#an au where she never tells Karkat she was messing with him. It’s like twenty percent funnier trust me on this | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

twitchesandstitches · 4 years

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Dragonrezi Gets Even Bigger Comm

A commission for @alt-hammer, of the Dragonrezi from one of my earlier fic concepts of a fantasy AU that featured Vriska as a conquering giant sorceress and Terezi as a dragon monster girl she tried to wrangle into being her familiar,and Karkat as a plaything to placate Terezi; comm-er wanted to see some elaboration on it and Terezi getting even bigger! (A link to that earlier story!)

Featuring some implied JohnVris, this round!

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In the most magically scarred continent of the world, recent wars in the homelands of long-gone troll empires had left the whole place a chaotic mess, filled with ruins, warlords and all manner of danger. From one perspective, it was a bad situation; monsters formed from magic and taking shape from the most powerful spell-users around regularly came out of nowhere, most cities and towns didn’t last more than a few days, and it wasn’t uncommon for people to immobilize themselves by making themselves too busty to move with the wrong application of magic, which tended to have consequences for their villages.

But to those intent on putting some kind of order on the world, it was an opportunity. To build new empires, to uncover the mysteries of the old ones, and to grow strong.

(Terezi Pyrope felt it was best to bide your time, and steer the course of things. All of these things, she would do in time, but she would work with things first.)

Now, consider one of the more stable lands in recent times: the Cerulean Kingdoms, the Serket lands. Statues across its beaches, floating sea-cities and cliff-side realms portrayed the image of a sorceress queen, as impossibly curvaceous and busty as only the strongest of magic users were. In truth this sorceress and her friends, and rivals, were a hidden society and adventuring party when the times were right, and they all shared her distinctive figure as a consequence of sufficient magical power and expertise. Kanaya, scion of the vampires, her belly swollen with converts to vampirism… Aradia of the Megido necromancers, her own body eternally pregnant with the countless souls she gestated new bodies for in a form of resurrection. And the others, equally huge and curvy in their own unique ways, from Feferi the life-crafting witch to Jade the wolfish witch of the wilds…

And Vriska Serket, who hoped to be the biggest and most powerful to make her mark on the world, and trying so very hard to outdo her own dragon familiar, Terezi Pyrope.

The boundaries of her lands were easy enough to make out, as her magical palace flew over her lands. A grand construct of sapphire gems grown with her powers, black metal and shimmering stones imbued with raw magic, the gigantic citadel was unbelievably massive and it eclipsed some mountains as it flew over her lands and seas, though never past her boundaries, unable to move past the limits of her power. And, somehow, it was even bigger on the inside. Statues of herself stood at attention on the elaborately carved exteriors, a mirror to the ones in her towns and cities.

The statues did not quite do her justice; capturing the incredibly stylized robes, jackets and web-themed skirts of Vriska’s regal attire was a tricky enough affair, but to get across just how… buxom Vriska was? That was really not doable. You started with something shaped like a violin, made the wide bits as large as you possibly could, and then you made then even bigger than that… and by this point you gave up, because mere stone tended to crumble underneath the weight of such curves. She was thick, even by the standards of magical users.

To hear that Vriska Serket, queen of the sea-lands, might feel inadequate, was laughable. Who would she possibly feel skinny next to? And for an answer, they would point at the far, far larger statues of Terezi, which were not attached to the Citadel. They were the Citadel, at least its walls.

Within the Citadel, Vriska’s latest plan was coming to fruition.

Smirking in a way appropriate to the mightiest sorceress this side of the universities frequented by the Maryam Clan in their oasis on the other side of the known continent, she waved a hand at the twenty thousand undead soldiers carrying the artifact. She didn’t need to speak to command them, but she instinctively felt that there were some things you just had to do. “Put it down here.”

Zombies, mechanically-reinforced skeletons, the occasional feral ghost and a few enthralled mindless vampires (unrelated to the Maryam Clan, though possibly spawned from a similar process) all moved in a great mass and lowered the ancient arcane battery into a special pedestal. In a wave it clicked down, and they flowed away, their thousands of steps briefly obscuring the potent ritual patterns encircling the relic.

Here, in her floating citadel, Vriska was at her strongest. This was her place; arcane geometries channeled the power right into her, specially carved spires collected magic from the air and diverted it into the mystical foodstuffs that would be fed to her; the air itself rumbled with potential, and it discharged into her.

