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"Seems we're in a similar predicament, you and I."
"So it seems." Swatch sets down their cup of tea and looks across the table, at the cat smiling over the rim of their own.
They aren't entirely sure what to say next – a first, for them. Spamton, the deplorable man, was the only person before now to share in their acute closeness to the Light, some sort of personal bond that tied them together only in how much it deepened their hatred for one another.
They feel no such hatred for the Darkner sitting across the table from them. Not now, at least. There’s an enigmatic gleam in their eye, one that lets Swatch know they’ve found the right person; but aside from that, the cat is a complete stranger.
The lanterns set about Seam’s shop cast orange shadows across their face. “You’ve come to talk about tricks of the Light?” they ask.
“I have,” Swatch nods. “One in particular.”
“Still dwelling on that old thing?” Seam’s smile curls into something bemused. “Well, you’ve got good company. I’ve had the words of my old companion stuck in my cotton long past when I’d parted ways from him. We’ve the sort of circumstance one doesn’t easily forget.”
Swatch wishes they could disagree. They’d been trying to forget the NEO machine for as long as they’d had It hidden away in the Queen’s basement, and they’d loathed Spamton for trying to make himself a God from It, as if Spamton were the God It was made for. Spamton is worthy of very little, certainly not their peace of mind, and yet he had dug his fingers in to their deepest secrets and tangled himself up in the tightrope of Light and Dark that only they had walked the furthest length of.
Instead, they offer up a simple nod. “A noble one, if trying.”
“So you say?” Seam cocks their head to the side. “In my experience, all this Light nonsense has proved nothing but trouble.”
“Oh, yes – it certainly has given me its fair share,” Swatch quickly amends, setting down their teacup. “But I would be remiss to not follow my purpose and follow it well. We owe our lives to the Light – certainly you understand.”
“You and your blessed existence, sure.” Seam shakes their head, pouring them another cup of tea. It smells rich and warm – thick with spices, not like the kind they’ve grown used to. The cat doesn’t seem all that upset (not like the tension that settled in their features when Ralsei had organized their rehoming; the young Darkner pushing through crowded streets with a blithe smile, high on fate), but a melancholy pervades each word as it leaves their fabric lips. “I don’t know if the Queen has told you much of her old company, but the Light stopped shining on us quite a while ago. And this?” they gesture to their face, ragged and worn, sagging at the edges. “There’s no future for a Darkner in this condition.”
They’d near forgotten – this was their Lady Grace’s oldest companion. They’d seen her face fall at the state of her former companions when they’d arrived, but at that time, there were more pressing matters to attend to. “I am sorry,” they offer politely. Losing one’s purpose is a necessary part of a Darkner’s existence – albeit not a pleasant one.
Seam waves a paw. “Bah,” they say – and Swatch looks up. They did not expect such a flippant response.
“‘Bah’?” Surely they aren’t –
“Serving the Light’s long since lost its luster, I’m afraid,” Seam says, demeanor ever–insouciant. “The way I see it, the Lightners can patch me up as pretty as they’d like, but a pretty prison’s still a prison. Either option’s lost any promise I could've found in it. So why bother worrying? Might as well rot away with a smile.”
Swatch’s face twists, a reflexive reaction to their fellow Darkner’s nonchalant words. “There is no prison to be found with the Light,” they say, sharp as a pen. “If you bothered to worry, perhaps you’d bother to look a little harder for promise.”
Perhaps it is a little haughty of them; to react with the bile pooling in their throat rather than a level head. After all, their purpose is more than the simple fate the rest of their kind has been born for. They were made the ferry the whims of the Gods between worlds, to bring effigies of the Light into the world of mere mortals.
But – that in and of itself has more than granted them the right to be haughty, hasn’t it? They had seen firsthand the twisted dreams of that salesman, the way he tried to break free from the fate that’d been bestowed upon him. There is no freedom for a Darkner, only duty and death; and death, in and of itself, is a facet of that duty.
Swatch is no stranger to airs of importance. They consider themselves to have more than earned the right.
