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Karkat is pretty good at keeping himself busy. He has been fending for himself a long time; he had his lusus, of course, but giant crab-monsters aren't good at setting a schedule. He has pretty much woken up at sunset and done whatever he felt like for the last six solar sweeps, although of course what he felt like doing was generally "surviving," so it wasn't exactly an eternal summer vacation. But he's a self-starter and restless by nature.

This might go a long way to explaining why he is trying to build a largish mechanical crab out of Erector Set parts. The remainder can be explained by his affection for Troll Will Smith. He has finished a hexagonal chassis and three more-or-less identical legs, which he is now trying to coordinate via a chain-linkage.

[OOC: Open indefinitely, but more specifically, I have the next three days off! Yay me.]

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Cordelia's passing by with a mug of coffee, and stops.

This looks familiar.

Because she also enjoys The Wild Wild West?

No, probably not.

Karkat pinches a finger in a gear and curses, without heat; Birgus has kind of numbed him to the whole concept of pinched fingers. He yanks it free of the chassis, though, and looks up. "OH IT'S YOU."

"Yup," she says comfortably, "still me."

He seems a lot less shell-shocked than the last time she saw him.

Trolls have to bounce back fast. Evolution in action. "I'M TRYING TO BUILD A THING," he says, self-evidently. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

"Nothing much," she says, also self-evidently. "Coffee and peoplewatching."

He peers at the gears, grumpily. He is really not very good at mechanisms.

"THERE'S ANOTHER TROLL HERE," he informs her.

He seems to be doing all right to her.

"Yeah?" She steps around to the other side of his Erector Set spread, and seats herself in an armchair.

"YEAH. ONE OF MY TEAM. I'M PRETTY SURE SHE'S DEAD." Flat and clipped, as he examines the linkages and tries to get the chain back on track.

Beat.

"Pretty sure." She tilts her head. "But not certain?"

He hesitates. "PRETTY SURE."

He turns a crank; the gears all move. He reaches for one of the legs. "THE LAST THING SHE REMEMBERS IS SEEING GAMZEE KILL HER MOIRAIL. SHE WOULD HAVE ATTACKED HIM THEN. SHE WOULDN'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT, I KNOW HER. AND GAMZEE WOULD'VE KILLED HER. IF HE KILLED EQUIUS NONE OF US HAVE A CHANCE."

"BUT SHE DOESN'T REMEMBER. AND EITHER WAY, SHE'S NOT GOING BACK."

Cordelia breathes out, and firmly stops herself from expressing anything like sympathy.

"Moirail," she repeats experimentally. "I don't know that word."

"YEAH," he says. "IT'S... A KIND OF TROLL ROMANCE. WE HAVE FOUR. IT'S NOT REPRODUCTIVE BUT IT'S STILL ROMANCE."

"EQUIUS WAS PRETTY TERRIBLE IN A LOT OF WAYS BUT THEY WERE PROBABLY THE BEST MOIRAILS I'VE EVER SEEN, IN REAL LIFE OR FICTION. JUST... MADE FOR EACH OTHER."

"HE WAS A HIGHBLOOD... REALLY PREJUDICED ABOUT THE HEMOSPECTRUM, REALLY REALLY STRONG... HE HAD A LOT OF ANGER, LIKE ALL THE BLUE BLOODS, AND WITHOUT HER TO PACIFY HIM HE PROBABLY WOULD HAVE BEEN AS DANGEROUS AS THE OTHER THREE. AND HE KEPT HER SAFE. SHE LIVED A LONG WAY FROM EVERYONE AND SHE WAS... YOUNG, IN A LOT OF WAYS. WE'RE ALL THE SAME AGE BUT SHE'S REALLY YOUNG ANYWAY. HE WAS A REAL ASSHOLE AND OVERPROTECTIVE BUT... HE KEPT HER SAFE. THAT'S MOIRALLEGIANCE. TROLLS ARE ALL... A LITTLE CRAZY. A MOIRAIL IS THE PERSON WHO HELPS YOU FUNCTION." He fixes the third leg, and tries the crank again; they move up and down, but tangle almost immediately, and he scowls at it.

She remembers Aral telling her once If I'm still sane, fifteen years from now, I believe it will be your doing.

Quietly: "Is she going to do all right without him, do you think?"

He starts the slow process of removing the legs again; his body is tensing, though, and he's edging closer to smashing the whole thing against the wall. He wonders how Equius, with his ridiculous strength and ridiculous rages, found the patience to build whole robots.

