paradisalost | Terezi: Ask Nepeta to do a Very Important Task.

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Terezi: Ask Nepeta to do a Very Important Task.

Who: Terezi Pyrope (

redisdelicious) and Nepeta Leijon (

furriendly)
What: Terezi enlists the help of her best friend on a ~~very annoying~~ problem.
When: Backdated to October 10, 20XX (right after this)
Where: Room 2005 (Nepeta's room)
Rating: PG

Well, that didn't go as she'd planned at all.

Terezi climbed the steps leading up to the Terrere Tower, frowning the entire time. Well, what else did she think would happen? She and Vriska had never been the types to make up that easily, given their tumultuous history. Still, Terezi had hoped that they would have settled on some sort of agreement.

Er... right? She wasn't even sure what she wanted out of this anymore.

But Nepeta had all of the answers. After all, Vriska had approached her for some reason. The spider troll had even asked her for advice, and while Terezi might have scoffed at that a few days ago, she'd since been humbled by more recent events.

She growled a little as she continued up the spiral staircase. Whose bright idea was it to make such a stupid winding stairwell, anyway? What an inconvenience.

When she finally reached Nepeta's room, she wasted no time. She knocked on the door and waited for a response.

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Nepeta was no stranger to having visitors, but she hadn't exactly been expecting anyone. Turning away from the wall she was painting, she set her paints down and wiped her hands on her pants. If her instinct was right, there were only two people it could possibly be. The fact that there was no yelling or slamming of doors narrowed it down a bit.

When she opened the door and saw her best friend looking less than happy, she knew exactly what had happened.

"Come on," she said, taking the other troll by the wrist and tugging her inside.

Terezi let Nepeta pull her inside of her room. Though a slight frown had been on her face since she left Vriska's floor, the blind troll allowed herself a small grin as she sniffed her present surroundings. Nepeta's respiteblock was just as colorful and vibrant as her own, and she really appreciated it. The variety of aromas made it seem a lot more familiar and comfortable.

Terezi could smell the concern in her friend's voice, and in a way, she was secretly happy that Nepeta's intuition was so great. "Nice art, haha," she said quietly.

"Oh, thanks. It's just a little something I was working on..." Her eyes briefly flitted toward the wall a bit nervously, but she knew that it would be one of the last things they would discuss today.

Looking around, she found a few fur rugs and threw them into a sloppy pile in the center of the room. If they were going to talk about what she thought they were going to talk about, they would definitely need a soft pile to sit in.

"It didn't... go so well, did it?" she asked a bit tentatively, still throwing a few more rugs into the pile.

Terezi merely folded her arms, walking cane tucked neatly away, and shook her head as a response. There wasn't much else she felt like saying. The sting of Vriska's words was still very sharp on her mind, and it still felt shameful.

Finally, after a few more minutes of Nepeta tossing rugs had gone by, she spoke. "Why did you tell her to give me chalk?"

Nepeta let the last rug drop from her hands, keeping her eyes down.

"Vriska wanted advice from me. I told her to give you chalk because I know you love it so much." Slowly, she lifted her head to glance at Terezi. "I thought if she gave you something you really liked, you two could go back to being friends."

She nudged a rug with her foot before sitting herself down on it, making sure to leave room for Terezi if she wanted to join her. She hoped she would.

Terezi stayed put, though. "Are you saying that Vriska went to you first?" she asked, arms still crossed. The question sounded a lot harsher than she'd meant, so she eased up her tone considerably.

"I mean... after everything that happened -- and even the stuff that happened here..."

Her voice trailed off. A conflicted expression flashed on her face, but just as quickly as it appeared, it vanished. She settled down beside her friend and fixed her gaze on the rugs below her.

"I know that she has done some bad things--a lot of bad things--but sometimes she also does some really good things, too. She is just not very good at showing it."

Once Terezi had settled onto the rugs, Nepeta slowly inched herself closer to the other troll until their shoulders touched.

"Even after the stuff here, she took my advice and went to see you. She really didn't mean to be mean about it. You know how she gets."

Terezi was still concentrating on those rugs. She allowed Nepeta's words to sink in, which evoked a variety of differing (and mildly upsetting) emotions.

Well, whose fault was it that Vriska wasn't good at showing her decent qualities? Her own. She didn't have to do all of those bad things, after all. But was the fact that she was capable of doing good worth more than her bad attributes?

She thought about her last interaction with her ex-sister in the Veil, but promptly cringed at the memory. She instead shifted her thoughts to her time in Paradisa.

Vriska hadn't done anything terrible since Terezi had arrived here -- not to her knowledge, anyway. She'd been annoying, yes, but when was she not?

Everything she'd done in this castle had been mostly harmless, from her point of view.

