As far as the eye can see, there is a blue expanse. From the correct point of view, it appears infinitely vast and indifferent, only the faintest shimmering of light on the surface revealing its surprisingly changeable nature. Something about it seems forbidding – its stillness is almost menacing. It is not a thing which invites contact.

In the midst of this, there is an island – small but verdant, and all around accompanied by shafts of bright light which pierce the great ocean like arrows in its flesh.

It is on this island that a girl stands alone, lost in the contemplation of her past. The shade her skin glows is the exact match of the rays which surround her sanctuary.

The girl has come here seeking solitude – a desire she was always aware would not be respected for long. She hears the soft sound of wing beats and does not turn around. She knows who visits her, and why.

But Kanaya is not really in the mood.

"I got your note."

Even the words do not pull Kanaya's gaze from the vista before her. If she turns around, she knows what she will see: an unwanted supplicant for her time and attention, bearing a note in her hand but not by her pen. She prefers what lies before her: a time and a place once shared with a loved one lost. Today, she seeks melancholy; this visitant is intruding upon her recollections.

"It isn't mine," she says, a little sharply.

"Obviously." The response is so fast that Kanaya doubts her own ability to judge its veracity. If the news came as a surprise, that surprise has been well masked – but then, it always is. "But I wouldn't want to frustrate her planning, would I?"

Kanaya's rebuke has fallen flat, and she knows she will get no peace now – but, as happens so frequently nowadays, her emotions have shifted, and her desires with them. All is takes is the sound of that faintly stressed syllable, the knowledge that even aloud the typing quirk is in full force – and her irritation is swept away, her pensive mood igniting into a new certainty.

Suddenly, this is precisely what she wants.

Kanaya Maryam spins on her heel and slaps Vriska Serket hard across the face.

The days immediately following the girls' arrival in what has become known, by collective agreement, as 'The Bubble', were a time of extreme emotions. Utmost among these was confusion, as the group struggled to learn the mysterious rules governing their new environment, but sorrow, fear and anxiety were also endemic.

In seeking a way to come to terms with her loss, Kanaya sought to distance herself from the group. At least at first, this was not difficult to arrange. It was easy to slip away when the others were distracted – often, they were not there at all. She was not alone in seeking solace in solitude. It became habit to wander alone, sculpting familiar scenes from her memories, aching at the phantom pain of possibilities ripped away from her.

Until Vriska had come for her.

"Are you planning to mope for the next three years?"

The sound of her voice made Kanaya jump. She was remembering the desert, and hadn't thought anyone could sneak up on her, even with the dunes blocking her view. If someone approached, their memories began to bleed into hers – heralding unfamiliar vegetation from the humans' idea of deserts, or the even more obvious patch of nighttime which haunted her fellow trolls.

But the sky was still bright, and Vriska was at her side, unflinching.

"If I wanted company I would seek it," Kanaya had told her.

"You've been gone for nearly two nights."

Kanaya wondered how she could tell. Time had ceased to pass – there were no nights or days but those imagined into being by the Bubble's occupants. All the clocks had stopped. Aradia was the only accurate measure of the not-time passing, although Jade could provide an estimate.

Kanaya knew that if she had managed to reach god tier, she might have had some hope of being useful to the situation.

"Are you planning on coming back?"

Kanaya didn't know what was worse – the crushing emptiness of the desert, lending its vast weight to the regrets she dragged with her, or the piercing pains of company, with its sharp reminders of those who should still be among them, and the horrible stabs of guilt which resulted in leaving her memories behind her, even for a moment.

"Or are you going to pull a Nepeta?"

Of course, Vriska was more than willing to set off Kanaya's guilt with a fierce burn of shame. Nepeta had to be suffering more than any of them – if she had even made it safely into The Bubble in the first place. No-one had caught sight of her since they had arrived – but in such an empathetic environment, that could equally mean she didn't want to be found.

Nepeta was supposed to be her friend, but Kanaya had been too blinded by her own worries to even notice she was missing – that had been left to Terezi. It had taken a blind girl to see what Kanaya could not, and while it was hardly the first example of such an occurrence, not one of her many prior oversights had stung her so deeply.

Bile rose in Kanaya's throat. Tears pricked in her eyes. She could feel her blood rushing, and knew that beneath the impermeable sheen of light, her cheeks were streaked with jade. She couldn't stand being watched like this, knowing that Vriska knew all of her failings and her weaknesses, and judged her lesser for this pain, when Vriska herself had so much more to be shameful of.

She slapped Vriska as hard as she could across the face.

Vriska didn't flinch. She barely shook from the blow. She just stood there, continuing to stare at Kanaya, as an angry cerulean handprint coloured her cheek. Kanaya did not know what Vriska was thinking, or what she would do – she only knew that she had said as much as she could, and now she would not be the first to look away.

The kiss took her entirely by surprise.

