#pixlriffs fic

[mawofthemagnetar]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

I wrote a brand new oneshot!

In which Pixlriffs goes delving deep into the methods the Hermits have used to accrue their insane lifespans, and gets a lot more than he bargained for...

Enjoy!

[canarydarity]

Uh. Hi?

Obviously you have no obligation to do anything but uh-

if you did end up writing that pix one-shot

I know at least one person that would gobble it up.

(it's me, I'm that person)

Withering Away

(words: 1619) (link to previous Pix fic)

__________________________________

It was part of Pix’s job to have even an elementary understanding of decomposition, though it was never a topic he’d expected to come to know intimately. Or, well, he had, just not when he was still conscious for the experience. 

This was not how it was supposed to happen. There was not meant to be an awareness of such things. A mercy, it was—it must be—to lose sentience before losing all the rest; physicality, corporeal form, tangibility. A mercy Pixlriffs was not afforded. 

And was not afforded, and was not afforded, and was not afforded.

The first time—the only real time—he’d woken up gasping on the stone floor of the catacombs. Likely no time at all had passed since his, well, passing to when he awoke, but his mind felt decades older, his head weary from the encounter with death. It didn’t matter that he’d died indoors, huddled in one of the dark corners of Katherine's house, curled into a ball on the wooden planks—his body had felt itself be reclaimed, it had touched decay. 

Time had both slowed and sped up around him; the party had moved on, his stuff pillaged or put aside for his return—when they’d at first expected that to happen—then unknowing. The crown chose another host, tea was drunk, and goodbyes were said as the partygoers left and returned to their own empires; and all the while, Pixlriffs remained on the floor, watching this happen at thrice the speed, like a film being fast-forwarded, finger holding the button to remain on the fastest possible setting. He could not speak, he could not move, he could not intervene. He could take only one, shallow, raggedy breath every few minutes, the air rattling around in his quickly emptying chest, the term death rattle never feeling quite so accurate. 

All in all, the rest of the party must have been an hour or so long—but for Pix, it was mere minutes, and time did not stop there. He lay on the floor of a forgotten hallway and watched around him as time passed on; as folks and events came and went until suddenly the empire had fallen—or he assumed as such, because the rooms remained empty and dark and the sconces empty of torches and small weeds had begun to peek up through the floorboards before seemingly gaining their confidence and overtaking all. 

And as the house sunk deeper into the ground, what must happen to all happened to Pixlriffs; the life in the dirt found him, and they reclaimed what was theirs. It seemed that the speed of time had only been saving him for this: this duty of his—of us all—to give back to the ground from whence we came. He had been outrunning it for so long that it did not waste any time when it finally caught up with him. 

Roots of the surrounding plants reached like hands for his arms his legs wherever they could catch hold, and as they curled around him they tugged and tugged until his burial began. The worms and the bugs and the scavengers picked and picked at him until the leathery fleshy parts that let him resemble something human were gone, and the rest of him was left to seep into the ground and fertilize. To give back; life gives to life gives to life—it was just that the life that begins this cycle—the giver—was not supposed to still be alive when this occurs. 

And that was only the first time. 

Pix had awoken, as he’d said, on the floor of the catacombs, emptier than he’d felt in a while. Something vital had been taken from him, something living—something human. This ghostly presence was what was left. His skin was ashen and sunken and—at the wrong angle of the sun—transparent, and his insides were hollow, and his lungs didn’t seem to fill all the way when he went through the motions of breathing, but he was still here. 

So he went back to work, because what else was he to do? He was still capable, he did not see a problem with continuing to run the museum. 

The following times had been, weirder, for lack of a better way to describe it. Since he no longer seemed to be alive to begin with, not in possession of a physical body, he didn’t know how it was that he could decay. But the earth tried and tried and tried again to show him, to prove that it could be done. 

There was nothing for them to take, he thought, there should be nothing left of him to decompose. But he did.

And he did. 

And he did. 

The ground just worked harder from each time then on. It would tug at him and pull at him and bury him but each time it found nothing to eat, to consume, but it would not be deterred. It would grope and paw and beg and it would not give up until it found a piece of him that it could claim, digging deeper and deeper with each further exploration. It latched onto whatever it had found and it ripped it from him; he feared each time that there would be nothing left to be conquered, and he did not want to know what would happen then. 

This time, this most recent occurrence, he came to on the ground in Chromia, his brain catching sight of the color around him and feeling overwhelmed for a moment by the sheer amount of sensory input. Being dead, he thought he was past inherently living experiences such as having to catch one's breath—he was constantly being proven wrong. 

