Archive of Our Own ^beta

Robert Baxter was standing in his kitchen, enjoying the smell of the beef casserole and a salad he was making for dinner, while listening to the local radio station.
It was the 9th of June, the two month anniversary of the day the trolls of Alternia made contact with Earth, and still it was the only thing every news station talked about. It was pretty cool, he had been pretty excited when they arrived, and so had his husband. Carlos was such a space fanatic that it was ridiculous, but that made him cute, even if he had to follow on all those weird space conventions and watching Star Wars with him at least once a month, if not twice.
But that's what you do when you love someone.
Carlos was currently out on the most important meeting in their lives, it was world changing to say at least.
Carlos was at the adoption agency, and today they would get answer to everything.
They had tried to adopt children for years, but always got declined, the agency saying that there were no children in need of homes, and then they’d give children to the next person walking in and put out ads that plenty of children needed homes this instant, literally.
It pained them both, but today Robert had a good feeling in his bones, he felt like they would finally get an approval. He wanted a child more than anything.
He thought about how they would decorate the room of the child, go on family picnics, walk them to school, plan their birthday party, go grocery shopping together, make sure the child knew how much their daddies loved them, and all other simple things every family experienced together. That was his biggest dream and wish in life
That he and Carlos could start a family.
As the food was done and he was about to set the table, he heard the door to their house open, and then close.
“Honey I’m home!”, he heard Carlos sweet voice say, before he appeared in the kitchen. But someone was off.
Had he been crying?
Not again.
Please not again…
“Carlos… how did it go?”.
“Denied… again. And this one specifically said we were denied because we’re gay, because gay parents will only have gay children and stuff like that…”, he said, voice breaking as he said the last words, tears once again rolling down his eyes. “I just want a baby, more than anything in the world Robert. Why aren't we good enough?”.
The last question broke his heart into millions of tiny pieces, before the pieces turned into dust. It felt like a literally stab.
Robert gave his husband a soft hug, letting him cry on his shoulders. He hated when Carlos was crying.
“Don't listen to them honey. They’re just homophobic idiots”.
“But… we’ll never get a baby if this keeps up. What if they’re right and we’re not meant to be parents?”.
“It's okay honey, we’ll get a baby, one day. I promise you. And we’ll be great fathers, especially since you’re one of them. The child is going to adore you Carlos”, he said, patting his shoulders, as he too started to feel the warm tears rolling down his own cheeks, and a few seconds later, he felt a pair of soft lips pressed against his own.
“Thanks Robert…”.
“C’mon let's eat and then I’ll put on some tea and we can have a Star Wars marathon together”, he said, trying to cheer up the love of his life.
“Thanks”.
He made Carlos sit down at the table, and they began eating.

~ Two days later ~

“Look! I found the Voltron funko pop exclusive at GameStop, I've been looking for it for ages”, Carlos said, as he showed Robert the things he had bought at GameStop, while Robert had been further down the mall, shopping some clothes, and had witnessed an argument when a troll with guns tried to cut in line because he was royalty, ending every sentence with “wweh”. But security had came and everyone was able to actually buy their stuff.
“That’s nice. Let’s go to Starbucks and grab a coffee”.
“Nice, coffee date. So fancy”.
“You silly”.
They held each other's hands, as they slowly walked through the mall, until they stopped at a small booth a troll with a rust sign had set up, and it said “win A tRip to aLTernia”, in weirdly spelled English, beside a picture of what Robert guessed was the troll Empress. It was Carlos who had made them stop, but Robert also seemed interested in this.
“Excuse me, I see that you were admiring this sign”, the troll said. “Do you want more information about it?”.
The two men looked at each other and nodded.
“Sure, why not?”, they both said. This really seemed interesting after all.
“All you have to do is to pay two Earth dollars and you’ll be put in a lottery, and the winners will get a free trip to Alternia, with our Empress Feferi Peixes as their guide, so that humans get a chance to experience the life on Alternia, our homeworld”, he said.
Robert saw how Carlos immediately tensed up.
“You mean… to actually, go into space? And meet, trolls?”, Carlos said, with a voice like if he had just seen Santa Claus as a small child.
He really was like a small child when it came to space, but could he blame him?
“Yes, that's what it means”, the troll said.
Silence for a few seconds.
“HERE’S TWO DOLLARS”, Carlos suddenly screamed and basically threw the money onto the rustblood, who looked quite terrified of Carlos over excited tone that seemed to come out of nowhere.
“Is he okay?”, the troll asked as Carlos was over the top, excited like a small child.
“Yeah he’s always like this, no need to worry”, he said. “C’mon Carlos let's get some coffee”, he said, taking his hand as the walked away, Carlos still being so excited, all he could talk about was space.

