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stagbells · 4 months

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beetle wings & other broken things.

From: @iinkhorn

To: @magn0lia-blossoms

Note: Sorry this came a bit late..! In a fit of madness and several lapses in judgement, I accidently made this 16,000 words long. Oops. Anyway, hope you enjoy <3

Written work under readmore

Author: iinkhorn

Title: beetle wings & other broken things.

✦ ✦ ✦

There was a Voice, carried to Oro by the wind.

It is not the wind itself, for the wind outside whispered in many voices, in languages not understood. No, this Voice, It spoke in his dreams, and it was everywhere, a burning light on his mind’s horizon, whispering, shouting, pleading, weeping, commanding him to listen.

DREAM OF ME, It says, in a voice that belonged to no one. Oro snidely refuses, preferring the dark, blissful quiet of his own dreams.

DREAM OF ME, It says, in a voice that belonged to Mato, then Sheo, Esmy, and Master Sly. One by one, they promised they would forgive him. That they would love him once again. That he didn’t have to be alone anymore. And all he had to do was dream of the light.

(Sheo tended towards pleading, whereas Esmy wept, before fading to silence. Master Sly’s voice, the most distant, was fond at first, then cold and disapproving. Mato’s voice, the loudest, was all of these and more.)

However, if Oro is reliable for one thing, it is persistent, vicious stubbornness (not his own words). He does not bow to anyone undeserving. He does not surrender. Above all else, he loathes being told what to do, by ghosts or otherwise.

When awake, Oro takes action to clear his mind, meditates poorly and restlessly, scarcely eats save for sour hopper draught and pale bitter roots. His clumsy efforts succeed; he manages to sleep undisturbed, for a while.

But when the while runs dry, he finds himself hardly able to sleep at all, if only to escape the voices and their bodies of light.

Oro had been so sure of what he wanted, once. But his dreams begin to infect his very thoughts, between the cycles of sleep and meditation. Training doesn’t help, nor does neglecting it. Not even counting his piles of Geo manages to lift his meager spirits. Memories of when he was not quite so alone digs claws into his chest, drawing blood that wasn’t there. Some things could not be defeated with a nail, loathe of this though he might be.

In the end, lying awake atop his meager bed on the floor, he clings to his own body until it hurts, surrendering to nothing as he grapples with his own madness.

Oro is no fool. He knows in his heart of hearts that the voices aren’t real. But even so, his resolve crumbles as his shamefully soft insides shout and plead no, please, I’m so sorry for everything, come back, come find me, I don’t want to be alone anymore. His inner shell begs him to surrender, to let the warm light swell into every sharp crack and broken crevice until the pain is gone and nothing of himself was left.

Greedy. Cowardly. Unworthy. Unloved. Losing himself and all that he is was not entirely an undesirable idea. This was perhaps the most ugly truth of all.

After some torturous weeks, when he can no longer stand the sound of his own thoughts, Oro fills a traveling sack with meager provisions, a rolled-up pallet, his thickest cloak, and his severed fifth limb; a dusty nail, as cold as a brother.

Perhaps I miscalculated, he thinks a little desperately. Maybe this ash-swept grave isn’t the end of the world after all.

Perhaps there were places deeper and darker than the one he hid himself, where his dreams couldn’t find him, free from even the occasional penniless wanderers he suffered from. It could be nice, he reasoned, to live in a place without sour-tasting prey, falling armored corpses and their vast stink.

(These days, there is a peculiar taste on the wind, of which has made its recent home on the edge of the edge. Oro was used to the dead and their stench, but this was something alive, a foreign idea among the typical miasmas of the dead.)

At the very least, it would be good to stretch his legs and breathe new air, sour as it was. Oro hardly ever ventures outside except to hunt, and never beyond where the ashen wind blows. (He might blame the cold, if such a thing bothered him under his cloak and its heavy shaggy collar. Nevertheless, he blames the cold anyway.)

Oro takes one last look around his tranquil house, the skylight above, the shadowy purple curtains drawn over the walls as if to hide them. Not one of his nails in view, carefully maintained. His hefty Geo cache, of course, is well-hidden deep under the frozen ground. Should he never return, his wealth will remain safe from thieves and scavengers.

The only thing holding him back now was his own cowardice. He takes a deep breath, the dust in the air fleeing from him, and opens the door.

Only to find that his door would not, in fact, open.

Irked, he pushes again. Fails again. Something heavy was blocking the way. Oro summons his strength, shoving his shoulder against the door with great might, and hears a loud scraping as some solid object outside is moved.

He shoulders his way through the conquered door with irritation, frigid air hurrying through the gap, and immediately trips over the corpse.

With a startled shout, Oro stumbles away as falling ash blinds him, breathing hoarsely as he looks down at the body curled at the foot of his door.

When he manages to calm himself a little, he bows forward, and warily examines the body. It’s curiously unlike the armored corpses he so often encounters; small and thin, with blue shell-like armor. A hood rather than a helmet obscures its face. It overall makes for a distinctly foreign look (a shame, to travel all this way just to die).

Upon closer inspection, he finds what he looks for; several large gashes across the body’s chest, washed with clear, uninfected blood. A feeble dark hand clutches a shield (if it had a weapon, it was nowhere in sight), and the other is raised, fingers splayed, propped against Oro’s door as if attempting to get inside, but never succeeding.

He swallows the emptiness in his throat. Watches pointlessly for breath, any sign of life. For a long time, the only thing that moves in the world is the ash, already intent on gathering upon the strewn body.

His first thought brushes pity. Swiftly, Oro’s heart hardens, and he crushes the feeling between his fingertips.

Fear waning, he sneers at the corpse of the Fool, clearly just another victim from above to taint the scenery. He turns to look behind, spotting the trail of disturbed ash where the Fool had somehow managed to drag itself down the slope from the cliffs and acid pools, surviving the hopping and spitting predators, all the way to the hidden door of Oro’s hut.

Despite himself, a strong, grudging admiration emerges inside him for the Fool’s strength and determination, even while dying. A warrior’s spirit until the end. Shame it found its demise in such an unworthy place.

“I will bury you,” Oro suddenly speaks aloud, shaming himself as he does so, “when I return. If I return.” If the vermin doesn’t eat you first.

The wind blew. The body did not respond. The wind blew. It was all any of them could do.

“More than you deserve,” Oro mumbles, as if the dead were listening. He turns away, treading the path away from his hut. He carefully avoids the trails of dried blood, which glint from youth. If only he had left his house a day earlier, listened a little more carefully to the sounds outside his door. As if he was in the business of nursing paupers who bought their deaths with Geo and called themselves warriors because of it.

Already, Oro’s body is tired, his nail a heavy burden on his back. There will be no one to bury him if he doesn't carry it.

No doubt the Fool carried not a single Geo to its name, either.

✦ ✦ ✦

The world grows darker, more cavern-like, the walls closing in. Oro walks paths familiar only to him, avoiding giant hopping beasts and tiny spitting aspids with ease (the burns on his body ache every time their flying bodies are within earshot).

He is led by the arm of the escorting wind, released by its soft fingertips at the day’s end. At his feet, a powerful humming rumbles the ground, and small, hairy flying creatures watch him from nearby. He knows not to get too close, and flees their slow, buzzing approach.

Oro walks farther down, farther than ever before, the sour air heavy in his mouth. The world bathes in a dark brown hue, black plumes billowing from beneath the ground. Remnants of civilization are everywhere, glinting spikes and shining spires defeated by giant roots and hanging filth. There is stillness save for the scuttling of spiked creatures with bright, mindless eyes.

He passes ruins so large and grandiose that a king might have resided within them once (monuments to the consequences of extravagance; to possess wealth was one thing, but excessive pride was entirely another, Oro thought).

Oro stops, pondering the ruins around him. Yes, he could make a home here, make meals of the local creatures should they prove edible. It was certainly quieter, emptier of bodies, though the smell was considerably worse and the scenery less appealing. The once-silver roads are covered in dust, no footprints save his own; clearly no one has ventured down here for an age. Oro wonders if that makes him the foolish one.

The Nailmaster had not been outside of the Kingdom’s edge for more years than he had left. He occupies his days with cycles of sleep, meditation, and of course, training. A physical nail may have a start and an end, but to wield one is endless.

(And he had never truly been alone. One could hardly be, with all the corpses and predators everywhere, stinking up the place. Nevertheless, it was certainly good for business, if one’s business was to be left completely and totally alone.)

The few lampposts he encounters are tall and stately, brightly lit despite the passing eons. He unrolls his pallet under the light of one, intending to nest in a hollow shell nearby. A sudden, distant howling from some creature stays his hand.

As fast as a beam of light, he draws his nail, a beacon in the shadows. The burning eyes of nearby scuttling bugs see their reflection in the steel. If there is some great beast nearby, Oro would not merely sit around, content to be eaten as he slumbered. The dead grass bends from the strangely silent wind, pointing Oro in the direction of his fate.

He crouches along quietly with light footsteps (not an easy feat for one as large and bulky as he), eyes narrowing at every shadow and shivering root. His path ends quickly as the tunnel leads to an enormous cave, the ground falling and relinquishing to a vast sea of shining teeth-like spikes, as if Oro had just entered the maw of the caverns.

Clearly he can see the other side in the near distance, where the path reforms and leads beyond. It would be impossible to cross for ordinary bugs. Oro may sleep contentedly knowing no beast could get to him here. But still, something calls him beyond.

Oro could see it in his mind, the figure of Mato lecturing him on the foolishness of even trying, hiding behind a veneer of concern and support for his brother. In reality, Mato would have been too frightened to attempt such a journey.

Had he not been alone, Oro wouldn’t have done it even for a reasonable sum. Unfortunately, the only thing stronger than his love of Geo was his hard-shelled pride.

He makes doubly sure that no one is around before he lays his supplies on the ground. He grumbles and mutters under his breath as he gathers his nail and cloak in his arms. With an audible crack, he opens the broad elytra at his back, reluctantly revealing a pair of dark wings underneath.

It takes a moment for the stiff appendages to get blood moving through them, as Oro has not opened his wings in an age. Usually he preferred to spend his days pretending they didn’t exist. Never would they aid in a fight, Master Sly informed him once, and only served to make him look more oafish than he already was.

In another moment, Oro is suspended in flight, making his rather slow and sluggish way across the ravine. At first, he stumbles and drops down, almost killing himself, but manages to save himself. The sheer wind bites and scratches at his fragile appendages; Oro endures.

Throughout, he feels extremely foolish, like a fat, stupid Boofly hovering in clumsy flight. If someone were to witness him now, Oro would grant himself a favor and allow himself to plummet into the pit of spikes below.

His feet touch the path, safely on the other side of the pit. He indignantly throws his cloak over his back and tries to regain an ounce of composure.

The caverns are aglow from the soft light of large, membranous… vesicles of some kind, ones filled with orange liquid, disgustingly pulsing as if the organs of some enormous creature. The more he looks, the more Oro finds, nestled in every corner where there was space and accompanied by orange roots that resembled veins.

Growing increasingly disturbed, he resolves to slay the source of the beastly noises as quickly as possible and promptly flee in the other direction, never to return.

The howling grows more powerful, accompanied by an occasional frenzied shriek. Oro is surprised when the familiar steel whine of a nail cutting air touches his ear. He readies his own nail, stiff and poised, and enters the cavern from where the howling is loudest. The uproar seemed to shake the very ceiling itself. Oro conceals himself poorly behind a shell outcropping, and sees It.

A bug of Hallownest, in a furious blur of a swinging nail and billowing cloak, was currently in the throes of battle with one of the mindless spiked creatures, of all things.

The shadow creeper, completely oblivious of its current situation, merely sits there unmoving. However, its impenetrable shell seemed to be giving the other bug some trouble, who was unable to pierce it, try as it desperately might.

(Meanwhile, the Nailmaster amuses himself by noting that the size difference between the two was almost negligible.)

After a moment, Oro then notices (how could he have missed it?) the bulbous orange sack resting atop the bug’s horned head. It appeared quite heavy, weighing the bug down as it was forced to stagger and stoop.

