psychoshenanigans | Skeleton City // PSL

They might lose hold of the memory that they've just been pulled from, but the focus and agency that has been drummed up is at least still partially going. Once they're up and moving, Phalanx notices all the things that Robin is carrying and is drawn toward them. All of those lovely wraps and blanket, they now want them on their body.

So, as they're lead on toward their next destination, Phalanx starts reaching for some of the bundled-up cloth that Robin is carrying.

Robin is a little surprised when he feels the tug under his arm, looking back at Phalanx to see them grabbing at the bundle.

"You want these?" He assumes, shifting a little so Phalanx can at least take the wraps from him. The blanket is something he's inclined to hold onto a little longer.

Phalanx seems perfectly happy with the wraps. As they continue their walk, half of Phalanx's attention wanders as per usual, observing their fascinating surroundings while the other half quietly busies itself with the bits of cloth.

Robin can get a glimpse of how the creature might have ended up in the tangled maze that he'd originally found them in, as Phalanx begins wrapping the cloth around their arms, tucking it under and tying it around their coat sleeves as they go.

The nice thing is that, with the addition of that coat, Phalanx doesn't look all that strange. If they go any higher, the strange collection of spirits could arouse suspicion due to his appearance alone, but on the ever-mingling market level, he blends in pretty well. The addition of a nice-looking coat means that the mismatched arrangement of sewed and tied wrappings, as well as whatever else they find to drag around with them, are just... quirky additions. Tons of people here are dressed in things that look more found than strictly purchased, anyway.

Speaking of that, Robin takes them around a corner and down another row of people selling bottles, vegetables, one even seems to specialize in live amphibians. But Robin seems to be leading Phalanx directly towards a misshapen tent that's more... a piece of old tarp draped over a bent metal frame, with pointy bits sticking out where pointy bits probably shouldn't be.

There's a small woman sitting at the corner of this construction, cross-legged on the ground, hunched over a metal drum. Her clothes are ragged, but fairly well-constructed and utilitarian. Her face is painted in strips of stark black and white, making it hard to guess her exact age, but she looks mean--and she also looks mostly preoccupied with the steady, surprisingly complicated succession of quick beats she's striking on her drum with some kind of double-ended stick.

Everything is interesting when it's all new, so Robin will have to remain an active lead if he wants the both of them to end up at the same place. And Phalanx is fine with being lead--they can pay even less attention to where they're walking when someone else is minding that part of the travel.

It's only when they're getting quite close to the ramshackle tent that anything changes, and it's that their feet begin to drag once they get a good look at the frightening woman and her drum.

The dragging does not go unnoticed--Robin slows as well, turning back to see what it is that has his pile of friends distracted now.

"What's up?"

Phalanx isn't distracted this time--just very definitely watching the woman with some amount of visible concern. And if Robin slows his pace, that gives Phalanx permission to lag all the way to a stop.

And now the both of them have stopped. Robin follows Phalanx's glance towards the woman, then looks back at them with a slight tilt of his head.

"What, she scaring you?" He ends the question with a tiny smirk, even if he doesn't mean to.

Phalanx glances to Robin, and either because of his smirk or the question itself... they frown a little bit.

Yeah, she might be scaring them.

His smirk turns into a smile as he chuckles a little, under his breath.

"Don't worry, I know her. She's going to let us in."

He takes a couple of tentative steps in her direction again, giving Phalanx's hand a small tug to suggest they follow him too.

"I'll do the talking. You'll be fine."

Phalanx doesn't dig their feet in, so they let themself be led forward... but they don't seem particularly reassured about it. They probably wouldn't be able to explain why they're unnerved, of course, and they're probably thinking hard to figure it out as they're pulled closer.

Robin will let go of their hand within a few feet of the woman so that he can drop down to her height, crouching there on the dirty cave floor. She does not react, at first, continuing her intent drumming.

"Hey friend," Robin asks her, "How's business?"

When he asks, her drumming abruptly stops, the last couple of notes falling off to silence as two narrow, distrusting green eyes dart up at Robin, and then up at the weird, pale person standing behind him.

"...Business is booming," she replies. Her voice is slow and raspy, does nothing to inform of her actual age, "Looks like you found a friend."

"Sure did," he reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a crumpled pack of cigarettes, immediately offering her two of them out of the box in what seems like a very practiced, natural gesture.

Her eyes flash down to the offered trade, barely a second before she reaches out to snatch them up, putting one unlit between her lips and the other into a hidden pocket somewhere on her person.

That seems to be the end of their exchange, as Robin stands back up again.

Phalanx stays right where Robin allows them to stop, continuing to watch the woman with some anxiety. However, when the drumbeats halt, the creature blinks and looks a little surprised at the silence.

It's not a bad surprise. If anything, Phalanx seems somewhat relieved, shoulders leveling out--so, maybe the drum was even scarier than the woman herself.

Robin had been trying to get a read of Phalanx behind him, of course, even while he performed his little exchange with the drummer. It's good to know which parts are more worrying to them--since they're going to run into a lot of scary-looking characters, but significantly fewer drummers of any kind.

"Follow me," Robin says, even though he doesn't have to. He takes their hand again, leading them around the side of the tent and in through an opening that reveals the chaotic innards of this makeshift tent.

Calling them a tailor or a clothier would be doing a disservice to those fine, upstanding industries. At first glance, this appears to be the interior of a garbage pile, with things sitting in unsorted mounds and bits of fabric and metal and ancient, warping plastics hanging off of rusty nails hammered along the questionably-stable frames of the structure.

There are some candles burning here and there, placed on little shelves and bits of furniture that may or may not actually be for sale. There's also an impressive mound of fabric scraps in one corner that sort of topples over onto a mattress that is also half-covered in blankets, making it hard to tell if that is part of the store or if it is just where someone sleeps at night.

