Chapter Text
It had been many a long day upon the open road before Quirrel and Lemm began to once again notice the distinct, if subtle, markers of civilization. The rough dirt road they had followed as it meandered across the ashen wastes gave way to sand, then chunks of coarse gravel, and finally to well-worn cobble that was bordered by the occasional looming streetlamp, bulbed glass lanterns dull with age and heavy with the desiccated skeletons of lumaflies. Travel so far had been mercifully smooth, made all the easier by moving through the underbrush in daylight and keeping their eyes on the road, using craggy boulders and the blackened skeletons of trees to protect from any unsavory encounters as they ventured forward.
Lemm, much to Quirrel’s pleasant surprise, was holding up far better than expected. Quirrel could not help but feel a twinge of guilt in his core whenever he looked at his companion; an odd remnant of bygone aristocracy, still cloaked in cashmere and a fine cotton traveling cloak, yet from the journey’s start his face had been set with a kind of determined resignation. The first night, when Quirrel had scouted out the abandoned remains of a house in the lower Crossroads for them to lodge in, Lemm hadn’t said a word in protest (other than to comment on the structure’s outdated use of a mid-century architectural plan) and had even offered to lay out their bedrolls and get a kettle of tea boiling while Quirrel took first watch. Even as the days wore on and they emerged above Hallownest’s peak to a world battered with tempestuous winds and relentless rain, he had remained- as much as the old shopkeep could be- optimistic.
Quirrel then with time grew bashful over ever doubting his companion’s resolve; of course the relic-seeker, after an age living in the damp and musty caverns of the kingdom’s capital, surrounded by the shambling corpses of its denizens, would have a good deal of experience tucked under his belt. In Lemm’s case, of course, this could not simply remain a metaphorical matter.
Early on in their ascension through the Crystal Peak, they had taken shelter for the night on the roadside- a dangerous move, but Quirrel had coaxed a cheerful fire up from an old fuelpit that neither were too keen to leave, and so they had agreed to stay, trading shifts every few hours to keep on guard. Quirrel felt as though he had barely closed his eyes when he heard a sickening thwack and the familiar death-gurgle of a husk, and on instinct he bolted up, hands grasping at the air above his empty scabbard, heart pounding against his ribs; Lemm, for his part, stood over the twitching shell of an infected crystal miner, wiping the blood from a heavy stone tablet with the husk’s ragged, rotting robes. This took Quirrel a moment to register.
“A wanderer’s journal, ” Quirrel had asked later as they sat together, relocated to the shelter of an unfinished mineshaft. Lemm chuckled softly to himself and sipped his tea with an air of grandiosity. “That’s what you’ve been using to dispatch the husks all this time? Not a nail? Not even an- I don’t know-”
“Umbrella?” Lemm asked, eyebrows raised in amusement.
“Well, yes! A journal seems so… risky, so close-range; however did you learn to-?” Quirrel cut himself short. Lemm’s eyes were glittering in the dim light, his smile triumphant. He stood, removed a series of tablets from a leather holster at his belt, sorted through them until selecting a particularly heavy volume, and cleared his throat, reading from the cryptic text like it were an instruction manual.
“ ‘If danger lurks close by and your nail is dulled with wear, just swing your journal at your foes with blunt and deadly flare.’ As much as I try not to live by the aphorisms of the dead, I’ve found this one in particular to come in handy. So did a good amount of ill-fated travelers, it seems; the text is copied in many a journal from Hallownest’s late renaissance. Too bad none of them saw it fit to employ it when it mattered.”
Quirrel watched Lemm as he spoke, animated under the warm glow of the crystals. His eyes were distant, bright and shining as he talked furiously of the progression of personal texts throughout the kingdom’s history, of the age of a journal in relation to the stone- or shell- it had been carved into, of the precise cuneiform filigree of a language that hearkened to its cultural origin. His voice, usually taut and gruff with apprehension- not that Quirrel minded, being a particularly reserved bug himself- was softer, each word spoken with the care and delicacy he would pay to any of his wares; it was as if he was unearthing some long-shelved relic, dusting and shining it anew, picking it apart, piece by meticulous, meditative piece. Quirrel thought back to their long hours dissecting arcane eggs- or, rather, Quirrel watching Lemm dissect them- in Lemm’s shop, discussing their abstruse contents in hushed voices and then going silent for an age on end, content to bask in the calm of the moment, in the gentle patter of rain on glass and the distant rushing of water in the canals below.
