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It had been two days since Ros's final demise when Clown returned to the Kingdom. Sneeg had not thought of it often, in the intervening time. He had done his best to keep his mind occupied. With his grinding. With his infestation. With anything other than the absence of the Kingdom's Heart—his Heart. The pain was almost too much to bare, though he would bare it if his Kingdom asked it of him. Foolish hadn't, nor had Tina, nor Tango, nor Fit, nor Sausage. He doubted Clown would either.
Clown had taken up a stilted banter with him on his arrival, another little distraction in a long thread of distractions. It only went so far in that regard, as the longer the morning wore on, the more apparent it became to him that the Archmage had no idea of Ros's fate.
"Where is Ros?" He asked when they had gathered in her empty bedroom with Aimsey and Foolish.
The question was like a block of iron in his inventory, weighing him down until his feet thumped to the floor. He could scarcely remember how he ever managed to float at all, in the silence that followed. Dead. Sneeg thought, flinching when he did. Dead. Dead. She was dead. But Foolish spoke up before Sneeg could find his voice.
"You don't know?" He responded, emotion flitting across his face too quickly for even Sneeg to understand. Aimsey had gone quiet, eyes studying the corners of the room intently. Sneeg studied Clown. The eyes of Clown's mask bore directly into Foolish, his head cocked with curiosity. "She's, um...She's gone."
"What do you mean?" But Clown wasn't stupid, and Sneeg wasn't the mortal man he once was. He could hear the way Clown's heart stuttered in his chest, beneath the short, shaking breaths he took. He could even hear the soft creak of his leather gloves as he curled his fingers into loose balls at his sides.
"Bad killed her." No point dancing around the subject, and so Sneeg didn't. "Ros asked him to."
"She asked him to?" His tone suggested disbelief, but the pounding of his heart suggested otherwise. He trusted his King not to lie to him about such a thing. Even Sneeg was too solemn to take his words as anything but the bare truth. Ros's violet butterfly alighted on Clown's shoulder, wings flapping gently, like a comforting hand grounding him. "But why?"
It was a curious sensation, to hear the beating of another's heart so clearly from across the room. Even as Aimsey began to stumble through an explanation of the events two days prior, Sneeg could hear it.
Foolish's heart beat a steady rhythm, as if he were utterly unaffected by the Kingdom's loss. He was more skilled at putting up pretenses than most, but he needn't justify himself to Sneeg. He may have avoided thinking about their missing Heart as much as he could, but he was certain Foolish had not. Their King was in many ways a mystery to him, but Sneeg had no doubt that he cared for his Kingdom.
Aimsey's heart fluttered quick and weak, and the pulsing glow in their chest matched its pace. They were conflicted. Betrayed. Angry. Hurt. Anguished. Sneeg didn't need to hear their heartbeat to know that. They wore every emotion in the furrow of their brow, the tremble of their lip, and the wet sheen of their eyes. Their hands folded over themselves, tugging and squeezing their fingers on each pass. It was an anxious tick the two of them shared, though Sneeg's hand remained in a stiff grip around his trident now.
Clown's heart... was off. Not in the way his slow resting heart rate began to pick up speed with every word Aimsey and Foolish spoke, nor in the way it skipped every few beats with the hitches in his breath. No, the problem with his heart was... it was loud. Too loud, for how far away from Sneeg he was standing. It was a quiet thing beneath his ribs and his flesh and his layers of elaborate jester's attire. In the few times they had seen each other since Sneeg's infestation his heart had always been the quietest, the one least likely to betray his emotions. Sneeg could hear Clown's now almost as clearly as Aimsey's own exposed heart. More clearly. But perhaps loud wasn't the right word to describe what he was hearing. It sounded...
Stronger.
"Why... Why did she want that?"
No. Not stronger.
Clown's huffing breath passed his lips stronger with every labored exhale. His heart sounded...
Larger.
"I just don't understand..."
The creaking of leather as he squeezed his hands into fists didn't end, because it was not the leather Sneeg was hearing.
It was bone.
The butterfly fluttered up onto Clown's mask at the same time that he clutched at his chest, a panting whimper crawling up his throat as he hunched in on himself. His face split into a maw lined with sharp canines and grinding molars. His body twisted, bones snapping as they changed and grew. Horns sprouted from his head and claws from his fingers, and Sneeg cursed himself for forgetting something so vital.
Clown was a monster when his emotions ran unchecked.
All at once Sneeg's memory of flight returned to him as he launched himself across the room at Aimsey and Foolish. He grabbed Aimsey by the collar and began roughly shoving Foolish towards the entryway, ignoring the King's indignant squawk as he did. "We have to leave! Now!"
