#shadowcrawler!shubble

Chapter Two

Passing from the celestial plane into another realm felt terrifying at first. There was a sudden sense of heavier gravity and mortality that struck Sausage even though he glided with ease through the air. He had entered over a peninsula with a small structure near the water’s edge, the land quickly turning into steep hills after that. Sausage didn’t see any other buildings at first, but as he flew he saw a scattering of people walking along, some alone and a few in groups, making their way to somewhere. One or more of them were to be under his guardianship. Maybe even all of them.

He felt a little overwhelmed by the thought, so he focused instead on exploring.

He had spent so much time among the flat farmlands that the idea of a mountain home was very appealing. It would allow him a good view of everything around him and maybe even make it easier to spot when someone was in need of his help. He found an area he liked that had its own watery access point, then settled in to gather the tool and supplies he would need.

In no time at all he built up a small villa and started a garden. There were all sorts of flowers to plant and wildlife to befriend. As he released a few butterflies into his botany room he began to enjoy the prospects of this new life.

He soon found that the people were as varied as everything else. His immediate neighbor was an odd man named Oli, who emitted purple particles and could teleport at will. He had come excitedly babbling about something called The Orb. Sausage figured it was some type of deity figure. He listened politely since the man seemed harmless enough.

The conversation came to an end when Oli went to hide in a hole because it started raining. Sausage would have offered to shelter him under his wings to go to the house, but wasn’t sure how he would feel about close physical contact. Something about him seemed flighty in that regard, so Sausage excused himself to do some work.

He was also approached by a raccoon girl who not-at-all-suspiciously asked him to set aside trash for her to collect. He saw it as an opportunity to pass along some nice things he either found or made.

During one of his exploratory trips, he was joined by a somewhat humanoid mothling and they briefly bonded over their ability to fly. It made Sausage realize that he missed the company of other angels. He later brought the mothling a fancy lantern he had forged, as a gift.

He soon tried out other items as gifts, such as bottles of holy water to grant people luck, and pretty tools like spyglasses inlaid with amethyst. Overall, the people seemed receptive, and he figured he was doing a good job as the resident angel who lived on the mountain soon known as Heaven’s Reach.

There were mischievous folks about, though, like the man who could turn invisible and stole from him a few times, but it soon became a friendly game of catching him in the act and letting him get away with it, then having items he needed appear in his storage chests later. Soon he was trading and visiting others on a regular basis. There were times, however, when this reminded him of the absence of his dearest friend, and so he built a church in her honor. It seemed a more fitting place to talk at her if he wanted to share his travels or pray for his new friends to have successful harvests.

He even had a chance to ask for victory in battle when he abruptly found himself – along with a surprised group of said friends – dropped into a side dimension enslaved by a dragon. His gift of flight brought the others an advantage over the dragon and within no time the fight was won. When the dragon fell, a veil of darkness was lifted, and they all saw that there was great beauty spread across the floating islands that made up the dimension. Sausage, along with the mothling – who seemed extraordinarily brave to take on a dragon despite his size – set out together to explore since they could easily fly from one island to the next. They eventually separated, between the mothling being drawn to one light after another, and Sausage getting distracted by each new plant he saw. There were so many more exotic shapes and colors than in the regular world. He tried to collect a little of everything to study later.

~*~

That little adventure reminded him of Pearlescent’s tale of the Nether. He constructed the portal she had described, suspending it from a tree to separate it a little in case anything scary wandered out of it. Despite being eager to explore he was also hesitant. Aside from the dragon encounter, he hadn’t dealt with anything terribly dangerous, not counting the occasional zombie or skeletal archer, or those Creeper things that exploded when someone got too close. Pearlescent had spoken of residents who would attack if they didn’t see gold on one’s person, and giant ghosts who spat fireballs, as well as general risks of fire. He figured his jewelry would suffice for the former, and he told himself to keep mindful of anything that remotely looked like it threw fire. He brought a sword with him just in case: the Demon Slayer, powerful enough to deal with any monster.

As it turned out, quite a lot of creatures there threw fire. He quickly found that holy power had little effect on any of them, having to dodge a strange serpent right away after entering the portal. The place was different from what Pearlescent had described. It was definitely still hellish, but there were also spots that looked like they could contain forests, with fallen tree logs spotted with mushrooms offering shelter and beautiful, luminous vines hanging from the ceiling. Large glowing insects seemed to be about the only non-hostile wildlife, aside from the piglins who let him pass once their gazes landed on his armlets.

