Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/ works/9082228. Rating: Explicit Archive Warning: Rape/Non-Con, Underage Category: F/M, Multi Fandom: Homestuck Relationship: Orphaner_Dualscar/Vriska_Serket, past_Orphaner_Dualscar/Marquise Spinneret_Mindfang, mentioned_The_Summoner/Marquise_Spinneret_Mindfang Character: Orphaner_Dualscar, Vriska_Serket, Marquise_Spinneret_Mindfang, Doc Scratch, All_the_Trolls_+_Kids Additional Tags: dd/lg, AU Stats: Published: 2016-12-27 Updated: 2016-12-29 Chapters: 2/? Words: 1773 ****** Nymphets Can Reach the Sky ****** by s8xyvriska Summary Her face resembled her Mother's, and yet did not at all. ***** The Before ***** =============================================================================== Alternia ???? ===============================================================================  He wished, for a moment, that he could change the past.  Perhaps, with the millions of possibilities and actions, there was something that he could have done that would have pleased everyone. If he acted better under high-emotional stress, maybe he would not have the sensation of panic and that of a hand reaching inside of his abdomen in order to squeeze and twist his innards. Maybe the calm facade that he currently wore on his face would be more believable.  'Maybe' and 'What if' could not help him now.  Now, he had to face what his actions had caused.  His jealousy. His anger. His utter outrage.  It made him spiral. How could she? His lover and dear kismesis, her eye wandering over the figure of a rare mid-blood servant. He shouldn't have cared, truly. Spinneret was loyal to their pitch relationship, yet when she sent her red or perhaps quadrant-less intentions down upon the jade blooded woman, he had felt hurt. His heart, inside of his chest felt like it would crumble and he reacted.  The Marquise bid him farewell and he took the woman. He took her by the elongated horn, dragged her body over the side of his ship and ordered her head to be cut off.  Her rare blood stained the deck and her head fell into the ocean. He heard it splash. Her body followed, and it floated, to be eaten and pecked at by the gulls.  It could have remained as that.  He would have lied, told the Marquise that the slave had tried to escape. She needed to be executed, it would have stayed as that. She might have been disgruntled with him but it would have been no reason to leave him. Yet he craved more, he wanted to punish her.  So he'd changed the heading of his ship to the East, to the Palace, where the seat of government was. He didn't know what he was doing until he was already in the chambers of judgement. The subjuggulators, barely conscious of mind but larger than life and wielders of belief, controlled what was below. The prosecution and young justice bringers that kept order and peace along the realms of living would adore having Mindfang in their court. She'd be behind bars for only a few weeks before escaping, he figured. But that would satisfy him, the frustration on her face would make him feel better. They would continue life, her running and playing in the salt-water air, while he pretended that he didn't know where she was and what she was doing.  It was all his fault.  The Grand Highblood sent a girl.A brand new up and comer by the name of Neophyte. She was vibrant and excited to take on Mindfang, someone worthy of the history books.  He didn't realize how excited she was. Mindfang ended the girl's life. Dragged herself to god-knows-where.  Dualscar could not stand not knowing where she was.  /~/ It was sweeps later when he caught wind of her scent again.  At first, it was just flashes of things in newspapers.  A robbery here. A show of extravagance there. Then, finally he saw her photograph. A wanted poster, next to the face of another troll. Brown-blooded, with large horns on either side of his head and symmetrical, conventionally attractive features. A revolutionary, fighting for the low-blooded cause.  It made his blood burn.  She was still beautiful. No lines of age on her face, but the gleam. The sparkle of mischief, was missing from her eyes. She had matured without him.  /~/ When news spread that she had died, it killed him inside. The revolution was over with, he had made sure of that on behalf of the Empress.  He thought she would leave before the fire touched her. Before it was too late for her to leave.  But she'd stayed, stayed with the man who ruined her.  Dualscar, as he walked through the piles of burning bodies, looked for her on the battle ground. The only cerulean blooded troll in a sea of dirt and grass, she stuck out.  The glare of flames against her face made her skin glow with beauty. Dualscar hadn't realized that he'd fallen until he felt the stones and twigs poking his legs and knees. Her body didn't move, she was more still than he'd ever seen her.  She was warm from the fire around her.  He took her and gave her a seadweller's funeral. Buried at sea, she sank into the cold salt water.  And his heart and spade sank with her.  ***** The Meeting ***** =============================================================================== Alternia Before SBURB =============================================================================== His face had the look of a tired peddler. Grey had begun to touch his temples. He started to feel his bones creak, protesting when he sat up too quickly. He was getting old, and it was taking it's toll on him. His life since the revolution was a steady one. He'd long since abandoned his ships and fleets, and lived in a corridor of the Palace that had been left by the Condesce.  