The sky was blue above him, almost clear besides a handful of clouds lounging about their day. It was a nice sight until it was no longer in his view; big eyes and blond hair leaning over him, a hat somehow even more aggressive and loud than the decoration around Chromia, which was saying something. Right, he had been helping Oli with his noteblocks. 

“Oh, my liege!” the bard cried, dramatics high, ever playing up an act; like he’d heard the phrase all the worlds a stage once and decided to take it far too seriously. Even so, he was as undeniably genuine in his emotion as he always was—it was a shame there was never actually an audience to watch his evergreen performance.

Oli’s hands gripped his shirt, pulling him up with more strength than Pix expected him to have, but he forgot his shock when the position change made his head ache harder.

“Not the king anymore, Oli,” he corrected, eyes clenched tight and hand coming up to grab his head. He thought perhaps he’d just sit here with his eyes closed until it was dark and there was less to look at, yeah that sounded like a good plausible idea. 

“You okay, king?” Oli asked, having backed off a step or two, though still crouching before Pix in his show of concern. “Not king as in the king as in ‘oh fair crown of jewels that’s killed you so!’ but as in ‘yes, king, slay!’ that kind of king.” 

Pix wasn’t really sure measures of ‘okay’ applied to him anymore since his status had changed to non-living. Surely the relative measure of well-being was different for those who were dead.

“Yes, Oli,” He said, rather than explaining this. He wasn’t really feeling willing to elaborate at the moment. 

Oli laughed awkwardly. “You sure? You’re looking a little green there. And, by green, I mean completely see-through to the point where I can see the grass beneath you.” 

Pix looked down, and, sure enough, his legs were looking less than tangible. “Right,” he said in response like he had any sort of reasonable explanation to offer for this phenomenon, falling back into his role as an educator out of need for some form of consistency, but there was nothing more that he could say. Oli awkwardly laughed again when there was no follow-through, the fear behind it permeating the air. 

Pix made to stand, and Oli grabbed one of his arms to help him up, the gesture appreciated well enough. 

“So, does that happen often, or? I’m sorry, is that rude to ask? I’ve never met a dead person before.”

“Often enough,” Pix said, picking up his bag and throwing the strap over his shoulder. They were technically not done setting up the noteblocks, but he didn’t think Oli would protest his needing to leave. “And I’m unsure, I’ve never been dead before, myself.”

Oli blinked at him a few times until Pix smiled, giving him permission to smile in return. 

“Don’t worry about me, Oli. I’ll figure it out in no time and be right as rain I’m sure.” He lifted a hand to bid Oli goodbye and turned away. He needed to get back to the capital. 

The bard called behind him, “Of course, king, of course! Good as new—brand new, in fact!” and then he must have turned back around himself because the noteblocks started up again, the sound carrying softly in the breeze, still slightly off-beat from the song attempting to be replicated. 

Right, good as new, Pix thought, despite the fact that in all of the human history he had studied, there didn’t seem to be a cure for having died. But there was certainly something here, something he’d never come across before. Maybe it wasn’t curable, but it was fascinating—and he’d just become his own primary source, no better subject to analyze than himself. He was going to get to the bottom of this. 

It seemed he wasn’t quite as undead as he’d thought.

[canarydarity]

Hard to tell how indicative the bones on the floor are of anything about the catacombs themselves being how, every few minutes, Pix kills another skeleton adding to the collection. He swipes his sword through the one before him, and it collapses so readily into a pile of bone—like it was made to, like it was just waiting on his sword—that he has to wonder, not for the first time, what was holding it together to begin with. The bones rattle and clatter against those already littered around, and Pix sighs at the further disturbance to the scene as it was when he had entered; accounting for the damage likely done by mobs was going to make this hell to study. 

He grabs another torch and sets it inside one of the empty sconces that still adorn the walls, readjusts his grip on his sword—he can hear more lingering around the next corner; the low hiss that means a spider is near, the groan or two of a zombie. 

Pix picks up a chunk of cobble from the ground and tosses it down the hall, waits. Sure enough, out scuttles a spider. He disposes of it quickly enough, but it seems he’ll have to venture down the dark hall to goad the zombies. He glances at the clock he placed in his hotbar before embarking on this mission (it’s hard to tell how much time passes underground—something he learned quickly in his line of work). There’s still a good amount of daylight left, and he wants the catacombs cleared; he has other projects he has to move on to, things he needs to finish; he’ll just get through a few more halls—it won’t be an issue, surely. 

