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She spends the first night pointing people out to you; that's Karkat, that's Kanaya-who-is-a-vampire, that's licorice-lipped Rose Lalonde and her orange sherbet pajamas, that's Miss "The Nice One" Serket, that's the Empress, and that is Mr. Coolkid.
You watch them for a while, then tell her that the Holy Ghost gave the prophets the gift of tongues. She grins like she wants to laugh and tells you that she's always had the gift of tongues.
Everyone leaves one by one. She bids you farewell, Mister Brain Phantom, and says she hopes to see you again soon.
She leaves.
You are alone.
The next night she shows up again, asks you if you've been sitting here since last time. You say yes. She says oh, no, that is kind of sad. She says she will take you on a glorious romp through her memories, including her FLARPing days, but you must promise not to make fun of her bitching historical costume of the ripest cherry red. You agree.
She steps into a memory and you follow.
She is clothed in a somewhat garish red and teal costume with odd angles and the bizarre thing is it how well it suits her. A pair of glasses are perched on her nose and she grins at you, tapping the ground once with a dragon head cane. You feel underdressed. She says well come on then.
As you walk through the shifting landscape of half-forgotten Alternia, she says this is the garb of Neophyte Redglare and that there never was a greater leglislacerator, surely you have heard of her. You tell her that unfortunately Alternian history is mostly butchered in your world and that the only folklore permitted to survive are obscene snippets about The Condesce's sex life, the majority of which you suspect are made up because no one could bang an Imperial Drone and live to brag about it.
She laughs.
She says she is glad you can keep up, she says for months Dave looked at her as if she had eaten a hoofbeast when she said things like shithive maggots or recuperacoon, which don't actually need to be said much in everyday conversation but are simply Fun Words To Say.
You look up. You're in a forest, the moonbeams filtering through the thick leaves.
She says ah, she is home.
She pushes some plushes into your hands and begins naming them: Her Honorable Melonbelly, Jurisdictator Juicemuzzle, Governor Blue. He is apparently the governor of the color blue.
You think she is strange. You think you have a predilection for strange things. You find yourself watching her; measuring her against your friends, comparing her to the only people you have ever talked to. She is not like any of them. She is like no one you have ever met before, this matter-of-fact alien with a role playing costume and a way of speaking to you as if you are real and she is not dreaming.
Maybe it's diplomacy.
She does not come back for a time.
You find that in many of the dream bubbles your brother is there, dozens of them all with different clothing and different bubble-mates and different fatal wounds. You stand at the edge of these looking in; torn, as always.
It doesn't matter. He would not be able to see you anyway.
When she comes back she is silent for a while. You don't mind.
She says boys are dumb and you say that you agree, in a hypocritical sense of course. This makes her smile. She says that the past few nights she has been looking for a girl named Vriska that she cannot find no matter what musty corners of the universe she sticks her nose into.
With that sentence, the dream bubble takes you to the edge of a gray building surrounded by gray buildings just like it.
She makes a face. She tells you that she spends all her waking hours here, why do her dreams have to take her here too?
You ask her what this place is. She says it's a meteor, this is where she lives. She suddenly brightens up, straightens up, turns to you and grins.
She asks if you want to see Can Town.
You walk with her until you get to a tucked-away alcove where cans of TaB and Faygo bottles litter the ground.
She sweeps her arms in a majestic motion, presenting it to you.
She says this is the glory that is Can Town. You almost smile when you see the Big Man dunking a basket in the clouds. You ask who else built Can Town and she says that the Mayor of Can Town introduced her and Dave to it.
The Mayor, she says, is a neat guy because he believes in laws and written rules. She frowns and says but also he believes in democracy. You ask her if he is a troll and she laughs and says no, he is from Derse.
She sits down and you sit down next to her.
She says she wishes you were a corporeal being because often you seem like the only person who makes any sense, which is ridiculous because you are a translucent brain ghost. You say you wish you were a corporeal being, too. She laughs.
She says you smell just like Rose and Dave, only washed-out.
You say good old human smell.
She says no there's something more, something in your veins, you are cut from the same cloth.
