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Krobus looks up from his wares, hearing footsteps echoing on the sewer tiles. The quick pace and the audible texture of heavy boots hitting the ceramic made the identity of the visitor obvious, even without the smell of plants, animals, and human sweat giving it away.
The farmer rounds the corner, a massive pumpkin held over their head. Krobus smiles widely as the farmer gives him the pumpkin, placing it just beside him.
“Thank you!” He says, looking up at the farmer, “This is an amazing gift. For my people it is a great honour to receive something like this.”
With a smile, the farmer points to the Omnigeode in his stall, pulling out 300g from their pocket.
Krobus materialises a hand to take the money, and passes over the geode. He hums, turning away to put the money in his till. When he turns back around, the human is holding out their hands, a black cone-like shell on a red ribbon lying across the middle of their palms.
Krobus stares wise-eyed at the object in the farmer’s hand. “A Void Ghost Pendant! How did you..?”
The farmer gestures towards him with the pendant again, and Krobus’s eyes grow wider, hands and arms returning to vapour as his concentration wavers. “Oh- oh wow.”
When he first met the human, he realised almost instantly that they weren’t like the others he had come across. They didn’t yell or scream or draw their weapon when they spotted him, and while he firmly believes that bar is too low, this farmer was the first human to step over it.
Not only did the farmer step over the bar, but they seemed to dance all over it, greeting him every day, respecting his silence for Yoba, perusing his wares, and bringing him gifts of great cultural importance to his people. Had he not been receiving those incredibly specific gifts, he may have just assumed that the farmer didn’t understand the meaning behind such an offering, but in this context…
Krobus smiles, bouncing on the soles of his feet. “Yes, I’ll come live with you, if you like.” His bouncing stops. “But we have to keep it a secret from everyone.”
The farmer is silent for a moment, and he worries that perhaps the farmer didn’t actually understand the cultural significance of the pendant before giving it to him. Just as he opens his mouth to backtrack, the farmer puts the pendant on top of the pumpkin, and envelops him in a hug.
The first thing Krobus notices about the hug is its warmth. He usually doesn’t like warm things, preferring the damp cold of the sewers over the dangerous burning heat of the sun, but something about this warmth is different. The human’s arms are soft, but solid, with an underlying firmness that he knows must be the muscle and bone beneath. He leans what little weight his has into the hug, his breath catching in nonexistent lungs as the farmer hugs him tighter. He’s sure that if he needed to, he could simply allow the strong arms to fall right through his vapour-like body, but right now he feels more solid than he ever has before, the edges of his shadowed self moulding around the hug, feeling like the solid barrier of skin he’s never had.
The hug ends with the gentle stroke of a calloused hand against the back of his head, and Krobus gives a shaky smile as the farmer pulls back, turns around, and leaves the sewer as suddenly as they had arrived, running off to their next farm-related task – whatever that may be.
He’s left feeling like he’s floating, like an incorporeal object unable to define itself from the the air around it. He sits down, and then quickly lies flat on his back in an effort to touch as much tile as possible to bring back his feeling of self. His antenna curls tightly as he turns his upper body to press his face to the tiles, and he mentally dwells on the feeling of the hug. The warmth without burning, the solidity of self, the certainty of being. He hates it, the way his shadowed body feels more non-corporeal than it ever has before.
He wants another hug.
He needs another hug.
He wishes he were solid.
He wishes he had bones.