She smiled, fangs dimpling her thick lips, and strode off. Her undead minions (a gift from a friend, a necromancer called Damara Megido, who Vriska had helped with a serious academic question) trailed after her. It was difficult to tell if they could feel anything, but as her hourglass-shaped body moved, robes tightly conforming to her massive hips, their gazes were fixed on her. She went through a door shaped to permit her gigantic hips and breasts, and the undead followed, as did a small human all in blue.

Vriska stopped, and leaned down. Three hundred feet of troll leaned down, and her breasts hit the ground before her knees did. The human, John Egbert, stopped as a genuine valley of cleavage appeared before him and he peered up into the mightiest sorceress alive; famed for her ruthlessness, her limitless hunger for power, and so it might have been surprising for her rivals to see the indulgent look her face.

Vriska’s face softened even more as she picked him up, apparently on impulse; he didn’t seem to mind being held captive in a metallic prosthesis of magically resonant metals. Lips as wide around as a street to him pressed on him in a soft kiss, and he smooched her back as best as he could. Vriska put him down, and spoke. “John, gonna need you to stay here for a while until the ritual is complete.”

John nodded. “Okay, ma’am!” he saluted her, in the fashion he thought was expected of an apprentice to a magical teacher. “So… what do I do?”

Vriska made a grumpy noise. “Keep Terezi out of here! I just know that pain in my splendid ass is gonna show up and try to hog all the power boost for herself. So when, not if, when she shows up to, I don’t know, try to eat it or something, get her out!”

John saluted with a slightly worried expression. “I’ll… do what I can!” Vriska grinned, and left. Her building-sized heels clicked against the ground and her undead army followed. The door closed, with an appropriately satisfying bang. He had spent some hours weaving drama spells so get that sound just right!

He waited, dutifully, and marked the way the word-spells around the magical battery slowly increased. To pass the time, he tried to recall just where the thing had come from. Unfortunately history was not really his expertise; it was apparently a troll artifact from one of the bygone civilizations that hadn’t survived the sorcery wars of ancient times. He knew it stored magic (a truly horrific amount of it, and Vriska’s intentions were to deprive enemies of the chance to weaponize it, AND to also enhance her powers and beauty). And he knew that it looked a little bit like something he’d like to put on a stick and smack monsters around with. It had a cool look to it. It’d probably make a funny sound, too!

There was a small, teal lizard on the ceiling that had come there when he had been distracted. Privately, the lizard mused that maybe Vriska had a bit too much confidence in her human.

John contemplated the pros and cons of using it to make a magic hammer that would absorb magic but put some of that magic into making comedy sound effects whenever you hit something with it. The word-spell around it and all over the room were well along by this point, and they shone the liquid blue of Vriska’s magic.

He did feel the swell of enchantment, and he stepped back in surprise. The swell blurred his magical senses, and he experienced the mystical equivalent of something going ‘???’; all his more mystical senses went blank from overload, and he desperately stepped back as light flooded from the relic, briefly materializing into solidified wild magic. Fortunately, before it could erupt into any number of hazardous monsters or destructive disasters, it was grounded and safety channeled into the Citadel.

No, he thought, with a smile. Into the word-spell, and thus, into Vriska! He thought of all this power going to her… into her, and he goggled at the thought of when he’d see her next, at her full size!

She was three hundred feet now, and already such an hourglass-shaped beauty; he couldn’t imagine what she’d be like, but he did his best.

Thus distracted, he did not notice the lizard descending downwards and changing shape, expanding to a much larger form. He did hear, behind and above him, a very soft noise. He glanced up suspiciously, a faint suggestion of titanic movement drawing his attention, and saw nothing more. The walls and ceiling of the magic room vaulted high up, with many curving supports that would be ideal for strong claws to punch right into.

He paused. He didn’t recall that particular bit of ceiling looking so… leathery.

It unfurled, and the ceiling came down.

The world crashed about him, and as a looming force reached lazily for him, John squeaked as claws plucked him up. The ceiling hadn’t fallen down! Something really big, on the ceiling, just dropped down!

Or, to be specific, a really, really big someone.

The feminine form now filling up a good portion of the room was built on similar lines to Vriska but… bigger. Vriska had an hourglass body type, counterbalanced by her massive mane of hair, while the humanoid dragon, her gorgeous face a pleasing mix of troll and dragonish features, was… motherly. Girthy. A huge pair of wings swept around her, along with an enormously thick tail. Scales and golden shapes studded her body, from toe claws to horns, so that every inch of her shone, armored in her own splendor. A big belly propped up a pair of breasts even bigger than Vriska’s, and she had a lot of very solid muscles underneath the softness.