“Temper, temper,” Seam purrs, the bemused note in their voice raising Swatch’s hackles. “You’re still awfully faithful for our sort, aren’t you?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” The question hardly comes off like one.
“I should word that a little differently, shouldn’t I..?” Might as well be talking to themself. “Everyone knows the Light is real – if not thanks to our fates, then thanks to where we are now. But there’s a difference between believing in something and believing in it. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Must you insist on speaking in riddles?” The bile still in their throat paints their words a sickly color.
Seam lifts the long skirt of their dress as they make their way back around the counter, stepping over their assortment of odd knickknacks. (A pity the thing is so antiquated now; the garment might’ve made them rather pretty in their heyday. Unlike Swatch, the old cat hasn’t set into their age gracefully.)
Swatch watches them and waits for their answer. Said answer is no more than a benign shrug.
Swatch opens their mouth again, only to purse their lips in a pointed frown soon after. A definite change from Spamton, they think, the corners of their mouth turning even further downward at the name. He couldn’t keep his mouth shut. But this one –
The old word companion writes itself in starkly colored ink across Swatch’s thoughts. Less do they feel like they might be looking in a mirror. They could hardly call Spamton a companion, a valued customer that’d only lived past that moniker in trysts. Failed attempts to defile what’d been left in the basement of their Lady Grace’s mansion there that Swatch had become the routine handler of. Light reflecting off of rotten stained glass, two colors of worship mixing like poorly paired paints.
“Cat got your tongue?”
“I’m sure you’d like that.”
Seam is sitting opposite them again, leaning on their paws. “So fulfillment is all you find yourself needing?”
“That is what being a Darkner entails.”
“Another technical truth.” Seam’s hollow socket seems to sink, what might constitute an eyelid falling over the hole. “I suppose the better question is: are you satisfied with that?”
Of course they are. Why wouldn’t they be? “I am,” they say, gaze rising to look down at Seam over the edge of their empty teacup. “As you said, my existence is a blessed one. A pity you lack the same.”
“Pity? I don’t need pity.”
That, we do have in common, Swatch nearly says. There’s an odd hue of it in the way they tip their head to one side, their button eye spinning in a curious clockwise rotation.
Swatch only straightens their back under the look. “And I need not yours.” Each word is as exact and precise as they are, no room for ambiguity between them.
“Need you not?”
Swatch sets their teacup down. “Why wouldn’t I be satisfied?”
“Our situation, of course.” The corners of Seam’s mouth turn up, their implication equally precise.
Of course . Swatch’s features contort.
“We had our little trysts in the basement, too, you know. That’s where you kept It, wasn’t it?”
“It was.”
Seam traces a claw along the grooves of their table. Swatch studies its idle movements, before choosing to stare instead at the warped remains of the intricate patterns that detail their sleeves’ lacy ends. They can’t imagine how they wouldn’t want for a Lightner to fix them up – to make something useful out of them, something presentable.
“I’ve still got that Crystal,” they say. “When Jevil and I used to play our little games, he’d tell me what he saw in the old thing. He’d tell me about the nature of our world – all the nitty-gritty details. Naturally, those kinda details pique one’s curiosity. And given just how hoity-toity you take yourself, I’ll bet the words of your Spamton have stuck in your code just the way they’ve stuck in my cotton.”
Your Spamton. Swatch’s frown cuts a sharp line across their face. The fond nonchalance of their words strikes them like a magical bullet; as though they held anything but contempt in their being for the man who thought he could go against what fate had ordained for him with the power of Swatch’s own blessing. The Darkner who dressed as a poor man’s mockery of themselves, a mirror they sought to shatter in the moments before they threw him out of his pathetic excuse for a temple and their cycle began anew the following night.
Encounters with Spamton always came to bared teeth and uncoordinated hands. Nothing that lasted more than a night at a time. Nothing beyond pausing halfway from throwing him out of the Queen’s basement, caught in his funhouse mirror reflection, tripped by overgrown vines and speckles of holy light.
"YOU KNOW WHAT I'D HAVE IF I [Made It ] TO H E A V E N?" he'd said once, glasses glinting in that light. His fingers had dug into the fabric of Swatch's shirt like stains. Spamton was wont to say things like this; things that made some, but not enough, sense.
