Lionhearts ||Skephalo||

35

Skeppy jolts awake, Bad's warmth slipping through his fingers like sand as a shriek pierces his daze. He looks around, his abrupt awakening baffling him and his reality temporarily incongruent—wasn't I in the Nether? I was holding Bad, but then there was that weird ashy place— is that the Nether too? Did he teleport? Was he dreaming too?—and not quite sitting right with him.

He registers the rest of the scene as the voice that had woken him raises to a wail from its whimper, babbling out despaired cries.

He looks over the others to see Tommy and Fundy already comforting the owner of the sobbing voice; Tubbo. Skeppy stiffens, and looks for answers to Sapnap, who shrugs helplessly.

"Tubbo," Tommy's saying frantically but firmly, "Tubbo, please, listen, I— you're not makin' sense, please Tubbo. What's wrong, mate? Did you hurt yourself? Think of something bad? Did you remember something?" Tubbo shakes his head, and Skeppy tentatively shuffles a bit closer, kneeling down to look up to the boy as he hugs his knees to himself.

"Come on," Fundy encourages weakly, uneasily, "chin up, Tub! Tell us what's wrong."

Skeppy can't help but feel a chill as Tubbo opens his eyes, sniffling as he quiets his voice. His once bright blue eyes are now mismatched, one a dimmed shade of grey-blue. Tommy stiffens with some emotion as he sees them, and he asks fearfully,

"Who?"

Tubbo's whimpers raise back into a wail, for the moment inconsolable.

Skeppy asks the two,

"What does that mean? I— what kind of magic changes your eyes?"

Tommy glares at him.

"It's not just changing his eyes," he snaps, "That means one of the fellas we're looking for?" He mimes slitting his throat, and Skeppy can catch the tears beading in his eyes despite the blond blinking them away as quickly as he can. He slides his gaze to Fundy, askance, and the shifter catches his questioning and explains,

"It looks something like, uh...bond spell. You use ties of magic to let the other member of the pair know if a certain set of people are alive. It works best with two duos, I think." Skeppy nods in slow understanding, rubbing his nose absently and starting as he notices ash smudging on his skin.

He glances down to his fingers, and swallows away unease as he realizes they're coated in fine, pale grey ash.

Just like the dream.

He's starting to suspect that these dreams he's been having with Bad are significantly realer than would be comfortable. Vaguely, Fundy mentioning things about dreams drifts through his mind, but he focuses on the task at hand; he places his hand on Tubbo's reassuringly.

"Hey, Tubbo," he murmurs softly, an encouraging thread in his voice, "It's gonna be okay. Can you take some deep breaths and tell us what's wrong?"

Despite his, Fundy's, and Tommy's combined efforts, Tubbo only comes down from his hysterics several minutes later, by which point the front of his shirt is drenched in tears. Skeppy's heart aches from the sight of the boy crying so uncontrollably.

Sapnap has slipped away to the kitchen, seemingly to avoid the situation.

"I felt," Tubbo finally gasps out, pointing to his dimmed eye (which is slowly regaining a lightness to it), "Wilbur. I felt his life just— gone. Like someone took 'im and blew out his candle. An' I don't think Phil could do anything to save him because he isn't relighting. He's just— gone."

The word hurts, it aches and settles over the company.

Gone. One of the family members that the pair of youths had been searching so desperately; lost, just like that.