distressed noise, looking rapidly back and forth between them.]

Motherfuck!

[speakveryclearly]

Sollux can barely tolerate much more than once a week, Nepeta is Equius' moirail and he refuses strongly for both of them, and Feferi replied to my post just to tell me she wears socks with sandals. She is not in a generous mood.

[You know what she's just gonna skip Eridan]

[crusthatecean]

Oh, so Equius' refusal is good enough, but who cares about what Karkat wants, no one, that's who.

[Turning towards him and snapping.]

Gamzee, calm down.

[honkalypse]

Would hold that motherfucker down for you, bitchsis.

[The glint in his eyes is more than a little dangerous.

But then he looks at Karkat, uncertain.]

Not for wanting to make you kick upset feelings down in you...

[The "but" might as well be shouted at the top of his lungs.]

[speakveryclearly]

No, don't, that would be stupid.

[The body language is like a bad romcom screenplay. She turns her head just barely to Gamzee as she talks, her hand lifts up - but the logical conclusion of putting it on his wrist does not occur as she instead forcefully folds her hands in her lap and looks straight at Karkat again.]

You really feel... that strongly about this. I didn't know before...

[But why tho.]

[crusthatecean]

Yes, I care, surprise. I mean, is this even sanitary? Wait, you're leaving open wounds on someone who basically lives in grime, I just answered my own question. If you having to eat is the issue then we can figure something out that doesn't involve you treating him like an all-you-can-eat buffet all the time, but it seems like the real issue here is the two of you.

You know, I can't even tell if this is better or worse than you chasing after him with a chainsaw, sorry but not sorry for mentioning the alpha timeline. I mean, I'm glad you're not trying to kill each other, but this really fucks me up! What the hell is going on with the two of you, what is this shit. Are you two getting off on this? Is this a pitch thing, because if so, you could have told me and additionally my professional opinion on the matter is hell no. Is this some kind of bizarre vacillation, I don't even get it.

[honkalypse]

[He shakes his head and is quiet for a while, brow furrowed and looking focused.]

Not being pitch. Motherfucking went at that, but there's no... no... Not being the right feels in my pumpbiscuit at all that. Vacillation is being down only with quadrants and I can't be thinking all what quadrants would be motherfucking right for us.

She tried it. Tried to be up and pale and-- [He makes a completely disgusted face.] Fakey fake dollhive motherfucking wrong shit from an ice cold chainsaw bitch who's down hard on this motherfucker what for everything I'm being.

[He snarls a moment at Kanaya, but there's little heat in it. More like a slow boiling resentment. Then he turns the most beatific smile on Karkat.]

And I'm knowing now what a real pale-brother is supposed to be kicking in me. No feels better than what runs all soft through me at you, brother. Best friend.

We're all-- uh... uhhhh--

[And at this he just gives up, shrugs, and looks expectantly at Kanaya.]