I hope this came out well. An AU, where Signless' powers hold more than just future sight.

Chapter 1

Signless knew many things.

He hadn't really known what they meant, at first. Just foreign memories, intricate in the stories they told and the colors they left, lighthearted handprints on his mind and encompassing his dreams. He often thought of them because he had to; otherwise, who else would remember them?

Dolorosa believed him first. He told her about her young descendant, full of vice and vigor and everything he knew she would have wanted the young jade-blooded troll to be. Kanaya Maryam, he had whispered, eyes alight with something fond, even if neither of them had ever met the troll. The Dolorosa had taken one look at him and understood. These human emotions were new to her, too, but she was damn well willing to try.

The Psiionic came next. Signless told him enthusiastically of the troll who knew code like the back of his hand, who manned the husktops and those punched cards that the humans had always struggled over. Psiionic had listened intently, and when Signless had finished he realized that his friend was crying. The troll had never expected it, a legacy to uphold and live in his stead, and never knew how loved they had been.

The antecedent to Nepeta Leijon was a tougher shell to crack. The Disciple was pure malice, edged with fear and distrust and the language of beasts that Signless did not understand, but eventually they had come to understand, and Signless drew her tale through lines in the dirt and the walls. The oliveblood wailed, howled her love for the child that would be made from the ashes of the fallen, and they had all wept alongside her.

And without fail they had followed him. Whether from a lack of their own families or a promise to come, they had followed him without fail, but when he had asked each of them why they could only stare back with fond exasperation.

"You were the first to care," Psiionic said without hesitation. (We would follow you to the ends of the earth.)

And so Signless had lived, moved without trepidation, healing and mending and fighting because now he knew just how much they relied on him. He did not want to fail them now. He never wanted them to meet their end, gruesome infinity recorded for their future to see.

(And somewhere far above, lines red with cracks and weaving among the clusters of dream bubbles, something shifted.)

He continues on because damn the consequences, he would die before he would let any child suffer when he knew that sweeps later, he would die for the existence of his very own. There are cuts in his arms, bandages around his knuckles, and he grins sharp and bares teeth to prove his worth because he was alive. The ideas of social construct shift around him, and Signless realizes that these people - his people - are singing in return. He was everything but the blasphemous, the mutant that spoke of everything that they had ever wished for. (Trust us,) they speak, eyes alight. (Trust us, because we trust you in return.)

He burns through the drones that come after them, heat curling with smoke from his darkened smile, and somewhere high up above the Condesce shivers, feeling somehow colder than she's ever been before.

The villages that suffer the devastation of Her Empress' culling are nothing but rubble, and when they see them he roars. He pulls out the wounded, barely alive but still breathing, pulls out the dead and incinerates them to mourn, and he roars and roars until his throat is ruined and the drones return (they have already evacuated, they know his rage) and he destroys at least half of her army until the shadow of the ship bears down upon him and he comes face to face with the Condesce herself.

"I am no pacifist," he says, loud and clear. "I will burn down your kingdom in order to save mine."

Instead of getting angry, the Condesce laughs. "You? A kingdom? Where is it? Among all the rubble down below?"

"It is the rubble," he says. "It's made out of dust and smoke and loud dreams, this kingdom of new life, and when it grows up and out of your reach then I'll stand before you once again."

And then he burns.

She steps back, eyes wide in - surprise? terror? - as colors take shape from his veins, pulsating with vivid images too fast for anyone to truly comprehend, reaching high, far above them before they settle on a lone troll staring forlornly out into the ocean's depths. Feferi Peixes, the flames whisper, and the illusion steps out to greet her maker with a kind, kind smile too sad to bear.

"Hello, mother," Feferi speaks, then pauses. "Would you prefer the name Meenah? I have no preference either way."

Visions cross, and the Signless crumples under their weight as they take form in his fire: they are dying, they all are, and Feferi screams as she is shot by a highblood's gun and she crumples low at the feet of a rage-induced lowblood and they flash forward with death in their eyes as she bleeds and she reaches out a hand to plead to them, stop.

And another vision, where Feferi looks through unseeing eyes at the chaos their dreams form and turns to the horrorterrors and smiles wide, linking them all together to form the dreambubbles so that none of them ever had to be alone anymore. Her trident falls still on the ground behind her and she reaches-

-and her own dreams span wide, so far that even she doesn't know where they stop, because she had always loved to dream far more than she loved to fight and she knew that for all she crushed under her own heel it would never be alright to take and to take and to take. And so her hands slow, but her mind speaks, and she whispers to Gl'bgolyb the wishes she has, and her lusus smiles bright because what more could they have but a troublesome little heiress of a troll.

And I'm sorry comes loud and clear through all of her swirling thoughts, because Feferi bows her head at the thought of being too innocent, too naive, and she had let her friends die around her because her mistakes had made the worst out of everything. Her visions sweep low, but her head is now held high, because she maintains eye contact through the incandescent flames and says, thank you.

Something else tugs at him, and Signless is drawn to another troll standing beside the comatose Empress, still staring far above into the distance. The flames flicker once again, and this time-

Gamzee Makara, he says as he introduces himself, Signless grinning widely, and the troll comes to bow at his ancestor's feet. But then Gamzee turns back to face him with melancholy eyes, and the visions come forward yet again-

His diamond bright, his starlight pale, is run through as Gamzee stakes him right through the symbol emblazed on his chest, and the fabric bleeds red as the troll tips backward and is lost to the lava below, and he steps back in his own terror and wishes he could be boiled alive-

All he's ever cared about, all he's ever needed, is right there in front of him and Gamzee huddles still behind corrugated sheets of metal and bolts as his diamond walks past him, eyes cast low as tears blur his vision and muffle his cries. He's ruined it, he's ruined him, and he could not take it back for all the useless blood in his veins. He prays that the rainbow-drinker could just run him down and be done with it.

Signless bares his teeth back, acknowledging the plea for forgiveness, and Gamzee's eyes light up as Karkat, his Karkat stands between them, and as all three look up at their ancestors: the highblood clown on his left, the next heiress planted at his right, and Karkat turns back to face the Signless and he bows once. Signless feels his heart breaking.

And then they are gone.

And they fall to their knees because no one could resist that promise of a legacy, of something to hold onto and to love and to believe in, because once upon a time it was all new to them as well. They were not gods, and they had not come from nothing. Signless had reached in and took the most important parts to them, the things that they had not even known themselves, and the repercussions were endless.

So without a drop of blood spilled, their war ends.

This was written really fast and I know it's rushed, but I didn't want to forget anything so I wrote it all down as quick as I could. I'm either animating this story or drawing it out, but here: the what-if story, the one that I want to believe in where Signless ends a war singlehandedly and everyone turns out ok.

wow i am very tired and i would like to die ok cya