Swatch had picked off each finger before they could find their purchase, peeling his hand into theirs. "Hm?"
"THAT'S
[[POWER]]," he'd said. "I'D BE [Free] TO [[CAN DO ANYTHING]] – TO [File Deleted] ANY OF YOU OFF THE FAC3 OF THE $!?!ING [Earth] IF I [[Want It, Need It ~ ]] TO!! !! ! YOU'D ALL BE [Objects] IN MY [[FILTHY, FILTHY HANDS]]!! I'D [[ERROR: String Search Empty]]!!!!!! 1!"
Swatch still cannot begin to fathom most of the wretched man. They especially cannot fathom how he could get as close as he had to the Light without a due fear of it – much less Seam’s companion. Much less Seam.
But Spamton, at the very least, is gone now.
“You must have been very close.”
“So sour,” Seam laughs. “Did I not put enough sweetener in your tea?”
“Were you?”
“Perhaps we were, perhaps we weren’t,” Seam muses. Their tone is painted with the colors of a sunset, nostalgic and warm. “Perhaps we were merely biding our time waiting for the end of the world.” They look up, then, interrupting themself. “You’ve seen the proof of that part; or, the end of a world, at least.”
“That I have.” They do, for whatever margin it’s worth, long for the stained glass windows of the old café, the mansion’s teal walls and carpeted red flooring. They’d thought that might give them a point of solidarity with Seam; who’d muttered to them upon their arrival of their feelings on the crowded streets here, the lack of any remnants of the world they once called home. Ah, well , they’d hummed, noting themselves thankful if nothing else for the Queen’s newfound hope. Not like we’ve got a choice in it! Has the little prince shown you to your new home yet?
How foolish, that thought.
“You spend enough time knowing, and it all starts to fall apart,” Seam says, turning back to their idle tracing of the table. “It did for him – oh, did it ever! You think too long on our existence, and;” they dig their claw into the wood and drag, the sharp gash they cut finishing their sentence for them. “And you two –” they look up again, “you had that machine between you. A bona-fide vector of God. You’re telling me you never got tempted? Not even a smidge?”
Perhaps they have more in common with the young prince than they do this sorry excuse of a Darkner. They've seen the lines of Ralsei's smile go stiff when Seam talks of their disillusionment, the glare in his glasses when they call him little prince or poppet with a suitably catlike smile, the way he tries to point them back toward the Light as any sane person would. He may be special, too, blessed as Swatch is for the service of a closer God – Gods, plural, as they do – but like Swatch, he knows the path that has been set for him. Perhaps that is what earns one such a blessing.
Swatch must’ve fallen silent, because Seam stands again and directs their attention toward a small phonograph upon the shop’s counter. “Do you dance?” they ask. “You’re awfully tense.”
Swatch blinks. “I do,” they say, though far be it for Seam to think such a gesture can warm the cold hue rising in their every pricked feather. Indigo undertones buried beneath black and white.
It’s them who sets their hand in Seam’s paw, but so too is it their arm around the small of Seam’s back. “Bold, aren’t you?” Seam chuckles as the lanterns dim around them, a low rumble not unlike a purr. In silent response, Swatch flips the positions of their hands, tightening their hold enough to draw another bemused sound from Seam.
With their other hand, Seam sets the phonograph spinning, the old gadget crackling with ambient magic. It fills the shop with the sound of bass and clarinets, muted both by age and by the dust that permeates the air.
“I like this one,” Seam smiles, following Swatch as they step forward with sharp precision. Their free hand is holding up the skirt of their dress now, so as to keep its worn edges from catching on the rickety floorboards. “Old crowd favorite.”
“Which crowd, now?”
“Used to be the court magician, way back when.” Seam rocks to one side, and Swatch rocks them back without missing so much as a beat. “Didn’t the old Queen ever tell you that?”
