[GRO] Sarcel Cincil - Adult

[Hivestuck]

Near the base of Busthind, a pile of rubble lays undisturbed as the moons rise over the mountains. The light refuses to filter this far, blocked by the jagged peaks and harsh cuts of stone far above. Through the debris something grows, a small vine, green-blue and curled as it crawls its way desperately upward against the side of the mountain. It matures, slow but sure, in adversity.

Only Melancholies may post in this growth. Please quote the mule if you need assistance or when you're finished!

Melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

For as teamwork orientated as Sarcel had become, there was still something distinctly solitary about her approach. The mountains of Busthind climbed higher and higher—they stretched into the sky like long daggers and cut into the low bearing clouds. Trolls died climbing to those peaks. Trolls also came down the path heroes.

Sarcel wasn't interested in expeditionary hiking. She preferred the freestyle approach; travel light, leave no waste behind. Anything she did tonight and all the nights that followed would be her own energy, her own will, her own fight.

A troll in the nameless town at the base wished her good omens. There was a look about him that suggested he wasn't expecting too much, or maybe that he'd been the one who saw many trolls to an early death. She couldn't quite gauge the tiredness to his eyes, the drab grey clothing that contrasted the paleness of his skin. "You'd do well to respect the peaks." He said, unprompted. Sarcel had nothing to say to him in return.

- - -

It was hard to say what really cemented Sarce's mind, what really made her settle on this. Was it self loathing? She'd been picked out by the Queen herself, what was there to hate? Why couldn't she radiate self confidence like Eostre? Or find ample footing in her own beliefs like Tamiya? Even Kursha could be cocksure in his actions—at least to an outsider looking in. What did she bring to the table? It seemed like an age old question. Would she be thrown away the second she showed signs of faltering? The second she exhausted her use? Would she have to keep fighting—no—struggling, honing herself into a weapon, sharpening herself like the blade of a knife? Maybe.

So be it.

The wind coming down the crags was bone chilling. Somewhere as she started her ascent, that same troll stood in the same weary cafe, his wrist still turning counter-clockwise as he cleaned a mug, his resolve still as surefire as it ever was when someone new came to challenge the peak. Here in the dreary depressive wastes of snow, Sarcel swore she could still hear the tinny squeak of that cloth drying the glass. This wasn't a question of respecting the peaks.

It was a question of respecting herself.

 

[Melancholies]

Chinchillamom was a strange lusus. She was harsh, somewhat authoritarian, but ultimately she only cared about her own interests at heart. She needed a life of structure and order. She needed a charge willing to feed into her demands. Sarcel's childhood was a lonely one. She never made connections, never founded friendships. She only spent hours and hours holed in her hive, hands caked in dust, diligently cleaning. She'd be reminded of her caste from time to time. She'd be reminded about how she acted more like a timid lowblood too.

It wasn't very long until her lusus ultimately gave up on her. She wasn't a charge destined for greatness, only being a maid, and her mother was fine with that.

There still wasn't a lot of snow here, Sarcel had noticed. The peaks were likely inundated, but at the base it was rich with foliage and woodland. Sometimes she heard the whistling of wildlife, her reflexes honed and sharp and poised towards every movement in the brush. It was cold, but she was hot—the pack was heavy—and she regretted packing as much as she had.

Her lusus had watched her curiously in her hivestem, nose twitching, tail flicking.

"I'm going on a trip." She told the small, white cotton ball of a guardian, "You'll have to hold the house down. Keep it tidy."

The lusus seemed almost offended.

"I know you will. It wasn't a jab."

And she settled all the same.

But the difference here was the quiet acknowledgement she had received, rather than the blatant neglect. Her lusus gave her the time of day. When she received that letter in the mail—the one for the party—her lusus had gone with her. Sarcel hadn't said much at the time, she'd just let it... slide, despite how strange it was, despite how she really didn't want her lusus there at all. She wasn't a child. She could handle herself. In the audience of the queen and a number of other important trolls, first impressions were tantamount. Of course, that night obviously hadn't gone as planned, but her feelings on the matter were no different.

It was strange when she'd come back to her hive after a long day, only to have her temperamental lusus hunker down on her shoulder to groom through her hair.

What was it that changed? What made her lusus decide she was worthy now? It hadn't been saving the mother grub, because this moment was so long after. Hell, there'd been some trolls who had never bothered changing their opinion of her at all.

 

[Melancholies]

The name Sir, in particular, was especially tarnished. She'd never call another troll that in her life. She would accept it as a name for herself though; something like a reclamation of a thing she once lost. Funny how once that word was all she thought she had left.

