Chapter Text
When Spearmaster woke up everything was cold. It could feel the frost climbing his spine and sending shivers through his entire body. He had never felt those kinds of temperatures, and it was clear they were not adapted to them. His skin was completely smooth, devoid of anything that could protect them from frostbite. It looked around in a haze, confused. How was it so cold?
It couldn’t remember a lot, the images in his brain were blurry and even only thinking hurt. Familiar images flashed in front of them; they remembered they had some sort of goal, but he couldn’t pinpoint what he exactly needed to do.
As his hunger grew he gradually started inching his way towards the exit of the den: the four walls were too close to each other, it made him feel claustrophobic, he couldn’t withstand this any longer.
Spearmaster plopped down with a soft thud on the soft white snow. This newfound material was… unique, to say the least. Not once in his entire life had he encountered something like this, he knew this, it felt very unfamiliar to him. Small little fragments of the white stuff on the ground were flying through the air; normally anything falling down the sky like the little flakes were doing would be scary, but the snow was cold, soft and slightly wet. It couldn’t hurt him, he concluded.
With small hops he ventured into the cold landscape; they couldn’t quite tell where they were, it all changed too much and his poor memory wasn’t helping. His heavy tail dragged after him, struggling to follow along, the holes occasionally filling up with that cold material that covered the ground for miles: it made the slugcat feel uncomfortable, which meant he had to stop just to empty his otherwise hollow tail. Inconveniently for him, he had to keep going, or he would have starved.
That’s when it hit him. He hadn’t noticed until now, but there weren’t a lot of creatures around. Sure, sometimes he saw the occasional lizard, which he promptly killed, but there wasn’t much diversity.
Spearmaster was enthralled when he noticed that the popcorn plants had survived this environment; it never stabbed something so fast. After all that struggle, it was finally full; he was SO full he could have lasted up to 2 cycles. Unfortunately for them, the cold started kicking in. The flakes were getting faster, hitting him harder and harder as time progressed. He would have never guessed that something that felt so innocent could have been as violent as the bits were hitting him; breathing was hard and it stung his nostrils. He looked at his skin turning paler and paler, his first instinct was to run and hide somewhere safe, but the den he had woken up in was way too far away. With the little strength left in its body he pushed himself through a pipe.
On the other side there was a closed off room; compared to the weather outside it wasn’t as cold, but it wasn’t any warmer either. The room had a few windows that showed the outside fairly well; he could have looked at the fury of the snow from a rather safe place. He also noticed something interesting: there was a small lantern on the ground, the type of lantern he had seen scavengers carry around at some point in the past. It was warm, which meant he was slowly regaining his normal color while holding it: he now felt like he could venture into the cold tundra again. He had noticed the storm getting worse outside, but he had to find a shelter eventually. He left the safeness of the closed off room and ventured outside again. He saw a shelter closeby, which was a relief: he wasn’t ready to aimlessly run around, risking his life as time progressed. He lunged inside: finally, he could feel safe!
He fell asleep with the knowledge that he was going to be fine.
His hibernation was long as stressful, random images that didn’t make a lot of sense appeared many times, his drawings were messy and nonsensical. They were dripping of despair, and well, that was the only way he could have gotten rid of it without being overly violent. He always found himself drawing the same thing; the face of an iterator he had never seen, over and over again, the den was completely covered by them.
Once the hibernation was finished, he felt a warm feeling overcome his cold body: it was no longer snowing. He lazily left the den, the ground still covered by snow. He awkwardly looked around, unsure about where to go.
That was until he saw a green slugcat, covered in soft…. spikes?
He made it his life goal to follow them, especially because he had never seen another slugcat, especially not one covered by spikes. Besides, what else could he do?
Said slugcat was going extremely fast, using their tongue to grapple onto ceilings and walls to go even faster; he was probably not able to catch up, so instead he chose to attract their attention.
A sharp, high pitched noise filled the valley, forcing the green slugcat to stop. They had no clue what was going on, but it couldn’t have been good. They heard the noise getting closer, until it suddenly stopped. They felt a thug on their right arm, asking to turn around.
A small whistle, then silence. Saint finally turned around, ready to face whatever was tugging.
The two slugcats exchanged looks, Spearmaster still holding the other one by their right arm: he moved his hand around, surprised at how the spikes felt; If they had to compare it to something, they would compare it to the wool of the rain deer that inhabited the farm arrays. Saint kind of just stood there. they didn’t know what to make of this, it had never happened before. They weighed their options before using their tongue to grapple out of that situation.
