psychoshenanigans | Skeleton City // PSL

"Ugh," the man's hand moves from his cheek to his forehead as he groans, "I suddenly see why you're together."

Robin laughs softly, giving Phalanx's shoulder a soft squeeze. Tonic continues to watch them change while Robin waits, but the demigod isn't surprised when the man shakes his head again in defeat.

"I don't know. I've heard of some new mages blooming in the lower layers, but none like this."

"That's a shame," Robin says, shrugging like it doesn't matter much one way or another. "And you haven't heard of any strange rituals involving soul bonding in the last month or so, have you?"

"...What?" Tonic leans back, mildly alarmed.

"No then? All right." Robin reaches back into one of the pockets of his jacket, looking for something, "What do I owe you?"

"One hundred, sixty-seven souls," Phalanx responds, as if Robin's question had been for themself. Then, immediately afterward, they wince and lower their face to rub hard at one eye.

It's probably fine.

Now that he's in public, Robin does a very good job of hiding his surprise... And it helps that his only audience is busy staring at Phalanx, too taken aback by the sudden twist in conversation to remember to study the rest of his surroundings.

But after too many seconds of silence pass between all three of them, Tonic reaches out with his bad hand to pick up a lit candle from one of the many criss-crossing beams all around them. He blows out the flame, sending a line of smoke trailing up towards the ceiling. Hot wax spills over his fingers, but he doesn't seem to notice or care, watching the smoke trail intently.

"They're from nowhere," he finally says, cryptic as it is. "Start there."

"Thank you," Robin replies, now holding onto Phalanx's shoulder a little more protectively.

"At this point," Tonic responds in turn, finally looking down at the both of them again with a small smirk on half of his face, "I think that payment will be you leaving my store."

Robin chuckles. "Fair enough, friend. Phalanx, let's go."

And if there's no resistance, Robin will attempt to lead them out.

Phalanx has a headache and way too many things buzzing in the hive of their mind--Robin can feel that much for sure--so they don't offer a single ounce of resistance as they're guided out of the store. They follow along rather blindly, in fact, and ding a knee against some metal bit of junk on the way out. Hopefully whatever it is doesn't knock anything over when it jostles.

Robin has a soft warning for Phalanx when they bang their knee, looking over their shoulder to make sure that nothing too dramatic has happened--but since no one is bleeding and the display hasn't completely toppled, it isn't enough to actually get him to stop.

By the time they're outside, the air feels a little livelier. More people roaming the streets, carrying baskets and parcels, making trades with people that they know, chatting and haggling while they still have early-morning energy. Robin leads Phalanx away from the strange tent, but leans over to talk to him just a couple of stalls later.

"Are you all right?" he says, cautious but extremely curious, "How's your head feel?"

Phalanx's hand hasn't really strayed from their head since their last comment in the tent, so they peek around it when Robin asks his question. Their eyes are blue now, but the next blink is already bringing a slightly different shade. They're all stirred up.

"Are we swimming?"

"Ah," he says plainly, starting to work through several problems at once. The first is those changing eyes and the danger of being seen, and the second is a much more abstract concern for Phalanx themselves and whatever has been worked up inside of them. The third is that they need somewhere to duck into quickly, and he doesn't know a whole lot of other people in this area who wouldn't ask questions.

"No," Robin tells them, then immediately changes his mind. "Or yes. I don't really know."

And then he sees something, or someone, headed their way down the street. He does not outwardly sound alarmed, but Phalanx can tell there is some measure of urgency in his movements as he suddenly turns them and herds them around a corner.

"I'll handle everything out here," he tells them, scanning the street for a quick exit. "You just work on sorting yourselves out."

"Sorting," Phalanx repeats, sounding stressed about it. "Put into piles and--"

Phalanx trails off as their other hand comes up to help cover their face, now blocking both eyes from the world and lowering their head, retreating inward. They'll shuffle along if they're led anywhere, but otherwise they stop where they're standing.

They mumble into their sleeves. "Tie him up."

The mumbling is mildly disconcerting, but not the worst thing Phalanx could be doing. Honestly, their looking as though they're having a small meltdown will probably keep people away from them in these slow-moving streets.

And then he spots their chance, a humble brown semicircle of a tent pitched against a large stalagmite. There are no markings on the outside, nor displays, nor person out front shouting to indicate what wares they're selling, but Robin leads them in that direction anyway.

The door is really just a flap of fabric, hard to distinguish from the rest of the outside of the structure... But Robin finds it quickly enough, shoves it aside, and nudges Phalanx forward to get them off of the street. After a quick glance behind them, he ducks in after them.

The inside of the tent is very dark. It also isn't very big, with just enough room for a table and a couple of chairs and maybe four or five people on a very busy day. As it is now, though, there is only one person behind that table, speaking in a calm, old-sounding voice after the two of them barge into her establishment.

"We are not open yet, young man."

"Young man. Old man. Men," Phalanx continues to mumble into their sleeves, keeping their face down as they shuffle to wherever where Robin moves them.

Hopefully, the spirits are continuing to work on pulling themselves together, and haven't just gotten lost in there.

"Oh, so you are right." The older voice is both polite and strangely calm, "My apologies."

Robin can't focus on the situation at hand yet, busy lingering beside the door and listening for anyone following them. Indeed, there is the sound of some commotion back the way they had come, some distant shouting, approaching footfalls--but it all passes them by moments later, disappearing down another street, and eventually the sounds outside the tent recede back to the normal lull of the market as it was before.

Finally, he lets out a sigh of relief. "Sorry," he says, but he doesn't really mean it.

