Bel: Visit even more rainbow drinkers.

You shudder, and it takes all your self-control not to jerk away when you feel the first stab. The licking makes you twitch -- clench a fist, remind yourself not to hit -- and the numbness it spreads is more alarming than soothing. Your posture is rigid, you're as straight-backed and stiff as a concrete pillar, scowling like a stormcloud. You feel her naked rumblespheres brush your arm, and are assaulted by a devastating combo of angryboner and douche-chills, because she's god knows how old and is making this sexy just because she knows you don't want it to be...

And then a switch gets flipped, and the world is entirely chill from horizon to horizon. Nothing has ever been as peaceful as this moment right now.

The sheer alienness of the sensation, of course, cranks your paranoia to Defcon One.

Tether Bel is watching these sensations battle. They form a sort of madhappy mess like nirvana crunch ice cream with kill-everyone swirl. Far below, your mouth opens and says calmly, "I do not like this at all. This is fucked up."

 

Grue pulls back immediately and leans Bel against a few pillows. She gives an almost guilty glance at Hess, then wipes blue off her chin— regretfully, but she makes no move to reestablish contact.

"Sorry," she says, her voice low. "I was just teasing, kid. Here— a towel, hold it up to— yeah, you got it. Good."

 

"Did you get enough?" you ask dazedly. "I pay my debts. I'm a. A gentletroll. No matter what Erskin says."

 

"You're alright, kid, I'm fine," Grue says, and pats his knee. "You got a nice vintage going for you, though, you live real clean, good job. Keep the pressure up, I think someone around here's got butterfly strips—Hess can come close the marks up when you're ready."

"Hess would have liked some storm-thorn fiber," Hess grumbles, but is already rummaging in her sylladex for a treatment kit.

 

"I know I stopped early. I'm sorry. I didn't know it would be so. I just don't like being impaired. Or licked. I'll gather some plants for you anyway? I mean if it won't take super long? I should get back before. Stuff."

The fluffcheep is gnawing your finger as if he wants your attention. He hasn't finished the scrambled eggs, so it's not that he's hungry... "Oh, your ball. Yes." You produce it, give it a little jingle... and sit there jingling the bell and staring at it for a good thirty seconds while your pet jumps for it and makes indignant squawking noises.

 

"Take it easy, dear," Hess says, bustling over. She curls Bel up on his side, says, "Sorry, this will just take a moment, I'm just sealing it," and licks the wound like a grooming purrbeast before leaning back and starting to apply a bandage.

 

That licking is somewhat less upsetting, but it still weirds you out, and having someone besides Pancho moving you around and bandaging you while you're not all there is dreadfully unpleasant. You try not to show it, because Hess is only being a good hostess. You focus instead on rolling the jingleball around with your fingertips while the fluffcheep tries to steal it like a tiny footballer.

"I think," you say slowly. "I think I still don't understand what Erskin gets out of it. I just feel like I took too much cold medicine."

 

"Well, different jokes for different folks," Hess says, patting Bel between the horns. "Here, eat some fruit and then go for a little walk around the ring, you'll be fine."

 

You do as you're told, and after a few laps -- walking very carefully at first, as if your head might fall off, and then striding, and then loping to get your blood circulating, with the fluffcheep hanging onto your horns and making excited peeps at the speed -- you feel a whole lot steadier.

Returning to the group, you crouch on your heels and get out your phone. "What's the plant called again? It's still early, I can try to find you some. I feel bad for wussing out of getting bitten."

 

Grue has been sulking under the table and at this last bit she snaps: "We don't take from the unwilling."

Then she rolls over, radiating wounded pride. A few of the knitting girls giggle.

"Don't mind her temper, she just likes to stride about like she's the mothergrub's gift to the universe," Hess says fondly. "But you either want it or you don't, dear, it's not an endurance trial. If you'd like to be a help, though, the plant is called 'storm-thorn' or sometimes 'hornbane'. Big whippy chains of pale thorns, likes to grow up on cliffs, builds itself up a static charge from the wind and then drops down to electrocute its prey. I want a few bales and it's really a damn nuisance to harvest."

 

You don't understand what Grue's mad about, but making amends isn't an option; you couldn't even articulate to yourself in your own mind how surprising it was, the idea of a stranger not making you go through with a deal just because you didn't like it. You don't have a hope in hell of addressing it out loud in a way that makes things better rather than worse. Another thing you also don't understand is why any trolls are willing, let alone enough of them to satisfy five rainbow drinkers. Then again, you might be biased, having recently watched on video Erskin in that too-much-cold-medicine state of impairment be harrassed into a meltdown, mobbed, tied hand and foot, and locked in a cell. Maybe if Grue understood it was that more than her that made you want to stop?

Ugh, what are you thinking, were you honestly considering babbling at this whole bunch of strangers about your rumpled feelings? You really need to pull yourself together. You are getting way too emo lately.

So you ignore the whole Grue thing, and try to forget the bandage on your neck and the last residue of whatever-it-is in your bloodstream, and focus on looking up the plant Hess wants you to find. It sounds seriously nasty, which is great, because a challenge is exactly what you need right now. "Hmm, I bet I could get my camera drones to spot that static charge..." You get them out so you can fiddle with their sensors.

 

"Ooh," Hess says, and pulls out a battered, antique tablet. She clicks at it with stubby nails until it's displaying a slightly glitchy topographical holomap of their surroundings in the air above its surface, then shows Bel.

