Chapter Text
Two months. Had it really been two months since he’d come home?
skekTah sighed, looking out the window at the stormy sky. Somehow it still looked foreign to him. Everything did—the halls, the rooms, even his tunnels seemed so strange now. He kept looking for sigils and insignias on the walls that weren’t there. Sometimes he even rounded a corner into that particular hall and searched for a locked door to a room that didn’t exist.
To a Skeksis that did not exist here.
He sighed again. He couldn’t focus. He’d barely been able to since coming home. Worst of all, everyone seemed to notice it.
And nobody was confronting him about it.
It had been so abrupt, the discovery of that minor conjunction back in that world. They’d had minutes to get there. The four of them had fought so hard for it…
He barely even got to say goodbye.
skekTah slammed the cover of his notepad shut, probably harder than necessary. He rose, pacing his room again. He had left marks there from his constant pacing, endless circles on a floor that had never faced such stress and anxiety before.
When he’d come home, tumbling through the crystal, he’d been alone in the chamber. The court had filed in for the morning sun ritual, only to discover their missing Schemer splayed on the floor. He had been gone for over half a year and suddenly returned without warning.
His alliance was overjoyed. The court was perplexed. The Emperor wanted answers. But nobody demanded anything of him. Maybe it was how dazed and confused he’d been. Or maybe they somehow knew that he could not give them the answers they’d want.
skekTek checked him over, discovering the damage to his back brace and carapace. The scars on his arm from the Spiniferus lerouge plant. His injured foot from a trek beneath the castle. Various other wounds and damage that the Scientist received no explanation for.
skekTah did not speak of his experience over those months. Where he’d gone, why, how he’d come home, what exactly had happened. His alliance supported and guarded him, as if he were made of glass. The court walked on eggshells if he was present. It was maddening to the Schemer.
So he took to hiding in his room. He skipped meals. He did this for days at a time. He once even managed to hold out for over a week before he passed out from hunger and skekGra broke his door down.
He wondered idly if this was like the existence skekHak had led when he was alive. Hidden away, never questioned, just acknowledged and cared for like an invalid.
skekTah stopped pacing, staring outside again. He wished that the sky would clear. He missed the stars. It was like they had stopped existing when he left. Were there still stars back in that world?
He ignored the burning in his chest. Ignored the questions bubbling in his mind.
Did anyone over there still remember him?
.o.o.o.o.
There were definitely not tears on her parchment. She definitely wasn’t crying again.
skekLa reached up a hand to scrub her eyes. It was just ink. She got a lot of ink in her eyes again, that’s all. It had been happening for the past two months. Nothing to worry about.
Yet her gaze strayed to a drawing pinned to her wall. The page was curled on the edges and the artwork was a mess, the sloppy work of a beginner…but it was precious to her.
She left her seat, stepping away from her lectern. She’d go for a walk. Clear her head. Maybe the garden would do. skekFer had recently gotten some new plants to sprout and the flowers they bore were the loveliest shade of blue.
She left her quarters, locking the door behind her. She paused on her way down the hall, glancing at a long crack in the wall. The entrance to the tunnels hidden there.
His tunnels.
She moved on quickly before her eyes could start burning. She focused on the wall ahead of her, then down the hall, followed by stairs. And there was the garden, green and flourishing and lovely. skekFer was probably around here somewhere. Maybe even skekKel.
The Illustrator kept walking, looking for the pair. She soon passed by hanging vines and ivy. She paused, watching the leafy green ropes sway. Beyond them lay the hole in the wall that breached the tunnels.
She stepped close, moving the vines aside. The hole was dark and wide, but she knew the tunnel itself was narrow and short. She’d have to hunch to fit and with her old age, that was a task she did not wish to attempt.
“skekLa?”
She spun to face the golden-haired Skeksis. skekFer looked concerned.
