boxfullofzeroes | voicetest the voiceless

They're not dead.

Less dead than they'd felt, at least. Their shell doesn't normally take so long to reform.

Then again. Their shell doesn't usually break of their own violation as they ascended in a boiling rage, ate at least one realm, a god, and all the Godseekers.

(That last point is debatable, actually. There's some odd sense, deep under their...shell? Void? Wherever they once stored things like Isma's Tear, much deeper now...that the sea-mind is still there, sluggish and held in a stasis. They're already adjusting enough, and they don't seem to be dying or trying to kill them, so that problem is neatly sorted as 'for later'.)

They push their body to stand. Their horn clangs uncomfortably loudly against the grate they've apparently woken up beneath. They're somewhere in the Royal Waterways. A quick check of the map--or, not so quick, as it takes time to locate where it had been--shows they've risen about halfway through, closer to the City of Tears than the White Palace. They'll go to the Stag Station in the City Storerooms next.

So they think. Complications arise on the way.

The Infection is gone, leaving dead Flukes, Pilflips, and Hwurmps in piles enough it takes time to force their way past. Their body seems too small. No, their body is fine--there's something wrong with perception itself. That will take time to adjust to.

Then, they discover the Monarch Wings now stretch and warp when used, twisting around the nearest pipes after landing before the Knight forcibly calls them back. Shade Wings, they decide to call these.

Once they're high enough to hear the rain above, they realize a noise they'd ascribed to water running in the distance is, in fact, something swirling behind their mask. Many somethings. All the fragments of Siblings with enough self left, staring out from their eyes. It's disconcerting.

By the time they actually get out of the Waterways, they're using their Shade Wings to grip ledges and drag themselves up, with those holding onto things better than their own arms are with the Mantis Claw.

The Knight faceplants awkwardly onto the floor of the building Lemm's shop is in. If the City is the same as below, there's little left to try killing them in the area.

They'll just take a moment here, thanks.

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Good, they write, since he's not looking to see their decisive nod. Confirmation is important.

And then they just sit there, blankly. The only worries in their head are their Siblings', new and old, and are easier to drown out with the sound of rain. Or perhaps their head is full of it.

They shake it, as if it genuinely is, and glance back over at their gifts. Furniture. They can't fit it in their inventory. Not the big ones. Unless they can now? The Lord of Shades can. They...are tired.

I should sleep before flood your shop.

He glances sidelong at their paper, just enough to read, then back at nothing in particular. His hands disappear under the counter.

"Right."

You can sleep here. You should sleep here. There's no room. Is there? I want you to - I would feel better if - it would be safer - Would it? For who?

He starts, and glances around properly, at the clutter, all of it, and the Lord of Shades would never fit in the back room, probably, though from his studies Void is not strictly euclidean -

He looks up reluctantly. "That sounds like a fine idea." What part is he addressing, here. "Don't worry about the - any of that, now. You obviously need to go and get some rest if you're melting on me like that. Leave it here."

Thank you.

...Those aren't enough words.

For the gifts and holding me. It was nice. And they're too tired to be anything but entirely straightforward.

They stand and gesture loosely to Lemm and then to the back room, first. Will he return to sleep? They'd like it if he did.

"Don't mention it," he says passively, much like earlier.

He follows their gesture and doesn't seem to have any good response to it. Whatever is going on internally is rarely the business of anyone else standing in his shop, and he's very good at making sure it stays that way.

Only -

"You could -"

Lemm abruptly stops and shakes his head, tearing his gaze away from the curtained back room and reaching up to scratch restlessly at the fluff around his shoulders.

"It was nice," he re-reads their words out loud, in a way that could be read as sarcastic (but isn't) - because the only way they'll come out is if they feel like they're someone else's. With a herculean effort at finality: "I'd better not find you in a puddle out in the rain."

They gesture to the curtain one more time, but they're not going to keep it up. Perhaps they would in circumstances where they don't have a private worry puddle in the rain may, in fact, be a state they could fall into on the way out.

The Knight steps back over and pats his fluffy shoulder one more time.

It was nice. It's always been nice. They've resolved to do more...physical leaning on before, hadn't they? And this only adds to it.

Fine. Fine, he doesn't talk about his private life but he won't avoid the Knight's question a second time: "Aye. Soon." That's all they're getting, though.

They pat him. His hand stops and falls back into his lap.

Sometimes, self-proclaimed professional Relic Seeker Lemm feels like a foolish old bug whose words don't work and who doesn't know anything. He has done a rather good job of feeling clever and avoiding this until recently, when it's begun sneaking up on him from strange angles.

Feeling out of his depth and with his mind uncooperative, Lemm knows he wants something. A few things. He wants to tell them something he can't even address in his head. He wants to invite the Knight to stay, he wants to be sure they'll be safe, he wants them to...

He wants something to do, that's what he wants. He doesn't really want anything: he just wants something to do. Lemm quietly picks up the tin of glue and unscrews the lid.

"If a stranger did that I'd have their arm off," he mutters. Rather good-humouredly.

It's good they're not strangers, then. They're friends. Friends who give each other gifts, and carefully take note of what they talk about and like. Is that common for friends? They haven't enough experience to know.

The Knight nods seriously to both of Lemm's statements, and very deliberately plants their paw in the center of his forehead.

His hands go still on the glue tin.

Then he sets it down with a quiet sigh, his hand resting loosely over the lid. Distraction immediately derailed, Lemm doesn't look up at them, but his attention couldn't be on anything else.

He doesn't know what that means. He knows what he wants it to mean, more or less. And he's tired of working so hard to convince himself he's wrong, and anyway he's not supposed to do that any more, not since Great Knight Ze'mer's mansion.

Lemm gently takes their hand from his head and holds it between them, and gives it a squeeze.

"I'll tidy," he mumbles cryptically, perhaps to himself. "Off with you, Knight."

A reminder, teasing, both? Even the Knight doesn't know their own impulses' reasoning, but they know they curl their claws to squeeze his back.

They nod as though it was to them, anyway, and reluctantly pull back. (They can't acknowledge that sleeping here is something they really wouldn't mind doing, on some level.)

The furniture hasn't gone anywhere in the moments they weren't looking at it. They turn back towards it all, thinking hard, and stride over the the pillows. Drained and so small, they can't carry much, but they can carry at least one of these, selected for its similarity to the cushion still on his counter.

It disappears under their wings, and they Dash through the room, to the doorway, before they might melt to the floor. (--And that moves them further now, it seems. That's interesting.)

In the doorway, they turn and bow one more time.

A promise, if only to himself. If he can get rid of the extraneous variables - the clutter, the mess, make certain his shop (his home) is presentable, then at least he can offer. Other variables are things he can't account for, which means the nature of Void and the scale of the Shadelord and the Knight's willingness are not his problem. The worst that can happen is refusal. When he offers.

(Next time. Next time for certain - maybe.)

Lemm watches them, returning his hand to the metal tin and rubbing his thumb idly on the lid, noting with amusement that they still take a pillow. He suspects the Shadelord could carry all of it, but the Knight has made it quite clear how they feel about taking that shape in his shop, deliberate or not.

Considerate, as he's previously maintained.

All of this he keeps to himself, just a still shape behind his counter, as ever. Same as he's ever been, despite continuing encounters with the eldritch and familiar.

The bow gets a typical, dismissive little hmph. And a slightly less typical minute dip of the horns. (Mostly the same as he's ever been.)

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