Ustuck: Get Recruited by Troll Mafia [Closed RP]

It's not a great speech. But she's not exactly wrong.

"Fine," you say through your hoodie. You can play nice. But you won't be happy about it.

 

You sigh. This. This is what you were talking about, the whole walk-stump-in-mouth thing? Ugh. You are the worst at this.
The first time you interact with other trolls in person in half a sweep and you've already pissed off a troll you're supposed to be working with. Although, they did start it, calling you useless like that.

Whatever. Getting killed because you can't work together isn't on your list of things to do tonight.

"Fine." But just because you agreed to not fight doesn't mean you can't show this troll exactly what you're capable of .

And if not, none of this will matter when Ascension comes.

 

==> Iglora: Knock on Kezria's door

Why would you need to do that? You know the passcode. But before you do that, you have more pressing matters to attend to.

==> Get rid of your lusus

You hadn't wanted to leave Papa alone at your hive, seeing as it's been attacked once already. But you also really don't think you should be bringing him into Kezria's hive with you, seeing as how you don't know if any of the other trolls joining you on this quest are immune to his powers. You don't want to let him out of your sight now, either, but you this area's populated enough no one would attack him, anyways.

Probably.

And besides, your lusus can take care of himself.

"Papa, I know you wanted to look for a new thrall. Now would be a perfect time to do so," you say in Ancient Alternian, trying for nonchalant. You're pretty sure it fails miserably, as you're staring at Kezria's door and not looking at him at all.

"Really?" You don't have to look to know the disbelieving expression on his face. "You were the one who dragged me here, little insect, and now you're trying to get rid of me?"

"Papa..." you start. You don't know what else to say. Thinking about the situation makes your throat squeeze tight with panic, makes your shoulders shake. There's a frantic feeling in your chest, like a thousand bees buzzing angrily, and you some older, more feral part of you knows that the only way to relieve it is by tasting someone else's blood thick on your tongue, feeling it pool warmly around your hands. You're holding back Highblood-style rage by the tips of your claws, and all the clever words you rely on seem far distant.

Incubusdad sighs. "Okay, Pupa," he says, patting you on the head between your curling horns. It doesn't settle you as well as it should. "I shall hunt. I shall not go far. I promise to see you soon, with a new troll under my arm, yes?"

You nod, a bit of the tension slipping from your shoulders.

He leaves without saying goodbye, which is par for the course, really.

==> Join the meeting

You punch in the password to Kezria's front door, which clicks open. Shockingly, it looks like it won't be hard to find your moirail in her disaster of a hive - she's nominally cleaned, by which you mean she cleared a path to one of the communal rooms at least. You follow it, miraculously not tripping over anything, until you find her.

"Kezria!" You beeline straight for her when you see her. "They tried to take him, they came RIGHT INTO MY HIVE and they tried to take him away," and under the growl-click-thrum of anger in your voice, you realize that you aren't speaking Common Alternian, and, wondrous as your moirail is, she simply doesn't understand the Old Tongue. You repeat yourself, in Common this time, adding, "They will PAY for this, Kezria. I will FIND them and I will GUT them and I will use their ENTRAILS to STRANGLE THEIR OWN LUSI, do you understand?" Your knives are in your hands, but you can't recall taking them out of your strife specibus.

It's only then that you notice the other two trolls already in the room, sitting awkwardly on your moirail's chairs. You glare at them. Neither of them seem particularly dangerous, but you probably wouldn't have called the trolls who'd attacked your lusus dangerous, either, before they did. "Are these ones involved in this ring?" you growl. "Are these ones going to come after my papa next? Or are these ones those the stupid adult sent to help you?"

 

==> Kezria: calm your moirail

Your moirail comes barreling toward you, upset and angry. You want to help her calm down, but she doesn't like you papping her in public, and you're pretty sure two strange trolls count as public, regardless of your current location. You settle for taking one of her hands and patting it, ignoring the knife.

"No, no! They're not part of the ring!" You gesture to your guests. "This is Keeler, the Kingpin sent her to help, and this is Lukasz, their lusus got taken."

"And yes, we will get them and stop them from making any other troll go through this. Your Papa's okay though, right? Did you bring him with you?" You sort of hope not, as being around him gives you a headache, but you'd understand if Iglora did want him nearby. "Also, do you think you could put your knives away? There's no need to use them here." Plus you really want to give her a hug.

 

Kezria takes your hand and pats it. Your eyes dart from the strange trolls to her and back again, but the small bit of contact is grounding enough to calm the edge of your anger, at least, even if it does put your back up in other ways. You force yourself to breathe, pack your anger back as far as you can. You need to be in control, you know that, especially with strangers nearby and your lusus prowling around. You send your knives back to their specibus, removing the temptation to use them.

