#tuncay

The night before the blasphemies descended, Tuncay dreamed of Marco. They sat together side by side in an underground cavern which Tuncay knew to be an imagining of the Undercity of Ala Mhigo, though he had not returned to Ala Mhigo since the days of Theodoric's rule and he had never set foot below the capital before his emigration for any reason.

"Do you think it's time?" Tuncay asked him in that dream. "To return home?"

"I think," Marco replied, his eyes shining amid the dark, "you should follow your heart, no matter where it leads you."

It had been the first he'd dreamed of his friend in a long while. There was no surer way for Tuncay to feel his age than to remember all the great loves and heartbreaks he'd known in all the years since Marco - and that Marco had now been gone for twenty-seven years, longer than he'd ever been alive.

The sky turned blood red only bells later, and any notion of what might have brought him peace or pleasure was stricken from his mind. He remembered only the vision of Marco, sitting and waiting in silence with his hand in Tuncay's.

"What's happening?" he asked his nephew Sunil. The young man was running to and fro to find a clean basket or bowl large enough to carry water, but of greater concerns were the shouts echoing in from the courtyard outside.

"Something's amiss in the bazaar," Sunil replied, already out of breath. "People aren't saying much. Whether they don't know what they've seen, or-"

Or if it was so horrible as to be beyond words. Even now he remembered the silence that had so often settled over the Ala Mhigan capital when the Corpse Brigade were out on their rounds. He wondered how much Zainab had ever told her son of those days, or if they were simply one more part of their life before Radz-at-Han of which his sister had refused to speak. "Let me help," said Tuncay.

Sunil shook his head firmly. "No, Uncle. It's madness out there, and with your knee-"

"I mean that if you should find anyone in need of medical attention, anyone at all, welcome them in. It will be the least we can do."

"I will," he promised, and rushed to the well outside.

Only then did Tuncay pull back the curtain and stare out upon a world forever changed.

In spite of the shame that filled him for it, his first thought was of fleeing immediately. Whether or not that was his heart's desire, or merely instict-

The door slammed shut when Sunil at last returned. Immediately he ladled some of the water into a glass for Tuncay. "Drink this," he said. "Slowly."

"Hm?"

"Uncle-" Sunil stared at him with some great intent he could not fully parse. "You're in shock."

¾ body, B&W sketch commission for @dead-twins featuring their Hollow Knight OC Plague, and Tuncay! (she’s their shared OC with their best friend)

Thank you so much for commissioning me to draw these cuties~ ^ ^

A gift art for @zeesqueere and faer oc, Emilio. Tuncay(left) showed Emi a pair of glasses that will allow him to see things previously hidden from mortal eyes and offered it to him so they could paint the town...literally.