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Five places set in the otherwise-empty and cavernous dining hall, as if he'd been planning for this. Wayne sits to his right hand, Pongorma at the opposite end of the long, barren table, Dedusmuln and Somsnosa off to the left as if Gibby hadn't known exactly what to do with them. And why would he, anyway? They were nobodies, two of many insects scuttling about the wasteland below.
Dedusmuln knew this and sat rigid in their chair, hands folded tightly in their lap, tendrils furled as if anticipating a strike. Somsnosa was the opposite, leaning forward, chin propped in her hand, her dinnerware scattered carelessly. Her gaze flicks between her partners, and Gibby. Though superficially relaxed, her every muscle is tense, her free fist clenched, the leather of her gauntlets creaking.
Pongorma glowers, head lowered, humiliation burning like acid in his stomach, as bad as his hunger had been in the vault. A true Death Knight could never be brought down by such a paltry force as thirst or starvation, but it was felt all the same. Why Wayne had acquiesced to this, he would never know, but he did not question his leader. He owed the moon man his life, and certainly his sanity, for freeing him. He'd hoped never to see this place again.
If Wayne crossed his arms any harder than he was right now, they would have popped free of their sockets. He pointedly stares at the empty plate in front of him, as if this hadn't been his idea, as if he hadn't succumbed to sentimentality and agreed to meet with Gibby, one last time. To have dinner together, like a family, Gibby had said. Now he wondered how he'd been so easily plied. He refuses to meet Gibby's sunken little raisin eyes, to see that soggy, condescending smile of his. Their host was waiting for one of them to break the silence, he was sure of it, and he wouldn't give Gibby the satisfaction.
To his surprise, Gibby actually does speak first. "Pongorma..." he addresses the knight, who snaps to attention, immediately looking disgusted with himself. "I thought you'd be decomposing in that vault until the stars fell out of the sky. Has your regret kindled?"
"You banished me," Pongorma growls. "Or has that memory dried up and flaked out of your skull? I believe your exact words were 'don't bother leaving, because I'm exiling you,' weren't they?"
Gibby tsks, shrugging. "It all amounts to the same thing, doesn't it?"
"No, it does not," Pongorma practically spits.
"Of course it does... Even now, you're the same as you were back when I first found you," Gibby folds his fingers, something like wistfulness glinting in his eyes. "Your hole in the world is gone, filled over, a footprint in the sand, so you heel to the first hand that grabs your collar. How is you joining up with this band of fools any different?"
"Give it a rest." Wayne finally looks up, though at Pongorma rather than at their host. Pongorma frowns at him, his gaze cast downwards again. Wayne had no doubt Pongorma could have defended himself, but this argument was wearing him out already. "We don't have to explain anything to you."
Gibby's gaze slides slyly over to Wayne, as if a plan had just come together. "Never learned to bite your tongue, did you, Wayne?"
That doesn't get a reply, Wayne returning to staring at his wiggly reflection in his plate.
"Never learned to mind your place..." Gibby tilts his head, leaning in Wayne's direction. Wayne leans away, deliberately turning to face the opposite wall. "You look malnourished. Your dermis is such a sickly shade. You've languished too long, baking in the sun like a fish washed onto the rocks. You sustain yourself on microwavable garbage that pollutes your viscera. I'm terribly glad you're back, in the shadow of the moon with us... Spend too much time on the surface and your brain will start to molder."
"Hey, uh," Somsnosa waves a hand at Gibby, who slowly turns to look at her. "Not to interrupt your weird little reunion, but are we actually getting dinner or what? Because I've got grubs I need to harvest back home, so if we could get this moving-"
"The- the surface is only in such a state because of you!" Surprising even themself, Dedusmuln finally speaks up, pointing a trembling digit at Gibby. "The madness that's been spreading, you're the one who's been causing it! People can't understand each other, monsters have been closing in on civilization, the cities are keeping anybody from leaving- It's getting worse and worse down there and you've just been letting it happen!" Drawing a shuddering breath, their tendrils quivering, they continue. "I didn't just come to the city for history. I went there to look for a solution, but all the people I spoke to either shouted some nonsense in my face, attacked me or shrugged at me in total ambivalence. I've witnessed my own colleges going mad overnight, the finest minds I've ever known lost like so much change down a gutter, and I... I'm not leaving until I have answers."