And oh yes; if Vriska was three hundred feet tall, than her dragon familiar, Terezi Pyrope, was… bigger. So much bigger, indeed. Terezi grinned at John, and around her the chamber telescoped outwards. There were potent enchanting spells to make rooms bigger to fit anyone who might be in them, but Terezi had a talent for pushing them to their limits. Her red eyes stared down at him, dull and blinded in some ancient paladin’s oath, but her smile was full of sharp teeth, and very snidely aware.

“So,” she said, as he realized too late that the little lizard in the room had been the exact same color as the teal monster girl sitting in the room right here. “You’re gonna stop me, huh?”

John wasn’t particularly scared, even in the grip of a dragon woman known to devour entire castles whole. Over five thousand feet tall from claw to horn bases, she looked very much like a troll; scales instead of chitin, her black skin tinted a vibrant shade of teal, and a thick dragonish tail sprouted from her massive backside just as a pair of huge wings furled around her so much like a fancy cloak. There were other signs; the crackling pathways of power along her throat and chest, where her breath weapons were powered up, the digitigrade legs just like a bird’s… and the big claws on her hands and feet. Bit funny to forget that, considering that he was pinched between them.

It was a bit like having some very pointy buildings hugging you into compliance. John wriggled politely. “Uh… yeah, absolutely! Let me up so we can have our fight!”

Terezi grinned at him. Leaning WAY over so he could see her. A truly buxom monster, she had to adjust herself so that her gold-studded breasts could shift out of the way, propped up on her big belly so they looked even bigger. Those boobs were huge, sticking out over five hundred feet out, the scales studded with the contents of an entire hoard to decorate her maternal body. She had to lean over just so he could see her, and his heart skipped a beat as she spoke, her enormous blue-green lips shaping so perfectly around her words. “Nah. Be a good boy and hold still so I can go do the thing.”

“Uh.” He lowered his fist. “Um. First, what are you planning on doing…?”

Terezi inclined her head at the artifact. “Guess.”

“...No way!”

She just grinned in reply, a clear ‘yes!’.

“Terezi, no!”

“Terezi yes!”

“I’ll stop you!” he cried valiantly.

Terezi smirked. “Vriska’s tiny hero rises to her defense! Honestly, I love it. You’re probably a great influence on her. Buuuuuut…. I don’t really wanna deal with that right now.”

She breathed out, and her breath was infused with the magic inherent to dragons. She cast a spell, not with lore or divine connection, but with her innate connection to the forces of magic, and her breath became a bubble. It flowed around John and he floated up into the air, yelling helplessly at her. The bubble contracted and twist as his wind magic tore at it from the inside, it bounced as he turned momentum into super speed and flight, but all his power wasn’t enough to overcome the micro-fraction of her power that she put into the bubble.

If she wished, she could have burned the continent to the bedrock without much effort. Sealing away an apprentice boy, even one in service to a living goddess-sorcerer, was hardly a challenge. But she liked to give herself something to test herself against later. “Tell ya what. As a present for standing up to me, I won’t just eat the damn thing. I’ll leave Vriska a TINY something. But all this,” and she gave one enormous hip a healthy, lusty smack, making various pats of her body jiggle enticingly. “Is a much better destination for its power than stroking Vrisky’s ego!”

“Kind of hypocritical for YOU To be talking about ego!” John said as Terezi lightly batted him with a finger that was, to him, larger than a building.

A claw bigger than a walkway smacked into him again and again, thoughtfully. “Okay that’s fair,” Terezi said, and then snorted. “But I don’t really care~!”

With a cheerful swagger, her tail smacking a few pillars around in such a way that she somehow carved her name into them like a signature, Terezi stepped right into the circle, so large that one toe filled up the whole thing. John beat and hollered at his little prison, and summoned forth the wind magic that was an expression of his fundamental tendency for powers of movement and direction both physical and abstract.

The bubble flew, at incredible force, right towards a patch of scales. Unfortunately that patch was on her butt, which was very well padded, and so he bounced off harmlessly. With such force that he impacted into the wall, cracking it, and there he was stuck. John’s powers just didn’t work if he was stuck!

Terezi’s thick, muscular tail waggled at him tauntingly, and swung up to slap her own butt. First the left side of one massive hip, and then the other, making it wobble and jiggle in hill-sized ripples; John blushed, angry and aroused at so much titanic butt. You could build a castle on all of it! And so, he was a bit too preoccupied with her dangerous flirting to realize that the blue magic lines were turning teal.

