[open] do you know where you go

[crabmunicator]

Who| Karkat and OPEN
What| Who wants to see that place those grey weirdos came from? Who wants to see it destroyed?
Where| The Alternian areas of the arena, namely the forest/city.
When| Week 1 up to the meteors in week 2.
Warnings/Notes| Probable description of canon-typical troll society awfulness.

(OOC: Instead of specific prompts, I'm just giving a general rundown of where Karkat may be and what he'd be doing there. Feel free to have your character run into or interrupt him at any point!)

Alternia was Karkat's first home and the one out of everything that he had longest: six sweeps, or the first thirteen years of his life. Seeing it here in the arena isn't something he ever expected, but it made a fine target since he first spotted the familiar blue trees with their pink foliage. Getting there was another issue, with the water that blocked direct passage, the desert he had to cross, and the trouble of finding Maglev in the mix, but he's tried to stay here as well as he can.

It is, at the least, familiar. In the searing days he retreats to the city and sleeps, not in the useless, fake sopor slime of the recuperacoons but on whatever furniture is comfortable enough. Anyone who would want to invade would have to risk the burns and blindness brought by the sun's heat, a risk high enough that for once he lets himself lower his guard to rest.

But at night, he slips out. He has his sickle, gained from Nitou who grabbed it from the Cornucopia. In the second week he gains a hunting knife from a sponsor. With these he hunts and defends himself. There are hulking, white monsters that stalk between the misshapen buildings, or out between the neon trees of the forest, bigger than those he knew from his friends. He tries when he can to find creatures from other worlds, but more than once his jagged sickle threshes one of the smaller, less dangerous lusii for its meat. After almost a year of Panem, it's strange to see so many colors of blood.

At all turns he avoids the pincer-clawed creatures. They might look like his lusus of old, but not a one shows him favor.

There are other things not even worth the risk here, though. Great, black shapes in spiked chitin stalk now and then, their shapes likely foreboding even to those not raised within the culture that told their purpose. These, if he hears them, if he sees them, he runs from without time to pause. They'd cull him as a mutant on his own planet, and they're sure to have no more mercy here.

Other times, it's strange nostalgia that sends him out. Alternia was dangerous, a planet where a troll like him should be dead just for quirk of genetics, but he's missed it still. He goes down streets staring at the blocky buildings, their twelve-pane windows; he wanders through trees that will always remind him of Terezi. (He finds her hive, once, and spends the night swearing as he scrambles up the tree it's built into, or as he sits inside remembering times past.) Sometimes he trails along the shore, gazing out at the gleaming towers of that purple and gold island set near. There are boats, he's seen, but he wonders at the risk--or flees from it, when the hungry screeching of the tentacled beast beneath starts up.

By contrast, he avoids the Carnival entirely. That place brings no good associations--if anything, draws up terror instilled by the Initiate's chucklevoodoos, and bad memories besides. Only once does he end up there on accident, and it's after a rescue and a long sideways trek that he ends up in another place he would have sooner avoided: the Alternian desert.

There at night the sands are colorful, the dangers calm, but it's dry and vast and a good trip back to the familiar city. The question is where to weather the day, what shelter to find--caves in rocky outcrops, perhaps--and how to avoid the shambling, trollish daywalkers that awaken with the sun.

Wherever he is, he keeps his eye open for people. Tributes he knows draw his attention immediately, either with a shouted greeting or a warning if danger is near. Those unfamiliar he does all he can to avoid, sinking back behind what cover there might be, breath held, gaze wary for hopes they pass without seeing him.

Often, though, it's the night sky that draws him. The stars aren't quite the same, but two familiar moons hang in the sky: acid green and bubblegum pink, stuck in their own mock-orbits, far different than the silvery white of Earth's satellite. It's by this that he spots the first shooting stars when they come--and with that, the danger as they streak nearer to eventually strike the ground itself. From there he turns to fleeing, and anyone he sees then gets the same shouted warning: "RUN! IT'S THE RECOKING!"

