Chapter Text
Tiso awoke into a slow, hazy world. He assumed it was pain he felt in his lower abdomen, but it was dull and thumped with every beat of his heart.
Every beat of his heart. His heart was still beating. He was alive.
But at what cost? To lay here in some hut he didn’t recognize, with a scarf that smelled of pine trees and petrichor tied over his wound?
Hm, he thought. Where was he?
Someone had rescued him—that much was obvious. But from what was all a haze. He remembered an arena…the stab of a nail…hitting a cliff with unimaginable force…and laying there, waiting for death to claim him.
Clearly it wasn’t his time to go.
Tiso believed in fate. He believed that everything happened for a reason. That you deserved what happened in your life, and that it was tailored to you because you were strong enough to overcome it.
He believed. Used to.
Because what had he done to deserve anything that had happened to him?
The ant exited his thoughts. He took a moment to pull himself into the world--nails of many kinds were fastened on the walls, along with what looked like family photos next to evidence of hard-won battles. A large beetle-looking bug busied himself with something sharp sounding at what looked like a welding desk. He wore a leather cloak and had three (clearly painted) white horns. Tiso assumed he was an ox beetle based on the shape of his horns.
Another bug, clearly a pillbug, was swiping a cloth down an intricately engraved nail near a crackling fireplace. His antennae twitched curiously as he tasted the air around him. Tiso wondered what scents could be detected, and he let his own antennae flick.
Pale ore, smoke, pine, petrichor, ink, weaversilk. At least they were calming scents.
The pillbug suddenly turned up to Tiso at the sound of the ant stirring, eyes shining. "Oh, good, you're awake," he said. "How are you feeling?"
"Where... am I?" The question left Tiso's mouth before the words could string together in his mind.
"Nailmaster Oro allowed us to stay in his hut," explained the pillbug with a grin. The massive beetle with his back turned let out a grave huff.
Tiso nodded, his world still hazy and confusing. He wanted to kick himself for being saved by such an obnoxious pillbug, but at least he found him before the vengeflies did.
"Quirrel." The pillbug held out his paw.
"That's your name?"
"Sure is!"
Tiso declined the offer of a handshake. "I'm... Tiso."
"Nice to meet you, Tiso," Quirrel said, not seeming to mind the prideful decline. Then he asked again: "How are you feeling?"
Tiso was reminded of the dull thump in his abdomen, and the cotton stuffed in his brain, and he let out a slight wince. "Fine."
"Are you sure?" Quirrel dropped dry leaves into a clay pot suspended over the crackly fire. "Your injuries looked quite nasty when I found you."
"Well, I'm fine now," Tiso huffed back. "Quit asking."
"If you say so." Quirrel then began to unwrap his makeshift bandage on Tiso's abdomen and it made Tiso flinch.
A grimace crossed Quirrel's face. "Ah, Nailmaster Oro?"
A grunt of acknowledgment from the desk.
"Do you have any bandages, by any chance?"
The ox beetle rummaged in his desk and tossed a roll of gauze over to Quirrel.
"Are you sure you know what you're doing, pillbug?" Tiso sneered. He didn't particularly trust a soft roly-poly with his injury.
Quirrel narrowed amused eyes at Tiso. "I'm a traveler as well, drone. I think I know my way around a wound."
Drone! Tiso was anything but! He scoffed in offense, deciding the only reason he wasn't snapping back is because he was overall the bigger person and not because he was deathly exhausted and in aching pain.
Quirrel used a clean bandage and a flask of water from his satchel to clean Tiso's wound. He hissed at the sharp chill, then at the biting sting. "Careful," Tiso snapped, clenching his paws into fists.
"Relax," shushed Quirrel. "I know it hurts, but I'll be done soon."
Tiso sighed heavily. Frustrated and embarrassed he was reduced to this. A weak drone being coddled and taken care of. Tended to like a pathetic child. And by a roly-poly, no less! Truly humiliating!
Quirrel finished cleaning the wound, and his gentle paws wrapped the clean bandage around Tiso's injury and abdomen. The dull thump of ache returned. "How did you get hurt?" he asked suddenly.
Tiso didn't particularly want to explain how horribly he was beaten in the Colosseum--surely Quirrel would poke fun. "Ah..." He thought for a moment. "A battle."
"A battle?" Quirrel's antennae quirked, and he smiled. Tiso couldn't say if he was amused or genuinely intrigued. "Truly?"
"Truly."
"With whom? Or what?"
Tiso sighed in replacement of words. Of little white lies. "Ah...hm."
"Must've been something quite dangerous to disarm the likes of you." Quirrel's antennae quirked again, and this time Tiso didn't wonder about his teasing grim. Now he was just being cheeky.
"Teasing isn't very kind," Tiso huffed, humiliated by his entire state. If Tiso's impression of Quirrel was correct, he'd never be allowed to live this down.
"Ah, my apologies," Quirrel chuckled. "How dare I disrespect the Tiso."
Oro snorted from his spot at his desk, the first semblance of emotion Tiso or Quirrel had seen so far, and that almost made the humiliation worse. Tiso scoffed. He had just woken up from certain death, and now was being terribly heckled by his rescuer, who was a pillbug, mind you! What a day.
"I'm sorry, my friend," Quirrel said finally. "You're injured. I shouldn't tease."
Tiso huffed indignantly, lifting his nose. "You're... forgiven, I suppose."
"The mighty Tiso has forgiven my sins..." And then the pillbug dissolved into laughter as Tiso genuinely scrunched his snout, appalled at his cheeky behavior. What a disrespectful little thing, Tiso thought, although he was slightly amused under all his frustration. Quirrel didn't even know him, and was still poking fun. Odd creatures, pillbugs.