Spectacle to behold, I’m in control

Very few candles illuminated the stone church through the fading twilight. What was left remained dull, blankets by a rather rosy blue hour winning through windows and cracked doors.

Every soul – human and chimeric, variable forms of tangibility – had long since filtered out. Down to the city alleys and streets, where the celebration would be continued.

Though if Warner was being exceptionally critical, he knew most of them would be drunk within the hour. And it wasn’t every soul that had wandered down, even if none of the lesser being members of the clergy or sisterhood remained within the halls of the chapel.

No. Standing in what was likely a bid to be alone, the priest still stayed, reordering scrolls somehow older than he into the locking cabinets where they were kept. Safe from sunlight and humidity, as to not tarnish traditions as old as they were beloved by those he preached to, on nights shorter than this.

“Isn’t is principals, then powers?” Warner pried, staring blankly at the very obvious mistake even his heathenish eyes could spot.

“Not on holy night, when the orders come to witness,” sighed Malo, brows slowly furrowing.

The longer the chimera lingered, the more that diligent and calm professionalism began to erode.

Initially, it had been in claws curling into the lectern. Now it was those same claws starting to dig slight grooves in the wood of the curio where the holy items were stored as the priest’s brows continued to turn.

Until finally, and with no verbal prompting (even if the chimera did shuffle significantly closer to continue hovering in as annoying of a manner as he could), the priest sighed. Pressing his eyes shut as hard as they could go and rubbing his face, before finally turning to look the chimera head on with the same level of scrutiny he normally only reserved for a barely amusing yet deeply misbehaving cat.

“Can I help you?” demanded the reaper, finally showing fangs behind some of his words. “Or are you just going to spend the next two hours breathing down my neck?”

“What, so you’re allowed to stalk me through my hunting trip, but I can’t stalk you through yours? How is that fair?” snarked the chimera, voice low. “Besides, it’s not like you can see with half that shit covering your face.”

“Well, maybe if that scarified bastard hadn’t shown-”

Warner grabbed either side of Malo’s face, and the reaper went silent and still. The salve, though admittedly difficult to spot on his skin, was still there. It mostly just looked like an odd place of irritated skin if one didn’t know. Some kind of allergy, or the tail end of an infection, trailing across his cheekbone and following just under his eye.

It took a moment, as often as it did, for the reaper’s neck and jaw to release from being touched on the face. Brow finally coming down to something less scrutinizing, but still holding that mild to moderately suspicious twinge to it.

“It’s not infected,” the chimera observed.

“It is not,” flatly stated the reaper.

“Your eye is still a little inflamed, though.”

“It probably will be. It doesn’t overlap much with the older scar, but apparently it’s enough.”

“Can you still see fine?”

“Yes, Warner, I can see fine-”

His eyes rolled with that. Which was enough of a guise for the chimera to hold his face a bit tighter and to kiss between those eyes, before claws grabbed his collar and pulled him down for something a bit more proper.

“Kindly,” whispered the reaper, even if his expression held no aggression, “get the fuck out of my church now. I won’t take nor give anything else in this public place.”

“You’re awake,” Malo observed.

“And you’re not properly creeping,” replied Shiloh. “Which means you have something you need help with.”

The reaper hummed Truthful as it was, he’d at least hoped they would be tired enough to not immediately make a grabbing gesture as they turned the lamp up. Quietly, the cassock was handed over, and not so quietly, the weaver snorted.

“So do I get to know what you got caught in, or is this going to be yet another mystery-”

“It was a shrub.”

“Oh, you lost a fight to a blackberry bush? Neat.”

As taunting as the words were, the spider still opened up one of the seams to get their hand between the inner and outer piece of fabric. Inspecting the damage to the side and sleeve of the cassock with mild bemusement clear on their face.

Degloved as he was, Malo settled closer to the shadows, watching as the separated fabrics were independently held to candle light, then flipped so the glyphs sewn into them could be inspected. Shiloh made little sound at what was revealed. Even less, was nothing much of an external reaction, outside of their hands reaching to open one of the drawers as the article was turned back properly.

The pigment used was cheap, by Weaver standards. Malo knew this. Malo knew it quite well because, twice, he’d gotten an earful in three different languages about how he was ruining perfectly good linens whenever he got whichever dyes the church had been using at the time.

He also knew Shiloh was full of shit; it lasted as long as it was supposed to, they just refused to let any of their pack be dressed in anything they didn't approve of.

“Anything of note?” pried the reaper, after a moment of careful cutting and sewing of matching fixes.

“Your blackberry bush had an awful lot of gravel in it,” stated the spider, and he twitched. “Yet nothing major was damaged. Rank and all is still in place. It’ll need a good wash and an air dry, but it’ll be fine.“

Malo waited for the scissors to be set back in the drawer before stalking a bit out of the shadows, watching as the needle worked quickly between three hands to close off the final tear. There would be no evidence, ultimately, once the remnant mud and dirt was scrubbed out.