"SHE'LL BE OKAY HERE," he says, brusquely. He's trying to sound more sure than he is. "SHE'S GOT THE RIGHT TEMPERAMENT TO GET ALONG WITH HUMANS AND THERE'S ANIMALS FOR HER TO HUNT OUT IN THE WOODS. SHE'LL BE AS HAPPY AS A STINKBEAST IN SHIT AS LONG AS I KEEP HER AWAY FROM THAT FUCKING CLOWN."

"Clown?" Her brows tug together briefly.

"GAMZEE." His expression darkens, and his gaze seems tight on the non-functioning leg in his hand. "HE WAS FROM A REALLY HIGH BLOODLINE, HIGHER THAN EQUIUS EVEN, BUT HE WASN'T... HE WAS NEVER LIKE THEM. HE WAS JUST THIS GOOFY LOVABLE BULLSHIT IDIOT WITH THIS RETARDED CLOWN-BASED RELIGION. HE WAS HIGH ON SOPOR SLIME PRETTY MUCH ALL THE FUCKING TIME."

"BUT NOW HE HAS RUN OUT OF SLIME AND HE WANDERED OFF BY HIMSELF AND WENT CRAZY. HE HAS FUSED THE WHOLE HEMOSPECTRUM HORSESHIT WITH HIS RELIGION, OR MAYBE THAT WAS ALWAYS SOME CORRUPTED VERSION OF THE SUBJUGGULATOR NONSENSE. I REALLY DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT THAT ARCHAIC GARBAGE."

"HE ALMOST NEVER FOUGHT ANYTHING DURING OUR GAME BECAUSE HE WAS ALWAYS STONED OUT OF HIS FUCKING MIND BUT THE ONE TIME HE DID... HE IS PROBABLY THE MOST DANGEROUS OUT OF US ALL. I THOUGHT MAYBE EQUIUS COULD HANDLE HIM BUT..."

"I GUESS NOT." He tosses the mechanical bits aside and leans back against an ottoman, staring at his hands. "HE WAS MY FRIEND."

Low: "And now he's trying to kill you? Or just the others?"

"EVERYONE. BUT... I AM PRETTY SURE IT'S JUST ME AND SOLLUX LEFT NOW. ME AND SOLLUX AND THREE LUNATICS."

"AND SOLLUX IS BLIND NOW." He shakes his head. "I THINK... I THINK I MUST HAVE FUCKED SOMETHING UP."

"Can you get Sollux here?"

Recriminations, self-directed or otherwise, are for after the immediate danger is over.

"MAYBE. I'M NOT SURE. AND I WOULD HAVE TO MAKE SURE TEREZI IS REALLY DEAD AND NOT JUST... I DON'T KNOW, GAMZEE HAD HER GLASSES, BUT THERE'S STILL A CHANCE."

"BUT IF WE'RE IN A DOOMED TIMELINE I'M NOT SURE BRINGING THEM HERE WILL CHANGE IT."

"How would you be able to tell if you were in a doomed timeline?"

And not just doomed in the regular timeline seems a bit callous to ask.

"TEREZI MIGHT BE ABLE TO TELL," he says. "SHE'S OUR SEER. OR MAYBE SOLLUX..."

Sollux might be able to do something with Trollian. But then, Trollian already ends for all of them in the Scratch. "I DON'T KNOW, I HAVE A BUNCH OF STUPID THOUGHTS BUZZING AROUND IN MY HEAD LIKE SOLLUX'S GODDAMN BEES. I AM GOING TO WAIT TO DO ANYTHING RASH UNTIL THEY HAVE PRODUCED THE SWEET HONEY OF MAKING ANY FUCKING SENSE. BUT I CAN'T SHAKE THE FEELING I FUCKED SOMETHING UP AND SENT US DOWN A TEMPORAL DEADEND. EVER SINCE I HEARD FROM GAMZEE AFTER HE SOBERED UP I HAVE JUST HAD THIS AWFUL SENSE OF DREAD IN THE BACK OF MY PAN."

Her mouth crooks a little at sweet honey of making any fucking sense, but she's sober as he continues speaking.

"I know you don't want me to make sympathetic noises," she says after a moment. "Is it all right if I offer to help?"

"HELP HOW?"

It's not suspicious, exactly; it's more the wariness of someone hoping desperately that someone will, but not for a moment counting on it. Someone for whom help occupies the same conceptual space as vampires, magic and fairies.

Yeah, she recognizes that one all right.

"I don't know yet," she says steadily, "but if the idea is all right with you, I can start working on figuring that out."