(It is with growing horror that he realizes the orange membrane was not merely resting on top of the bug’s head, but rather emerging from inside of it.)

Mouthless, the bug of Hallownest howls and howls, mad with fear. Its puppetlike movements are crazed yet becoming increasingly sluggish, swinging and beating uselessly against the shadow creeper like a child who had just picked up a nail for the first time.

“Oro, you oaf,” Master Sly chastises from deep inside an unbidden memory. “You wield your nail like a club.”

There is a sickening crunch as Oro steps forward and drives his broad nail through the paper shell of the small creeper with ease. A weighted silence follows as the wind holds its breath.

Warily, Oro pulls his nails back and straightens, staring down at the other bug. He waits expectantly for it to speak, to thank him profusely, even offer Geo for his trouble (alright, that was pushing it).

It’s a small yet solid thing, thin limbs trembling from exertion as it stares expressionlessly up at Oro, two empty eyes that held nothing within. It seemed barely capable of even holding its nail. Oro is merely impressed that the creature hasn't yet collapsed.

If this was a bug of Hallownest, it was unlike any other he had ever seen before. From above, Oro could see thick cracks in the face of its shell, the orange burden it carried oozing thick liquid out of every crevice. He might have even pitied it, if pity were not a waste of time.

“Well?” Oro demands impatiently, clear voice cutting swiftly through the sickly air. “Speak up, then. Aren’t you going to thank your savior? You certainly possess the voice for it, noisy thing.”

The bug stiffens, head sagging to the side due to the sheer weight on its head. With a sudden cry, it hefts its nail into the air and attempts to bring the blade down upon Oro’s face, the highest point it could reach.

His body hardly moves as he expertly brings the flat of his broad nail down upon the bug’s head, striking the orange membrane, which weakly deflates like a vile balloon. The bug immediately collapses backwards onto the ground, dust rising to catch its fall.

“Hmph. Ungrateful grub,” Oro mutters critically.

Truthfully, he does not know why he didn’t just slay it out of mercy. As he walks away, he finds himself hesitating. Oro turns back to the bug, unsure of his intentions, but then freezes.

His helpless eyes can only watch as tiny orange seed-like creatures spill from the orange sack, squeaking and stumbling, blindly fleeing into cracks in the rock walls. The head of the bug is quickly emptied, leaving behind a broken shell that looked almost… hollow.

It seemed, then, that the repulsive things were a cluster of parasites forming a single mass with the bug as their vessel. Without them, the bug looked smaller than before. Almost dead. Perhaps left without even a life or will of its own.

With a grunt, Oro startles backward as the vessel’s eyes stare up at him. Achingly slow, it raises its broken, unburdened head, reaching weakly for him before its head hits the dirt. Unconscious, its small chest rises and falls, nearly invisible to Oro’s eye.

He is unwillingly reminded of the corpse he’d left behind in the kingdom’s edge, the one lying dead in front of his door, frozen hand reaching for a savior that would never come. Oro looks around, spotting the glow of the seed creatures lingering in the walls, perhaps waiting for a chance to infect the hollow bug once more. Cruel it might be, then, to leave the body where it lay, but Oro has never once claimed to be otherwise.

He sighs. Why is it always the destitute that come to him for pity?

“You had better be carrying Geo in your cloak, or I’ll drop you in the pit,” Oro threatens the prone vessel.

Of course, he is no honorless thief. Only the very lowest of bugs looted from the sick or the dead.

Grumbling, he gathers the strange bug and its unremarkable nail, both weighing less than his own rather more impressive weapon. He hopes very hard that no creature with a mind is around to see him cradling this creature as though it were his child.

The return flight over the sea of spikes is swift, as Oro’s wings grow used to being used once more. Once safely on the other side, blessedly free of sickly orange monstrosities, Oro dumps the body and its nail on the ground, a little more harshly than he intends.

“There. Perhaps you’ll be safe here… or, perhaps not,” he sneers at the unconscious vessel. He was beginning to regret doing this; charity always left a bad taste in his mouth. “Regardless, your fate is your own, now.”

Good riddance.

With that, Oro leaves in the direction he’d come, intending to think not on the previous events a single second longer. The echoes of howling, long since silenced, rest heavily on the abated wind. Like a stale breath in the mouth of a dead creature.

He finds his sack and rolled-up pallet where he’d left them. While eating and outfitting himself, Oro comes to a reluctant decision. Relatively peaceful as these ancient caverns seemed, it appeared there were nasty surprises hiding deep within unexpected places, and he would be loath to discover creatures bigger and more skilled in combat than that broken vessel had been. Not that any beast or warrior alike could hope to face a Nailmaster and triumph.

(Those engorged cells pulsing in every crevice as if alive, bright orange roots growing like weeds, odd seed creatures without mouths or eyes, scurrying out of the empty head of that vessel… such things frightening and familiar, perhaps, is what truly scared him. Things a nail alone could not defeat.)

It would seem, then, that a long and disappointing journey home awaited him.

He travels dourly to the awaiting lamppost, makes his bed in a hollow shell, attempting to meditate out of obligation and failing out of routine. Memories of shrieks and howls nestle inside his shell as empty eyes watch him in the dark. Oro sleeps, for once, without a light in his dreams.

✦ ✦ ✦

Of course, when one carries leaking honey, then pests are certain to follow.

(One of the Master Sly’s many, frequently repeated wisdoms. In truth, the fly was probably just fed up with the three brothers making a mess of their food as children. How sweet memories tasted bitter on the tongue of the mind.)

On his journey home, Oro notices that one of the honey jars he carried was leaking from a loose cap at the same time that he realizes that he is being followed.

Cursing under his breath at the sticky stain on his cloak, his eyes follow the thick trails of brown honey underfoot. Something moves in the corner of his eye, and Oro narrowly sees the white face duck behind a cliff not ten strides away.

Irritation forgotten, the tip of his nail strikes the armored ground. He stands to his full height, looming over every creature he might meet, and his short horns almost touch the low tunnel ceiling. The only noises come from the boiling acid pools hissing somewhere nearby, calling creatures to swim in their depths.

He has no confusion about whether a bug or beast stalked him as silently as a ghost, for Oro knew that face well. It had only been a day, after all, since he’d carried that broken vessel from its fate and left it behind for another.

(How was it possible that it survived? From the splitting open of its infected head, to the brokenness of its shell; it was any wonder that creature could move, let alone walk. It was almost admirable. If sheer desperation could be called as such.)

For a long time, the world is motionless. Oro is forced to sheathe his nail and resume walking, leaving his back left unguarded, but he isn’t fearful. This land was merciless to any who weren’t familiar with all its various deadly offerings. This is the card he will play.

Want a rematch, do you? Oro thought smugly. Or do you believe yourself a hunter stalking its stupid, oblivious prey? Well, you’ll have to survive this place first.

With a sudden burst of energy, Oro increases his speed tenfold. He climbs smooth cliffs that possessed little footholds, hopping across acid pools on small stones where one misstep meant death, dodging flying orange acid and swaths of needle-like legs above his head, all while maintaining a relentless stag’s pace.

Finally, finally, he stops. Breath and wind wrestling heavily inside of his chest, Oro stands at the mouth of a familiar cavern, his hut nestled at the bottom of the slope. For some moments, he waits for his blood to cool, but there is no sign of his little stalker anywhere, having certainly met its death without Oro having to raise his nail. He allows himself a little triumph, congratulating himself on his cleverness.

Weary of running and of pointless adventuring, Oro forgets all about the corpse at his door and his promise to it. It doesn’t help that the body is gone with hardly a trace, shield and all. He enters his lonely hut, falling into the embrace of the welcoming heat and lovely darkness of his home. In a moment, he will heat up a bitter hopper draught and dine on its flesh. He almost finds himself looking forward to it.

“Shame. You were gone for so long, I thought you had died,” croaks a small, nasally voice from the corner of the room. “Welcome home, Nailmaster Mato.”

Oro, currently in the middle of unholstering his nail, promptly drops it. The weapon falls heavily on a small purple vase and breaks it, trinkets spilling onto the floor. A high-pitched ringing fills the room, his ears.

“That is, if you could call this paltry fortress a house,” the weak voice adds in an afterthought as the ringing dissipates. Oro can see the figure under the blankets of his bed on the floor, a hooded head the only visible part of him.

In his house. In his bed.

His anger, a boiling tidal wave, rises into his throat all at once. His mind grapples between shock and confusion as he processes the situation with the speed of a fly in honey; he can only focus on the bug’s mocking words.

“You…” Oro glowers with poison in his voice, a rumbling earthquake threatening to splinter the floor. “You. What… did you just call me?”

“Ah, yes. I suppose I thought you a Nailmaster. You know, with your oversized nail and monkish clothing,” the bug answers, quick wit and poison to match. He pauses to choke wetly into his fists, sounding as if blood was in his lungs. “M-my sincerest apologies.”

“My name is not Mato,” Oro snaps (as for some reason, this is what offends him most). He picks up his nail from the floor and points it at the bug across the room. “And as for you… you have ten seconds to get out of my house before I use this.”

“Do you even know how to, you big brute?” the bug mocks, but the fear in his face betrays him. His dark face is pale, and Oro can see that he’s trembling, but perhaps for another reason. An image flashes unbidden in his mind of a frozen, twisted corpse with its chest broken, armor dark with blood; apparently not a corpse after all. However, it could certainly still be arranged.

“Seven seconds,” Oro sneers, moving a few steps closer. Without breaking eye contact, the bug’s tiny, frail hands start to scratch wildly at the floor, presumably for his shield, which lay just out of reach. Oro wonders how this fool bug thought it would save him.

“Four seconds. Any final clever words?” he says darkly at the bug’s panicked silence. “You certainly had plenty of them to say not moments ago.”

Oro moves, and then stops, standing at the foot of his bed and looming over the intruder, who was struggling to sit up. Blankets fall from his chest to reveal loose bandages; apparently the scavenger helped himself while he was in here. Probably wasted no time in rifling through Oro’s possessions—in fact, it was probably how he learned the name ‘Mato’, from the portrait miniatures of his brothers buried somewhere in the room. This angers him most of all.

The ten seconds are long since up. Oro stands over the prone bug, taking advantage of his sheer size and frightening figure. He lazily passes his nail from hand to hand, leaning on it in a way that would make the Great Nailsage pinch his arm.

In truth, he’s uncertain if he intends to use it.

“Well? Aren’t you even going to beg for your life?” Oro demands at the bug’s stunned silence. “You must not value your life, if you haven't even thought to offer me money.”

“I’ll pay you. G-geo,” the bug says immediately, gritting his teeth; a drop of blood trickles down his chin.

“Hmph. You have no money,” Oro replies with a cruel half-smile; he doesn’t need to check to know it’s true. Momentarily stunned, the bug heaves a labored breath, choking. No doubt trying to get Oro to pity him.

“I… I cannot get up,” the bug admits with a whisper, to which the other scoffs.

“If you were capable of dragging yourself from the acid pits to dirty my bed, surely you can make it outside before dying,” the Nailmaster reasons.

“If you’re strong, you’ll survive,” said Master Sly, and it was true. If you’re strong, you’ll survive, and it was true, until strength no longer mattered.

Once more, the previously arrogant bug had nothing to say. Rolling his eyes, Oro sheathes his nail. Before the bug can react, he picks him up by the scruff of his hood and starts to carry him gingerly towards the door, away from his body as if he were holding a gross piece of trash.

“Okay! Okay! I’m sorry I insulted you! You left me there to die!” the bug howls. He struggles with every last scrap of strength he possessed, but only manages to ruffle Oro’s cloak with blunt claws. “Fine! Nailmaster! Nailmaster Sheo!”

“Wrong again.” Oro takes his heart and beats his pity with it. If only he was Sheo, or Mato. They two would have certainly spared this miserable wretch, their hearts bleeding onto the floor.

“Wha– all three of you look the blasted same!” the bug wheezes, face pinching with a comical frustration. Finally, he ceases to struggle and grips his claws around the Nailmaster’s arms.

