Chapter Text
A few hundred years is nothing. It’s a vacation, almost. It’s the first time she’s had nothing to do, nobody to order around, no society to oppress.
It was boring as fuck.
She’d vented all of her frustration already. The fury was spent. There was nothing left to break on board, nobody left to punish, no strength left to scream. From the instant she felt her connection with Gl’bgolyb sever (it had felt like a bone breaking with a sickening pop, the very memory of it disgusted her and made her want to cry like a pathetic wriggler), as she witnessed all the trolls around her dying in bloodied, agonized throes, the Condesce had raged. She had gone from corpse to corpse, grabbing up every limp sack of meat she could find, saying how dare you die on me, how DARE you abandon your empress?! She’d shaken them, torn them apart, beheaded them for being so insolent, but none had responded. And when she’d felt the Vast Glub dissipate, she’d had to come to terms with the fact.
She was alone. The Glub was too sudden, too powerful for her to do anything against, especially now that Gl’bgolyb was no longer hers.
That very thought angered her just as much, or perhaps even more, than the massacre of her people. Having an eldritch abomination as a lusus was hard, and nobody ever understood, but she had loved the creature. She had the very distinct sense of being abandoned. By her custodian, by her ship, and by her power.
After all, what was an empress if she had nobody to rule?
There was nowhere to go but back to Alternia. The Helmsman was dead, his vilely shaded blood covering him like sloppy vomit. She had enough power to make it back without him, but she would have much preferred his company. Some days she sat and watched him, as if waiting for some kind of reaction or response. Some days she reached out and attempted to give him just a bit more life, as she had done so many times in their heyday, but she could not enhance what was simply not there.
Sometimes she just twirled her fingers around in his splattered blood, making meaningless designs, licking it from underneath her nails like fresh honey.
But not even six hundred years lasts forever, and soon…soon…the grey familiar planet came back into view. The Condesce could have broken down and wept for joy, and if she could have ever shaken the need to impress—even when nobody was around—she just might have.
She felt a tiny little whisper in her head. It was familiar, but not quite the same as it had been. She gasped, a short little intake of breath, as she realized that her connection with Gl’bgolyb was not entirely gone. Her lusus, after all this time, was still alive.
But just as quickly, the whisper was gone. It had not truly been a reconnection, and never would be. With a sinking horror, the Condesce realized why, even though Gl’bgolyb had recognized her return, and was still alive, her lusus did not take her back.
It had another.
An heiress.
The Condesce punched a hole through a nearby wall. Some little sniveling bitch of a wriggler had taken her lusus. While Her Imperious Condescension was still fucking alive.
It took nearly no time at all to locate the monstrous creature, even with the tiniest blip of a connection being all that remained. And where Gl’bgolyb was, this audacious little nooksucker was sure to be.
There was only one reason to live right now, only one reason to keep going after years and years of solitude. She was going to kill this heiress, and everyone she knew, everyone she loved or hated or even so much as considered for one of her quadrants.