#golem!bing

“This is not addressed to anyone in particular.”

Blue turns the scroll around a few times, just to make sure he’s not missing a name on it. Nope, no address- he decides to pass it off to Yellow instead. The other golem seems more than eager to answer. 

“We don’t get sick! We don’t have organic bodies, so that takes care of that. We are a little more on the breakable side though.”

“Orange is on the more breakable side- some of us actually use our heads every once in a while,” Red huffs, rolling his eyes at the offending gasp Orange gives. 

“Sand sailing is fun!”

“Fun for you, not fun for us when we have to reattach your arm for the dozenth time!” 

Orange and Red start bickering. Yellow has a fond if not exasperated smile on his face before he gets back to the question. 

“Red’s kinda right, Orange is a bit more....reckless than the rest of us. As for the Host- he’s generally pretty healthy! We have to keep an eye on his hemophilia and his eyes, but other than that there’s little to worry about. He gets sick from time to time, and he can be pretty dramatic about it too, but it’s never been super bad.” 

Yellow looks around conspiratorily. He checks to make sure Blue is busy getting in between Red and Orange before whispering. 

The sickening crack of the crowbar breaking through the stained clay of Blue’s body silences the room. He can’t even scream anymore, eyes staring blankly up at the ceiling as the sand flows out of his body from a new opening, leaving him a broken shell. The Host roars, the sound shaking the very fabric of reality and filling every nook and cranny within the chamber. It bounces back against the walls, reverberating, filled with agony and rage and frustration. Distantly he can hear the rattle of the Host’s chains as he tries to claw himself free, struggling fruitlessly to get to Blue. Yellow sobs to the side, the clink of glass tears continually falling from his face lost in the background. He can’t hear Orange, or Green, but Red is loud as he screams at their captors, his raging having turned to desperate angry begging.

“Stop! Please- not again, please, we weren’t made for this!”

The crowbar comes back down again, this time breaking through Blue’s arm, completely dislocating it. The sand that would cushion his heart begins to seep away, and the fire in Blue’s carefully spun glass eyes begins to dim. He can feel his connection to his body severing, falling away with every little grain that spills to the floor. Every word comes slow, swampy, like he’s hearing it under water and from a farther distance. The Host’s thrashing becomes more frantic, the low buzz of the voices in the background pitching as they work on corralling the Sphinx.

“No! Please- don’t, not again, please, please. Hit me, hit me, don’t- no!”

{I’m sorry darlin, yeah it’s rough. The Author had a bad but fitting end considering all the horrible things he did. Fluffy Sphinxy is the perfect remedy!}

Once the sound of rushing water reached the Host’s ears, he was bounding forward, galloping full sprint towards the river. He felt Blue tighten his grip on the Host’s mane, cursing lowly, but the sound was drowned out by Orange’s surprised scream. The moment the Host felt the ground change to sand under his paws he was leaping, wings opening to give him the extra lift he needed to clear the banks and plunge into the water. Blue hunkered down, skillfully using the Hosts fluttering feathers for cover, but Orange was not so experienced. He sputtered and coughed, whining when he saw the state of his clothes.

“Hoooooost!”

“I told you he was going to do this,” Blue muttered, shifting between the Host’s shoulders as the Sphinx folded his paws under him and laid down, relishing the cool water that soothed the burn of the hot desert sun. He purred loudly, the rumbling making his entire body shake and the Golems on his back with it.

“So, uh, how do we-”

“We don’t,” Blue cut him off, pushing to stand up on the Host’s back when the Sphinx finally settled down. He moved up past the Host’s shoulders to the back of his neck and made himself comfortable in the Host’s mane, laying down with his hands behind his head and ankles crossed.

Orange opened his mouth to speak again, but Blue simply closed his eyes with the air of definitive end to the action. The new Golem looked helplessly over his shoulder back at the river bank, where the others had finally caught up and were making themselves comfortable among the shallows and the reeds. The gap wasn’t too large, and if he got enough of a running start-

“Orange,” the Host grumbled, lifting his head and twitching his ear “no.”

“But-”

“No.”

Blue’s stomping footsteps were retreating in the background, followed by the quiet skittering of the other golems following their older brother. The Host’s Sight showed him them looking back at him and the cold body on the table, still unmoving after all of this time of waiting. They were hesitant to leave, just in case something happened, but Blue was already up the stairs and out the door by the time they hurried on after him, equally as disappointed. The Host tilted his head to the side, ears flickering as he heard the clay creations get farther and farther away, the loud thud of the doors to the workshop closing echoing through the large space.

He sat for a moment, quiet and attentive, waiting, but the body did not move. The Host stepped closer, looming over the clay figure that his creations had been slaving over for months. His Sight showed him the stained orange clay of the creature’s body, the soft mop of black hair on its head, the runes carved up and down its arms and torso and legs, as completely covered as if they were faint tattoos. If he lowered his head a little and strained his hearing, the Host could detect the soft beating of the golem’s stolen heart and the crackling of the fire from its Bennu feather. Yet still it remained, rigid as an old corpse, glass eyes closed and sand settled.

"The Golem is scared of his own existence,” The Host began, his deep narrative rumble causing the very air to tremble. Reality shifted under his words, his silver tongue heavy in his mouth as he spoke.

