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“My dauntless, beloved nephew,” Savathûn starts, “I do not give treats more than once even if you are my favorite one.”
Nokris' three eyes blink through the holes of the white cloth covering him. “Aunt Savathûn, I did not come here for candy.”
Her looming shape shrugs in a chuckle; he is so young and so polite. Even dressed for the festivity that brings jubilation through the Osmium courts and the ones beneath, one great and well-customized thin blanket that drags itself over the asphalt wherever his tiny feet lead him to, Nokris is the perfect face for royalty: a great Prince but not known if a worthy God. At least, not for his father and his other aunt. Savathûn prophesied better.
“Then what?” She demands. “No child around your age would waste their evening tucked at home. You must have a decent reason.”
The small, frail Thrall at the door of the Witch-Queen’s palace lowers his head in shame, but not much. It is righteous to bow towards the King and Queens of the court or to cower, yet as a familiar, you must hold your regard and stand proud. As son of Oryx, the First Navigator, Nokris recalls this etiquette detail even when unexplainably sorrowful; mostly because Savathûn has no mercy under her sleeve, and her pity is as bitter as Ammonite blood.
“I don’t think they like me,” the young Prince says. “Nor do they care for me.”
Tick-tick-tick. Claw onto chitin. It’s all he hears.
For a moment, Nokris thinks that this is a bad idea. Perhaps Savathûn might sense him into believing this is the truth in a harsh, needed phrasing, or even ignore.
However, she gives a step to the side of the left door and says: “You may get in.”
The sight he’s bestowed by as he lifts his glance is oddly comforting: her echo in a wavering shape, wings draped over her arms, a looming figure that is all mantle and crownless head with kind eyes.
Nokris doesn’t fall for her kindness thoroughly, but he paces forth. Savathûn’s echo watches him stroll alone until another of her own comes to follow him towards a lone, quiet chamber deep within her palace. By then, nobody guides him. No need to. This one is new—at least as far as Nokris remembers—for its interior architecture has statues and artifacts (or relics, if he studies closer) he hasn’t seen before, all scattered in shelves or protected in glass domes or hung at eye’s level on the walls. A reliquary of sorts.
At the far end of the room is a fireplace with a bright yellowish flame. Unparalleled to usual soulfire or his father’s black fire that engulfs emperors and worlds. Yet… it is gentle. Comforting, to say the least. Before it, two padded chairs stand tall, one beside another with the interjection of a marble table in the middle. A jar of alien design, definitely not of osmium, lies there; Nokris focuses first on the hand that rests on the right armchair, and points to its left.
He paces and sits there. It’s delightfully soft and big. Nokris feels smaller than he already is—but he is cozy, too, and almost at peace with this statement for once.
A rasp din draws his attention to his right. Savathûn is all robes and sleepwears on her chair, making spirals of the cool teacup in hands, perhaps purposely forcing this sound so Nokris might know her presence as true as the burning bonfire in front of him. Slowly, she turns her eyes to her nephew. An once-over is given. “You look horrible in this.”
At that, Nokris beams. “Thank you, aunt Savathûn.”
“No, you really look horrible,” she insists and it doesn’t hit him as it should, “Next time you partake in Treating, you should come to me. Your siblings pick anything they find before them and use it to their favor, and the results are pitiful, may I confess.” By then, Nokris isn’t as joyful anymore. “I could lend you at least decent fabrics from local manufacturers other than your own ragged bed blanket.”
Sorrow coils his chest before she ever finishes, and when she does, Nokris is holding tightly the treat bucket he made for himself. From nauseatingly-sweet to bitter candy, some which pop citric between teeth and others cooked by their own owner, the young Thrall-Prince has little compared to his siblings. They all have their own ways to be: Crota as this promising child to devour worlds beyond the First Navigator’s maps; Ir Anûk as the prodigy daughter whose three eyes stares at the uranology of the space she’s born in; Ir Halak, who stares at notes and melodies and believes something powerful can be done out of it.
And Nokris?
What has Nokris been doing, if not looking for too long at the Unseen Sister’s domain and musing the possibility of traversing through it by his own will…
Savathûn produces the same infuriating sound from her porcelain teacup, and Nokris flinches. “Those are just delights. Having little does not equal your worth.”
“Tradition says otherwise,” he says. “A treat-wealthy child is one that builds its worth in the right path. A child who lacks treats must reconsider its own goals so as to be better next Treating Day.”
“Delights. Those are just delights, Nokris.” Savathûn taps the spoon against the cup. “If your life perspective as a scholar of forbidden arcana depends on what a Knight that only knows war thinks of you, you may as well declare yourself dead or else I might poison you.”
Something itches his throat, but he refuses to let on.
At the last tap, Savathûn asks, “Would you like some tea?”
The righteous choice would be to say “No”, but Nokris instead says, “Yes.” His aunt pours him the same drink from the teapot for him, yet to accept something doesn’t equal to drinking it immediately. Savathûn is amused when he sniffs it and smiles, perhaps forgetting he’s still dressed as a ghost—no, not this Ghost, the other ghost—and many of his expressions are covered by this long, pathetic yet adorable blanket of his.
