asgardmeridiem

"Of course!" she responds, grin threatening to split her face. Terezi is still flat on her back with Nepeta cooing above her as she goes through her adventures in her head and offers a creative retelling. "I had to battle a fierce, terrible treebeast who threatened me from above! It threw spikes down from the highest trees, and only my keen sense of smell helped me sense its location and bring the beast down. Then I had to swim across a roaring river, with foamy white waters and snapping toothbeasts and sharp rocks!" As she lists each new trial, Terezi's voice grows louder with excitement. "I would have been soaking wet when I got here, but then I ran into..." Pause for effect... "A rival dragon!" Gasp.

"The battle was violent and bloody, and her firebreath was so hot that it completely dried my clothes." It totally makes sense for the purpose of the story, shush.

Nepeta listens breathlessly to the exciting tale, gasping and exclaiming at all the right parts - especially as Terezi describes her swim across that raging river. Nepeta's terror of water is quite a real thing.

Once she's done she fits her head beneath Terezi's chin, giggling. Luckily her horns aren't sharp like some! "All these dangers you faced to be reunited with me! I'm pawsitively flattered!!"

"Hehehe, what can I say? It's been a most excccellent encounter so far; I'd say the great trials were more than worth it."

It's hard to resist snuggling her for a little while longer, so Terezi doesn't. Finally, though, with one last squeeze, she flexes her abdominal muscles and easily sits them both up, then bunps her chin against the top of Nepeta's head. "Now that we've been reaquainted, the fierce pouncebeast should show the curious dragon around her territory," she declares, sniffing around the area and opening her mouth a fraction to taste the air. "In my hurry to find you, I neglected to make a detailed observation of my surroundings." Blurry images, scent-scapes and smeared swathes of colour begin to form around her, forming a muddled picture of the square.

"I'm very purrleased to hear that," Nepeta purrs out, acting more kitten-like every extra moment that Terezi allows her to snuggle. It's a good thing she finally makes her sit up, because the oliveblood can get quite ridiculous when she goes into serious kitty-mode.

"Oh, yes, yes! I want to show you around! You should come and see my block! I've already got all sorts of paintings up, even if I haven't had time to learn enough to do my wall properly yet." She scrambles to her feet, attempting to tug Terezi onto hers as well. "Lets pick up all the members of the jury and go for a walk to Freya House! ...or shall they be my cubs this time?" she asks, looking pensively at the plushies lying around.

Pausing, Terezi looks around at the pile of plush toys she is sitting in the center of. She taps her knuckle against her chin, and then says mildly, "Congratulations, Madame Leijon, your cubs have grown up and become some very fine legislacerators." Selecting the one that smells the nicest (though they all smell sweet and fuzzy and fresh like Nepeta) Terezi rises from the depths of the pile, squishing it lightly between her hands. She adds, "A most masterful of legislacerators, indeed."

Tucking the most lawerly of cub-plushies under her arm, Terezi gives Nepeta a purposeful nod and picks up her cane from the ground.

Oh, excellent, they are both her cubs and legislacerators at the same time! This is a most surprising yet satisfactory plot twist, and Nepeta looks around at all her highly-accomplished cubs with all the pride of a mother cat.

"I am furry pleased with them indeed, oh yes!" She somehow manages to gather the remainder of the plushies in her arms, a couple being first stuffed into her trenchcoat's voluminous pockets. "We will let them escort us to the ante-block, where we will all discuss the details of our latest case! Namely, the furful beast who was so rude as to use its fire on you as you looked fur me!"

"Yes, an excellent plan! We should be partners in the fight for justice," Terezi says decisively. "You and your cubs will make a fine addition to my new base of operations." Terezi does not actually have a base yet, but she's sure she'll find one at some point. For now, her little courthouse is laying abandoned somewhere in Loki district. She doesn't think anyone will bother with it.

She reaches for one other plush and folds it underneath her other arm, figuring that Nepeta should not be expected to carry so many cubs at once. "Lead the way, partner," Terezi all but purrs excitedly.

"This way!" Nepeta declares, starting off the short march to Freya house and subsequently to her room. Her quick senses save her from many a fall she may have taken with such an armful of plushies getting in the way of seeing where she's going, and it's with very few misadventures that she finally elbows open the door to her room.

Renovations seem to already be under way! Adventure paintings litter the walls, with one wall still conspicuously blank, waiting to be turned into The Great Shipping Wall^TM just as soon as Nepeta has collected enough information for it to be done properly.

Dutifully, Terezi follows, and even acquires a couple more plushcubs under her arms due to the couple of aforementioned misadventures contributed to by Nepeta's temporary functional blindness, and she's giggling from amusement by the time they both clambour through the door into Nepeta's block.