~ Two weeks later ~

“Robert I can see the mailman from the window upstairs. Can you get it?!?”, he heard Carlos shouted as he was reading an article about biomechanical science in the newspaper. He looked up, and yes, there was the mailman visible outside of the window.
“Okay Carlos I’ll get the mail!”, he said, got up from his chair, went out and got the mail, before getting back inside, looking through it.
Bill.
Bill.
A postcard from Carlos parents from their vacation in Rome.
More bills.
Coupons for Walmart.
And.
Wait a minute…
“CARLOS GET DOWN HERE NOW!”, he literally screamed.
Seconds later, he heard fast footsteps as he ran down the stairs.
“ROBERT?!? EVERYTHING OKAY?!? WHAT HAPPENED?”.
Silence…
“Look at this”.
It was a letter, glued together with pink wax, taking the shape of an “H” or something similar. They slowly opened the letter, and Carlos began reading.

Dear Mr and Mr Baxter.

You are the lucky humans to have won the free trip to Alternia, with me, Feferi Piexes, Empress of Alternia and all its colonies, as your guide during the trip, as a part of the human/troll cooperation program.
The spaceship arrives the 1st of July (human calendarium) at 12 pm at your local airport/space station. More information on the subject on the back.
I look forward to meeting you and to show you the planet of my hatching.

Signed yours truly Feferi Piexes, Empress of the Alternian empire.

“You… can’t be serious”, Carlos said, unable to believe what had happened. “Did we win? Did we seriously win?”.
“I guess so”, he answered.
Silence.
“I can't believe it…”, Carlos said. “I really can't believe it”.
“Guess we’re going to Alternia”.
“We’re going to space, we’re gonna see the planet of the trolls. We’re gonna meet their Empress. This can't be real, I must be dreaming”.
“But I guess you're not”.

~ The big day ~

“C’mon Robert, before we miss the ship!”, Carlos excitedly shouted as he loaded their luggage into the back of their car, before jumping into the front seat, holding the key, to soon turn it on.
“Take it easy, I know you’re excited, because well we are going to space which is your biggest passion, but the ship doesn't leave until in two hours, and we’ll be there in one”, he said, jumping into the passenger seat.
And off they were.
“I know but I'm too excited okay. It’s my biggest dream since I was a child. It's just surreal, the best day of my life”.
“Even better than our wedding?”.
“Okay, the next best day of my life, you are more important”.
One hour later, they arrived at the airport, and quickly went to the newly built Alternian space travel section to check in, it was quite a long line, so Robert looked at the people around him. Countless humans and trolls were in line before them, and there were also people coming back to Earth, that went through a gate. All those people.
He saw many people carry different colored grubs, he guessed they adopted them, but one grub that caught his attention was a rust colored one with sat on the shoulder of a dark haired woman, looking like it really liked her.
“ALMA!”
There was another woman who suddenly ran towards that woman with the grub, she was the one that had shouted her name, which also had caused the grub in the distance to squeak.
They soon disappeared, and Robert’s attention went back to the line.
Ten more minutes of waiting, and it was their turn.
“Hello, which ship are you boarding?”, a troll with a real sign asked, before taking up a holopad, probably to enter something.
“Well we’re the winners of the troll/human cooperation contest, we’re the Baxters and here’s the papers that confirms it”, Carlos said, giving the troll the papers.
“Oh my, the lucky winners to go on the Empress’ private ship. I’ll send an escort for you this instant”.
Three minutes later, an olive blooded troll named Walita Wayhel (who Robert guessed was a ship maid), were escorting them corridor after corridor. They saw multiple gigantic ships from the multi colored windows, but they kept walking, until they were standing beside a much smaller fuschia colored ship. As the bridge to it opened, two trolls walked outside to greet them, a 8 feet tall troll (excluding the horns) with pink fins and a colorful dress, with the fuschia sign seen on the letter from weeks ago, and on her face was, pink goggles?
Empress Feferi.
And beside her was a tad shorter troll with a yellow sign on his black uniform, with two pair of short horns and weirdly colored blue and red eyes.
Both of them walked down, the shorter on a few steps behind the empress.
This was unbelievable for both of them, the leader of the troll empire was going towards them, to talk to them.
And soon they stood eye to eye, well the humans had to look up to see them in the eyes, but the meaning was the same.
“Hello, you must be the winners? Carlos and Robert Baxter right?”.
Carlos nodded, and Robert could see that he was shaking.
“It's so nice to meet you in person, I’ve really looked forward to this. I’m Feferi and this is Sollux, my voluntary Helmsman in command. I’ll show you to your chambers and then we could perhaps have some grubloaf before taking off?”, she said, smiling.
Wow was this really the empress of a vicious world conquering alien race?
Robert guessed this was why she was named “the kind empress”, and he wasn't complaining. She seemed to be really nice.
“That would be lovely, thank you Empress Peixes”, Carlos said, still shaking a little, out of excitement.
“Oh please, call me Feferi. No needs for titles. Titles makes me sound, like a higher up that doesn't care about her people. Like the last empress. I only use my titles in formal letters and so on”.
“Well okay… Feferi”.