“I’m fine! Just…looking,” skekLa said quickly.
skekFer gave a small frown but said nothing. The two headed deeper into the garden until they found skekKel, his massive frame bent to sniff one of the deep blue blossoms. He smiled when he saw them both approach.
“skekLah, yhou cahme,” he greeted.
“Well, I heard about the flowers, so I came to see them,” skekLa explained.
She sniffed a blossom. It smelled sweet. She pulled back and smiled…until she realized why she liked the shade. It was the same blue as the diamond ornaments on his spiky carapace. Those little gems that shone and caught the light unless he was in a tunnel, where everything about him became dark and mute and…
“skekLa?”
“Ahre yhou ohkay?”
“I’m fine!” she choked, scrubbing her eyes again. “Just ink!”
A taloned hand rested on her arm. skekLa sniffled, looking at the Gardener. skekFer’s smile was watery.
“We all miss him…but he had to go home, skekLa.”
“…I know. But…I wanted him to stay!” skekLa choked.
“Perhaps weh wihll seeh him aghain ohne dhay,” skekKel said gently, patting her shoulder.
“What if he’s forgotten us?” skekLa sobbed.
“With ahll that happened here? Ih highly dhoubt he couhld,” skekKel reassured her. “He lehft his mahrk here, ahs weh lehft ouhr mahrk ohn him.”
The Illustrator did not fight off the hugs she received. She clung to her allies and sobbed, wishing she could see their missing friend one more time.
.o.o.o.o.
“That’s enough.”
The sky was stormy, blocking skekTah from seeing him…but he was still there. The Machinist was not so easily riled. He was a passive, calm Skeksis. He was not known for his anger or aggression.
He was not calm right now. He was upset.
The sky was dark, cutting the stars from the world. skekHak could see through the clouds, but skekTah could not. He could not see the stars, the constellation that had followed him between those two worlds. The one he knew and the one he’d come to know.
The minor conjunction had come without warning. There had been no time for skekTah to say goodbye to his new friends. Unlike skekHak, who took his time to say goodbye to little Schosi. She was strong. She would make it in these skies without him. But skekTah might not make it without him.
So skekHak followed, nearly a week later, returning to the empty skies that he knew. They were covered thickly in storm clouds, their corruption finally touching the heavens. The Machinist was enraged by this. How was he supposed to help skekTah if the other could not see him?
He fought and clawed but, unlike the stars, the clouds would not yield to him. They did not care that a spirit was mad at them. The clouds grew and converged, tossing lightning and harsh winds down upon Skarith. They were deaf to skekHak’s rage.
So he withdrew and waited for almost two months, hoping for the clouds to recede.
They never did. If anything, they grew thicker and darker.
Was this Thra’s punishment to him? Or was his own kind unknowingly thwarting him? He did not know.
He could see skekTah’s misery, hidden behind his stony mask. He could feel the concern and fear and pain radiating from his allies. There was even concern coming from other court members, to skekHak’s surprise.
skekEkt and skekAyuk, not really ally or foe, spoke frequently of the Schemer. The Gourmand pondered sending Podlings with food to him to ensure he ate. The Ornamentalist bounced ideas off for repairing the tattered robes that skekTah had and even making new ones.
skekTek worried over the mysterious injuries and skekTah’s overall health. Multiple times, he marched to the Schemer’s quarters with the intent to drag him out and interrogate him. He’d break off once he reached the hall, fear of the unknown forcing him to retreat. This cycle repeated every few days.
skekOk spoke to skekZok at length about skekTah’s disappearance. skekZok had little in terms of how to explain it, though he certainly tried. Most fell back on the idea that the Gelfling were somehow involved, though that left far too many unanswered questions. It was clear that they were struggling. Neither was all that prepared to attempt to confront the Schemer about the situation, not with the travel-bound alliance so tightly-knit now.
The crystal itself was silent. skekHak would glare at it sometimes, as if willing it to call out and speak. Tell the truth. Explain itself to them. But it never did. It was as silent as stone.