“She did,” Swatch affirms, studying Seam’s face now that they’ve been provided the opportunity to see it up close. This fascination is still – as far as they are concerned – bordering on something akin to the derisive, but Seam’s grin only widens as Swatch notes the way their teeth seem sharper cast in shadow. Their lone button eye is rimmed with light, reflective even on its scratched and faded surface. There are places where their fur is nearly worn off, some giving way to rather unseemly rips. Again it confounds Swatch – why wouldn’t they wish to be made useful again, if they had warranted such thorough use?
Perhaps such an understanding is owed only to blessed ones. They’ll have to seek consultation on the matter.
“Enjoying the view?” Seam says, in a manner Swatch swears is goading. The lid of their empty socket sags and rises slightly; an attempt , Swatch imagines, at batting it . How quaint. How irritatingly coy.
Was Swatch generous to think themself merely bordering on the derisive? What possible reason does Seam have for such a constant look of self-satisfaction? Swatch presses their hand tighter against the small of Seam’s back, sneering as Seam’s ragged hand does the same on their shoulder.
Seam’s expression remains unchanging.
Swatch draws them closer. Far be it for them to buckle under this. “You think yourself the better of us two?”
“When did I say that?” Seam’s purr is far softer now that their faces are so near. Each of their words lilts with the melody of the music.
“Of course.” Swatch’s hardly do the same. Their double edge could cut glass. Basement? There’s no basement here. Have a drink, and talk softly – you’re bothering the other customers. “Far be it for me to make assumptions.”
Seam purrs yet again, this instance curtailed with a laugh. Swatch can feel the rumble of it against their hand, even with Seam’s particular high and catlike register. “Far be it.”
Seam dances like they’re leading. Swatch curls the clawed hands beneath their feathers into the fabric on Seam’s back at that – at the way that although they follow Swatch’s steps to the letter, they seem too to step with a certain independence from them. A taunting – who’s mirroring who? One of those games of theirs, Swatch imagines.
An image imprints itself in Swatch’s mind; Seam in the unsightly murk of a basement, amidst a different sort of game. It seems generous to grace such a thing with the moniker. Even the effigy of God that spurred their and Spamton’s particular bond acted more as judge and jury than as referee.
In the image, Seam is where Spamton was, opposite them against the brick. Their smile isn’t as static as Spamton’s; nor does it clack with glee, nor do raucous words pour from the mouth that forms it. They don’t yank at Swatch’s tie as though to gain a leg up over them from it. Instead, the merchant curls a claw to undo it in one smooth motion, tossing it aside before Swatch can see where they’ve pricked a thread loose. Their dark skirts pool beneath them as Swatch caresses their leg, composed and practiced. They lean back against the wall, moving with Swatch as they lean forward – still self-satisfied, still as though it is them leading.
As though it is Seam that they must measure up to. That they must match.
Swatch, too, is where Jevil would otherwise be in this phantasmal Seam’s eye – are they, too, in the eye of the Seam in front of them?
"Swatch," Seam's paw is on Swatch's cheek, thumb just shy of scratching the surface. "Hee hee... You're staring, you know."
The Party Dojo is lively that evening.
One would think it a tricky task to pack so many people into the small building, but magic is as magic does, and every battle expands the place out from a small hall to a full-on arena. The young prince is off on yet another Dark World excursion, no doubt scolding his Lightner companions for spending too much time neglecting their heavenly duties. Even so, his and his fellow prince’s absences do little to quell the mood of the affair.
Of the two of them, Seam had been the one to suggest they go. Swatch hadn’t taken them for the type. But their interest had been palpable when Swatch had idly considered an outing to while away the hours, and that had been enough evidence for Swatch.
“I like my four walls fine,” they’d goaded. “But I’d like to see someone try to keep me out of ‘em!”
Swatch can feel the music pulsing through every spark of magic in their body. It’s loud and electronic, every thump of the beat a crack of synthesized drums. Neon lights silhouette every Darkner in the room in the absence of the warm lanterns lining the streets or the soft glow of magic; save for the sharp white light of bullets that fly across the arena as the gathered crowd whoops and cheers. Seam is, of course, no exception to this.