She was nestled in a cavern now, not unlike that one night all those sweeps ago. The difference was the level of comfort and the lack of urgency. Here she was poking at the low glowing coals of a fire, the smoke faint and the heat fainter. It'd be stupid to light a fire this far underground; she'd burn herself out. At least the temperature held temperate, the warm woolen jacket around her frame was more than enough to trap the heat.

At this height, anyway.

In the depths she heard sounds—water dripping, creatures calling—and it made her hair stand on end. She fell to sleep easily that morning. She woke in a cold sweat, to the sensation that something was breathing down her neck. In the dim darkness she could see a drenched, hungering maw—a mouth lined with teeth—the smell dank and rotten and thick with coagulated blood.

But the beast never struck, and Sarcel held her tongue, and the sensation vanished like it had never been there at all.

The invisibility was as much a blessing as it had been a curse. It gave her a continuous out to avoid people. It gave her another reason to hate herself for being chosen—for being special—for throwing it all to waste. And yet, it'd also saved her life. It also became a beacon of opportunity, should she ever find the courage to reach out and grab it. Here she'd been, emerging from the caverns caked in mud and dirt and grime and blood, the precious root in her hands. She'd been a hero. She felt like she'd stolen something important from someone. The honor was barely celebrated.

She still felt such a large disconnect from her comrades. The fight with Zeylla, the tumultuous hell with that entire group, the way things fell apart after the confrontation with the leech monstrosity... It'd been a very real, very feral, very literal sort of fear.

A hand over her racing heart, she snuffed the coals out and set out for a new night.

 

[Melancholies]

She slipped.

It could have been so much worse, really. She remembered doing something similar to this before; she'd been out jogging, ran into that blueblood child, fell trying to dig her out of a snow drift. Now she was laying here ten feet down, her bag somewhere below her, her fingertips and her toes steadily cooling as she sprawled uncomfortably on a ledge.

She watched the moons, dazed, eyes half lidded in thought.

What did it mean to belong somewhere? She thought about the rebels a lot these days. She couldn't bring herself to hate them—to dislike them, even. What she felt for them was a bizarre sense of respect and weary admiration. They were a group with the devout sense of honor to stand up to a system they couldn't believe in. They were a group that fought. She didn't know their leader personally and she likely never would. Being a mutantblood was a sin from birth, but she still had that group at her side, still had that group at her back. There wasn't any way she could brush that off.

Her first friends had gone that way too. Sarcel herself couldn't believe in the Phoenix Initiative. She wouldn't ever spit at someone's conviction, but she believed change wasn't something that came from a rebellion. The system was flawed, certainly, but cracks in the foundation were only ever fixed from the inside. She could make a difference if she fought hard enough.

Having the rebellion there only made her fight harder. It kept her on her toes. It reminded her that as long as a group like them existed, her job was far from over. It pushed her little by little down her military career.

She grunted as she sat up, her head still spinning. Her bag was easily another twenty feet down. Her hand had been rubbed raw—she struggled for purchase against the ledge when she slipped, and now she could feel the deep scrapes in her skin—nothing seemed twisted though. She'd been lucky.

Say she had joined the rebellion—would things be any different? Would she still be here, challenging herself, climbing a ******** mountain? Or would she have found the sense of camaraderie she'd been so desperately looking for? It was a strange hypothetical to humor. She wondered if she would feel any less expendable. There was an allure to the life of an outlaw... in a way, even if it wasn't the life for her. What did Regina think of them? Were they just a toy, a stepping stone, things to consider as a serious threat? She'd never know. She'd likely never ask.

A bandaged hand and a backpack over her shoulder, she started to climb upward again. The mountain gave her a lot of space to think. Thanklessly, it gave her almost no answers.

 

[Melancholies]

You'd think the tip top peaks of the mountains here would be warm rather than cold. At the base there was such a dense layer of overhanging clouds that nothing dared to worm its way through—not the light of the moons, nor the light of the sun either. Yet above the thick overcast it was no warmer. Perhaps it was considerably more solitary, but the only difference it offered was no view of the ground rather than no view of the summit. For as lonely as Sarcel felt throughout her life, it hadn't been as lonely as this.

The cold air burned her lungs harsher than any ember could.

It's the same train of thought, the same circular thinking that constantly brought her back to the Phoenix Initiative. She'd spent the past few nights mulling over the details, and while a few things made sense, she usually felt more bothered than anything.

Kursha ******** Vidari.

