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Their trek from the hot spring to Lemm’s shop was a slow, somewhat arduous affair. Lemm had forbidden Quirrel from using his nail, and with Quirrel’s reluctant agreement, the pair settled to avoid any roaming husks they encountered. Lemm wasn’t going to let Quirrel strain himself when he was injured, no, not when the husks could be easily circumvented.
And surely enough, they made it.
Upon their less-than-triumphant return, they find the Knight sitting alone, in the dark, in Lemm’s shop. Apparently, all to return Quirrel’s cleaning cloth. If Lemm weren’t so preoccupied with his charge, he would kick them out right here and now. But for once, the Knight stays out of his way—as a matter of fact, they appear entirely unperturbed by the sorry state of their friend—making no move to rise. Lemm, for once, doesn’t complain, and leads Quirrel to his bed in the backroom. It’s the only bed Lemm possesses, but what’s he supposed to do? One can’t rightfully make an injured bug rest on the floor; and with each labored breath, it’s clear that rest is the first thing Quirrel needs.
So, despite the pain he must be in, once he gets into bed, Quirrel lapses into sleep within minutes. Not that Lemm has been counting.
Leaving the backroom door open, Lemm darts behind his counter and rummages for some of the cleanest cloths he owns. He isn’t rushed, oh no, he simply wants to make sure Quirrel’s wounds are well and thoroughly clean and dressed. Lemm is a patient bug who scarcely hurries or worries at all.
Lemm gathers up the cloths and dressings he’s managed to procure, gives the Knight a quick glare, and returns to his charge.
Quirrel’s still sleeping when he returns, because of course he is. Lemm had no reason to fret that in the brief minute or so he’d been in the front, Quirrel could’ve gotten up and… and impaled himself on a bedpost. But Quirrel is, for the most part, intact—worse for wear with a rasp to his breaths, but he breathes regularly, even peacefully, all the same.
Lemm shakes himself and picks over the balms he brought. He sets the most foul-smelling ones aside, the ones with inscriptions worn off that would likely do more harm than good. He selects one that smells fine, but it’s almost empty. Lemm dips his fingers into it and waits. Nothing happens—it’s safe, presumably.
Now for the harder part. If he went and jabbed his digits right into Quirrel’s wounds, it could cause more damage—or worse, wake him. And Lemm wants to deal with Quirrel’s stubborn question-dodging about as much as he wants to hug a husk.
He stares at the wounds. Perhaps he ought to just wrap them and leave them be...
Tap.
Lemm jolts and spins to find none other than the Knight at the entrance to his backroom, grubby little feet and all. He groans inwardly.
“What is it you want? I’m rather busy at the moment.”
The Knight, to their credit, doesn’t flinch. They point to Quirrel. Wyrm have mercy; Lemm doesn’t have the patience to play charades.
“Him? Went—” Lemm catches himself, although he’s not sure what he would have said. “Hmph. Had an accident. Happens to even the best of you travelers, I’m sure. But don’t go telling him I said that; he doesn’t need to get any more half-cocked ideas in that crazy head of his.”
The Knight points to Quirrel again.
Lemm glances at him, then back to the Knight, and makes an educated guess at what they’re trying to say. “He’ll be fine. And don’t go bothering him when he wakes up; he needs rest. That means no gallivanting off with him to wyrm-knows-where until he’s healed.”
As if not hearing a word he just uttered, they hop up onto the bed and sit beside Quirrel, gray cloak almost brushing his shell. Against the Knight, who always seems to be in perfect health, Quirrel’s ragged half-mask and shell create a sharp contrast. The picture alone almost shakes Lemm’s confidence that he will be all right. Almost.
And the Knight draws their nail.
Lemm does not panic. He does not attempt to shove the Knight off the bed—unceremoniously rousing its occupant in the process. He does not bark what the hell do they think they’re doing, and in his periphery, Quirrel, bleary and confused, tries to get up and—
The Knight, now on the floor, lowers their nail and affixes it to their back. They stare at him, and so does Quirrel.
No, Lemm has not made a scene of any sort.
Quirrel stands on the other side of the bed, every small movement taut. The Knight shifts, and only then does he notice their hand is leaking a black substance.