“So, why are you awake?”

“Why were you near the cliffs?”

“Hmm.”

“Hmmmm.”

He knew that look. As much as Shiloh, undoubtedly, knew that he knew and was reading his tenfold as the cassock was neatly folded and set on the table.

“Were you chasing something or did you just slip?” the seer asked, nosy.

“Slipped,” was the honest answer. “Most of the outcroppings were still wet from the rains last week, and the river was well above the flood zone.”

“Ya land in it?”

“Thankfully not.”

“Rude.”

“Excuse me?”

They wrinkled their face at him briefly, before they changed the subject to: “I made those biscuits you like. The ones with a lot of butter - they’re in the blue pot. Not sure if we have much jam, but we do have honey.”

Malo studied their face for a moment. Nothing was betrayed by it, as per usual. No sooner did their expression shift back to neutrality did they become mildly illegible to the outside world. Sighing, the reaper picked up the cloth, pausing to bend down to kiss their temple. Then again.

Though, several doors and most of the windows had been opened in hopes of getting lingering dust and scents out. Anything still wet would be dry soon enough, Warner supposed, blinking his sight back to full focus before glancing a bit more directly above him. It… certainly was not a hammock. Not a web, but not not a web, either, though. That was probably the kind of thing that would get teeth in his face if he tried to question what it was.

It was definitely the kind of thing too far off the ground for him to reach to investigate.

Gold glinted in his peripheral, dragging his attention to the Weaver that was scooting a bit forward on the couch, two pairs of claws still raking through and dividing his hair.

“Do I get to know what you’re doing to me today?” he asked, winkling his nose at them.

“I dunno yet,” answered Shiloh, wrinkling their face right back.

Boney as the normally ghastly pale wretch was, more and more he found that he could tolerate this. Half of him said it had something to do with gaining weight. The other half, mildly more grounded by the things Malo had said, argued it was due to less stress.

Which probably meant it was both.

Not that it mattered. Every few drags, their wrist flicked just a smudge, and another bead of silk was pulled from their glands to be tangled in his mane. A braid. They were aiming for some kind of braid. He knew enough about the way this went to be certain of that. But the pattern the silk would show up, silvery white against his darker hair? That would be a surprise.

Sometimes completely abstract. Sometimes so geometric it was like a fine tuned kaleidoscope. Sometimes floral, halfway between. Once he spotted an entire moon in sun in there, somehow. Granted, it took four hours, and he was twitching to do anything other than stare blankly ahead, but it had been interesting.

“We’re supposed to pick up most of your kitchen tomorrow,” Shiloh stated. “You know where the super fancy, super old candy store is in the hive?”

“The one by the glassblower school?” he guessed.

“Yeah, that one. It’s the level directly above that, about half the size of the school.”

Warner squinted. He was… mostly certain he knew how to get there.

“Will we be carrying it back?” was the next immediate question, “Because old man won’t come with to the Hive, and I don’t think the two of us can manage it alone.”

“They’re meeting us and then following us here.”

“Ah. Safety precaution?”

“Pretty much.”

Pangloss did as he was told. Flames quietly following the changed direction of his limbs in diligent obedience. His hands were cupped closer together than he would’ve thought Malo wanted. Admittedly, he had no idea why the reaper was doing this. Eons of wisdom behind him and he, in the moment, was struggling to find any sort of logic to why this was the decision for what to do with the day.

If the reaper knew of the hesitance, he didn’t show any sign of it. Claws curling away naturally as the (surprisingly) wiggly infant was lifted from the midst of the blanket. Human infants, Pangloss knew from word of mouth, were brittle. Many infants were.

This one… did not seem to understand or yield to that, as the strange mound of limbs and fluff was raised whining and hissing from his hiding spot.

The matter of names, when it came to predatory mimics, was a fickle one. One to be known by kin. And however many others it took for them to survive. This was something his spider had said more than once; it was often something that shifted and shambled with their shape, throughout the years.

Raksa. A quiet phrase. Catastrophic storm was the closest translation the old god was aware of.

Witnessing the hellbent spits and kicks the babe was offering his father in an attempt to get back to the comfortable dark, Pangloss had a sneaking suspicion the child would grow to fill that omen, and then more.

The movement that followed, once Malo had a proper hold of the infant, was simple. Hands cupping the back and legs and tail, then just as quickly dropping said spine just into Pangloss’ palms, where he quickly closed his fingers around him. For a moment, that was it. The infant remained mostly immobile, save for a rapidly flicking tail strumming up against the god’s hand as his storm green eyes upon his sire. Said god kept his gaze fixated on the child, while the child’s father kept his own unwavering attention on the god.

