thearena | (no subject)

Who| Karkat + Chibi Usa, Karkat + Signless, Karkat + YOU?
What| Karkat makes his first kill and meets his ancestor, among other things.
Where| Main Street USA, elsewhere?
When| Week Six
Warnings/Notes| murder, blood, kids killing kids

Karkat's been in the arena for an hour, maybe two. It's the crowning glory to an unbelievably shitty night, which began with him and his friends fighting the Black King and ended with a bunch of weird hornless aliens shoving him into a tube and sending him into a death match. The part in the middle where that demon-barkbeast-carapace-thing destroyed the door into their new universe just before Karkat slipped into unconsciousness hadn't helped either.

He's managed to pick up a few things via breaking into some of the little commerce hives that line the thoroughfare leading up to the big yellow horn-shaped cavity. Nothing that great, though. Certainly no weapons. The large spool of grey thread might come in handy once he can find a needle, but until then...

Well. When Karkat manages to score some more supplies, he'll figure more shit out. He's taken his cloak off, figuring that if nothing else he can use it as a makeshift garrotte for now, and waits in the dark spaces between buildings, hoping to get the jump on someone. Preferably someone with supplies.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Well yeah," Karkat says, "but those usually die in the brooding cavern trials by the time we get our lusi--and we don't actually get those as grubs, but after we pupate into wigglers and lose our extra... limbs..."

It's then that his brain finishes actually processing what Cuthbert said about how humans reproduce and he stares at the human boy with an expression of horror.

"Wait--did you just say human grubs grown inside the females? That's disgusting."

"And how does pailing between two males and two females not result in grubs-- in children? It's all the same sort of stuff, I don't see any real reason it wouldn't be possible." He thinks of what Porrim would say about a society in which females exclusively have to have grubs growing inside of them and smiles, just a little, because he's pretty sure she'd rain righteous feminine fury down on the entire human species.

Something occurs to him. It's nothing something he really wants to know, but he can't help asking.

"How do they... get out?"

"How is it any more disgusting than losing extra limbs as you grow? The child passes from the mother safely after she carries it to full growth. We lose less grubs that way." Cuthbert makes a gesture to try and explain what he means by 'passes'. It's probably more graphic than they would want.

"How are your kind... made? If they aren't carried by a male or a female how do they develop?"

Karkat's horrified and disgusted expression has not left him. Has, in fact, only become more and more entrenched on his face.

"From eggs laid by the mother grub," he manages to squeak out. "How-- how does it pass from her? Where does it come out from?"

Oh, no, he's so sorry he asked.

It can't be the nook. That's not how nooks work. But it can't be the waste chute, because he doesn't even want to contemplate that. So instead, he chooses to clarify what Karkat's saying a bit.

"What he means is that we provide genetic material to the mother grub, in a pail or bucket, and she mixes it together to form the slurry from which her eggs are laid, with troll grubs inside. No one carries anything. Except pails."

Lord help him, he's babbling about buckets. How did they get from happily sharing oranges to this. How did this happen.

"It comes out the same place it goes in... and it just now occurs to me that the good Insect Lord did not gift your kind with a prick. Which means you've no place to put it and all your confusion makes sense."

This is mind blowing. Next to his guns that's the most important part of him and the idea of a whole species that will never know that pleasure is almost sad.

"Dare I ask what you carry in the pails?"

"Signless told you," Karkat whispers. "Genetic material."

He doesn't know if he wants to ask what a prick is. This is the most mortifying conversation he's had in his life. And that includes every single conversation with Terezi.

Signless nods in affirmation. "Genetic material. The stuff that gets mixed together in the slurry to create grubs. I don't know about pricks, but all trolls have a bulge and a nook that secrete genetic material. During mating it's collected in the pail, so none of it's wasted."

Personally, he's not a fan of pails or what they represent, and given that he lived his life outside of society the drones never came to him and so he never really had cause to use one. Besides, lugging pails all over Alternia while on the run just wasn't a priority when more important things like food needed to be brought along instead. And they're a symbol of the Alternian Empire's oppression of sexuality and attempts to turn it into an obligation on pain of death rather than a right to be enjoyed, but that's not the point.

"So what you're saying, if I'm understand this right, is that... you use female humans as pails?"

Porrim would have a fucking field day.

"I fear you're saying you use pails as women."

This is painful, genuinely painful. And that is coming from someone who had to learn about sex from Vannay. He doesn't even want to go into 'bulge' and 'nook'. But after a moment he ends up laughing, this is far too ridiculous.

"I suppose it saves on the mess, aye?"

"But that's what the pails are for," Karkat manages to squeak out.

His voice has gone higher and quieter as this discussion has gone on. By now he sounds like a sore-throated guinea pig.

"Pails aren't interchangeable with other males or other females," the Signless says with a frown. "That's insulting. They're just an accessory to mating, they shouldn't be the object of it." He tries to imagine prioritizing anything above Meulin and fails utterly.

Cuthbert is still very amused, and Karkat's voice isn't helping.

"I am glad to hear it. Pleasure should be the first goal of any mating. At least it is for mine."

Yeah, they needed to know that. That's what they get for making him consider what insect sex might be.

Edited 2013-05-08 03:20 (UTC)

Okay, fuck it. This is what they've reduced him to. Karkat sticks his fingers in his ears and starts droning, "La la la la la la la la la..."

Repeat ad nauseum.

Edited 2013-05-08 03:29 (UTC)

Signless looks between Karkat and Cuthbert and makes an executive decision.

"I think we should change the subject," he suggests, raising his voice a little so he can be heard over Karkat's horrified trilling.

"A good plan."

Cuthbert leans his head back and tries to forget where they are.

"I only just arrived in this place, have either of you been here longer?"

Karkat has by now taken the fingers out of his ears.

"I haven't been here very long either. Probably not an entire night yet."

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sorry ink but i am stealing the hell out of your description

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