They slump back in their chair, fists still balled. Somsnosa reaches over to place a hand on their shoulder, looking a little sheepish. Wayne had more or less begged them to stand down, but Gibby's head was looking pretty puntable by now. Living out in the middle of nowhere, she only caught glimpses of real society when she traveled to the city to sell her larvae crops, but teaming up with Wayne and the gang had opened her eyes to just how bad things really were. A few years ago, she might have turned her back and scoffed that she didn't owe them anything, but now...
Gibby almost seems like he might be taken aback for a moment, his thin lips pressed together. “…raise your voice to me again, leech, and I’ll have you salted,” he sneers. “I knew you didn’t have standards, Wayne, but really, is this the best you could do? A whiny scholar and some insect-eating wastrel?”
“Hey!” Somsnosa stands, slamming both hands on the table so it dips and bounces, sending various plates and utensils crashing to the ground. Dedusmuln hurriedly picks theirs back up. “The only reason we haven’t pulped your big orange head yet is that Wayne asked us not to, and you’re making a pretty shitty case for yourself right now.”
He’d been such a fool, letting himself be talked into this parley. Why did he ever imagine that Gibby would somehow be more reasonable now, after wallowing in his echo chamber, basking in his own glow? Wayne sucks a breath in through his teeth, facing Gibby, who looks at him impassively. His fingers itch to grasp the handle of his axe. “You were the one who wanted to have this insane dinner party, but all you’ve done is insult my friends. Did you change your mind about dying today or what?”
Gibby blinks at him, leaning back in his chair, fingers steepled. “Oh my, thank you for reminding me, Wayne. This is meant to be a dinner party and I’ve provided no sustenance. How thoughtless of me. If everybody would just take their seats…”
With a sigh, Wayne flops back down in his chair. Dedusmuln anxiously tries to rearrange their own dinnerware into a semblance of order, while in defiance, Somsnosa leaves everything scattered in front of her, her arms folded. As much as he was loathe to be back here, Pongorma can’t help but perk up just a little bit. The food in the moon palace was much better than the stuff on the surface, and he’d had far too many meals that consisted of raw vegetables from Wayne’s garden and burritos that were still icy in the middle. If he ended up enjoying this, it would be for his own sake, not for Gibby’s.
Despite Gibby not lifting a finger to bid any of his minions, the door slides open and a procession of small, skittering creatures floods in, little things with nubby arms and no faces aside from singular round holes that could have been eyesocket or mouth. They carry plates on their heads, heaped with fruit and gelatin and bowls of insect roe, what looks like tiny crystals floating in pinkish slurry, among many other strange offerings. They fling them into the long table with precision, but not so much precision that Dedusmuln’s plate and silverware don’t get knocked to the floor again. Dedus hangs their head, tendrils drooping, looking utterly defeated. Somsnosa reaches over to pat their back, looking distastefully at what she’d been served. This fancy processed stuff had never been for her. The gremlins file back out, but not before the last of them toss several bottles of inky black liquid onto the table, one for each guest. The contents continue to slosh and churn even after they should have settled, and the sight makes her carapace crawl.
“…Poolwine?” Wayne raises his eyebrows at Gibby. “I didn’t think you’d be that transparent about trying to kill us.”
“Goodness, no. It’s refined, you philistines.” Gibby sniffs, pouring himself a glass. “None of that dreck from the surface. We only use captive-bred Poolmen, untainted by feeding on hylethems. Well, go on.” He gestures to the rest of the feast with the bottle, though his eyes are on Wayne specifically. “Nourish your vessels. Speak to me. I wish to hear all about your trials, all of my followers whose meat you’ve pilfered. Perhaps someday I’ll have it written down.”
The four of them sit in awkward stillness for a minute or so while Gibby appreciates the body of his poolwine, patient, awaiting his opponents’ move. It’s so damn quiet in here, no music or the familiar sounds or scents of the ocean. Maybe this had once been intended for diplomatic dinners, but what diplomacy could be wrought beneath a tyrant like Gibby?