Where he'll go after, he doesn't yet know.

Comments

desert, week 1

[ka_sera_sera]

This alien desert has, so far, not posed much of a problem for Roland. Another man would call this deeply suspicious, but Roland does not think of things that way. He only presses on, and doesn't let his guard down because the only reason it has been so relatively simple so far has been luck. The luck to be able to avoid the more dangerous creatures, the luck to see just what the sunlight in this place can do before stepping out into it. Luck has saved his life many a time, and may do again, but any man who starts depending on it is not long for this world.

So he doesn't let his attention wander, doesn't sightsee, tempting though it is. He does observe, though, has observed enough about these moons to guess that dawn is coming. Dawn, and sunlight. Even some shelter with some creature already living in it will do, if it has to, but he hasn't seen even that. At the least, this utter lack of shelter gives him a good view. He'll be able to see anything coming well before it gets to him. Probably.

In the meantime he keeps walking. This sunlight might not mean death, depending on what Roland can manage. Nothing for it but to see.

[crabmunicator]

Fuck the desert. Fuck the desert. Fuck the desert.

Karkat, one may be surprised to learn, does not like traveling this way. It's his fault, really, in the way he always finds reason for something to be his fault. If he had left when they first found the Mother Grub, if he had just kept near Maglev when he told her to run, if he had watched where the fuck he was going instead of stumbling straight into a goddamn carnival, if he had kept his head instead of panicking...

Well, he was found in the end, even if that led to an ill-advised adventure all its own all the way out to the Normandy.

At least he had the sense to leave at dusk, but that doesn't mean the desert is something he knows how to travel. He knows a bit of it, sure, things told from Kanaya and basic troll sense. But had he his way, he'd be back in the city, safe and sound, and well in his sphere of usual experience. As close at it gets in the arena, that is.

Here at night it's quiet enough, and the twin moons above give all the light a nocturnal alien needs to see by. Not that there's much to see out here; the scenery is drab, boring, damningly lacking in landmarks, and--

Wait a minute, is that thing moving? Yes, it's moving. It's a person, he sees soon enough. Karkat's first instinct would be to hide if only he had somewhere to do so, but this fucking desert just can't be that nice. He grips his sickle as he considers his options...

But as the person comes closer into view, the features resolve, and he sees plainly who it is. There's no mistaking that gravel road he wears for face.

"Hey, Roland!" Karkat swaps his grip so the sickle is held down and curved away, then jogs on over his way. "Please tell me you have a better idea how to navigate this dust pan expanse that dares to call itself part of the arena."

[ka_sera_sera]

"Not even if this were a normal desert," Roland says blandly, lifting his chin a little to peer in the direction from which Karkat had come. "The stars I knew well enough to chart a path by are long gone. Come on," he jerks his chin in the direction neither of them have been. "Nothing behind me, I'm guessing nothing behind you. We'll try our luck that way."

"How've you been so far?" Roland starts walking in the new direction as he says it. It isn't idle conversation, as may be clear with the look he casts over the whole of Karkat's body. "Any injuries? Don't know if you've seen what this place's sun does but if we have to bury ourselves to avoid it we don't want that sand getting in you anywhere."

[crabmunicator]

"Globes."

Well, whatever. Roland's idea is as good as any, so Karkat falls into step alongside him, glowering out at the desert expanse instead of looking at the man himself.

"I'm fine," is what he starts to answer next, reflexive as anything. But Roland is looking him over, being more specific, saying more things in general, and he revises.

"I already know about the sun, Roland. I've been hauled twice across this godforsaken waste in vehicles not meant to be driven by mortal hand. Twice, screaming all the way, fearing imminent engine explosion if a daywalker didn't come crashing through the gazing pane first. The sun stayed in afterthought territory until I was in range to haul myself and anyone with me inside where any sensible being is during Alternian day. Which," he intones as his hands gesture skyward, "is exactly what's going to happen!"