The neon traces the edge of their empty socket like it does the rest of them. It makes their every movement more spectral, more transient. Their tail sways back and forth as they lean against Swatch’s side, tucked up against them in a booth like an old companion. (Funny, that.) They seem about as affected by the fervor as they do anything else; and that, of course, is to say that mild amusement is all Swatch can glean from them.
Their first kiss had been impromptu, a spur of emotion from both sides. Swatch isn’t entirely sure of how to define what a relationship borne of the sort of fascination they share. But that isn’t something they need dwell on now; their second kiss followed by a third and fourth as the mood of the place drinks them in.
An announcer's voice cuts clear across the arena and out to the crowd as it whoops, cresting up like a wave. Seam’s attention lingers on the battle as it ends. A quizzical hum rises in the back of their throat.
“Well?”
Seam cocks their head up, their wide smile still plastered to their face. The whole affair is more than a little uncanny.
“Well yourself!” they respond. “Suppose this is keeping you from going as mad as the rest of us?”
Swatch truly shouldn’t have expected anything more. “You seem to be enjoying yourself.”
Seam laughs a small, cattish laugh. Swatch pulls them closer by the arm they’ve set around their waist, adjusting themself to get a better look at them. “Am I?”
“That answers nothing, mon cher.”
“You didn’t answer my questions, either. I thought our game fairly matched.” They pause, the pupils of their button eye rotating as they register the whole of Swatch’s sentence. “Ha! That’s a new one.”
“My dear.”
Seam preens a little at the clarification in a way far different than the way Spamton used to. The fur of their face seems to turn up at the corners as they press close, claws set against Swatch’s chest. “Now, now,” Seam’s grin stretches further across their face as their tail continues to keep time. They end their insinuation there.
“It’s decent entertainment,” Swatch hums, turning their attention to the next match. A new pair of Darkners take to the arena as the announcer shouts their names, the audience shouting their allegiances as the music takes on a new color and a loud sequence of beeps signals the battle’s start. It’s a far cry from even the rowdiest of their Lady Grace’s soirées, the music a bit much compared to bitcrushed raps and harpsichord. But they cannot say they’re entirely opposed to it – “It breaks up the monotony,” they note aloud, and Seam drums their fingers against Swatch’s chest in seeming agreement.
“As good a place as any to bide time,” they purr, following Swatch’s gaze. “Like I said – you’ve got to have something to do while you wait for the end of the world, isn’t that right, pretty bird?”
That cattish laugh bubbles up again in the heavy air, sending an unbecoming shiver through Swatch. The nickname sounds different in their voice than it did in Spamton’s, easy in a way that doesn’t quite map to Spamton’s high-strung patterns of speech. The dissonance etches in the periphery of Swatch’s consciousness. They let it.
“You’re rather fond of that topic.” Swatch hooks a thumb under Seam’s chin, taking a moment to examine their face. “Such morbidity is unbecoming.”
“And yet you’ve put up with it this long!” Seam remarks. “If you’d like something becoming so bad, let me hear some more of your fancy talk. Haven’t you a question of your own to get an answer for?”
They do. But Seam’s weight against them proves an infuriating distraction, their ephemeral neon outline a far cry from how they’d looked in the shop. Their lips had been looser then, Swatch thinks, both in the literal and figurative senses. Still they look at Swatch like it is they who must measure up to them; to whatever they thought made their supposed enlightenment so much better than Swatch’s dutiful faith in the Light. Still they confound them.
Such a distraction is what prompts them to narrow their eyes and bring their faces closer, Seam’s claws curling around the fabric of their shirt letting them know when to close the gap. Swatch pulls them nearer with their other hand as a small quartet – or quintet, perhaps – of voices ooo s at the display. Swatch’s disdain for the idea of all of Castle Town seeing them like this is only curbed by the fact that their fascinations have no basement in which to contain themselves and the fact that none of them will care enough to remember in the morning. They’ve a match to watch, more supposed thrilling things to busy themselves with than two old Darkners locking lips.
Seam doesn’t kiss the way Spamton does. They don’t grip Swatch’s shirt as tight as he did, doesn’t pull them down and mutter prayers against their mouth to the effigy above them. Seam pulls back with a purr and urges Swatch to catch them again – and they do, their hand moving to the back of Seam’s head as they meet again and Seam nips at their bottom lip with a self-satisfied sound.
