Work Text:
"What is that thing?" asks the merchant, pointing to the flat white ceramic disc tucked under Quirrel’s arm, before he even asks Quirrel's name.
"It'll bring you no harm, if that's your concern," says Quirrel.
"But what is it?" says the merchant again.
(Quirrel doesn't know--)
Of course Quirrel knows. He owns the thing. The flat white disc in question has four dots on it that he thinks looks like a face, but it can't be a mask, since there's no eyeholes. There is a depression for something along the bottom. "It's my hat," says Quirrel decisively--yes, it must be his hat; he feels that that's (probably) absolutely the right answer. He fixes it to the top of his head with his headscarf on the spot.
"Odd looking hat," says the merchant.
"The world is far and wide and full of many strange sights and bugs. I'm sure it allows for a few strange hats, too."
The merchant does not seem to share Quirrel's sense of humor. "I am Losot," says the merchant. "And you are?"
When Quirrel tells Losot his name, Losot only nods and asks no more questions, and this is how it comes to be that Quirrel acquires one of his first travelling companions.
*
Other travelers are not so taciturn as Losot. It becomes customary to exchange a set of questions on the long trails through the wilderness, things like: "Who are you?" "Where are you going?" ("Will you hurt or help me?" goes more unspoken, but not unsaid.) When people ask questions, Quirrel knows that if he plays his cards right, he could have a travelling companion for a time, and takes care with his answers. He considers himself fortunate that he has no reason to play his cards dishonestly for a little company.
The third companion is a woman making a long trek to join her sons in a distant land, where they'd left to secure a living wage. But Quirrel knows she's lying, more to herself than Quirrel. Wherever her sons have gone to, the woman, deep in her heart, suspects misfortune. "And you?" asks the woman bravely. "Where are you going?"
(Quirrel doesn't know--)
Quirrel certainly knows, or else why would he on the road? "Wherever strikes my fancy," he says simply. Yes, that must be right. He can’t think of a destination right now, so he must be travelling without aim, like a few bugs he’s met so far. "I'm an incorrigible traveler, it would appear. I've been to so many places, I believe I may have forgotten them all."
She laughs. "Keep your secrets, then," she says.
Quirrel never does convince her that he was telling the truth before they part ways, and when they do, Quirrel wanders under the night sky alone, hoping a stranger's children are okay.
*
The seventh companions are a group of miners looking for a fresh ore vein--or so they say, but they're an awful long way from the last ore deposit, and how would they transport anything they mine without carts and steeds, anyway? Quirrel keeps these questions to himself, for courtesy's sake. They agree to keep Quirrel company on the road easily. "Always good to have a fighter in the group," says the leader.
"Oh, no," says Quirrel. "I'm no fighter."
"Y'sure? Y've got a nail and everything."
Quirrel glances at it. Yes, well, you'd think that a bug carrying a nail around would be a fighter, if not a knight. It's a perfectly logical assumption, and Quirrel can hardly blame the miner for it. "I'm quite sure," says Quirrel.
"That's a shame," says the leader.
The group of miners try to rob Quirrel in the middle of the night. Quirrel kills one and cripples another before they run off. Quirrel sighs, and wonders if there had been a peaceable way to resolve the situation, and leaves the abandoned wounded miner for the wild beasts to devour.
*
For the eleventh companion, Quirrel's name is not enough. "But who are you?" the bug insists, without lowering the tip of her sea-green nail. This one, Quirrel thinks, is a proper fighter. Possibly even a knight.
"I'm but a simple traveler," Quirrel tells her.
"I can see that. Anyone who travels is a traveler. I ask not what are you, but who are you?"
Quirrel looks down at himself. He's got a nail, a bag of food, and his hat. "I'm only exactly what you and I can see," says Quirrel. He prays that it will not come to blows. He's not a fighter, after all.
But a second passes, and the woman lowers the point of her nail. "How does it feel, being only exactly as you appear?"
"I've never been any other way. If you want a recommendation, I'm afraid I have no point of comparison."
She laughs. A peaceful resolution, indeed.
The woman is named Fallow, and she is, indeed, a knight. "But it is of no importance anymore," Fallow says, rather darkly, when they settle down over a campfire for the night. "I was of a distant kingdom that has had its name stripped from it, and it lies nameless and dark. Only the circus lives there now, like carrion birds feasting upon the corpses."
"I had no idea that was what circuses did."