Immediately releasing her own armful of legislacerbabies, abandoning their plush hides to the cold floor, she immediately launches herself at the nearest bright scent. Terezi giggles to herself as she presses her hands to the wall and hovers her nose over one of Nepeta's drawings, sniffing hard around the length of the wall to intake information about the room so she can be suitably amazed at what Nepeta has done to transform the boring human hive into a proper respite block.

Finally, she pulls away long enough to grin, exclaiming, "Your cave paintings smell beautiful!"

Nepeta watches Terezi inspecting her paintings and waits for her verdict, very grateful at her thoughtfulness in only sniffing at them instead of tasting. While she doesn't mind her lick-happy habits - they're rather endearing, actually! - it would be a pity if the pictures got smeared!

"Yay!" she declares triumphantly once Terezi has given her work her official seal of approval, and to celebrate she launches herself at her friend at just the right angle to knock her over onto a pile of cushions conveniently situated exactly behind her on the floor. "I'm glad you like them! Oh, but almost all of them are of my old adventures. We need to have some new ones so that I'll have even more to paint!"

"Yesssss," Terezi responds, her voice hissing in her delight as she snuggles Nepeta close. She sniffs the room, feeling comforted and relieved by the colour here, by the soft, warm scent of lived-in and Nepeta, alive and breathing in her arms. If letting go before was hard, it's even harder now that Terezi is out of the awful grey city that she hates, that tastes like she's licking pavement over and over with every breath she takes. Her claws drag under Nepeta's cap, mussing her hair and rubbing at her scalp.

"The forest is very big and weird," she continues, fingers still clawing little circles against Nepeta's scalp. "There are lots of places we can explore; maybe we could even find a cave, and we can paint the walls with delicious colours and stories of our adventures."

Nepeta squeals and pretends to flail about when she's grabbed again for more snuggling - ridiculous, since there's nothing she'd like better than being cuddled just now. Sure, Equius was here and all, and could hold her now, but he was still a bit too reserved for a good old-fashioned cuddle!

All flailing stops when the head-scritches start, and Nepeta melts into a happy, oozy pile of kitty troll, setting up a purring that would have rivalled her lusus' if she'd happened to be around. Vague head-nodded marks her agreement with this idea - exploring a forest! Finding their own cave to decorate! Vocally agreeing and planning will have to wait until later. Busy glorying in head-scritches now.

A soft smile takes form on Terezi's lips as Nepeta practically goes prone over her, curling up into her chest and rumbling in contentment. Her fingers move absently, swirling and clawing around her scalp, down the back of her neck and then up again, stroking down the length of her spine and over her shoulderblades and anywhere else Terezi can reach, just so long as Nepeta doesn't stop the long, soothing hum rattling around in her chest and spreading warm, tingly fingers through Terezi's own bonecage. Only minutes ago she was full of creative energy and desire to explore, and now she's willing to curl up and take a nap in Nepeta's den and never go outside into the ashy grey city ever again.

Then her mind starts wondering if this is pale cheating, and in a brief fit of guilt she pulls her hands away from Nepeta's skin, conflicted. Equius and Terezi are not really friends, but still...

There's not much chance of Nepeta ceasing to purr any time soon, not with Terezi giving her one of the best and most thorough pettings of her life! She's sagged comfortably in her friends arms, nuzzling her face back and forth against her shoulder, not even wondering in the slightest if this was pale cheating. It isn't! She knows that she doesn't feel the same way about Terezi as she does about Equius, and after living on her own with just Pounce fussing over her for so long, well. Cuddling with a friend seems to be just right to her.

"Noooo, more scritches!" she complains when Terezi pauses.

"Are you sure?" Terezi asks, hesitating. She doesn't really care for Equius, or even Nepeta's relationship with him, but that doesn't mean she openly condones infidelity (even if ethical codes aren't quite the same as legal ones). "I was just wondering if Equius would be okay with this."

Still, her hands slip back down to Nepeta's shoulders, resting there lightly. Physical contact is kind of weird for Terezi; she never had much of it growing up, but after entering the game and getting a whole lot of it all at once, she discovered she liked it quite a lot. And now she's in Asgard, alone again, spending most of her time wandering about on her own, and she finds she actually misses the company.

"Why wouldn't he be?" Nepeta asks her as she looks up, a puzzled expression on her face. "I haven't seen you in a very long time and I thought I never would see you again."

She flops over, looking defeated. "Besides, Equius doesn't approve of giving me too many scritches at once! So it's not like you're doing anything that he would be doing instead." Really, it's only here with his strength reduced that he's been able to touch Nepeta at all, and even that tends to be limited to hugs or picking her up to carry her somewhere. After so much time not touching, he still seemed unsure whether physical affection between moirails was appropriate! (Nepeta is busy teaching him that yes, yes it is.)

