The smell of grilled mystery-meat and sun-slick sunscreen carries a strange static today, and though no door opens and no one can say for certain when he arrived, suddenly Vox is just—there!
Not walking, not teleporting. Just...appearing in the kind of way that makes time feel like it skipped a breath.
He stands (probably) near the shallows, wearing a tremendously large floppy hat that seems to cast shade in directions no one agrees on, and a pair of sunglasses so dark and reflective they appear to broadcast other people's memories instead of reflecting light. His presence hums beneath the music, like an off-key bassline that only the spine can hear. A single towel hangs over one elbow.
He grins. (All 43 teeth are accounted for. Six of them are new!)
"Oooh!" he trills, clapping exactly four times. "Pierce, my peach! My little hard-edged fruit cup, look at you!" (He's learned terms of endearment usually have to do with food). Is he looking at Pierce? At the sun? At Jack ’s glass of rum? Impossible to say.
He lifts one gangly hand and waves at no one, or perhaps at everyone. "And my dear poets! Oh! My luminous lyricists! Iskra! Melita! Flora with your barbed verses and poisonous flair! Even Vesper ’s slippery metaphor still clings to my lobes like damp static. I am touched."
He pauses. His expression does not change, but something about the air does. "But! This isn’t about me!" He pivots dramatically—his shadow seems to lag half a second behind—and gestures to Pierce like a game show model unveiling a prize wheel made of spite. "It’s about our generous host. Let’s all raise a toast, or a hotdog, or a mild psychic scream in his honour. Because isn’t it lovely to know, even after an entire Tower can fall down, we can still gather oceanside like nothing is just a little off?"
Then, a wink. At who? Unknown. It might’ve been at Colt. Or Deimos. Or the floatie shaped like a mirewyrm slowly deflating behind him.
"Oh, and before I forget," he chirps, "I’ll be around if anyone wants to chat. Or confess. Or join the Family! You know how it is—first we cannonball, then we conscript!"
He adjusts his sunglasses behind his ears, which are definitely above his bellybutton(s), then he lounges backwards into a waiting lawn chair that wasn’t there before, the towel draped neatly across his lap like a sacrificial napkin.
Not walking, not teleporting. Just...appearing in the kind of way that makes time feel like it skipped a breath.
He stands (probably) near the shallows, wearing a tremendously large floppy hat that seems to cast shade in directions no one agrees on, and a pair of sunglasses so dark and reflective they appear to broadcast other people's memories instead of reflecting light. His presence hums beneath the music, like an off-key bassline that only the spine can hear. A single towel hangs over one elbow.
He grins. (All 43 teeth are accounted for. Six of them are new!)
"Oooh!" he trills, clapping exactly four times. "Pierce, my peach! My little hard-edged fruit cup, look at you!" (He's learned terms of endearment usually have to do with food). Is he looking at Pierce? At the sun? At Jack ’s glass of rum? Impossible to say.
He lifts one gangly hand and waves at no one, or perhaps at everyone. "And my dear poets! Oh! My luminous lyricists! Iskra! Melita! Flora with your barbed verses and poisonous flair! Even Vesper ’s slippery metaphor still clings to my lobes like damp static. I am touched."
He pauses. His expression does not change, but something about the air does. "But! This isn’t about me!" He pivots dramatically—his shadow seems to lag half a second behind—and gestures to Pierce like a game show model unveiling a prize wheel made of spite. "It’s about our generous host. Let’s all raise a toast, or a hotdog, or a mild psychic scream in his honour. Because isn’t it lovely to know, even after an entire Tower can fall down, we can still gather oceanside like nothing is just a little off?"
Then, a wink. At who? Unknown. It might’ve been at Colt. Or Deimos. Or the floatie shaped like a mirewyrm slowly deflating behind him.
"Oh, and before I forget," he chirps, "I’ll be around if anyone wants to chat. Or confess. Or join the Family! You know how it is—first we cannonball, then we conscript!"
He adjusts his sunglasses behind his ears, which are definitely above his bellybutton(s), then he lounges backwards into a waiting lawn chair that wasn’t there before, the towel draped neatly across his lap like a sacrificial napkin.
vox