The worst, however, was when he was exploring a red-brick fortress and turned a corner to come face-to-face with a tall, smoky-black skeleton. There was a split-second where his startled eyes met empty eye sockets, then it lunged at him. The instant it touched him a wave of fatigue washed over him. He stumbled as he pulled away. His wings felt almost too heavy to lift but he tried to use one to shield himself anyway. The skeleton grabbed onto the wing’s edge. The fatigue and heaviness increased.

Although his grip felt weak, Sausage managed to draw Demon Slayer and struck at the skeleton’s arms, pulling his wing from its grasp. Both wings hung like dead weight behind him afterward, but with staggering steps and several clumsy strikes he eventually defeated the skeleton. Slumping against the wall to catch his breath, he stared down at the skull it left behind. He sheathed Demon Slayer and picked up the skull. Something about it made him shudder.

Thoroughly discouraged from further exploration, he retraced his steps and flew away from the fortress. He collected a couple more plants on his way out, but was grateful to emerge back into the sunlight of the overworld.

The encounter with such darkness continued to haunt him for a few days afterward. He stuck closer to the church when not tending crops or livestock, and took more time during nightfall to fend off monsters. The clatter of bones made him extra jumpy. He kept a quiver full of blessed arrows at hand to set the skeletons alight with holy fire, ensuring they’d be destroyed before they got anywhere close to him. He never wanted to feel those fleshless hands on his wings ever again.

It was during one of his defensive stints that the shadowcrawler, Shubble, arrived in Heaven’s Reach. Sausage called her over to the church, shooting at the monsters following at her heels. Once she was close, he quickly took down the lanterns, knowing the lights blinded her. He ushered her inside where they could talk in safety.

She was grateful for his consideration. She appreciated the gifts he had given her when they first met.

But she was unhappy.

She was resentful of the light of the world.

And she had come to give him a warning.

~*~

Sausage gingerly cradled the sealed crystal flask that glowed with otherworldly light, Shubble’s threat hanging over him. He didn’t know how a shadowcrawler could be able to take souls, but his angelic intuition told him that was indeed what he held in his hands. He couldn’t tell who or what it had belonged to, only that it had once been a life.

She had warned that she would take his soul, and he imagined that meant he would end up crammed into a similar container. He wondered if it would feel the same as the skeleton’s touch. He wondered just how much it hurt to have one’s soul ripped out.

He wondered how she could ever do such a thing.

Deeply troubled, Sausage considered the matter throughout the rest of the night. When dawn came, he carried the flask out to the cemetery and dug a grave for it. Maybe he could at least help lay the unfortunate one to rest.

He hoped he could find a way to change Shubble’s mind. There were so many wonders in the world that would no longer exist without light. He had to help her see that. The problem was she literally couldn’t see things as they were during the daytime. So many flowers closed their blossoms at night and the gentle animals preferred to sleep then, too. As he went about his daily chores, he racked his brain for ideas on what to show her, although he kept stopping to glance toward the cemetery and worry about the nameless soul.

Toward late afternoon he decided to go on a flight to attempt to clear his mind. The rush of wind was immediately refreshing, the distance between himself and the ground helping give a little comfort. He reveled in the feeling of air flowing over his feathers and he finally smiled, letting the scenery below distract him.  He soared over tall treetops, mostly green with some dots of red and purple. There were the lakes and rivers, the rolling plains, and of course the colorful assortment of settlements scattered around.

He was flying near to the mothling’s home when he noticed something new. Something dark and forbidding. The trees here were dead. He landed to take a closer look at the dark stone house with a red roof. As he tucked in his wings the sudden sense of something unholy nearby made his skin crawl.

A shadow moved in one of the windows, then the front door opened. The same feeling of dread that Shubble had instilled seized him as his gaze met blood red eyes. The pale man was fancily dressed and acted calm as he glided across the covered porch to greet the angel.

He said he was Scott, that he was formerly the mothling died and reborn as a vampire. Sausage thought it unsettling that the brave and helpful moth could become something so… different. Still a creature associated with the night, but now with malice in his eyes. Sausage found his heart ached for the little friend he had once flown with.

He started to excuse himself, offering a half-hearted comment about the house and the trees in the sunset. Scott made what seemed to be just an offhand remark about enjoying them more when he was dead, but Sausage froze, remembering Shubble’s threat. Was this another danger he had to fear? Without fully thinking it through, he took a vial of holy water from his robes and threw it as a warning of his own.

Scott hissed when it splashed him. It wasn’t enough to do lasting damage, but it was enough to make him angry. Sausage took off in a panicked flight with the vampire cursing after him.