Lemm lets out a breath, then points to the rectangle of blue light that is the door. “Out. Now.”
The Knight straightens. Quirrel straightens, too, doing a poor job of hiding a wince. “Lemm, they aren’t causing any harm—”
“They pulled their nail on you!” Something boils over in Lemm’s chest. “They’re causing nothing but harm, so get back in the bed and stop defending them!”
Quirrel studies Lemm for a beat. He seems to make up his mind about something, then, as if he’d been practicing, slips back into the bed and stares at the ceiling.
Lemm inwardly curses himself. He faces the Knight again, who remains in the same spot as before.
“Out with you,” he says with the usual level of gruff, and tries to shoo them away. “What did I say about him needing rest?”
The Knight, in reply, bares their leaking hand. Despite their impudent display, Lemm can’t help but wonder at it. Never in all his years has he seen a bug bleed black before—and never has he thought he’d see the Knight bleed, of all bugs—but here they are.
“Put that away, it’s…” Lemm fishes to find a word to match what he’s feeling. Disgusting? Unsettling? Unnatural, even? “… dirty.”
The Knight, well-versed in ignoring him, seems to clench their whole form. Lemm stares. Then, a soft white light concentrates around the site of the injury—and the wound is gone, just like that.
“How incredible,” Quirrel marvels. Lemm turns to find him upright and leaning as close as he can get. “I’ve only ever heard tales of bugs who could focus soul—yet one has been before me all along and I never knew.”
“Focus soul?” Lemm repeats, brow furrowed, altercation forgotten.
But Quirrel waves a hand before Lemm can question further. Later, he hopes the gesture says.
Lemm begrudgingly bites his tongue.
“To what do we owe this display?” Quirrel asks the Knight.
Insistently, they point to him.
“Ah,” says Quirrel, “are you offering to heal me?”
The Knight nods.
How is it, Lemm wonders, that Quirrel has some sort of sixth sense to communicate with them?
“That’s quite generous of you, but I believe your resources will be of more use elsewhere.”
The Knight hops onto the bed again. This time, Lemm doesn’t protest. “Let them try, Quirrel.”
Quirrel’s attention snaps to him, surprise in every movement. “Why the sudden change of heart?”
“You want to get better, don’t you? And besides, with you in here, where will I sleep? I can’t just go and curl up on the filthy ground like you undoubtedly do on your ridiculous adventures.”
Quirrel has the audacity to laugh.
Lemm glares. Quirrel’s laughter spoils into coughing, which looks painful and sounds even worse. Something sinks in Lemm’s chest, but he says nothing. The Knight wraps their little hand around one of Quirrel’s spindly fingers.
“If you insist,” Quirrel rasps once the fit releases him.
The Knight begins to glow with that white aura again. Lemm is mesmerized. Just when he thought he’d learned more about this strange wanderer, they go and spring something like this on him. What an ability it must be.
The glow brightens and consumes his view before fading away, and the room feels dimmer. Lemm looks over Quirrel’s shell with the same care he’d give to an arcane egg, meticulous in every move. But even so, he finds no discernible change.
“So much for that,” he grumbles into his beard.
The Knight shrugs.
Quirrel huffs, though perhaps more to himself than either of them. Somehow, predictably, he says, “I’ve sustained worse.” After that terribly vague statement, he addresses the Knight. “Though, you have my gratitude for your efforts.”
The Knight nods. The room lapses into silence. There’s certainly nothing to say, no questions fighting to escape Lemm’s lips. He sets about fixing up the dressings instead. With a bit of prodding (and an impressive lack of wincing on Quirrel’s part), Lemm dutifully applies salves to the worst of Quirrel’s wounds.
Lemm leans in to better see one that has a bit of—is that glass?—lodged inside. He must have made quite the expression, because Quirrel chuckles.
“Find something interesting, Relic Seeker?” Quirrel’s tone is light but tight. “Though I can’t imagine my adequate torso compares to the relics of your shelves.”
Lemm grunts, remembering the vase incident. He joked that he’d rather Quirrel’s shell broken than that vase, but now here he was at the butt of it—the vase intact in his storefront and Quirrel’s carapace cracked before him.
It’s a good deal less amusing at this end.
