Chapter Text
Your name is...hm.
You're not entirely sure.
That's worrisome. Especially when you take the fact that your head aches badly enough to make you reach up and check your horns for cracks, carefully running your hands along the dips and edges, smoothing your hair back down away from the horns themselves. Well, at least your horns don't seem to be damaged, and neither does your skull.
You sit up, taking careful note of the relatively soft green plants beneath you—some kind of grass, but not anything from Beforus—and carefully brush dirt off your cape, taking an inventory of what you know right now.
Not your first name, unfortunately. However, you know you're an Ampora, violetblooded seadweller who hasn't bothered to live in the ocean where you belong for almost half your lifespan. Self-imposed exile, it might be called, except for that Her Imperial Radiance rewards you for being her emissary to the lowbloods—it's one of the reasons you carry the title of Loyalist, after all.
But your duties emphatically do not include leaving Beforus. You can't leave the planet, actually, you have Fef's word that she won't make you, because you have...
"Fuck," you breathe, rolling to your feet without thinking about the movement and almost staggering because the gravity here is just a touch greater than the planet you were born on. "The grubs."
You can feel your fins flare in alarm, thinking about the complement of orphaned grubs that you'd taken on after their lusii were devoured by Her Imperial Radiance's lusus. Yes, of course your servants would care for them, but what if they don't? What if they assume you're—
"Oh, fuck," you hear yourself say. It sounds amazingly far away, and the logically reasoning part of your brain suggests that you've just managed to possibly tip yourself over into some kind of shock. Which isn't really surprising, given that you remember dying.
Well.
You can't have died, since you're alive.
But you have a very clear memory of metal ripping into your torso, the sharp taste of your own violet blood flooding your mouth from organs torn and ruptured too badly to ever function. Blinking and seeing that your body was in two pieces, everything drenched in purple, your purple—
"Hi," somebody says, and you shake your head to clear the memory and look down. Quite far down, actually.
The "somebody" is a little oliveblood, not too far past their first pupation, with a big sharp-toothed grin, hair almost as fluffy as the Heirophant's when he actually brushes it out, if a good deal shorter, and round horns that almost get lost in said hair. Even though they're too old for you to simply adopt—you can only take grubs, if they're orphaned any later there's no way they'll bond with you—you still feel a stab of pity for a kid with a lusus negligent enough to not teach them how poor a plan approaching seadwellers uninvited is.
"Hello to you too," you tell them, kneeling down and sitting back on your heels to bring yourself closer to their level. "I don't suppose you'd like to tell me what planet we're on?"
They nod, grinning even bigger. "Earth C!"
"...Earth?" What? You're almost certain that Beforus doesn't have a colony on that planet. It's too far away, and it's inhabited.
"Uh-uh." The kid shakes their head, holding up three fingers. "C. Earth C. Dave-dad says there was more Earths, but then there wasn't. Now there's this Earth, and we all live here." They tilt their head, shifting from foot to foot with a soft clinking sound, and you realize that they're damaged—one leg's supported with some kind of brace, and so is the arm on that side. That might explain why no one's keeping a close eye on them... "I'm Nonomi...are you new?"
"I guess so." The emphasis Nonomi puts on that word suggests it has greater meaning, something specific, but you don't know what it is. "I'm, erm." Name. Goddamnit. What the hell is it?
You try to remember, and wince as the only thing that comes to mind is him screaming at you, too-bright-red eyes wide and frustrated not at you but at...something. You don't remember why he was upset, just like you can't remember his name. Damn.
He said your name, though, and you do remember that now.
"My name is Eridan," you tell Nonomi. "...although on Beforus you'd be better off simply referring to me as the Loyalist."
They just shrug, looking you over for a second. "Eridan's shorter."
"...excuse me?"
"Eridan's shorter," they repeat patiently, and stretch up to pat your hair. (You're too startled to protest.) "And the purple in his hair sticks up more."
"I'm Eridan."
"There's another one." They giggle, covering their mouth with both hands. "He gives us swimming lessons, except he doesn't like staying under like Rahnza can."
"Rahnza?"
"Mhm. My sib."
"Sib. Sibling?" When they nod, you just get more bewildered. You know the concept of siblings, but that's not a troll thing. Each lusus cares for one grub, one troll, at a time; some take more than one over the course of their lives, but they certainly don't have more than one at once! "What sort of lusus do you have?"
Nonomi frowns for a second, then just shrugs. "Don't."
"What do you mean?"