The world looked different from above when one was flying off in terror. The tall trees were a hazard he almost crashed into, branches nearly catching at his robes. The large bodies of water mirrored the sky, confusing his sense of direction. The settlements, although warmly lit, were shut tight against the roaming hordes of undead.

At last, the light of Heaven’s Reach came into view. Sausage hit the ground running and went straight to the church, barely letting his wings clear the door before turning to shut it. Breathing rapidly, he backed out of the entryway and collapsed onto a bench. It now occurred to him that he might be in over his head. He looked up at the golden armor that stood in effigy of Pearlescent and clasped his hands, bowing his head to ask her for guidance or at least a word of reassurance.

A voice did ring out, loud and clear. And in a mocking singsong. “Oh, Sau-sage~”

The angel froze. A shadow swept past one of the windows and the lanterns appeared to gutter. He leapt up and glanced quickly from one window to the next. No. He should be safe here. He tried to convince his heart to stop pounding.

“Sau-sage~”

“G-Go away! Vampires can’t come into churches!”

The door opened and blood red eyes stared in at him. “Can’t I?”

“Y-You’re not invited! Go away!”

“But this isn’t your house, Sausage.” Scott boldly strode past the first row of benches. “Everyone is welcome, remember?”

“B-But…” Sausage’s mouth ran dry. It had never occurred to him that building a church didn’t automatically make it consecrated ground. He retreated behind the pulpit, keeping his gaze on Scott to be ready for any sudden moves. “I – I’m sorry about earlier, okay? I was a little scared. You see, Shubble—”

“Oh, I know all about Shubble’s plans. We already had a chat. As you can imagine, she and I have a lot in common.” Scott smiled, showing his fangs. “It’s really a matter of who gets to you first, Sausage.”

“Ah—u-uhm…” The angel cowered behind the pulpit for a moment before his eyes fell on the basket of the more strongly imbued holy water he had set aside for people resistant to regular water. He grabbed one and threw it overhead, then dashed for the door when he heard it smash. He didn’t look back to see how much of it hit home, but he did hear Scott hiss.

He tripped on the last step off the entryway but spread his wings before he could complete the fall. At the same time a reddish haze covered his vision. He took off anyway, hoping the gust from his wings would knock Scott back and discourage him. Sausage had entered into a steady glide off the mountain when suddenly the world twisted and he was suspended facing up at the sky, far more higher than he was prepared for. He tried to shift around and reposition his wings but he was plummeting too fast, the rush of wind preventing him from spreading them.  This couldn’t be happening. Flight was his gift, how could—

Landing on his back, he struck the ground hard. He felt bones bend then break. Agony shot through his shoulders. Groaning, he forced himself to roll onto his side, then he collapsed onto his stomach. He worked his shoulders, trying to get some kind of response from his wings. There was only more pain. Sausage pushed himself up on his elbows and started belly-crawling toward the church.

He heard footsteps crunch on the rocky dirt path. He didn’t look up, but it didn’t matter. Scott grabbed him by the shoulder and turned him over, sending a fresh wave of agony through him by shoving his back against the ground, crushing his wings further. He only managed a brief struggle to block Scott with his arms. The vampire was stronger, and just as easily forced Sausage’s head back to bite his neck.

He made one last effort to push away but Scott didn’t budge. Despair began to take hold. He had never thought things could end this way. Between his wings shattering and feeling like his very essence was being drained away… It seemed death had come for him. He rolled his eyes toward the light still coming from the church. Pearlescent…Please, if you can hear me… I’m sorry. Please… help me… The world turned cold.

Chapter Four

Sunrise found Shubble safely ensconced in the dark upstairs room behind shuttered and boarded up windows, a feature turned useful instead of discouraging. Sausage thought it best to let her stay through the day instead of attempting to travel back to her own home. He himself had a nap on a sleeping bag in a spare room downstairs.

He considered going to confront Scott about his wings then thought better of it. It might not serve any purpose – he doubted the vampire would have misgivings about it, and certainly wasn’t likely to apologize. He also doubted the wings would even work anymore.

During the afternoon he took some time to sit by a window and just look up at the sky, remembering what it was like to fly among the clouds and allowing himself time to accept that those days were over. He was still sitting there, now just absently gazing out at the courtyard with his head propped on one hand, when Shubble came down the stairs. She yawned to announce her presence. “I feel like that was the best sleep I’ve gotten in a while! Your house is really nice, I should have thought about building something like this instead of a greenhouse.” She laughed humorlessly. “It’s kind of silly, when all the plants keep dying anyway. I guess I’ve just blocked out too much of the sun for them, when really I was trying to give myself a way to see during the daytime.”