Scratchy palms press into Nepeta's shoulders, rubbing down and massaging soothingly. "Equius doesn't approve of most things," she says conclusively, the corner of her inky black lips quirking to the side. Convinced, she flexes her claws back into Nepeta's skin, pressing through the fabric of her coat to draw light circles with the tips of her nails against her shoulderblades.

"What do you want to do later?" Terezi asks, understanding with her superior troll intellect and once-possessed powers of sight to determine that Nepeta is not going to let her up any time soon. "We could draw pictures of Alternia on the walls."

"He's a sillypants about things sometimes," Nepeta agrees readily, but with unmistakeable fondness in her voice. "He doesn't really disapprove of half as many things as he pretends to!"

She rolls back and forth on her Terezi-pile, giggling and purring at all the attention, every inch a kitty in need of love and affection and right now please and yes, just behind her ear like that! Terezi is very astute is recognizing that she won't be getting up any time soon.

"Hmmm, maybe. Not on these walls, though. It's a new life here! I don't mind remembering the old one, but not in here. I want to look furward!"

Nodding, she reluctantly agrees. Terezi doesn't have quite the same perspective. More than anything, she just wants to go home, and the patches of trees she's found around the city have made a nice substitute for her forest back home. Sleeping on a tree branch is not too different from sleeping on a pile, even if she misses sleeping in a recuperacoon terribly. It's been years since she's well and truly slept comfortably.

All she really wants is for things to go back. Vriska could be alive, they could all be back home, and they could forget all the pain and death they've been forced to endure by the stupid game. Sometimes, she feels better being in Asgard, away from the psychological pressure of the game's mission; others, she gets angry. Angry that for all that pain and effort they've been snatched away, stolen from their timeline, and nothing even matters anymore because they never get to go back. Everything she wanted--comfort, a new universe, safety of her friends--is all right here, and it's nothing like the way she wanted it to be.

Her claws tighten in the folds of Nepeta's jacket unintentionally.

"Terezi?" Nepeta stops playing the kitten for a moment, sensing her friend's change in mood. She's not sure what just happened, but she guesses it must be something she said, and that worries her. She'd only meant that she was trying to make the best of things, make a new life for herself here.

She hadn't thought of what it must be like, the chance of going back and having to go on with so many friends dead, so many things changed forever and no certainty and barely any hope for the future.

She wraps her arms around her, hugging her tight. "What's wrong?"

"It's just kind of strange being here, sometimes," Terezi says, haltingly. "I wish none of this had ever happened!

"We spent so long and so many of us hurt and died to save our old universe... and now it's completely pointless! Why couldn't they have taken us before all this happened? Or after we either died out or succeeded?

"It's unfair," she finishes with a flourish, hissing through her teeth as her hands clutch against Nep's back.

"You've only just got here though," Nepeta points out, patting Terezi's shoulder reassuringly. "Maybe you just need some time to get used to it? It isn't fair but a lot of things about Alternia, and about the game, weren't fair at all either."

She sighs and lets Terezi squish her tightly, not really minding. "I just think that maybe we'll be happy here."

After Nepeta speaks, Terezi falls silent, and stays that way for perhaps a bit longer than she should. She purrs faintly in her chest in an attempt to comfort herself as she pets Nep's back, ruffles her hair, strokes the soft surface of her horns. Could they be happy here? That's the winning question, isn't it. And the problem is that Terezi actually thinks that they could be happy in Asgard, but that simultaneously makes her angrier. Why did they have to be ripped out of their task in order to be happy? Why did they have to leave other versions of themselves behind to suffer in the same impossible task they themselves had been fighting for perigees?

It's too convenient. It makes everything else they've survived feels useless, and that makes her want to tear apart the stupid universe tree they've living on with her claws and rearrange it until it makes something akin to sense.

She sighs. "Do you think if someone had gone back in time and told us all--back when we were young, before Sgrub and everything--that all this would happen that we would have been different? Tried to be different?" Not been so ready to murder each other. Terezi tries not to think about that, but Vriska's face has been painted in her subconscious in indelible blue ink, blue as the blood she'd cried over while she cleaned it off her sword.

Nepeta thinks about that for a while, and then slowly shakes her head. "I don't know. Maybe we would have been. Or maybe things were just meant to turn out this way. But what I do know is that we can't let ourselves think like that. I'd never stop wondering if I could have saved Equius if I did! But all the time I wasted thinking about changing things would be time I'd be missing out on actually spending with him, now that we're still together here. We just have to take what we've been dealt and move onwards with it, don't we? We're trolls, we can adapt to anything!"

"I guess," she agrees weakly, her hands going still. Lost in thought, she muses over Nepeta's words, over her own inner demons, over the deeper meanings of these things.

Finally, she takes a deep breath, and asks: "Do you know I killed Vriska?"

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ugh i'm sorry this took so long ;;

it's okay!

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