Welcome to Gaia! ::

Rasali woke up in a cold sweat. Gasping, she shakingly jumped into a seated position, knocking the (thankfully empty) mug she’d been drinking from off of the (thankfully low) table she’d been sitting at. When had she dozed off? Rasali blearily looked over to the thin screens that made up the perimeter of her hive. Thank goodness, it was still dark out. Of course it was, she realized as she fully came-to. Things would have been a lot worse than an upended teacup if she’d slept right on through to the daylight hours while outside of her recuperacoon.

Rasali took stock of her surroundings as she remembered how she’d ended up passed out over her coffee table. She knew she hadn’t been sleeping well lately, but things were apparently worse than she’d thought. Painfully, she extracted her tingling leg from its twisted position pinned under her.

“Goddamnit, body, if you’re finally gonna let me sleep, at least gimme some warning…” Rasali mumbled as she pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes. She resisted the urge to fall backwards onto the floor. She knew for sure she’d pass out until daybreak. The last thing her sleep schedule needed was brightmares.

Rasali dropped her arms and stared down at the table. There wasn’t any reason for this insomnia. Hell, immediately after the events in Old Hemis- …Civisect, Rasali had returned home and conked out for nearly an entire night.

After that, however, sleep had come less easily to Rasali. Each day she’d prepare for sleep, lie down in her recuperacoon and just… stare. Rasali knew the location of each and every knothole on the beams of her hive. She’d named every spider she’d deemed responsible for the cobwebs in the rafters she couldn’t reach. She’d conceived of every possible pattern that could possibly be found in the wood grain of the ceiling. Rasali just couldn’t sleep.

Or maybe Rasali didn’t want to sleep. Rasali shook her head to clear the absurd thought from her mind. Of course she wanted to sleep, she was exhausted.

Exhausted from what? She hadn’t done anything.

Rasali grunted and popped her spine. As she shakily stood, she ran her hads through her hair, pulling it from her face and smoothing out the tangles that had accumulated during her nap. It had gotten quite long recently… and greasy. Yes, a bath would be just the thing to fix that and improve her mood. Two birds with one stone.

Rasali gathered the soap-filled wooden basin she kept in the ablutionblock for just such occasions. Stripping down, Rasali replaced her sweaty clothes with a clean towel. Rasali’s corner of the forest was secluded enough, and the walk short enough that her modesty wouldn’t be compromised. Rasali tucked her basin under her right arm, and gathered up the edge of her towel in her left and set out.

Rasali had lived in this forest her entire life. Her lusus had chosen this location especially for the two of them. True to his animal instincts, it had always been a safe and peaceful place. What’s more, Rasali had made this trek from her hive to the hot springs a million time as proof of that peace. So why couldn’t Rasali calm down?

The faint breeze ruffled the leaves and birds twittered in the treetops, but Rasali couldn’t shake the feeling that she should have been hearing more activity, more voices; training exercises, construction noises, exchanges of information, coordinates, speeches. Rasali remembered suddenly that she was no longer in the Phoenix Initiative’s wooded sanctuary, tensing up at the realization that she needed to remember that fact at all.

And yet she felt the persistent need to be doing something. She had a job to do.

No, no that wasn’t right. Her job was over. The fight was over. They lost. Rasali’s jaw tightened and her walk turned to trudging. It was simple fact. She may have gotten left behind just short of the royalist basecamp, but it was all for the best. She and her lusus were safe and home and as far as any royalist official knew she was just an ordinary, run-of-the-mill greenblood. Because she was.

Rasali was practically crying by the time she’d reached the edge of the hotspring. Her face was hot and damp and she hardly felt more hot dampness was going to fix the problem, but she’d already walked the whole way there. Rasali let her basin drop to the ground with a rattle and a thunk and tossed her towel into the grass.

Rasali jumped into the water with an angry splash and no regard for the temperature. It was hot and it stung and she liked it. She surfaced with a wet curtain of hair in her face. Pulling it aside, she drifted over to a wide, flat rock in the water and took a seat. There she kicked her feet in the water and watched them distort beneath the surface. Relaxing was hard.

Almost on cue, Kappadad surfaced at the other end of the spring. If anyone knew how to relax, it was Rasali’s lusus. She felt the urge to cry surge up again, but her hope in parental support helped reign in her emotions.

Kappadad floated over to Rasali’s end of the hotspring and positioned himself by her side, bill just above the water. There they sat together, looking out over the water and into the dark forest beyond. Rasali continued to fidget idly, waiting for the words to come to her.