Looking back to Roland, Karkat motions at him. "Did Signless never tell you about our planet? Have you not stopped to notice the two pointedly alien moons in the sky? Or is whatever mystery Earth you're from home to both of those? This place, those big celestial satellite mockups, the shambling undead horrors, it's all modeled after Alternia. Try to keep up, dumbass."

[ka_sera_sera]

Of course Roland is not insulted by any of that. On the contrary, he looks interested. "Your undead horrors. Daywalkers. He's mentioned those, but only vaguely." Roland hadn't asked. Hadn't thought he'd need to know. Well.

"I should've recognized this place from that dream. Now that you mention it-" He looks around, seeing it all as if with new eyes because it's not just strange now, it's Alternian. "-it is a little familiar now. But not very. If anything, I should've remembered those moons."

He tilts his head back to look at them, frowning. "Those colors might be..." Roland shakes his head, refocuses on what's important. Memories can wait. "Nevermind. Tell me about your daywalkers, for a start. I'll need to know anything else you do about your deserts too, but we ought to focus on one thing at a time."

[crabmunicator]

Dreams? Karkat's eyebrows lift, but he doesn't ask. He had dreams of his own, some worse than others, and he thinks now how it would have been better if he had dreamed of the Dolorosa's world instead of finding her in the mess his mind conjured.

Roland's way of taking the insults in stride is something that, strangely, has made Karkat like him more. It moves things along to the point and spares him bouts of extra frustration.

"They're trolls that should be dead but are walking around instead. There's probably some similar thing in your culture by a different name, but I haven't the slightest clue to go guessing. The important thing is that they're rotted, they've got fungus growing out of them, and they'll kill us if we don't keep our guard up." He can't help feeling nervous about that now. He has his sickle, sure, but the other times he ran into them it was literal, with the front end of a vehicle between his body and theirs.

"I don't see the end of the desert from here, so unless it crops up pretty fucking soon, we'll have to find shelter for the day. The sun is dangerous even in the city, but out here it's dry and hot as fuck, and we're that much more likely to get burned or go blind, not to mention the risk of stumbling into death by dehydration if we're not careful," he advises, glancing his way again.

"I had a friend whose hive was out in the desert, but she liked daylight, and she's not here to tell us anything. Signless can't help either, I'm sure, or else he'd be carted off for providing unfair advantage to tributes from other Districts."

[ka_sera_sera]

"Wouldn't be too happy with him if he did," Roland murmurs absently, because this isn't really the issue foremost on his mind. If Signless did risk so much for them now, especially for a cause so small as saving them from whatever painful (more importantly, temporary) fate this desert may have in store, Roland would be a little peeved. Luckily, he has faith in the Signless' good sense.

"How do your daywalkers kill? Can they be brought down or outrun? I'll need a little more than 'they'll kill us' if we meet some. And from how you were talking I'd assumed your sunlight kills outright. Do you have any clues at all about how your friend survived it?"

Early Week 2, hello, I am super late but I brought pizza

[infinitemayonnaise]

Nitou has been trying to explore the entire Arena. It's what he does. Sure, he'd stuck around the more familiar city area at first, hoping to find things he knew how to use, and once he'd found a motorcycle he liked, he was out of there. Onward to the next adventure!

So he's riding that motorcycle out to explore the Alternia area when he sees someone familiar. "Hey! HEY!" He doesn't want anything--he's not looking to collect on his debt just yet. Just saying hello.

15 minutes late with starbucks, can the pizza be reheated or is it gone now

[crabmunicator]

Karkat's not even doing anything particular when it happens. Wandering out and about, sure, staring some at the stars. (It is definitely night. Day's not worth it.) It's just so strange still to be in a mockup of his own home, and he catches himself wondering sometimes how much is true to memory, and how much memory has faded. It's been four years since he last set foot on the real thing.

