Chapter Text
If you told Argenti the night before that there were other occupants in his room, he would have laughed it off, lightly lecturing you to make better jokes. Now he had a trio of familiar ‘cute little creatures’ (as he referred to them) playing with his long, ruby locks, lightly tugging and smoothing them as the knight sat up on his bed in disbelief.
Wuu….
Wu???
Wuuuu!
Argenti silently absorbed in the crying sounds these adorable marshmallows were making – it didn’t seem like they were sad, rather it was their natural sounds of communication to him. Their eyes of blue and purple rings peered into his confused ones with mischief, although they seemed completely harmless…or Argenti liked to assume.
After getting ready (and ushering the creatures back under his bed for privacy reasons), he wandered in the hallways like a lost child, clueless of where was Boothill’s room or a place where he could make use of his endless stash of baguettes shoved in his suitcase. The creatures still hovered behind him, excitedly twirling and circling him like excited buzzing bees, which Argenti tolerated with his incredible patience. Perhaps a name for their interesting species will be a better use of his time. And so that’s exactly what he did, with his creative, eccentric mind – totally not influenced by his sleepy state– he came up with ‘Wubbaboo’. Who could argue with something like that? It perfectly matched his new companions, or so he hoped.
“...Wubbaboos?” Boothill let out a hoarse laugh, “I was thinking ya Knights of Beauty were b̶i̶g̶ t̶i̶m̶e̶ y̶a̶p̶p̶e̶r̶s̶ constantly excellent speakers, and I remain correct!”
Argenti’s face had never lit up and fallen so rapidly before as he processed the man’s words – his wishful thinking wanted to forget that Boothill’s compliments meant the worst insults. Currently, he was preparing breakfast with the surprising abundance of ingredients, confused at how Boothill even got hold of some of these rarities. Argenti learnt his lesson yesterday and decided not to question the man who sat at the end of the abnormally long dining table, gulping down what appeared to be motor oil out of a wine glass – was that the sound of bullets rattling in the glass as well? Perhaps it was better not to know.
After exploring what felt like every set of doors in the castle, Argenti found Boothill’s door, which was opened and revealed the man’s unimpressed face. He coldly eyed the knight’s three companions who were burrowed comfortably in Argenti’s thick hair. Loudly sighing, he ushered the knight to follow him, and this is how they ended up in this rather awkward situation. It was silent apart from the sounds of chopping and frying, along with the Wubbabbo sounds as they aided Argenti in getting the ingredients for him with their dough-like hands. S uch intelligent beauties the knight praised internally, also curious on how they could understand him so well. Were they humans before or something?
Argenti soon sat at the table, not too far and not too close from Boothill in fear of irritating him further. He had to be a respectful guest, which he thought he was, but the man glancing at him in the corner of his eye begged to differ, not to mention how he looked a second away from punching one of the Wubbaboos in its bouncy face. Someone didn’t appreciate the beauties the way Argenti did, but that was alright. The knight acknowledged the pure subjectivity of the beauty he strived for and recognised, regardless of whether the fact made his identity more foolish. If he wasn’t a Knight of Beauty, then what was he?
The day passed by in a blur as Boothill toured him around the castle, although missing out many rooms and Argenti had an inkling there were places he purposely avoided, but who was he to question his intentions? They were mere acquaintances – friends if Boothill allowed him the honour to be, after all, despite the slight frown imprinted onto his face and his indifference towards the knight, Argenti sensed he had a good heart. Call it intuition or utter nonsense, he would still hold the same beliefs.
The Wubbaboo trio wandered off during the day, possibly bored of the icy atmosphere surrounding the two men or possibly just wanting to do their own thing. Argenti doesn’t blame them. The snow was still relentlessly sending down its army with no change whatsoever. Was this region’s weather this severe? A lack of signal didn’t allow the knight to have any knowledge of what was outside the hazy white abyss. The thought of such obscurity didn’t sit well with him, but his thoughts were soon disrupted when Boothill sat directly opposite him on the dining table for dinner with a loud creak of the wooden chair.
“Y’know, it’s not every day my guest asks for a tour,” Boothill narrowed his sharp eyes, although it was more out of curiosity than suspicion, “My question to ya is, why the heck do you care?”
“Your castle will be my temporary home, so I might as well know more about where I am living, I hope you understand,” the redhead smiled, unfazed at the man opposite him as he got used to his gruffness and blunt approach. Argenti concluded that this attitude is what he used to get the answers he wanted.
“My castle huh?” Boothill scoffed, his eyes glanced down briefly before locking onto the knight’s, cynical, “And ya really call this r̶o̶t̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ modern place ya home? Then what do you call ya real home then, knight?”
For a second, Argenti’s mind delved back to the buried darkness of destruction, brutality, agony, fear, hopelessness in a place he used to call home. The planet was now only remnants of a bitter past, the thorns to his blooming future. His small frown disappeared instantly, masked with a polite smile.
“Some things are left undiscovered, Boothill.”
If the knight had caught a bud of sympathy for him, he simply ignored it.
His room seemed warmer tonight, with no logical reason to prove the change. As he settled into the covers, Argenti glimpsed at his open suitcase, his eyes wandering to the old gift of an instrument he had given up playing, and yet there was still a beauty in its raucous sounds.
The ocarina
, he reminisced.
His embarrassingly bad musical talent, his elderly master, his comrade
…the memory lane he preserved from the weeds of war will always be with him. With that comforting thought, he fell asleep, unaware of the Wubbaboos that came back to him in surprising silence, huddled up together beside him.