"Okay. Okay, fine." The angry click-growl hasn't left your voice, but it isn't nearly so strong as before, but it's the best you can do at present.

"Papa is fine. There were four, so they hurt him, but he caught one of them and drained her life down to nothing, so it balanced out to zero, you know?" There's a dried, shriveled troll corpse laying in your guest room still. You laugh. It isn't funny. "He's around. He's...prowling. I'm sorry to let him loose on your neighborhood, I just couldn't leave him at home, they've been there once already -!"

You stop, breathe. You can't think about that too much right now, not without loosing too much of your precious control. "I didn't want to bring him in, either, I didn't know if these others could handle having him around."

You raise an eyebrow, look at them again. "Can they handle having him around, do you think?

 

> Keeler: Avert your eyes.

Oh. Oh dear. Are they...? Should you be watching this? You don't really think you should be watching this. You don't really think you want to be watching this. But you can't leave because the only path to the door that looks at all stable and not like the entire contents of a respiteblock might fall on you is being blocked by this highblood.

Help.

You glance around, studiously avoiding looking at this exhibition.

 

You stare as Kezria calms the angry highblood, with a gentle pap on the hand and kind words. They seem eased by each other's very presence, even if the circumstances are far from ideal.

...This is totally what a healthy moirallegiance is supposed to look like, isn't it? Motherfucker.

 

You sigh and take your hand back from Kezria, turning to face the two trolls - what were their names? Keegan and...Lukies? One is definitely a yellowblood, and the other... Well. Highbloods rarely go hemoanonymous. You cross your arms. This doesn't spell well for having them around your Papa for very long.

"Hey. You two have any psychic ability? Psychic resistance?" You're still clicking, still angry and confrontational. This isn't how you convince anyone to do anything, but you're still past caring. When you're less pissed, maybe you'll feel bad about that, from an academic point of view.

 

> Keeler: Jump to attention.

The highblood! Is showing interest in your psionics! You are not going to throw away this shot.

"Do I have psychic abilities? Well, I don't want to brag, buuuut I do have helm-level psionics. Or, rather, they were helm-level before I started training them. Now they're approximately a 8 on the Mohs-Richter scale, which may not be earth-shattering, but it is hard to beat."

Nailed it.

 

You ignore the overblown antics of your grudging truce-mate (although, seriously, she's a psionic? Clearly, the mother grub fucked up big time if she decided that airhead needed to be given psychic powers) and tug your hood down a bit. You've never really had much cause to guess at your psychic resistance, and you certainly don't have any powers of your own. But you've already got the sense you're going to be the load in this group. No sense highlighting another skill you're worthless at.

So you stay silent and hope the new troll doesn't press any further.

 

The yellowblood is ridiculously proud of her psionics. You've never met a troll who was happy to have helm-level psionics - most of the time, trolls tried to play their abilities down. Psionics aren't psychic ability, though, and you know your lusus has brought home low-level psionics before. High-level might be a different story, though.

"You might be okay," you tell her, furrowing your brow. "We'll be careful if we test it."

You turn to the hemoanonymous troll who apparently thinks that ducking further into their hood will prevent them from being seen. "What about you? Psychic power? Psychic resistance?"

 

Dammit.

"Okay, look," you say. You raise your hands defensively. "A lot of trolls don't have psychic powers. That doesn't mean I won't be an asset." You're not really sure why this troll is so fixated on the psychic stuff, considering there are plenty of other skills a troll could bring to the party. Not skills that you have, sure, but other skills. "Believe me, I can sympathize with your panic here, but the fact is I am coming on this mission and you don't get to tell me otherwise."

 

What.

"Were you not paying attention to our conversation earlier?" you ask, gesturing between yourself and Kezria. "My lusus is out there, and he's dangerous. Being in the same room with him - not talking, not touching, not looking at him - just standing in the same damn room can be dangerous, if he turns his attention on you. I've seen it happen. I'm not losing a member of this - coalition - if it takes away from my chance to tear those fu- !" You stop, breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth. "Papa killed three trolls and turned one into suum scortum mid-battle, I have no desire to see that happen here when I should be busy finding those who would dare-." You stop yourself again, breathe. Your accent is thicker than normal but you don't particularly care. You're tired. You want to hurt someone, but you can't hurt this troll, and you are sick of having to tiptoe around every troll you meet just to save them from your Papa.