Maybe the sudden approach of an engine should worry him more, but his thoughts are elsewhere as it hits his ear. Maybe Maglev's brought that car around again, or--no, that looks like a different vehicle. Did she find a new one? But it comes closer, resolving itself into what he'd call a motorized two-wheel device, and the rider isn't who he thought. Before he can ask, Nitou is calling out to him.

"Woah! Hey! You're still alive," he calls over, name having fled him for the moment. It's been a busy, chaotic week since he met him, but Karkat looks in good enough condition despite it. He's got the sickle with him even now, held down in one hand while the other waves to Nitou. "Though how you humans don't get killed with those crazy death machines is beyond me. Have you even seen the scuttle buggies they have out in the desert? I have been hauled back and forth across that sandy hellscape in them and I still don't know how they failed to blow up in the chaos."

we have a microwave, infinitely warm pizza is possible

[infinitemayonnaise]

"And you're still alive, too!" Nitou sounds quite pleased at this statement of the obvious. Arenas suck--it's always nice to see when people you like keep on surviving.

He pats the motorcycle. "I've got more experience with just bicycles, but I figure that if Haruto uses one, I've gotta be able to do it, too! I know what I'm doing."

But there's definite interest in that last bit of what Karkat's saying. "Scuttle buggies? Nah, I haven't seen those yet!" He frowns. "Could I have accidentally run over one with the bike? I think I hit a couple bumps."

[crabmunicator]

He blinks, eyes still wide, but eyebrows scrunching a little. "Haruto?" Pause, frown. "No, they're not--they're vehicles. Cars. Those things you drive around in with the doors," he explains, motioning impatiently with his empty hand. "But since when do you know Haruto?"

It's been a while since he's seen him - been a while since he's talked to him, if not as much - but he counts him as a friend and ally. Haruto out of everyone believed him plainly about what happened with the Initiate, and was one of the people who went through imprisonment with him, though they'd hardly had time to bond during the stay. They didn't speak until after.

[infinitemayonnaise]

"Cars? Huh, with the way you were talking, I was thinking they'd be crab-things or something like that." Why? Who knows. Perhaps the word "scuttle" set off something in Nitou's brain. "Man, Haruto and I are from the same place!" Nitou grins. "We're sworn rivals!" Once more, he forgets how that might come off when talking to a troll. "Rival wizards!"

[crabmunicator]

"They worked different on Altern..."

Hold up.

"Rivals?" Pause again. "Wizards? - No, go back, tell me the rival thing. Rivals how? How did you meet?" Same world, sure, but backstory is what he's digging for here. A troll gets thirsty for these things when it's been about a year since he last had his hands on a real work of troll romance.

He motions Nitou to follow him and starts walking. "Tell me while we move. I'll find you a good place to hide that while we're here."

He's not letting him leave until he's paid back his debt for the sickle.

Meteors!

[ormolu]

Make a wish on a shooting star. That's what she'd been told, when she was young. She stopped doing that when she was older. She could get anything that she wanted, why would she waste her time with wishing on stars? What would she even wish for? But she'd remembered it as she stepped onto the cold sand, staring up at the stars. She had a lot of things to wish for.

Luckily, there was a lot of shooting stars. Wishes to spare! It takes a while for her to realize that this isn't normal. In fact, it's not until she sees a troll running past her screaming about the reckoning that she thinks, maybe, she should move.

Running, at least, is something she's gotten plenty of practice in lately. She can do that. She spins around on her heel, deciding not to question someone screaming and running in the opposite direction. However, even as she begins to race away from the scene, she realizes that she has two important questions. These are shouted at Karkat as she follows him, out of a lack of any other place to run to.

"What's the Reckoning? Where's safe?"

She figures it's okay to draw attention to herself. He bothered to warn her, didn't he? You wouldn't do that if you were trying to kill someone. He might ignore her, but it couldn't hurt to try.