Sick of it, Somsnosa is the first to reach for the food, though it’s to serve Dedusmuln, not herself. The poor archeologist seemed resigned to stew in fury and embarrassment and she was sure they would have sat there the entire duration of this wretched dinner if allowed. Most of this stuff she doesn’t recognize, though she does wrinkle her nose at the insect caviar. Why harvest the eggs when the grubs tasted so much better and were more nutritious? They probably didn’t have good-tasting bugs on the moon anyway. Nowhere near as good as the ones she raised. The rest of this stuff she plain doesn't recognize or trust. Dedus just shakes their head when she asks what they want, so she goes with something safe and gathers some recognizable fruit onto their plate, formerly her plate, because Dedusmuln’s was broken on the floor.
“If only more of my enemies had been courteous enough to feed me before our battle… Perhaps I would have made their deaths swifter,” Pongorma muses as he spears a large boiled pillbug on his sword, tossing it into his plate. Soms gives a little snort at that, picking up a banana and peeling it delicately with the claws of her gauntlet. She passes Dedusmuln her fork, and with a little prodding, they resignedly pick it up and poke at their chopped pineapple.
Wayne remains as he was, slouched with his arms crossed, stiff and defiant and staring at the wall opposite him. Any appetite he might have worked up getting hyped for the battle with Gibby had long been quashed.
“See, Wayne? Isn’t this nice…” Gibby starts, speaking softer, only to him, as he swirls the poolwine in his glass. “You could have been here all along, at my right hand, and I must admit the purulent humor of nostalgia is stirring within me. You’ve been away so, so long, squirreled yourself away like something shameful, but I do forgive you, you know. It isn’t too late to come home.”
Wayne gives no reply, watching his friends at the other end of the table, both Soms and Dedus too enraptured by the sight of Pongorma tearing into the pillbug, shell and all, to remember their own food.
“I’ll grant you a real position in my court. Would you like that?” Despite Wayne’s pointed lack of interest, Gibby continues, earnestness blossoming despite himself. “No longer standing behind me all the time. You’ve spent enough time on the surface to know what a desiccated husk it is. Don’t you want a better home for them? We cannot remake the world if it is still infested. It must be made pliable…” Still no response from Wayne, his head turned away now so that his crescent horn blocked his face from view. Gibby smacks his glass down, sloshing poolwine into the tablecloth where it soaks in, a spreading grayish stain. “Didn’t you hear me? Will my gremlins’ efforts be all in vain? Eat something, damn you.”
Wayne’s head snaps around, and he fixes Gibby with a defiant glare as he grabs his own bottle of poolwine without looking, yanks the cork out and chugs until he's forced to take a breath. He slams the bottle back down on the table and wipes his mouth with his sleeve. It takes his body about a second to register what he’s just dumped into it, and the effect hits him like a railroad spike to the eye. Wayne clutches the edge of the table, gurgling and fighting the urge to vomit as the wine sends his heart rate careening into the stratosphere, strange colors flooding his vision and phantom noises through his ossicles. As quickly as it had come, it passes, unlike the frothing mania that regular poolwine brought about. His head still feels like something’s trying to break it in half as he straightens up, breath trembling. He swallows heavily and tries to act that hadn’t just happened, casually leaning back in his chair again.
Gibby’s expression coils in disgust. “That isn’t what I meant, Wayne, and you know it. You’re as hopeless as ever.”
“You okay?” Somsnosa asks, starting to get up from her chair. Wayne nods, giving her a lazy thumbs-up. Thank the stars for their fearless leader.
Lashing out, Gibby knocks Wayne’s bottle of wine onto the floor. It clatters to the tile and begins to gush fervently, as if the liquid were actively trying to escape. “There, no more distractions. Are you listening to me, you lank cockroach? Can you fully perceive what you’re being offered? Are you that desperate to return to your hovel, back to stewing in your own filthy bathwater and watching television until your brain melts out of your skull? Are you truly so blind to your own privilege? I’ve stomped out countless rebellions! I have thousands of guards who’d eat their own mothers to be offered what I’m offering you! You are special to me, Wayne,” he seethes, bracing his hands against the table and leaning forward so their faces were nearly touching. Out of the corner of his eye, Wayne can see the rest of his team poised, hands twitching over their weapons. “But it seems you refuse to acknowledge that.”
Wayne stands to look eye-to-eye with Gibby, only stumbling a little from the alcohol sitting sickly in his stomach. “Yeah, I get you. I get what you’re offering. But you know what? You suck, Gibby, and I’m not coming back.”