Her lusus remained, as did his job of feeding her. Every two weeks, at least six large lusii were to be fed to her. It was by pure accident that he found the creature. She was large, a gigantic arachnid. Pure white, with huge eyes and green bloodied pinchers. He'd happened upon her while she was feeding.  Dualscar resolved himself into a bothersome fight with the aggressive Mother, raising his Ahabs Crosshairs. A sharp beam of power shot from it, rushing through the spider's abdomen, causing it to let out loud screams of pain and anger. Cerulean blood splattered out from her, which bothered him. It bothered him that she was blue-blooded and that she was a spider. There were many lusii, he knew. There was no reason for this one to be at all resembling hers.  Preparing to take the body, he hadn't realized that he wasn't alone with the lusus.  It's grub was nearby.  In fact, it looked as if the Mother was planning on consuming it.  The newly orphaned troll's simpering cries were heard from the other side of the carcass. Would it be better to end it's life, before the Drones came for it? It would not survive without a parent anyway. And his gun against a small creature would be more merciful than the horror of being taken and squished by Drones.  He lowered his gun to his side, and he walked and peered around the head of the dead lusii.  There, in front of the Mother, was a small and crying Mindfang.  She had long, black hair that was draped along her body and stuck to the blood on her arm. Her feet were bare, with painted blue toenails. A light, not-quite- grey dress clothed the small Mindfang, something that she had never worn before, but looked incredibly fetching on her. Her sad, sweet weeping sent pangs of pity in his heart. "Girl..." He'd murmured, in a state of wide-eyed shock at the sight of the girl that looked no older than 6 sweeps, lowering himself to the ground and softening his features so as not to scare her.  Unfortunately, his entire presence radiated power and intimidation, so when the girl glanced up (her eyes had not even turned to the blue color that showed her caste, they remained a dark, murky grey) her first move was to dart back away from him, to scutter away from the scene.  He was far quicker than she was, old as he was.  "Stop! Wait, don't run!" He'd said to her, reaching out and grasping her by the arms, pinning her wrists together with one hand. The lithe Marquise shrieked, trying to use her entire strength to rip her hands from his grasp, to no avail.  "Stop trying to get away, I'm not going to hurt you." He promised, attempting to stop her from fighting him, hopefully to calm her in some way. "You're lying!" Marquise cried out. Her fangs were small, they didn't look like they could pierce anything at all. "I'm not." He insisted, shrugging his Crosshairs off his shoulder and letting it drop into the sand. "See here, girl? I've no weapon to harm you with." She was leaning as far as she possibly could from him, glaring down on the ground, where his long-earned Crosshairs laid.  When she only looked up at him and sent him a distrustful look, he released her wrists. The Marquise didn't run. She took a large step away from his person, holding where he'd been grabbing her to her chest, staring at him. Her eyes, one of them with the same seven pupils, were intense and rimmed with black sloppily. To show that he did not intend to go back on his word, he too took a step away from her; From his Crosshairs.  "Are you alright? I'm sorry if I held you too tightly." He said with a civil tone, tilting down his chin to the young teen.  She looked fragile. With her lips, painted cerulean, pursed. Her black eyebrows narrowed, causing a series of creases between them to show how uncomfortable she was with his polite concern and questioning. After a moment of measured silence, she raised up her head and stared at him dead in the eye. "You killed her." Her voice wavered.  "She would have consumed you." He countered gently. The little Marquise knew that. He saw it in the grave acceptance drawn on her pretty face. "Maybe not."  He shook his head. "She would have."  "No." She denied, shaking her head swiftly. "She wouldn't. She needs me to live."  Needed.  The Mother was dead.  "You will live on without her to hinder you." Dualscar told her, and she'd scoffed. Bitterly, with the frustrations of a woman rather than a girl. Then she'd told him that she knew what happened to kids without lusii. She was living on borrowed time.  He was uncomfortable with her knowledge of life. She was correct, the Marquise. She had a few months at best.  "Then I will take you."  She'd blanched, and he had to recover from his own wording. It took 15 minutes to convince the girl that he was her best bet. It was his fault, becoming attached to her. Vriska, this little orphan who's future he'd just warped, just changed forever, was a torch. She burned brightly, brought fireflies from all over, only to zap them with a few licks. Her flames could light others, extended with scented wax. She could burn down a village. She could make blood boil and sear skin. And she could slowly die over time.  Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed their work!