“Should have peered closer, then.”

Oro opens the front door one-handed. The light from outside bathes them both in a pale light, and the touch of a frigid wind makes the bug dangling in his hand go still. In the far distance, predators hover and dance, burning eyes forever hungry.

He extends his arm, holding the bug out of his door above the frozen ground. He cannot tell which one of them is making the other tremble. The small bug slumps; his hands on Oro arms loosen their grip as a tear spills down his face in a pathetic display. The Nailmaster cannot believe he had once thought this one a warrior.

“Oro,” the bug whispers, eyes vacant, all fight gone. “Don’t leave me here to die. Not again.”

He stops.

“Oro,” Esmy whispered, eyes burning, all hope gone. “Don’t kill me here. Not where your brothers can see.”

What a monster he’d become. No better than the mindless, loveless vermin skulking around, hungry only for Geo and blood. It is no wonder that his brothers hate him, that Sly thought him unworthy.

Oro sighs.

“Don’t get blood on the floor, or I’ll make your shield into your headstone,” he threatens, and before he can stop himself, turns and drops the sputtering Fool onto the floor of his hut.

Without going inside, he shuts the door, shutting himself out.

Oro is suddenly overcome with tiredness, as if he were an old man without an ounce of strength left. He drags himself onto the bench next to the door with a great heaving of his chest, putting his chin in his hand and staring at the falling ash with misery, the occasional faraway corpse (falling and falling—would ever it end?).

Over some minutes, the wind blows a pale fog into the cavern (probably from the city) obscuring everything in the distance from view. Burning eyes danced and danced in endless motion, never needing to rest, their bodies forever asleep.

From the fog, a small, cloaked figure approaches. Ironically, its lack of a face rendered it quite unmistakable.

Oro watches with some trepidation as the broken vessel drags itself to where he sat, staggering and stumbling as if drunk, a dripping nail clutched in its trembling hands. His own nail sat in his hut where the Fool was. Oro made no move to get up and retrieve it.

(Even when far away, it never breaks eye contact, which admittedly unsettles him just a bit.)

The long, dark tendrils of its cloak drag along dirty ash as it stumbles towards Oro, stopping just short of nail reach, which greatly surprises him. For a long moment, they stare warily at each other, the vessel swaying on its feet.

(He does not know for what it waits for; has he not already given it enough?)

Finally, having grown fairly uncomfortable, Oro speaks.

“You are quite brave, to follow me all the way here where the world ends,” he remarks dryly. He is now satisfied that this creature does not appear to want to attack him. “Or perhaps just stupid.”

“Bravery, determination…” Master Sly said. “These are just more words for stubbornness, something you have in abundance.”

“Too much rigidity, and even the strongest blade breaks,” he added. “Learn to bend once in a while, you oaf.”

The broken vessel bends sideways to look up at Oro with its curiously empty eyes, and the deep, jagged hole in its hollow head makes his face twinge in sympathy. It was a difficult thing to look at, but he can’t make himself look away. Not for a second time.

He tries again.

“From where did you get that dirty old nail, little grub? Stolen from a corpse, perhaps? I’ll inform you that I do not tolerate thieves in my domain, not even those who steal honorlessly from the dead.”

Then, in a motion that makes Oro tense, the vessel holds up one small hand, palm-up, to reveal a glistening handful of what he immediately recognizes as honey. This mad creature must have gathered it from the ground, where it had fallen from Oro’s back. (Perhaps it had gotten its nail in a similar manner.)

For a time, Oro can only sit there in shock. Then, he laughs. Quiet at first, then louder still. It is not a noise he has made in a long, long time. The very action practically cracks open his stiff chest.

The vessel mirrors him soundlessly, bobbing its head, horns tall and split (so unlike any bug he’d ever seen). Oro wonders where its howling voice has gone; left behind in the sickly caverns, perhaps.

“You’re going to need much more of that honey,” Oro hisses, unable to help himself, “to pay off the debt you owe me.”

Why is it always the poor that decide to stay?

In his mind, he ruminates over where in his hut he stores his medicine, bandages.

✦ ✦ ✦

The world grows colder, the seasons changing (down here, such a thing did so very, very slowly, but change it did all the same). Oro possessed limited knowledge of the traditions and holidays celebrated by the bugs of Hallownest (as Sly was not born here, he did not pass them down to Oro and his brothers), but he does recall a popular one that occurred in the rare cold season. (All Soul’s Eve. Wyrmnalia. What ridiculous names.)

In his hut, Oro wraps the broken vessel’s head in bandages, over the gaping, bloodless hole. He’s uncertain if it will have any positive effect, but it was better than accidentally staring down into the creature’s unsettling… hollowness.

All the while, the broken vessel sits motionless, placid, amenable to every of Oro’s motions (he tries not to be rough when touching the creature’s broken parts, but gentleness does not come to him naturally). Additionally, it seems to respond more often to his tone rather than his language itself, which makes Oro wonder if the creature even understood him.

“I think,” Oro ruminates as he rolls up unused bandages, sitting cross-legged on the floor, the broken vessel mirroring him, “that I shall call you Howl.”

Never feed vermin, and most important of all, never give one a name, unless you want them to follow you around begging for scraps for as long as you live.

The vessel—Howl—acknowledges him, but otherwise doesn’t react. A fitting name for one so earth-shakingly loud, though Oro much appreciates its newfound, if not unsettling silence (he wonders deeply on this sudden change).

If the vessel had its own name, it does not share it.

Across the room, Tiso (a name Oro by contrast had unwillingly learned; he believed ‘Fool’ suited him better) scoffs quietly, running his hand over fresh bandages wound tightly over his shell. His other rested protectively over his shield, tapping and tapping. Despite losing his body’s weight in blood and nearly freezing to death, the fool seemed to possess endless energy, and never stopped moving, not even when asleep.

“Is that pale thing your pet, then? A true warrior does not waste time doting on the lesser, you know,” Tiso smirks, though he sounds hoarse. How quickly his arrogant personality was restored now that he was back in a warm bed instead of the cold where he belonged.

Ignoring him, Oro ruminates shamefully over their delicate encounter not long ago. Tiso─less prideful than Oro but no less arrogant for it─has since been taking full advantage of this.

When no one pays him any attention, Tiso sighs loudly into the heavy silence, and the sound grates into Oro’s skull. Hardly a day later and he is already beginning to regret his choice to grant free shelter to the noisy, ungrateful bug.

Perhaps worst of all, was Tiso’s endless, unrelenting questions.

“Are Mato and Sheo your brothers, then?” he tended to remark out of the blue, when Oro least expected it. “Where are they? Do they claim to be Nailmasters as you do? I’d once believed there to be no great warriors left in this decaying burrow, and I’d be eager to be proven wrong. Though few could truly challenge me.”

After days of not sleeping, he is pulled from an uneasy, lulled meditation, opening one eye to glare at Tiso. It appeared that the stronger Tiso grew, the more questions he tended to ask.

In another corner atop a pile of Oro’s cloak rested Howl, who perhaps was sleeping (he couldn’t quite tell). It was still too soon to tell if the little creature was responding to the medicine, the bandages. At the very least, it no longer staggered as it walked.

At first, Oro ignores Tiso, which proves to be a mistake, as Tiso takes it up as an invitation to talk all the more.

“Hey, brute,” Tiso insists. “I’ve grown weary of lying here day after day, drinking nothing but disgusting blood and medicine draught. This dull serenity is driving me mad, and neither you nor the squib make for anything resembling decent conversation. You claim to be a warrior, yet I have never witnessed your supposed skill with a nail. When I can stand, you should spar with me, so that I may rebuild my strength and return to the Coliseum. This time, when I emerge victorious. I may even consider sparing you a miserable cent.”

At these mad words, Oro breaks his own muteness, utter disbelief tightening his throat.

“You truly are a fool,” he scoffs angrily, unable to believe the sheer stupidity he was hearing, “if you have learned nothing from this ordeal. I have allowed you to bring yourself back from the brink of death, and already you are clamoring to undo my hard work. Of which, may I remind you, you have not once compensated me for,” he adds.

Unmoved, Tiso has the gall to roll his pale eyes.

“Indeed, because pouring a disgusting draught down my throat and spooling paper around my body is such a difficult, heroic task,” he speaks sarcastically, but he looks away from Oro’s withering gaze with a frown.

When he has the strength to do so, Tiso begins to rifle through Oro’s things (though he did not possess much) without so much as a request for permission, unashamed as he did so.

Surprising himself, Oro does not stop him, though he watches the bug’s movements extremely carefully. Tiso runs his probing fingers over various trinkets, old weapons. Though they are far and few in between, his hands linger the longest over pictures of his brothers, or Sly. However, he does not interfere, as it is in these moments that Tiso is blessedly silent.

Except for the times he isn’t.

“I have abandoned my own family, too, you know,” Tiso remarks out of the blue, almost casually, but a waver in his voice betrays him. “And my family, in turn, has abandoned me. However, I often find myself grateful, having become all the stronger because of it.”

Oro immediately stills, busy unwrapping bandages from Howl’s head. The vessel in question sits between his legs and plays happily with a small trinket (at least, as happily as it seemed capable of being).

He debates ignoring Tiso, or denying the implication of the bug’s annoyingly insightful words. In truth, he does not desire either of these things.

It takes an age, but finally, Oro speaks.

“I do not forgive, and I do not forget,” he says firmly, words flowing steadily like blood from a wound. “Those who betray you do not change either way. Better to harden your heart and trust only your own company. That is from where my strength comes.”

Tiso’s expression grows intensely amused at Oro’s weighted words.

“Finally, a genuine reaction from underneath that cold, unbreakable shell! And more than three words at a time, no less,” he teases, grinning widely. “I was starting to think you a mere half-witted brute after all.”

Oro glowers at the bug, secretly offended, and from then on resolves to say nothing so personal ever again.

“The week almost reaches its end, and you seem almost entirely healed,” Oro changes the subject with a threatening voice tone. “Practically fit to once again reenter the wasteland on your own, I daresay.”

“Ehh. You have sensitive inner flesh, for so hard a shell,” Tiso sneers, proving once again to be unexpectedly good at reading Oro’s tones and expressions. However, he meekly waits at least another hour before attempting to insult Oro again. Almost a new record.

In the meantime, Oro takes it upon himself to train the strengthening vessel, without exacting a payment, no less (at least a little bit; he hasn’t yet stooped low enough to be that generous). He recalls the vessel’s pitiful, frankly atrocious form in the ancient caverns, no doubt having received no training at all. It would be a gross disrespect of his teachings to neglect this.

And so, Oro brings Howl to the scarcely-visited back of his hut where a training dummy forlornly stood in a small, empty cavern. It's dressed in pale ruby clothes—the color of a Nailmaster—in a painful reminder of Oro’s own debt, the battle he has yet to confront. From the day he created it, Oro has yet to bring his nail down upon it. He would never admit it, but without Howl, he would never have mustered the courage to even venture back here once again.

“First. Let me be reminded of your capabilities, before I may teach you my own,” he instructs Howl, settling cross-legged on the ground nearby. “By the end of the day, I want you to strike the dummy until it falls.”

In its own way, the vessel appears to accept Oro’s instructions. Gripping its nail with two hands, Howl throws the weapon backwards and strikes the ground behind it, before bringing the weapon down in a swift arch, hitting the dummy squarely in the face.

The dummy barely twitches.

Despite himself, Oro chuckles, reminded of himself as a child in his early days, clumsily swinging a nail he could scarcely carry. He forces his smile from his face when Tiso (comically swimming in one of Oro’s spare cloaks and still shivering despite it) emerges from the hut to join them. He does not protest, however, being pleased to observe the bug’s ability to walk was growing stronger every day.

Howl turns its drooping, bandaged head to look at the Nailmaster, seemingly uncertain. Already, dozens of harsh criticisms rest under his tongue, all assuming the tone of Sly, but Oro bites his sharp tongue. Instead, he stands.

“Hmph. Here, allow me to demonstrate proper form,” he informs the vessel.

