TW: parental emotional/physical abuse, trauma, violence, etc. please read with caution She hated her lusus. The tyranny made her blood run cold as ice whenever she saw the glowing lure of her parent through the darkness of her hive. Angel’s maw ever creeping toward her, so that even in her recuperacoon she wasn’t free of the daymares that haunted her. The wanton destruction, the pointed, calculated hurtful statements pushed against her to corner her into a rage. To push her into being what Angel wanted, to be the perfect seadweller, strong, smart, composed and capable. She would never be those things, being an imbecile, a fool, too emotional, a naive child with no understanding of the world as it was. The words repeated in her head no matter what she did or who she spoke to. It felt like there was nothing she could do to be free of the constant looming threat of her lusus behind it.
How could anyone live with a lusus when they were nothing but beasts who knew no kindness, no love and affection? Gnash contemplated this often, on her rooftop garden where she knew her lusus could not follow. She lived a prisoner in her own hive these last few weeks, unable to step into certain areas without being confronted and assaulted for her decisions. Even this reminded her, as she looked at the garden. She wanted a garden, but her lusus huffed and condescended to her as she was unable to make the plants thrive under her care no matter what she planted or tried. Left with a field of dead plants, scorched by the sun in the day and dried out by the saltwater of the ocean.
If you wanted a garden my dear Natash, you should hire someone to do this work instead of playing in the dirt and mud like a filthy landdwelling lowblood peasant. You have the power to outsource all of this menial labor, to keep those pink little fingers of yours pristine as you lead them to do what you want. Instead you degrade yourself with the sweat on your own brow only to fail miserably. There was little else she could do but stand and take the assaults, the threats, the hatred. She could shoot back what little she could, stand in her own power as the seadweller she was, call her lusus’ empty threats and bluffs and play their game until someone snapped. In most cases, Gnash backed down as her lusus asserted her size and superior strength, the seadweller’s confidence shattered as Angel placed her claws on her chest or destroyed her things. No matter what, she always lost their games.
You will do better to fight back if you want to survive as a weak seadweller is useless and better off culled. But she was done with it now. She was going to leave her hive, confrontation or no. Maybe in the smooth waters of the ocean she could find some peace from her lusus. She stepped down the ladder, down the stairs, into the rooms that grew larger and larger to accommodate her hideous lusus, the hive filling with water as she submerged into the deeper parts of the hive no one but her looked at.
At the door, she looked at the harpoons leaning against the wall in their places, her insect collections carefully boxed and displayed, and the rack of scarves and hats and other items she kept there. Natash brushed her hand against the door, ready to leave, and paused. There was the unmistakable hissing noise of her lusus breathing, turning the corner. She could run now, and never face her lusus - all she would have to do is never return to her hive, abandoning everything. She could live in the forests with the buggies, like the Grub Scouts could teach her. She could flee to her friends, to Mesnei, or another seadweller who liked her. To an abandoned hive in Chittentown no one would ever think to find an aquatic troll. Then she would always be running, always the coward, the weakling. Her lusus would find her.
Avoiding me now, are you Natash? She approached, faster in the water than she ever was on land. Soon she was standing in front of her, her lure bobbing as she spoke.
I knew you were a coward but I did not expect you to hide from me… what are you so afraid of? “I am afraid of nothing I was merely not desiring to see or speak to you at all in any capacity,” Gnash replied, voice tight as she crossed her arms. Clipped, deliberate word choices. Tensed up in the shadow of her lusus.
“I am leaving now to go and … I am going to see my friends who I have who want to see me also.” I find that hard to believe Natash, so now you are lying to me as well. I know that you have none among the filthy lowbloods you can call a friend nor should you. Remember your place, as their leader, their better. You are a seadweller and ought to act it. She paused, her mouth open as her eyes bore into her charge.
If you were planning to see your peers, you should think twice as well. You would only embarrass yourself in front of them and I would hate to see them be forced to cull you for your incompetence when they have so much better work to do for the empire. “You do not know anything about me or my friends or anything I am doing or plan to do and so -- perhaps you should be the one to think twice about how you speak to me!” She stamped her foot on the floor, petulant and childish, her hands balled in growing rage. Even now, even for the littlest things. She couldn’t stand it anymore.
“If I am really to be as great as you say and you consistently put me down for not achieving the standards you are placing upon me why do you not instead encourage me and treat me with the respect you tell me to demand of others? How am I to believe I have any worth if you do not see any in me?”Where was this insolent confidence when you chose to do things that demeaned and dishonored your status as a seadweller, allowing land dwelling filth to beat you and treat you as they will? You cowered and apologized and did not call for the immediate culling of those who tried to wrong you. She sneered, getting closer.