Magical colors were a personal thing. They indicated the influence of a magic user, the literal color of their soul as it entered the world. Reality WAS magic, shaped and codified into substance, concepts, forms. And color? Well, that was just light, but people saw color, and it meant things to them, and perspective was really all that counted in magic. So with magic users, the color of your soul shone forth when your power waxed mightily.

And when Terezi bothered to put even the slightest smidgen of effort, her magic made her shine like a sun.

Intricate patterns appeared on her scales and hide, mirroring the spell runes around her. (above her, Vriska on her interface throne froze up as she felt the trickle of magic being pumped into her assets dry up, and then only scraps being fed into her. Everything was teal.)

Terezi tilted her head back, a giantess big enough to destroy an army of demons with a single step or firm press of a finger’s claw, and breathed the power in. The artifact wobbled and then was violently tossed out of the magical circle as its power was promptly sucked out of it. Possibly by coincidence, it was flung right into John. It didn’t hurt him, just bounced off his bubble without any harm, but it was still loud and surprising enough that he was compelled to complain about it. He beat his hands against the bubble and yelled, but Terezi wasn’t listening.

(Upstairs, Vriska fumed as her body continued to grow, already five hundred feet tall by now, with boobs twice their original size… but she wasn’t getting as big as she expected. The power! The precious, delicious power… what had been river was now just a tiny stream, and where she should have been scraping against the clouds in her citadel’s magical environment, she was growing bigger so slowly that she could actually perceive things around her getting smaller. No! It was supposed to be bigger!

It was only through great force of will that she didn’t jump off and race downstairs to yell at Terezi. Who was absolutely, obviously behind all this! It was ALWAYS HER.)

Terezi was well aware of Vriska’s thoughts on the matter thanks to the magical link between familiar and sorceress that gave Terezi an insight into her thoughts. Unfortunately (from vriska’s perspective), this meant that Terezi could passively read her mind pretty much all the time, no doubt a reason how Terezi kept commandeering all her plans and sucking up her power gains. So Terezi ‘overheard’ Vriska’s complaints, and she gloated over Vriska’s shock at losing out on massive bust gains.

She blew a mocking kiss at John’s protests, and by sheer coincidence she started growing bigger, swelling upwards as her wiggling claws waved away the kiss. The magic flowered into her blood, bone and the core of magic at her center, and it flooded her with such power, so much that the only way to express it - was to grow!

The chamber rapidly got a lot more cramped as she expanded, slowly growing upwards. Already so large, Terezi grew right in front of John’s eyes, the magic pouring into her. Her tail slapped against the walls and cushioned her as her shoulders rose into the ceiling, despite the ceiling magically growing so you’d always fit into it; she was getting so big, so fast, she was outstripping it!

Four hundred feet, and upwards, her growth steady but very, very rapid. Her butt swelled up so that her fat tail was propped up, and several pillars were broken beneath its weight. Her butt kept swelling out, along with her hips, keeping pace with her expanding height; the expansion charms of the room were soon exhausted, and John could no longer see anything behind them but the lashing of her tail.

The magic flooded into her as she kept growing; another thousand feet piled on in a brief size burst, and by now it was plain to see that she was not funneling most of this tremendous potential into her size. Sure, she was growing larger, but… the growth was petering out surprisingly fast. As John watched, she wasn’t getting taller, her height getting more staggered. Where was it going.

The answer lay in her chest’s sudden explosive growth; her breasts swelled out faster than she was growing upwards, new scales growing to cover acres of new flesh between the patches of gilded scales. In moments, her breasts doubled in size, and she kept getting taller, her bustline not only keeping pace with her height, but surpassing its growth!

And they just kept growing; all the immense magic of the ancient battery, potentially to be used in war or some terrible misuse, now being pumped right into her bustline. Enough power to blow a country off the world was forced into her chest and milk production. Terezi cooed as her breasts hit the floor, rapidly growing so big that they were taller than she was!

The weight of her expanding bustline pushed her against the wall, her body rising up on her own bed-tier bustline. And since she was still growing physically more gigantic, this pushed her into the roof.

Terezi kept getting bigger, growing taller until she crashed into the floor, her wings and back cramped into the roof and too big to fit properly now, but she was still growing largely. Her breasts kept growing more rapidly by the second; John squeaked as a tide of teal filled up the room, a sloshing sound as if of an approaching sea getting stirred up as they smacked into place.