Fallow sneers and refuses to speak of it any further. But at Quirrel's request, instead, she tells him of her home as she remembers it: A vast plain, upon which the sun was hot enough to kill and the nights were blessedly cool; during the day, the sun would melt the sandy plains and the cool winds would turn them to glass, and the bugs would go aboveground to scavenge the day's offerings. Sun tears, the glass pieces were called. Her nail was made of sun tears, she explained, which was like no glass any bug could make--a fifty foot drop could not shatter this glass, let alone the measly impact of piercing a bug's shell. Her glass nail could parry any nail of steel and more. Belowground, entire cities were constructed of glass alone, tall and glistening, of fiery reds and deep purples and sea greens and the purest, clearest transparent panes, the sort of pure glass that made you wish your mind and soul could be so clear.
Deep in the glass towers had been Fallow's lord, a young debutante with thoughts of fancy. "She'd been the most ridiculous girl," Fallow says, snorting. "She was convinced that a bug without wings could achieve flight, if she built a contraption to mimic the wings of moths or bees. She only worked with pink glass. She wanted her wings to match her favorite outfit."
"She sounds wonderful," says Quirrel.
"She was," says Fallow. "She was an honor to serve."
Quirrel notes the past tense and changes the subject. "And what a miraculous kingdom, too."
"You would have loved to see it," says Fallow, "a wandering type like you."
"It would appear I would have," says Quirrel.
*
Some time before Quirrel decides to travel to Hallownest, he meets a blind old bug, their eyes ripped out with (as Quirrel learns) the traditional markers of punishment for murder in a far-off land. The blind bug wanders along a craggy cliff's edge, tapping their way along the road with only a stick, and Quirrel hastily introduces himself to steer the bug away from the ledge.
The old bug does not protest, but maintains the usage of his walking stick, and stays close to the rocky ledge; Quirrel quickly realizes that, despite the danger, the ledge is one of the best ways for the bug to tell where they're going, and although the bug moves slowly, they were in no danger whatsoever of falling over the edge. Quirrel, chastised, apologizes for his presumption.
"It was a fair conclusion," says the bug evenly. "There are worse things than a presumptuous good deed. Tell me about yourself, young man, since I have no eyes to tell me for myself."
"My name is Quirrel," he begins, then physical looks down at himself, as if he may have forgotten something about himself since he last introduced himself to someone. No, he appears exactly the same as he last knew himself. He recites himself to the old bug as he sees himself: "I carry my bag of food and a hat along my journey. I possess a nail, although I'm not a fighter. I'm a simple bug, who goes only where his whim takes him. Mostly, I just travel."
"Why?"
"Why?" Quirrel repeats.
"Why do you travel?” the old bug says patiently. “You're an awful long way from anywhere. What brings you so far off into the wilderness? Are you an exile, like me? A merchant? I’ve met quite a few of those. A refugee? A messenger? A servant of a lord?"
"None of the above. It appears nobody told me to be here, and I appear to have no destination, either. Therefore, it would seem I am simply here because I want to be."
"You've a funny way of reasoning it," says the bug. "'I appear' this, 'I appear' that, ‘it would seem’ and so on. Are you or aren't you?"
Quirrel laughs. "You're right. I've gotten into a bad habit of mincing my words. Nobody told me to be here, and I have no destination. I am here simply because I want to be."
"I’ve been told there’s nothing in these wastelands worth seeing. I conclude you're addled in the head, then."
"I suppose I wouldn't know if I was mad," says Quirrel. "But I have met many wonderful bugs along my way, and seen many wonderful sights--even sight that people have thought were not so wonderful, I have found delightful. And I think that it is not so unreasonable to travel for the love of seeing new and wonderful things."
"I suppose not," says the blind old bug. After a moment's pause (tap tap tap, goes the walking stick), the bug says: "Tell me, then. With all your love of travel, what wonders do you see?"
Quirrel keeps the bug company for three days, and tells them of the tall, shadowy wastelands and high cliffs around then. And when they grow tired of hearing about the world around them, Quirrel tells them of a canyon full of floating ghosts, a city of perpetual rain, a road through lush gardens, a nest of darkness and silk. When it comes time to part ways, the old bug tells Quirrel to take care. "Your love shines true, even to my sight," they say. "It shall not lead you wrong. Do not forget it, nor yourself. Let no one take it away."
"I won't," says Quirrel, and watches the blind old bug make their way down the left fork in the road. Then Quirrel sets off down the right fork, towards Hallownest, the famed kingdom of wonderful sights, to see them with his own eyes and his own love.