You only seem to have the confidence to talk back to me when you have forgotten what happens when you do. I will punish you and you will shortly return to cowardice and shameful hiding, wringing your hands and having that stupid smile on your face as if you shall placate the masses with your horrid visage. Gnash flinched visibly as her lusus approached, her hands moving up to grip her shoulders. Digging into the skin, tight. She wasn’t going to back down. This would be the last time she let Angel speak to her this way. She looked away, unable to meet her eyes large and empty in front of her.
“It was always there and yet you tried to remove it from me I am confident among my friends and when I am doing things I enjoy as you are aware that these same things are things you hate so very much about me and do not allow me to participate in as a result,” she said, speaking faster as if she would run out of time to have the floor in this conversation.
“And yet the thing about all of this is I will not return to being afraid of you and instead I am actually going to stand up and fight against you this time and every time in the future also.” She faced her lusus, looking at the rage on Angel’s face, her lure swinging wildly, her teeth sharp and pointed and so very close, contorted into the angriest expression the anglerfish creature was capable of.
Did you think you could change anything by saying a few words as if you are strong and confident now? You are weak, you are stupid, and nothing shall change with you. You are corrupted by that landdwelling mire you mingle with along with your own idiocy that you should think you can stand against me. Her lusus laughed, a deep rumbling sound that sloshed the sea water in the room as she moved.
Suddenly Angel surged forward, hooking Gnash in her teeth and pushing her against the door. Her feet no longer reached the ground, dangling like a stray bit of debris in her fangs. Not dangerous yet, just intimidating. Another empty threat.
I should cull you right now where you stand. Remove your idiotic head off your shoulders so you can cease those thoughts immediately. Natash struggled against the teeth, pushing and pushing to try and slip through the spaces between.
I can wait a few sweeps for a new seadweller to emerge from the brooding cavern trials, one stronger and smarter than you. You were not my first charge and you will surely not be my last.“You would not dare to kill me now, you have not in the past so why should I have any reason to believe you are to do so at this moment either,” she shouted, kicking at her lusus. Gnash sneered back.
“Are you to eat my legs now in punishment for defying you or perhaps you would like to find some other part of my body to tear off that is not lethal so you can pretend you are a good custodian to a very good little seadweller,” she said, kicking more. If she tore her legs off, she would still have won, proving her lusus wrong. She wouldn’t be afraid anymore.
“Well I am not that I am a very bad seadweller and I do not even care anymore that I am bad because I am good at so many other things that matter far more to me.”Gnash flailed and knocked over the harpoons, spilling them to the floor with a clatter. With that, Angel slammed her down, effortlessly moving her mouth over Natash’s head, teeth poised around her neck where she could feel them, sharp and cold against her sensitive skin. Gnash’s fins flared, defiant even now. She’d rather die than let her lusus torment her any further, make her feel as small and weak and stupid as she always claimed.
You foolish, horrible child. You are weak and stupid and you are a shame to your species… The teeth closed slowly through the words, tightening around her neck and scraping long cuts as she did so. Gnash could feel her blood welling around her throat, choking the very water she was breathing with fuchsia blood. Not again though. Gnash reached with her hand, blindly, for a weapon. She fumbled a moment and closed her hand around the handle of a harpoon. She grasped it firmly and shoved it into her lusus, aiming straight for the head closed around her, forcing it upward.
In the moment Angel gasped, Gnash slipped free, away from the grip of her terrible maw. She pressed her hand to her throat, feeling the long gashes up her neck. She’d managed worse wounds before, she could survive these too. She picked up another harpoon and stood, holding it in front of her. She glared at Angel, her expression one of tight, cold anger. Her lusus sputtered incredulously, thrashing around in pain. The anglerfish creature came charging at Gnash again, poised to kill. Natash was not going to die tonight, though.
She jammed the harpoon into her lusus again, pushing it in as far as it would go into the soft flesh of her parent. Angel hissed and bled, and Gnash ripped the deadly barbed harpoon back out, thrust it back in, again and again. She was absolutely enraged with Angel, that her supposed guardian would try to hurt her again. Face taut, jaw clenched, teeth bared and gnashing as she continued to attack her lusus. Too angry for words.
My dear Gnash, Angel tried, her voice weakening despite her use of the affectionate nickname. She lumbered in the water, feet slow and dragging on the floor.
You can still stop this foolishness and we will forget this erroneous transgression you have done. I shall forgive you as you are but a child… we can still return to our previous relationship. Perhaps even more like when you were a very young wriggler do you remember that, when you adored me? Let us return to that moment.Gnash paused, her harpoon clenched in her hand. The unmitigated gall of her lusus to try and smooth things over, to backtrack and pretend as if this relationship was repairable. She shook.