First, he bows deeply to the dummy, emphasizing respect for the opponent. (When Tiso does not laugh, Oro glances at him, and sees the bug engrossed in a stone journal of some kind, unusually oblivious to the world.) When he straightens, the dummy’s dead eyes stare unblinkingly into his, and Oro tries very hard not to imagine Mato standing before him.

Then, taking a step back, he rushes forward with blinding speed, swinging his nail in a powerful horizontal arch that cuts through the very air itself. The dummy slams backwards against the ground before springing back to a standing position, its eyes trained upon Oro’s.

“My signature Nail Art, the dash slash,” Oro informs Howl with grave pride, of whom stands in attention, face intently following Oro’s nail. “Its strength lies in precision and proper form, swift speed followed by a powerful stroke. Let not your feelings become heavier than your own nail, lest you be too weak to wield it,” he adds in an afterthought.

From the ground, Tiso scoffs loudly, to which Oro glares at him, confused. However, the bug doesn’t look up from his tablet; Oro wonders what the Fool is so intently reading, but doesn’t sink so low as to betray his curiosity.

“Ehh. On the contrary,” Tiso snidely remarks, “it is from our feelings that we draw our greatest strength. The will to succeed, the desire for greatness, for glory...! If you imagine your every opponent to be your greatest enemy, only then you may muster the strength to cut down each and every one.”

It isn’t the first time Oro has heard this idea. However, by contrast, Mato tended to be less arrogant and rather more sentimental in his naive convictions.

“Emotion is an unreliable flame, and rage especially is short-lived and energy consuming,” Oro coldly argues; it isn’t for the first time that he says these words. “Strong emotions may foster a temporary increase in strength, but also inner weaknesses. In short, you become sloppy, and predictable.”

Of course, by saying so, Oro falls into Tiso’s trap.

“Prove it, then, O Great and Powerful Nailmaster,” Tiso cries eagerly, seemingly forgetting the cold as he stands and stares intensely at Oro. “Prove that your words are truer than mine by fighting me, and we will finally see who is the greater warrior!”

The Nailmaster grimaces, noticing, for the first time, an unusual strain in Tiso’s voice, as if he were sick. When he doesn’t reply, the bug attempts to goad Oro even further.

“Who knows, it may even be I who is worthier as a teacher for this pale grub,” he leeringly boasts. “Tell me, oaf. Are you frightened of me?”

Howl looks between the two with seeming uncertainty, wringing its cloak in its hands.

It is then that Oro finally sees the burning glint in Tiso’s eyes, the wavering of his body, the slight slur of his speech. No wonder Tiso was acting as cruelly as when he’d first invaded Oro’s hut; he was clearly drunk, driven mad from sleeplessness.

They never discussed it, but Oro knew Tiso suffered from his dreams as he did, laid awake at night as he did. Perhaps they feared the same terrible light on their mind’s horizons, whispering, shouting, pleading, weeping, commanding them to listen.

However, the rather less disciplined Tiso seemed to be cracking under the strain considerably worse than Oro was. And now he was spiraling out of control.

“Come, Howl,” Oro says quietly to the vessel, bidding it to follow. “That’s enough for today. We shall resume this lesson tomorrow.”

In the corner of the Nailmaster’s eye, he sees Tiso’s body flail as he brandishes something in his hands; a stone journal. Suddenly, Tiso’s nasally voice fills the cavern.

“Ahem! What place is there for us in the world, us defects and disappointments?” he loudly begins, in a clear mockery of Oro’s voice. He realizes with a chill in his blood what exact journal Tiso read from.

“Those of us abandoned ones, we are not fit to sit among the glorious on their Patheon, so we must either wander or hide where none may discover our sheer unworthiness. Maybe it’s fate I have resigned myself to, maybe it’s something else inside of me. Either way, I am content to live alone among corpses and vermin. In this grave, I can be just another ghost, scattered into pieces by the decaying wind…!”

“Are you quite finished?” Oro utters lowly, trembling in shame at hearing his deepest, most private thoughts read aloud to him. Somehow, Tiso must have dug up his old journal, authored back when the Nailmaster had first resigned himself to a life of lonely, bitter solitude.

However, it is a sharp betrayal Oro hadn’t expected, not from one he had slowly been considering almost resembling a friend.

Breathe, he commands himself, gut twisting with miserable rage. Do not kill him. Not in front of the little one.

Then, Oro makes a grave mistake. Instead of confronting Tiso at the height of his madness, he chooses instead to walk away, intending to deprive the bug of the attention Oro knew he internally craved.

However, instead of ceasing as expected, Tiso’s voice rises to a shout, shrill and desperate, pure of madness.

“What can one do with all this sadness!?” he shrieks, growing increasingly frenzied. “You cannot kill it, starve it, or make it bleed! You can only gather your sadness in your chest, and try to keep it warm despite the cold shell you carry around! DO NOT HEED THE DEAD, for they are COWARDS! They will grant you no favors, only burdens! Better to cut them from memory just as you cut the life from their body–!”

Tiso’s voice cuts off sharply as Oro brings the flat of his blade down upon his head. The Fool immediately collapses. The cave echoes long after the screaming stops.

And then…

“Please, help me…” came a small voice from inside of Tiso’s body, one that did not quite belong to him. “The light… it won’t leave me alone...”

Tiso stops moving. Stops breathing. Dead.

Breathing. Knocked out. Breathing.

Not dead, not dead.

For the longest moment, Oro stands there, head bowed and breath heaving as though he’d just ran to the city and back.

He tries not to let Howl see the tears on his face, revealing the weaknesses hidden deep inside of his brittle shell, all his miserable guilt and cowardly shame. But when a tiny hand touches his own, it is all he can do to look down upon the empty face of a small, broken creature, and see a flicker of something reflecting back.

The wind blew. The ghosts did not. The wind blew. It was all any of them could do.

“We…” Oro breathes. “We must leave this cursed place. The very air is driving us all mad. To where, I do not know. Before we each lose ourselves forever and can never come back. I do not know.”

He does not know where Sheo lives, or else he may have never considered his next actions. In his mind, an image of a lonely hut among great cliffs, far away at the top of the world. Oro would rather die than travel to that place. But it is a trade he might be willing to make, for the sake of the broken and dying vagrants he’d come to consider his friends.

To Mato’s hut, then.

✦ ✦ ✦

The ride to the surface is relatively uneventful. At first, Oro is nervous of his, well, size, but the old stag assures him that neither his height nor weight will slow him down.

“I carried the mighty Hegemol upon my back, once!” he groans happily. “Granted, the knee on my fourth leg has never been the same since, but…”

Regardless, as they race through the dark, low-ceilinged tunnels, Oro keeps his head down for fear of losing it.

At some point during their journey, the sack on Oro’s back begins to shift as an unconscious Tiso awakens, stuffed unceremoniously inside for convenience.

“Ehh… n-not these rattletrap creatures…” comes his nasally voice, a whisper in the roar. It startles Oro, who nearly thrusts his head into a stalactite. “A real warrior… c-carries himself to combat…”

How did he know they were…?

“Hmph. How interesting,” Oro says dully, staring ahead into darkness, “that you should recognize when you are traveling by stag, despite not seeing our surroundings. One may even believe… that you are familiar with these sounds, and the feeling of being carried upon a saddle.”

The Fool only groans, saying nothing. Soon, the sack ceases to move once more.

Settling into old habits of conversation that idled on companionable ribbing, Oro hesitates to bring up Tiso’s previous madness. Strong in his mind was the memory of his terrible words echoing the walls of the cave, as well as how Oro had dealt with him like a feral beast. He wonders if Tiso will even remember. He wishes he himself could forget.

Meanwhile, the little one, Howl, looked perfectly content upon the saddle of the stag, letting its head be pulled gently back and forth by the steady gait of their companion steed. It seems almost to be fatigued, but never quites succumbs to sleep. Oro closes his eyes, his thoughts abandoned in the tunnels behind them.

When they arrive, Oro dismounts, landing on the platform with the grace of a nauseous boulder. Uncertain if stags typically required payment, he bows deeply, resorting to flattery as a means of distraction. A favored method of Sly’s.

“Thank you deeply for your service, great stag,” Oro grovels (though he finds his words to be genuine). Next to him, the vessel bows as well, albeit sleepily. Its large head droops, nearly toppling its body into the platform before Oro snatches the scruff of its cloak.

The old stag stomps his myriad feet and bellows deeply in his throat, blowing air out of his great nose. Clearly unused to gratitude and attention.

“I will be here when you return, should you require my services once more,” the old stag rumbles happily. Then, he pauses, head tilted in thought.

“Be careful, friends. The surface world… its winds carry below a stench of flame. A smell… from nightmares.”

The stag shudders his great carapace, huffing and shaking his great horned head. Perhaps senile…?

“Watch over yourself, little one,” he rasps to an impassive Howl. Then, he sets about the arduous task of lowering his sizable body to the ground, no doubt with aging and aching limbs. (Oro could relate to this beast.)

On his back, Tiso moans, clawing weakly at Oro through the cloth of the sack. Above, a muffled but powerful wind calls to them, unrestrained by caverns and stone walls.

Nearly there. There’s still time. To save us all.

On the lift up to the twilit entrance of the stag station, Oro debates taking the vessel’s hand to better keep track of the little vessel, who had a habit of wandering in inspection of random objects and creatures on the ground. He quickly dismisses the childish idea.

Oro has not been to the surface for a long time, but he still remembers its vast sempiternity, the moaning of the wind carrying the voices of those who had once dwelled there, as if to ask where they all went. And receiving no answer.

They emerge from the dimly lit stag station to the full, radiant light of a single lamppost, and are temporarily blinded. Oro grimaces, and stumbles determinedly forward.

As they walk, they discover that more than a few of the abandoned houses are illuminated from inner lights and appear suspiciously well-kept. An iron bench sits invitingly underneath the very lamppost that blinded them from its sheer luminosity.

It’s far too open out here. Exposed, like a belly-up beast without a shell. Anyone and anything could approach from any direction, at any time. And they would be all the ignorant.

Oro glances down at Howl, who is walking with lurching strides to match Oro’s long strides, but despite this, falling increasingly behind. It appears for all the world uncaring, unafraid, as though the very ground weren’t on the verge of eating them alive. The Nailmaster notices that, along with its feet, it’s dragging its nail behind it, and the blunt tip scrapes along dirt and stone, weakening it.

“Pick up your nail when you carry it,” Oro snaps. “A warrior who profanes their weapon is as good as dead.”

He regrets his harsh words quickly. Fear and paranoia, and the anticipation of what (and who) awaited them twisted his tongue. The little vessel slumps, perhaps from being rebuked, perhaps from fatigue. (Maybe all three of them suffered sleeplessly from dreams. Regrettably, the Nailmaster had never once considered the vessel to be suffering the same as them.)

Oro sighs, caverns under his eyes, and stops walking. He kneels down, rocks grating against his knees. He takes the broken vessel’s meager weapon, and the creature only stares at him. He sheathes the metal toothpick next to his own weapon.

“Hmph. I will carry you on my shoulder… but only if you promise never to speak of it later,” Oro wryly says, half-smiling.

The vessel doesn’t move, looking expectantly at him. Oro has a vision of another slender figure looking up at him in the same way, enormous eyes filled to the brim with impossible expectations, waiting for a younger Oro to get on his knees so that he might climb his back.

(Sly always believed he was a better teacher when riding upon the shoulders of his much larger students, his advice and admonishments directly inside of the brothers’ ears as he clutched one of their horns, moving their heads as he pleased. Even now, Oro couldn’t claim to understand the Great Nailsage’s methods. Though, perhaps that is why he was Great.)

Howl is larger than Sly was, but nevertheless, it settles down into the thick shag of Oro’s cloak, legs on either side of his neck. Oro jumps when a cold, mouthless shell settles into the valley between his horns. He imagines the exhausted vessel feeling grateful relief, voicelessly praising him within its empty head. The Nailmaster grits his teeth as his horns bump against ones that weren’t his own.

