voicetest the voiceless

[focusedvoid]

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.

Comments

[capitalcurator]

There's not really much in the bag but lint - just kidding. There is a small collection of every note the Knight has handed him directly on this trip and not taken back or kept hold of. These he did not bring out.

Lemm quells a pang of concern when he walks in to what looks like the Knight drowning themselves. He knows that's not what's happening!

He discards the coat on the bench, splashes in up to his knees, seats himself on the edge of the pool, and heaves a sigh. For a trip he expected (and hoped) to be as unremarkable as possible, it has felt long and kind of intimidating. And there are conscious, patternless dangers in Hallownest now, which will probably make everyone's lives harder. He wonders how much the bugs of Dirtmouth know about the changes down here. Probably something, at least, if the mapmaker's still about.

...Right, the point. He'll just be busy washing today's outing off his beard in the hot spring, as you do. And - maybe keeping half an eye on the Knight. And occasionally checking a glance over his shoulder to keep another half-eye out for Greenhorn.

heee

[focusedvoid]

Greenhorn studies these. Literally. They sort of know how to read already, but it's slow going, having to check each glyph one-by-one. They already have a good idea of what they say, so it's helpful!

The Hot Spring visit was a smart idea. The warm waters alone do wonders settling the Knight more than the time on their own. They truly need to do this more, they decide. Having deeper reserves doesn't mean they're required to avoid the Soul-rich waters.

After they're done with the wild head-dunking and light scuffing of their wings, they let their body pop back up and drift through the slightly deeper parts.

They peer at Lemm upside-down.

Hmm.

Slowly, they reach a paw behind their back. It's not possible to be stealthy proper with Lemm stealing glances their way. But hopefully, it's enough to obfuscate what they're about to do before they do it.

Splish!

It's not as much as they did with Quirrel, already in the water and face shielded by Monomon's mask. But there's definitely a bit hitting him that wouldn't have reached him through beard-washing.

CRIME!!!

[capitalcurator]

Given that he usually spends so much time thinking anyway, it's not long before Lemm finishes cleaning off, falls back into his own thoughts and... zones out. Which is why sometimes when he's habitually glancing up, he's not really looking-looking. Which is why -

- his reaction is comedically loud and over the top. Lemm gasps in shock loud enough to echo and shoots straight up into a stand like someone dumped ice on him. This is very swiftly followed by a wave of embarrassment and even more swiftly followed by righteous indignation.

"...Oh, you uncivilised little brute. You crude little -!"

Lemm splashes straight into the water and beelines for the Knight. He looks about as pissed off as an old sourpuss can get.

jail 4 ghost

[focusedvoid]

Greenhorn's head pops up from their bag-and-paper expedition.

The Knight's genuinely alarmed, shooting to stand straight up just as quickly as Lemm, until he actively leaps in the water. He's either too furious to be reasonable and jumping straight into more of the stuff that upset him, or exaggerating. (He doesn't have any tools for a serious murder attempt anyway.)

So they don't go as far as they really could when they dash diagonally away, slapping the surface with their wings.

[capitalcurator]

They don't have to go far, because after they change direction and he tries to alter course to match, something catches under Lemm's feet in the water. It is the end of his beard.

They get a split-second of Very Alarmed Relic Seeker Face before he faceplants with a loud splash.

...With markedly way less angry energy than before, he scrambles as fast as he can back into a stand with perhaps the most unimpressed expression ever to grace the poor guy. Bedraggled does not come close.

[focusedvoid]

Unfortunate! Lemm's fate of falling, that is. The fact they haven't a voice to cackle with is probably a very, very fortunate thing.

Not as though they're going to allow an attempt at dignity even without that. If he wants to try something for revenge, he'll get a pretty solid chance as they dash right back and flutter over his head in a wild arc.

[capitalcurator]

The full-body embarrassment he is experiencing is almost enough to stop the chase. Not quite, though.

Lemm gives a low growl of frustration and sweeps one arm behind his beard, and flings the whole wet mess over his shoulder and out of the way.

"Get - down here!"

He bends his knees, winds back his arms, and manages what to any other bug might be a fairly unimpressive jump - but he's timed it very well for when their arc is just coming down. Vengeance is a good motivator. His hand grabs tight around their stubby leg and he attempts to yank them out of the air.

[focusedvoid]

Not particularly weighty, they go down hard.

Maybe a little too hard to be sensible with just Lemm's momentum.

In any case, he gets an entirely unnecessary face-full of wet wing.

[capitalcurator]

The wing is swiped away in a hurry as Lemm overbalances, stumbles sideways, and lands on his seat. Spluttering and coughing but utterly victorious, this does not change a thing, he snaps out his free hand to grab their other leg.

When Lemm rises once again from the water, he's holding the Knight captive... upside-down by the ankles. A strand of his beard has found its way around one of their horns, stuck to the smooth material like wet paper. Lemm is actively still recovering, but this was obviously worth it. He gives them a light shake.

