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To put it very, very simply, Epitaph was getting tired.
Not tired as in the way you could sleep it off, no, but rather horrifically emotionally tired. Everything that had been thrown directly at her was whatever, really. She could deal with pain–she had dealt with pain every damn day since she went on that one-man rampage after Dusekkar had disappeared. Pain dished out to her meant nothing at this point, it was more cold water to an already soaked sponge.
What was really agonizing, though, was watching the pain thrown at others. Watching Two Time break down over that false Amarah, watching Dusekk get…honestly sort of rightfully yelled at for doing nothing about Amarah’s cult–watching Shedletsky struggle against his alternate self all the way back in January…
And then most recently, of course, the Banlands Map.
Taph had started to get used to dealing with Doombringer and how overbearing he was in rounds, trying to constantly seek Taph out and treating them like his beloved little baby despite their age and the fact that they genuinely hated the man. They thought they were done with the new things he could bring along, but there was that stupid map.
And it brought a thought to mind. A horrible, crushing thought.
1x1x1x1 did not often panic like that. She didn’t panic like that at all, really. Even when some things would get pretty damn dire when the two were younger, 1x would respond with cold calculations. It was something Taph picked up on as well.
So to see 1x reduced to…that? Something had to have happened in The Banlands, and Taph was enraged at the mere thought. Yet, there was only one person she could think to ask. One person who hadn’t been selected as the killer in any rounds since then.
So there was someone who had to be talked to first, to demand it put Doom in a round–or just let Taph ‘speak’ to him. Whatever.
Taph was well aware that a long while ago, Shed had been complaining to The Spectre in a certain clearing. A certain clearing that Taph was now heading towards, having bailed from the cabin in the middle of the night. No one needed to be following it, and if it was lucky, it could start a night round to talk to Doom–something the group hadn’t seen in ages–and guarantee a free day for the rest of the group. It could say sorry to whoever else got dragged into the round later.
The hardest part about sneaking out wasn’t actually fully getting out of the cabin, but rather prying Noob off of her without waking them up. If she slipped back in without a round starting, she could explain her absence by saying she was hungry or something, Noob never questioned her if she brought up food. Part of her felt bad about using that as an easy out, but at the end of the day, it was her trauma to pull the card for, so why should she feel bad?
Thoughts aside, Taph pushed through the forest, trying to remember the exact path they took the single time they trailed after Shed. It was a difficult path to remember, but eventually they pushed through the trees and bushes to a simple clearing in the forest.
It was almost peaceful, really. She could almost imagine the sunlight that would dapple onto the ground if there was any sun here.
…She missed seeing the sun when she wasn’t running for her life.
Pushing that thought away, they thought long and hard about how exactly to summon The Spectre. They assumed that most people would summon it by yelling at it, or whatever, but there was a distinct problem with that–that of course being Taph’s near complete muteness. They’d never been able to form words, and at some point Builderman had told them that they outright lacked vocal chords, rather having something closer to the syrinx of a songbird. This allowed them to chirp and trill and such, but things close to regular speech were simply…not in the realm of things they could do.
However, maybe she could still get its attention with the aforementioned chirps and trills.
Taph was never really capable of getting loud with the noises she was able to make, or at least not without hurting herself by accident, but she could certainly try. Just enough to get the damned thing’s eyes on her. The noise that reared its ugly head when she tried to make a call wholeheartedly hurt, and it ended in her violently coughing afterwards, shaking herself off.
However–
The sky crackled, bits of red sparkling through. Taph’s shadow stretched and coiled around them, and they suddenly felt much less confident than they had just been. Their shadow peeled up off the ground, now looming over them, a mass of wings on a serpentine body, reminding them of the books they’d read when they were younger that were all about dragons. Amphithere, the word sprung to mind.
“Hello, little godling,” The Spectre hummed, though there was a buzz of irritation as an undertone to the words.
Taph steadied themself and responded with a huff, holding their head high.
“Do not act brave,” the false eye on the head-wings that covered its face narrowed, “I can see it plainly. You’re afraid of me, and rightfully so.”