Oro continues walking, burdening two creatures that most certainly were not going to compensate him for his trouble. He may as well become a stag, at this rate.

(As Oro passes one of the occupied houses—clearly a shop of some kind, given the signs—he believes he hears, for a moment, a familiar muttering of some voice he might have once known coming from somewhere inside. Advice and admonishments. The sweet tinkling of Geo against Geo.)

(Two more familiar voices join the first, and the sounds they made resemble laughter. The howling wind blows; the voices cease to exist. Oro continues walking, faster this time, and the tasteless air tastes bitter.)

The cliffs await them sleeplessly. Oro feels as though he were on the verge of collapse. He would never admit as such, but the combined weight of Howl, Tiso, and his heavy nail were not helping his exhaustion in the slightest.

Perhaps we can go back to the town, offer Geo for safety, a brief resting place, he thinks desperately. But his mind, although fraying, has yet to lose itself completely. He trusts nothing; not strange townspeople, not familiar voices, not his dreams. Besides, his cold Geo stones were better suited to keeping him warm from inside his pockets. The cliffs await.

At their backs, the little town of Dirtmouth stills and fades. Ahead of them, in the distance, there is fire, growing brighter the darker the endless cavern becomes.

One after the other, increasing in number, red flames emerge from the fog atop black poles, scarlet and twisting; somehow never snuffing out, despite the unyielding winds.

“Hmph. How truly lively this miserable little town has become,” he mutters sarcastically to himself.

At first, he thinks the torches invented in a delirious madness, until the gentle, haunting music fills the air. It emerges from inside large, pointed tents, mouths open in an eternal scream. At the entrance of the grandest tent, a pair of long-necked beasts in slitted masks kneel upon the ground, watching Oro alertly. They say nothing as he approaches; perhaps mindless, though their intense gazes seem intelligent.

A traveling circus? In this dying kingdom? Oro thinks derisively. As if a colosseum wasn’t enough.

Oro looks beyond the path where he knew impassable cliffs stood, knowing how to surmount them. But in the haze of the fog, he’s long lost track of how much farther he needs to go.

The scarlet flames of nearby lanterns crackle and spit; even from a distance, Oro can feel their warmth against his shell. The music slows his shallow breathing to a crawl as he becomes as weightless as air. Crimson eyes watch him in the darkness, but when he looks, there is only fire.

Oro approaches the doorway of the grandest tent, and the house of madness invites him inside.

As he walks within, soft earth transforms into layers of fabrics atop the hard ground, causing his footing to waver. Soon, Tiso crawls out of the sack on his back and Howl from his shoulder, as silent as ghosts (though such creatures are the opposite of quiet). Together, the two abandon him to his fate.

When the whispering starts from behind heavy cloth walls, he does not draw his nail, for his limbs are frozen in raw terror, his chest bursting with caged laughter. The ground itself is alive, pulsing and pulsing under Oro’s feet, as though from the beat of some great heart.

The tunnel goes on, becoming darker all the time. The music grows thicker. The smoke grows louder. A voice, deep and lonely, sings lovely and low.

“He says that time is on our side

Another thousand beasts have died

Beside me”

Oro walks until the tunnel ends, and he reaches the familiar short cliffs of the kingdom’s edge, where the corpses fall from above like rain. His dread swells like the belly of a hopper filling with blood. He can see a body laying abandoned on a cliff nearby, different from all the rest. It is Tiso. Not merely dead. But rather left to die, by Oro.

“He says our lives will never end

Another thousand of my friends

Have left me”

Oro walks until the tunnel ends, and he reaches the familiar tight caverns of the ancient basin, where radiant sickness pulses in every corner. His dread swells like orange seeds in a throbbing membrane, filling the hollow, broken corpse of a bug lying nearby. It is Howl. Not merely dead. But rather left to die, by Oro.

“He says our dreams will endless flow

Another thousand lands to go

Ahead me”

“He says–” says the voice, deep and lonely, “that you’re early. Mrmm.”

At the end of the darkened tunnel, Oro stops. A broad, masked bug was standing nearby, squeezing and pulling a legged accordion from which music mournfully seeped. Close by, the outside world loomed beyond the tent’s open doorway, a draft blowing dust onto the patterned floor.

“Early for what?” Who says?

“The Master says, of course,” says the broad bug, squeezing and pulling. “I sense that you possess one as well. A master, that is. You will know why, then, you are early.”

“Early for what?” Oro insists. I once had a master. But no longer.

“No longer…?” says the broad bug. “You carry heavy burdens, then, for one who claims to be unchained. Heavy debts. For yourself? Or for others? Mrmm.”

“Early for what?” Oro shouts, but the bug does not hear him over the music.

The Nailmaster ponders drawing his great nail and intimidating this strange bug into telling him what exactly was going on, but his nail is heavy on his back, and his arms shake from the though. Most of all, he’s afraid, and deathly so. But of what, he does not know. It takes everything he has left inside of him just to keep moving forward.

The music continues (if Oro listens closely, he can hear the same notes played over and over in succession, in a song that never ends), and so does Oro, deeper and deeper into the tent.

Oro enters a crossroad, and his shadow becomes four.

“You have a lost, hardened look about you. The abandoned ones always do.”

It’s Sly. He’s young, and wears a pale ruby cloak over his tiny wings—the color of a Nailmaster. His brothers don’t know what to make of him. But Oro has eyes only for Sly’s shining nail, wider than his body by far. But only a fool would assume a bug’s strength based on their size. It is Oro’s second lesson, after loneliness. And after each, love.

Oro enters a green grove, and his shadow becomes three.

“This is not hatred. This is love left to rot.”

It’s Sheo. He’s the leader of the three (or so he used to claim), all because he can swing his nail in the exact ways that Sly loves best. He’s the most skilled, but he rejects power, throwing it away to seek purpose instead. When Sly resents Oro’s unworthiness and Mato deems Oro an enemy, Sheo is kind. But kind is all Sheo ever is. Within his brother’s heart, Oro does not know what feelings truly lie.

Oro enters an arena, and his shadow becomes two.

“See how I weep. Doesn't it remind you of home?”

It’s Mato. What he lacks in skill, he makes up for in emotions and a bleeding heart. In his lonely home at the top of the world, he’s been training endlessly, under the guise of mastering the Great Nailsage’s teachings. Oro wonders if Mato can harden his heart just enough to kill his brother when the training is done.

Meanwhile, Oro neglects his nail, abandoning himself. When the day comes and he loses to Mato, he will finally be worthy of something.

Oro enters a graveyard, and his shadow becomes nothing.

“Grief does not sleep. It does not laugh, it does not weep. Do not heed the dead, for ghosts are fools who wander the world in a dream, too cowardly to accept their own deaths. I will be no exception.”

It’s Esmy. Until it isn’t. Until it wasn’t. And none of them have ever been the same.

His path is his alone. For the first time, Oro knows where it leads.

✦ ✦ ✦

Someone is shaking him, rousing him from sleep. Oro wakes up with a groan as all the pain hits him at once, making him feel as though his body had been trampled underfoot of a stag.

“Hey, brute,” a nasally voice says. “For a supposed warrior, you sleep through every noise and snore loud enough to attract every predator’s attention. You must really want someone to stab you in your sleep.”

“Fool,” Oro breathes. He has never been so thankful to hear so grating a voice in his life.

He opens his eyes to see Tiso hovering over him. Something tender blooms inside his chest as the sight of the bug, alive and well. This quickly changes, of course, when Tiso starts poking Oro’s face, flaring pain in every touch. The Nailmaster hisses, batting away small hands.

He notices, then, the little vessel sitting nearby, looking at Oro. Not dead, either.

Oro laughs. It’s a quiet, broken thing, but sometimes that is the form happiness takes, and one can only accept it. Tiso stares at him as if he were mad.

He sits up. Looks around. The three of them are gathered in a small room with scarlet fabric walls, pillows of every shape and color piled on the floor. The ceiling of the tent sits low, which meant that the entrance was nearby, where they could continue their journey. But for now, it’s far too warm and comfortable to even consider the thought.

“What happened,” Oro questions quietly, and with a claw, plays with a long strand of Howl’s unusually dirt-free cloak. The vessel looks at him as it cradles a freshly-polished nail, empty expression somehow content.

“I’m uncertain of much,” Tiso admits, and his voice is steady. “I was asleep, yet… awake, in some horrible dream. You carried me and the pale one, until you came to this ghastly place and collapsed, like a stumbling oaf with his legs cut. It was a rather shameful display. Or so I can imagine. I was, of course, inside of the sack.”

Immediately collapsed…?

“What horrible dream, might I ask?” Oro presses, feeling ill enough to ask permission. Tiso looks as though he regrets bringing it up.

“A warrior does not whimper and quiver in his sleep,” Tiso sneers, but weakly so. At Oro’s silence, he looks away.

When Tiso speaks next, it is a testament to the stubborn, strange, foolish friendship they two unexpectedly share.

“I was… back at the Colosseum, that most glorious of places. Fighting, of course, with the strength of one hundred warriors, as my kind are renowned for. Glory was becoming my very blood. And then…”

Tiso trails off, hugging his chest, fingers tapping where several thin scars wrapped around his armor, his chest. At his side, Tiso’s shield sits untouched as he rejects its comfort. Clearly, in the dream, such a mere thing did not save him.

“And then… it ends,” he whispers. “The weight of the world crushes me, and my broken body is thrown into the acid pits, abandoned to vermin. I die, and the world scarcely takes notice. I-I was laying on that cliff for so long. Until the world itself ended.”

The breath inside of Oro is still, and he cannot manage to rouse it, not even to offer words of any size and comfort.

A movement stirs the room, pillows shifting as Howl crawls to sit beside the Fool. Very slowly, as if in the presence of some skittish creature, it rests its head upon Tiso’s shoulder. Immediately, the Fool’s hackles rise as he jerks and sputters, appearing ready to throw the vessel off of him before he visibly forces himself to relax, quivering like grass in the wind. Oro lightly chuckles at the comical scene, and Tiso seems to remember something.

“I am sorry, you know,” Tiso bites suddenly (Oro takes a secret pleasure in the fact that those words seemed to cause him pain). “For– for my previous words, back in that ashen grave. I was a bit mad, I confess, and I… lost myself. I regret reading that journal to you. I do not even know for what reason that I did.”

Oro waves his hand, and although the bleeding does not stop, it is a near thing.

“Forgiven and forgotten,” he says, and he surprises himself by meaning it. “Though I, for one, do not regret the opportunity to shut you up with my nail.”

Tiso smiles, a sharp and crooked thing, and it is genuine.

The three sit in companionable silence, pain and relief, wounds coming to a close.

After a moment of idle staring, Oro notices, then, the fresh bandages wrapped around Howl’s head. The gray pinpricks where soot-covered claws touched the cloth. It’s a small detail, but the Nailmaster realizes with daunting terror that the three of them are very much not alone in this nightmarish place.

Oro struggles to get up, his shell aching.

Tiso easily stands, and the vessel after him. He walks to Oro (who dwarfs him even while kneeling) and offers his hand, pointedly refusing to meet the larger bug’s eyes. Oro makes an expression that some might claim to resemble a smile.

He takes his hand and, without actually borrowing Tiso’s strength, stands straight before he suddenly pulls the ornery bug into an embrace. Tiso is taken off guard for only a moment before he scowlingly pulls away, fingers tapping on air. For once, the bug has no words to offer.

“Onwards,” Oro says with conviction. He reaches down to take the vessel’s hand, his nail in the other. Together, the three of them duck warily under the doorway, nails and shield.

The hallway of the tent twists into several, shadows seeming to rearrange on a whim. Oro keeps a keen eye for the blue light of darkness, the scent of outside air, but every light he catches disappears into the flame of a lantern, every scent into the stench of smoke.

It doesn’t take long before the three are lost. Throughout, none of them dare to speak, wary of things nearby that might be listening.

Then, the blanketed ground changes to something more solid, more metal. The walls disappear, and the darkness stretches into everywhere.

“My friends,” says a voice from the shadows, and the very sound of it is Fire itself. “I bid you welcome to my stage.”

