There’s a planter box right outside Zagreus’ room. It’s the first thing he sees when he cracks open the window each morning and the last thing he sees when he closes it each night. The soil is unturned and nothing grows there… yet. (He guesses this spare bedroom doesn’t get much use.) At the sight of it, Zagreus thinks he could plant a few seeds in that dirt, pinch the earth, see if some berries grew in that place, dark and ripe. He bets they would. The grounds of Xenios is covered in blooms, and while there’s plenty to said about the masking of things, Zagreus likes to believe that most things tend to tell you what they are from the outset if you just looked at them right.
He supposes he could venture out to the Agora tomorrow for said seeds, but the itch has taken a hold of him now and with all these flowers, he knows a spare few can’t be far. He’s seen some of the gardener bots roam the ground of Xenios during the day, sometimes heard them watering the plants as they fell asleep. He’s seen them prune plants, dig into the ground, sow seeds. They’re different than the bots from his youth of course, but that’s no surprise. Shit gets upgraded all the time. So Zagreus zips up his Palehorse hoodie and steps out into the night in search of seeds.
Yes, he’s high. But that’s neither here nor there.
(Not a lot, just a little.)
He finds one of the gardener bots by the fence. It is just as he is trying to crack open the bot like a walnut to get at those seeds that a fucking man wearing what is possibly the most eccentric (read: ugly) blazer appears from fucking nowhere and snatches the bot from his hands. Had Zagreus even been the slightest bit more buzzed the suddenness of it all would have knocked him off his feet, there would have been a good chance he’d accidentally have plunged his knife into the closest body part of the attacker. Instead, his pet project gets snatched away from him. “Hey!” He exclaims - and then doubles down the exclamation again when his pen knife also gets stolen. “Hey!”
There’s a visible pout. “Are you the fucking - the fucking security system or something? Give me back my knife?” His own exasperation causes him to speak over the stranger. Their words blend together. “Look, I get I could just buy some, but I thought - hey, that bots probably got some seeds in it! Why not just steal a few -“ Their muddled speech becomes its own cacophony. “Die? Now I just think you’re being dramatic -“ Maybe a harmony.
Finally Zagreus catches the word ‘security’ and it all clicks. Oh. He squints at the bot. Yeah, yeah now that he’s looking at it -
it’s nothing short of a miracle that he’s not dead.
“Oh, these are the -“ Oh. It’s becoming increasingly clear that this tall stranger with the bad blazer definitely just saved his life. Zagreus lets out nervous string of laughter. “I’m uh, well, thank you?” The silence lands thick between them. Should he just keep apologizing? Thanking them? Instead: “You shouldn’t have told me that bit about the machete though. I’m going to be out here tomorrow with the largest kitchen knife I can find just to see what happens.”
It’s a joke and he tosses a glance to the other to make sure they get it. He’s not sure they do. “I’m sorry, it’s the nerves. Thank you, seriously, thank you. I’m kind of embarrassed. You don’t even want to know what I thought those were.”
Bad time to be high, really. But it somehow makes Zagreus even more honest than he usually is. If such a thing were possible.
“What kind of ammunition do they put in these anyway? How big exactly, was the hole in my chest about to be?” He wants to take another look at the, now that he knows what it actually is, now that the initial ‘oh fuck’ of it all has warn off. His hand drifts back towards the machine, held just out arms reach. It isn’t lost on Zag that the other still has their pen-knife, just as it isn’t lost on Zag the stranger put themselves directly between the explosive and Zag without thinking twice. “I bet it’s the same tech as the casinos in Tartarus. Built kind of like an eyeball right?” The laser meant to shoot from the pupil, motion sensor in the cornea. It’s a reskin of the same old thing at the end of the day. Art imitates life and apparently so do security systems.
Sisyphus nods along with Zagreus’ meandering speech, eyes going wide in exaggerated imitation of Zag’s as the realization hits. “Mmm. Mhmm. Yeah, it’s clicking now, isn’t it?” Oh, he’s so high. Sisyphus would recognize that glazed look from a mile away. “Don’t worry about it. You can pay me back by not doing that kitchen knife thing.” He resists an insane urge to boop Zagreus on the nose, see if he tips over. Gets distracted by his eyelashes on the way to his nose; adds, absently, “Y’know, if you really want to know what would happen, look up the company on Tala. I'm pretty sure they have some ads that show the bots absolutely fucking up some crash-test dummies.”
Sisyphus thinks they’re through the worst of it. Then Zagreus says, you don’t even want to know what I thought those were, a throwaway line, a little piece of nothing, and Sisyphus is bowled over by a feather once again: shocked by how much he realizes he does want to know, wants to squeeze as much from this moment as he can, hoard it like some precious stone. The warmth and delight of the encounter, the sheer familiarity of that wild brain cartwheeling across the grass, shaking seeds from security bots.
On auto-pilot, he steps between Zagreus and the bot when he sees him reaching for it. Taps his knee with the toe of his boot. “Hey. Quit that. I can spend all night explaining the carnage to you, use all my prettiest and goriest adjectives, if you’ll leave that thing alone. How many lives have you got left in there?”
Then– the mention of casinos is an unwelcome shock. Sisyphus steps back so quickly it’s his turn to bump into the bot. “Wouldn’t know about that.” He fiddles with the knife in his pocket. Almost loses a finger when he presses the release button by accident, but he hardly notices. “Mmm, probably not though. These are pretty cutting edge, don’t know how– yeah. Who knows!” He shrugs. Laughs, a beat too late. Frowns, at himself. “Okay, like.” Deep breath. Get your shit together, Xenia, you freak. It’s just a ghost from the past, what's the worst it can it do? Send him to the gallows via his dad, maybe, or worse– look hurt about it. “Can I help you with anything else?” Way to sound like the fucking– concierge. “Where exactly are you trying to go?”
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