“He is-” Pangloss started

Those green eyes turned silver as the babe snorted, before suddenly taking interest in the glow of the hands that held him. Then, with the same curiosity that mimicked the expression of the older reaper across from him, turned and followed the glow until his gaze reached the face of the star.

It wasn’t easy to gauge what Raksa was thinking. Lesser so, for someone born bound to the shadows and unable to take a different face like his kin was so known for.

Until finally, undoubtedly bored of waiting for either of their adults to make a move, the infant came to his conclusion. Wiggling until he could get a clawed hold on the star’s hands, quietly chirping. Pangloss pulled Raksa closer to try to keep the infant from falling, though it didn’t seem like he needed much help.

Those same claws, barely enough to be felt in the connections between his fingers, managed to snag one of his wrists, as the infant leaned forward to reach and try to grab at his face. Yet it wasn’t claws that made contact with the mantle of his cheek as he leaned forward a little, so much as it was an entire open palm that then grabbed at his whiskers.

That movement was what made the star remember he could, in fact, move, as he carefully turned his head to the side, readjusting his hold and moving Raksa a little away again, much to the young reaper’s pitiful whines.

“He’s small,” Pangloss quietly concluded after several moment, still watching as the babe then began to swat at the rising flames off his wrists and hands. “Were… all of them, this small?”

“Only those who were mothered by dreamwalkers,” Malo answered, achingly pushing himself to a stand. “Even then, Viridian was much, much smaller than Raksa, and exceptionally sick. Both of them combined at this age would still be smaller than the others.”

A tale was buried in those words. One that didn’t need to be said to be caught

Such an image was difficult to image. Not just in comparative size: with the child in his hands now eagerly trying to chew on his claw, it was very difficult to imagine anything so young being smaller. But in truth, with Viridian being the size and strength it had grown to be? To think that he too was not just smaller, but somehow near mortally ill?

Slowly, carefully, Pangloss rubbed the back of his thumb over the child’s cheek, earning a new series of quiet trills.

Hands steered the star’s face as Malo kissed his cheek, before rubbing their cheeks together.

There was, however, a third option. One that was only really obvious to the weaver slowly wrapping parts of his arms, half folded in front of him on the bench, and his abdomen in silk to let it dry

One that came with a rather sweet but undoubtedly very sleepy section of song, as Shiloh cradled his face and rubbed just under his eye. All too eager, Pangloss leaned into their hand, posture straightening as he quietly stretched a little, before opening his eyes to blink at them. His expression – open and affectionate – also betrayed him, with the time between blinks.

“You’re sleepy,” accused Shiloh, as his face more or less fell fully into their palm.

“Hmph, only a little,” the star answered, not resisting in the slightest as his entire body followed their quiet pull to get him to lay down a bit more on the bench.

“You only hum specific notes when you’re either dead asleep or want to be.”

“Oh, do I?”

A yawn split his face for a moment. No sooner did it start, did his mouth close again, and mantle smooth back over into that flawless continuation. His eyes wrinkled at them in the way that implied he was smiling.

“And what sounds was I making just now?”

“Nothing too significant. Only the ones the often preface you quite literally dragging me to bed.”

Another hum. Something that, if he had been any notion of any more awake, would have been his suspicious/skeptic sound. But with how exhaustion was weighing him down, it came off as more of a continuation of those sleepy notes that had been interrupted.

The silk, reasonably with his temperature, only needed a few minutes to dry. Even as those eyes stubbornly stayed open to track their path from the floor to upright to properly setting up the bed for sleep purposes.

Several of which undoubtedly started with the sudden phantom sensation of claws along the underside of their wings. Caused by his actual claws gingerly fretting with the veil, barely twitching on the table.

Of course, when that didn’t get their attention immediately as they put gentle weight on the ever growing mound of pillows, pushing many of the older ones as flat as possible, metal on metal chitters as he tried to more directly command a response without translating.

Caveat being, he wouldn’t get up. Not while there was two and a half spools of silk drying on him. Not while he was already so very tired, and while he could very easily lift himself to the bed from his half slumped half seated position.

“Do you think it’ll snow tonight?” Shiloh asked quietly.

“I hope so,” Pangloss answered quickly. “The house as a whole sleeps better with the winds. And it’ll give you all the more reason to not wake up early.”

A truth. A mildly rude one, considering the flow state they had been in, but a truth nonetheless.

Turning back to him and kneeling, with the same careful claws that wound the ropes, the silk was removed from around him. First his arms, then, with the assistance of his shifting weight, his torso. Then, no sooner was the silk laid flat on the bench he had been propped on, did his arm wrap around their middle, scooping them up in a solid motion.

His face pressed firmly into theirs. As close to a kiss as they were going to get with him being this tired, before he delicately set them down, curling his mass and heat around them.