"We have dads. Dave-dad and Karkat-dad—"
They keep talking and you lose the rest of the sentence due to the jolt of recognizing that name. Karkat—that was the birth name of the one who used to rant at you when he was upset, wasn't it? You definitely remember him. There's no way you could forget pulling him down into the pile of blankets you kept for that sole purpose, putting a purring grub in his lap and sitting next to him until the candy-red flush faded out of his face and he sighed and leaned against you.
...and apparently he's here? That can't possibly be right. Mutants aren't allowed to travel like that.
"Are you okay?" Nonomi asks, grabbing at your hand to get your attention.
"...of course I am." You're so confused.
"Are you like Eridan like D's like Dave-dad?"
"I have no idea."
Nonomi huffs and holds up both their hands, index fingers pointed up at the blue sky. "Dave." They hold out their left hand a little farther forward. "Still Dave—" Right hand. "—except not, 'cause he came from the other universe, like Kankri came from Beforus but Signless came from Alternia, but they're the same. Except not."
"...what." You really need someone who's seven sweeps or older to explain what the hell Nonomi's talking about. "Erm. You said you didn't have a lusus...so, is there someone who takes care of you? An adult troll?"
"Karkat-dad is, but Dave-dad's human."
"Uh." You don't know what a human is. "Can you take me to them?"
"Yeah!" Nonomi's whole face lights up, and they grab your hand again, trying to pull you up to your feet. It's adorably ineffective, and you start missing your grubs and young trolls again. "C'mon!"
You nod and get back to your feet, gently wrapping your hand around theirs when they reach for you and letting them lead you. After maybe ten steps, two more kids—one a blueblood with a scarred face and obviously blind eyes, and merciless fucking angels the other one is a magenta seadweller, what the hell—dash up, the latter glancing at you curiously before focusing on Nonomi. "Dave's looking for you," they announce, hands going to their hips. "Who's that?"
The blue hasn't taken their blind eyes off you; it's a little uncomfortable even though you know they're not seeing you. When the magenta asks, they answer softly, "Eridan Ampora, the Lu—Loyalist?"
"That's right." You can't fault them for stumbling over pronunciation; hell, the fact that they somehow know your name at all is surprising. "I, um. I believe I'm lost."
"Hi Lost, I'm Zandyr," the magenta says, and laughs.
"Delphi," the blue offers, giving you a tentative but amazingly sweet smile.
"He wants to see Dave-dad," Nonomi tells the others.
"Good," Delphi says, and reaches for your other hand.
...okay, if these kids didn't have good guardians, you would definitely take them into your care. Fuck your usual age limits. They're so sweet, they need someone to protect them. You could definitely do that. Just fucking rip anyone who threatens them apart.
You really hope that you'll be able to either get back to your own kids or find some more to care for, because your lusus tendencies are showing quite badly right now.
"Who's your new friend?" somebody asks, and you look up from Zandyr to see...okay, what the hell. That's an alien. He's almost the right basic shape to be a troll, but where the hell are his horns? And how the fuck does any being function when they're that pale, hair and skin, instead of normal black and grey?
Delphi lets go of your hand and runs over to him, holding up their arms to be picked up, and he grins and obliges. "Nonomi met Eridan, Dave-Dave," they tell him solemnly.
"Eridan?" The alien—Dave, didn't Nonomi say Dave was a human?—raises an eyebrow, looking you over. "...huh. Just as a question, do you remember...any weird shit?"
"Like dying?" You carefully free your hand from Nonomi's grip so you can cross your arms, nodding at Dave. "Yes, actually. Care to explain?"
"Guess I pulled welcoming committee duty, so..." Dave grins, shifting Delphi's weight onto his hip and settling them more comfortably. "Greetings, my name's Dave Strider, Knight of Time and 'king—'" he sketches quotes in the air with the hand that's not supporting Delphi— "—of the Troll Kingdom. On behalf of everybody else, I welcome you to Earth C."
"Uh..." There's probably a proper response, and you probably know what it is. Instead of figuring out what it is, you sigh and tell him, "I still have no goddamn clue what's going on."
Dave just laughs and sets Delphi down again. "Yeah, that's normal. C'mon, we've got a presentation and shit for people like you."
"I wanna help show him," Nonomi announces.
"You can, I promise." Dave holds his hand, but it's Zandyr that grabs it.
Nonomi tugs on your cape until you reach down and give them your hand. They follow Dave, and you let them lead you, and even though you're quite obviously not exactly where you belong and you're pretty sure you died, you can't help but like this state of affairs.