Startled, Oro nearly shouts when a being materializes without warning in a screech of smoke, almost as if from a dream. Hanging lanterns stutter to life, brilliant and blazing, and a vast stage is illuminated, rich velvet banners and carved horned pillars.

A slender, very abnormal looking creature observes them with an upturned head, a pair of bright, scarlet eyes and a cloak of ash-colored wings. (Perhaps most important, Oro notes, is how this bug is very tall, far more than himself.)

When the creature shifts to peer down at the vessel, Oro moves to stand protectively in front of Howl, hiding it from view with a sullen look.

“You,” Tiso hisses, shoulders raised. He reaches swiftly for his shield and brandishes it about as threatening as one could while holding a thin dinnerplate. “You…!”

“Peace, friends,” says the creature, holding up a blackened, long-fingered hand that shined with silver rings. “I am Grimm, master of this troupe. Welcome… to my most grand of stages, on the earth of this fallowed kingdom.”

He inclines his head as if to bow, but falls short.

Oro makes an expression of disdain, twitching to do the same, but refuses. What kind of master does not bow properly to its guests?

“Where is the exit to this blasted place?” he demands rudely, not bothering to introduce himself. Grimm seems to fade further into darkness.

“Everywhere, for some,” he crackles, in a changeless tone. “Others, however, are not so fortunate.”

“Cease your riddles, soothsayer,” Tiso snaps, brandishing his shield further before hesitating, peering around at every shadow. “What is this place, anyway? At first, I had thought this a house of paltry carnival spectacles, but…”

He taps the ground with his shield, a hollow drumming of shell against the maroon ground. It is decidedly not the ground of a mere tent; nor, for that matter, of Dirtmouth.

“This place… it holds the sacred motifs of the Arena. The ground tempered in blood, the iron claws hanging over the doors, the scent of excitement in the air…!”

Tiso closes his eyes and breathes deeply, as if reveling in the scene. Oro cannot tell if the Fool is excited or frightened. Perhaps both.

“Such as a flame changes shape, so too does the stage dance and bend, infinite in its purposes,” is all that Grimm offers. “The same could be said for dreams. Alas, my friends, you are early. For this, I offer my sincere apologies. It seems that our troupe has arrived in the throes of a local holiday, and our stage is temporarily fit for neither act nor audience.”

“Early…” Oro speaks up, growling. “Early for what?”

I sense that you possess one as well. A master, that is. You will know why, then, you are early.

He hefts his nail. This time, he does not intend to be ignored, dream or no. Tiso glances at him with trepidation, as though he were not eagerly trying to attack Grimm moments before.

“Why, Nailmaster Oro. For your grand spectacle, of course,” says Grimm, eyes glittering, and Oro growls, panic rising. “Your brother is nearby within the town, reveling along with the rest of your kin. Perhaps you sensed them… when you wandered uninvited into my dwelling. Although, I fault you not for this. The night is cold, and it is endless here.”

The nightmare... such things were woven into the very stitchings and fabrics of this veiled and shadowed place. Despite such terror, these bugs seemed free from madness, from the light of dreams. But of what cost?

“How– how do you know his name? How do you know any of this?” Tiso loudly demands. But his anger does not reach Oro, who merely stands there, dumbly suspended. One thousand thoughts manifesting at once.

“Mato… is outside?” he breathes to the twisted specter. Grimm hums quietly, and the sound roars in Oro’s ears.

“A true vendetta is a curious thing. It weighs heavily, yet nothing at all, tangible on one’s very shell, and acrid on the nose. And a fine burden to relinquish, in glory… or in blood. The stage is set, my friend. You need only enter it, and take your place among the dancing revelers.”

Oro doesn’t understand at first, what Grimm is offering him. Even when he does, he still doesn’t understand why.

“And what exactly will you be getting from this? If I were to accept this offer? ” Oro asks. “I… cannot fathom...”

An intuition told Oro that this creature was beyond the sanctity of Geo.

“Time,” Grimm says simply, “of a very certain kind. And as for my kin… a ‘paltry carnival spectacle’.” At his last words, he gazes pointedly at Tiso, though his air is humorous.

Oro suspects that Grimm is not telling the entire truth.

“My dear Nailmaster,” he says with an air of finality, staring straight through Oro. “A parting thought for you. Go be with those who love you. Who’d mourn you. Do so while there is still yet time.”

At Oro’s stunned, confused silence, Grimm folds his hands and speaks again, sounding politely regretful.

“Alas, there are preparations to do, and my dreams await. Brumm, minstrel of this dread troupe, will show you the way to the outside world.”

Grimm bows to them, properly this time, wings raised and folded. When he stands, his eyes fix upon the vessel standing behind Oro’s back, and he does not look away.

“Until our next meeting.”

With a hiss of flame, he twists into a cloud of fading scarlet smoke; the stage lights and lantern fire die in unison.

Meanwhile, Oro is numb. His two small friends watch him, one wordlessly, the other voiceless. The minstrel, Brumm, silently awaits them at the edge of the stage, staring and staring. He holds a long torch, and a many-legged accordion hangs idly from his back.

Oro recognizes this bug, immediately, as the one from his nightmare. He prepares to confront him, but Brumm doesn’t spare the Nailmaster a single glance; instead, he looks only to Howl, and Oro falters.

“...Hrmm. Your fresh bindings. Do they still wrap comfortably around your head?”

The vessel stares up at Brumm, and its shell bathes in red in the light of the minstrel’s small flame.

“Good, good. My techniques are still worthy,” Brumm drones. He pauses, but says nothing more, leading the three out of veils and shrouds. Somehow, it only seems to take a few turns before bitterly chilly air fills Oro’s lungs once again. As they stand in the gaping maw of the entrance, Brumm appears again to hesitate.

“Yes?” Tiso sighs petulantly. “Speak, then, before we perish from the cold.” The bug immediately looks down upon Howl. He kneels in front of the small vessel, puppetlike in his movements, but his air is warm and sincere.

“Remember this, discarded one. You will never heal back the part of you that is lost. But that does not mean you cannot still become whole again. Hrmm.”

And then he is gone, and in the distance, an eerie melody resumes its haunting song. Oro isn’t entirely sure that it ever stopped.

On their slow, wary way back to Dirtmouth, Tiso is the first to break the silence.

“So, Oro…” he sneers playfully, though his tone is tired. “Next time, when you drag me half-mad into a nest of freakish creatures, do so in a different tent. Especially if you plan on slumbering. Or I really will stab you in your sleep.”

In the corner of his eye, he sees the Fool look hopefully up at him, clearly expectant of a smile or any sign of good humor. But Oro is as far from laughter as he is from his house at the edge of the kingdom. He does not even muster a grunt.

The three of them walk in silence again, for a time. It is not something Tiso easily tolerates.

“So…” he remarks. “Your brothers. The two Nailmasters, I presume? That ghoulish creature remarked that they were here, together, celebrating one of this kingdom’s quaint little holidays. He then offered you precious use of his arena. I can only imagine these things to be connected.”

“Perhaps, perhaps not,” Oro intones dully, eyes never leaving the road. Tiso pauses to think.

“A real warrior,” he begins, and Oro internally groans, “does not hesitate to confront the battles that lie ahead. No matter how long the road, or frightening the prospect. And brothers die by the nail just as easily as any other,” he adds.

It is Tiso’s way of offering comfort, Oro knows. But that doesn’t stop the anger from swelling.

“You are full of strange notions of what makes a warrior, despite not being much of one yourself,” Oro replies with vitriol. “Your death would have been a testament to that.”

Tiso’s face falls, and hardens.

As always when Oro says things he regrets, his heart trickles with blood, another wound discarded onto the pile. He wonders of bugs whose shells were composed entirely of scars.

He sighs. Tiso walks, drawing his hood farther down upon his face, and does not look at him.

“I… owe my brother a debt,” he offers, sorrow and regret, and Tiso perks up. “Penance for crimes committed long ago. Kin we are, yet we may as well be enemies. He… he swore to kill me, once he became stronger. And I…”

Oro stops speaking.

I will bury you. If it means my end. If it buries me, too. This is the last thing Mato said to him; it was when Esmy’s blood was still wet on Oro’s nail.

“...I wonder if my death will be enough to redeem myself.”

He fantasizes Mato standing mightily before him, mercifully withholding his nail just long enough for Oro to tell him why, why.

That’s why I fled like a coward. That’s why I hid myself in that ash swept grave, down where the world ends. That’s why I chose to tread this path without you. That’s why my nail haunts me so.

After a moment, Tiso chuckles, his own misery seemingly forgotten, and Oro glares at him.

“Ehh. Do not give me that look,” Tiso says, and his smile is sad. “It’s just, well… you call me the Fool, and yet…” He trails off.

The little lights of Dirtmouth town emerge from the fog, safe from scarlet smoke and flames.

Oro’s heart sinks into the ground when he sees them gathered in the square, the brightly-lit houses and the small bustling crowd of creatures great and small. Most of them are unfamiliar to him. But even from a distance, he recognizes the two hulking figures, identical in looks to Oro.

(It is All Soul’s Eve, he realizes. The solstice of the earth, carefully celebrated by the late Pale King, where bugs exchange gifts and revel. That is likely why Mato had deigned to descend from his home at the top of the world, and Sheo from his green kingdom of thorns.)

But what Oro does not expect to see, however, is the Great Nailsage himself among them. He’s dressed in blue instead of red, and his great nail is nowhere in sight. Oro suddenly feels as though he were on the verge of collapse once again.

Then, the Nailmaster comes to a decision.

He swallows his burning cowardice, but it crawls back up his throat, choking him.

“Tiso,” he says hoarsely, and the bug looks at him. “Tiso. Listen closely to my words. Are you listening?”

“That depends highly on the message,” he replies, faltering at Oro’s urgent tone.

“I need you to enter that fading town, and give a message to my brother, Mato,” Oro says lifelessly, a gravestone for his every word. “Tell him… to meet me in the tent of Grimm. Tell him… that I am finally ready to give him what I owe.”

Tiso only stares at him, mouth agape. But Oro has already turned away from him, and looks to Howl.

“Go with him,” he instructs with a shameful tremble in his voice. “Go with Tiso. And do not look back at me. F-for if you do, and I look back upon you also, I will run again from my fate and never come back, and die a lowly, honorless coward.”

Oro kneels on the cold, hard ground, in the most revering bow there is. He takes the vessel’s hands in his own, and they are the smallest he’d ever seen.

“Perhaps maybe, in rescuing you, sheltering you, teaching you the way of the nail… I have redeemed myself, if only a little. In the way that truly matters most,” he intones. “Now, I go to settle my debt once and for all.”

Howl looks up at him, and the wind is silent.

Oro leans forward, and bumps his forehead against the vessel’s in the way he and his brothers did as children. For a moment, their horns tangle. When he looks into the empty eyes of his broken vessel, who was no longer quite so broken, he imagines reaching his hand inside and pulling out its soul, thrumming and alive.

“Oro, wait…” Tiso whispers, but Oro is already standing, and walking back from whence they came, claws tearing at his heart in his hand. He does not look back, and he is not followed. The wind blows lonely, and Oro sympathizes.

The music, it awaits him, calls to him from the wasteland. He enters the gaping maw of Grimm’s tent, and this time, he has no trouble at all in finding the stage. Alone in darkness he stands, accompanied only by his nail, though he is not quite afraid. Fear is not an adequate enough word to describe the thing that he feels.

Finally, he sighs, weary of waiting in the dark. He sheathes his nail, adrenaline hollowing his body.

With some nimbleness, he climbs the wall where the audience would spectate from above, rows and rows of seats, empty of everything but shadows. He wonders how exactly Grimm’s kin will fill them, and how they will know when it was time. Oro claims one of the seats farthest from the stage, and sits heavily, his face in his hands.

He did not say goodbye before. Not really. Not properly. At the moment, it seemed to be for the best. But now it is becoming one of his greatest regrets.

Go be with those who love you. Who’d mourn you. Do so while there is still yet time.

Why on earth did Oro decide that he was out of time now?

