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beholdenning · 2 years ago

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INTERVIEW.

It is not as if it is not used to the silence. How many days had it whiled away among others of its kind, unspeaking, unthinking? How often had it sat idle, until Lord Nergal called upon it? It should not be unused to the silence, but it is learning, swiftly, that there is an active sort and a stale sort of it.

The air is so stagnant, even as it peers out an open window. The Dread Isle is too quiet, even with the distant sound of crashing waves, the melody of chirping birds. The stone walls take their footsteps and throw them violently from wall to wall to wall until they fade into obscurity. There is no constant rumble, no stoic activity; The vacuum of sound it leaves is all the more obvious. They open their mouth to fill it, but words do not form. Even that repetitive missive they had given the lordlings has slipped from their teeth.

Lord Nergal, they try to say. The words crash and burn after falling from their throat, hitting the ground as a charred, mangled thing. Teeth click shut. Their voicebox rattles in facsimile of sharp breath.

The silence stretches on.

It is unbearable. Incomprehensibly, it repels them. Incomprehensibly, they resist that urge to leave. They try to stay. They cannot content themself with staying. They cannot remain as is, as still as they once had, gathering dust like the rest of the stone and stairs.

Denning paces, if only to hear something, anything at all, and it is not enough.

So, just as incomprehensibly, they leave. Nothing makes any kind of sense, anymore, it seems.

Denning has stowed away once. It has no qualms doing so again. Though vessels only visit the isle sporadically, mostly filled with curious or covetous souls combing the ruins, seeking whatever may have been left in Lord Nergal’s wake. Noone should be on the Isle. It is all too easy for the morph to slip into the hold unnoticed, to settle in between crates and barrels, under tarps and wooden covers.

Unlike how it was in their own four walls, it is somehow easier to sit still and quiet aboard that rocking ship, letting time trickle by — Listening to creaking wood, the subtle rattle of cargo, the sound of waves. Of footsteps nearby and overhead, of voices above deck, speaking and shouting and laughing.

Their throat itches, at times, yearns to join, if only to learn the shape of it. But they have no orders to speak. They do not have any orders at all. So they content themself with listening, not knowing nor caring how long, until some sailors descend back into the hold and begin hauling parts of the cargo about. Shadows move, utter swears under their breath, whistle as they work. Denning relishes in the clear sound, until the tarp above their head is disturbed, until light flashes into their eyes, until they are met with a scream.

“Shit, what the hell?!”

Denning blinks up at three stricken faces, owlishly.

It does not take long for the sailors to surmise he is a stowaway, discuss an apt punishment as he makes no move to flee or fight or speak, and set him to grueling work. For want of orders otherwise, he obeys without complaint. The sailors, accompanying some scholars, view him as an oddity, perhaps a bit daft, with a number of screws loose. But he does his work, and does not sneak from the stores. Unscrupulous as a few of them are, they tolerate him, regardless.

The menial labor fills the unbearable silence for a good few weeks until they weigh anchor. The sailors, now used to his presence, do not keep a good enough eye on him, and once again, his feet begin to wander onto shore. Bewitched, his figure disappears into the crowds at the harbor, and once the sailors notice he is gone, he is already a half day’s trip by foot to the next settlement.

The buildings and people pass by. Denning does not stay overlong in any, noting the way the area around them grows quiet if they linger overlong, how conversation grows stale when they stop to listen. They walk, and walk, and pause, and listen, and walk, until one day, some knights in red and white happen upon them, look upon their ragged clothes, the dirt and wear and caked seasalt upon their person, and stop them in their tracks.

“Sir, are you alright?” asks one, and Denning needs a moment to realise this Sir is them. Another silence lapses before they open their mouth to reply, but all that falls from their lips is a broken rattle that can barely pass for the first roll of ‘right’.

The knights are upon them in a flash. They were not commanded to defend themself, and thus barely twitch as hands skitter across their limbs, checking for… What? There is nothing to be found, no? Water wets their lips from a leather skin, a loaf of bread pressed into their dirty hands. Denning is ushered elsewhere, set with care upon a horse and led away from that damp, muddy path they had been traveling.