“I could try to help you fix it,” Sausage offered. “I mean, the plants will just die again if I get near them, but maybe after we change some things you could get new ones and they’ll be okay.”

“I suppose we could try. Okay, yeah, let’s go.”

“Oh, but wait a minute.” Sausage went to find the few surviving plants he had left and came back to present her with a small, tangled bramble vine. “It doesn’t look like much, but it used to have some pretty purple flowers. Maybe you can get them to come back.” He carefully placed it in a backpack and then they headed out.

With her vision being keener at night, Shubble watched their path for hostile mobs and Sausage dealt with any trouble by throwing a skull. Soon they fell into a rhythm and casually chatted in between explosions. When they reached her home, she kept a lookout while Sausage did the planning and building of a second, smaller greenhouse that had regular glass instead of the tinted glass of her original build, in the hopes that less heavily filtered sunlight would help. Then, together they set up new tables and prepared plant pots, and although as much as he wanted to, he had to leave it to her to collect new flowers later. She placed the bramble vine he had given her at the front.

With that finished, he helped her redecorate the inside of her house. In turn, it helped him feel a little like his old self. He talked about some things he had thought about building around his new manor even if a garden was off the plate. She said she would be happy to visit again to see it all when he was done.

Before he left for the night, he gave her a list of different plants he had found during his explorations and the best way to get to them for someone who couldn’t fly. She promised she would let him know when she got them and invited him to come back to look at them – if not from a distance – if she was able to get them to thrive in the new greenhouse, which she would tend during nighttime.

He gave her a smile and went on his way.

~*~

A few days passed. Sausage worked on his building projects, looking forward to having Shubble see them. One thought continued to plague him, however, and he would still end up looking toward Heaven’s Reach, aching to go to the church to talk to Pearlescent. Finally, out of frustration, he gathered an assortment of stones, a bucket of water, and an iron sword, then picked a patch of dirt behind the stables. There he laid out an approximation of a miniature crop field, with the stones as the walls and using the sword tip to draw lines where the crops would be planted. He made a small trench and poured the water into it, then pressed some cracked, unusable wheat seeds into the lines. Lastly, he stuck the sword into the ground in the very middle.

He sat back to look at his work and thought it to be rather pathetic. Maybe he should at least have gotten some sunflower seeds, but he couldn’t bear the thought of destroying one of them with his touch.  He clasped his hands, sighed, and bowed his head. He knew better than to expect an answer but he felt a small measure of peace from the gesture. It was better than staring with longing at the church he couldn’t enter.

Yet that peace was broken by a sudden feeling that something was terribly wrong. A vision of shadows and swaying trees came to him. He rushed to his feet and looked around. It felt like something had been there and now was gone. He couldn’t name it, but…he needed to check. Shadow and trees…

He needed to see Shubble.

Quick as he could he mounted one of the horses and rode off, crossing the plains and heading into the forest. An ever-growing sense of dread rose within him. The soul lanterns dotting the trees near Shubble’s home came into view. He urged the horse on faster until the roof of the greenhouse appeared. He leapt down and began searching—

He didn’t need to go far. Only a short way from the front door Shubble lay half-phased into the ground, a small, incongruous crater nearby. He knelt and tried to fool himself into holding out hope that she was merely unconscious, but a closer look told him it wasn’t so. He was able to push his hands into the dirt and get a hold on her, pulling her out despite her semi-solid state.

He obviously couldn’t see what her injuries were, but one thought made him feel along her neck for bite marks in case Scott had fancied himself a taste of shadow blood. He was relieved to not find any, and that left the question of the crater. He could only assume a Creeper had snuck up on her in the woefully underlit surroundings. He cradled her body in his arms, her head tucked under his chin. “I’m sorry, my friend,” he whispered softly.

He gently set her down, keeping an eye out in case she started sinking through again as he removed his cloak, planning to wrap her up so he could bring her to Heaven’s Reach and put her to rest in the cemetery where she could stay protected in the light. Yet before he laid the cloak on the ground, he realized something.

Maybe, like he and Scott, she would come back, too. There was no guarantee what she would come back as, so he quickly decided he would build a small crypt where she could safely rest until then. He worried, though. How long did the process take? She had to have been there long enough already, right? But then again, he himself could have been laying out there for an entire day without knowing, before he changed.

Sausage checked inside the new greenhouse and was disheartened to see that all of the new plants had already died, save for the one bramble vine. He made short work of converting the greenhouse into a covered crypt, replacing the glass with stone and dirt, partially camouflaging it against intruders but leaving the door accessible should Shubble awaken. He draped his cloak over the table he had cleared, then carried her inside, placing her upon it.