She sighed. “I fell asleep on the table again,” Rasali finally announced. Kappadad’s brow rippled in her general direction—a sign he was listening. “That’s bad,” Rasali continued. “Yeah. You know.”

Rasali swished the water around in her palms. “It’s stupid. Sure, we lost and that sucks, but, like... I’m fine, and you’re fine and… It isn’t the end of it all, right?” Rasali looked to her lusus for confirmation. He just blinked, but at least he was maintaining eye contact, if only from the side.

“I guess I dunno what I’m supposed to feel. Nothing feels like a good fit. I should be happy I’m alive, but I’m also sad that we lost. And I also feel guilty that I missed out on the final battle… And I’m mad that nobody seems to know anything about what happened after we left.” Rasali slapped the water to illustrate her anger. “But mostly I just feel… Scared?” Rasali bit her lip, embarrassed at such an admission. Scared was the opposite of what trolls as a species stood for. Both the rebels and the royalists could agree on that much.

“I- I just don’t know. I just don’t know.” Rasali curled in on herself, forming a cage with her elbows and knees. “I need to be doing something, I- I should be! I was there, I saw what happened and I did good work, I was good, Dad! …And I made it out.”

Rasali grabbed fistfuls of hair and pulled, adding curtains to her personal fortress. “I made it out. All of that and I made it out. I’m strong, Dad. I’m strong, but I’m still scared.” Rasali whispered, not caring if her lusus could even hear her. “This isn’t right! This isn’t how this is supposed to be!”

Rasali shrieked and thrashed in the water. Her body seemingly convulsed with the conflicted desire to lash out and stay curled up. Kappadad watched on silently.

“This isn’t! This isn’t! This isn’t!” Rasali continued to throw her tantrum, grabbing her horns and swinging side to side. “Why can’t I stop being scared!? Why can’t I do anything!? Why can’t I SLEEP!?”

Rasali collapsed backwards against the edge of the spring, like the warmth and steam had taken its effect on her muscles all at once. Her lungs heaved and tears prickled at her eyes—darker and more heavily ringed than ever.

“Ugh. Just let me pass out in here and drown,” Rasali moaned finally, head resting against a rock. Kappadad snorted at this—water shooting from his nostrils. Rasali managed to crack a weak smile at his obvious refusal. She turned her attention to the sky peeking out from beyond the canopy.

“You’re right. I’d probably come back as a ghost just so I could keep bitching at you. If I could let things go I wouldn’t be in this predicament in the first place.”

“Ugh,” Rasali wiped the tears from her eyes and sprawled her arms out across the edge of the spring. “And I’d be in even less of this predicament if the royalists didn’t suck so much. (Sigh) So many people displaced from their homes.” Rasali grabbed fistfuls of mud from either side of her. “I can’t even imagine. Even when I was hiding in that shopping mall, I knew I at least had a place to go afterwards.”

Rasali’s expression hardened the longer she sat in silence, contemplating her relative situation. “Bitching, bitching, bitching. Bitching’s a privilege, and not even a useful one with all the good it’s done me. With my home and my lusus and my health, I don’t got any right. If the choice is either being a miserable do-nothing forever or scared war-hero (heh, can you imagine?), well, I’d rather pick the latter.”

Rasali sat up fully, fists clenched and posture rigid. “Well, if I’m gonna do that much, I guess I’ve gotta be less scared. And if I’m gonna be less scared… I guess I gotta do more scary stuff.” Rasali took two deep breaths. “The rebels are down, but not out. Alternia’s gonna be a world where trolls of all bloods can live their lives without fear of getting displaced, or, or bombed. If I know anything from all those nights spent recruiting, I know that I’m not the only one who wants this. There are good people in this world, Dad.” Rasali turned towards her lusus, her voice softening as she recounted the people she met through her work for the rebellion. There were people that needed to be protected, but even then she wasn’t alone in her endeavor. She felt less scared already.

Kappadad dragged his gaze back over to the blackness of the woods. “You’re not going to be any good to anyone if you don’t get some sleep.”

Rasali blinked. Then smiled. Then laughed. She doubled over until she was blowing bubbles in the hotspring. Kappadad continued to stare ahead quietly until Rasali resurfaced.

“No, no, you’re right. You’re right.” Rasali too looked out over the forest with a soft, affectionate expression. “First things first.”

Rasali sunk down into the water, side-by-side with her lusus. The morning would come, and so would the night after that. The royalists and rebels would still be there, and Rasali would be ready for them. She and her friends would make sure of that.




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“OH MY GOD, I CAN’T BELIEVE I TOLD AANDES I HATED HIM.”