The sound of the knights speaking to eachother in hushed tones is appealing enough for them to stay put. Denning stares at the bread in their hands, the passing treeline, listens to words and sentences and meanings. Occasionally, a knight makes sure their eyes are still open, speaks to them, seeking a response.

“Are you mute?” One asks, after many questions that go answered with only clipped noises. Denning’s jaw works itself open to respond, but all that leaves him is an ‘a’. The knight then releases her reins for a moment to repeat her question, make a curious series of gestures alongside.

Ah. They recognise it as language, but do not yet know the words. Habit kicks in; The still uneaten loaf of bread is wedged between their legs as they mirror the gestures, then repeat the last one: Circling fingers, a tap of knuckles to his bottom lip.

It’s the most coherent response he’s given so far. The knight frowns, that strange look entering her eyes again, the same the knights had looked at them with when he was first found wandering. “I see.”

A sentence, spoken, constructs itself in its mind as she turns away and begins speaking to another knight again. Show me more. It sticks in its throat, sets it a-rumble, does not slip free. It stays there, firmly stuck, until they arrive at a series of buildings.

The Church of Seiros takes them in with open arms, does not leave them alone in their room after it takes them in, thinking them a vulnerable and lost traveler. It asks strange things of them, asking them to take in water, to crush bread and fruit between their teeth, to get up and walk around, to do those things regularly. They take to these small tasks like clockwork, washing their old clothes, given new ones. The church also keeps asking questions and providing and providing until their hair sits clean, until they are free of mud and grime, doing what is asked of them, not understanding it is to ‘maintain’ themself. Denning takes the care in with a dull confusion.

More questions are asked that he cannot answer, paper pushed to them that they cannot fill, until that one knight from the initial group that found him approaches again, sits him down, shows him more of that gestured language, speaks words to go with them. They learn the gestures with voracity, until the sentences that they set together in their mind start finding purchase in the tilt of their hands, the bend of their fingers.

On one occasion, the knight asks him, plainly; “How did you get lost all the way out there?” Her hands accompany her words, and Denning stores each sign for later. Their mirroring hands pause for a moment, before starting, haltingly.

‘by boat. i left another place.’ His hands pause, before his fingers pinch together, tap near the corner of his lips, the center of his cheek. home. He thinks that is close to human understanding. ‘quiet’, he signs next. ‘one’, follows, an implicit alone in the number. The Knight’s expression twists again, a soft flash of teeth, a furrow of her brow, eyes drooping slightly at the corners. Denning only tilts his head, hands hanging idle, before moving again. ‘wanderer’. ‘sound’. ‘wanted more’. Another pause, then with certainty, ‘quiet’.

She hand ended their session there. It was strange to observe the emptiness she left. He could have learned more in the time they usually kept going. Again he lapses into silence, mouthing the words ‘done for today’ into the stillness.

Another time, it is when the Church is no longer content with him doing the tasks it had already given him to observe with regularity. He is told to sweep the dust away from the corridors, told to help wipe the moisture from used plates and cups after failing miserably to properly size the potatoes they were to dice.

“What are you even good at, lass?” The knight assigned to kitchen duty with them asks, a bit exasperated, but with a softness to his tone that is lost on the morph; Though, a hardness would have been lost on her as well. Again, Denning needs a moment to realise she is being addressed. A moment of silence passes in thought. Good at? What is ‘being good’ at something? The knight shakes his head, an edge of exasperation creeping into his tone.

“Stuff you don’t botch. Those ‘taters’re still smarting from your handling, you know… Maybe stuff you do often?”

“… ten…” Hands put down the cup she is handling, before she again raises them to sign.

‘bow. arrow.’ The knight’s brow knits further. Denning’s lips purse, before she shifts tactics, instead doing what the other knight had taught her to do when she doesn’t know how to communicate; She mimes the pull of an arrow from a quiver, the draw of a bow. A near-perfect imitation of the sound of arrow embedding in flesh leaves her in a puff of air when she mimes the release.

