Chapter Text
Tiso
Tiso rested on the bench for what he estimated to be another hour or so while he slowly polished his shield. It was basically lying on his lap and Tiso was slowly rotating it as he went, limited as he was with only one usable arm.
He was just about finished when he heard the clanking of what he assumed was the building’s mechanical lift, followed by footsteps. And they were coming from the west side of the room this time.
He turned his head to look at the drop-off ledge and watched as Quirrel popped up in front of him a few moments later.
He had a long stick in his hand, which was odd. But more importantly, he looked… better, sort of. He wasn’t crying anymore and he didn’t appear to be visibly hurt or tired, meaning he probably hadn’t fought anything within the past couple of hours.
He also had his politely neutral expression back in place, from what Tiso could see of his eyes.
“What’s that?” Were the first words out of Tiso’s mouth, because asking Quirrel how he was feeling now felt a bit too personal.
Quirrel continued walking towards him and when he got closer, Tiso could see that the long stick was actually a candle stand. It had a sturdy flared base and looked to be about his own height. Quirrel stood it on the ground in front of the bench, as he sat down on Tiso’s right side.
“I found this on the floor right below us. I brought it up so you can stand and sit more easily while I’m not here. I need to go find more food tomorrow, which means I’ll have to leave again. …I’m sorry I left you alone for so long by the way. I imagine seating yourself back on this bench wasn’t a pleasant process.”
Quirrel looked so genuinely apologetic over something so stupid that Tiso felt bad for him for a moment, before laughing in the other bug’s face.
“You don’t need to look so serious about it. I’ll need to build back up my strength eventually anyway. Being a little uncomfortable while I sit is the least of my worries, honestly”
“Oh?” Quirrel asked. He looked drained of energy, like prompting Tiso to talk had been a polite reflex more than a want to participate in the conversation.
But still, since Tiso could talk more easily and for longer now, he felt compelled to use his words to distract Quirrel from his clearly depressing thoughts.
“The little shade was here.”
That got Quirrel’s attention.
“They were?”
“Yes, they helped me sit on the bench, if that eases your needless guilt any. They also told me of their origin. …How much do you know of that little pale thing? And the fountain statue at the centre of the city?”
“The memorial fountain?” Quirrel asked. He looked a bit confused, but Tiso could also see the light of curiosity starting to return to his eyes.
“A memorial, huh? Who does it honour? And why?”
Quirrel narrowed his eyes in thought. He looked frustrated, like he was fishing around in his memory for the answer, to no avail.
“There are four figures on that fountain. The three identical ones are symbolic, rather than literal depictions. One was my mentor, Monomon. Her and two other powerful bugs were put in an eternal sleep by the king…”
“Why?”
“It was to save Hallownest… It had something to do with the figure at the centre but I can’t quite remember…”
“The pale thing told me that the infection comes from that creature. Why would anyone memorialize that?” Tiso asked, starting to become invested in the speculative conversation.
His interest had been passive before now, but the contradiction between the pale thing’s explanation and Quirrel’s was interesting, to say the least.
“I don’t know…” Quirrel trailed off. He raised his hand to his chin, holding it and curling his fingers over the bottom half of his face.
He looked more contemplative than upset, so Tiso gave him a few moments to gather his thoughts as he moved his sheild off his lap and lowered it to the ground between them, leaning it on the candle stand.
“You know, when I was travelling outside of Hallownest I heard so many stories about this place. I was always so intrigued by the mystery of it. I knew I wanted to come here someday but there was always something keeping me away until very recently.”
“You said you were called back, right? How?” Tiso asked. He’d accepted his role in this conversation as a prompting springboard for Quirrel to bounce ideas off of, after all it wasn’t his kingdom’s history so he couldn’t contribute much otherwise.
“You’re going to laugh but it was just sort of a feeling, like the wind was pulling me here. That and I started having dreams that felt more like memories, but of places I’d never been before. Or at least I thought I’d never been before,”
“I don’t think that’s so strange. My drive to fight is just sort of a feeling too.”
Quirrel took a moment to smile at him following that comment and Tiso counted it as a small victory; a shared bit of solidarity between them, despite their different opinions and backgrounds.
“Maybe we can figure it out if we compare rumours? The Black Barrens are to the west of Hallownest, right? But I was mainly travelling in the eastern lands before circling back around. What did you hear about this kingdom before coming here?”
Tiso took a moment to think over every story he’d ever heard of Hallownest before he’d come to see it himself and unfortunately he didn’t have much in the way of praises to sing.
“Honestly? Nothing good. In my travels I’ve heard Hallownest described as a once great kingdom that fell to a plague. But a lone Colosseum escaped the infection’s reach for years on end. That’s what intrigued me most.”
Tiso was a bit annoyed that he had to take a few deep breaths before continuing but Quirrel waited patiently enough for him.
“I found it’s a commonplace belief that the bugs of this kingdom grew too comfortable, I’d say. After all, if being strong enough to survive the Colosseum spared many the infection, there must be something to it, right? That’s the general feeling in the lands I’ve travelled through.”