Vriska's answering slap is nothing unexpected. Kanaya could dodge it, but rather than break her focus she chooses to absorb the sting of pain and uses it to feed her anger. The two girls begin to circle each other slowly, out of reach for the time being, but neither willing – or able – to take their eyes off the other.

Kanaya's lipstick waits in her strife deck, but she does not draw it. This is not a strife – this is something far more personal, and she has no interest in complicating matters with chainsaws and dice. But nor should she remain unarmed.

Kanaya imagines a dagger into her hands, short and plain but razor sharp. A few paces away, the air ripples around Vriska's open palms, and twin blades solidify there. Vriska's weapons of choice are longer and more ornate, to the point of ostentation – but that does not blunt them in the slightest.

Both parties properly armed, the battle commences.

"LORAF agaaaaaaaain?" Vriska's smirk strikes the first blow. "Are you still pining after our 'fearless leader'? When are you going to accept it? He's gone. For good!"

"Yes, this disease we call friendship is a dreadful affliction. It's lucky you're immune."

A simple parry, a strike returned. For now, they will stick to their routine jabs, needling at each other, pacing out a circle of separation. It will not be long before one of them finds a blow which could not be answered by words alone.

"Don't you get tired of moping on the same old island all day?" Vriska makes the first attempt. "It's so bright here."

Kanaya blinks pointedly. "You realise I am what is commonly referred to as a creature of lightness?"

"Exactly! Stereotypes are booooooooring." Vriska laughs derisively.

"If you mind so much, feel free to imagine it darker." Kanaya pauses mid-step, glancing at the sky for the change she knows would not come. "But you won't. You never do."

Vriska scowls. "Worrying that I'm going to usurp your crown as Queen of the Day?"

Kanaya has struck a nerve.

"I was just wondering. What is your excuse?"

Vriska tosses her hair and gestures theatrically to her hoodie. "I am Hero of Light, you know."

"The Thief of it." Kanaya corrects. "But in here, there's no need to steal anything, is there?"

Vriska smiles slyly. "Oh, I wouldn't count on that. There's always something. Time. Space. A kiss."

"None of which are your area of expertise."

A roll of the eyes. "Well that's why I have to steal them."

Vriska pauses dramatically, and Kanaya can see she has thought of something. She does not relish the barb – to be the one stung into violence is to admit, on some level, defeat – but she is weary of this banter. She wants something more.

Vriska keeps her waiting several seconds longer than is necessary. "Perhaps I could even steal a life."

Kanaya almost laughs outright. "You might be able to take one, but you wouldn't know the first thing about keeping a life."

"Yet if it weren't for me you wouldn't have one at all."

Kanaya pushed Vriska away from her without even thinking about it, an automatic response of muscle and bone to an event which had smashed through her every thought like the tidal wave which had eviscerated LORAF, leaving nothing but scattered debris. Everything was blank and loud and roaring in her ears, and there was nothing to cling to against the storm within.

Vriska did not struggle. She did not push forward, greedily taking more than was given. At the first touch of pressure she moved away, allowing Kanaya distance to process.

Kanaya had her space again. Her feet found solid ground, and from the upheaval a new island had emerged, a single idea which grounded her utterly.

Vriska had actually backed off.

And now she waited, watching anxiously from several paces' away, and there was something in her which Kanaya had never seen before.

"Come back with me?"

Vulnerability.

It was…

"Of course."

Pitiful.

Thinking about that day makes Kanaya shake, and the ground shakes with her. The sea begins to churn, waves building on the horizon and leaping up the beaches on all sides as, in the distance, an inferno larger than they had ever imagined possible is born anew.

Vriska tosses her hair again, and she does not need to speak a word to let Kanaya know that she has won their verbal battle.

There is only one choice remaining.

Knife flashing in her hands, Kanaya leaps.

They returned together, shyly holding hands, tender and flushed. Both were somewhat self-conscious of the new quadrant – and self-conscious was undoubtedly the correct term, for there were precious few others to be conscious of. Kanaya returned to discover their nominal population of eight halved, and those few remaining engaged in other interests. It was more than possible to spend days together and never see another soul, and that, for the most part, was how they liked it.

But something itched at Kanaya.

This was what she had wanted for so long. She had spent sweeps dreaming of this, and now it was coming true.

Except that was a total lie.

When she had dreamed, it hadn't been of this. Of course, reality rarely lives up to any imagining, but she knew that there was something out of place – no, something seriously wrong.

Vriska grated.

Her so-called matesprit scraped along Kanaya's every nerve like steel on bone. Everything bristled at her – the histrionics, the narcissism, even the voice, jeering and cackling away at her all day. She wondered briefly if it was just an adjustment, a reconciling of online persona to real, living troll – but it ran deeper than that. Once, she had found the eights endearing – now they burned hot lines of white fire through every synapse.

Kanaya hated Vriska Serket with a passion she could barely contain.

It was killing her.

Vriska was flushed. They couldn't switch quadrants now, and to leave Vriska entirely would mean retreating again into total solitude. It was not unheard of for concupiscent quadrants to spontaneously morph, from caliginous to flushed or vice versa.

Kanaya waited, hoped, and fought the urge to bite down each and every time they kissed.

But the game had changed her, and she could not wait forever.

She did not recall what petty argument finally provoked her, but after weeks of tension she finally drew her lipstick, slicing viciously at Vriska with the whirling blade. Vriska dodged, but not fast enough, and a streak of blue trickled from a long tear on her bicep.

Kanaya froze, horrified and repulsed by the sight of the damage she had done. How could she have…? She had believed herself caliginous, but when it came to it, she could not bear to see Vriska's wince of pain, to smell the sickening sweetness of her blood. She had entirely misinterpreted her own heart, and damaged her matespritship, possibly irreparably. She gasped, words without voice – "I'm sorry, so sorry."

After a long moment, Vriska met her eyes, and Kanaya filled with hope. She was not running away. There was time to fix this. As Vriska took a slow step forward, put her arms around her, trailed the blood she had spilt along her clothes, Kanaya knew she did not deserve such a forgiving girlfriend.

Then Vriska's teeth sank into her lip.

Kanaya cried out in shock and pain, teeth clashing awkwardly against her once-no-more black crush's, and stumbled backwards, tripping over her own dress in her efforts to abscond as far away as possible.

Everything had fallen apart.

They come together in a violent clash of metal on metal, their earlier stillness metamorphosing into a flurry of slashes and stabs. The two girls twist and turn around each other, their bodies never more than a blade's length apart, and all around them the weather grows harsher. The inhospitable conditions shear them, opening up an edge of desperation, rough and unworn.

The gale howls, and a spray of brine launched from a particularly large swell sweeps into them, and is ignored – but, perhaps, for a sharp intake of breath lost among the clamour of the storm. As the water drains back to the sea, it trails a mural of jade and cerulean, staining the pale sediment beneath with the sacrifice of a dozen shallow wounds.

Kanaya cannot see; her eyes are squeezed shut against the sting of the wind. She cannot hear a sound above the raging tempest. But, blinded and deafened, she fights on. What does she need eyes for? She has the judder of Vriska's blade on her own, the biting pain of a blow undefended, and, above all in this frigid place, warmth: the ever-present heat of rage and passion, breath and blood.

Kanaya Maryam knows Vriska Serket.

She knows what she has to do.

Kanaya knew what they had to do.

She was not able to abscond for long. Within hours, they were face to face again, and Kanaya could feel her heart racing with anxiety. If her feelings could shift at any moment, how could she trust herself to do the right thing?

But then, she had been friends with Karkat for a long time, and she had learned more about romance than she thought she would ever need to know. It wasn't like she was breaking new ground here. A million trolls had felt this way before.

Just because they were all dead did not invalidate their methods.

"We need an auspistice."

Vriska snorted in derision. "Try again, and this time use your brain."

"We are flipping quadrants. This is the solution."

Vriska laughed. "And what if I don't want to be ashen with you?"

"Then you'll have to get over it," Kanaya snapped.

Vriska's face fell, and Kanaya felt a pang of regret. Sometimes, she pitied Vriska more than anything. But sometimes just wasn't enough.

"There is such as thing as auspisticised kismeses, you know." She reached out and touched Vriska's arm.

Vriska snatched it back. "Who?"

"Who do you think? Fate has not burdened us with an excess of options."

Vriska nodded grimly, and together, they headed towards the house where she was most often found.

Everything after that had been strange and new. Kanaya had played auspistice before, but this side of it was different. To surrender so much, and receive so little in return. But, day by day, it stabilised them. The pity faded, and the passion remained.

And now…

Now they are closer than ever, barely a hand's width between them, and as Vriska slashes at her belly a twist of Kanaya's dagger finally sends first one, then both, of the girl's blades clattering to the ground.

Kanaya kicks them away quickly, throwing her own over her shoulder for good measure. Vriska takes advantage of her momentary distraction to grab at her, but skin soaked in brine and sweat and blood gives her no purchase, and the most either can do is to grasp at the other, sinking claws into backs, trying at once to push away and to draw closer.

The howling winds drop, and the sea begins to calm as the salt-filled sprays are replaced by the gentle patter of rain.

Neither girl notices. They are pressed together now, bodies entwined, blood intermingled. Kanaya feels Vriska's breath on her cheek as their faces are drawn together.

"Fuck you," Vriska whispers, and then their mouths are mingled in a clash of teeth on flesh.

Bleeding and tasting blood. Skin-soaked and bathed in light.

Kanaya Maryam has never felt so alive.