maskormenace | 7th dawn → video

7th dawn → video

[Riku's face, when he appears on the network today, is a little exasperated, and a little apologetic. Behind him, something tiny and black moves, and he picks his hair up and away from it, pulling it over his shoulder for lack of anything else to do with it. A sharp-eyed observer will note that the black thing is a wing. It's small, but it's clearly a pointy, leathery bat wing. Presumably, there's a matching one.]

So... I guess I was ported out.

[His very first port-out after a year and a half. What a strange experience. Riku pauses. He's pretty sure he... owes some people an apology.]

Uh -- sorry. From what I can tell it hasn't been very long, though...? A day or so tops, I think. I saw Kagami made a post, so I thought I should clear things up.

[He's surprised you all panicked, honestly...]

I guess I should thank you all for worrying, though.

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Then it sounds like it's fortunate that you were there to stop him. Especially as it gave you the opportunity to learn more about your own nature.

Yeah. I'm not sure if I was always a Dream Eater or if I only became one when I arrived in the Sleeping Worlds, but you're right.

[Was he ever human? He's not sure anymore. He doesn't mind, so much, but it is weird to think about.]

I suppose mysteries like that have a tendency to hang. When I first awakened, I'd never met another of my caste before, I didn't know that it was normal.

I just had the luck of meeting my ancestor's ghost to explain everything two years later.

Really? Now that you mention that, I'm realizing I don't know a whole lot about you guys.

[He understands the concept of a caste, and he's met other trolls before, but he doesn't know a whole lot outside of that.]

Well, it's really harder to say much about jadebloods. It's not really an accident that I've never met another living one, we're pretty rare. On adulthood, about the age I am now, we'd be sent to the brooding caverns to care for the Mother Grubs.

Of course, there are no brooding caverns anymore, so I'm caring for the last Mother Grub out on the surface. And that's not even getting into the mechanics of awakening, how our entire culture seemed to miss that we have a caste full of vampires!

Mother Grub -- like Ashiah, right? But -- no one knows at all? Like, are there stories or anything?

[How do you miss that there's a whole chunk of your population made up of vampires?]

Yes, like Ashiah. She's just a little larva now, but one day she'll be big enough to spread her wings.

[ Maybe not in this universe, maybe not with this Kanaya. But one day. ]

And oh, there were stories! I used to read them all when I was little. But they were treated as fiction, not a single person who wrote them had ever truly encountered a rainbow drinker.

But I think, aside from our rarity, that many trolls could have lived long lives without ever encountering a jadeblood, it's due to the process of awakening itself. I'm sure the majority of us were already in the caverns when they awakened, so there was no one to see the results but other jadebloods.

Mine was triggered early, as a defensive measure when I died. I guess that makes me more undead than other rainbow drinkers. But I imagine there must have been other exceptions as well, early awakenings or abdicants from the caverns. They would have needed to feed, and that would be where the legends started.

I'd like to see that, [he says instantly.] But then, the rainbow drinker thing was just hearsay, is what you're saying. What do they feed on, in the caverns, though? If there aren't other trolls, I mean.

[Riku has a lot of questions. He's nosy as shit.]

I was never there, I couldn't really say.

[ But there are other trolls. They're just all larval. But she doesn't know if that's actually where they feed, so she's not about to mention it. ]

That's fair.

[He's curious. He's so curious. It always ends up like this for him.]

But -- yeah, so... now I don't know. Aerith asked me if I was still a human, and... I have no idea, frankly. Guess I'd have to ask someone who knows biology.

[ Kanaya knows biology, but mostly in a textbook sense. Maybe enough to teach, but never enough to actually practice. ]

Are you considering submitting yourself to some kind of genetic scan?

Maybe. I mean -- it doesn't matter all that much. I don't mind either way, but... it's weird not to know that, isn't it? Most people have some idea at least of what kind of species they are.

Yeah. Learning something big like that, when you aren't sure whether it's a condition or a species, whether it's new to you or has been dormant all this time. These aren't questions anyone expects to make, especially so far into their life.

I hope that you're able to discover some answers.

Me too. Thanks, though.

[It means a lot. He's never had to deal with this sort of thing, after all.]

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7th dawn → video

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