"Here's the local terrain, dear," she says. "You could mark the locations of clusters, that would be a help."

 

"Share the file?" You try to open it in your orienteering app, and the file converts just fine. Awesome. "Can do. Oh, can we exchange trollhandles -- thanks." That done, you hook some pruning shears and a pair of thick work gloves in your climbing belt along with the carabiners and chalk bag, and set out into the desert night with a wave, your spy dromes spreading out ahead of you in a wide arc.

 

You pull your dusty landskimmer up to the ragged foot of a tall, cracked butte and push your riding goggles up to yourhorns. You squint against the moonlight and the crackling tesla lightshow of riled-up storm-thorns until you spot your elusive prey. You pull down your bandana, raise your gloved hands, cup them around your mouth and shout,

"BEL KADROS, I AM GOING TO TURN YOU INSIDE OUT AND WEAR YOU LIKE AN UNSIGHTLY HAT, YOU FAITHLESS, FLIGHTY, HYPOCRITICAL, ROT-SLURRIED REMAINDER OF A RUBBISH TIP. COME DOWN HERE AT ONCE AND FIGHT ME!"

 

Hearing his voice out here, and so strong and sassy besides, is so unexpected that you don't even startle. You calmly finish spraying a plant with water (it grounds enough of the charge that the thorns can't zap you much through your gloves) before sending one of your drones down to convey your conversational-volume rebuttal via your headset mic. "Counterproposal: come up here and explain those remarks. Didn't you once promise to out-climb me?"

Then you reach out with your pruning shears and start snipping canes as if your heart isn't racing with mingled anxiety and joy. He chased you all the way here! But he's accusing you of faithlessness -- what the hell does he think you did?

 

You grab the small drone out of the air and resist the urge to crush it. Instead you hold it up as a sort of microphone and yell,

"I CAN ELUCIDATE THE MANY WAYS YOU ARE A FILTHY AND UNSCRUPULOUS OLD CABBAGE JUST FINE FROM DOWN HERE! IT'S BEEN NIGH ON FOUR DAYS SINCE YOU UP AND VANISHED ON ME, WHERE THE GALLOPING DICKENS HAVE YOU FUCKING BEEN? DID YOU DUMP ME? WHERE THE HELL DO YOU GET OFF DUMPING ME!? I'M GOING TO KICK YOUR DISASTROUS ASS ACROSS EVERY BIT OF SCRUB IN THIS ENTIRE BLOODY DESERT, YOU JUST WAIT!"

 

"No, I didn't dump you!" You stand up and gesture with your handful of thorn whips, which are still sparking a little. "I can't watch you self-destruct, so I went questing for a solution, so I can stay with you and not goddamn implode! Are you coming up here or not? Are you too weak from being a slurpy treat for any stranger with long teeth?"

 

You snarl up at him, baring all your teeth. He's baiting you, and you know he's bating you, and it's still working, and you hate him so direly.

"I CAN MANAGE MY OWN SOLUTIONS JUST FINE," you tell him. "I'M YOUR FUCKING NEMESIS, NOT A PITY PROJECT. JUST YOU WAIT, I'LL SHOVE YOUR PERFIDIOUS BLOODY HEAD IN, YOU STAY RIGHT THERE." You crush the drone in you hand like a nut, throw it aside, and storm right up to the shattered and crumbling stone.

You slip a little, as a few rocks turn under you, and you distinctly hear a snicker. Self-destruct! You! Oh, he wishes. You scramble as fast as you can up the scree, cutting your flesh knee up a bit, but make it to the first solid outcrop. There's— oh, good. Rope. If you sort of scootch over a bit— a good bit— ow.

Well, you didn't fall too hard, you're just winded. You roll back over and this time you know where to aim. You mount the scree, jump up for the outcrop, swing around the tricky corner bit, and grab the rope— OW.

You were not expecting the rope to pay out, but it does, all the way back down to the ground. You sit up and brush gravel out of your hair, seething, and then give the rope several firm tugs to make sure it's as extended as it's likely to get. From this angle the cliffside is broken up into a series of likely-looking cracks and ledges, you can very nearly see how he's done it. And there's a rope, you can drag yourself up by sheer spite if necessary.

You coil the end of the rope around your wrist a few times, dust your hands, and set to.

 

Crouching on your heels on the ledge above him, you shove your HUD glasses up and watch him make his clumsy way up the rocks. "Watch out for the stormweed," you say, just a split second too late for him to do anything but look up before getting whapped behind the ear with a flailing vegetable whip. It's a plant you've already sprayed and pruned, so it doesn't do much damage, and the look on his face is pretty funny.

Then, when he gets a bit closer, "Just because you say 'stay there' doesn't mean I will." And you head farther up the butte, free-climbing this time because it's faster and because hell if you'll leave ropes for him to haul himself up with. He's going to have to work for it if he wants to get near you after all the shit he's pulled lately. You're not going to let him catch you until he's too winded to talk nonsense.

 

"HOW DARE YOU," you yell after him, and receive nothing but a rude gesture in reply. Stars, he climbs like a bloody primate. Incensed, you pull yourself up to the end of the rope, grab a fist-sized rock, and toss it at him. Not too hard-- you don't want to knock him off, he'd break-- but it hits one of his shoulders with a really satisfying thump.

There, that should slow him down. Grinning viciously, you throw yourself after him. It's obviously a race to the top, and you need to get there first so you can punch him right in his insufferably pretty face.