Chapter Text
Eridan Ampora, who was irritated, stumbling slightly, and dropping a towering pile of blue yarn on a nearby table, grumbled, “I brought you somthin.”
“Firstly, most people start with a greeting of some sorts, so they don’t come across as rude or intrusive,” Rose, who was currently lying down on her sofa, didn’t look up from her book, “Speaking of intrusive, secondly, most people knock or ring a doorbell before they enter people’s homes. And finally, and definitely the most pressing of the three, how and why did you decide to spend your first six hours being alive again acquiring an impressive stack of navy and light blue yarn?”
“I wasn’t tryin to fuckin make yarn okay? I’vve been standin at the stupid alchemiter for hours tryin to make my scarf and this is all I got,” he huffed, “And I figured you could use it for your knitting or somethin.”
She raised an eyebrow half-heartedly, “What made you think I knit?”
Eridan returned, almost too solemnly, “Evveryone and evverythin invvolvved wwith Horrorterrors knowws howw to knit. Honestly I can’t believve I’m tellin you this.”
He watched Rose turn her gaze away from him to eye the gargantuan pile of half-tangled yarn, which was slightly spilling off the edge in fuzzy vines. “I don’t think that’s any less than thirty pounds. How many times did you try making your scarf with this exact result of failure?”
“Like I said, I wwas at it for hours, I don’t exactly remember,” Eridan shrugged, “That’s not the point. Wwhat I’m sayin is that you can probably use it. You knoww, conservving resources and such.”
“While I appreciate the gesture, despite not being an inherently friendly one, I hope you realize that I don’t even possess that much yarn of different colors, much less just blue. Not to mention that blue isn’t a color I use often in my humble craft.”
“Well if you can think of another usage for this stuff that I’m clearly unawware of, let me knoww, “ Eridan’s voice was tinged with a restrained annoyance, “WWorst part is, I still don’t havve a scarf, and I sure as fuck ain’t goin to try usin that machine again anytime soon.”
Rose slowly sat up and set her book aside. Eridan couldn’t read the cover from his vantage point, since she was across the room, but it looked like it was either high literature or the sort of overly melodramatic poetry that angsty teenagers adore. It didn’t really matter to him, it was probably pretentious anyway.
“Listen…Eridan is it?” She didn’t check Eridan for confirmation, “Eridan, bringing me an excess of raw material isn’t the appropriate payment for me knitting you a scarf, even if I was willing to do so in the first place.”
“Are you fuckin kidding me? All I’m trying to do is givve you something you might use, you inconsiderate-” he opened his mouth to continue, but then his face shifted, “Actually no you’re right, it did sound like I wwas askin for a shitty favvor.”
Rose walked across the room with her book, setting it on an odd-looking, pitch-black structure she seemed to use as a bookshelf, “I appreciate your concession, but my statement still holds true.”
Eridan shifted on his feet, looking around the human’s hive before gesturing the mountain of fuzzy blue coils, “So should I leavve all a this with you, because I can’t tell if you actually wwant it or not.”
“Truth be told, I’m not sure myself,” Rose shrugged, but then something lit up in her eyes briefly, “Actually, I have a proposition for you. Would you be interested in knitting lessons, run by yours truly? With all this yarn, you can make yourself a new scarf tenfold.”
Eridan stared at Rose, trying to detect even a single iota of insincerity in her face. You never know with humans, them and their stupid dishonest ways of communicating. Definitely the worst habit the others picked up from them.
“So wwhat you’re tellin me,” Eridan still studied her face for any betrayal of sinister intentions, “Is that you’re unwwillin to wwaste your time by yourself to make me a scarf, but instead wwant to wwaste evven more time teachin me, someone you don’t particularly like, howw to knit?”
Rose almost smiled, which Eridan found so unnerving he almost looked away, “Don’t flatter yourself so much. Roxy already asked me for lessons a few days ago, and I don’t see any potential harm in you coming in as well.”
Roxy? Was that a human? Must be, but Eridan couldn’t remember where he’d heard that name before. Maybe it’s one from the other batch of humans?
“She’s my ectobiological mother,” Eridan wasn’t sure if Rose anticipated him not knowing or saw the look on his face, “Among other things. Luckily for you, our first session starts tomorrow at noon. That should give you an approximated thirteen hours to gather your bearings and decide whether you’re ready to be seduced by the gentle art of knotting strings together.”
“Listen, I don’t really wwant to barge the fuck into your mother-grub bonding time,” Eridan could picture it – Rose and Roxy busy being together while he was left alone with his mountain of yarn, “You guys should just do your owwn thing yourselvves.”
