He doesn’t want to be here. Whether here is this particular spot in the labyrinth, or the Grounds as a whole isn’t clear, but Nate doesn’t exactly know where else to go. He’s already here. He’d walked here without thought, wandered through the maze until he came here, empty handed because he hadn’t meant to come.
It’s an excuse. Everything he's told himself recently has been, and if he lets that thought sit in his mind for too long everything starts to come unglued.
So he doesn’t do that, he sits on the ground instead and he looks at the smooth stones that make up the shrine and he feels dirty and guilty and — he’s thinking about it again, in a loop of self-loathing and nonsense justifications.
Asking for forgiveness would mean admitting he’s done something wrong, and Nate isn’t quite ready to do that yet. After a handful of long moments though, he is ready to straighten up and actually do something. [say]”I... I need help. Guidance. Clarification. I don’t know.”[/say] Even alone like he is, Nate’s aware of how he sounds, a strained undercurrent of effort in his otherwise easy tone.
[say]”You need help and guidance, and yet it is the Voice you ask for?”[/say] The voice asks from the darkness, a skittering ivory spider that crawls through the labyrinth to settle on the shrine. It’s mandible clatters together as if in confusion, a sharp pointed foot reaching out to poke at Nate’s cheek as if wondering if it were fast enough if it would draw blood. [say]”A pity.”[/say] It begins, heaving a sigh, its abdomen falling a bit with the motion.
All eight of its eyes focus on Nate now with a similar predatory stillness that he’s good at keeping. Click, click, click go the mandible and the other seven feet settled on the stone. [say]”Well, get on with it.”[/say]
Voices, from apparently nowhere. He doesn’t have the time, doesn’t have the patience for this, and a sneer curls his lips all but automatically. Bright anger flashes in his eyes, the expression made less serious by the missing eyebrow still growing in, though that doesn’t affect the venom rising on his tongue. Except, it doesn’t come from nowhere.
He would really, really prefer that it had come from nowhere.
It’s not big, as in bigger than him, but it’s still far too big, and he’d knelt, some relic of a life he’d grown out of long ago, a life that keeps coming back to bite him in the ass like this. [say]”I... am I...”[/say] It takes absolutely every ounce of willpower to not flinch away from the leg that touches him. At least his voice is steady, unwavering, somehow.[say]”Am i supposed to ask you for guidance?”[/say]
There is a rumbling that appears to shake the shrine, as the arachnid’s leg withdraws to tap against the top of the stone. It’s abdomen dances with laughter as Nate’s question hangs in the air a bit too long. It appears to take a look around, seeing that it’s just the two of them, before all eight of its eyes return to the Ascended with an almost glittering mischievousness.
[say]”Well, I don’t see anyone else here. Do you?”[/say] The spirit asks, lifting itself as if it might become eye level with Nate. Both front legs reach out now, to push at Nate’s chest with a bit of force. [say]”Go on and look for yourself. Then we’ll see about this… Guidance you seek.”[/say] If there ever were a feeling of a creature mostly expressionless being able to raise a brow, it occurs now.
There are a number of things that Nate has faced, that he knows how to deal with, how to process. This is not at all one of them. It feels like his first true brush with the unnatural, and it is a fight to keep himself calm in the face of it, especially as the spider creature laughs, sending his spine crawling.
Humour fails him, though there’s still a grin on his face when he answers bluntly, his brows pinched together. [say]”Suppose I don’t.”[/say] This time, when legs prick against him, Nate struggles to his feet and takes a step back, his jaw working. [say]”So you’re going to offer me some kind of advice then?”[/say]
The Ascended doesn’t take up the creature’s offer. And it’s with some annoyance that the spider peers back at Nate, at the furrowed brow and the comment that he doesn’t see anyone around. Just stating the obvious, as it seems. And then there’s the next question, the advice that has the spider tapping its feet atop the shrine and nearly rolling all of its eyes, before huffing a sigh into the cold.
[say]”If you don’t want my advice, then you won’t get it. Your loss.”[/say] It informs Nate, leaning forward toward the Ascended to peer at him, before turning around to hop off the shrine and disappear again.
- FIN
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