“That’s… so interesting.” Quirrel said.
If anyone else said that to Tiso, he would’ve thought they were mocking him, but Quirrel’s eyes showed his sincerity as he continued.
“In the east, Hallownest was mainly talked about as a sort of relic, ancient but still revered. A kingdom of antiquity that only fell because it became too grand, too fast. The infection was well-known amongst the bugs I’ve spoken with, but sickness and plague also seem to be viewed as an inevitability for most kingdoms. So, I suppose the general consensus is that Hallownest just didn’t handle its own pandemic properly, causing its downfall? The hubris of the long ruling monarch was often mentioned as well, although I don’t think anyone outside of this kingdom knew he was a higher being.”
“Do you think that was on purpose? Or a sign of just how old this kingdom is?”
“I don’t think it was a completely orchestrated censoring of the truth. I think Hallownest just- died an incredibly slow and painful death. If no bugs born in this land other than me could leave, then no one would’ve been around to tell the world what happened, right? I’m sure the Pale King found the collapse of Hallownest humiliating too. He was probably thinking of the kingdom’s reputation, even in his last moments…”
“That sounds right, maybe …But then, how are you here?” Tiso asked. He’d been a bit too stunned to ask during their last conversation but the math really didn’t add up on how old Quirrel was, given the general timeline of the kingdom’s downfall and his physicall appearance.
Quirrel stared at him surprised for a moment before asking. “What do you mean? Why am I still alive?”
What an odd way to phrase a clarifying question. There was something about the way Quirrel had said it too, that made him feel uneasy…
“How.” Tiso clarified. “How are you still alive? You’re… some sort of woodlouse, right? I’ve met many different species with longer lifepans than my own. And I imagine being a masked bug helps. But it sounds like you were here even before the kingdom fell.”
“I was.” Quirrel said. He looked far away again.
Tiso wanted to be patient with him but patience wasn’t something he was used to practicing.
“So, how? I thought ants and your kind had basically the same life expectancy.”
“...You should be more careful with throwing around phrases like, ‘your kind.’ Other bugs might not take that so well.” Quirrel’s eyes were still far away as he said that, voice light and conversational.
“Answer the question!” Tiso exclaimed, growing annoyed. He winced and curled forward a bit when the sudden large exhale hurt his cracked torso.
“I don’t really know. The way my memories are now… It’s so hard to explain.” Quirrel said, not at all effected by Tiso’s little outburst.
“Try.” Tiso said, tightly and willing the enigmatic bug in front of him to give him anything to work with.
Quirrel looked annoyed for a moment before sighing and closing his eyes. He thought Quirrel might be ignoring him when he didn’t say anything for several more moments. But eventually he voiced the experience he was having such a hard time putting into words.
“Like I said, I can’t remember much from my time here, it’s all bits and pieces. But my time outside of Hallownest? I can remember all of that fairly well. All the places I’ve been, all the bugs I’ve talked to and so on. But I have no idea how long I’ve been travelling for. I never stay in one place for very long… I can tell that I’ve been moving from place to place for a long time. But every time I try to think about it too hard my mind fills with fog. It’s… it’s starting to happen right now even, but it’s not as intense as it was before I returned the mask.”
“So, your memories outside of Hallownest are mostly unaffected. But you have no idea how or when or why you left Hallownest?”
“In essence, yes. It’s almost as though-”
Quirrel didn’t finish his sentence, instead staring off into the middle distance. Tiso turned his head to look at where Quirrel’s eyes had landed, but he wasn’t staring at anything specific. He’d done the same thing last time too, right before he’d started crying.
“…Quirrel?” Tiso asked, tentatively after a few moments.
He had no idea what was going through the other bug’s mind in that moment. Maybe he was thinking of something else that would make him emotional, or maybe he had these sorts of episodes regularly and it was related to this kingdoms specific type of magic? Whatever it was, Tiso felt he was in no way prepared to deal with the other bug if he started crying again so soon after last time.
Quirrel seemed to come back to himself slowly. Tiso watched him blink several times as he looked to be reorienting himself. He wasn’t crying this time thankfully, but he looked upset.
“What’s wrong? Are you… seeing things when you zone out like that? You’re not some sort of mystic, are you?”
Quirrel was looking at him, but Tiso could tell that he wasn’t truly back in his own head yet.
It took him a long time to answer and truthfully, Tiso found Quirrel’s blank expression deeply unnerving after the first few moments but eventually he responded.
“I’m not seeing the future, no. The opposite, actually. And I’m no mystic, I promise you that.”
Tiso ground his mandibles together.
Dealing with the slow, segmented way that Quirrel was answering his questions was annoying. It was as though the other bug was coming out of a trance.
He wanted to shake the other bug back to normal. The only thing really stopping him from doing so was his own injuries.
“You were seeing the past then? Your own memories, you mean?”
Quirrel responded to that better than anything else he’d said and his resurfacing from wherever he’d gone to in his head seemed to speed up.