Clown wailed, and beneath it Sneeg could still hear the crunching of bone and gurgle of intestines. His teeth snapped in their direction, nearly catching Aimsey in the arm as they skirted around him. The little butterfly flapped in the beast's face, and he thrashed at it next. Sneeg didn't see whether the butterfly escaped him or not. He shoved and dragged his companions down the hallway, towards the grand entrance, towards the promenade, as far away from the monster as he could get them. Aimsey swatted his hand off their collar as soon as they passed over the threshold of the castle walls.
"What the hell was that?!" Aimsey exclaimed, turning an accusing glare on Sneeg.
"You remember a couple months back when Clown killed Freddie and Coy?"
"After Ros—" Aimsey frowned and shook their head. "What does that have to do with this?"
"This," Sneeg said, motioning towards the castle, where another faint roar could be heard. "is what did it."
"Oooh," Foolish said, a realization dawning on his face. "Is that what Hannah meant when she said..."
"Fuck, probably," Sneeg groaned. "All the Lifestealers probably know about this. I don't know how he'd keep it a secret in a place like that."
"Better yet," Aimsey said. "why is it a secret here?"
This time it was Sneeg who frowned. "It's not my secret to tell. He usually has better control over it, anyway. It's only a problem when—"
When Ros died.
No, not died. When she was murdered.
Sneeg huffed. "I'm not going to lie and say he's not dangerous right now, but it's not like he's just a mindless killer. He can be reasoned with."
"Oh, great, and how are we going to do that?" Aimsey said, throwing their hands up in exasperation.
"We aren't going to do anything," Sneeg said. "I am going to go talk him down."
"By yourself?!" Foolish said.
"He knows me, and he may not like me as much as he likes Ros—" liked Ros. "—but he'll still hesitate to kill me more than he will either of you."
"And in the meantime?" Aimsey asked. "What are we supposed to do?"
"Keep everyone away from the castle," Sneeg said, turning back towards the gray towers that loomed over them. "And don't let him leave the grounds."
The grand entry hall was eerily quiet as Sneeg passed through the doors. He was alone, if not for the beast he hunted lurking somewhere in the vast maze of hallways and bedrooms and empty entertainment halls. Alone the way Ros had always been alone with this suffocating silence. His heart ached in his chest to think about it. Alone in the place she built to share with the Kingdom. Her gift to them. A gift they didn't appreciate enough.
He didn't have time to wallow in his failures. He had to find Clown, before Clown did something irreversibly stupid. He heard a crash echo from several rooms over and charged after it. By the time Sneeg reached Clown's bedroom, though, he was already gone. The barrels that once lined the wall were smashed, items strewn about the floor among the shredded, down comforter that had been torn from the bed. The decal on the wall that Ros had been so proud of lay shattered under it all.
Next came a howl, this time from the direction of the King's quarters, and Sneeg dashed after it. He found this room in much the same state as Clown's, the canopy above the bed laying over the splinters of its own supports and the decorative sets of armor in pieces amongst the ribbons of fabric. Claw marks lined the walls, leading back out the doorway and towards—
Another crash from the throne room. Sneeg darted out of Foolish's quarters, and this time he caught a flash of black and red fur in the doorway that led back towards Ros's bedroom. The throne was tipped on its side, the seating below the dais knocked aside by the monster's path. He didn't need another clue to guess where Clown was headed next.
By the time he returned to Ros's bedroom, though, the window had already been destroyed, brick and mortar crumbling onto the sill from the force Clown had smashed it open with. He was in the garden now. If Sneeg didn't move quickly, the beast could end up confronting Foolish. The last thing Sneeg wanted was for the King to meet that monster. Luckily, Clown had not made it far.
He found Clown there in the garden, standing on hind legs with claws dulling against the stonework of one of Ros's statues, growls that edged on roars rumbling in his chest. He bit down on the sword held in the statue's hand, tugging at it until the thin stem broke away, then tossed it aside and clamped his teeth down on the statue's leg next.
It was the statue of himself.
"Hey!" Sneeg shouted, alighting on the gravel path several meters from Clown. The monster that was Clown jerked away from the statue, and whipped his head around to glare at Sneeg. If he were anyone else, he might have felt afraid to have those piercing eyes focused on him. Red drool dripped from the monster's maw—blood, Sneeg thought, from tearing apart wood and metal and stone with his teeth. His gums were probably cut, might be full of splinters, might even be missing teeth if he'd bit something unyielding too hard. The monster appeared unconcerned by it. His lip curled in a snarl and his hackles raised, as if he wasn't already large enough to be intimidating.
But Clown was not stupid, and Sneeg was not the mortal man he once was.
"The fuck do you think you're doing?" Sneeg said, raising his chin in challenge. Clown snapped at the air, but Sneeg didn't so much as flinch. "This tantrum you're throwing won't change anything." His vision blurred, different from the blurriness of the sculk that infested him. Sneeg tried to blink his tears away before he spoke again. They fell onto his cheeks, and just as quickly more took their place. He huffed. Then he said what he wished he did not have to. "She'll still be dead."