“But that would only mean that the prevalence of opulent detail-work from elitist sponsorship in the late stages of the city’s construction would lead to an artistic revolution through the utilization of simplicity by the working class, popularizing the idea amongst the common bug and eventually bleeding into capitalistic subculture, defeating the purpose of the movement entirely by the thirteenth century.” Lemm finished, sitting back against his pack and rolled sleeping mat, hands rested soundly on his stomach. He waited for a moment. Silence.
“Quirrel?”
Quirrel was staring at him, upright but loose in posture, not unfocused, but rather… thoughtful. Pensive, really. He looked as if he were about to say something profound and revoltingly sentimental. Lemm tensed and, sputtering, prepared to backtrack, but instead;
“You would make an excellent scholar, Relic Seeker.”
Lemm, who was entirely unprepared for praise of all things, looked away from Quirrel’s gaze, fingers toying with the pouch of tomes in his bag’s side-pocket. He picked a pebble from where it had embedded itself in the fabric.
“Never really… people wouldn’t have… I’m not… no.” Lemm said elegantly. He groaned internally and huffed into his beard.
“Truly, I mean it,” Quirrel went on, oblivious- or, more likely, actively ignoring- Lemm’s discomfort. “You are captivating to listen to.”
If Lemm had been taking a sip of tea, he would have choked on it. Instead, he opted for the much more graceful option of grumbling a muffled thank-you under his breath and holding his mug to his face, hoping Quirrel would chalk up the flush tinting his cheeks to its warmth and staring into its murky contents as if he could somehow dive into them and escape the conversation. Out of the corner of his eye, Lemm thought he saw Quirrel smile. Mercifully, though, he dropped the subject.
“You get some sleep. I’ll take watch for a few hours.” Quirrel stood, somewhat stiffly, holding onto the shaft’s framework for support, but then he stretched with all the fluidity and practiced grace of any warrior and turned from the fire to rummage through his pack. While he was working, Lemm laid out his sleeping cot- two layers of coarse burlap stuffed with hay, bought at a criminal price from a Dirtmouth vendor- and laid his coat down to cushion it, wincing at the grainy seeds sticking to its fine cotton fabric. It was really only sleeping that Lemm had any problem with when it came to travel, and just as he was considering the possible dual uses of a journal as both a weapon and a pillow, Quirrel knelt beside him, holding out a bundle of cloth.
“Here,” he said, handing them to Lemm. “I found them in the Teacher’s- in Fog Canyon when we first came. I think they must have been mine when I was younger, but I don’t have much use for finery these days, so…”
Lemm unfolded the clothes. A simple gray undershirt and matching stockings. Gray robes. A gray jacket. Deep blue gloves and overcoat. Amongst the nobility of Hallownest, they were hardly clothes fit for a respectable common bug; but somehow, Quirrel’s reverence for them, the careful creases of their folds, gave them more meaning than most fine dressings Lemm had come across in his time scouring the city. He folded them carefully back as they were and laid them at the head of his sleeping cot.
“Thank you.” Lemm muttered, once more becoming fascinated with the grime speckling his travel bag. “They’re… nice.” He added, feeling awkward even though Quirrel had already turned from him, bending down for something and then righting himself, clad in his usual plated armor, eyes already sharp and on the lookout for dangers ahead.
Maybe he was right, Lemm thought to himself, seeing the razor-edge wit in Quirrel’s eyes, the snap and focus of his gaze from left to right as he scanned the dim caverns. We didn’t need that nail after all. He just as quickly shook himself free of whatever gushy, schmaltzy ghost possessed him to think that, and laid down against the robes, facing away from his companion.
“I’ll wake you before breakfast tomorrow. Rest for a while.”
“Mmph.” Lemm managed. Almost despite himself, he turned to look over his shoulder, watching as Quirrel left the entrance of the shaft and turned the corner to the path outside. Lemm thought he could see the blocky silhouette of a wanderer’s journal clutched in Quirrel’s hand as he vanished. He chuckled softly, allowing himself the slightest hint of a smile as his mind went through its nightly cycle of relic-recollection, but already, he could already feel his eyelids growing heavy, could feel the pull of sleep against his tired shell. He sighed into the soft linens of Quirrel’s robes.
It really was much more comfortable this way.