"Yeah," she finally spoke. "I figured out my loss as a result of that entire exchange. I thought... I thought she knew what it was, somehow, and was trying to troll me.

"But I guess I jumped to conclusions too fast." Wow, it was still a bit hard to acknowledge that and force it out. "And when I tried to apologize, she wouldn't listen to me."

She sighed and finally raised her head. "How do I fix it?"

Nepeta nodded along, allowing Terezi to say whatever she wanted. After all, that was the point of a feelings jam, wasn't it? Whatever feelings needed to be jammed, the two of them would jam them good.

It took her a little by surprise when Terezi asked her for help. She should have expected it, but Terezi was always the sort to know just what to do in a situation. At least, she had always seemed that way to Nepeta. What could Nepeta possibly do to help?

"Vriska is complicated. But I don't need to tell you that. You probably know her way better than I do." Nepeta was starting to lose a little confidence. It was such a delicate issue! "It is one thing to say you are sorry, but it's another thing to show it. Maybe you should give her a little bit of time, and then show her that you want to fix things by being nicer and not so quick to judge her.

"You should probably be a little persistent, too." A pause. "Maybe not persistent, but consistent! I mean, she always thought I didn't want to be her friend, but I made sure it was totally obvious that I did whenever I could. After all, everyone needs a friend, right?"

Back at the Veil, Terezi would have very little to do with said feeling jams. In fact, she preferred utilizing her time spent at their hideout in more productive ways (of course, a few unexpected dives into the pile of horns had always been fun). Still, there was no other troll present in the castle that she felt as comfortable jamming feelings with.

She frowned. It wasn't like her to chase after Vriska of all trolls. Why had she even let it come to this? "Consistent?" she echoed, not bothering to mask the incredulity in her voice.

But these were all true words. She closed her eyes, shifting her body a bit, and thought back to when she ended her friendship with the spider troll and settled on a truce. She had always known exactly how to deal with Vriska, no matter what happened between them. She knew the spider troll the best, after all.

But ever since she'd stopped Vriska from venturing off to find Jack, her confidence had been a bit shaky. She had never felt this unsure in her life.

Things could never be the same between them again. That was something she could be certain of, at least, and the fact that the playing field was so uneven made the fact painfully obvious.

It didn't mean that she couldn't try to rectify what had happened here, though.

"I think I understand, Nepeta," she finally replied, and offered a small smile to her friend. "I always know how to deal with Vriska, after all. It's just been different here."

She couldn't bring herself to mention how exactly it was different to Nepeta, though. Definitely not a conversation topic for today, if ever.

For the first time in quite a while, Nepeta actually felt like she was being helpful. When Terezi said those words, she couldn't help but smile in return. Her words had gotten through to the justice-driven troll, and maybe now she and Vriska could work towards a proper friendship again.

Well, she knew better than to hope for that. But at least they wouldn't hate each other.

"It is different," she said, pulling her knees up and hugging them. "Lots of things are different here. I think it's because we all live so close this time. And the losses and other species, of course. But just like we adapted to the game and just like we adapted to the veil, we will adapt here! And we'll figure it all out. You'll see."

Terezi nodded firmly. She really admired her best friend's tireless optimism. "Thanks, Nepeta. You're the best."

She leaned forward to flick a stray ball of lint from the rug pile, and then looked up to face Nepeta again. "There's just one last thing I must ask of you, though, before I take my leave."

There was a mischievous grin forming on the blind troll's face. What could possibly come next?

At that, Nepeta's brows furrowed a bit, and she wrinkled her nose. Whatever it was, Terezi could already consider it done. There wasn't much that she wouldn't do for her teal friend.

"The pouncellor is always willing to oblige the requests of the legislacerator," she said. "And if it's keeping this secret, you can count on me. My lips are sealed tight!

"I mean, the pouncellor's lips are sealed tight." Shebrought her fingers up to her own lips, as if locking them with a key.

Terezi's grin never wavered. Leave it to Nepeta to know just what was on her mind!

But she was one step ahead, of course.

"The legislacerator nods sagely, but wants to make sure that the pouncellor means business!" Terezi rose to her feet and began to circle around her friend, hands placed expertly behind her back. "'Do you solemnly swear to keep this secret to yourself forever?' the legislacerator asks. 'Even if someone tries to torture it out of you, dear Pouncellor?'"

When she is circled, Nepeta couldn't help but scramble to her feet, standing tall and at attention. She puffed out her chest a little to show just how much she means business. Business was now her middle name. If trolls had middle names, which they didn't.

"AC does so solemnly swear that she will never speak of this secret to anyone! They can try to torture her, but she has sworn allegiance to GC furever and for all time. Nothing anyone can do can break her!"

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Terezi: Ask Nepeta to do a Very Important Task.

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