Two hours followed, the two trolls and two humans had been sitting down and talked, a little about everything, from their interest to their lives, all while eating grub loaf and a few troll delicacies. Right now Feferi was telling them about her life.
“And it was a heavy heart that I had to cull Gl’bgoyb. I loved her very much, she was my lusus, and I'm against culling anything, but it was for the better. During my time growing up I had to feed her the dead lusii of other trolls, which made them orphans, and orphans got culled. I didn't want to be responsible for the deaths of so many innocent trolls and lusii, but if I didn't feed her, she would unleash the Vast Glub, her voice would kill every troll in the entire universe. So I thought it was better to cull her, making me and future heiresses orphans, in order to help the rest of the race”.
“Oh my, I’m so sorry, that you had to go through with it”, Robert said, shocked at what he had just heard. “I don't know what I would do if I had to kill my parents. But what will be of the future fuschia blooded seadwellers, as you said, orphans got killed?”.
“I'm currently in the way of changing that, no troll deserves to be killed simply because their lusus didn't make it, but sadly my predecessor set heavy marks on the ground before me, and it might take a while to repair the damage in our race caused by fear, but my dream is that other lusi would take in orphaned trolls. As for the future of my blood caste, I don't know who would take care of them, but I'll figure it out. To be honest I don't know if I want more fuschia blooded trolls, because was if my heirs turn out like the last empress? I can't let my people experience the pain of her reign again”.
Wow.
For being so chatty and happy go lucky overall, this was unexpected, Feferi talking about the deep things these were.
Being a troll must be complicated, and being the empress even more.
Being a human was complicated enough, Robert felt sorry for Feferi who had to endure this, no one should be forced to make the decisions she did. And she was only nine sweeps (she told them that, and Robert found out that in Earth years, it was not even twenty).
“So, tell me more about your two?”, Feferi then said, to break the silence.
“Well there’s not much more to tell, we’re married, Carlos likes space, and we want a child but we sadly live in a homophobic part of the country”.
“Why do you have hemophobia when you don't even have a blood caste?”, Sollux asked, his lips being strong in this particular sentence.
“Not hemophobia. Homophobia. People would not like gay people”.
“What's gay?”, Feferi asked.
C’mon you can't be serious.
“Well it's when two people of the same gender is in love with each other”, Carlos said.
“Wait that's it? But that’s natural? Why do humans think it's weird?”.
“Well it's because most humans are heterosexual, people would like the opposite gender”.
“But that's also normal? We trolls don't have a gender preference, you just love the troll, but we can have a quadrant preferences, I myself don't feel any hate in anybody, but I do feel pity”.
“Wait so that means you're basically pansexual? All trolls?”.
“If pansexual means attracted to all genders, then yes”.
“Well that's cool to here, do you fancy someone?”.
“Well not at the moment, I had a pale relationship with someone a while ago, Eridan, but we broke up. He’s in a black relationship with Sollux now”.
“Why the fuck are you talking about that asshole?”, Sollux said. “There has yet to be a more pathetic and ignorant troll in the entire universe than that fishface. I hate him”.
“As you can see there, they do have a very success kismesitude”.
“And that was… hatelove right?”.
They got a nod from both the trolls, before Sollux yawned.
“Well Fef I better go and chain myself up to the ship, I think it's time to leave”.
“Okay Sollux, I’ll send a message to the captain via the holopad”.