“CROW!”
Taph’s head-wings fluttered out in a panic as she turned to look at where she’d heard the shout come from.
Builderman.
Why had he followed her? How had he even known she’d snuck out? Was he alone?
The Spectre snaked its way to be between Taph and Builder, staring the smaller man down.
“You have no business being here, Creativity,” it hissed at him, “This is between her and I.”
“I sure have business if it’s m’ damn daughter yer harassin’!” Builder bit right back, frantically motioning to Taph.
Taph slunk back in partial shame and partial anger. They weren’t a child, they could handle things for themself. He didn’t need to be at every turn to stop them from making their own choices.
“So you’re just simply not going to allow it to make its own choices?” The Spectre sounded almost disappointed, “Some father you are.”
Was it–defending her?
Taph shook itself out again, coming to the conclusion that the only reason The Spectre was defending it was simply to get under Builder’s skin. Yes, The Spectre was…unfortunately making the same points Taph had toyed around with expressing, but it was so obviously clear that it was only doing it to see if it could upset Builder.
Builder seemed to almost consider, his head-wings drooping as he blinked before his feathers puffed up again, a renewed expression of anger on his face, “Yer not gonna speak fer her! If she’s got a problem, she can come t’ me with it!”
“And yet here you stand, trying to drag her away from possibly one of the most important things she could do,” The Spectre abruptly coiled around Taph, much to her shock, “It’s quite striking that they’re bold enough to come confront me. Some lessons really do need to be learned firsthand.”
Taph was startled as Builder practically shrieked, the most fear they’d ever heard from him as he abruptly pleaded with The Spectre to not do…something. It snapped around to face them, abruptly flinging the head-wings that were covering its face up, showing off–
…Just…it’s face.
Taph couldn’t really describe it if asked to, but it was just…a face. She blinked and made a chirp, tilting her head. What was the panic about?
The Spectre paused. Builder paused. Two voices spoke at once, both equally puzzled: “What?”
Silence rang in the air as The Spectre eventually slowly closed its head-wings back over its face.
And then it laughed.
Its laugh was an awful, wretched noise that pinged against Taph’s skull so hard they flinched back as much as they could.
“WELL IF YOU WERE EVER WONDERING IF YOU ACTUALLY HAD A HAND IN MAKING HER,” The Spectre snapped to face Builder again, “THERE’S YOUR ANSWER!”
Taph was practically tossed to the side as The Spectre now circled around the whole clearing, Taph and Builder caught in the coil. Taph stared at Builder, desperately seeking an answer for what was going on–for why he seemed so panicked at something that did nothing, and why he was so confused why it did nothing, and then even further desperately looking for answers on why whatever just happened meant he had a hand in making her.
But for once in her entire life, when she looked at him, she just saw fear.
“Creativity…” The Spectre cooed, “I can taste the terror in you. It’s absolutely /delicious./”
“Epitaph,” Builder breathed out, reaching a hand towards her, “I don’t know how much time I have t’ explain, but please know that everythin’ I’ve kept from ya, I did it fer a good reason.”
And at once, Taph understood.
“What are you?” they signed, hands shaking, “What am I?”
“I hate to cut the conversation short,” The Spectre trilled at the two of them, and Taph was well aware it didn’t hate to do what it was doing, “But consequences must be dished out, you know!”
Builder’s eyes widened. It took Taph only a moment for her brain to catch up with his, remembering what had happened now three times when someone upset The Spectre. Builder took in a breath that was far too shaky to be reassuring, his face dropping into a calm that was almost scary.
“Take me instead of it, Despair,” he glanced up at The Spectre, speaking in a voice Taph had barely ever heard him use, “You’ll cause more distress taking me.”
The Spectre’s wings fluttered and it stared, looking back and forth between Taph and Builder as the terror in Taph steadily rose. Taph wanted to scream, to frantically ask Builder what he was doing, but he wouldn’t look at them, no matter how much they desperately wanted him to. One of his head-wings blocked them from seeing his face, no doubt on purpose.
Somehow, Taph could just tell The Spectre was smiling when she looked up at it.