"You little monster!" he rages. "Fiend! Contemptible little - little cretin!" They are raised to eye level. A little too out of breath to keep going, Lemm's expression slips, just for a second. There's something very smug about the way he very deliberately and very measuredly lets go of their legs.

[focusedvoid]

Over on the edge of the cavern, Greenhorn is...still not going anywhere near the glow or the light it throws. But they've edged just inside, watching the antics avidly.

The Knight wriggles around with each word. They're wounded. It's gone absolutely terrible. They haven't any chance of recovery.

They drop straight down into the water, sinking a smidge before bobbing back up, not too far from the same back-float they started with. Defeated...

in attempting the feat one proves their courage may your shade at last find rest etc

[capitalcurator]

Lemm is still catching his breath, but it's clear it's over. Resigned to being drenched already, Lemm disengages Relic Hunter(?) mode and drops back down, finally, into a seated position.

A brief glance back at the entrance, and then back down at the totally dead dead forever dead deceased This Is An Ex-Vessel floating body of the Knight, and back up at the entrance. Lemm plucks one hand out of the water and gives Greenhorn a small wave. "They're - fine," he reports, just in case.

His beard is floating up at the surface like unbecoming tentacles. Lemm sweeps it all out of the way again.

"You're a menace," he tells the Knight. "You know you're a menace."

Still. It's bothersome that they look so limp and not-alive like that, and Lemm reaches out to take up one of their hands and attempt to guide them back upright. Game's over, they can stop being dead now.

[focusedvoid]

Greenhorn wiggles in acknowledgement. The sense of glee and immense satisfaction sensed was enough to keep any real concern from rising up. It looked like fun! They resolve to try something like that in not-glowing water sometime.

The Knight is motionless but for the water's gentle wave from the small waterfalls at the spring's edge.

For a little while, anyway. They let themselves be pulled to stand and tip their head up, significantly pleased.

It's been a difficult trip. This was needed, they believe.

[capitalcurator]

It was. Lemm was starting to fall into - well, not so much old patterns as the old expectations of them. This broke the spiral quite nicely. Although, for a second here-?

- He gives them a sardonic look as they 'recover' from their totally convincing death scene, and his hand drifts loose of theirs once he's sure their feet are touching the bottom.

"I haven't done anything like that in a good while," he announces, and only barely manages to sound huffy about it. "Do you think you're clever, making a fool of a Relic Seeker? I should write into the record that you're a nuisance, and then everyone would know. That's the power I have, Shade Lord."

Lemm catches himself in the very obvious and awkward mid-way of reaching out to pat them on the head. His hand falters, then switches direction and pretends it was always just going to sweep his silly, intrusive drifting beard out of the way again. The action is rather unconvincing.

He's feeling comfortable enough to say something from the heart, though.

"This went very well, for a test run... I thought. All spiky, bitey tunneling things considered. I'm not sure what your thoughts are. Maybe you'll tell me when you've paper and dry hands."

[focusedvoid]

Bow, so deep their face touches the water. A menace is hardly the worst thing to go down in history as! For anyone at all and for them in particular.

His hand swerves away from them, and they have a moment's wonder if he's more bothered than they thought. They're not certain why. No, perhaps he just expects them to splash him again, and they seriously consider obliging before letting it go.

They lightly tap the water with both paws to make it ripple before slowly ambling their way towards the water's edge. With the Hot Springs melting the worst tensions away, their urgency to get this over and done with is far less.

[capitalcurator]

Lemm is slow to rise, too, though with a different kind of reluctance. They should get a move on - but it'll be the Stag next. And the Knight will at some point give their verdict on how they thought this went. Lemm finds himself dreading both.

At the water's edge he wrings out his beard, half-bothers to finger-comb it, and turns to retrieve the stuff he left at the bench. Lemm picks up the old coat. For a very brief moment, like clockwork snagging, he stops.

[focusedvoid]

The Knight waits until Lemm isn't looking to surreptitiously hold their head over the Spring and dump the water that splashed into their mask. Mildly unpleasant, hardly enough to bring them back to genuine frustration.

He seems to be looking oddly at the cloak on their way over. They act as if they didn't notice, moving around him to perch on one side of the bench to complete their usual ritual of rest.

[capitalcurator]

Lemm doesn't move. Doesn't look up, either, but he can hear the Knight dripping wet as they hop up onto the bench.

The debate he's having internally is deafening. He's a Relic Seeker, he's just working with the Knight to uncover the history the relics won't tell him, they are not familiar. But he's done this once, hasn't he? No, that was different, it was an emergency, it doesn't mean it sets a precedent. But has everything been just work? No - definitively no.

He is not, not the type to be doing favours for someone, does not have friends - but he does now, maybe, and Lemm is left with not a single clue as to how familiar he should be. They're fine, they've been damp before, clearly it isn't a bother and he'd be pushing his luck - he could just give them the coat and they could do it themselves is the thing but he just -

It is unbelievably stupid that this is a difficult action to take, and it's making him feel more like a weird alien the longer he stands there. Why doesn't he just ask. And then he'll know where he ought to stand.