Reluctant to leave, he sat beside the table for a little while, wondering. If a moth became a vampire, and an angel became part wither, what would a shadowcrawler become? Was there a chance her misfortune would be reversed? Was there any way to influence it? There was no way to know for sure, but an idea made him go outside and start searching around the woods. Somewhere nearby there had to be…

He spotted a cluster of tiny white flowers with long, curved stems and picked one, then ran as fast as he could back to the improvised crypt. The flowers had already begun to wilt by the time he tucked the stem into Shubble’s hair, but at least he had made it before it completely died. He then withdrew to the door, giving her one last parting look. “Rest well. I hope to see you soon.”

 He had no way of predicting the circumstances under which they would meet again.

~*~

Sausage scrunched up his face as bright light made itself known. Was it morning? Had he been sleeping? The ground at his back felt like stone. A bird chirped nearby. He was outside—

The last thing he remembered was falling.

Well, falling again. The back of his head hurt a little and one of his legs ached, but otherwise he seemed okay. The sun felt rather warm.

The bird chirped again, and then it sounded like a voice. “Sausage!”

The sun felt warm.

“Hey, Sausage! Are you okay? Did you trip or something?”

He sat up then glanced at his hands. The haunting shadows under his skin did not appear. In fact, his skin looked less pale than it had been before. He turned his hands over and checks his arms. Aside from a bruise on his left elbow, he looked much healthier.

Another chirp came from the bird, sounding like it was right next to him. He looked down and saw a small humanoid with winged arms, blue feathers, and an oddly familiar face. He had never seen her features in color before but he found he recognized her amber eyes. “Shubble? Is that you?” A hopeful grin broke out on his face.

“Yep! I woke up like this! Isn’t it cool? I’m a cute little birb now.” She chirped again and then tilted her head. “You look a little different, too. Did you die again?”

“I think I…did,” he marveled, looking around at himself and holding out his arms. “I was building way up there and then – Yeah. Yeah, I fell.” He gazed up at the platform high overhead, squinting against the bright sunlight to pick out the shape of accidentally blasted glass and broken scaffolding. He looked back down at her then held out a hand. She hopped up to perch on his finger. “I think this is what happens to people in this world – we become something new any time we die.”

“It looks like it!” She sounded elated. “I never thought that when I got out of the shadow realms that I hadn’t returned to my old world, and it had just changed while I was gone. But it looks like I came out somewhere completely different, and-and I have a second chance!”

Sausage smiled. “You are kind of small now, but… you look happy.”

“And people can see my face now! I don’t mind being smol at all! I can fly around and the light doesn’t hurt to look at! What about you? What are you now?”

He flexed the fingers of his other hand, already knowing he wouldn’t be able to summon a wither skull. There was some other type of energy there, however, slightly buzzing as it waited to be used. He would work on figuring it out later. “I’m not sure yet. I feel a little like my old self – livelier, I guess, but still not an angel anymore.”

“I guess we can’t really go back to who we were before.”

“But like you said, second chances.” He smiled warmly and raised his hand, giving her a higher vantage point to take off from as she spread her wings in agreement.

~*~

The next time he saw Shubble, she was a cat, which was kind of a funny thing to follow a bird. By then he had gotten a handle on his new ability to affect gravity, and they talked about becoming superheroes to protect others in the world.

Then it so happened that he had another accident and woke up as an ant of all things. He had a good laugh about it and had fun crawling around in spaces he could never imagine getting into before, although reaching storage chests became quite the challenge. He built himself an anthill, because, well, why not? It didn’t last long but it added to his experience. From time to time he wondered if Pearlescent was looking in on him. With the trial of being part wither behind him, he knew he could get through whatever else fate threw at him. He hoped she was enjoying the adventure along with him.

[A/N: I decided to ask the question “What if wither!Sausage and shadowcrawler!Shubble weren’t evil, just Very Sad”? Vampire!Scott is still evil though. Living for that Villain Arc of his.]

Chapter Three

Sausage had not expected to wake up.

But he did.

Facedown on the cold ground, pebbles poking into his cheek, he struggled back to consciousness. Had he… had he passed out when he hit the ground? Had he only imagined the horror of a vampire feasting on his blood? It was still night. Had Scott played his little teleport trick to teach him a lesson, and then left?

Sausage managed to get his feet under him and woozily stood. He felt strangely off balance, as if his center of gravity had changed but he couldn’t tell why. He put a hand to his head to try to get things to stop spinning. His sense of everything felt off. At least there was no sign of the vampire.

By the goddess, his whole body felt so heavy.