~ Two days later ~

“How long is she gonna stay under water?”, Carlos asked, as he and Robert were swimming in the royal pool, Feferi and been literally relaxing at the bottom for like, twenty minutes? If she wasn't part fish then they would be so concerned right now.
“Well I don't know, since she can breathe there it's probably a long while”, Robert answered, as he continued to swim, lap after lap in the oddly designed seadweller pool, full with tunnels and different levels of water. It was a little like a water park, and he wasn't complaining. He loved water parks when he was a young boy, and this alien pool brought back so many memories from his childhood.
But the two days on this ship with Feferi and Sollux (who also got breaks from being a helmsman because there were more than one) had been two of the best in a long time for the couple.
There was no homophobia, they got to learn more about troll life and troll culture, they got to try no food, and they had actually became friends with the empress of the entire troll race, and she interacted with them as if there was no status difference.
She, an empress, was less arrogant and less like a dictator than the politicians that were for “democracy” in the US. It was quite disturbing when you thought about it, but atleast now that Feferi was as she was, she was bound to be a huge influence in Earth politics as well, which would actually be quite positive.
Feferi was a very kind person to simplify at least, she had even made them Prongle (troll twitter/Facebook hybrid) accounts and followed them back, so that they like send DMs to each other.
It was quite weird that the empress wanted to keep in touch with them after this trip, but they didn't say anything.
After two days together with her in space, they had learnt that Feferi was well, Feferi. It was an honor that she considered then, two average humans, as her friends.
And as they least expected it, they sidenet heard a loud splash as she swam up.
“We’ll land soon, let's go change”.

So they did, and thirty minutes later, they stood in front of the closed entrance to the ship, feeling slight gravity as they entered the orbit and was on their way down onto the gray planet with the beautiful purple night sky.
Before they knew it, they were on the ground, and the doors to the alien planet opened, and out they stepped.
“Okay what do you wanna see first? There’s a few hours left until sunrise so we could take a tour in one of the city markets and buy you some souvenirs and get something to eat, while you can get a chance to talk to the local population of the city, and maybe go to one of the old relic castles from the pre celestial era, it was a huge importance in the Limeblood hiding period, it served as their hiding place before they became extinct. I think it's a shame my predecessor, culling off an entire caste, but it's still part of our planet's history, and then we could head to the palace to sleep through the day and the vicious sun. Is that a good plan for the first day? I’m not really a good guide so tell me if my plan isn't that good”.

~ Two more days (wow this author really likes to use two days as a good time skip) ~

Alternia, Alternia and more Alternia.
They had experienced so many things, they had eaten at several restaurants, and bought Alternian street food (Robert absolutely loved the two tailed yellow blooded seasoned scorpions), and bought of lots of canned Alternian goods. They had been in all kinds of shops and gotten everything from toys, to calendars, to clothes, and “non deadly weapon looking junk”, as trolls called fame weapons.
They had been in small villages, in forests and seen countless of fauna, even a few grubs being raised by some, and they had been in different cities, from newly created ones with a few hive stems, to the capital with ten colored traffic lights that referred to blood castes, and sparring arenas where trolls could train their combat skills invade they wanted to enlist in a military branch, and cinemas where they had watched a movie called “Troll Will Smith gets a black crush on a mysterious cerulean who ends of pitying him and it ends with them having a pale relationship”. The movie title had said it all, and even if the movie had been corny, Robert and Carlos loved it. The main roles were a gay couple, and the fact that no one stared at them as they held hand while walking the street, it was refreshing.
To turn the cards, they saw same sex couples all the time, it was a part of the ordinary lifestyle here. Gender didn't matter in a relationship.
Today would be their last day on Alternia before they would fly back to space, the couple being left back on Earth, while Feferi would travel to one of the older Alternia colonies to have some meetings about an Earth brooding chamber project that just had started just about an hour’s drive away from their own city.
They were currently having a nice walk in one of the Alternian forests, looking at fauna who carefully approached them before returning to their own business. They had been out for about an hour, and nothing could ruin this wonderful day.
Or?
“HELP!”, they heard someone scream in the distance, the voice was clearly a child that sounded really distressed and scared, and the cry for help followed by a scream, as laughter from grown trolls were heard, along with, honking?
Robert was shaking, and looked at his husband, not knowing what to do.
And without them realizing it, Feferi had drawn her trident (where did it come from?) and ran straight to the sound of the child.
The two men followed, but ran nowhere near as fast as the Empress, but they heard her scream in the distance.
“GET AWAY OR I’LL CULL YOU!”.
“But this lowblood… *burp* his lusus fucking died, motherfucking died. And orphans get the club right? That's how it's always always *burp* always been. We’re just doing our job. Going around murdering mutants and orphans, it's fun”.
Wait what was going on?
What was the unknown trolls doing? Killing?
“That was the way before. Culling is NOT acceptable. DRONES!”.
Just seconds later, drones were flying in the sky, right over them, before there was plenty of screams, and as the drones once again was seen, they were seen carrying trolls as they dissapeared in the distance.
“ROBERT, CARLOS, GET OVER HERE!”.
They did as the empress said, and when they arrived, they both got into a sort of shock. Feferi was on the ground, holding a small troll in her arms, yellow blood was everywhere, with some hints of purple. And on the grounds we're clubs and knives in the color of the rainbow. As they got closer, they saw the child was bleeding from many places, having gotten wounds everywhere, the most lethal one being the head, his right eye was gone. Part of the horns were also gone, or had marks in them as horns had cut through.
The troll bot was barely breathing, but crying and screaming in pain.
“Be prepared, I’m gonna call for more drones, we need to fly him to a jadeblood medic this instant, yellowbloods bleed out fast. We need to save him”.