“You ruined our relationship the moment you thought it an appropriate punishment to remove my limbs and tear them from my body in your horrible despotism of parenthood. All of my life has been under such authoritarianism with no regard for my feelings and interests that all clearly did not matter to you before because of my being a child. You have been nothing but a monster to me.” She thrust the harpoon in again, using both hands.
“You were wrong about me this entire time Angel,” Natash said, pushing the weapon slowly.
“I am so strong and it will never matter how stupid others believe me to be if I am simply stronger than them because I am stronger than you after all and that is how I am stopping you.” She could take her mother’s advice for at least one thing. She could be strong, and never weak. She could kill anything in her path that dared to hurt her again, never cowering before someone, some beast. Gnash
was powerful. She was the seadweller.
“I hate you. I always have despised everything you have ever done or been to me.”Angel choked, blood bubbling up in the back of her mouth. A twisted laughter, leaving big thick clouds of purple blood in the water.
Ah… so you are. Here is the child I was looking for hidden all along. You thought you could hide this part of yourself, the one that was angry and violent. I have seen it before and known it had existed inside of you, my dear Gnash. Behind your stupid saccharine smiles and pitiful attempts at friendship I knew who you truly were with your wild rages and distaste for lesser beings. It disgusted me to see you among them trying to denigrate and lower yourself to their level when I knew you could be so much more. She closed her eyes.
And now you are truly the monster you despised, are you not? You enjoyed this violence, Natash. I am proud of you.The large beast stopped moving, and Gnash stared blankly at the corpse of her lusus.
It was over. But in her last breath, her lusus managed one final dig into the core of her being, to tear down what she knew. To call her out, to punish her callously once more, to
be proud of her. It was disgusting, it was unbearable, it was horrific. Gnash wanted to vomit, breathing in the blood-filled seawater her lusus died in. Natash sunk to her knees. She beat her shiny pink fists on the soft sides of her lusus.
“How can you say that to me now? You are disgusting! I am going to cut your body into so many pieces and toss them into the ocean for all of the horrible ocean creatures to eat, I wish you could have suffered as I have for all you have done to me.” Tears welled up in her eyes, as she kept hitting the corpse. How could any troll love these beasts they let into their hives, to let them raise them? She should have killed Angel long ago, the moment she learned to hold a harpoon, to hold a blade, to hold anything that could have allowed her to destroy her. They were horrid. And yet, all trolls were beholden to the whims of these beasts that called themselves custodians, these freaks of nature. Even… their own Empress, whose unknowable lusus would cull the entire population if she was not fed, her whispers a threat of death to everyone on and off-planet. Gnash stopped beating the body, wiping her face with the metal wrists her parent left her. Perhaps Angel would be better off as food for Gl'bgolyb. At least in death she could serve some purpose.
Gnash picked herself up. She was alone now. She needed fresh air, to tend to her wounds. Her lusus thought her an idiot - that was fine. Strength was more important than intelligence, because for all of Angel’s intelligence, her constant put downs and her big words, she couldn’t beat Gnash when she was determined to kill her. No one would ever hurt her again, because she would kill them. Her lusus thought her violent, the very same monster she had always fought against, with the rages and hungers Angel shared. She didn’t have to
be that monster, even with her violence. She could be something greater, using that great influence placed on her by virtue of her blood caste. Gnash could be important, and powerful, and prove once and for all that Angel knew nothing of her and her abilities. A leader that people would look up to.
Natash returned to her garden, taking in the salty sea air. It stung against the cuts on her neck, but she was not concerned about that just yet. She had called the orphaners to come retrieve the corpse of her lusus, finding comfort in the idea of some other seadweller handling it for her. Taking Angel deep below the ocean’s surface where light no longer shined. Trapped in a net with other dead lusii - likely no good either if they managed to be killed - until she was tossed into the mouth of someone bigger, stronger, hungrier. It would serve her justice.
She could do that as well, perhaps. Seadwellers were well known to be prolific orphaners, able to feed the Queen’s dread lusus better than any other troll. Gnash could hunt down all of the terrible lusii that roamed Alternia like the vermin they were, separate trolls from their abusive guardians and free them from tyranny. A good leader should protect her underlings, and with her in charge they would only need the guidance of an older troll. A seadweller like her, for instance. One who knew compassion, who loved to be with the less fortunate lowbloods!
Gnash kneeled at the flower beds, resting her arms on the wood. The future seemed so much brighter, somehow. She was free. She had purpose. She had strength. Looking down in the dirt, she saw a small green sprout, the start of new growth in her garden. She beamed, her hard work paying off after all this time.
Hivestuck
rest in ******** pieces angel
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