He took a few, staggering steps, not sure where he should be going. A pull beckoned him toward the church yet at the same time he felt uneasy about going near it. His legs were weak. Maybe…Maybe some food would help him feel stronger, help clear his head.

He plodded over to his villa, but once inside he found nothing in the kitchen appealed to him. He was beginning to think that something wasn’t quite right. He wandered back outside and stared up at the stars for an indeterminate time, but there was no answer there as to why things felt strange.

Then, before he realized what he was doing, he had stumbled into the cemetery. He found himself clutching the shovel he had used earlier to bury the soul Shubble had left with him. He felt it calling to him, like siren song. He dug out the barely settled dirt then pried open the simple coffin. He picked up the crystal flask and cradled it in shaking hands.

A ravenous hunger stirred within him as he stared at it.

He – he couldn’t be thinking… Could he?

He cracked open the flask, spilling the soul out into his hand. It sat on his palm, going from a flame-like shape to a sphere as wisps of its energy were absorbed into his skin. He felt a bit more clarity come to his mind just from holding it.

But he was still so hungry.

His hand trembled as he raised it toward his mouth. He felt equal parts disgust with himself and eager anticipation of how it might help him feel better.

This was wrong.

But it tasted so good.

He was probably imagining that it burned on the way down, that what remained of its energy was trying to fight back. As it settled in his stomach the weakness in his limbs began to subside. Sausage sat back from the grave and sighed in relief. Maybe that would tide him over and he could get on with sorting himself out.

It was the dirt pile at his back that made him finally realize why he felt so unbalanced. Something was missing. Two somethings. He twitched his shoulders and tilted his head back, looking for a glimpse of feathers.

And then he screamed.

~*~

Sunlight streamed down over Heaven’s Reach but none of the warmth touched Sausage. He had donned a black hooded cloak to both mourn the loss of his wings and hide his shame at failing in his duty as an angel. No one who passed through to visit the church need know he was the one who once watched over the land.

It was taking some time to adjust to the continued heaviness of his own body. He reasoned that it was the lack of ethereal quality he’d had as an angel. There was something decidedly mortal to how he felt now, although not in entirety; the need to consume souls for sustenance for one thing, and a growing affinity with the undead for another. Living things had begun to show intolerance toward him. The animals shied away when he went near their enclosure. The handful of plants in his botany workspace were becoming progressively more wilted no matter what he tried, shriveled leaves and faded petals encircling the pots every time he checked on them.

He wondered if it was divine punishment for failing to stop the evil in the world. He couldn’t bring himself to go into the church to pray to Pearlescent to ask, although he couldn’t tell if it was by choice or if the church itself repelled him.

He knew he could no longer stay in Heaven’s Reach. There was a low plateau across the river that might do, and perhaps – he dared hope – if he could be redeemed, he could return, and so he should remain nearby.

His new home had a fitting dark color scheme and, of course, the existing trees died during the process of him passing by them so frequently as he built. The grass became barren patches, and only the most stubborn of gnarled plants kept root. He boarded up the windows to add to the unfriendly atmosphere and let spiderwebs run rampant. If the sun wasn’t going to warm him then he might as well block it out. The final result looked sufficiently bleak, and that’s what he decided to call it. Bleak-brick Manor.

It was later on that he found out he had new abilities. He was fruitlessly sweeping the path outside the manor – just trying to keep busy – when he heard a drawn-out hiss behind him. Instinctively he lashed out with one hand to block whatever was incoming. There was a flash as a smoky black skull materialized in his hand and launched toward the approaching Creeper. The projectile exploded, knocking the creature back. It hissed again and continued to come at him. Sausage threw his hand toward it again, and another skull fired off. This time the explosion took out the Creeper completely. Sausage looked down at his hand and saw gray shadows skittering under his skin. He thought about conjuring a skull and one appeared, hovering just above his palm.

As he gazed at the empty eye sockets, his mind went back to his encounter in the Nether with the tall, weakness-inducing skeleton. Had it somehow infected him, and that’s why he was like this now? With the way everything else around him was dying, had he caused his own wings to wilt and fall off? Mortified, he dropped the skull and fled inside. The skull dematerialized before it could hit the ground.

Sausage leaned against the wall, trying not to continue picturing those dark eye sockets. What would Pearlescent think if she saw him like this? Sad, disappointed, angry? Was that why the sunlight was so cold? Was she rejecting him from nearing her church? He sank down along the wall until he hit the floor. How could he make things up to her if he couldn’t even talk to her?