Finally, Seam pulls away and Swatch does not make to meet them again. They may not be attempting to seek purpose in Seam (nor did they Spamton, thank the Light) but the pointlessness of it nonetheless strikes them still.
Seam’s grin widens. “What’s this?”
Ah. They’d like that, wouldn’t they? Their stomach twists at the idea that this sorry excuse for a Darkner could wedge their way past mere intrigue.
“Fancy talk,” Swatch says, sardonic.
“And clever, too? My, you really are a catch, pretty bird.”
Seam’s tail flicks under Swatch’s beak. Swatch wrinkles it in distaste.
“I know,” they frown, Seam letting the tip of their tail trace the rest of the way down Swatch’s side.
“Dare I ask about your little question again?” their tail lingers in the divot of Swatch’s hips. Swatch grips their side a little tighter in turn. “Or will that earn me another kiss? What’re the rules of this little game?”
“Dare I ask,” Swatch mutters more than states outright. They drag their thumb down the side of Seam’s cheek once, then again, then again. Seam leans into it, buttonhole pupils waning to their bottom halves.
“Dare you?” they echo quietly. Swatch’s stomach twists again (for lack of a word more fitting.)
“You, cher, are terrible,” they find themselves saying. “Now, about that.”
Swatch turns back to the arena. One of their men vaults past a flurry of bullets with effortless grace, each one shattering on the floor upon their impact. They burst in flashes of white, magic fizzling out into the heady air. “Is it the magic that interests you so?” they finally ask.
Seam doesn’t miss a beat. “ Oh , no, no, no,” they laugh, in a condescending manner that brings a red undertone to Swatch’s feathers. “Mere magic, no. But to find someone who can match me…” They laugh again. “Well, let’s cut to the chase. I haven’t. Yet.”
“Match you?”
“You know I enjoy a good game,” Seam purrs, circling a claw on the fabric of Swatch’s perfectly pressed shirt. “Especially – perhaps specifically – this sort of game. But, as I said,” they huff a little, playfully, “so far, it’s been ‘no dice’.”
The words go directly to Swatch’s pride. Seam’s self-satisfaction hadn’t ever really left, but now it picks at Swatch’s feathers, stands them on end as the red beneath them rises. They’re somewhat tempted to resolve the feeling as they had before; that is to say, with another kiss.
Instead, they straighten their back. They’ve a rapport with the Light, after all, their hands able to deliver the heavensent. Such things bless them with equally potent magic – surely more than a ratty thing like Seam has any right to brag over, court magician or not. They could keep themselves together when Spamton had come to them, and they highly doubt Seam could say the same for their meetings with Jevil. They’ve the wherewithal to keep up.
Match them . Why wouldn’t they?
Swatch straightens the rest of the way into a stand, their arm snaking away from Seam’s waist. It trails up to Seam’s hand before they catch it in a kiss, and for a fraction of a second they feel a bit like some knight in a storybook. Seam’s eye flashes with a look of recognition – to Jevil, perhaps.
The crowd is already in a fervor by the time Swatch reaches the arena, their timing as impeccable as always. “Swatch,” they tell Jigsaw Joe, who in turn tells the announcer. “Just Swatch.”
They step onto the stage and immediately all eyes are on them. They’re reminded, absently, of the eyes cut into the rock just beyond town. They preen under them all; the announcer says hailing from the former Cyber World, Swatch! and hundreds of voices whoop and cheer from every side of the arena. Two worlds’ worth of Darkners packed into one town, one audience. Two worlds’ worth of attention on them.
They take a deep bow and relish in it.
When they rise again, they’re met with not one face, but three. Clover, a regular, as the announcer informs them. She bends forward into a fighting stance, her heads lashing in threatening circles as the two size one another up and the announcer counts down from five. She taunts them in three voices, but Swatch needn’t bother listening – as they always have, they’ve business to attend to.