“Once again, you have roughly half a day to eventually reach a decision,” Rose wrapped her arms around the large pile of spun wool, “In the meantime, I suppose I can add this to my collection. Winding it into proper skeins should take a long time, though.”
Eridan watched Rose walk to the other side of the room, past a door, and into a dark room, “Wwell, if that’s it I’m goin back to my hivve.”
Rose’s voice was slightly muffled as she called from the other room, “Whatever you do, please cease your futile attempts at alchemizing your scarf. There’s enough yarn as it is already.”
“Yeah, sure,” Eridan pressed a button near the front door, and the metal doors slid open to allow him outside in to the cool night air. So much for trying to be courteous.
Eridan had no idea how long it has been since they won the game, but at some point he was dead and then at another point he was suddenly lying on his back and blinking up to a Karkat and a Rose. The former quickly updated him on what happened as Eridan climbed out of some sort of odd machine. There’s a new planet now called Earth C, one where the trolls and humans live together, and they’ve been bringing back the dead members of their session. Of course, Eridan was the last one to be brought back, but he couldn’t really blame them. He didn’t exactly leave the land of the living on the best terms. Karkat then had showed him his new hive, which was oddly cylindrically shaped but thankfully not near any sort of civilization, and told Eridan that’d he occasionally stop by to “check on him.” Whatever that means.
“Listen, Kar, uh… howw many knoww about me comin back to life?” Eridan had asked him, still standing outside the strange metal hive.
“Not really anyone besides me and Lalonde. I mean, it’s not the sort of thing I just run around and fucking announce to the masses, you blathering incompetent nookstain,” his voice, while still loud, was not typical Karkat levels of loud. The violet-blood should’ve been thankful, but there was a softened edge to his words that had made Eridan uncomfortable.
“No, I mean, can you not tell anyone, yet?”
Karkat shrugged, trying to be as casual as possible, “Sure, I don’t give a fuck. Just don’t scare the everloving shit out of anyone when you do.”
After studying the rather bare hive, which only contained a desk, a chair, a husktop, and a recoopercoon, Eridan decided that a trip to the alchemiters was necessary. It took him a while to realize that his scarf was missing, which was odd, because he was positive he died with it. He even had the scarf when he was Erisolsprite. Then why didn’t he wake up with it?
Right. The knitting schoolfeeding Lalonde was offering. Eridan was still baffled that she even offered. They weren’t exactly friends after all. For that matter, why did Karkat bring her of all people to be present when he was revived? Honestly, who even knows with humans.
Against Rose’s advice, Eridan found himself strolling near the alchemiters again, and was about to press the button that activates the door when he heard the loud cackle of one of the trolls. Eridan froze.
“Honestly, TZ, I think thith ith a pretty shitty idea.”
“Shut up. It’s amazing.”
Eridan could feel his bloodpusher thumping violently in his increasingly tightening chest, but he remained still. He felt as if his joints were glued together with cement. How fast did they get here? Eridan had just left the alchemiters roughly ten minutes ago. Rose’s hive isn’t even that far away. And he had spent the whole latter half of the day in there with no interruptions. Why are they here?
“Not everything hath to be about Thalemateth and-,”
A loud blast was heard from inside, and that noise snapped Eridan out of his stupor. He had to run.
Eridan could barely process the half-cleared forests around him. In his panicked state he momentarily forgot where his new hive was, but soon he realized he was sprinting down a familiar path. The violet-blooded troll hoped that the sound of grass and gravel crunching underneath his shoes wasn’t too loud, but by the time he returned to the front of his hive, Eridan assessed that he was probably in the clear. He weakly pressed his fist against the light blue button and stumbled inside.
He definitely didn’t need to see any trolls right now. More importantly, they didn’t need to see him.
Panting, Eridan slumped into his desk chair. Not as comfortable as the high-backed, cushy one he used to have in his old hive, but it did swivel nicely.
Spending time in the afterlife and as half of a self-loathing sprite gave a lot of time for Eridan to think about… that. The whole “snapping and murdering several trolls” business on the meteor. Eridan already knew that most of the trolls didn’t exactly enjoy his company, but now that he seriously messed up, there was absolutely no way he could recover from that.
And quite frankly, Eridan didn’t blame them.
He slid back even farther in his chair and groaned. There was honestly nothing for him to do. While Eridan was secretly thankful that every other inhabitant on the new planet had at least one job that kept them busy, realizing that he was essentially worthless on the new planet was definitely a negative. Plus, the internet on his husktop wasn’t working properly and he felt like he would die of boredom. Maybe this whole knitting business would be some way to be productive. Maybe this was the chance he needed to be useful somehow, and maybe with that, he might be redeemed.
“It’s not like knittin is entirely useful though,” Eridan muttered to himself.
But really, he had nothing better to do.