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Something is......wrong. With Siffrin, specifically.
Not.....everything else, obviously, because that’s been wrong for a very very long time at this point and—!
Calm. Down.
Siffrin. Right.
Perhaps ‘wrong’ isn’t the correct word. Something like......off, maybe? Strange?
He woke up and found you, for one thing, rather than making you go all the way to the field to get him, even though he’s never done that the entire time you’ve been travelling together. And he looked.....tired. But in a way where it seemed like he was trying to pretend he wasn’t?
(Have Siffrin’s smiles always looked that fake?)
But no, that’s fine. It’s fine! Really! It’s fine that they already had the idea for a sleepover, even though you’d been fretting for ages about it! And that they knew about the CARROT method, even though they never mentioned it before, and didn’t seem to realize it was a simple name for a technical level of Craft skill that was vastly different from their ‘make a pun and hope it works out’ fighting style!
It’s fine!
But......you did wonder if something happened. You’re friends, after all! And friends worry about each other! So you resolved to ask him about it later, once you had a chance to think about something other than the King or those stupid crabbing papers.
Except.....you never got the chance. The Sadness in front of you wasn’t anything you haven’t seen before, but you still somehow worried you’d forgotten everything you knew about battle after staying in town for a few days. Just as you spoke up about it though, it was too late.
Siffrin went from standing still to moving in an instant, far, far faster than you’d ever seen them move before. Their darkless cloak flashed bright in your vision for a moment, before they were cutting into the Sadness with a wild ferocity you’ve never seen from them prior. You think you heard them muttering something, but between the wails of the Sadness and your own panicked heartbeat, you couldn’t even hope to make it out.
Without realizing, you stumbled back on numb feet, shaking hands rising to cover your mouth in.....horror? Fear? Some kind of emotion making you feel nauseous and shaky, watching Siffrin decimate the poor thing. Odile sweeps in front of the group, arms out like she’s trying to block your view.
It doesn’t help much.
Finally, the sounds of violence stop. Siffrin, panting, finally lowers his dagger. He turns back to the group, his eye practically glowing in the dark. He stares at you all for a moment, his eye glazed and unseeing before a wide, cheerful smile breaks out over his face.
You.....don’t hear what he said. Something in that smile.....it looks wrong. Like something horrible had just come and taken over your friend, the shadow from his hat dwarfed by the darkness in his eye. His smile falls, the mask cracking just a bit as he looks at you all like he doesn’t understand what he’s seeing.
Like he doesn’t understand why you’re scared.
Of course you’re scared! They’ve been acting off all of yesterday, and now this?! You don’t want to believe that there’s a monster where your friend once stood, but you just can’t unsee it. Somehow, between Siffrin lying down for a nap and waking up yesterday, something happened that made them come back wrong.
Darkness edges in on the corners of your vision. Your stomach turns, and you smell something burning. . .
. . . .
The Sadness in front of you wasn’t anything you haven’t seen before, but you still somehow worried you’d forgotten everything you knew about battle after staying in town for a few days.