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Thicker Than Blood 1

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Sweeps in the future, but not many...

The sun was setting. She was running out of time. And, worse yet, she still hadn't fed.

Kanaya Maryam raced across the open ground, ignoring the sunlight beating down on her from above. Even if she hadn't been oddly immune to the effects of the sunlight before, now that she was a rainbow drinker, she had absolutely nothing to fear. She could venture out in daylight without molestation, and, better yet, without running the risk of meeting another troll. Especially now, when she hadn't fed for at least a week. She was starving, and if she didn't carefully control herself, she might rip the throat out of the next troll she met.

Being a rainbow drinker had long lost the majesty that the idea had once held for her. There was nothing particularly romantic about draining a troll of their blood in order to survive. It was outright murder, but what choice did she have? If she didn't, she'd die. It was either her or them. In the beginning, she'd tried to fight it. Tried to starve herself. But Vriska would have none of that. In those first weeks, Vriska would make her feed, if she had to drag back prey herself.

Vriska. She had been perhaps the only silver lining to this new way of life. Even though the troll girl had made Kanaya into what she was, she couldn't hold a grudge. Vriska hadn't had a choice, either, and she just wanted a companion. And, after all, Vriska had spilled her own blood in order to keep Kanaya alive, rather than simply draining her. Kanaya owed her. But now...

She didn't know what to think anymore. At first, she'd thought that Vriska loved her. That she wanted the two of them to be together forever. That was why she turned her. However, half a sweep earlier, she had simply disappeared. Gone, with no trace of where she went or why. At first, Kanaya was sure something had happened to her. She searched, and searched, but never found a trace.

She was beginning to give up hope. She was beginning to despair of this life, stuck only in the sunlight, for the moonlight was poison to rainbow drinkers. Having to kill in order to survive. Being constantly alone.

She was sick of it. Sick to death of it. Maybe tonight, finally tonight, she'd let the moons have their way with her.

Yet she still ran towards the crooked shapes on the horizon that signified a lawn ring. Old habits died hard. And deep down, she didn't want to die.

The sun was still over the horizon when she reached the lawn ring. She picked the hive closest to the outside to enter. Easy access, and easy escape when the time came. All she had to hope for was that the lusus wasn't one of the particularly dangerous variety.

The hive in question seemed rather haphazardly constructed, but then, all hives were. It came from being designed by young trolls. What made this one a little more unique were the candy red tarps flapping in the gentle breeze. Not many people decorated their hive with a color like that. Most seemed to prefer to stick with gray, or perhaps using accents of their blood color. It made the house more noticeable. It reminded Kanaya a bit of her own home and her own tendency to rebel against conformity. Not that she had ever lived in an actual lawn ring, but still. Maybe that was what drew her to the hive. In other circumstances, she might have liked its occupant. Too bad she was going to kill them.

The door on the ground floor wasn't a problem to open. It wasn't even locked. It led into the kitchen, where she discovered exactly why no one bothered to lock it. A lusus laid asleep on the floor, its back facing her. Quietly, Kanaya slid the door shut before the sunlight had the chance to wake the creature up. In her ears, the click as the door closed seemed impossibly loud, but the lusus didn't stir. She tiptoed around it, working her way silently to the hallway while still keeping an eye on it. The white animal appeared to be crablike, if not in body then in its possession of large pincers in place of hands or paws. Even asleep, it looked quite menacing. Kanaya had no inclination to wake it up.

She made it to the hallway unmolested. She climbed the stairs to the next floor, keeping to the wall so as not to make them creak as she walked. Now that she was out of the kitchen, which was apparently the domain of the lusus, she could smell the troll that lived in this hive. The rich scent of blood was enthralling. The fact that she had gone so long without feeding only made it worse. Letting instinct take over, she followed the smell into the troll's room.

The dying sunlight spilled in the single window through a crack in the curtains, illuminating the otherwise dark room. A desk with a husktop computer sat nestled into a corner, and posters for movies that she recognized as romcoms lined the walls. She paid as little attention to all of this as possible. It only made it worse when she was done feeding and finally realized that the troll she had killed had a life and interests and had been a real person. It was so much easier to forget.

The troll was still asleep in his recuperacoon. She didn't look too closely at him, though she did notice that his horns were rather short and, well, nubby. It was sort of hard to miss. Oh well. It wouldn't matter much longer.