[crabmunicator]

Bright pink hair and a pretty face stand out in a place like this. Out in the Capitol it's a dime a dozen, but here? Offworlders may sometimes wear their hair in strange colors, but it comes less frequently than those with plainer shades.

Besides, when this one calls out to him, he recognizes her. It catches up in his chest, stopping him for a moment: she's the Capitol kid, which explains her looks. Cassian's relation of some kind or another, the one he told him about that weird time they ran into each other at a cafe.

Normally speaking, a Capitolite would be last on his tier of who to save, but she's a kid just like the others. One life, one shot, and she's the only one here with him right now.

He mentally strings out a series of swears. She may be Capitolite, but she doesn't deserve to die.

"Meteoric apocalypse from my planet. Now move," he says, kicking his feet into motion again. If she hangs back, that's her own stupidity, but he'll be talking more if she follows.

"This part's modeled off Alternia, and the last thing that happened there was a big fucking slew of meteors that wiped out everything and triggered a mass extinction in my species. I am sure as fuck hoping that it doesn't go any farther than this. We're going for the forest, because we'll die out in the desert and I'm not dealing with daywalkers a third time."

[ormolu]

She moves. She follows after him quickly, glancing behind her on occasion, but listening to him talk. Meteors triggering extinction. Daywalkers. More threats. She's starting to realize how the tributes can feel so desensitized to it. After a while, one threat looks like another, and you just ran around trying not to die.

As they run for the forest, she thinks. Aurelia is a Capitolite, but unlike Cassian, she was being trained to do something besides party and wear pretty clothes. So she's got a few more brain cells rattling around in there. "They can't do that for the entire arena, right? That would wipe all of us out. It's too early to be trying to kill us like that." She sounded less hopeful than she'd wanted.

"Oh--um. There were meteors like this. In the Ice Age arena. They got the forest on fire..." Not that this makes her stop running for the forest, because a forest on fire was a better hazard than a bunch of meteors hurtling at you. "So...water...maybe...?"

These offworlders and their fucked up worlds. And they wondered why the Capitol was trying to demonstrate that they were better off here. Meteors never fell on anyone in Panem. At least, not outside the arena.

[crabmunicator]

Okay, okay, she's moving, he can work with that. Karkat breathes and keeps running, not bothering to pause, look back, or even slow. He knows which way the forest lies, and while trees may be highly flammable, he already explained why he doesn't want to go for the desert.

Which, hey, turns out she's thinking about. Karkat casts a glance over, but his eyebrows are bunched up, unpleasant. "Fuck no, we're not going for the water. There are lusii around, and if I know how the Gamemakers treat us, it means they will not have spared us the luxury of Gl'bgolyb. We are keeping a birth fit only for the widest of asses, because I am telling you right now I will be first to die if their analog of the Vast Glub--"

A small meteor streaks past, slamming into and through the side of a hive. Karkat shrieks, nabs for her hand, and gives a firm yank if he manages to grab hold.

"Hurry!"

[ormolu]

"Glubglub?" Aurelia raises an eyebrow at him, even as they run. "You're afraid of something called Glubglub that has a Vast Glub, and my ass isn't--" But then a meteor lands, roughly a hundred miles too close for comfort, and she's grabbed and yanked, even as she yelps in fear. She doesn't fight his hold, and it probably helps, even. For a moment, she freezes in fear, like a deer in the headlights. This is the closest she's come to actually dying in an unavoidable manner, and it strikes her as terribly, terribly unfair.

But Karkat's grip on her wrist keeps her from being able to just stop and stand there, and it's enough to get her running again. She needs little incentive to hurry.

"This isn't fair." She decides to voice her displeasure to her brand new (and probably reluctant) companion. "These things you can't fight aren't fair." It may just sound like whining, but in its own way, the complaints are the wheels in her head turning. This really isn't fair. The gamemakers aren't fair. The arena isn't fair. "And you know what? I don't think it's very exciting, either. I hope people complain."