A loud blare rings out and instantly Clover whips her tail, spade-shaped bullets split off of it before they too split into smaller ones yet. She lunges at them with the motion and Swatch misses no beats in leaping into the air, each bullet grazing them without a scratch to spare.
They summon a bullet of their own as they land in a crouch, a cloud of paint pulsing with magic. They spring back up and launch the thing into the air, its colors changing from blue to orange and back again as it threatens to engulf Clover whole. When it lands, Clover is just shy of dodging it – and winces as the bright blue paint hits her side and dissipates into a barrage of magic.
“You’re good,” all three of her heads mutter as she stumbles. She isn’t particularly close to their level, Swatch assesses as she lunges at them again, teeth bared, as she swings another round of bullets off her tail. They graze them effortlessly again, the click click click sound of it cutting the roar of the crowd.
Falling into a pattern isn’t terribly difficult. It seems Clover is unfamiliar with attack colors, and her sorry attempts to solve them only bring her pithy opposition down further. Each step they take is as graceful as befits them, their bullets summoned with elegant flourishes. Eventually Clover too is moving to the pulse of the music, stumbling as each beat thuds through the hall and another bright glob of paint hits against her. Orange. Blue. Orange. White.
Inevitably, Clover loses the beat. She trips over a leg, growling up at Swatch as they adjust their posture. They look down their beak at her as the crowd holds their breath, watching the scene as it stills.
Swatch lifts their hand, summoning another liquid bullet. It glows verdant green.
They flick it away. Clover flinches.
“Don’t thank me,” Swatch remarks.
The crowd lets out an uproar as Clover realizes what’s just happened, the battle quickly coming back to life. They swear they hear Seam’s delighted laugh in the sound. They don’t hope they do – hope is a thing for them to have for the Light and only the Light. But they listen closely for it as Clover comes back swinging and they swing right back – a second wind for the sake of showing off.
And show off they do. Surely they’ve proven themself more than capable – stronger than Jevil, however strong he was. The thought is enough to sharpen their ferocity, heavy their breath. They grab Clover’s tail mid-thrash and swing, and although they’re not the most muscular of their kind it’s still enough to stop her barrage before it starts and fling her headlong into one side of the arena.
The momentum is enough to shake their balance, but they’ve the coordination to quickly regain their footing. It appears the same is not true for their opponent. Clover collapses on the ground in a heap and the announcer exclaims LOST! after their count. She heaves a nod in their direction and they shake her claw, exchanging it.
They make their way back through the cheering crowd, fussing with their mussed tie. When they reach Seam, the cat doesn’t bother to assist. Instead, they’ve lounged out in the booth, skirt shoved over to one side.
Swatch looks at them. Seam shakes their head.
“You can’t be serious,” Swatch heaves.
“I am,” Seam cackles, beckoning for Swatch to sit with them again. Swatch complies, if only for a lack of other ideas. “But you don’t need to worry about it! This is all well and good, but I’ve plenty opponents yet!”
Swatch watches their mouth as it moves. There’s a pair of strings stitching up one corner of it.
They sigh, tightening their tie back into its perfect knot. “Dare I ask for elaboration?” they mutter. They hate seeing it loose – unkempt, like those strings. A sign of falling short.
“Those ‘heroes’ are getting stronger and stronger every day,” Seam replies, reaching over to tug Swatch’s tie back loose. They let their palm drag down Swatch’s chest, and Swatch can feel its pressure there as it rises and falls. “And soon enough, they’ll – leave it.” They take Swatch’s hand before they can fix their tie again, gripping it firmly. “It looks better that way.”
“You’d think that,” Swatch glowers, wrenching their hand away. “But some of us still have the mind to keep up appearances.”
“Soon enough,” Seam carries on, “they’ll be more than worthy opponents. And that’ll make them plenty good company for me to keep when the world finally ends!”
"You really shouldn't be listening to them," Ralsei says. He tips his head a little to the side, the gesture filled with childlike concern. "You understand our purpose. They..." he trails off, somber eyes cast down. He's prone to doing that, Swatch has noticed, when his words carry enough implication to sustain themselves.
They don’t.
