#this is gonna go in a collection for trans characters from various media on ao3

[marv3l-drag0ns]

Wrote part of a vent piece. ————————————————-

Gamzee felt a little lost. He probably was. Goatdad had left him again, and it had been about two and a half perigrees since then. Gamzee could feel his stomach tightening every day, and he had finally decided to try and remember what the schoolfeeding had said about forageables. 

It wasn’t going super well.

Gamzee couldn’t remember what plants were good to eat and which would liquify his insides, and it was nearly morning. He would have to go another day with nothing in his stomach, and Gamzee honestly didn’t know how long he could last like this. He was only 3 and a half, but he felt like he should be able to do more. 

Gamzee just managed to make it indoors by the time the first rays of the sun nipped at his heels. Collapsing against the closed door, Gamzee breathed deeply. 

——

Opening his eyes, Gamzee stretched in the shallow pool of sopor in his recuperacoon. He hadn’t added any more in, trying to make the supply last as long as possible since Goatdad still hadn’t returned from his… sabbatical. It was getting to the point that Gamzee had tried his absolute best to go swimming and maybe even catch a fish, but the rolling bubbles and the nick on his ankle dissuaded him from going out too far. He had managed to remember what herb was good to help seal wounds since his metabolism slowing also slowed his healing time. He didn’t want to bleed out.

Gamzee did manage to get a fish later from a nearby stream, though. It was a little shiner, and somehow jumped out of his hands the instant he shifted his attention for a millisecond, but that pride stayed with him.

Goatdad’s lack of presence really hurt, but Gamzee soldiered on. It would work out. He knew how to read, and he practiced his prayers every day, though he couldn’t remember exactly why right now. His mind kept getting foggier and foggier as the days passed.

——

Gamzee opened his eyes to a dimly lit room that looked like the inside of a carnival tent. He could just barely distinguish the prescence of lights and laughter- or screams, he couldn’t really tell. As he looked around, he noticed a pair of shrouded figures standing behind him, almost comfortingly.

They didn’t talk, not yet. He got the feeling that he wasn’t ready, wasn’t worthy, to hear them speak yet. 

That didn’t mean he didn’t ask them questions. Questions like “who are you?” and “which way do you swing- brother or sister?” and “can I stay here?”

They didn’t answer directly, but they made their meaning clear. Gamzee remembered goatdad showing him a scripture from the Mirthful Messiahs- a holy text detailing the rituals and understanding the Church fostered between its members. He had forgotten during his hunger. 

He wishes he could join it now.

The Mirthful Messiahs- for who else could they be? They were the most imposing trolls here- gently ushered him up off his chair. They were neither male nor female, brother nor sister, only them. Gender was only a means to a joke for them- if it was funnier to be male, they were male, and vice versa. They had no connection either way.

And as for staying there? The Dark Carnival was were you went once you died fulfilling your mission for the Church. He could join them someday, but not today. This was merely… a wakeup call. 

He got the feeling this joke of theirs would make sense once he made it back. Maybe. 

Either way, Gamzee thanked them profusely- they had inspired him and given him hope. The Church of the Mirthful Messiah seemed comforting in its laughter and lights. It was only a hope that he could emulate the Messiahs in the waking world.

——

Gamzee opened his eyes. The recuperacoon was empty- the sopor had been used to make pies after he found a dusty old book filled to the brim with directions for food preparation. Changing the filling of a pie to sopor was no hard task- the bake time hardly changed.

Gamzee’s mind was still fuzzy, maybe even fuzzier, but this was a good fuzzy, one that made him able to ignore the gaping wound that Goatdad had left in his bloodpusher. The hole had been filled by the Messiahs anyway- they were an inspiration, and the one troll he had managed to connect with about them agreed. Even if they blocked him a few days later after saying that they didn’t want to involve him in the rebellion. Whatever that was.

Gamzee had been doing some thinking either way. What the Messiahs had said about gender, about not relating to it- it made sense. Gamzee wasn’t sure if he was just going with the advice of the Messiahs, but it felt so similar to what he felt, that he had honestly considered starting to go by genderless. 

He- they, they supposed, though it didn’t really matter, in the end- they were hoping to make the Messiahs proud. They had found the book on herbs, and managed to bring some back for drying and storage in their hive before they got eaten by some grazebeast in the forest. It helped, this calm and repetitive task. 

They could make it. 

Their husktop dinged.