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The Tenna of this world was, despite being different in a hundred small ways, was still someone Battat found himself fumbling over, tripping and stumbling on the differences between the two like uneven ground. Though "quirks" wasn't quite the right word for it—closer, really, to the landmines that used to litter the white landscape of his old dark world, where you were one wrong step taken from there just being pieces of you left in the snow.
This particular instance landed somewhere safely in the middle of that spectrum, at least. Being dragged around at Tennas hip was nothing new to him. His own Tenna (it was diffucult to think of him as Tenna, and not Roach)—back home—had always liked keeping him close when he could manage it, some neurotic little insistence on having someone weak enough nearby that he could feel safe turning his back on,but still willing to and calable of shouldering the worst of his mental and emotional lows. It hadnt been strange, there, for the CRT to appear behind him without warning, a heavy hand settling on his shoulder, steering him through the dark world while he went about whatever business needed doing—now with one extra little pippin in tow.
But this Tenna was… more intense, somehow, in the way he seemed to want him paraded around. Less a hand resting on his shoulder, more a collar snug around his throat. If he so much as leaned toward the idea of his own fancy carrying him away from Tennas side, Battat wasnt entirely convinced there wouldnt just as soon be a literal leash tethering him back to the television, ready to snap taut like a wire the moment he tried.
Which was all to say, he didn't find his current situation particularly strange. This Tenna seemed to command just as much political weight as his own had, despite the light world here lacking any large-scale war to shape the landscape around it. The war here was smaller, endless in its own way; gang skirmishes, turf changing hands, petty little conflicts waiting on plausible deniability before anyone went in guns blazing. And just as true here as it had been back home, and even without Tenna playing propaganda machine for some greater cause, keeping up appearances sat at the very top of the priority list. Parties. Meetings, then more meetings. Card games. Sitting at the CRTs feet while he lounged languid across some lavish couch. Battat had grown familiar, by now, with the players this world considered to hold Tennas same rung of status—all of it mirroring his own world almost exactly, except for the glaring absence of any real line between light and dark worlds. Queen, mostly, held that boundary here, being a little of both worlds the way Tenna quite wasn't despite broadcastig to lightners just the same as darkners, though the more Tenna encroached on her territory, the less confident Battat felt that each meeting he got dragged along to would end without incident.
The lightners mostly kept to themselves, at least, without looming over the darkners' very existence the way they had back home. And of course, that was exactly who he found himself with now.
The darkner accompanying them—this worlds Ralsei, dressed in some kind of suit, of all things, strange to see in place of the oversized, endearing cloak Battat remembered him in—had kept trying to work his way over to Battats side throughout the "meet-up" Tenna was holding with the fun gang (a name so absurd it had managed to pul an easy smile out of him). Every time, Tenna shot him a look and sent him stumbling back several steps, though not without Ralsei bristling right back in return. A temper lacking in the timid prince he once knew. Battat was tempted, more than once, to peel himself away from Tennas side just to find out what the darkner wanted from him, if he werent so certain itd earn him a leash for the insult to Tennas pride. Although....
His gaze drifted upward, toward the CRT standing only an arms reach away, deep enough in conversation with some lightner he didn't recognize—deer-adjacent, by the look of her, close enough to whatever Noelle and Dess had been in his own world—that Battat took the bet to believe that he wasnt being watched quite as closely as usual. He let himself drift back a half-step, then two, then a few more, until it was enough to catch Ralseis eye across the crowd. The darkners gaze snagged on his, held there, and after a visible moment of hesitation, Ralsei began working his way around the edge of the gathering toward where Battat had stopped, a careful twenty paces behind Tenna' back.
The moment he arrived, his hand landed on Battats shoulder and shoved him back several more steps. Battat kept the lurch of surprise off his face and refused to let his footing so much as waver when Ralsei finally let go and crowded in close.
"I know exactly what you are."
...What? "Excuse me?"
A glance back toward Tenna—worried, irritated, maybe something closer to afraid. Battat hadn't thought Tenna cared that much. "Don't play clueless with me, pippins. I know every darkner in this world, and you don't belong here. The grand fountain never made the likes of you."
Rude. "I don't think its much your place to tell me where I belong and don't."
"It is when you start cozying up to the likes of that!"
"In case you didn't care to notice, he very much keeps me around. Not the other way around."
"Oh and I'm sure youre just his little Pinocchio and hes just wishing on a star to turn you into a real lightner boy too."
Okay, well, this was getting ridiculous. "I'm not quite sure what your problem with me is—" Ralsei goes to cut him off, and God, wasn't this version of him so much more rudely incredulous than his own, so Battat steamrolls past as best he can, "—but I certainly don't have one with you, nor do I understand what's gotten you so upset, so I'd appreciate it if you'd either explain yourself or leave me be."
"Acting clueless isn't going to fool me, pippins. If Tenna wasn't—"
"If I wasn't what?"
Without Battat quite realizing it—something he'd curse himself over later; he'd never once been this unvigilant back in his own world—the room around him had gone that much quieter. Tenna had peeled himself away from his conversation, closed the two strides his long legs needed, and come to loom directly behind the prince, his cadence carefully, deliberately empty of anything at all. Ralsei, in contrast, seemed to cycle through a near-uncountable stretch of emotion in the span of a second—fear, panic, anger (at what, Battat couldn't begin to guess), irritation—before finally stone-walling over and turning to face him.
"Either you or that thing," hhe turns his gaze pointedly, making sure there's no mistaking who he means, and Battat just frowns back at him, ",are hiding something you very, very much shouldn't be, and you have no idea the danger your putting all of us in by doing this. Do you have a single idea what the knight will do once it finds out?!"
Tenna's expression doesn't so much as flicker as he leans down toward the smaller darkner. Battat only now notices the cigarette resting between his fingers, hovering just over Ralsei's shoulder before it's stubbed out against him. Ralsei yelps, lurches to pull away, but Tenna's other hand clamps down on his opposite shoulder and holds him in place. Finally, Tenna grins.
"Listen here little prince," he drawls out the word in such a way Battat can only assume is loaded with something Battat has no context for and doesn't much like the sound of anyway. "My business isn't yours. I'd suggest you keep cowering behind your little lightner friends before I'm forced to do something I'll really regret."