And then she blinked, and both it and Builder were gone, leaving her standing all alone.
What…what had she done?
Taph had spent…a long, long time sitting in that clearing.
Eventually, however, it began to rain, driving her back towards the cabin. As she walked, she desperately thought over what in the world to even ‘say’. She couldn’t just tell everyone exactly what happened, right? She had to…figure something else out. Maybe she could just stroll back and pretend she was on a walk, and what happened to her father was just–unrelated! She could pretend she had absolutely nothing to do with it, and it’d all be fine.
Looking down at their hands, they realized they absolutely would not be able to hide what just happened. They weren’t like Builder, they couldn’t simply…stop feeling things, or at least stop showing they feel things. They were shaking far too hard to keep it hidden.
It flung its head up at the sound of frantic footsteps in the mud, seeing the clearly relieved shape of Noob absolutely booking it towards it, grabbing it in a hug.
“T-TAPH!” they breathed out, “Th-Thank goodness you’re okay–Sh-Shedletsky said there was s-something wrong, a-and you were gone and–”
They backed up, shook themself out.
“S-Sorry! Sorry–I-I really shouldn’t b-be holding you wh-while starting a conversation,” they huffed, “V-Vee wanted to come o-out as well, but–h-heavy rain, s-so…”
Taph tried to steady her hands to sign, seeing the relieved look on Noob’s face quickly turn worried again as they saw how badly her hands were shaking.
“...T-Taph?” Noob blinked, fidgeting with the collar of their sweater, “Wh-What’s…”
“Builder’s gone,” she managed to steady her hands to sign, the finality of the statement hitting her like a brick. This wasn’t something she could quickly fix. This was something that was going to build and build and build and bite them all when it came back around, like when you watch the waves on a beach abruptly recede but know there’s no running from the incoming tsunami. The floodwaters would breach the walls no matter how many reinforcements were made.
Speaking of…floodwaters.
Taph hadn’t realized it was on the verge of tears until it actually began crying, some horrid choking noise barely escaping its throat. Noob’s eyes widened, but Taph couldn’t bear to look them in the face anymore–not after realizing what it just caused. It practically collapsed into their arms, frantically nuzzling its face into their shoulder. Noob didn’t say anything, instead just slowly breathing out and placing a hand on Taph’s back, holding them close.
They both stayed like that for a long while in the rain, Taph not wanting to back away from the hug because she knew that meant she would have to stumble to the cabin, look Shed in the eyes, and tell him where Builder went.
She could barely stomach the thought.
Eventually, however, Noob patted Taph on the back again with a hum, voice kept quiet, “W-We should get b-back to th-the cabin. We’re getting s-soaked out here.”
Taph had no choice but to let Noob lead it back to the cabin, leaving dread building steadily in its gut. The two stopped on the porch to shake themselves out and wipe their feet off, not wanting to track mud and rain into the cabin. Taph flicked a head-wing as the noise of someone running for the door hit its ears, and it turned to see Shed fling open the door, looking frantic.
“Taph!” he chirped, his smile nearly instantly returning, “Taph, you’re okay! I–where’s your father? I woke up and he–wasn’t there and I–”
Much like Noob had, he seemed to slowly take notice of how distressed Taph looked, smile slowly dropping.
Unlike Noob, however, he seemed to instantly realize the nature of what had occurred, slowly taking on a look of distress that Taph had only seen once from him–the same horrid, nearly dull look he had in the weeks after Builder had originally been killed. His voice was quiet and dry when he spoke next.
“Where is he?”
Taph swallowed harshly, trying to steady her hands again, “It took him.”
Taph could practically see something in Shed break. Details could wait. They could wait for when Taph could think for more than ten seconds without wishing she could scream. They could wait for when Shed looked like he could actually handle actually standing up rather than pressing against the doorframe like he was doing right now. They could wait until the rest of the cabin wasn’t now frantically rushing over to try to figure out what had gone wrong. They could wait until guilt stopped actively hollowing out Taph’s chest for a place to burrow.
For now, Taph was simply left with the realization that they had irreversibly fucked up.