Phalanx doesn't say anything after that, but they at least move from simply hiding far from the world behind their hands, to rubbing their face with a wordless, uncomfortable groan.

They're doing great. It's all going well, here.

Well, should they open their eyes, Phalanx won't have to worry about much sensory input from the outside world. The interior is sparse, and the table at the back of the tent is a simple, rectangular piece of furniture with nothing on it but a small black tablecloth and a deck of cards.

The woman sitting behind the table is small and unimposing, wearing boring clothing and no jewelry to speak of. She has long, straight grey hair that she has partly put up into a bun, and partly left to fall this-and-that-way over her face--which she may not mind, on account of her eyes being completely concealed by white wrappings. Whether by fate or by design, she is completely blind.

The only light into the room is what seeps in around the edges of the tent that have been pitched directly into the stalagmite behind her--which have the strange effect of ringing her little desk in a pale, glowing frame.

"Running from trouble, Robin?" she asks, sounding unimpressed.

"Robin-trouble." And that helps remind Phalanx of recent things, and they return to the surface. They open their eyes to merciful darkness, and the dim frame of light gives them somewhere to focus.

Their head is still held low, but they're at least looking out from under their hood now, peering at the blind woman while they try to fidget their nice new coat even closer around their body.

The blind woman smiles a little at Phalanx's answer, though Robin does not seem particularly impressed in response.

"We won't be staying for long," he starts explaining, "I don't mean to waste any of your ti--"

"Your friend has it right," she blatantly interrupts him, which only seems to annoy him further, "You rush around too much. It would not be wise to leave hastily."

Perhaps sensing some of the stranger's anxiety, she gestures calmly to one of the chairs across the table from her, speaking to Phalanx (and perhaps pointedly, not to Robin).

"Would you like to sit, dear? You don't have to draw cards."

It turns out that Phalanx really would like to sit, so they heartlessly abandon Robin to go sit with the nice old lady.

They don't sit like a person today. They draw their knees in and pull their feet up onto the chair, pulling the edges of their coat around them so they can be a small shape. Feeling solid and anchored to the earth sounds nice right now.

While irritated, Robin isn't at all surprised by the way this is going. Vincent comes in here every once in a while (she was an old family friend before they both had the "blind" thing to bond over) and usually winds up telling Robin that he can't understand why he doesn't like her so much.

He can practically hear it now, crossing his arms near the door. Everyone seems to like her more than he does, and though he's thankful to be out of the way of danger... He can't put his old annoyance down.

But that's okay, Phalanx is away from that now and sitting at a nice, empty, quiet space. She doesn't have much of an energy about her--it's certainly trivial compared to what Robin puts out without thinking--but what little she does have is calm and entirely neutral.

"Robin," she says to the demigod before her, "Stop pouting and hand this poor thing a blanket."

Robin makes a little noise as he remembers the blanket still wadded up under his arm... He doesn't want to agree with her or give in without an argument... But even he can admit that's childish, and Phalanx is more important than his grudge. So he huffs like it's such a big pain, but walks over to drape the blanket over Phalanx's shoulders anyway.

Ah, yes, that is much better. Phalanx eagerly absorbs the blanket around themself, tucking everything in until they're as much a single, uncomplicated shape as they can manage. And there, they continue to ride out the waves.

Especially without open space and people and things to pay attention to around them, the busyness of the energy they carry is much easier to notice. It's going to take a minute for the silt to settle.

They hear what's being said, though. It sounds familiar. They've heard it before.

"...Are we poor?"

"Poor in that there is an absence in you, dear," the woman tells him, sounding very self-assured, "Absence of quiet, I think. Absence of peace, at the moment."

Robin hears this and, keying in to the rattling feeling that still threatens to send Phalanx scattering to the far corners of their many separate realities, reaches for the other chair. It makes a soft scraping noise against the ground as he drags it closer so that he can also have a seat next to Phalanx.

He still crosses his arms, but now it's less from defiance and more to try and keep his unwarranted bitterness to himself.

"Absence of absence." Because there are too many pieces right now. Too many things present, too many things real, all in a space meant for only one.

They'd said the number, hadn't they? Phalanx groans and rubs at their eyes again, under their hood, using a limb that is mostly blankets now.

"But, it's okay. We didn't want it anyway."

Robin doubts that the fortune teller knows what's really happening with Phalanx. She isn't a clairvoyant or a true mind-reader. She just has one subtle, magical trick that she uses very, very lucratively. And on top of that, she really is blind, so she can't see the way Phalanx subtly changes colors as they're talking.

"Didn't want what, dear?" She asks politely, from her side of the table. Robin lets her ask, because he genuinely believes she would not be able to glean enough to do any harm. At least--not on purpose.

"Absence," though Phalanx already sound a little unsure about it. Their train of thought only ever makes sense in the moment, and time is still moving forward. "We didn't like it."

Whether or not the conversation is actually going anywhere, talking might be helping anyway. They're at least not buried in their own hands anymore as they try to speak and work through thoughts.

And to that, the woman gives a warm, wrinkled smile. They can hear it in her voice, too.

"Then I don't think you've got anything to worry about. You'll be all right soon."

"Soon... soon..." Phalanx murmurs with some anxiety, but it sounds like they're at least trying to soothe themself.

And then the blanket pile turns until big, ink-black eyes peer over at Robin, like they're expecting something from him.

Robin glances back at Phalanx... But seeing those big, black eyes stirs something in him, vague memories of the night before. He remembers them all piled together on the bed, now nice it was. Following that train of thought, he finally uncurls from his defensive slouch and stretches an arm over Phalanx's shoulders.

"She's right," he says, hugging them closer with a small smile. "You're doing very well."

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