At that, Somsnosa barks out a single laugh, quickly cutting herself off as Gibby rounds on her. “You think this is funny?” He demands, his neat little teeth bared, though there is a brittle and desperate edge to his words. “Don’t you dare forget who the king of this realm is, scavenger. And don’t you dare act as if you understand anything. You have no knowledge of what preceded you.”
Somsnosa holds her hands up defensively, easing back down into her chair. At her side, Dedusmuln looks like they want to melt into the floor. “I- no, I was just laughing at Wayne, not at you. Definitely not.”
“If Wayne’s time with you was anything like my own, it’s no wonder he doesn’t want to return.” Pongorma picks an errant piece of shell out of his fangs and flicks it away. “You allow no margin for anybody beneath you to be anything besides the image you’ve molded in your mind. You treat Wayne as a petulant child who will fold to you eventually, no matter what venom you hurl at him, because you believe your will is inevitable. Am I wrong?”
The very atmosphere of the room seems thinner, every breath more difficult to draw in, though Wayne supposes it could be lingering effects of the poolwine. He remains standing, gripping the table for support. Gibby glares at Pongorma, only to turn back to Wayne, whose eyes are downcast, looking at his empty plate, the pitch-black poolwine beaded on its surface. The worst part about it was, until he'd drunk the wine, he had felt himself beginning to fall for it again in spite of himself. He could hear the desperation in Gibby's voice, that of someone who'd lost all awareness of the meaning of his words, who was in pain and grasping for anything to make him feel in control. He couldn't fall for that again. He couldn't let himself be stopped at the threshold.
“You understand nothing. It’s not the same. Clouds and stones, intestines to aluminum, you would never understand. You were a creaky relic who I picked out of the garbage and dusted off, set to work.” Gibby leans as far as he can over the table as if he might clamber up there towards Pongorma. “Something I made do with until a better option came along…”
The knight merely makes a noncommittal huff, possibly of exasperation or resignation. Perhaps Gibby was right, and there was simply something here he was not seeing. Wayne was a strange fellow, one who didn’t speak much about himself, preferring to live in the now and look forward only so far as the near future, making things up as he went along. Pongorma had needed little convincing to join his cause, stagnant and aimless, starving for a purpose, for the sight of his blood flung from his flesh and to feel that post-battle ache again. Wayne and the rest had granted him that, and so much more. There was a history here he was not, and did not, care to be privy to.
"Gibby," Wayne speaks up hoarsely, the metal blade of his axe clanking as he lifts it. "...I'm not hungry. And I don't think anybody else is, either, anymore. Let's go back to the throne room, and we'll finish this where I should've finished it a long time ago."
"Oh, but Wayne..." Gibby's voice is a sarcastic simper as he draws out this last bit of toxic formality. "Don't you want to give your friends some time to digest? It won't be much of a fight if you're all sluggish."
Considering he'd seen Dedusmuln and Somsnosa barely eat anything, and knowing Pongorma wouldn't be slowed down by a couple helpings of shellfish (he'd once seen him eat 12 hot dogs in a row), Wayne just shakes his head. "No, Gibby."
It's not as if Wayne expected Gibby to simply give in, to resign himself to a battle he had a not-insignificant chance of losing. However he did not expect Gibby to grip the end of the massive, solid moon rock table and fling it sideways towards him, overturning it and sending its contents crashing to the ground in a chorus of clattering silver and shattering porcelain, punctuated by a crack like thunder as the table itself split in two. Wayne dives out of the way but still ends up spattered with various lunar foodstuffs.
The rest of his crew leap out of their seats, Somsnosa kicking her own aside so hard it explodes against the wall. Dedusmuln, being far more adept at fighting than social situations, falls into place at her side, hands raised, ready to illustrate any supportive gestures his friends might need. Pongorma stands casually, resting Joyous's massive blade upon his shoulder. This was inevitable. There was no talking peace into Gibby.
The Moon King looms over the destruction, raising his arms at his sides, fingers curled into claws. Beside him the ground deforms, splinters and begins to rise as a pair of odd statues sprout from the masonry, trembling as if about to hatch. "Very well... Let's see how your waning form holds up," he snarls, "or whether the surface has made you soft and brittle. This satellite will be your tomb, my gestures your epitaph. Stand still, let me relieve you of clarity."
Wayne, standing in the mess of their hatefully-prepared feast, just sighs. "Yeah. Whatever. Let's go."