The King of Crows

Smells like... Rust?

It had been three weeks since we had been to Alton Towers; once for a way to show Phil more of the modern world {and have a bit of fun too}, now we had three new friends that I could talk to on Discord. Just... how?

Now don't get me wrong, it's really fun to have friends! For once in my life. But I just wasn't expecting it to be like that, on how I got friends for once. I never played with them on streams, or even moderated, all I did was watch them and casually chat about everything going on in our lives. I was much more busy when it came to my own work: blogging about everything I had seen while at the castle, including the painted picture. Or was it a mansion? I'll never remember.

One of the many crows sat happily on my desk, watching the live Twitch stream that Wilbur was doing, while I checked through all my notes and pictures I had gathered throughout everything happening. Every so often I'd look up at the screen, noticing that Wilbur had begun to play some songs for everyone in chat. Which, in all honesty, helped me out more with my concentration than I originally expected.

"Reincarnated to someone almost identical to what I originally saw him as, he shall always be talented with his personal guitar."

And there goes my concentration. Turning my head to my side, I quickly noticed Philza, who was leaning down to see the stream as well. Throughout the three weeks I had informed him about what live streams were; now instead of thinking we were invading someone's personal life, he had become more comfortable with understanding that the streamer's did this for their work.

"It's quite uncanny, isn't it?" I asked, watching him slowly nod his head before walking over to Technoblade's golden armour stand that resided right beside my desk. Two crows flew over to sit on both shoulders of the armour, watching Phil do whatever he was doing. "What on Earth are you doing?"

"Huh? Oh - inspecting the armour itself," I stared at him as he answered, for some reason he was really focused on it. Turning back to my notes, I flipped through the rest of them before beginning to type everything up. Sending all the pictures I had taken on my phone to my PC instead. The sounds of the two crows patting their little talons on the armour snapped me out of concentration, making me look in their direction.

"What the fuck?"

"It smells off..." Philza mumbled, holding one of the golden gauntlets in his hand. Inspecting every little detail as he tried to find the source of the smell.

"Maybe something died in it," I got a death stare for that one. Understandable, I highly doubt anything could have even gotten into the Valictor. Or out. So something dying inside the armour stand would've been near to impossible. "Okay, okay. So nothing died in it. Maybe something else?"

"That is what I am trying to figure out," He continued to inspect the gauntlet, entirely focused on just that piece of armour like it held the source. "But alas I have found nothing that can link to this weird smell."

Placing my notebook down, I got out of the chair to walk beside Phil. As I grazed my fingers over the golden plates I could feel how smooth the armour was, even if it had been centuries since it was last used. If it was okay like this, then maybe the smell was coming from parts of the plates we couldn't see. Thinking that, I hooked one of my fingers at the edge of one of the plates, the tip of my finger now between two golden plates.

"Have you found anything of use?"

I hummed, continuing to graze my finger around the area it was now in. Until I felt something... bumpy. Okay what the fuck?

"I... think so?" I answered, though it came out as a question in of itself. Not wanting to break the armour and rip off the plate, I instead just decided to use my fingernail to scrape whatever it was onto myself. Probably the worst idea out of any, but I didn't want to break something that Philza cared so much about. "Whatever it is, it's bumpy and only in the darkened places."

"That sounds like a fungus dear Y/N," He made a face of, what I could only guess was, disgust. I shrugged my shoulders, carefully removing my fingers from between the armour plates. Revealing quite a lot of small brown pieces and dust coating my fingers. "Though it appears it is far from a fungus."

"Smells like rust," I mumbled out, bringing my fingers to my nose. Realising this, it made a lot more sense now. Though fungus wouldn't have been that surprising either. Wait... doesn't that need water as well? Okay so maybe not fungus. "Which... makes a lot of sense now."

"I did not know rust had a distinct smell to it," Philza glanced up at me, still holding the golden gauntlet in his hands.

"Well now you do," I shrugged, watching him place the armour back where he'd taken it from. "Anyway, it's been centuries since the armour was last used. Correct?"

Phil nodded.

"Okay. Well, it must've slowly rusted in the Valictor over time," I continued to speak, sitting back down at my desk. Spinning in my chair, I turned to look at Philza who had sat down on my bed. "I'm guessing you were cleaning everything in there - removing dust and all - but I'm also guessing you never knew there could've been rust forming in the cracks."

"All you have said to me is completely true," He shrugged, staring down at the bedroom floor. "Perhaps we can clean it up, if possible, or shall we just leave it be? No one shall ever equip the armour again anyway."

"You're right on both," I spun back around, noticing the crow was still watching Wilbur's livestream. A smile appeared on my lips at the sight of it. "We'll leave it for now; I'll look up more about rust when I get the chance to. So don't sweat about it."

"I am not sweating though," He looked up to me, raising an eyebrow as he kept his lips ever so parted.

"Metaphorically," I sighed, grabbing the bride of my nose. At that point I wouldn't have been surprised if I'd squeezed my nose, with how little Philza knew about modern language and all. "Look, you'll get used to it. Hopefully."

"Hopefully indeed," He nodded with a smile, taking off his coat without the urge to sleep. "And hopefully you will be apparent with my language too."

"Eyy?!" I screamed, never having seen him without the coat on. The crow watching the livestream jumped a little, cawing at me before going back to happily watching it. "You wear a bodysuit underneath your coat?!"

"Leotard; the clothing piece has two names, so I understand the confusion you may get," He sighed, shrugging it off before hopping off my bed to walk over to me. "But, to answer your question, yes I have been wearing this underneath my gifted coat. It is quite comfy, and easy to move around in. Kristin always thought it suited me."

"Well it does."