But the new corner he rounds remains dark even as he places a torch behind him to mark the way back. The groans can still be heard, but a zombie is yet to lumber his way, and so he has to wonder what's beyond his admittedly limited sight. Pix shuffles another foot or so forward, a torch in his non-dominant hand now as well, hoping for light, for vision. The research part of him—the logical academic—knows that it shouldn't still be this dark with the torches placed behind him nor the one in his hand, and that part is so much louder and more important than the one that knows this means something is wrong, the part that says turn around. 

The torch is lit, he can feel the heat of the flame as he observes it flicker in and out but cast no shadow on the wall behind—a wall Pix can’t even see but knows is there all the same. The circle of light provided extends no further than an inch or two out from the flame itself—comparable more to that of a birthday candle than a lit hand torch. If he hadn’t been staring directly at it, he would’ve assumed the fire snuffed out. 

He feels his eye twitch and his brows furrow. Academia liked concrete answers, things that could be explained and reasoned away—unequivocal proof. But Pix had always had a soft spot for the inexplicable, the ineffable. It was nice when he studied something and found an answer, it was riveting when he didn’t. How much more exciting to study it again and again, a riddle that begged not to be solved. (How much sweeter the prize if he were the one to figure it out in the end). 

His interest was piqued. He could feel it, the way his attention focused and his surroundings blurred and left him; his body on standby, his sword hand lowered almost subconsciously.  

In other words, it was entirely his own fault when the zombie grabbed him. Panic is never a good thing to welcome into a fight, but it likes to show up uninvited anyway. Pix's entire career revolves around studying human behavior, about how human nature cannot be fought against though it oft leads us to our own downfall and ruin. He finds it uncanny when he's reminded that this is a phenomenon from which he is not exempt. 

In haste, he elbows the zombie behind him and turns, back now to the darkness—the one not even his torch could dent. It’s an ugly bugger, eyes soft and misshapen from decay and skin so leathery it’s as if it's been treated and is ready for use as a saddle or armor. Logic replaced by horror, before he can run it through it advances, arms out, and Pix drops his sword to reach back, holding it at arm's length itself; their arms interlocked, pose not unlike meeting an old friend again for the first time in a while. His hands grip the woven fabric of what's left of its shirt, too old and worn to be from any time close to recent, and, despite the very real danger, his mind takes the time to process the period-accurate fabric, the hand-stitched design. He blanches again as he looks into its horrible milky eyes—this zombie was from the capital. 

Not sentient enough to know why it’s not actually getting any closer to Pixlriffs, the zombie makes a noise that sounds frighteningly human in its frustration and steps forward, and in his distraction, Pix lets it. The push seems to make his brain function yet again, and he shoves the zombie backward a good few paces away, but the momentum sends him stepping back himself, and his foot finds not purchase but, instead, the disturbing lack of solid ground, and with nothing left to do, he falls. 

He hits the ground with a thump and a crack and a lot of other sounds he would rather not describe as he feels they were likely very undignified. Winded but, it appears, still in one piece, he grabs another torch and strikes it against the wall, holding it up above him when it lights and shines this time as torches normally do. He buries the part of himself that is disappointed at this—the part that wants to panic and complain finally louder, now, than the part that says hmm. 

He didn’t fall too far, it seems. Now that the torch is lit he can see the gap he’d fallen through, just under a dozen feet or so above where he lays. It's obvious even looking from below how the stone floor had crumbled away, taking maybe one or two hits too many over time from overcrowded mobs or shifts in terrain or pressure aboveground. He tilts his head back but sees only another dead end behind him, and ahead looks like a further, deeper hall of the tomb he hadn’t uncovered yet, though the path is obstructed by debris from above; a net of spiderweb blankets the pile of stone and dirt, but no spider seems to be left guarding the web. 

His friend above seems to have lost interest now that he’s fallen out of sight, and its moans and groans get further away by the second. 

No immediate threat, Pix lets his head fall back onto the ground and takes a breath. He knew the crypt would be full of mobs, he knew it’d be hard, but still…

No, it’s worth it. It will be worth it. He has a job to do.

At least he isn’t defenseless—it’s more than he can say for the dungeons. Not a weapon to his name, fists wrapped in tape so red you’d never believe it’d been white to begin with; knuckles so raw and scraped and beaten by the time he’d made it out that they’d scarred that way—permanent marks of the fighter he was, of the fighter he’d proved to be. 