The other slugcat clug onto them, this time holding their entire body. They were very light, so it didn’t slow Saint down, but this wasn’t really the objective: they didn’t want to bring the slugcat with them, they wanted to get rid of them. Saint coughed a little, to catch Spearmaster’s attention, making Spearmaster perk his head up. “you need to leave” Saint said, in the language that slugcats speak. But Spearmaster didn’t reply, and instead shook his head vigorously. This made Saint frown. They were JUST getting used to the cycles being exactly the same between each other and this had to happen?
Saint kept moving around swiftfully with their tongue, occasionally eating a few fruits, when suddenly there was nowhere to grapple onto. They had to walk on the ground for a bit, which made them vulnerable. Their “friend” pulled a spear out of their tail as soon as the both of them landed, startling Saint. They were still unsure of the motives of this slugcat, and they were taught to always be careful with other scugs. They both kept walking in the same direction, the snow gently falling on top of them: now they both knew the dangers of the snow, which meant it was better to be careful. Meanwhile Spearmaster felt a familiar feeling: one of their hands being completely full and holding a single spear on the other was something they had already done before, but they couldn’t remember the context. The warmth emitted by the makeshift lantern was definitely worth having tough. They had tried communicating with the green slugcat but eventually understood that they didn’t understand sign language, which was inconvenient at best. Spearmaster was lost in thought, when suddenly he heard a LOT of lizards. The green slugcat stopped for a bit, waiting to see if they would leave. What instead happened is that one of the orange lizards warned the others about the two slugcats, which only meant trouble. Spearmaster shoved himself in front of the other slugcat, ready to both have a bountiful lunch and to protect the green one, who didn’t seem like much of a fighter.
Saint looked at Spearmaster making a carnage of the orange lizards: he had temporarily dropped his lantern to focus on fighting, Saint didn’t know why he would do all this for them, but they felt weirdly flattered. Maybe the tundra would have been safer with them?
Once all the orange lizards all dropped dead Saint moved in front of Spearmaster
“thank you” They told them, bowing their head down respectfully. Spearmaster would have smiled if he had a mouth, but since he didn’t he just shook his paw around in a “don’t worry” manner. Saint inched closer to him and took his head in his paws, which confused the Spearmaster “you don’t have a mouth” they muttered, in an embarrassed tone. Spearmaster shrugged, he didn’t really know what Saint meant to do but whatever it was only Saint themselves knew. Saint then grabbed Spearmaster’s hand gently and dragged him to somewhere safe, they knew this place and many, many others like the back of their paw. Eventually they reached a new shelter. The both of them plopped inside, Spearmaster snuggled up into a ball next to Saint, maybe because they enjoyed the company or maybe because they felt warmer next to them. Saint got ready to meditate for the rest of the hibernation, while Spearmaster started doodling little drawings of what it saw today.
The green slugcat kept coming up in the drawings; it was obvious why of course, but it still felt weird. It was also weird seeing his friend so… vigilant, during the hibernation. He had assumed he would just sleep, but apparently they meditated during those times: he wasn’t sure what to make of it.
That hibernation was more peaceful, this time the figure of that character not appearing as much in Spearmaster’s mind. Everything still felt wrong, but this time at least there was someone to ground it to reality; it had never noticed how much it needed company.
A lot of time had passed, but eventually the snow stopped falling from the sky. Saint peacefully stretched, while Spearmaster shook his head furiously to get himself to wake up after staying still for so long. Saint moved his glance onto the other slugcat, which wasn’t hard since he was wrapped around them. They gave him a small, soft lick, as a sign of affection: it had been a lot of time since they had done this with anyone. This wasn’t one of their usual licks, which they used to move around and stick to places, but rather a simple saliva-less lick. This made Spearmaster heat up, which made Saint giggle gleefully. They were finally genuinely relaxed.
Maybe they could spend this cycle resting? The idea made them feel ashamed, but it also felt like the right choice. A little sigh escaped their mouth, as they got back up. They at least needed to meet five pebbles, he still needed their presence, even if only for a few minutes. “Alright, let’s go” They told the other slugcat; It was weird talking and receiving no reply, but they had gotten used to it by now. Spearmaster gave them a thumbs up, accompanied by a small whistle. The two traveled among the snow, stopping to eat and sleep in dens; it wasn’t an hard life, occasionally Spearmaster had to clear the way ahead to make sure Saint didn’t get hurt, which made Saint’s stomach feel weird, as if a bunch of batflies were stuck in there. They were happy that wasn’t the case but it also meant they had no idea what was happening. Spearmaster was gradually teaching Saint sign language, which turned out to be surprisingly easy. Apparently Saint was a fast learner and quickly caught onto the meaning of words; this made Spearmaster feel happy, maybe they could finally have constructive discussions with Saint?