The walls creaked. Terezi and her boobs were still growing.

And though John could now see nothing, absolutely nothing at all but teal-tinted darkness, grow bigger she did. But now the last of the magic was greedily swallowed up by her magnificent body, her height finally stabilizing. Her breasts continued to grow in a few more shakes and wiggles, apparently hopeful for more, and at least they stopped. The room was now as good as a bra for her massive breasts, and Terezi sighed in contentment as her new body settled. Her butt pushing out behind her, her breasts big enough for her and a couple others of her to sleep on… a fitting temple to her glory.

Teal magical signs appeared all over her body, in languages no longer written anywhere in the world (so far as they knew). These two faded, and with that, the spell was done. The absorbed magic faded away, into Terezi’s rune-streaked body. She smacked her huge lips and licked a few scraps of quintessence off, patting a swell of breast bigger than some kingdoms. She kept growing, but in bits and bumps, not the smooth (if very fast!) expansion she had done before. About seventy-five hundred feet tall by now, and shrinking a bit as she willingly suppressed her power for the sake of it being really funny to spring on Vriska at the first opportunity, she cleared up some room.

Thusly, John was now able to see… well, not much, still. All he could see now was one toe-claw dominating his view of the universe, but he could feel her presence. In any case she picked him up, the tips of two claws neatly pinched his bubble and wrenching out of the wall.

“Well, check me out!” Terezi said sweetly, holding him like a little marble against the ceiling so he could see all of her. “How’d I do, huh?”

John saw nothing but… a sea of such massive, scaley, huge busty goodness… he clammed up, turning red. He loved Vriska with all his fierce heart, but… not even she was that big and gorgeous. He’d never admit it, but… he couldn’t lie!

Terezi giggled, and blew him another kiss.

The door slammed open and out came Vriska. With some difficulty, and at first there was a hint of massive breasts and a shoulder trying to force their way through the doorway, and then the doorway was magically transformed to allow her through, and through it came Vriska.

She was significantly bigger, John judged at once, with love in his heart and desire in his hips. Almost… a thousand feet tall, now! More than twice her original size, but compared to her original goal of approaching Terezi’s size, she still looked distinctly puny. Though it was hard to say that, when she now had a figure with hips that left the door way a ruin, and breasts with lower hemispheres around her hips. You couldn’t even see anything of her body above the waist, just two massive bouncy globes. They swelled up as Vriska drew in breath, and wailed: “TEREZI!”

Terezi flicked John right into Vriska’s cleavage, and somehow moved. In a flash she transformed, becoming a small lizard. With a cheeky slap of her tail she scurried away into the suddenly open hallways, leaving Vriska spinning head over horns with the impact of the John-projectile. “Thanks for the snack!” Terezi said, just to be cheeky. “Hope you don’t mind staying so skinny!”

Vriska howled in fury, and Terezi’s cackles echoed throughout the citadel as she exited it, and then her shadow eclipsed it, and all the kingdoms of the Serket was in awe as her buxom glory was revealed to them.

Dragons do love to show off their hoards, and Terezi’s body was a hoard for her!

#my writing #fics #queued #/#//#///#commissions #twitchy!terezi #twitchy!homestuck #twitchy!vriska #twitchy!john egbert

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edenfalling · 7 years

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Ooh! Homestuck, Dirk, Roxy, cuddle. It's the post-Sburb world, and there are too many people all the time, and only Dirk and Roxy want to flee screaming to a (pair of) faraway mountains. Bring back the blissful solitude of the post-apocalypse.

Notcompliant with the credits snapchats, because reasons. :) [2,700 words]

---------------------------------------------Some Little Talk aWhile of Me and Thee---------------------------------------------

The stupid part is, up until that one moment, Roxy washaving a really good night. All her friends (except Dirk, who hung grimly onthrough dinner and absconded immediately thereafter) together in one room, enoughdinner for everyone to eat their fill and then dessert on top of that, thepleasant ache of an honest day's work building the infrastructure of their newworld... yeah. A good night.

Except the thing is, as much as she needs people -- and sheneeds people a lot, needs that feedback loop of attention paid and returned --there's a big difference between hanging out online and hanging out with adozen people jammed together in a single room. And she hasn't been gettingalone time during the days either, always busy working with a crew ofcarapacians (who at least are quiet) and consorts (who are emphatically not).