[crabmunicator]

"Bullshit it isn't exciting," he spits out, bitter as anything despite the oh god oh god meteors bubbling under the surface. "People eat it up when I am loud about suffering. I have a whole entire board game set up to my name about when I freak out. Karkat Tantrum over the apocalypse! Cross off your squares, home audience!"

He hates that stupid bingo game.

"Besides, this is their first-row seat to my mobile exposition stand on the facts of my old planet. This is what I escaped. And the Vast Glub you just disparaged is what a dear friend of mine died from the first time, so I invite you to shut your pretty word pusher on whatever disparaging comments you have for it. It's--it's psychic noise, a screech, a terrible sound that went across the whole galaxy and killed every troll but the Empress. It's what drove my species extinct, you tactless, overpriced muffin."

He's still running, by the way. Past hives, down streets, cutting across lawnrings when it makes for the straighter path. His eyes flick up to the sky to watch the paths of what he can see; these times he veers. The blue trunks and pink foliage of the Alternian forest draw nearer.

Wandering around the Alternian city like an asshole

[allyorfoe]

It'd be easy for Karkat to spot Tabris, at least. Or at least hear her, battle screams of rage echoing against the buildings. It wasn't exactly hard to track her down, though. Just look for the idiot fighting the large spider lusus. Luckily for Tabris, the damn thing wasn't the size of spidermom proper, but it was a lot bigger than spiders really have any right to be. This was a line of thought that Tabris voiced while swinging her bat at the lusus, albeit with a lot more swearing all around.

Karkat seemed to have come in at the tail end of the fight, though, and it was clear who the winner was. The spider, covered in blue blood, keeled over before too much longer, leaving Tabris the victor, spattered with a bit of blue blood. Red blood from a few cuts sustained from the fight trickled down her face, smearing into a weird purple mix when she reached up to try to wipe it off.

"Hah! Fucking spiders."

And with that, she wheels around to face Karkat, grinning widely. Adrenaline and the thrill of victory pumping through her veins like the best damn drug made.

"Karkat, I don't know how to tell you this, but your world just may be meaner than mine."

[crabmunicator]

Sweet troll jegus, what the actual hell is going on? Sounds like that are impossible to miss out in the arena, and they're the kind of thing that warn him caution and prudence. Someone fighting, something happening, but he hears only one voice screaming. The other sounds are more like...

Well, shit. Now that he peeks around the corner of a hive, he sees exactly what it is: a lusus (unsurprisingly), but a spider lusus. Worse, it's Tabris facing down against the thing, and fear flares over him anew for it--until the lusus keels over.

"Oh my fuck, you complete insane jackass. You just had to pick the worse thing around to fight, didn't you? Those eat people, you idiot!" He's striding forward now, sickle in hand, eyes wide as they look past her to the dead spider. Blue on white, a cerulean he hasn't seen in a long while. "One of my crazy teammates had one for her lusus; she had to murder other kids to keep her fed. Next thing I know I'm going to find you egging on the imperial drones that are lurking around."

He turns to her at last, now close enough for normal conversation, and asks, "You're not too injured, are you? Still got all your prongs attached?"

[allyorfoe]

"Well, this one isn't going to be eating people." Tabris replies cheerfully, completely unabashed by Karkat's scolding. Aw, he cares. "Murdering other kids, though...Andraste's tits, Karkat, couldn't she just pick a new lusus and shove that one off a cliff or something?" She turns to examine the spider with him, and gives it a little kick. "What am I supposed to pick fights with, anyway. Those weird pixie bulls?" She waves a hand flippantly off into the distance, turning to speak to Karkat as he approaches.