And it wasn't just him, it was a number of other trolls caught up in the rebellion's rank as well. Kursha was merely an outlier in his subterfuge. At what point did a righteous conviction become a terrible ambition? What was too much? What did it mean to be willing to sacrifice everything? Sarcel considered herself someone willing to give it all, but to betray her comrades? Then again, she supposed Kursha never really saw them as comrades either.

Morals weren't supposed to be a thing that coincided with war. Course, that was easier said than done for Sarce.

Stryke, for instance, was a great example of things that trolls in her position shouldn't do.

She released a traitor, she gave him another chance, she forged a friendship, and what for? He was with the rebellion. She was a Royalist officer—more than that really—she was an extension of the Queen at this point. Things she did reflected directly on the crown... or that's how she took her actions, anyway. Regardless, she couldn't go around fraternizing with the enemy. She couldn't let that loneliness get the better of her. It was a very glaring flaw in her core personality that she was pissed she couldn't shake.

Trusting in her comrades was important. But trust with herself needed to come first. Who knew if she'd be alone at the end of a long, dangerous road? She'd nearly been alone leading up to this point in time.

Nearly.

 

[Melancholies]

It was the Busthind range that lead her to meet Alifax. Kinda funny—she was doing the same thing then as she had been now... sort of. She didn't have the same intentions to go up to the peaks like she did now. This time it was a test. That time had been a trip. Serendipity took the reigns out of her hands.

This time she had the reigns clutched tightly in her hands. She didn't give a ******** about fate.

Every muscle in her body was aching. The steps at this point felt like there were knives in the soles of her feet. Her horns were dusted in frosty veins.

But she kept walking.

 

[Melancholies]

Sleep. Wake up. Sleep. Wake up. Sleep. Wake up.

She watched the body hit the floor. She heard the gunshot. She smelled the black powder. Thud—kick the door down. Stare. Cry. There hadn't been a more humiliating feeling than that night, the streaks of blue running down her face, Kursha of all people patting her shoulder like he actually cared or knew what she was going through. Elidae going on ahead. Lorata still lost somewhere in the swaths of her mind. Puchen standing there, aghast and looking so startled to be alive and witnessed.

And she'd wake up.

And she'd sleep.

And she'd see the body, hear the gunshot, smell the powder all on repeat again. Some days it would be okay. Some days they'd be silent and dreamless and that was alright.

Mostly she hated what that night became. She tried her best, felt like she failed, but then wound up getting inducted into one of the most exclusive groups on Alternia. Everyone lunged at Awassi, bloodthirsty and ready to put an end to a long unnecessary night. Everyone at that party—the adults—they were all rotten to the core.

She wasn't going to be like them. She wasn't going to lead trolls to their death based on the blood in their veins. Someday she'd be someone like Schrad; there'd be a countless number of trolls younger than her looking to her for guidance, putting their trust into her, and she wasn't going to lead them astray. Everyone would have an equal chance for glory. It all depended who stepped up to the starting plate. It was the trolls just like Scorpa and Austri that drove her forward. She couldn't let them down.

Lorata too. She'd never leave anyone behind ever again. She knew it was dangerous—Sarcel wasn't stupid—there was no way she could save everybody, but hell if she wouldn't try, hell if she wouldn't beat herself up over every failure. She'd take that pain and resentment and transform it into ambition. Maybe that's how heroes became villains.

 

[Melancholies]

She'd twisted her ankle. <******** this.

 

[Melancholies]

She could see the top from where she'd set up. No trees greeted her here. Just rocks, crags, ravines and snow.

So much ******** snow.

She wasn't the same weakling as she had been. She wasn't even the same troll anymore. And yet here she was, sitting on her a**, foot swollen and sore. The reality of the situation was that, no matter her strength, she'd still be crippled like this. It was infuriating. Her bones felt like ice and her skin was so, so cold.

The air was much more thin up here. Standing up made her feel lightheaded. Sitting made her feel lightheaded. There was a voice in the back of her head telling her to stay put. There was another voice telling her to push forward. She was so close, but she felt twice as far. She was so frustrated with the sensation of taking two steps forward, only to take four steps back.

Patience, Sarce.

That was something she had, at the very least. Her silver linings in life were her pure unadulterated tenacity and her overwhelming patience. Problem was, she was running low on the latter in her later sweeps. She was tired of being the one left behind, or looked down on, or treated like s**t. This was her time. The world would have time for her too, just like it had time for every other troll on the face of Alternia.

She got up, grunted, and fell back on her a**.

Patience.

 

[Melancholies]

There—unfortunately—wasn't much to do when you were sitting alone in a makeshift hive.