~ A few hours later ~

Zarkus Vernes slowly regained his consciousness, his head beating terrible, and body hurting. He carefully opened his eyes and… he only saw from one of them? He quickly touched the are, he was wearing an eyepatch, and as he felt for his eye under it, empty.
But from what he saw on the good eye, he saw that he was in an unfamiliar room.
“Where am I?, he asked.
“Oh thank Jegus, he’s alive. Thank you Kanaya, you’re one of the best medics in the city”, he heard someone say, before he saw the face of an adult troll who looked down at him.
Was that?
Fuchsia colored fins?
No it couldn't be.
But then he saw, two weirdly colored people? Where they of the human race he’s heard about on Troll Fox News?
“Could you tell us what happened?”.
The second one of the humans asked, it hit him.
“I ran for my laugh. The subjugglators and their honking, they ran after me, and wanted to kill me. They cut out my eye”.
Tears were now running down.
“My lusus is dead, I've got nowhere to go. They’ll just find me again. They say orphans don't belong. I… I’m scared”.
“You don't have to be, you’re safe now. I will make sure nothing happens to you”.
“But how?”.
“Well I don't know if you have noticed, but I’m the Empress. I can get you a new home”.
“I don't want a new home! I'm afraid! This is not the first time this happened, random trolls have tried to kill me because I'm a lowblood. I don't want to hide anymore. I don't want more of Alternia”.
And it was true. He was absolutely terrified of the planet that he right now, was forced to call home.

~ Perspective Switch ~

“I don't want more Alternia”.
Poor kid, Robert felt so bad for him. Being forced to live on a planet you were utterly terrified off, with your guardian dead, with nothing to do about it.
Or? It hit him.
“Carlos, can you come with me a second?”
They exited the room, and as soon as the door closed, he said it.
“Let's bring him back to Earth”.
“What?”.
“He’s got no family, he’s afraid of living on this planet, and we’ve tried to adopt a child for years. Who said that child needed to be human”.
Silence.
“You’re… right. Let's do it. Let's give him a second chance to live”.
They once again entered the room, and went up to the yellowblood.
“What's your name?”, he carefully asked.
“Z… Zarkus”.
“How old are you?”.
“Four”.
Okay so about 8 and a half in human years.
“Zarkus, do you wanna know about Earth?”.
For the next hour, the boy was enchanted in the stories of the planet of humans, it was like a big fairytale. He even started to purr softly as he imagined it.
“I wanna visit it someday”.
“You can. Zarkus, would you like to come to Earth with us?”.

~ September ~

“Dad, papa, c’mon. We can't be late for school, the troll said, smiling at his adoptive parents. He had lived on Earth for a solid two months and they loved his well adjusted he had become. His scars were beginning to fade, he had stopped wearing the eyepatch since they had gotten a fake eye for him, it made him look a bit weird since the sclera was white, like a normal human’s eye, but he had cried so much when he had gotten it, thanking them with everything he could.
He no longer screamed at every small sound, and finally realized no one was going to hurt him. And everytime he felt safe, he purred, so that his fathers would know how he felt. Which now was more often than ever
He had become a relaxed boy, like a boy his age should be, and as he had started school a few days prior, he had become friends with lots of different kids.
Just seeing him happy, and acting like a kid should act his age, getting back his innocence, it warmed the two men.
They couldn't be happier to have him.