The two slept again, this time Spearmaster had a very rough idea of where they were, but he will be the first one to admit that that place had changed a lot; they were clearly climbing The Wall, and yet everything seemed just so different, it was a little insane. They snuggled one more time, Spearmaster signing them “rest well”, to which Saint signed a small “thanks” back.
That hibernation was tense for Spearmaster. He didn’t know why, but the figure of their first hibernation ever since waking up in this new world appeared again, the doodles were barely enough to ground him on to reality. He could feel his muscles tensing up for no reason, the lines he drew were shaky and harsh. The den was gradually filling up with drawings until there was no more space. Even then, Spearmaster kept drawing onto the already drawn lines. He had to. It was his only option.
Eventually the snow storm ended. Saint squinted their eyes, rubbing them. Then, suddenly, they noticed the drawings covering the walls. The drawings were painful to look at, they were hard to understand and it was clear that the artist was suffering. A small Spearmaster, pushed against one of the corners of the shelter, trembled in panic. His muscles were tense and his body was cold. Saint pushed them against their fur, cuddling around them in order to warm them up. They caught the Spearmaster’s attention by whistling to them softly before signing to them “are you ok?”. The Spearmaster just cradled deeper into their arms as a response. After a bit of thought Saint carefully picked them up before using their tongue to get out of the vertical den. Holding both Spearmaster and a lantern turned out to be harder than expected, mostly because they couldn’t hold onto walls if they needed to, but it was fine. They were exactly where they needed to be.
As they got closer to the melody, Spearmaster slowly regained consciousness; they were still weak, clearly, but at least they could walk and hold themselves up without needing support. They both finally arrived at the chamber: Five Pebble’s chamber. Spearmaster carefully climbed a few rocks as Saint trailed behind, when suddenly he locked eyes with the iterator.
It felt… Weird, to both of them. Five pebbles frowned when he saw the slugcat, while the slugcat suddenly remembered what he was so desperately trying to remember. He scratched his chest, where a scar was located. He was supposed to have something there. Except he wasn’t; he had already delivered the pearl. It was ripped outside of their chest. Five pebbles told them something, but it was just garbage to the slugcat; the iterator in front of them looked mortified.
Now everything made sense. He was supposed to deliver the pearl to Five Pebbles. He was sent by Seven Red Suns to do so: that’s what they kept drawing. Exactly that over and over and over again. A shiver rushed down his spine, before he began running away in the opposite direction of where Five Pebbles was located. In that moment, he could only remember the harsh pain that the iterator made him feel. He could hear Saint calling out to him, but he couldn’t wait any longer, he didn’t want to; it was frustrating and he hated it. Climbing proved itself a hard challenge, he had to keep making new spears, and the physical situation he was in definitely wasn’t helping. He didn’t expect to suddenly get picked up by Saint, who then brought him back to the den, this time not to hibernate but simply to rest a few moments. The old sketches Spearmaster had drawn still decorated the walls of their shelter, but now Spearmaster felt more detached from them; now that he had understood the situation he didn't want to think about it anymore. Sure, he still didn’t know the full picture, but he was better off without it.
Saint grabbed Spearmaster by his sides, making sure not to be harsh, and hugged them “did you two meet before?” They asked him. Spearmaster nodded, sad that he probably wouldn’t have been able to explain everything to them, it was way too complicated even for them to express. Saint seemed to catch onto that fact pretty quickly, so instead of pushing the other’s boundaries they sighed and cuddled next to them. They shared warmth for those few minutes. Spearmaster was confused and scared, but Saint would have helped him, it was the least they could do.
After a number of minutes had passed, they both left the shelter and headed to Five Pebbles one more time. When the dying iterator saw them, he let out a few shaky words that only Saint could really understand. “He says he’s sorry” Saint told Spearmaster. They received a nod from the purple slugcat, as he made his way towards the iterator.
He snuggled next to him. It was a simple gesture, really, but it meant so much to him, especially right now. Saint took the opportunity to join, both to keep the others warm and to enjoy a little rest.
Maybe they would spend these cycles with Spearmaster and Pebbles, until the time would come to once again fulfill their role in the universe. But that time was not right now.