“Yes, my own memories. I think… I think my memories are starting to return to me now that I don't have Monomon’s mask anymore...”
“That’s mostly a good thing, right? You wanted them back?”
“I do want them back but the way they’re returning to me isn’t exactly pleasant. Sudden onslaughts of random memories and times in my life entering my mind all at once…. It’s a lot to deal with. It’s as though I’m losing Hallownest all over again.”
Quirrel sighed deeply then but continued. “I was thinking, you might be right about my lack of memories being a gift, given to me by Monomon while I was away… I don’t have the memory back yet, but I think, or I feel that she sent me away to have a better life outside of the kingdom once it started to fall apart.”
“So… she wanted you to live a full life. One that wasn’t just waiting in a dying kingdom for whatever called you back.”
Those were statements rather than questions on Tiso’s part. Following Quirrel’s lines of thought was a bit difficult with all the knowledge gaps between the two of them, but he could recognize an intention like that easily.
Quirrel was looking down at his knees and clenching his hands on top of them as he answered. “Yes, I think so.”
Tiso wasn’t great at comforting others, he knew that.
He was more than capable of empathizing with other bugs, but when it came to comforting words he always came at it from the angle of dealing with the problem directly. And apparently it was frowned upon to do that; suggest solutions when others just wanted to vent their frustrations.
When he saw tears start to fall from Quirrel’s downturned face again, he gave up on trying to comfort him directly, instead going for distraction and empathy through a general similarity.
He grasped Quirrel’s shoulder firmly with his right hand but looked away, towards the lumafire.
“…When I left my colony, the queen, my mother, the whole colony’s mother, obviously. She told me that she was sad to see me go. She said she’d miss me, the way she misses and worries for all her children when they choose to leave the Black Barrens.”
He had to pause for breath before continuing and he was grateful that it also covered up how emotional recounting this story was suddenly making him. “But she also told me that she only wanted for my happiness. If I felt I’d outgrown the colony and needed to seek fulfillment elsewhere, that was alright. She knew it would be better to let me leave, rather than staying and growing resentful of being trapped somewhere I didn’t want to be…”
He watched and felt as Quirrel’s frame moved while he took in a deep breath. His exhale was shaky and he was wiping his eyes, still looking down.
When he looked up at Tiso, the tears were mostly gone but he still looked sad and exhuasted.
“Thank you.” Was all he said.
“You’re welcome.” Came Tiso’s automatic reply.
His attempt at comfort hadn’t been the most graceful effort on his part, but it really was the best he could manage.
“Your queen, your mother, she sounds kind.” Quirrel said. It sounded like he was giving Tiso the chance to change the subject and he took it gladly.
“I don’t know that I’d call her kind, exactly. But she is pragmatic. To the point of letting even great fighters like me leave the colony when she feels their performance can only decline by being forced to stay. I’ve always loved that about her.”
“A great fighter, are you? And so modest about it too.”
Tiso scoffed. It seemed they’d successfully moved away from talking about the things that were upsetting Quirrel. And bragging about his own talent was something he could definitely lean into.
“Just because I haven’t conquered the colosseum yet doesn’t mean I’m weak! Weren’t you listening earlier? I was the best fighter in my colony before I left.”
“It would seem you’re not the best fighter in this land though.” Quirrel had said those words in a teasing tone. Tiso knew he wasn’t being mocked, but he didn’t care.
“When I’m healed up, we’ll have a sparing match and you’ll see. Besides, I don’t think criticism from a bug unwilling to test their skills is valid.”
Quirrel laughed at him and said. “We’ll see. I’m not much of a fighter to be honest. I can do it well when necessary but it’s not something I actively seek out.”
“Ugh, you’re not a pacifist, are you?” Tiso asked, mildly annoyed and removing his hand from Quirrel’s shoulder.
“I am, actually. I don’t see the point in fighting just for the sake of it.” Quirrel said with conviction.
“Saved by a pacifist…” Tiso said, rolling his eyes. “My honour as a warrior was already in the pits. Now it’s somehow managed to burrow even deeper down.”
Tiso had only been half serious in his complaints. He was more talking to fill the empty space and get a response out of the other bug.
His annoyance at Quirrel apparently being a pacifist, was sincere though.
He’d met many great warriors in his travels. And of those great warriors, he’d found it all too common an occurrence that they’d been taught the mostly deadly skills of their respective tribes or kin but only used them in defense, “as they were meant to be used.” He’d also met many so-called pacifists who had only become non-violent in their old age, as well as every kind of pacificist in between.
Tiso found the whole notion ridiculous with how dangerous the world was but he couldn’t help but wonder which kind of pacifist Quirrel was and how he’d arrived at the decision to call himself something so contrary to everything Tiso stood for.
“Think and feel however you want about me, my friend. But I find the peace that comes with choosing not to fight more rewarding than the thrill of a hard fought battle.”
“Well, you are soft-hearted, so that makes sense.” Tiso replied.
Quirrel laughed in response to his comment and Tiso counted that as another victory.