"I don't think I have any prongs, but if they fall off, you're the first one I'll tell, deal?" Even so, her hands inch up to her face, gingerly touching some of the areas that stung, then glancing down to examine herself for more. "Eh, this isn't too bad. Nothing that won't heal up on its own, at least." She smoothed out her jumpsuit, and plopped her hands on her hips.

"What about you? You're holding up, right? Has anyone bothered you? If they have, just come find me, alright? I'll smack 'em around like that spider." Small pause. "...And what's an imperial drone?"

[crabmunicator]

Karkat's eyebrows scrunch up. "It doesn't work like that. You don't pick your own lusus; your lusus picks you once you've made it past the Trials. If you get stuck with a shit lusus, it's your own burden to take care of. There's a whole bunch of cultural implications surrounding it, like... It would be like killing your parent because they make you do chores you hate, with a side order of announcing how incapable you are to the world at large."

After, he holds up his fingers and wiggles them. "Prongs, Tabris." Then dropping them, "I'm fine, or as fine as I'm going to be. Nothing's killed me, I have my old sickle--" He raises that to show. "--and I have scrambled all around the worst of this place fleeing one of those drones, scampering through a subjugglator carnival, enduring Shepard's driving skills, escaping daywalkers, and enduring a day in a desert cave with a man determined to explore dangers he can't fucking see. And if that hasn't offed me, I am positive I'm going to last."

To think, he went in deciding he wanted to avoid danger.

"Anyway, imperial drones are these big, bipedal, carapaced things all covered in spikes. They used to gather genetic material to supply to the Mother Grub on Alternia so she could lay our eggs. Which sounds harmless on its own, but they kill you if you can't supply for both concupiscent quadrants, and obviously no one can do that in this arena."

[allyorfoe]

It doesn't make sense to Tabris. She's pretty sure if her dad started trying to get her to kill other kids, she would have taken care of him. Although...that would be assuming that the rest of the society didn't find that perfectly normal, wouldn't it? Her expression twists as she puzzles over imagining the alienage with a completely changed culture, before she gives up and just shrugs.

"Oh." She raised her fingers up, and wiggled them. "Yes. All prongs accounted for. Nice sickle, though. It sounds like you have been having a lot of adventure...or something. Certainly, the arena hasn't been boring." She grinned, hands on her hips, like Karkat had just been describing a list of things that were in any way, shape, or form, something fun. "I've been having a lot more excitement this arena, too. I can't stay with anyone for a long period of time, so I've just been wandering around. There are darkspawn! You might see them in the city. Watch out for them, okay? Even if you can kill them, their blood is poisonous. I'm the only one immune, and I'm willing to give you the Joining to make you immune, but it's really not preferable."

She paused, then shot a look at Karkat, and while there was a smile on her lips, it was lopsided. Wishful. "Kinda sad, the things that make you homesick, huh? I fucking hate darkspawn, I mean--I'm a Warden, our one job is killing darkspawn. But, like...It's been such a long time since I've gotten to do that. Do what I was meant to do." She gave a dry laugh, then shrugged it off. Ha ha! Emotions. Disgusting.

She has no idea what most of what Karkat just said, but she understands that it has something to do with grubs and mating and covered in spikes, and she can't decide if that sounds more disgusting or cool. "Obviously. I'll avoid any I see, if I can."

[crabmunicator]

Grinning, light and easy--it's a look that makes Karkat's lips curl. "That is one way to put it, but that's not a point to its favor. I would rather not have to scream that much within the first week, and just forget that night in the cave entirely." He waves his hand. "And don't even talk to me about homesick. We already talked how fucked up my planet is, and yet even after all that chaos I came back to it."

For now, he turns, motioning this time for her to follow. "Come on, let's get you to some water so you can wash that nasty blue shit off. Go on and tell me about darkspawn, though. What do they look like, what are their weaknesses, and what's the joining, for that matter? Which is not me asking you to do it, but so long as we're walking down the next closest thing to memory lane, you might as well spill the details."