Now that ze's noticed it, Hinnom can feel the gentle tug of the leash even as ze turns away. Ze's still got to go retrieve Pheres, and then they'll go.
How they'll avoid the dead, without Castor there to guide them - and why Castor isn't there, with them - ze's not sure. But they'll figure it out. Pheres got them here, right?
Backstepping is easy as anything. Hinnom knows the sewers like the back of zir hand, and it's not like ze went far: into a wall-niche, across the bridge and down the hall. Not even a five minute walk!
So ze're a little baffled to find Pheres has followed them.
He's walking across the bridge, his hands braced on the railing and his body curled up like he's about to drop down and die. Maybe he is! There's bile all over his face, but there's maroon, too, dripping from his snout and all the way down his shirt front.
It's blood. There's blood on his face and his shirt, and his eyes are white as the dead roaming the sewers around them, and everything in Hinnom's pan screams that being seen by him is a terribad idea.
Ze never did make sure he wasn't dead, did they? Zir lusus can't see anything more than light, but she knows there's only one source of light that bright down in the sewers, and she's chittering her mouthpiece together in a quiet demand.
Hinnom can't refuse it. Ze backs up, quiet as a mouse, and presses zimself tight against the stone wall, until ze's squashed flat up against a pipe.
Maybe he'll look less scary when he's closer. But just in case, they yank the leash again: not a request, like the previous times, but a demand that Castor get down here.
(Ze should've kept more ghosts leashed, and not just him. Stupid. So stupid.)
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How they'll avoid the dead, without Castor there to guide them - and why Castor isn't there, with them - ze's not sure. But they'll figure it out. Pheres got them here, right?
Backstepping is easy as anything. Hinnom knows the sewers like the back of zir hand, and it's not like ze went far: into a wall-niche, across the bridge and down the hall. Not even a five minute walk!
So ze're a little baffled to find Pheres has followed them.
He's walking across the bridge, his hands braced on the railing and his body curled up like he's about to drop down and die. Maybe he is! There's bile all over his face, but there's maroon, too, dripping from his snout and all the way down his shirt front.
It's blood. There's blood on his face and his shirt, and his eyes are white as the dead roaming the sewers around them, and everything in Hinnom's pan screams that being seen by him is a terribad idea.
Ze never did make sure he wasn't dead, did they? Zir lusus can't see anything more than light, but she knows there's only one source of light that bright down in the sewers, and she's chittering her mouthpiece together in a quiet demand.
Hinnom can't refuse it. Ze backs up, quiet as a mouse, and presses zimself tight against the stone wall, until ze's squashed flat up against a pipe.
Maybe he'll look less scary when he's closer. But just in case, they yank the leash again: not a request, like the previous times, but a demand that Castor get down here.
(Ze should've kept more ghosts leashed, and not just him. Stupid. So stupid.)