Her stride was silent as she crossed the room in a few steps. Soon enough, she was beside the recuperacoon, the rich scent of the troll's blood intoxicating. She touched his face with a gentle hand, careful not to wake him as she pushed his head back just enough to expose his neck. She bent down towards him and bit, puncturing the skin. She felt him start, the pain apparently waking him, but he wouldn't escape from her grip now. She began to drink.

When the blood first entered her mouth, she knew something was wrong. It burned whatever it touched—her lips, her tongue, the insides of her cheeks. It was like eating several of the capsicum fruits she used to grow at her hive in a row, one right after the other. She tried to stop, but the hunger was too great. Even that waned in the face of such fare. She only managed a few mouthfuls before she pulled away, gasping as she released him.

Her mouth was on fire. Even the cool air hurt. She felt the heat burning her lips, burning her mouth. She needed relief.

Without thinking, she pulled down her sleeve, exposing the glowing white skin beneath it. She slit a cut with her teeth and drank. To a rainbow drinker, the blood of another rainbow drinker was as satisfying as a drink of water to a troll with more water than they could ever drink but no food to go with it. It was still blood, but it held no substance. One could not live upon it. She knew this for a fact—she had tried it, when she first became a rainbow drinker and discovered she would have to kill all her victims. But just then, with the blood of the strange troll still burning her, her own blood was delicious. It quenched the heat quickly. Quickly enough for her to realize that something in the room was moving. She looked up.

The troll was dragging himself out of his recuperacoon. She stopped drinking, pulling her mouth away from the cut, at the realization that she hadn't killed him.

This had never happened before. Not once. No matter what she did, no matter how much she resolved not to kill this one, it always happened. Vriska had said it must be some kind of instinctual thing, to drink all the blood of their prey. The hunger wouldn't let them do otherwise.

But this troll's blood was strange. Strange enough to break the pull of the hunger, strange enough to allow him to survive. As he finished wriggling out of the recuperacoon and climbed to his feet, wearing nothing more than sopor slime and a pair of red boxes decorated with black spades, she saw the bite marks on his neck. They still oozed a little blood. And it was red. Candy red.

That was interesting.

The troll crouched into a fighting stance, drawing a pair of twin sickles out of his strife specibus to show he meant business. Even so, she saw that he was shaky on his feet. She had not taken enough of his blood to kill him, but she had taken enough to make him light headed.

"Who the fuck are you?!" He yelled, waving a sickle emphatically. "What the fuck are you doing in my hive, and why the fuck were you molesting me in my sleep?!" Although the situation was one that was certainly out of any of Kanaya's expectations, she could not help but smirk a bit at the last comment, well aware of the fact that her teeth were likely still smeared with her own blood.

"I assure you, I was in no way shape or form conducting sexual acts upon your unconscious body while you slept," she replied. "I came here with the intent of imbibing your delicious blood in such a way that would prove fatal for you and then leave. Fortunately for you, your blood was not so delicious." She stared at the wound on his neck. "I assume you are aware that your blood is a rather peculiar shade of mutant red?"

"Yes, I was fucking aware!" He snarled back. "I'm aware of it every fucking minute of every fucking day for my entire life, and you can just shut the fuck up about it, crazy fucking bitch!" He lashed out at her with a sickle, though she did not flinch. She sidestepped, albeit much more quickly than he ever could have, and circled around behind him, placing an arm on his shoulder.

"Perhaps you should calm down," she whispered in his ear. "I may not be very keen on drinking your blood any longer, but I am still more than capable of killing you." Kanaya moved out of the way as he turned to slice at her again. He missed.

"Stand the fuck still!" He growled, though she could tell he was getting tired and unnerved. She smiled.

"Come now, would you stand still if an angry young troll was coming at you with a pair of deadly sickles? I think not." She was enjoying this too much. She knew she was. But it had been so long since she'd talked to anyone else. She knew she should kill this boy, and that she would likely have to, but she wanted to enjoy the moment while it lasted. Even if he was livid and trying to kill her.

Maybe some of Vriska's sadism had rubbed off onto her.

He gathered the strength to chase after her a few more times, but his attempts were even more pathetic. Kanaya hardly had to move to avoid him. He finally gave up, panting.

"What the fuck are you?" He gasped, looking thoroughly exhausted.

