Chapter Text
Luz ran between the red trees, desperately chasing after the swamp green sentient goop that should not be there.
Belos was dead. He was dead and gone. He had to be! So why had she just seen a piece of his goopy monster form slinking around Hexside?
Luz stopped in the middle of the woods. She couldn’t tell where the cursed creature had gone.
She heard an animalistic shriek and bolted in the direction from which it came.
She held her staff at the ready and jumped out from behind a bush, yelling a battle cry.
Which turned into a questioning sound as she realized what she was looking at.
There was a fully masked and cloaked person in front of her, but they weren’t Belos shaped. Their wooden mask was round and their cloak was practically made of brown patches. That wouldn’t mean much, if she couldn’t clearly see the bit of Belos goop trying to escape the jar in their hands.
“What?”
The stranger faced her for a moment, then waved slowly with their free hand.
Luz shook herself out of her stupor.
“Who are you?” She asked, not lowering her staff. “And what are you doing with that?”
The stranger tilted their head to the side with an audible crack.
Luz didn’t take her eyes off them, her staff starting to glow when they didn’t respond.
Slowly, they opened and closed their hand in a blabbing potion, shaking their head.
Luz’ staff stopped glowing as she watched them in confusion.
“Huh?”
They repeated the motions, pointing at themselves afterwards.
Luz slightly lowered her staff as she realized.
“You can’t talk?”
The stranger nodded, tapping on where their nose would be under their mask. They proceeded to make more gestures with their hand, but the meanings were lost on Luz.
“Sorry,” She said, “But I don’t know sign language.”
The stranger froze, then shrugged.
“And you can’t answer me if I don’t understand you.” Luz concluded bitterly.
The stranger nodded, looked at the jar, then offered it to Luz.
“What? No! I don’t want it!”
They tilted their head to the side with another audible crack, retracting their offering hand.
“No one should want that thing.” Luz clarified with disdain. “Do you even know what that is?”
To her surprise, the stranger nodded.
“You… do?”
The stranger nodded again. Their hands and jar retreated under their fullbody cloak, depositing the jar somewhere. They took both hands and pointed fingers from their forehead, mimicking Belos’ antlers, but that wasn’t what had Luz dropping her jaw.
Their motions had parted their cloak, and around the stranger’s torso was a belt holding even more jars, several of which already had a bit of swampy green goop moving around inside of them.