It takes some doing, but Lemm finally gets Quirrel’s wounds cleaned and tightly wrapped in fresh bandages. Something about pressure, although Lemm is unsure if it will make much difference now.
He ties off the last bandage under his charge’s watchful eye, and now there’s one less distraction keeping Lemm from his questions. Instead, he orders Quirrel to not get up from this bed, and makes him swear upon it in several ways, just to be sure. It’s not like Lemm expects disaster to strike when his back is turned, no, not in the slightest. And certainly not like how it had at the Archives.
After he’s satisfied that Quirrel will stay put, Lemm (almost literally) kicks the Knight out of his backroom and finds himself in his kitchen. As much as he’d love to shoo the Pesky Knight out of his shop entirely and pick at the arcane egg that’s languished in his absence, proper relic-keeping isn’t done on an empty stomach. He’s sure that Quirrel is hungry, too.
The Nuisance Knight hops onto the counter, getting their grimy little feet where Lemm was about to put food. “Stop that! My counter isn’t for you to stomp on!”
But the stove pot Lemm just put on burbles impatiently, and he’s forced to attend to it. Typical, typical. It seems there’s no end to the favoritism this rotten universe takes upon the Knight, sparing them from Lemm’s wrath.
He grumbles to himself to make his feelings clear, sprinkling seasonings into the pot. A few deliberate stirs, a few chunks of meat, and soon, he’s got a proper stew made. A sample from the ladle proves the broth tastes as good as it smells, and he can’t help but preen. Even though it’s only stew, he’s far more competent than Quirrel in this regard. If you ask Lemm, he’d say he’s quite sure that the hapless bug would find a way to burn water.
Lemm only remembers the Knight’s pesky, persistent presence when he reaches for a pair of bowls and bumps into their horns. Only now do they see fit to heed his earlier order and remove themselves from the countertop. They plunk next to the armchair that they seem to think is reserved for Quirrel and start shuffling their charms about.
“Fine,” he huffs and shakes his head, “but stay there. Nicely out of my way. Or better yet, run off to the hot spring and take a bath.” He decides to not kick them out (for now). It isn’t as though they’re harming any of his relics, after all, and that’s where he draws the line.
The Knight doesn’t rise from their spot, and he deems it safe to refocus on the stew. Lemm grabs the bowls he meant to get earlier—nothing fancy, made of clay that sits heavy in his hands, good for holding heat—and splits the stew between them.
Yet when he finds himself once again at Quirrel’s bedside, a bowl in each hand, he realizes he forgot spoons.
And Quirrel, the damnable light sleeper, rolls over to peer up at Lemm.
“Food.” He extends a bowl. “It’s still hot.”
Surely smelling it by now, Quirrel perks up and takes the bowl into his lap. Then he frowns. (Lemm supposes his usual insufferable propriety doesn’t hold up well in the face of injury, exhaustion, and the general malaise that comes with having just woken up.)
He looks back up to Lemm, the reflection of his half-mask rippling in the stew. “Do you often take your food without means to eat it?”
Ah, there’s the sharp-edged propriety.
“Are you accusing me of not owning any spoons?” Lemm shoots back. He’s definitely not embarrassed to have forgotten something so obvious. He knows that Quirrel knows he owns spoons—they’ve cooked together countless times, for gods’ sakes. Quirrel has used them.
But Quirrel, to Lemm’s surprise and utter bewilderment, starts laughing.
In the face of this sudden, bizarre fit, Lemm does the sensible thing. He rescues the bowl from Quirrel’s hands before he can spill it all over himself and Lemm’s bedsheets.
Quirrel wheezes for air, fingers digging into his sides.
“Okay,” says Lemm, “I’ll get you your spoon if you swear to never do that again.” And he prays to the dead gods that Quirrel wasn’t laughing at him, especially after going through the trouble of cooking up the stew. Regardless, he thinks, even rid of infection, this one’s mad.
Lemm’s almost out the door when Quirrel speaks, leftover mirth coloring his tone. “Trying to haggle over simple cutlery, now?”
Lemm turns. Quirrel’s upright in the bed, eyes gleaming.
“Yes; final offer!”