Clown lunged at him, jaws open wide enough to envelope Sneeg's head if he let him. No longer playful like the many times he'd done it before. The monster that was Clown wanted to kill him. Sneeg grabbed Clown's jaws before they could snap around him. Clown's teeth punctured his hands, but he registered no pain.
"Someone's gonna have to clean that up now, asshole!" He shoved Clown's face away and strafed to the right. "Are you gonna do it? Or were you just going to make a mess and disappear again?"
Clown swiped at him with a massive paw, and Sneeg blocked it with his forearm. Claws raked his flesh, tore him open with a spray of blue-green blood. If it hurt, Sneeg still couldn't feel it.
"You're good at that, aren't you?" Clown swiped at him again, and this time Sneeg dodged backwards, leaping a foot in the air and staying there. He'd heard enough from their newcomer, Zam, to think this was a pattern of behavior with the Archmage. "Just make a mess and leave it to be someone else's problem. Is that it?"
The monster lunged for him again, but he wasn't as quick as Sneeg's flight as he strafed back to the left. Clown growled, and Sneeg growled back. "Fuck you, you asshole! You don't get to come in here and ruin the only thing we have left of her and run away again."
This time the monster flinched away from him, ears flattening to his head with a snarl.
"This is it, Clown," Sneeg continued. "We're not getting anything else. She's gone. And you think you can just take it all away from the rest of us? Because what?" His eyes flicked up to the statues, to the broken sword in the stone Archmage's hand. "Because you weren't there for her?"
Clown backed up a step. His teeth snapped at the air again, but if he couldn't threaten Sneeg with it while on the offense, he certainly couldn't now while on the defense.
"None of us were. Not the way she needed us." Sneeg shook his head, his vision blurring again before he could speak his next words. They nearly choke him. "She'd still be here if we were."
It was enough to finally break the beast. Clown howled. It was a wounded sound, anguished and enraged and utterly hopeless. He could not hide his pain behind destruction any longer. Clown howled and Sneeg wanted to howl with him. He had failed her as much as Clown had. Sneeg glanced down at his hands, slick with blue-green blood dripping from the punctures wounds Clown's teeth left in his palms and the claws that tore through his arm. It hardly felt like enough penance for what he'd done. What he'd failed to do.
When Clown's cries finally petered out into breathy huffs, he turned away from Sneeg, back towards the statues lining the path. Sneeg followed his gaze to the leftmost statue. The regal figure with a spear in her hand, shoulders back with a confidence that the woman she borrowed her likeness from rarely carried herself with. The statue was an aspiration to her, Sneeg could see that now. It was how he'd always viewed the kingdom's Heart. He wished she saw herself as he did. As they all did.
Clown approached it, hesitant, then stood on his hind legs, placing his front paws on the plinth. Not with the same energy he'd had when he was attempting to tear down his own statue, so Sneeg didn't stop him. Instead, the monster that was Clown lowered his head and butt it against the statue's legs, horns clacking on contact with the stone surface. A low whine issued from his throat. Sneeg felt the urge to comfort the beast, the creature in mourning who only knew how to express himself through violence. He stepped through the air to Clown's side, placed a hand on his haunch, and scratched his fingers through the thick fur there, where months ago he'd plucked a quiver full of arrows from his flesh. Clown ignored him.
"We all miss her, Clown," Sneeg said. "We all—None of us expected this. We didn't... know. Maybe we should have." Finally, Clown turned his long neck to peer at Sneeg. His eyes were sharp, but he didn't lunge or growl. He huffed out a sigh, and brought his front paws back down to the ground. "Just... don't blame yourself, alright?"
Clown responded with another whine, turning fully to bump his head against Sneeg's chest as he had the statue's legs. The clack of horn against bone was quieter, gentler. Sneeg wrapped his arms around the beast's neck. Neither of them moved from the embrace. He just pressed his face into the furry mane between Clown's horns and snorted. "You made me cry, you wiener."
Clown huffed again and pushed into Sneeg's chest, hard enough that he would have surely pushed him right over if it weren't for the fact that Sneeg was floating several feet off the ground.
After a few moments—what felt like an eternity the way moments like this always did—Clown's heart began to quiet once more. The cracking of bone and gurgle of intestines followed as he once more shifted and shrank. His great paws clung to Sneeg's cloak, his grip paradoxically tightening the smaller his hands became, until Sneeg brought his feet to the ground and lowered Clown's trembling form to his knees. Clown groaned against Sneeg's shoulder.
"Feeling better?" Sneeg asked, though he already knew the answer to that question.
"No."
"Yeah. Me neither."
But like this, asses planted in the dirt before the statue of Roscumber entangled in each other's arms, they were not a monster nor a demi god. They were just men mourning the loss of their Heart. There was something comforting about that, even if neither of them would ever admit it.