She takes your wrist.
She says that in the matter of eyes, she is surrounded by chess set black and egg yolk yellow. She says Rose's eyes are sickly sweet and Dave's are buried under a pair of sunglasses and when she licks a mirror all she tastes is burnt cinnamon.
She asks if she can see your eyes.
You take off your glasses.
She bumps your foreheads together and inhales. You wonder what Dirk back on Earth would think of this.
She is gone longer this time.
When she returns she insists that you show her some of your memories. You say that you haven't been on any grandiose adventures like her, that she might be bored. She shrugs this off.
You take her to your apartment.
She sort of flinches at Lil Cal, which you are secretly bruised about until she tells you about a clown with a doll like this one.
She loves the rest of your puppets, though; carries one around on her shoulder and says it would make the perfect addition to the Can Town zoning board. She bounces on your bed for a while, picks at the robot parts, turns on your computer. You never had to worry about anyone snooping through your files, so everything is right there on the desktop for the world to see.
She finds your artwork, contemplates it, and thoroughly licks the screen.
Who is the bubblegum girl, she wants to know. You say that's Roxy; she's your best friend.
Who is the buttergrub-frosting girl, she wants to know. You say that's Jane, she's also your best friend, and that buttergrub-frosting sounds unspeakably nasty.
She grins and licks the screen again.
Who is the boy, she says.
That's Jake, you say.
She says he tastes different than the other two.
You say well yeah, he's a guy. She says that is not what she meant.
She says he is drawn in green but he does not taste green. He tastes like the purest of pink pastels.
When you do not say anything, she looks down at her hands.
She tells you that Jake is a human from the past where they do not understand 'pale.'
You say that you know.
When she returns the next night she is wound tight.
She says that she did not want melodrama, she only wanted to play Can Town in peace and quiet, well not absolute peace and quiet because what is Can Town without Dave and the Mayor arguing about squirrels, but still.
You say that sucks. She says yeah.
She says why should she have to choose between two of her friends, they are her friends for god's sake. She says she will continue to do whatever she feels like as she is under no obligation to listen to Karkat's eternal worrying.
You ask if she is involved with him and she laughs.
It is impossible not to be mixed up with Karkat Vantas, she tells you.
You like her succinct non-answers and her half-truths.
You spend the rest of the time on your roof with her, dangling legs over the side and watching the sun rise.
She is gone for a very long time.
You wonder if you will ever wake up.
You remember looking at your hand.
When she comes back she asks to see your apartment again.
You stare at her blankly.
She says do you not remember your apartment.
You say no, you don't.
She asks if you remember who you are.
You say yes.
This is only a half-truth. You could explain to her the technicalities of brain-ghostiness; that you cannot stake a claim to an existence that someone else already has. You could tell her that you feel picked away bit by bit, molecules and memories escaping into the great unknown, subatomic particles that used to make up Dirk Strider, Brain Phantom.
Instead you say let’s go to LOTAF so she takes you there, relives old battlefields and shows you a scar on her hip.
The next time she visits she takes you to her hive again, builds a hasty pile of scalemates.
You sit in it. She drapes herself across you.
She asks you if you remember your name.
You say of course.
She asks you if you remember her name.
You tell her that she never told you her name.
She is quiet for a while.
She says her name is Terezi Pyrope.
You say that's the second coolest goddamn name you've ever heard. She laughs.
She asks you what the first is.
You say Jake English.
She says that you are slipping away. You say ain’t no harm done, that you can’t miss what was never really there in the first place.
You ask if she will tell Dirk hello when she is in the session.
She says he won't recognize her and you shake your head and say that he will.
She says okay. She says that she will tell him hello.
You say good.
She motions you closer, like she is going to tell you a secret.
You lean in.
She licks your cheek.
It is at once more affectionate and ridiculous than a kiss. You think she mainly did it to mess with you.
You smile.
--gallowsCalibrator (GC) began trolling timaeusTestified (TT)--
GC: D1D YOU KNOW TH4T 1N YOUR HUM4N B1BL3
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