It's dim in here, despite the candlelight, and the air is stuffy and warm... But it smells surprisingly good in here, like a dark tea or some kind of herbal remedy, directly contrasting the confusion around them.

Standing in the middle of this, leaning on a stool and blatantly yawning, is a pale, thin man in what is unmistakably a long, black dress with a high collar. His hair is cropped short and dyed this sort of muddy red color. When he notices the both of them there, he turns, revealing both dramatic eye makeup and the fact that half of his lips are missing.

The left side of his lips, specifically. There is a slit where his mouth still appears to open, but but it doesn't seem like that half moves very much when he talks.

"Ah!" is his startled reply, "Robin, I wasn't expecting anyone in here this early..."

What little sluggishness was left quickly disappears in the face of curiosity, as this stranger leans back to get a look at whoever Robin has dragged in behind him. "And who is this?"

It's probably a good thing that there is a striking, engaging individual in this hovel, because otherwise there might have been an immediate problem with missing trinkets. There are so many things in here that are obviously begging to be touched, and rags looking to be added to the collection. But Phalanx only has a moment or two to glance over the possibilities before their attention is drawn toward the star of the show.

They don't look quite as spooked as when they'd spotted the drum-playing woman, but there's apparently something about this person that is causing some anxiety in them as well.

If this person is at all bothered by the anxious look they're being given, they don't show it. If anything, being stared at only makes them more curious about the person doing the staring.

"This is Phalanx," Robin introduces them with a casual, sweeping gesture, "I've only just met him myself."

The man looks back and forth between the two of them, half his mouth curling into a smirk--or perhaps a smile, as it is a little hard to tell the intent behind his expression while half of his face is not emoting at all.

"It's nice to meet you, Phalanx," the stranger says, playfully, finally settling his attention on the pale figure again, "What brings both of you to the Argent Stone?"

Both of the man's eyes are technically brown, but the one on the strange side of his face has a strange pale blotch over part of his iris; it looks almost like a bleach stain. His ear is subtly wrong-shaped as well on that side, with his hair cut much closer to the scalp. Whatever happened to him is scarred into the entire left side of his face in ways that are hard to quantify or immediately parse, partly because of many years of healing, and partly from a significant amount of makeup.

Robin, not quite ready to let Phalanx talk yet, gets in a few words right after the shopkeeper asks his question-- "They talk like they've got a touch of night sickness, so don't be surprised if they start picking up things that aren't theirs."

Physical differences (or really, physical appearances of any sort) haven't seemed to matter much to Phalanx so far, but they are staring at this man's face more intently than they usually do.

And they immediately play nicely into Robin's explanation--starting their usual search for words but only coming up with recent ones from the air. "A touch of--a touch."

"Actually," Robin fills a strange silence that follows Phalanx's words, "I was hoping you might know where they came from, Tonic."

The man's smile fades as he starts to look between them again.

"You don't know?" He asks, "Robin, are you bringing a spider into my nest?"

"I paid our fare," is Robin's response. Something about this prompts him to reach over and take Phalanx's hand again, which the man clearly notices. "I just want to know if you've heard of anything like this person in one of your deeper circles."

Having one of their hands taken gives Phalanx an excuse to not look at the strange man and worry over strange thoughts anymore. They look down at that point of contact and let go of some other things, continuing to listen to the interaction but not as part of it.

"Besides," says Robin, taking full advantage every time this man tries to mull over his answer, "I thought you liked spiders."

"Oh, don't." The man waves his good arm and steps off of the stool, landing on his bad leg. It seems just a little too short compared to his other one, though he carries the slight limp very gracefully in that long dress of his.

"And we're buying things, too." Robin remains next to Phalanx as the other man approaches, not... protective, but perhaps as an assurance that nothing terrible is going to happen.

The man is not particularly tall up close, certainly no taller than Phalanx. He surprisingly close to their face with his own, peering at whichever eye is closest with his own mismatched set.

"Phalanx, was it?" The man asks, then leaning back again a little, "What do you think of all this?"

"--All this," Phalanx compulsively parrots before the man has finished the words, and the hand that Robin isn't holding gets fidgety with the edges of their new coat.

They look around the tent, give the man another hesitant glance, and then look up at Robin. They look like they want to answer, but maybe don't understand the question. Or the context. Or the place in time and space that it's being asked in.

"All this?"

The man watches this with interest, while Robin--who has a lot of experience talking to Phalanx over the last day and some change--finds it easy to respond.

"I believe he's asking how you feel about my trying to figure out where you came from."

Whether or not this is, in fact, what the man is interested in, he nods a little in acknowledgement. He also reaches down towards that other hand of theirs, the one that's fidgeting uncomfortably, but stops just seconds after turning it up.

"Darling--what happened to your hand?"

It's the one that got stabbed by a dozen needles. The bleeding has probably stopped by now, but both the both of them had gotten so sidetracked by the "sewing" adventure that Robin completely forgot that Phalanx was ever bleeding in the first place.

"Oh, shit--" Robin says, genuinely surprised, "That's right!"

"...Oh." Right. That happened.

The fact that Phalanx's fingers look permanently filthy doesn't help either. Stained and sticky with blood and immovable dirt, they look ready for some kind of infection.

"Sewing," Phalanx offers helpfully. They know the answer to that one.

At that, the man laughs. Perhaps surprisingly, it is not a cruel laugh, but rather one of genuine surprise and light affect.

"Oh, do you like sewing?" the man asks him, half of his face lit up with a charmed smile.

Phalanx would be relieved to not be mocked if they knew to expect it. Instead, they only brighten a little bit with renewed interest and nod.

"Working."

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