In the end, Pheres gets to keep his horns. Going up the pipe takes the velvet off the sides of his bottom set, leaving maroon streaks on the metal behind, but you go up first, and between your pulling and Castor's pushing, you manage to get him into the hive proper.
Your hive is the old catacomb where you first found Castor, back when you'd been nameless and small and fresh from the caverns. You had thought it safe because his presence had kept away ghost and the walking dead alike: you hadn't realised what that presence was. Castor had watched you for a few nights, just long enough to affirm that you could see him, and then he'd introduced himself.
He's been taking care of you ever since.
His presence still keeps the dead away, and sweeps and sweeps of your hard work have replaced doors, set locks, and made it thoroughly impenetrable to the living as well. (Kids from above like to go trawling in the crypts, for some reason: that's how you met Marduk!) The walls are padded with fabric, and anything and everything you've salvaged from the catacombs over the sweeps: a few things from the culling pits where the bodies used to be dumped and burned, but mostly gifts left behind for the ghosts in the sweeps after.
Recently, you've set up a ruperacoon that Castor found above-ground, and that Mardie helped you haul down. You don't like to use it after sweeps of sleeping dry, but the slime helps when you're injured or sick, and so it only makes sense to dump Pheres in.
You curl up around the outside. The recuperacoon always runs hot, and so you've built your pile of pillows and fabric right by the side, so you stay warm all day long. Castor's use of your telekinesis always makes you tired, and now that you're in the safety of your hive, it's turned into outright exhaustion.
"Gonna sleep," you tell Castor, and you don't even have to ask: he drapes them with one of the shrouds off of the wall, a nice, thick one they stole from a seadweller's bonerest, and that tiny use of telekinesis uses what feels like you last drop of energy.
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Your hive is the old catacomb where you first found Castor, back when you'd been nameless and small and fresh from the caverns. You had thought it safe because his presence had kept away ghost and the walking dead alike: you hadn't realised what that presence was. Castor had watched you for a few nights, just long enough to affirm that you could see him, and then he'd introduced himself.
He's been taking care of you ever since.
His presence still keeps the dead away, and sweeps and sweeps of your hard work have replaced doors, set locks, and made it thoroughly impenetrable to the living as well. (Kids from above like to go trawling in the crypts, for some reason: that's how you met Marduk!) The walls are padded with fabric, and anything and everything you've salvaged from the catacombs over the sweeps: a few things from the culling pits where the bodies used to be dumped and burned, but mostly gifts left behind for the ghosts in the sweeps after.
Recently, you've set up a ruperacoon that Castor found above-ground, and that Mardie helped you haul down. You don't like to use it after sweeps of sleeping dry, but the slime helps when you're injured or sick, and so it only makes sense to dump Pheres in.
You curl up around the outside. The recuperacoon always runs hot, and so you've built your pile of pillows and fabric right by the side, so you stay warm all day long. Castor's use of your telekinesis always makes you tired, and now that you're in the safety of your hive, it's turned into outright exhaustion.
"Gonna sleep," you tell Castor, and you don't even have to ask: he drapes them with one of the shrouds off of the wall, a nice, thick one they stole from a seadweller's bonerest, and that tiny use of telekinesis uses what feels like you last drop of energy.
You sleep.