“Is this why you are here?” Savathûn doesn’t really stop. “Your siblings and cousins aren’t concerned about your personal conquests within the Logic, which I should assume may not be that many for you children…” She tilts her head. “They are blinded by the measure of self-worth in the scale of the myths. They are poking, fumbling, and daring to challenge everything that breathes, in one way or another. You have barely failed your tests, have you not, Nokris?”
“No, aunt Savathûn.”
“Sure you haven’t, or else I wouldn’t have invited you here,” she sneers. “Where are they now?”
Nokris slightly swings his feet back and forth. “Crota, Malok and Scoroboth have been running around the Dreadnaught with Alak-Hul,” he says, “Ir Anûk and Ir Halak took enough treats, so they decided to go to the libraries with Balwûr. And aunt Xivu’s brood seem to despise me.”
At that, Savathûn scoffs. Whether it’s by anger or amusement is not known. “And Dûl Incaru? You two are very close.”
The young prince sighs. “We have met earlier, but now she’s… gone. I think she might be with my sisters, but I am unsure.”
“Ah,” the Witch-Queen says, “I bet she is with Quria. She’s spending too much time learning a song that Vex Mind is producing.” Then she smiles. “Her priorities are always so intriguing to observe.”
Nokris hums. Savathûn softly blows steam off her tea. “Has it not crossed your mind the possibility of this being a challenge, too?" Such a thing makes her nephew’s three eyes glisten. “Self-sufficiency means the lack of necessity of values which aren’t of your creation. Self-sufficiency equals solitude, which is not inherently true but a fundament of its own concept. It is unpredictable without any analysis upon its object. If your design does not fit others, nor is it charming enough for the most uninterested eye, then it is nothing.”
“But not for me,” Nokris whispers quietly in hopes she won’t listen, yet Savathûn is keen. She does not miss anything that is of her interest.
“But not for you,” she affirms. “You know your worth, don’t you?”
That he doesn’t know. And he wouldn’t lie to Savathûn, because he cannot lie as bluntly as she does and cannot pretend as easily as she is a pretender. Perhaps it’s a skill he may learn in the incoming future or may not, depending on the morph he takes, depending on the crown he wears.
Nokris’ silence turns into nuisance, if that’s ever a sign of his self-depreciation.
Savathûn groans, and leaves her teacup onto the table. “I will tell Quria to trap those kids into a simulation where the only condition to break it is to none be left alive,” she mutters to herself—yet leaving it audible enough for Nokris—as she stands and reaches towards a bowl the Thrall-Prince has not noticed yet. Lightning doesn’t reach there as he wishes it could, but that isn’t a hindrance to guess. “Nokris, my dear nephew. Close your eyes.”
He does as asked, and stammers, “I wasn’t peeking.”
In the dark, he hears shuffling of little packed things, like the ones in his bucket. Its sound dances and dances in his ears, temptingly so, wringing his curiosity so he could grant a whisper of a tithe to his aunt. When it stops, it turns into a blow. Savathûn’s steps come forth towards his chair, and when Nokris feels her presence near him, she says in gentle mockery: “Say the words, little one.”
All and every treat Savathûn’s given to the children are sweet poison where she lies, telling they should use some of their cunning to discern which can be consumed and which will give them stomach ache. Nokris knows that. He still utters: “Trick or treat.”
She places a rectangular shape on his splayed palms. “Treat. Open your eyes, now.”
He does as asked, and frowns at the thing in hands. Then he looks up towards his aunt, who he cannot tell if that’s a trick she’s making sure to not miss its timing or if she’s being genuine.
Little matters for the Thrall-Prince which is yet to become a God.
Nokris starts to unwrap it. The scent of cocoa with something else—he hasn’t learned everything about seasonings with her, at least not yet—peels away his doubts towards the Witch-Queen. No one has received this from her; not the children of Oryx’s court, nor Xivu’s little bratty Horde, or perhaps the young liars of the High Coven. Not Crota, not the twins, but mostly not Crota…
“Eat it,” Savathûn says with a softness that kindly brushes away Nokris’ sorrow. “It’s one of the finest flavors from my throne-world.”
A lasting hesitation stands, but dissipates as he shows his mouth and gives it the first timid bite. Nokris still stares at her when the sweet-but-not-too-sweet taste floods his mouth. And sees her smile widening as he realizes such sweetness has not killed him yet, which makes him chew on more and more until his throat tightens, and he feels like crying.
Savathûn sits on his side, crossing her legs and resting her chin on her hand. “As I said, self-sufficiency equals solitude,” she starts. “However, it doesn’t mean you can’t have anything for yourself.”
Nokris stops. Savathûn hums and picks her teacup once more as if she hasn’t said anything, but he has heard it well. His chest warms, its heat embracing him like the bonfire burning still before them. “Thank you, aunt Savathûn.”
She chuckles, eyes not on him anymore. Maybe she’s not even there with him anymore, but on a memory far away from his knowledge…
Yet she does not lose her timing. “Remember to come to me next Treating Day. I will not let you in if you walk in your ragged bed sheets again, Nokris.”
Nokris laughs quietly, to much of Savathûn’s unrestrained joy.