#multiversal shenanigans

So Mosca is introduced to the multiverse, and let's just say they don't take the change gracefully. They're not as scared of magic as Ash was (or is), but they don't like it and they don't trust it, and they are suddenly surrounded by it. They had also spent the last six months without seeing another living person, and the change to suddenly being with a party at all times is jarring to say the least. By their second day they're curled up outside a tavern having a panic attack. And the one who ends up sitting with them is Ash. See, Ash understands what it's like to struggle with the transition and sees a lot of himself in Mosca. It's cathartic for him to have someone else who doesn't trust magic, and he has a lot of empathy for them.

Mosca, on the other hand, does not trust him in the slightest. Ash is Big and Strong and Very Clearly A Threat. This is unfortunately and accidentally only amplified by an interaction maybe two days into knowing each other? After another fight in which Mosca is triggered to hell and back by the smell of gunpowder (backstory thing), they end up screaming at Ash to fuck off when he attempts to help. Ash actually takes this fine, but Mosca, once they calm down, is afraid they've made him hate them, which they need him not to do only because their patron is starting to make it clear that they're going to be stuck with these people for at least the foreseeable future. So Mosca goes to apologize. Ash waves the apology off, but in the process of trying to explain why an apology isn't necessary because he understands what they're going through, he ends up explaining what happens to mages in the cult that he was raised in. I'm... not going to explain here because it's... uncomfortable and a bit graphic, but suffice to say, Ash does explain. And Mosca, who previously had been hunted for having magic, takes this very, very badly. In their mind now Ash is a ticking time bomb, that will explode into violence the moment he figures out that they have magic (which they have been attempting to hide... poorly).

So this is where the one-sided enemies-to-friends comes in, because Mosca is convinced that there is a very real possibility of Ash killing them at some future date, while Ash could not be more chill. Mosca is in the corner plotting way to try and fight him if necessary while Ash is just like "neat, new companion, they seem like they might be cool". He is completely unaware that Mosca is terrified of him until...

Well, while traveling the party found a massive, and massively magical, skull, and some of the party decided to fuck around inside said skull and then came out with funky colored eyes and temporary magical bonuses and Mosca, well... kinda snapped.

"Grave of the gods, you're all insane! The only one here who has any sense is him" pointing to Ash, "and he-"

And there they very abruptly cut off, suddenly aware that you shouldn't accuse someone of plotting to kill you. Because either you are right, and they will, or you are wrong, and because of the accusation they then might.

"And he what?" Ash asks. Mosca makes no reply at all, just silence. The party eventually moves on. That night at camp Ash tries again.

"Do we have a problem?"

And Mosca, in one of the worst lies in their life, just says, "No."

Ash is, of course, not fooled by this, but understands there's no trying to talk to them about it now. He's patient. He can wait.

He doesn't have to wait long, because this is where the speedrun comes in. I can't remember the exact timeline, it might've been that night, it might've been a few days later, but not long after all that, Mosca has a dream. They've had a few interactions with the patron, but up to this point their patron hasn't been particularly direct, not since the making of the pact. They are, after all, dying. Their communications have been sparse to nonexistent. But Mosca gets a dream from their patron, where they end up in a cabin sitting across from them, as their patron explains that there are no more living people in their home world. The only thing left are the undead. That's why six months passed without Mosca seeing anyone else. There was no one else to see. Mosca's quest to save their world from the undead has unequivocally failed. And their patron does set them on the path to fixing thing, pointing them in the direction of, essentially, time travel. Reverse time to a point before the undead curse happened and then make sure it doesn't. But in the moment, Mosca can really only focus on the overwhelming weight of their failure and being the last survivor from their whole world.

After this dream they spend two hours alone on watch, stewing in all these feelings. And then the end of their watch comes, and they wake their replacement, who happens to be Ash. And they should just go back to bed, but. They can't. How in the world do you even begin to process something like that?

Well, for Mosca, they ended up spilling it to Ash, just to say it out loud to someone. It's disjointed and awkward and not at all the whole picture, but they tell him they can't go home. That they're the only one left. And he responds by telling them he can't go home either. The cult he grew up in would kill him on sight if they ever found him. And when Mosca explains that they never hated him but that they were scared of him, that they've been running for years from people who want them dead, Ash says that they're part of the group now, so he's going to protect them, and that their problems are the group's problems, and if those people show up, they'll take care of it. And Mosca, in the grip of grief and desperate for any comfort or reassurance, believes him. Maybe not fully, maybe not completely, not yet, but enough to understand that he's not a threat to them, and that he understands what it means for them to have lost their home and be surrounded by magic they're uncomfortable with. And they stand with him on watch for the next couple of hours, but they do so not wearing their mask. The symbol of their paranoia and lack of trust.