He picked himself up and turned to the door. Sitting around thinking about it wasn’t going to get him anywhere. He needed a distraction. He went back outside, keeping watch for other monsters, and went up to the storage building to pick out some supplies. At least losing himself in structural design still gave him a bit of peace, and he could continue to avoid everyone else in the meantime.

Yet as it turned out someone came seeking him anyway. He was just about done choosing a block palette when a tentative voice called out, “H-Hello? Hellooo?”

Sausage froze. Shubble.

He put away the granite he had been gathering and cautiously went to the door. Surely she had no use for his soul now that it was corrupted. He opened the door just enough to peer out with one eye, answering with his own questioning, “Hello?”

“Oh, good, you are home. I had something to ask. You being all holy and everything, do you think you could perform an exorcism?”

“On what?” he asked, stalling for time as his mind started to race. “Your house? Someone else’s house?”

“Not on a what. On a who. Can I come in?”

“You can’t!” he blurted in a panic. “I mean, I can’t. I…can’t do that stuff anymore. I’m…” He pushed the door open further. “…Not so holy these days.”

Shubble gasped. “Wow, you sure are different! I thought I picked up on a dark aura when I first got here!” Realizing how he might take that, she hastily stammered, “Oh, um, I’m - I’m sorry this happened. To you. How did it happen? How are you…this?”

“Are you saying you can tell what I am?”

“Well, I…” Now it was her turn to hesitate. Given that her face was as indistinct as the rest of her, he couldn’t tell what she was thinking, but her head moved as she briefly looked around. “Let’s talk inside, okay?”

Sausage cast a glanced over his shoulder at the brightly lit room behind him. He didn’t want to take down the lantern, as that would mean spending even more time there later to replace them. “Not here. Let’s go down to my new place. There will be… less light coming through.”

Shubble nodded and let him lead the way out and down the switchback stone staircase to the river, where they crossed the bridge and trudged into the slightly less welcoming land below the mountain. The firelight from the braziers wasn’t much easier on her eyes than the plethora of lanterns, but the interior of Bleak-brick Manor was comfortably dark with only a single soul lantern hanging in the foyer.

Sausage pulled back the hood of his cloak after closing the door. “So, how do you know? Maybe you can help me if you can tell me more about it.”

“I’m not sure how I can help, it’s just that I spent so much time in the shadow realms that I now have kind of a sense for when something like me is around. You’re obviously not the same as me, but you are definitely something made of darkness now.” She regarded him thoughtfully for a moment. “Maybe if you tell me what happened I could help more? Did you find a cursed item, or go through a weird portal-?”

“Scott happened,” Sausage replied succinctly. “And then I woke up like this.”

“Scott-??”

“Yes. In fact, he said it was a matter of who got me first, you or him.” He attempted to keep the resentment out of his voice.

Shubble’s mouth snapped shut. A tense moment passed, then she mumbled, “I didn’t think he would actually go through with it.” Her shoulders slumped. “Sausage, I’m sorry. I was really worked up when I made that threat, and he was the only other person who could understand what I’ve been going through, since, you know, vampires prefer the night, too. I haven’t seen him since, though, so I had no idea he did this to you.”

“I don’t think he had anything to do with how I came back,” he said, a little brusque. “Don’t vampires just create another vampire? That’s…not what I am.” He lifted a hand palm-upward and conjured a black skull. Her shocked gasp made him immediately clench his fist down around it, dematerializing it in a rush of smoke.

“A wither,” she said quietly. Then, more excitedly, “You’re part wither! That’s a great power to have!”

“I don’t find it to be that way.” He tried to be stoic, wanting to see what other insight she might have, but his eyes began to water. “Shubble, I…I kill everything I touch. The animals won’t come anywhere near me. I can’t… I can’t help people like this!” He threw his arms wide to indicate his entire self.

“Oh. Oh, Sausage…”

“I wanted to help you, too! I wanted to help you see the good about the light, maybe find a way you could live with it, and maybe you could be happier! I wish I had been able to do it sooner, then maybe none of this would have happened! I was scared of that whole soul business, and then I ran into Scott and he spooked me even more, I thought he was threatening me right there so I threw holy water at him and then I ran away, and maybe I provoked the whole thing so maybe I deserved—”

“Sausage!” Shubble reached out toward one of his expressively waving hands to distract him. “We can’t really control our fates. I could just as easily say I should never have gone exploring in the shadow realms, then I wouldn’t be like this at all. You had a bad run-in with a vampire. Both are terrible things to have happened. But this is how we live now. We are alive. It’s just not the same definition as before.” She wasn’t sure if the words would comfort him, but she hoped it would stop him from crying.

What actually happened was he stopped to stare at her hand. Then she stared at it, too.