"Knight." Lemm fiddles pointedly with the coat and dips his head at them in a vague sort of way. "Shall I-?"

[focusedvoid]

...Oh.

They thought he was considering wearing it himself, not...using it again, in that way. They'd believed it was a one-time thing themselves. A strange thing from a crisis. And they had a crisis, certainly, but the little water-chase game was enough to offset that.

Greenhorn is still watching from the side opposite. Lemm had patted them, and let them hide under it, and it was all fine. It was nice!

And it was nice for the Knight, wasn't it? There's no need for a denial. He isn't afraid of or for them at the moment, so it isn't obligation. It's just an offer.

They stand up on the bench (blasphemy) and step into his reach.

[capitalcurator]

Oh thank goodness for that. He's allowed. This is fine. Everything's fine and he isn't being totally weird, maybe.

Well, thinking about it that much was probably odd of him, but Lemm doesn't care about that suddenly. He moves in and casts the coat around the back of the Knight and begins drying them off, like someone ordinary and well-adjusted who does something for someone else now and then without making a big deal out of it.

There's no panic to settle and this has a lot more to do with the Knight just looking like a wet tablecloth, so it's a bit more of a proper towelling-down than a light fluffing this time, but his experience is with easily-breakable relics, not other people, and he's still gentler than he needs to be, just in case.

Lemm had a wing in his face a little while ago, brief and comedic slap though it was. It's only now as he's about to dry the edges that he makes the proper connection, one he didn't make the last time. Maybe he ought to leave off here.

[focusedvoid]

Nope, he should not leave off there; it needs just a little more work to dry than their mask and legs and such. They're more active a participant this time, and they lift their arms to press their wings directly into the cloak to encourage a harder toweling.

Of course they have no idea he's thinking about the wing-slap, but their own thoughts stray to it for a different reason. At some point, they'll lightly swing part of cloak to bap him with an edge of it.

[capitalcurator]

Lemm is hesitant until they start communicating. Alright, alright, he gets it, the Knight who chased off a Goam is not particularly fragile!

He is a lot firmer than he was before. The Knight will find themselves thoroughly rubbed down and scrunched at with the coat, now that they've been clear. It's not the best towel to be using, because it's not like any fabric left sitting in the City of Tears' permeating atmosphere is going to be absorbent before too long, but Lemm compensates with a little extra time taken to be sure they're dry.

The whole thing is finished with a kind of revenge-y little razz at their face with the fluffier part of the coat.

And then it is dumped on them like a blanket. Take that. (No, really, they can keep it, since they wanted to last time.)

[focusedvoid]

They don't actually care that much about getting dry, as they're going to the City of Tears quite soon anyway. This is for...comfort.

That's really the whole idea when they get down to it. For them, this feels pleasant. For Lemm, perhaps it simply feels pleasant too, or perhaps it feels like a contribution in return. They're not going to disrupt this with questions.

Once it's finished, they sit right down with the cloak still over their head. (A pun could be made about bedsheet ghosts, if those were something they had awareness of.)

[capitalcurator]

Quite honestly, Lemm's mostly just doing this to feel involved. It's nice, being involved. Makes him feel pleasantly ordinary, and not like someone who's spent too long in a dead city caring about nothing but objects that can't take offense.

Seeing the Knight just commit to being under the coat, Lemm snickers. He'll keep busy with a bit more of an attempt at de-tangling his beard. Maybe he ought to consider trimming it after today's little embarrassment. (Loathsome idea, dismissed immediately.)

Lemm gathers up his things from under the bench, and - this time with no accompanying uncertainty - pats the Knight on the head.

"Take your time, then! I'll wait with the little one. They've been hovering long enough."

[focusedvoid]

The cloak rustles as they try to wave under it. It just looks like they're trying to get out and failing. Maybe that is the case, with how they eventually slump down without doing so.

(Not really. They're just going to wait a tiny bit longer for relaxation purposes.)

Greenhorn hears and does a happy little flip before drifting back outside by the bag. They're not fully inside it this time, but they are poking at the mess of papers they've made less organized by looking at.

[capitalcurator]

He greets Greenhorn with a similar little pat on the head. It's easier with them somehow. Likely because he hasn't been buying relics off them for most of the time he's known them. They're in a different box, one that does not include making businesslike deals and being vaguely aware that they're much older than they look. (This is still true, but - in a different way.)

He isn't in the mood to make sense of it now. Lemm catches them in the act of prodding the Knight's notes around and clears his throat pointedly.

"I need those as reference." Yes, even the irrelevant stuff! He flags a hand near Greenhorn in an attempt to get them to leave the papers alone and make space for him to re-pack his stuff. "I'm writing a very important historical account, and the Knight is - helping. Off with you."