Castle Town, and the café by extension, bustles with new life. Ralsei barely stands out among them all, a little green spot tucked behind the counter with them. He sifts through the ingredients, adding more from the stash in his arms. Tension crests off him like ripples in a lake, so much so that even outside of battle Swatch can feel it resonating. They might’ve passed him over themselves if they hadn’t felt it. Fitting, for the prince of the Darkners. They’re meant to be mere shadows – they’re not meant to be bright enough to stand out. Even Swatch could learn a thing or two from that.
“Believe me,” Swatch huffs, looking up as one of their men offers a platter. They point them to the table it belongs to. “I try my best not to.”
“Is that so?” Ralsei sounds unconvinced. He isn’t looking at them, but they can imagine his expression, a quirked brow over the frames of his glasses.
“I spent much of my time before now with Spamton,” Swatch points out, the name dropping from their mouth like a large fly in the air. Heavy, notable for its evocation of disgust. “You can rest assured that I can manage such fascinations.”
Ralsei prickles. “Right,” he says, through a deep breath. To himself more than to Swatch, he adds; “and Spamton became the heroes’ strength, didn’t he? He remembered his purpose. I’m sure Seam will do the same.”
His murmurs fade into the background as Swatch raises their head to look over the crowd again. No sign of Seam, thank the Light. They can still recall how the cat’s hands felt pressed against their chest. The mocking curve of their mouth may as well be stitched into their mind. How bothersome.
At the very least, they’ve weaved their thread through Swatch’s racing thoughts of Spamton. If Ralsei’s words hold true, there’s nothing left for them with him. No NEO machine. No Cyber City. No basement trysts. No close quarters.
Ralsei stands and shakes his head. “Everything is changing so fast, isn’t it?” He poses it as a question, but he may as well have stated a fact. The words come with a little exhausted laugh attached.
Swatch nods. “Especially with the Lightners here,” they say, placing a particular emphasis on the last word. It isn’t every day the Gods descend from on high – and Ralsei must be the most awestruck of them all, graced with the purpose of being theirs alone.
“Actually,” Ralsei says, and when Swatch turns back over their shoulder to face him they find his expression obscured by the pale lenses of his glasses, “speaking of the Lightners…”
He trails off again, eyes still out of sight as he looks down. He’s a habit of that, Swatch has noticed – it reminds them a bit of themselves, able to hold fast to seeming neutrality no matter the demands with which they are met. The skill is a well-suited one to their sort. Swatch is content to wait for him to form his words. A Swatchling presents another platter to them and they direct them to a table just near the door.
"I thought this place could be a second home to them, but..." Ralsei says, his smile pulled tight at the corners. Swatch hasn’t the context for the heroes’ trifles – after all, their holy role is merely to watch and serve – but they nod, content to listen. They’ll surely understand the broad strokes. "I understand now that my purpose is to advise them to stay in the world they belong to. They shouldn't keep coming here. Not if it means Kris will make another Dark Fountain. Not if it means it makes them and Susie question what it means to be Lightners. Not if –”
"Is that right, poppet?"
Seam stands at the counter.
“That’s right.”
Swatch stiffens as Seam’s tail brushes against their hand from the other side of the counter. Ralsei barely moves at all. Seam looks between him and Swatch, their head turning as if it were mounted on a slowly spinning wheel.
“Are there not enough tables?” Swatch asks facetiously.
“Oh, I’m just here to pay you two a visit.” Seam’s tail curls back and they lift themself up onto the counter, letting it snake further up Swatch’s arm. To Ralsei, they continue; “I just don’t see why you bother. After all, there’s nothing any of us can do about it.”
Silence.
The song on the jukebox skips. Each time it does, it spools the air tighter around itself. Each time it does is a drip of wet paint.
Ralsei finally looks at Seam. His smile is still fixed tight on his face, his glasses nearly opaque.
"I understand,” Ralsei says. “Thank you for reminding me of that, too. It isn't my purpose to question what the Lightners do."
He tilts his head up, nodding toward the jukebox. When Swatch meets his gaze again, they can see his eyes again, folded to match his smile.
“One of us should really do something about that jukebox, don’t you think?”