The sheer silence becomes a tangible creature, teeth and claws dragging against the floor, mouth breathing in his ear.

Oro, admittedly, is not surprised when Grimm soon materializes from the shadows, a single lantern illuminating the darkness to announce his presence. He sits down next to Oro, who wonders for the first time why the audience’s seats lacked a separate throne built in opulence for the master. (Could it be that Grimm himself was part of the act…?)

Grimm looks below, and his gaze appears for all the world like a king surveying his kingdom. When he speaks, the very shadows stop to listen.

“So often does it feel as though so many things are ending at once, and that not enough beginnings are occurring to balance out the endings,” he says, “and so often does it feel as though the world itself is taking a toll. Is… ending.”

“Hmph,” Oro grumbles irritably. “What is the meaning of your twisted words?”

“I am saying that this,” Grimm gestures to the stage with a grand flourish, “does not have to be your end, my friend. Unexpected things occur often on the stage, and improvisation is a necessary skill for any actor. Instead of ending, you might even find yourself… beginning, in a manner of speaking, should you desire it. I, of course, would assist you, and be glad for it.”

The troupe master’s tone indicates that he is again offering Oro… something, but this time, Oro doesn’t have the will to ponder the words of this most unusual of creatures.

“It matters not what happens after,” he replies dully. “Just that it happens.”

Grimm hums. A hush falls over them.

“So… where is your kin, then?” Oro asks, for the mere sake of conversation. “You had led me to believe they would be here.”

“They will be. When the time comes,” Grimm promises. He pauses, head tilting in thought.

“A precious thing, to have kin,” he croaks wistfully. “Most are not so fortunate, to have ones like them, and to be loved by them in turn. You might have thought certain members of my troupe to be my blood, but alas. I am the sole member of my breed. There is no one else like me.”

He waves an airy hand, conjuring a flame in the palm of his hand, as though the two of them were sharing a dream. The heat from the fire burns Oro’s face, so perhaps not.

“Of course, there can be certain strengths in being alone. Invulnerabilities. But oh,” Grimm laments, “so cold. I think you, of all creatures, may know of what I speak.”

“Hmph. You would somehow know, wouldn’t you? Blasted creature,” Oro hisses. “Although, your words ring true. For the longest time, I cowardly hid myself away at the edge of the world, and considered myself a mere ghost outside of its grave. Until…”

Until certain creatures wormed their way into his life, forcing him to (mostly) set aside his selfish ways. Tiso, and Howl. A vessel, and a fool. Each of them half-dead, abandoned by the world. Perhaps that is why he kept them, because they were so alike. To save himself from loneliness, such as how a fire battles away the cold.

Family, he thinks, his tongue running over the teeth of this begrudged, bloodied word. Kin.

As usual, Grimm appears almost able to read Oro’s thoughts.

“I noticed your vessel discarded, enveloped carefully in your care. A creature of fine craft, more so than you realize,” Grimm says, his eyes burning bright. “If I myself were to have children, I would not live to raise them. In fact, rather than death, I would find myself reborn, with no memories of my previous existence… except for one.”

In the palm of Grimm’s hand, the flame pulses, and it is hauntingly beautiful. The two of them stare into the fire in unison. Grimm continues.

“One may think fire able to feel its own heat, but I find that the opposite is true. During such rituals, at the very moment of my death, I feel, for a brief moment, a warmth. And every time, it makes such stasis almost bearable.”

Does it hurt to die? Oro almost asks. Nevertheless, Grimm bows his head in what may have been assent, or may have been nothing at all.

“Who are you really, Troupe Master Grimm?” Oro chuckles, but doesn’t really expect an answer. “For all the world, I have never met another such as you. You speak and breathe as though you were born in a dream… as fire itself.”

There were so many things in this world that he didn’t yet understand. And now, never would.

Grimm seems to smile at this. Of usual, his answer answers nothing.

“Fire lives and dies, yet can be reborn in an instant. As long as any are willing to light the lantern within a darkening world, I will be there. To dance… for as long as I am able.”

“Hmph. I see,” Oro says, though he actually doesn’t. He looks from the fire and down into the stage, imagining Mato below with his nail drawn, waiting and waiting. “I suppose that is the discipline of living. Those who dance to survive, and those who do not. From kings and masters to mindless vermin. Everyone together in the arena of life.”

Are you ever afraid to die? Oro almost asks.

“That is the nature of nightmares,” Grimm answers. “Fear with nowhere to go but within. But within, perhaps… is where our true selves hide.”

Oro ponders this. Another moment, and Grimm raises his head.

“Your kin arrives,” he simply says. “And mine.” As he speaks, the shadows begin to grow bodies, masks with slitted eyes, staring and staring. Somehow, with Mato standing on the stage below, it is the least frightening thing in the room.

The stage is set, as it was and always has been. A familiar music takes shape in the air; Brumm must be nearby. Oro had never thanked him for his kindness to Howl. Too late, too late. And yet, his death arrives a lifetime too early.

Oro takes his place. When he looks back at the audience, Grimm is not among them. The scarlet fire of lanterns dance, and do not stop.

Across the room, Mato stares intensely at him, and Oro knows that his brother is carrying one thousand words on his tongue, bursting at the seams to be spoken. But now is not the time for words. It is the first time in an age he has laid eyes on his brother outside of a dream; fitting that it should end inside of a nightmare.

A sudden hush falls over the audience, anticipation written in their very hearts. This is what they were born for.

When Mato suddenly shouts, lunging at Oro with all of his strength and conviction, Oro does not move. He armors himself in regret, waiting for the redeeming edge of a nail to pierce his shell. For worthiness to spill out, and make a mess of the floor. Mato will make his death swift. If Mato is reliable for one thing, it is that he possessed the softest heart out of anyone.

Oro waits until the world itself ends. However, the blow of the nail never comes.

Suddenly, a weight like a barreling tram hits him full-force as Mato crashes into him. He takes Oro firmly into his arms and collapses them both onto the floor, shouting unintelligibly all the while.

Then, a sheer blow hits him square in the forehead as Mato rams his strong head against Oro’s in the way they did when they were children, stunning him even more than he already was. His brother is laughing, and his brother is weeping. It is very nearly the same thing.

The wind is howling—or perhaps it was just the audience. It takes a long moment for Oro to return Mato’s tight embrace. But once he does, he never quite lets go.

When the loveless wind blows, it does not speak to him. Another thousand of Oro’s dreams come and go, each of them as lightless as the last. And a thousand more.

✦ ✦ ✦

#If the giftee wants the file just lmk!#stagbells #stagbells 2023 #hollow knight #written works

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stagbells · 4 months

Text

For What Difference It Makes

From: @magn0lia-blossoms

To: @foxkairi

Written works below readmore

It was cold outside. During the stasis of Hallownest, the seasons refused to change, refused to decide which one of them would rule. Constantly temperate, never too hot or too cold. They had only learned this after they were freed, though. Within their containment, it was always too hot, too hot, too much. They were not within their containment, now.

It was cold.

They ached.

They didn't have the bones or muscles to do so, but it was happening all the same. Their joints hurt, their scars hurt. This cacophony of pain was attempting to swallow them whole.

They would endure. They always had. Though now they kept on for a different reason than blind devotion. Never again would they follow blindly. Now, they endured for those who cared. Their sister, their siblings.

Everything was still. Quiet. The small village of Dirtmouth was quaint. Nothing too exciting, nothing too much. Their sister had procured a house for them. It was one of the larger ones, for their stature demanded it, though they rarely spent time inside. They preferred to be outside, where there was no chance of confinement. No unwanted visitors bothered them, and their sister visited them every so often. She mostly kept to herself, as well. Rather, she was busy with those below. Not as much time for them. They didn't mind, if she'd given them her full attention they might've grown complacent, they might have begun craving it.

Just like they had with him. Their father.

Though they denied it for so long, he was their father. They craved his affection like any grub would. But they had grown, now. They didn’t need to become dependent. He was gone now, anyway. None of that mattered. It was time for them to have a new life, independent of anyone’s will but their own. Because they had a will. They always knew it. Denial had always been their specialty.

Not now, not now. They would not deny that they had thoughts and emotions and a will. Never again.

Currently, they were sitting on the roof of their house. It was colder up here than on the ground. They hurt worse up here than they would if they were inside. It was warm inside. Not hot, not too much. But… they liked it up here. A preference. The breeze on their shell felt nice, even though their joints and scars protested it.

Cold, cold, cold. How were they cold? They were made of a substance as cold as the vast reaches of the sky.

A star had burned within them. She had shown them true heat. Was that why they could feel the cold now? Whatever the reason, it was affecting them. They really should go inside. They didn’t move.

Though they didn’t need to sleep, they thought that they just might be able to, up here, in the cold. She was dead and gone, now, after all. They could sleep without fear. They wanted to.

A sharp pain in the stump where their arm used to be reminded them why they weren’t.

Clutching their shoulder, they brought their knees up to their chin. She had done damage irreversible. The stump was pitted as though by acid, and they had scars all over themself to match. The time they’d spent in confinement had allowed them to atrophy. They didn’t care for the way their scars and joints ached. It was preventing their sleep, their rest. The way the scars looked was also not preferable. They did not have much of an eye for aesthetics, but on a base level, the pits in their chitin were unnatural and an eyesore. There was not much to be done about it. There was no use worrying.

Their sister had gifted them several cloaks in the months after they were freed. Often those cloaks were used to hide the scars. Hide, hide, hide away. They did not enjoy bugs looking at them, enjoyed it even less when those bugs recognized them. When they were by themself, like now, they did not wear the cloaks. This was not out of a lack of gratitude. It was merely that they enjoyed feeling the air on their chitin, after so long in a place so stagnant. Stuffy. Suffocating. They did wear the cloaks when around others, if only to put out some semblance of public decency. They looked unnatural without a cloak. They were not a natural being. The clothing hides that, somewhat. The way bugs looked at them had made them uncomfortable ever since they emerged. Especially the bugs who knew what they were, what they were supposed to be.

It was increasingly obvious to those bugs that they were not what they were supposed to be. They had expected most to resent them for it, but the overwhelming emotion they got was that of pity.

They didn’t want to be pitied. Pity was for the weak. They were not weak, they had just been placed against an impossible task.

Well, they might be weak now. They were not as strong as all those years ago. Before the atrophy, before the scars. When they had first emerged, they had barely been able to walk. Now they could climb onto the roof of their house consistently.

Climb into the cold.

They ached.

It was a pulsating thing, the pain. Like waves. One wave would subside only for another to crash into them. Some were more severe than others. Some were almost manageable. It didn’t really matter. The pain would pass.

It would continue as long as they stayed up here, in the cold. Staying outside in general was a bad idea right now. The ache would only get worse. They wondered how long they’d been on the roof. When they’d climbed up, it had been early in the sleep cycle.

Time was an odd thing for them. Never having been sure when they were awake or not, time in confinement had stretched on and on. Even now, they lost track of time easily. A habit from days long gone. It was of no concern to them how long they spent up here, not really. It might be a concern for their sister. She had been urging them, recently, to rest. She had said that the cold often makes those with injuries, past or present, experience pain. They had dismissed her at the time due to the fact that they were not like other bugs. They should not have. The ache present throughout their body was proof of that.

Pain was something they used to be very, very familiar with. Months had passed, now, without that searing, burning, rotting pain. Had they grown too used to the comfort? Was that such a bad thing? There was no blinding light. There was no threat that they needed to concern themself with anymore. The only threat to them was this cold and the pain. They were still curled in on themself. It didn’t help shield them from the chill. They didn’t generate heat, so this was just as effective as sitting normally. There was no movement, regardless.

No movement. They didn’t need to move, so why would they? When they had been first released, they had been desperate to move. Somewhere, anywhere. It didn’t matter where. However, in those first weeks, their movement was limited. Their sister had installed rails around the house she had given them, to help them. They had not been able to communicate with her at that time, both because they

couldn’t write well and because whenever they had attempted to write, they had felt too much grief, too much shame, too much, too much.