She wasn’t going right through him.

Of course, her next reaction was to let go, and his was to flail backward away from her. Their eyes met and they each had a revelation. Shubble put a smile in her voice. “I haven’t been able to touch anyone in a long time.”

Sausage gave pause, then held one hand out toward her again. “You didn’t get hurt touching me.”

She clasped his hand without hesitation, saying softly, “See? The dark side of things isn’t all bad, after all.”

“I never thought you were.”

“Thanks, but I’m talking about you, silly.” She withdrew her hand. “We need to work on you seeing the advantage to this. I can teleport through shadows. You’ve got to have some other cool wither attributes. They can fly, you know, so you’d have no problem mastering…that…”  The sudden distraught look on his face made her trail off. “Sausage?”

Wordlessly he reached up to undo the green-jeweled clasp of his cloak and let it drop to the floor, taking a breath before turning his back toward her. She gasped again. “Sausage! Y-Your wings! I thought you were just hiding them under there, like maybe they had turned gray or something!”

“No. They’re just gone,” he said plaintively. He glanced over his shoulder at her. “I can’t really tell – could you take a look, see if there’s, I don’t know, anything left?”

Shubble stepped closer and peered through the slits in his robes that had previously allowed his wings out. “I don’t really see anything from here, but if you can and are okay with it, maybe take off your, uh, shirt?”

Sausage loosened his robes and shrugged them off his shoulders, letting them fall to his elbows and exposing his upper back. Shubble uttered a sympathetic noise. Not a feather remained. “There’s – there’s marks. I think cuts. They look… precise. They’ve healed.”

“Cuts?” There was a frown in his voice. “So someone did this to me.”

“I guess it’s obvious who,” she replied darkly. Scott had gone way too far.

“They-they were broken. He somehow teleported me into the sky and I couldn’t straighten out in time and I fell… I thought I might have, I guess, withered them the rest of the way off, but…” He lowered his head. “He took them.”

Shubble lightly rubbed his back between the scars. He seemed to lean into the contact, clearly in need of some kind of comfort there. “I’m sorry.”  She paused when she saw the flicker of a shadow spread out from the spot. She moved her hand away for a second. She didn’t think it was her doing.  She gingerly touched his back again, holding her hand still this time. Another shadow rippled forth. She was reminded of the effect given off by soul sand when it was walked upon. She decided to keep the thought to herself.

Sausage stepped away to pull his robes back up, then retrieved the cloak. His face was unreadable but she couldn’t blame him for being upset. Even if he had changed, those wings had been an integral part of him. She looked down at her own hands and wondered what she had looked like before she became all shadow, what she might have lost.

Noticing her contemplation, Sausage asked, “Do you… want to talk about what happened to you?” He couldn’t see what her expression was but he felt like she could use a friend right then as much as he did. He beckoned for her to follow, then led her through the manor to a small seating area with a window that looked out onto the courtyard. It would also serve to keep track of time so they would know when day was approaching.

He only had his angelic worldview as a perspective, and although she couldn’t remember everything about what had happened, her tale of the unyielding darkness and labyrinthine trails through the shadow realms broadened his understanding. Obviously, this world alone was different from Pearlescent’s realm, and even the side dimensions had character to them. This place of shadows, however, sounded like one big expanse of nothingness, and that was dreadful to think about.

“I don’t remember why I even went in. Maybe it had to do with a treasure or something fantastic like that. Maybe I was looking for someone. Maybe I was tricked. I just know I was there for a very long time.”

“What do you think you were before? It must have taken some power to even open a portal to somewhere like that.”

“I don’t know. I mean, if I was tricked, someone else might have opened the way. Maybe I was just human.” A thought occurred to her. She gave a dry chuckle. “Hm. Maybe I might have been an angel, too, and got called there, and things just didn’t work out. We’ll never know.”

“We could if we figured out what god you might have served.” His eyes brightened for a moment, then just as quickly became crestfallen. “Well, I was going to say we could try asking Pearlescent if she could pass along a message, but I don’t think she can actually hear me here.”

“That’s all right. It was an idea, at least. Something to think about – and maybe just coming up with ideas might jog my memory.”

Sausage gazed down at the table, hesitating, then he ventured, “Can I ask… what did you want with that exorcism earlier?”

“Oh, yeah, that. I wanted you to perform one on me! You know, try to drive out all those thoughts about destroying the lands of light and anyone who loved the sun. But I think I’m okay now. I don’t feel so alone anymore.” She reached out to take his hand and pressed his palm to her cheek so he could feel her smile.

Sausage smiled in return, if not a little sadly. He had been able to help her, after all.