Roxy doesn't notice the slow buildup of stress, but she canpinpoint exactly when the night tips from I-can-manage to oh-god-make-it-stop.

She's been kibitzing on the edges of Rose, John, and Jane'smeal planning session (defusing any baby disagreements before they grow intoanything serious), keeping half an ear on the Pictionary session Callie,Kanaya, and Terezi have going in the far corner, and watching Jade gleefullyannihilate Dave and Karkat at Mario Kart. It's maybe a little bit much to betracking all at once, but the satisfaction outweighs the strain until Davethrows a piece of popcorn at Jade, who teleports it into the tangle of Karkat'shair, who draws breath in preparation for an inside-voice-what-inside-voicerant, and Roxy is abruptly and completely done.Zip, zilch, finito, cutlery shop's closed up and all the merchandise is gone.

She shoves herself up from the warm and squashy armchair shestaked out as her private territory back when they first built this grouphouse, and says to nobody in particular: "I'm gonna go check on Dirk, it'sbeen a while since he noped out and I want to make sure he hasn't broken his neckor started a robot apocalypse in his sleep."

Rose and Jane break off their debate over the relativemerits of fish tacos and sushi to give her a pair of sharp glances. John justlooks adorkably confused.

Roxy dredges up a smile from her last reserves of sociability.

It must not be very convincing, because Rose frowns andtenses like she's going to ask if Roxy needs any help, or maybe even stand upand give her a hug. Her concern is like a warm mug of hot chocolate, but thething about warm mugs of hot chocolate is they're awesome on a frigid winterday after messing around in the snow for a couple hours, but this specific timeand place are more like a metaphorical scorching summer day when you're alreadysugared out and anything sweet makes you want to gag. In other words, amomdaughter's loving attention is nice in theory, but it's not conducive tonoping the fuck out of the room, not to mention if anyone touches her rightnow, Roxy might actually break down and scream.

Fortunately, Jane rescues her.

She does something to Rose -- elbows her? kicks her underthe coffee table? hard to say -- and while Rose is busy trying to regather hertrain of thought, Jane grins at Roxy, somehow managing to make the expressionboth obviously fake and equally obviously made of 24-carat solid goldsincerity.

"That sounds like an excellent plan!" she says."When you find him, tell him that Jade needs to run the latest plans forthe electricity grid past him, particularly the battery storage systems forevening the solar and wind outputs. I think the files are in the civilengineering dropbox account, so he shouldn't need to ask her for anything untilhe's finished reviewing and annotating them."

Roxy nods.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Scram!" Janemakes little shooing motions with her hands.

Rose, apparently catching on to Roxy's actual state of mind,smiles benevolently and waves goodbye. "Au revoir," she says in herperpetually dry tone. "If anyone asks where you are, I'll tell them I sentyou to give daddy dearest my love, perhaps in the form of seagull pie."

Jane rolls her eyes. John snickers and sticks out his tonguein mostly mock-disgust.

"Thanks, guys," Roxy manages to say, and flees.

---------------

After a indeterminate period of time trying not tohyperventilate in her en suite bathroom, she sits cross-legged on her bed andwonders if she ought to make good on her escape excuse.

Dirk's even worse with large groups than Roxy is and doesn'tmake any attempt to pretend otherwise, but he's still human (no matter how muchhe sometimes dislikes that fact) and even the most introverted human is, atbase, a social animal. And not all contact has to be as overwhelming as groupevents.

Roxy pulls out her phone, briefly contemplates calling him,then tosses that plan right the fuck out the window. Voices are bullshit. Textis their mutual mother tongue, and she'd bet at least half a baby universe Dirkisn't up for vocalizing right now.