"If you want to test it, that is fine. Perhaps you would be fine. If you are not..." You shrug. "Papa could be useful to us. He could be more useful than you. You could still be useful, as scortum, for a time, probably long enough for this mission to last. So long as you are useful, that is fine. If you die after, who cares? Like I said, choice is yours."

 

"Actually," you snap back, standing from your seat, "it was kind of hard to follow over the two of you making pale eyes at each other." Your hands ball into fists. "And why the hell did you bring a lusus along to a lusus-napping bust? If he's so capable, why not leave him at your hive where he can take care of himself?" A highblood like her probably has a big hive. Plenty of room for a lusus to defend themselves.

"I have dealt with dangerous lusii before. My lusus is pretty dangerous herself. If it worries you so much, why not just tell your lusus not to turn me into one of those--" Yeah, you can already tell you won't be able to pronounce that properly. You'll lisp all over it. "--whatever you called it. Those trolls took my lusus. They took her, and she's gone, so if you think you somehow get a bigger say in who goes on this mission than me just because yours was threatened, you have another thing coming."

You take a step closer. You've already faced one raging highblood in the past however many tilts. What's one more?

 

> Keeler: Come to the realization that maybe the other troll wasn't asking after your psionics to offer you a job as a spaceship

Oh. Well. There'll be other chances. Probably.

 

You step in front of Iglora with your hands up, palms facing Lukasz. "Whoa! I don't think Iglora is trying to say whether or not you can come along. She's just trying to figure out if her lusus will hurt you or not."

You look to Iglora. "Maybe it's best if we just don't test it? Better not to tempt fate and all. He can stay here with my mom. And they can hide out in the tunnels if they need to. Also, don't go talking about people's usefulness when you don't even know them."

You turn back to look at Lukasz again and smile. "Besides, I'm the one in charge on this mission, and I decide who goes, and I already told you you could. So you don't have to worry."

 

You blink at Kezria. She's being nice. To you. You're not really sure how to react.

You glance down, suddenly having a hard time maintaining eye contact. "Thanks," you say softly, and your lisp only acts up a little.

 

The growl dies in your chest only after you see the other troll back down and you're sure they aren't going to hurt Kezria. "No," you say after a moment, following Kezria's lead. You've found she's generally right about these things. "I was not trying to keep you from coming. I was only trying to make sure my lusus could not make you scortum. Is nasty business, and one I try to avoid. Though, if you're stubborn enough to try and fight me over this, you might also be okay around him."

You step around to Kezria's side, so she isn't in the potential line of fire anymore. "And I never said he was just threatened," you add. Anger still buzzes in your chest, primal and pounding in your blood, but you push it down and try to think. You've always prided yourself on your words, you should be able to use them properly. "He was injured. I don't know how badly; he won't tell me, but there is his blood all over the walls of my hive. He is only fine now because he captured one, turned her into scortum, drained all of her life from her to heal it. They got close enough. I don't want to let him out of my sight after that. Yours was taken. You understand this, yes? If you had your lusus here after that, would you leave them at home?"

You pat Kezria's shoulder once, not really taking your eyes off of the hemoanonymous troll. "I don't know that Papa will to stay here. He is a stubborn creature. If he consents to stay here, that is fine, but you will have to deal with him probably trying to make scortum of your neighbors. But if he wants to go make slaves of those who would harm him? He is an old creature, of old morals. I do not think I would be able to stop him if I tried. I can only ask him."

 

The night is embroidered with light spilling from windows and streetlights and the neon signs of the Trashy Pub District. You see a troll with Iglora's horns slip into one of said establishments, the light gleaming off lusus-white skin. Must be her lusus, which means she must have arrived already. You aren't sure why she'd bring him here, of all places. Unless she's worried for his safety, but who'd bother fucking with a highblood's lusus? Clearly some friendly ribbing is in order.

pocketWarhead [PW] began trolling insidiousHuldra [IH]

PW: saw your dad :)
PW: why'd bring him?
PW: know highbloods don'7* fuck wi7*h highbloods like 7*his
PW: 7*hink someone being a nervous nelly ;P

You're nearly there, so you captchalogue your phone instead of bothering to wait for a response. When you get to the door, you slide off Colliemom with a pat and head inside with her following close behind.

 

You're distracted momentarily by Trollian's blinking notification in the corner of your glasses. You open Astroh's chat without thinking - and then the growl builds back up in the back of your throat.

insidiousHuldra [IH] began trolling pocketWarhead [PW]

IH: You're right. High6loods would never treat each other so dishonora6ly.
IH: That privilege rests with low6lood 6ar6arians like yourself, who'd dare 6reak into the hive of their 6etters.