Quirrel covers his mouth with a hand and crosses his heart with another.
Lemm goes to get him a spoon. He actually gets them both spoons, and then sits himself down on the tattered couch across the room with his own bowl close to his chest. It’s rather hearty, full of herbs and seasoned meat.
“To compensate my behavior and your excellent cooking—” Quirrel swirls his spoon as Lemm grips his tighter, “—it’s only fair that I offer you an explanation.”
Lemm slurps the broth to hide his interest, careful to not let any bits of stew get stuck in his beard.
With animated gestures for someone confined to bed, Quirrel spins a short tale of how he and a woman named Monomon—the “Teacher” of the Archives, he elaborates—conspired to create ways to intimidate any bugs they deemed deserving. Monomon’s (fictitious) Spoon was one such method they employed perhaps a few too many times, for it became something of a ghost story among her students.
“It sounds like the two of you were quite close,” Lemm probes. He can’t help himself.
Quirrel, for all the fuss he made about spoons or the lack thereof, takes a sip straight from the bowl. “We had a…” he studies his stew, “unique relationship. It was her chamber I visited at the Archives.”
A bad taste fills Lemm’s mouth. That day. The day that really hadn’t been all too long ago, and he suspected its memory would sit preserved in the shelves of his mind like the relics he keeps. Stamped there is the image of Quirrel, gaze hollow with shock, clutching his nail for dear life as if he’d just fought off a horde. With gouges and a concoction of acid, blood, and residual infection streaking his shell, he could’ve sent a creature of the waterways running. But Lemm had been frozen while Quirrel stumbled out of that chamber. Only when Quirrel collapsed had Lemm hurled a barrage of poised, non-frantic, not even slightly frazzled questions his way—but it’d been like talking to a wall.
Of course, he isn’t stupid; he knows what must have transpired. Had almost transpired. But now, he lowers his bowl and drums up enough courage to ask why. (Because Lemm doesn’t trust luck to work in his favor if there’s ever a third time.)
Lemm wonders if Quirrel heard him, but then Quirrel takes a slow breath as if collecting his words. Settling dues. Has Lemm been unwittingly chewing on his foot this entire time? Is he about to experience that brittle, so-mild-it’s-cold politeness meaning he’s gone too far?
“I am ancient,” Quirrel begins. Lemm unclenches his jaw and hands. “And as all things do if they’re around long enough, I’d outlived my use.”
“Yes, yes.” Lemm waves him on, making no comment on his use of past tense, “and we established that there’s nothing wrong with being useless. So, stop whatever nonsense you’re about to spew about stag beetles and their fragile legs—no more metaphors! No parables! I won’t be having it!”
Quirrel politely stirs his stew—(Lemm has never thought such an action exists, yet the bug before him pulls it off)—and Lemm has the sudden feeling he’s crossed a line.
Tonelessly, he says, “I answered the Madam’s every call, until now.”
The words hang heavy in the air and Lemm’s not about to wait for them to drop. “Why not?”
The way Quirrel looks at him in that moment, by god and wyrm, makes Lemm want to leave. He wants to stand up and go attack another arcane egg because it, unlike people, could be peeled back layer by layer without giving a damn.
Quirrel fidgets with the sheets. This must be something, then, as Quirrel is hardly the fidgety sort. “This time…” he pauses, picking over his words as one would walk through broken glass. “...it wasn’t her. At first, I was convinced it was—never mind the fact that she has passed from this life. But...” he gazes into the stew in his lap.
Wonderful. Just the insight Lemm needs—the kind that explains nothing and leaves him even more lost. What is he supposed to say to that? What is he even supposed to think?
Well, he certainly thinks that Quirrel’s got a nasty habit of leaving terribly vague statements unelaborated.
But Lemm is spared from coming up with a reply, because the Knight selects that moment to re-enter his backroom. In any other circumstance, he would have told them to scram. But their timing, usually awful, is actually helpful.
Not that he’d ever admit that aloud.
Lemm holds in a relieved huff as the Knight crosses the room to once again hop up beside Quirrel. They rummage about their cloak with the now-familiar air of silent stoicism, then pull out a small object. Offered in a tiny black palm is a nugget of… nectar? Yes, although hardened, that must be what it is, for Lemm’s never seen anything else of the same texture or amber color, gleaming in the half-light.