-- tipsyGnostalgic [TG] began pestering timaeusTestified[TT] --

TG: the thing nobody ever tells you about other people ishow fuckin NOISY they areTG: amiright?TG: i never thought id say this, but i miss ourpost-apocalyptic disaster zoneTG: not like, the looming threat of the batterwitch n shit,but the quietTG: maybe even some of the survivalist stuffTG: rose and the crockerberts gave me the weirdest look wheni said we should make seagull pie for our next movie night extravaganzaTG: there is GOOD EATING on seagullsTG: and they make a nice change from fish you know?TG: i thought id finally gotten away from descaling fishwhen we ditched sea hitlers water hellscape, but nopeTG: here we are back to fish for every meal that doesnt comestraight from our alchemiters and dwindling stocks of gristTG: (its ok you dont have to talk back if you dont want to)TG: (i just wanted to bitch to someone who gets it)TT: It's cool.TT: I know exactlywhat you mean about the quiet.TT: If you're game toendure the ultra minimum of human contact, i.e., breathing within the samecubic meter of air, I'm on the roof by the south chimney.TT: If not, I can seethe dock and it's currently unoccupied.TT: Assuming this isa day when the incessant susurrus of waves will invoke positive memories ratherthan negative ones, that could make a decent temporary retreat.TG: awww, ur a sweetie, sitting watch over our friends likea depressed gargoyleTG: on due consideration im ok with breathing your grosspre-breathed airTG: maybe if we get really daring we can work up to touchingpinky fingers!TG: le gaspTT: Scandalous. What will the neighbors say?TT: But I'm down forperversion if you are, Ms. Lalonde.TG: k hang onto your panties, im coming up

-- tipsyGnostalgic [TG] ceased pestering timaeusTestified[TT] --

---------------

Roxy scrambles over the edge of the roof (she could justfly, of course, but where's the fun in that?) to find Dirk not just near thesouth chimney but actually curled up in the angle where it meets the solartiles, using the heat radiating from the bricks to counter the early autumnchill. He has his shades off in deference to the darkness, but his eyes are closedinstead of aimed up toward the frankly gorgeous light of the pink and whitemoons, both approaching full tonight.

Roxy flops back against the dark tiles of the roof, armsspread wide, and watches the moons flirt with thin veils of cloud. Her friends'voices drift out of the open windows downstairs, but distance and the ambientsounds of wind and wave blur them into a companionable sort of white noise. Theconsorts' various weekend parties are louder, but further away; noticeable onlywhen a line or two of song finds a favorable breeze or a new branch tossed on abonfire sends a gust of sparks above the trees and roofs of the slowly growingtown.

The carapacians' celebrations, of course, make no sound.

She and Dirk breathe in companionable silence for nearly anhour, while the white moon travels fifteen degrees toward zenith and the pinkmoon nearly twenty degrees in the same direction, edging toward partialeclipse. Roxy's still kind of giddy over the orbital mechanics of a three-bodysystem, and the difference two moons make in the rhythm of the tides. It couldtake years to work the changes into her bones.

She has years tospend on things like that. She spent her whole childhood isolated and trappedunder an incessant, shadowy weight. Now it's gone. She's free. She's not aloneanymore.

It would be nice if she were better at coping with thatchange.

Beside her, Dirk sighs, pulls his legs up to his chest, andrests his face between his knees. Something's gone cockeyed in his head again,and if nobody interrupts him he'll just debate himself into knots and grandiose'for your own good' bullshit stunts.

And hey, an hour of silence isn't enough to get Roxyanywhere near ready to face a crowd, but it's more than enough to talk to heroldest friend.

"The dumbest thing," she says, jumping straight inbecause what's the sense in wasting mouth noises on irrelevancies, "isthat weekend movie nights aren't even party-parties,nothing loud or crazy intense. It's just all our best friends hanging out oncomfy sofas playing goofy sleepover games, but stupid me got so wound up I hadto run screaming into the night. Otherwise I would've lost my shit at them overfish tacos and a popcorn fight, and that's just wrong with a capital R."

"Capital W," Dirk mutters, uncurling slightly andtilting his head until a sliver of orange iris is visible over the edge of hisright knee.

"Pedant," Roxy says, rather than draw attention tohis temporary lack of shades. "I just keep thinking, it shouldn't bug meso much. You've got a perfect excuse to flip out at extended socialinteractions, mister raised-by-robots. I actually had real live neighbors. Ishould be over this by now."

Dirk shrugs, which looks incredibly doofy when he's allcurled up like a pill bug. "As people keep telling me, brains aren'tparticularly logical organs. Besides, there's a pretty big difference betweensign language and a dozen plus people with actual vocal cords, some of whomhave a tragically shaky grasp of appropriate volume control."

"Ha. Yeah. Still."

"Still," Dirk agrees.

Roxy spreads her arms wide, staring up at the moons and theas-yet-unnamed constellations of their new universe, galaxy, solar system.Their new sun's a little brighter than Sol used to be -- a little smaller inthe sky, a little more pure-white than yellow-white -- and more like Alternia'ssun in its position vis-à-vis galactic center, which makes for some amazinglydense and brilliant starscapes. And she's saying this as a person who grew upwith no artificial light to blank out old Earth's night skies.