There was a fear there, too, at that very real and physical understanding of permanence. His studies proved expert in providing examples of what was permanent and what wasn’t, and where people weren’t, things were. He’d spent enough time studying what could be learned about a person by the things they left behind to begin to wonder if anyone at all would’ve remembered him if he’d died in those dungeons—not a singular weapon or item for him to leave behind and tell his story.

Pix stops wallowing. He sits up and reaches over his shoulder for his pick; he isn’t shocked to find that the shaft had snapped in two from the fall, it having been strapped to his back. He sighs, tossing it aside as useless. He’ll make another. 

He takes the time to remind himself again that he knew it was going to be difficult, and that difficulty was no reason to not continue. But it didn’t just feel difficult it felt…inhibiting. Dissuading, deterring, impeding. It felt deliberate. It felt like, stay out; like, we don’t want you here; like, leave us to our rest. 

(it wasn’t, it was something far more sinister. An idea he’d never thought to consider; like a torch was giving off too-little light in the hallway of a dark, long-forgotten crypt, he couldn’t see any farther than what was right in front of his own face. How cliche it’d be, in the end, when it came to pass—the academic too invested in their own research, too dismissive of the present danger posed until it consumed them. He’d have a moment to laugh about it later, when the dread had settled in and all options—or lack thereof—exhausted. While on the topic of permanence…

It was not go away that the tomb was saying, not a driving force out that was being enacted upon the archeologist, but a more frightening call of stay. A threatening but desperate find…become…join…

No, if it were trying to keep him out, why would it keep pushing him deeper? Add this to the list of things he’d realize too late.)

He stands and dusts himself off. The wall is thick and overgrown with glow lichen, and he grabs the nearest vines and tugs one, twice, three times before deciding it won't give and hoisting up. It takes a few minutes and a fair amount of huffing and puffing to get himself to the top and over the edge but he does it, collapsing on higher ground once again and taking a minute to slow his pulse. When he left the dungeons, he dove back into the studies he’d been missing and decided he’d had enough fighting to last a lifetime—this was not without consequence, he’s not nearly as in shape as he used to be. 

His sword is still on the ground where he’d dropped it, so he reequips and readies himself to push his way back out; he’d have to make time to come back and clear the rest another day. He would be back, and he hoped he would be welcomed. 

“I don’t mean to disturb you,” he says into the quiet blackness of the catacombs. He doesn't dare speak above a whisper, for there were still mobs around and his voice carried enough as it was, bouncing along the empty stone and quiet graves. “I'd like to tell your story.” 

There's nothing to hear but for the scuttling of various creatures far off in the dark, the shrill whistle of stray wind through small openings and holes. He raises his voice only slightly, a bit bolder. “Don’t you want me to do that? Will—would you allow me to do that?” 

Silence, and then—the rattle and clatter of a skeleton. It sounds like only one; he lit everything up pretty well on his way in, getting out should be easier. Striking another torch against the wall, Pix prepares to go. For a second, the light is brighter than it should be, its circle of light illuminating the hall completely, the hole he’d fallen into, the distance to the other side. He leans back to avoid the heat of the flame, and he sees it. 

The other side of the cave-in leads not to another tunnel but to an alcove, and empty it is not. His torch, though many feet away, sheds light on the scene; the heavily wax-encrusted stone above a pile of used candles and burnt wicks, the coin and other offerings of gold overflowing from bowls and chalices and any other orifice they could be piled upon, and her. 

He recognizes her immediately. The tapestry covers the majority of the wall, and though it's faded for certain, the lack of direct sunlight has done wonders at preserving what it could. The colors are familiar to his research, the subtle and light greens under warm oranges and yellows. He’s too far, he cannot see any detail; the background, what she's holding, her face—but he knows her. She’s their patron. 

The skeleton wanders closer, its bones clicking and clacking down the hall. Pix swallows. 

“I’ll return for you, I will.” It’s a promise. She’s holding a secret, he knows she is—he’s going to figure out what. Pix turns just in time to face the skeleton as it rounds the corner, and soon its bones join those on the floor, new and old alike. 

His words still echo off the caverns and crevices of the catacombs after he's left and gone, and though not possible to have been heard by human ears, the crypt whispers back good. 

~-~-~-~

Far below even the hole the archeologist had fallen in, leagues underneath the surface of the earth, buried perhaps the furthest underground of anything left behind from the ancient capital—so deeply you’d have to wonder if maybe it was done on purpose—the crown sits in a chest, waiting patiently to be discovered. It’s not a matter of if, but a nice decisive and quiet when. Eventually, the echo of the archeologists' words falls upon it where it sits, and slowly it begins to emit a soft glow. It says stay, it says find, it says become, it says join.

It says soon.