Without explanation, they clip it to Quirrel’s chest, right above his heart.
“A charm?” he asks, craning to get a better look. With nimble fingers, he tries to unclip it, but the Knight pushes the charm back to his chest insistently. Quirrel lets his hand drop.
Lemm approaches to see it himself, and it is indeed a chip of hardened nectar, one refined into neat angles. Curious, that.
At once, amber rivulets trace the scratches, the gouges, the burns that mar Quirrel’s carapace. They’re subtle, easily missed by a bug without an eye for detail. But to Lemm—who doesn’t wear the title Relic Seeker for show—they are stark, mesmerizing, another wonder of this vast world that he’ll never be able to explain.
Quirrel looks just as enthralled as Lemm—gazing at a gash on his forearm as it glows.
“Truly marvelous,” breathes Quirrel.
The Knight sits back with an air of satisfaction about them.
“What is it doing?” Lemm asks, not without suspicion.
The Knight taps their hand, right where the cut used to be.
“It’s healing,” Quirrel supplies. Softening, he turns to the Knight. “Thank you, my friend.”
They nod, once.
The room falls into silence far too quickly if you ask Lemm. “Well,” he says just to break it, turning to the Knight, “aren’t you full of surprises. I’ll take that charm off your mitts for…” he thinks on it. “600 geo.”
Quirrel makes a scandalized noise. “Have you no shame?”
Lemm’s beard twitches. “I’m not paying you enough to warrant smart remarks.”
“You don’t pay me.”
“Exactly!”
The Knight shakes their head and points at the charm on Quirrel’s shell.
“You want me to keep it?” Quirrel asks, surprised.
Firmly, the Knight nods.
“Why, thank you,” he says, and pats it.
“Hmph. Well aren’t you just a paragon of generosity,” huffs Lemm.
The Knight crosses their little arms, then turns and leaves.
Quirrel gives a long-suffering sigh.
“Don’t look at me. It’s impossible to hold any kind of conversation with them in the room—you know that.”
Quirrel sighs again, softer this time. Lemm is quickly reminded of what said conversation entailed before the Knight intruded. And he doesn’t want to learn what lies at the end of that avenue… at least, not from Quirrel. As if the damnable bug would give him a straight answer.
Before he fully realizes what he’s doing, he’s spun on his heel and followed after the Knight, mumbling some half-shaped excuse about not wanting them to pilfer his hard-won geo. And Quirrel, surprisingly, doesn’t protest his abrupt departure.
Now in his storefront, Lemm is left to the rain. For all his complaining about the wet, he doesn’t give much mind to the pattering against his window. If he were more poetically-inclined, he may have likened the endless drumming to a metronome, setting the tempo of his world. It is the familiarity of the rhythm that drives him, that measures the beats of his steady, slow life.
The staccato rhythm remains the same—but now there’s more than just Lemm and the rain.
And he’s not sure what to do from here, with company. A mysterious, troublemaking, sometimes-helpful wanderer hovering about, and an even more mysterious bug confined to his bed. A bug who shares a love of history, a bug quick with his nail and quicker with words, a bug Lemm gets on with.
Ha, he never thought he’d live to see that day.
Lemm frowns, a new thought emerging.
A bug who tried to die.
His fingers drum out the same rhythm on the countertop. Ratatatatata.
The Knight glances over at him.
“Do you know why he did—hm, why he sought death?” Lemm ventures in low tones. No use in mincing words.
He pretends the Knight looks pensive. Their expressionless form certainly stills, but beyond that, he can’t hope to discern their thoughts.
They stare at him, and he fights off a small shiver. Those voids hold untold answers, and not, perhaps, due to necessity. Perhaps, Knight has simply no means to share them.
They shrug.
Well. Not the answer he’s been hoping for, but the answer he expects. And perhaps he’s simply asking the wrong question. He wonders “why” when Quirrel had thought “why not.”
Lemm huffs. Better he receives no answer and Quirrel lies in his bed—battered and bruised but breathing. Better that Quirrel did not find an answer at the bottom of the Blue Lake, mingling with the stones for eternity.