Now, they could write fairly well. It still triggered a habitual jolt of shame whenever they needed to communicate, but it was more manageable now. Their handwriting was much neater. Their sister had spent many hours teaching them how to write.

So much has changed. They have changed, have learned, have grown. Everything was so much better.

The pain was getting worse.

But they didn’t want to move. They enjoyed thinking, enjoyed not having anything in their mind but themself. If they moved, they’d probably go inside. And they wanted to feel the breeze for a little while longer.

“Are you having fun?”

They nearly jumped out of their shell, reflexively reaching for a nail that was not there. With a breif panic, their head shot up to look at the bug who had disturbed them.

Oh, it was the being of Nightmare. Grimm. They hadn't seen him climb up. He laughed, a raspy sound, and sat next to them.

“Apologies, I didn’t mean to scare you, Hollow.”

Right, Hollow, the name that their sister had bestowed upon them that was derived from their incorrect title. The name that they couldn’t bring themself to change. The name that they introduced themself with and everyone knew them as, now. Hollow.

They nodded at Grimm. He was forgiven.

A vague warmth was emanating from him.

They ached.

It was now that they realized just how stiff they really were. They felt the ache in their arm especially, where it had moved so suddenly to grab a weapon that sat inside, by the door. The joints of their arm hurt, as did their hips and knees when they straightened them. It was as if the joints were scraping against the sockets with no cushion. Movement. Cold.

Warmth?

They looked at Grimm. He was looking out over the town, just like they had been. They should probably be more cautious around him, since he was a god of

Flame and Nightmares, both things that they didn't particularly enjoy. But he'd been in Dirtmouth for the entirety of the time they'd been here, and before. He had been kind to them, regarded them with no expectations of what they were supposed to be. He didn't harm them, and didn't seem to want to. Their sibling had summoned him, yet they left his Ritual unfinished. He had said that he wasn't upset with their sibling, but that the Heart would continue burning his body from the inside.

That was something they could relate to.

Burning, burning, too hot, too much. They knew the feeling well. The months freed did not make them forget the searing pain. Nothing would. They wondered how bad it was for Grimm. He didn't show outward signs of pain or scarring. He seemed to be enjoying the cold. Their sister had given them cold compresses when they had first emerged. It had felt nice at the time, cool packs of ice were a relief on their still-cooling self. Was it similar for Grimm? The cold was certainly not doing them any favors, but it might be good for him.

Had he wanted their company? Did he seek them out for that purpose? They weren’t making conversation, but neither was he. The two of them were just sitting on the roof of the house their sister had given them. Was that normal? He hadn’t done it before. Most of the time, they sought him out in his tent after receiving a letter of invitation from him. He did not summon them often, but when he did it was nothing important. Just to talk over tea that they couldn’t drink. They couldn’t talk, either, but he always had paper for them to write. He didn’t mind their silence, and they didn’t mind his talking. It was pleasant, comfortable.

They were not comfortable. The pain in their joints and scars was not going away. They really should go inside. But Grimm was enjoying the cold, and they couldn't just leave him here by himself.

The rational part of their mind said that he'd either follow them inside or just leave. He wouldn't be offended. He knew them well enough to know that they meant no harm. But… they enjoyed his company. His silence was thoughtful. It was only their body that was uncomfortable. They didn’t want to leave him.

He was looking at them. They realized that they were staring, and looked away. Grimm laughed.

“I don’t mind the staring. What were you thinking about?” He pulled a few papers and a pencil out from under his cape. He had come prepared. When was he

going to give them the ability to speak? Whenever it suited him? The tought irked them a bit, but neither had attempted to converse before this. They supposed it didn’t really matter. Taking the pencil and paper from him, they held the paper down with their knee as they wrote their answer to his question. It is cold.

“It certainly is. Winter is setting in. I’ve always enjoyed the sight of snow, though I doubt we’ll get any here in these caverns. Snow is an amazing thing, it dampens the sound where it falls, leading to silence unlike any other.” He gazed upwards. “It truly is beautiful. It sparkles when exposed to light, before melting away. I’ve always preferred winter. Fire isn’t much needed in the summer, after all.”

Warmth. He was flame, he was warm. He was burning. They were freezing. There was an obvious solution.

They lifted their arm, placing their hand on his shoulder. Grimm jolted. Afraid they’d startled him, they lifted their hand, only for his own to gently grab their wrist and guide it back to his shoulder.

“Do not worry, Hollow. You were just… colder than I expected.” And he was warmer than they expected. They could feel the heat through his cape. They wondered how much pain he must be in. Though he was a god, the body he inhabited was still mortal. They assumed that this was why he was dying. They were taller than Grimm by a head, and their hand was bigger than his shoulder. Surely there was a better place for their hand to be. They lifted it from his shoulder, and while he lightly tugged to get it put back, they continued pulling it away. Grimm reluctantly let go. They then placed their hand on his back, and it nearly covered the entirety of his torso. He sighed, leaning into it. He was in more pain than they realized.

Gently rubbing his back, they realized that their hand was not going to stay cold enough to provide relief for long. He was too warm. As a Vessel, they knew that they held the chill of the Void. Their extremities would not be able to generate the cold needed to cool Grimm down, but their torso might.

They removed their hand from Grimm’s back after it had warmed thoroughly enough to not provide relief. Grimm still protested. They were sure that it wasn’t from the sudden absence of cold, since their hand was warm enough now to match a normal bug’s. Was it from the loss of contact? They picked up the pencil that they’d set down and wrote their next message.

Would you like to sit in my lap?

His mouth parted the slightest bit, perhaps in surprise. Was it really that surprising? They held the solution to his problem, and he held the solution to theirs. Though their hand was warm, the rest of them was still incredibly cold and stiff.

“Would… that be alright? I wouldn’t want to overheat you.”

You would not. I need warmth now, anyway.

“Are you hurting as well? I know that scars often ache when the weather changes, especially when it’s cold…” They nodded. “We should get you inside, then. I knew you had been colder than usual. I could help you start a fire. Do you have blankets? I could retrieve some from–” He stopped when they shook their head. They enjoyed the breeze. They would not move when they could have both warmth and the breeze at the same time. Grimm sighed. “You’re stubborn.” You are free to refuse.

“No, no, you were kind enough to offer.” He leaned forward to begin climbing into their lap. Or, rather, climbing to sit between their legs. Their legs were long and lanky, so there wasn't much of a lap to sit on. This did not stop Grimm from reclining into them, sighing in relief. Now that he was against them, they could feel more acutely just how warm he was. Far too warm.

They crossed their arm over his chest, holding him, and sat their head between his horns. Grimm startled a little, but relaxed soon after. The two sat like that for a little while, the temperature between them beginning to reach something close to normal. Well, normal for a regular bug. It was warmer than they were used to, but pointedly not hot. It was comfortable.

“You know, this isn’t the first time a Ritual has failed.” Grimm started, and stopped just as abruptly, causing them to nudge his head with their chin to get him to continue. “You see, most bugs either complete our Ritual through defeating the Nightmare King or through Banishment. If the summoner agrees with what we stand for, they often complete the Ritual traditionally. If not, they choose to Banish us. There is always a member or two who is discontent with their life in the Troupe. Banishment is their way to escape peacefully. Though, Banishment is slightly more painful, because I am not asleep when I die. It also forces the Grimmchild to be raised within the Troupe, but it is a smoother transition when the summoner purposefully rejects us than when they simply… do nothing.

"Banishment is far less painful than this. When a summoner goes this route, it leaves the Child with the summoner, stuck in his third molt, unable to grow until the summoner gives him back to the Troupe or until I die. My death is slow, when the Ritual fails. The Nightmare Heart becomes too much for this body, as I have already given part of myself to the Child, and I burn. I appreciate what you have done for me tonight, but the pain will return. I do not have long left.”

They stared at the top of his head. He had, in the time that they’ve been free, been kind to them. He had been one of the few to not pity them. They enjoyed his company. Yet… all things came to an end eventually. That was the philosophy of the Troupe, and its Master was no exception. They knew that their sibling had not intentionally abandoned Grimm. Their sibling had ascended. They weren't sure if their sibling could complete the Ritual, in their state.

"Please don't think I resent them for their choice. They managed to save what was left of this kingdom, that's a feat that I couldn't have accomplished. Because of their actions, so many bugs will get a chance to live.” He stared at the roof below them. “Some may think me opposed to letting bugs live. I am not. More bugs alive, more kingdoms rise, more kingdoms fall. Everything will surrender to the flame eventually, and then that flame itself will go out as well. That’s when it’s your sibling’s turn. And yours, should you choose to surrender yourself to the Void. Though, this world would be losing such a beautiful mind.”

The statement caught them off-guard. Their mind. The mind they were not supposed to have, the mind that decided their defeat before they had even begun fighting, the mind that had others pitying them for their failure. He called such a mind beautiful. They huffed incredulously, then shifted their arm to hold him tighter. Grimm was not a bug that they wanted to let go.

They would have to, soon.

“You do not have to mourn my passing. I’d prefer it if you delighted in the time we got to spend together. Remember me, and let those memories stay in your mind for as long as you allow them to. I will not ask you to remember me forever.” They knew they would anyway.

“In a way, I’m glad that your sibling didn’t complete the Ritual. It allowed me to meet you, and though it wasn’t for long, you helped keep the pain at bay.” They got the impression that he wasn’t only talking about tonight, that all of the time they spent with him was somehow a relief. They reluctantly released their

hold on Grimm to pick up the paper and the pencil. Moving their hand in front of the both of them, they sat down the paper. Grimm held it in place so they could write.

You, as well.

“Me? Are you saying that I have eased your pain also?” They had thought that that was obvious, but they nodded into his horn. He stared at the paper, at their side of the conversation so far. “I am glad. I seem to have grown quite fond of you, Hollow.”

They pointed at their last message with their pencil. Grimm laughed softly. “I see. It’s a shame that such a thing has to end so soon. Feelings such as these are rare, something to be treasured.”

They struggled to put into words their exact feelings towards Grimm. He was kind, and thoughtful, and he had treated them like he would any other bug. They appreciated the days where his flame burned like a bonfire, bright and dramatic and full of energy, but they also enjoyed times like these, where his flame was more like a candle, soft and soothing. They wanted to have known him longer, but they knew that no amount of time would be nearly long enough. Their sister had once called him their friend. That word felt both fitting and so far from all they felt. He was their friend. But so was their sister, and that archivist, and the elderly bug in the square. He felt different, somehow.

Feelings were never something they excelled at. They didn’t need to put a name to it. Trying to do so was meaningless when Grimm was in their arm, burning ever so slowly. They very much treasured their feelings towards him. They treasured this moment, sitting on the roof, the air chilled but both of them warm. He moved, and they lifted their chin and loosened their grip to allow it. He turned himself so that he was facing them.

His eyes were dim. Not so much as to stop glowing, but they weren’t as bright as usual, hadn’t been since he arrived. He looked up at them. He was smiling. They ducked their head down to nudge his cheek, and he nudged back. They pulled him against them and leaned back, laying down. Grimm chuckled, scooting up to rest his chin on their upper chest. They rubbed his back. His hands found their face, and he stroked the shell under their eyes with his thumbs.

“You truly are remarkable.”

They leaned into one of his hands. So was he.

It was an easy silence. The two stayed there for the rest of the sleep cycle. At one point, Grimm had fallen asleep. They had felt it as his breaths evened, as he drifted off. They wanted to protect him. He didn’t need protecting. He was dying. There was nothing they could do to stop that. And yet, they didn’t feel helpless. They knew that he was fine with this outcome. He wasn’t resigned to his fate, he welcomed it with open arms.

They decided that they would not mourn him. They would do as he suggested. They would remember him fondly. They would delight in the time spent together. They would let these feelings remain, to remind them that such things existed. Perhaps they would find another that they could treasure their feelings for. They hoped that they would. Perhaps Grimm would be happy to hear that. They knew that he wouldn’t want them lingering on him for long. He would want them to continue living. They wanted to continue living.

They thought back to their first message of the night.

It is cold.

They were warm.

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