An impressed whistle from the knight. “Archery?” The morph nods. “Damn, we could’ve put you to work hunting earlier, then. Want to come with us, next time?”

A pause. Want? Denning blinks, knowing the definition, but not the drive. The knight, noting how that thousand-yard-stare has come back to golden eyes, sighs. “Ah, just come with us. I want to see how you do.”

Another pause. “And let me know what you’re bollocks at beforehand, got that? If our dear guest hurts herself ‘cause she was too confident with a bow against a bear, the captain’ll shank me.”

Before she goes on that hunting trip, Denning has her knight-tutor submit a short list. It is hardly longer than two items, enough to be crammed onto a tiny square of paper: Acting without orders, doing without example. The cook-knight raises an eyebrow at the list, then at Denning, then laughs and smacks a hearty hand upon her shoulder. Her frame creaks with the strength of it, ripples through their form cumulating into a sigh.

Their knight-tutor laughs. “You’ll get used to it.” she says, nudging the cook-knight with an elbow. He shoves her back with an answering laugh.

The weight of a bow in his hands again is welcome, the movements coming back to him like clockwork. Though it is a far cry from the one that Lord Nergal had first given him, it still sits in his palms similarly enough for him to nock and let fly, like he had for years. The cook-knight is impressed with his performance, and they return to the church grounds with several shot rabbits and wildfowl in tow. Many of the knights shower them with compliments which roll off the huntress like oil. Denning nods solely to appease, otherwise uncomprehending. The trek home is lively and amicable, banter being exchanged between the small group of four knights and Denning.

The knights speak of stories, of plays, of fairytales, when the knight-tutor turns to the morph with yet another question; “What would you be in a story like that, Denning?”

A hand slackens around the net carrying a portion of their spoils. They thread a wrist through a hole in the net to free their hands to speak, but find no words for a long moment. The knights, used to their silences, wait for them.

What would he be? They remember moving with the others like them, like a well-oiled machine, heeding orders like clockwork. The memory of Ostia sits behind her eyes, the lordlings she failed to kill. They remember their master, gently placing one word upon their tongue after another to wrap their teeth around, to savor and understand. It remembers the silence after everything was gone. It remembers not having orders.

They shake their head. ‘i don’t know,’ she says, not conscious of the furrow in her own brow. ‘do you?’

The knights erupt back into discussion. “A soldier, obviously!” one exclaims. “A damn good huntress, if nothing else!” The cook-knight declares. “I don’t know, he has the potential to be a protagonist, all mysterious like that.” the knight-tutor giggles.

They do not need to speak for the rest of the way back. Denning finds themself listening to the assignments curiously, basks in the sound, so much fuller than it has ever been.

Their days progress onwards, an irregular clockwork, seldom quiet save for when the night settles in, never silent. But something shifts, one day.

He is offered service as a knight.

“This is an immense honor,” the knight-tutor tells him, “to be recommended towards knighthood! And at Garreg Mach, at that! You’ve done great work, and you’re getting recognised for it. Isn’t that lovely?”

“I don’t see why not,” the cook-knight congratulates her. “You’re a dab hand with that bow of yours, and I’ve never seen any kid take to work like a fish to water like you do. Practically born for the knight life, really, even if you’re weird as hell.” The corners of his lips are curled upwards. Denning recognises the expression as a smile. She mimics it as she nods.

It does not understand honor. It does not understand recognition. But the knights’ agreements weigh on it, a length away from being orders, but not all that different in feeling, but… Something burns warm in its throat, its tongue stuck to the front of its teeth to give that something voice.

When the Archbishop’s envoy comes to hear its answer to the invitation, Denning nods in clear affirmative.

“Thank you,” it utters, stilted, practiced syllables it had repeated againagainagain into the quiet of its room in the off-hours. “Thank you.”

#dios mio la creatura #;found footage | musing #;replay | drabble #2486 words baybey!!!

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