"I should think that the answer to that question would be obvious by now," she said with a smug smirk. "I am a rainbow drinker." For a moment, it looked like he was going to protest, to say something about how that was dumb and that rainbow drinkers weren't real. But she could practically see the wheels turning in his head. There was too much evidence to the contrary, and he knew it. He might be angry and violent, but he was not stupid.

"Why me?" He finally asked. "Do you have a fucking grudge against me? Was I next on your hit list to drain of bodily fluids or something?" She shrugged.

"I have nothing against you. The choice was merely opportunistic, nothing more." She took a step towards him, now that it looked like he was too tired to object. He stared at her warily. "Unfortunately, now that you have seen me and know what I am, I cannot let you live. You understand, correct? I cannot let word spread that a rainbow drinker is in the area, preying upon young, unsuspecting trolls." His wary expression turned to an angry one again, though he didn't look surprised.

"Of fucking course. Isn't that just the luck of Karkat Vantas? Blood tasted terrible, but he got killed fucking anyway." When he said his name, Kanaya froze. She stared at him, suddenly shocked and shaken and terrified. He looked back at her defiantly, daring her to try to kill him. His sickles were still at the ready. Finally, though, he grew impatient.

"What the fuck are you waiting for?" He growled. She blinked. She recognized the tone now, the way he spoke. It was exactly like how he'd typed, when they had been friends. Before she had become a rainbow drinker.

"Your... your name is Karkat?" She asked hesitantly.

"That's what I fucking said, wasn't it?" He snarled. "What? Does that name make you want to kill me slowly now or something?" She couldn't speak. She just shook her head, putting a hand to her mouth and stepping backwards.

Their conversations online came back to her, of all the times she'd talked to him when she was depressed. When she just needed to talk to a friend, not a moirail. Karkat had been a very good friend to her for a long time, and...

Oh. Oh god. She had very nearly just killed him.

What a wonderful way to repay friendship.

She hadn't even realized she'd started crying, not until she noticed that her cheeks were wet. She wiped away the jade tears hastily, but Karkat was giving her a confused look.

"What the hell?" He said aloud. She shook her head.

"Oh, god, Karkat. I... I didn't recognize you. I've never actually spoken to you off of Trollian, and we had never sent pictures of ourselves to each other, so I suppose it is understandable that I would not recognize you when we finally met in real life, but under these circumstances it still seems completely inexcusable—"

"Oh my fucking god," Karkat said, interrupting her. "Kanaya? Kanaya Maryam?" She nodded. How he had finally recognized the truth, she couldn't say, but perhaps it was her rambling apology. He had recognized her tone just as she had recognized his.

"I regretfully confirm that it is in fact my name, though I am ashamed to say as much," she told him. "I am so very deeply sorry, Karkat."

"Oh god. I... I need to fucking sit down." With shaking hands, he pulled the chair out from under the desk and all but collapsed in it, ignoring the fact that he was getting sopor slime all over it. He put his face in his hands, as if trying to hold his skull together under the pressure of the information that had just been dumped upon him. After a few long, tense moments, he lowered his hands, looked up at her, opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it again, looking away. He did this several more times before Kanaya began to grow impatient herself.

"Please, Karkat," she begged, unable to find more words for once in her life. She wasn't even sure what she was begging for. Karkat took a deep, shuddering breath.

"Look, I... I know this a shock for both of us, okay? But would you mind just... just fucking sitting in the hall for a moment, or something. At least let me get cleaned up." She nodded.

"Of course. I understand." She stepped out the door and back into the hallway. She listened for a moment, but she heard nothing from inside the room. The lusus in the kitchen still snored away, oblivious to what was going on upstairs.

Feeling more lonely than ever and extremely guilty, Kanaya sat down on the floor beside the door. She started crying again, this time into the fabric of her skirt. What had she almost done?
Hey guys, remember this: [link]

Yeah, that rainbow drinker fanfic I started writing before Wizardstuck. With Kanaya and Vriska doing weird stuff.

HERE'S THE NEXT PART.

oh god oh god don't seem like twilight don't seem like twilight

Homestuck ([link]) (c) Andrew Hussie

Prologue: [link]

Chapter 2: [link]
© 2011 - 2024 PhantomSunsSong
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MyrnaMaeve's avatar
Still a better love story than Twilight. :iconbrickdplz: