Gamzee: ???!? ?! ??? ?!!!?!
There a fuckload of questions that need answering--why he needed you calm, why he wanted you secret, why he took your name, your sign-- You open your flap to say one of those, and find the emperor's just looking at you, with that same look on his face as the night he took you. You didn't find a name for it, that time--didn't fit, wasn't right, he's the emperor. But this time, you know what the fuck you're seeing, aimed back at you like a mirror.
"...Why the fuck are you scared of me?" You say, fucked up and raspy from growling so much for the first time in so long, and Karkat laughs like he thinks you're taking a dig and then looks back and sees his ancestor's face and stops laughing real fast.
"Wh-- Seriously?" he says.
"He did just pull some primo coldblood panfrying bullshit out of his ass," the miniature Ψiioniic--Sollux--points out, and then shrugs real quick, playing a big motherfucker who doesn't give a shit. "I mean, they were pretty good, anyway, I guess--"
"He said you saw something before that freaked you out, too," Karkat says over top of him, turning accusing on his ancestor. "Something in his shadow."
"Oh, what," says Sollux. "The ghost?"
Every motherfucker in the room turns to stare at him, you most of all. He looks back at you like he didn't expect, like he's not spitting some wild motherfucking shit at you right now.
"You don't have to act like you don't know," he says, at you. "AA sniffed it out sweeps ago. What, when I sent you that note about secrets did you think I meant, like. The thing where you cuddle a cushion when you sleep, like some kind of pupa?"
"What," you say, because you got fuck-all else to say.
"You knew about this?!" Karkat says, outrage at his skinny buddy now. "How many fucking wrigglers are we locking up around here that everybody knows about except me?!"
"He's not a wriggler, KK, he's like twice as big as you," says Sollux.
"Please don't blow this out of proportion," says the emperor. He's sat himself down at his document plateau since you looked at him last, and he's holding his pan in one hand. "There aren't any other...prisoners. If you can call him that. And he's 12 sweeps."
"He's what?" says Sollux, and looks the size of you up and down. "Fuck off, no you're not."
"So get a hauntwhisperer in here and peel the ghost off him," Karkat says, impatient. "How has this taken multiple sweeps to figure out?! Am I the only person with a functional thinkpan around here?"
"It's not--" the emperor stops, growls the first time, low through his fangs. "...I didn't bring him here because of...the ghost. As dangerous as that is even by itself. I brought him here because of the reason that ghost is clinging to him, specifically. Can't you--" Stops himself again, takes a breath and lets it out. "You never saw him," he says, reminding at himself. "Neither of you would've ever seen him."
"Enlighten me," says the Second Coming, and when he squares up his shoulders and drops his horns forward the gems on his horns and gold on his ears shine almost as bright as his eyes.
"His sign was Capricorn, Karkat," says the emperor, bleak and heavy like that's some big, important shit Karkat should know, not just the shape that was close to you like the pads of your palms the first eight sweeps of your life. "His hatchname was Makara. He wouldn't have made it long, out there, especially not as he got...older. Bigger. Someone would have noticed, eventually."
Karkat's hands twitch back off you like you turned red hot. Sollux doesn't flinch back, but he's watching you hard, like he's thinking on you, seeing what you do. The emperor doesn't look up. Like he's said everything that needs said. And every single motherfucker gets this shit except you.
Gamzee: Demand backstory, already
==> ...From the Sufferer Redeemed
==> ...From the Second Coming
==> ...From the Spymaster
==> ...From the Shade of Rage
[START OVER]
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[ that art you rbed has me thinking. did you talk once about a hc that there's something slightly Off about john's eyes or did i dream that. because if so: BARKING WITH DELIGHT. ]
YES I ABSOLUTELY DID!! basically i headcanon that, since the demon blood received from nergal 35 years ago has been able to integrate so thoroughly with constantine's system that his blood is now classified as a unique demon-human hybrid (blows a kiss to city of demons), it's also created a few other odd physical distinctions as well!
this includes the development of a tapetum lucidum, an additional reflective layer in the choroid of the eye. it's what cats have that makes their eyes reflect light in the dark, and it lets constantine see better in the dark. he DEFINITELY doesn't know that he has it, he just knows that he's got superb vision for a 70 year old guy & that people get freaked out when he lurks in the shadows, and he has refused to investigate any further than that.
so yeah, his eyes glow in the dark! i picture it more like this (jumpscare warning for large staring cat) than the ringed heterochromia that legend & icon ratblazer draws him with, but the effect is very much the same. / @nightmarecountry
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