"Humans made the trolls' signs into constellationswithout any outside influence, just the shape of the universe orsomething," she muses. "I wonder if it's cheating to design ourconstellations ourselves."

Dirk shrugs again, a faint movement of shadow against darkershadow in the corner of her vision. "All our sessions were fucked from thestart; we had to cheat just to get out alive. What's a little more cheatingcompared to that? Ethical qualms aside, I'm pretty sure this planet isn't goingto be the focus of any future Sburb sessions. That dubious honor goes to the billionsof native planets kicking around this universe. If anyone's getting gentlymanipulated into using three-eyed cats and purple horrorterrors as part oftheir star myths, it's all those statistically inevitable aliens out there inthe wild black yonder."

"I bet their myths kick ass," Roxy says.

"I believe that's more or less implicit in thedefinition of the word. I'm not sure what they'll make of a hat or an LPrecord, though," Dirk says.

This time it's Roxy's turn to shrug. "Old-schoolD&D monsters, maybe? Or no, ten gets you one they'll go with crows andseagulls instead." She pauses, reconsiders. "Then again, Terezi'ssymbol is basically a giant lab tool with a shit-ton of cultural baggage, andKarkat's is kind of like, handcuffs, right? Maybe hats wind up as a symbol ofintellect and general badassery -- oh! or artificial life, like Frosty theSnowman's magic hat, 'cause of your robots and puppets thing -- and recordssymbolize creativity and art and stuff."

"Hats as a symbol of hubris and overreach, morelikely," Dirk mutters.

Roxy wriggles sideways until she's just close enough toflick the fingertips of her left hand against the side of his shoe. "Knockit off, dumbass. Nobody gets to badmouth my best friend -- not even my bestfriend."

Dirk unburies his face and meets Roxy's eyes straight on,one eyebrow raised. "I was under the impression that that title belongedto either Jane or Calliope. When did I inherit the position, and why was I notpreviously informed of this change in status? Are you sure you're followingfriend protocol correctly?"

Roxy flicks his shoe again. "Friendship is a bigcategory! You're all, like, different instantiations of the concept of 'bestfriend' -- Callie's my squee and kissing partner, Janey's my partner in crime,Rosie's my sister, Jake's my goofing off friend, Dave's my surrealism feedbackdude, John's my maybe-kinda-sorta other kissing partner, and so on and soforth. You, Dirk Strider, are theperson who knows me best in two and a half entire fucking universes. Okay?You're the one who knows what it's like. If I ever run off to be a hermit on amountaintop, I want you to come be a hermit on the mountain next door. We cansend heliograph messages back and forth, or learn how to yodel and shit, andonce a month we'll get together and have a wild and crazy hermit party, justthe two of us. That's the kind of best friend you are for me."

Dirk is silent for a long moment. Then he unwraps his righthand from his legs and lets it drop downward until his fingertips are justbrushing the soft, ticklish (completely un-carapacian) skin of Roxy's leftwrist, right over the veins carrying blood back to her heart.

"All that, back at you," he says.

Roxy blinks back a sudden rush of tears, and laces theirfingers together. Dirk lets her.

"Jade has some electric grid plans for you to lookover," she says after a minute. "You can do that anywhere,right?"

"Yeah," Dirk says.

"Then come seagull hunting with me tomorrow. Just the twoof us, out on the water. Like old times. I have a harpoon gun I've been wantingto try out, and we can tell anyone who complains that we're taking soundingsand stuff for potential tidal generators. Hell, we can even actually do that.But I miss you. I keep getting tangled up in everyone else and losing sight ofus."

Dirk squeezes her fingers. From him, it's as good as a hug.

"Yeah," he says. "It's a plan."

Roxy looks up at the night sky rather than try to put heremotions into words. There's a patch that looks a bit like a cat with wings, ifshe squints and takes some heavy artistic license. She holds up her phone inher right hand and adjusts the camera settings until she can snap a usefulpicture. She'll photoshop the constellation in later tonight and show it toDirk tomorrow: their friendship, immortalized in stars.

"Cool," she says.

They watch the pink moon overtake the white one in silence,fingers still entwined, the same air pumping in and out of their lungs.

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End of Fic

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It's still a little disjointed, I think, but whatever. Iwin. \o/

#liz writes stuff #homestuck #roxy lalonde #dirk strider #mini ficlet prompt meme #cotton candy bingo #asks and answers #in conversation with the internet #madamehardy #generalized content warning

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