She started by counting her scars. The number varied on how she consolidated them—she could count each individual tooth mark or the whole damn bite on her shoulder, for example—but there was the mark from the leechbeast, the nick on her forehead, some gashes on her legs and her thigh, a particularly nasty one across her chest from god knew what. Someone in her life once told her scars were the most valuable thing on this planet. Scars were a mark of status. Scars were a mark of survival.

Sure, she thought she looked tough, but Sarcel wasn't so crazy about them anymore. That man was a phantom in her life anyway.

Instead she sunk back into the lukewarm mess of sopor slime, the outer walls of her transportable recuperacoon mildly comfortable at best. She sighed.

 

[Melancholies]

In the distance limped a lone figure. The rough winds buffeted around them, the cold harsh and bone chilling, but they persevered onward. Aside from the howl of the gale, the only other sound was the muffled crunch of boots on snow.

Sarcel was haggard. She was beat. This was not a beautiful victory, but she hadn't anticipated it to be either. Up here it was life or death. No one would find her body, no one would know where she had gone. It wasn't the same as dying on the battlefield. Clutched in her right hand was a long aluminum stick—parts of a tarp prop she never ended up using—now re-purposed as a walking stick.

Her face was obscured by a mess of goggles and linen, her face wrapped up in a bandanna, a hood covering up everything else. She took a step, dragged her bum leg, took a step, repeat. Behind her was a gentle track of shoe prints and a long, weary line. It told a story, You could tell when her leg started to give out.

And yet here she was, blazing blue in all her glory. She took a step, heaved a breath, took a step, and then she—

—stopped.

Around her were the peaks of lesser things—mountains that weren't nearly as glorious as the one beneath her feet—all white and snowcapped and devoid of much life. This was a realm of hardier creatures. This was an entirely different level.

And now Sarcel was standing on top of it all, her thick coat blowing in the wind, her breath visible through the bandanna, her legs shaking and her lungs light with the thinning flow of oxygen. She felt like she was on top of the world. For all she knew, she was. What other peaks could contend with something as glorious as this? Maybe someday she'd discover them. Someday she'd conquer them too. This wasn't just a question of her strength though—this was a testament of her resolve, her courage, her everything.

She started to strip the mess of cloth around her face. A mitted glove tugged down her face mask, and then the goggles were loosened until they fell around her neck. Underneath them were tired eyes, the skin underneath them tinged the same blue that speckled her irises. She wasn't some stupid, naive child anymore. She wasn't Sarcel Cincil anymore. The same hand dug into her coat—she winced at the cold—and she rifled and rifled around until she produced a pair of dog tags.

There were four of them, two on each chain. She ripped one off, the beads weakly snapping against the back of her neck.

Sarcel tossed them both swiftly into the gush of arctic air.

They landed in the snow, the metal cooling instantly, the frost threatening to cover it up as quickly as they landed. Sarcel watched it for a while; the back of the metal plating had no words, no names, no signs of identification save for one—a single shoe with wing—a quiet monument, a solemn symbol. Now it was covered up. Now it was dead. Now it was lost forever.

She felt like she lost a part of herself. More than that—there was a part of herself that she just killed. She felt like she was looking a younger her in the eyes a moment before pulling a trigger. Now it was no more. Now it wasn't a thought in her mind. Now it was gone. Her life as she knew it was completely and utterly over. Sarcel Cincil was not a weak, pathetic blueblood. Sarcel Cincil was the right hand of the Queen, a rising force of nature in the military, and something to be respected above all else. For once, she tasted glory. For once, she wanted her name to carry weight. She wanted her name to be uttered in conversations and have it drop like a lead weight.

It wouldn't be just her either. She'd lead everyone who gave her their loyalty and trust toward that same taste of eminence. They would all be magnificent. She would drive her bleeding heart right through the stake for the crown. She would gladly give her blood for her beliefs. Sarcel wouldn't have it any other way.

She turned away from the peak. For some reason, the accomplishment of the hike didn't taste as sweet as she thought. That was alright. That was something she could live with. Instead she put one step forward, took a heavy breath, continued onward down the slope under the weight of her pack. The real trial wasn't just ascending the crags; it was going back down too.

But she'd lived this far. She'd make it back in one piece. She had faith in herself—and she'd have one hell of a story to tell the bartender back at the town at the base of the slope.

 

[Melancholies]

"You're one of the lucky ones." The troll, still in drab grey, still looking tired and mundane, cleaned their glasses.

"But you have to admit it was pretty admirable."

They sighed. "Few come back down, that's for certain." A pause, "What was your name again?"

"Sarcel." She smiled, exhausted but pleased over a steaming hot drink. "Sarcel Cincil."

Hivestuck

that's a wrap!

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