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I. Stains
The hallway stretched quiet in the late afternoon light, its tiles catching a faint reflection from the high windows.
Capella slowed her pace, noticing the trail ahead. Dark droplets led across the floor in uneven rhythm, some elongated as if smeared under hurried steps.
She crouched, touching one with a fingertip. It glistened, sticky-black. It spread quickly against her skin, bleeding outward like watercolor.
“…It’ll stain,” she murmured, not sure who she was speaking to.
Blot: .ecivres fo trap a si sihT (This is part of the service.)
Capella startled, turning. Blot stood a short distance away, half melted into shadow, the end of his body tapering into liquid darkness.
“…Sorry, what?” she asked.
Blot: .taht tuoba yrros toN (Not sorry about that.)
She frowned. As always, the sounds clawed at her ears, intelligible yet foreign. His voice seemed less like speech and more like the echo of something unraveling.
“You mean… not to worry?” she tried.
Blot tilted his head. One gloved hand lifted, palm up, as if to say maybe.
Capella huffed a small laugh. “You’re impossible to keep up with.”
Ink trailing at his feet, he stepped closer.
Blot: .thgir yb ebyaM (Maybe you’re right.)
II. Lost in Reverse
They began walking together, the trail of stains extending under Blot’s step. Capella followed them with her eyes, the way each drop left its mark.
“…It’ll be difficult to clean,” she said.
Blot: .hO… erus fo trA eht si sihT (Oh… this is a form of art.)
Her brow furrowed. “Did you just say… art?”
The mime gave no verbal confirmation, only a faint shrug.
“Art,” Capella repeated, more to herself. Her gaze drifted to the stains again. They seemed like nothing more than accidents, reminders of carelessness. And yet… when she looked longer, there was a strange rhythm in their placement. Almost like notes across a staff.
She shook her head. “I don’t think anyone else would see it that way.”
Blot gestured with his hands—one rising, one falling—like scales balancing.
Capella pressed her lips together, halfway between a sigh and a laugh.
“You’re not wrong. Perspective changes everything, doesn’t it?”
Blot simply inclined his head.
III. Misfires
They reached a corner where the stains pooled darker. Capella touched the edge of one.
“You know, I always think of stains as mistakes. Something left behind when you should’ve been more careful.”
Blot: .sesserpmi ro sekaM ti ,esion a sa emityrevE (Every time, it makes or impresses, as noise.)
“…I caught noise in that,” she admitted.
Blot snapped his fingers.
“So… every noise leaves a mark? Or every mark is like a noise?”
Blot tilted his head, gloves spreading outward as if to say yes, both.
Capella laughed. The sound surprised her—lighter than she expected.
“Conversation with you feels like chasing echoes.”
Blot: .seohcE ,seY (Yes, echoes.)
She blinked. “…Did you just agree?”
For once, she thought she heard it clearly.
IV. Silent Performance
Blot halted suddenly. He turned, stepping into the open center of the hallway. His posture straightened, shoulders broadening with the kind of confidence only stage performers held.
Capella tilted her head. “What now?”
He raised both hands, palms glowing faint under the light. Slowly, deliberately, he shaped the air.
A wide circle. Arms straining upward, then holding still, as though suspending something heavy.
Capella’s breath caught. She recognized it—though no object was there, she felt the weight of a great bell.
Blot exhaled, though the sound came as a reverse sigh. Then, with sudden force, he pulled his arms downward.
No sound. Only the tremor in Capella’s chest, a phantom resonance.
It was as though a clear tone rang through her, even if the air itself stayed silent.
“…A bell,” she whispered.
Blot’s eye makeup creased slightly. No mouth showed, but somehow she knew he smiled.
V. Residue
She looked down once more at the stains.
What moments ago had seemed messy, clumsy, inconvenient—now shimmered like remnants of a note struck and left to fade.
“Maybe,” she said softly, “stains aren’t only mistakes.”
Blot’s head inclined, shadow stretching at his feet.
“They prove something happened. That you were here.”
Her hand lingered above the nearest mark. “A presence… like an echo.”
Blot didn’t speak this time. He simply tapped the floor once with his toe, ink spreading outward in deliberate rhythm—dong.
And Capella almost swore she heard it again, the toll of a bell no one else could.
She held his gaze. “Thank you.”
Blot lowered his hand, and with the faintest tilt of his head, offered something close to a bow.
Together, they walked on, leaving the stains behind—no longer accidents, but the trail of a silent performance.