“He is petrified. But he does not have to be. He is born anew, as the Host was. He is unsure, as the Host was. He has Blue, as the Host has him. He will live, and he will find his existence is beautiful."

"Whoah....that's so, like, poetic."

The Host couldn’t help the smile that split his face as he listened to the golem’s first words.

Less the way he was made and the materials he was made of. The Author made Blue using only the best materials he could get his paws on, but he followed the instructions to the letter. When Blue made the other Golems, he deviated a little, but still made sure to get very high-quality materials to make them out of. The others are slightly less quality than Blue, but have freedom that Blue doesn’t. 

Bing was created according to the instructions, but with incredibly poor materials. After they brought Bing home, Blue had to essentially scrap his entire body and build a new one for him to fix the problems. Bing was Blue’s pet project for quite a while. He is also of less quality than Blue, and he’s a little...different, because of where they got his heart, but he also has that freedom. 

“The Host Sees- he Sees….he-he-”

Blue gently rested his hand on the Host’s muzzle, rubbing the bridge of his nose placatingly as the Host’s face scrunched up, eyebrows furrowed. He continued to mumble under his breath, repeating his own name and the statement of his sight over and over again, caught in a loop. His heavy head swayed from side to side, a continuous rocking that was beginning to make Orange dizzy.

“Shhhh,” Blue whispered, sweeping his hand over the Host’s face to unnecessarily wipe his tangled mane away. The Sphinx murred, turning his head into Blue, managing to keep his body still for a moment before the rocking and muttering started up again. Yellow pushed further into the Host’s mane on his other side, nearly disappearing into the thick black strands. Red came back with Green then, carrying a large dish of water between them. They put it down before the Host’s twitching paws, hovering anxiously a step back as they waited. The Host, however, didn’t seem at all aware of their offering. He didn’t seem at all aware of anything anymore.

“The Host Sees….the Host- the Host- he Sees, he Sees-Sees….he Sees…”

“Easy,” Blue hushed, resting his forehead against the Host’s temple, continuing to pet him in the hopes that something, anything he was doing would help. The Sphinx was working himself up with each word, ears swiveling back, the fur down his back standing on end, his claws extending.

“The Doctor is on his way. He will be here soon, Host, he will be here soon. Easy….”

“He Sees….he-he Sees, he Sees- the Host Sees-”

The Sphinx’s silver tongue felt heavy and dry in his mouth, laying wrong and useless against his too large teeth. He tried, he tried as best he could to speak, to tell his golems what it was his Sight was showing him, but the words just wouldn’t come. The apparition looked smugger every failed attempt, toothy grin getting wider and wider, tail swishing low in amusement. The Host never thought he’d see him again, never thought he’d see him in general outside of a reflection, or an old memory of one.

Tan mane, shorter, just transitioning from the lighter color to a darker brown, and then black. A lean body, smaller, pristine Plain wings, an unscarred face. Sparkling fangs, coming closer, stalking his prey, ready to come in for the kill, to write his ending.

Gleaming cold brown eyes, a modified quill tip attached like a ring to his paw.

The hearts to all of the other Golems were provided by Dr. Iplier! The instructions for Golems states that all hearts used in making a Golem need to be fresh, preferably still pumping when first introduced to the Bennu feather. The hearts that were ethically sourced from Iplier were preserved, but the Host Narrated them into being fresh and alive. From there it was just introducing the feathers and boom, you’ve got a Golem core! 

Think of the hearts like a blank template. When the feather is introduced, the template is filled and copied onto the feather, based half on what the previous owner of the heart was like and half on random intervention from the greater universe. From then on out you only need the feather when remaking the Golem- the heart is interchangeable because the template has already been imprinted upon the feather. 

I LIKE THIS CHALLENGE YES 

Whose backstory was the most fun to form? 

Oh boy, so all of them were fun to form, but I’m always partial to my Hosty boy XD. It was really nice getting to stretch my creative muscles and more or less build the Author’s backstory from the ground up, and how he got to the point where he turned into the Host. The shift in relationship dynamics between him and Blue during that change is incredibly fun to explore, and to see how far they’ve come in their odd friendship is especially pleasing to write. Connecting Bing to it all just made it all the much more complicated as sweet. Figuring Bing out with the Golems, where he came from, how he fits into the dynamic, where he stands with the Host, etc, was a challenge at the start, but ultimately a really fun exercise. 

Besides the Host, I’d say Dark and Wilford. Although I don’t have anything concrete for Wilford in terms of species, I do have his place in the world solidified, as well as the entire mess that was WKM worked out. Everything about Dark, from his muddled background and broken existence to his character design as a truly horrifying abomination of a dragon, has been really exciting to build.

Who haven’t you been able to figure out? 

Multiple characters, ugh. I work with my favorites first, or those that I already have a concept for. I have some ideas for Wilford, Jackie, and JJ, but Silver, King, the Jims, and Eric and Derek I’m completely lost on. I have an idea for Robbie, but I’m not even sure I know where to fit him into the storyline. I’ve got a LOT more brainstorming to do, to put it lightly. 

Who do you love the most aesthetically? 

 Besides the obvious answer of the Host, I love the vague mental image I have for Dark, the Golems, and, someone I haven’t talked about yet, Yandere! Fetch Anti is also deliciously disgusting~ 

Who would you punch in the face?