𝕻𝖔𝖊𝖙𝖊𝖘𝖘 - (Wilbur)

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟏

"May as well be." Tubbo scoffed and looked off to the side.

"What's that supposed to mean?" The artist asked and tilted her head.

"They're Inka's depictions of people she's insisted that she's seen. I believe it, but they're so vague." Tubbo explained coolly for Celeste to nod at airily.

"I see! Oh may I draw them?" She asked excitedly and sat down. She unfurled a roll of parchment and dipped a brush into ink, lightly sketching with ease as Inka watched silently. Tubbo, who was on the other side to Inka, leaned on her back and peered over Inka's head to see Celeste draw effortlessly.

"We were hoping you'd do this." Inka whispered and laughed lightly as Celeste joined in, brightening the room with her wonderful joy. Inka was mesmerised by her, in all honesty. She certainly was beautiful.

She continued to draw as everyone watched, and for another count on the clock, she did what she did best. And the end product was perfect. A splitting image to Apollyon and Artenos. She thanked Inka for the prompt and Inka thanked her for the service gratefully, Tubbo hugged Inka in victory, only for Wilbur to pull them apart before quickly following Celeste as she left the library to explore the castle more.

That left a twisted feeling in Inka's stomach, and she knew Tubbo felt the same as she turned to him and saw his face seem slightly less fruitful as it often was. He said it before she could even think of it, "he likes her," he whispered in slight shock. Inka felt like a fool for a moment. She tried and tried, she hid her feelings well behind a mask of joy when she was with Wilbur, they greeted each other with a hug, sat closer together and wrote two songs after their first. Everyone had hinted to Inka that he liked her and she truly believed it. She believed it and came to terms that she felt the same, as if he had already confessed his unconfirmed feelings and they had happily been consorting as if it were a self-fulfilling prophecy. But they weren't. And though Inka wished she could do something, hold him back or keep him closer to her, she knew she couldn't. He wasn't an object for her to control and she hadn't confessed, there was no pact of loyalty and trust between them, Wilbur barely considered them friends on some days.

Not all hope was lost, Tubbo could be wrong and Wilbur could be just being a good host. So Inka only smiled and shrugged, trying to ignore the dread that Tubbo was maybe right.

Only later on that day did Inka find out Tommy was leaving. She was daydreaming by the dinner table as they ate lunch, Tommy wearing a smart shirt and trousers for once, with a decorated waistcoat too small for him resting on his shoulders. He hadn't the plasters nor the dread slapped across his face as if he were going to school, as Inka would associate from the groans and huffs that came from citizens as the word was said. He was excited and giddy, ready to start new and be like his brother.

When Inka found out, she gasped, "Tommy you're leaving!?" She exclaimed and looked slightly heartbroken as Tommy turned to look at her with an excited nod. She sulked until he finished, to which he hugged her, "oh I wish I knew before, I want you to remember me! For when we meet on your return. When do you leave?" She asked, he glanced at his father who stuck up two fingers, it meant two counts. There was a new determination, she nodded and turned on her heel, sprinting out of the castle from a window and tactfully vaulting over the wall she and Wilbur climbed over often.

She had never been so athletic in her life. Not once did she think she could move like that with her robes though the slits to the side did prove that they would be good at outrunning a hunter. She didn't stop, and travelled until she was back at her sleeping quarters. Swiftly, she slipped into Sally's spring and took a shell, she would have taken the golden edged one but Sally loved it too much, and Inka thought far enough ahead for when Sally would meet Wilmott. With the shell, she gripped it and climbed out, tracing her steps back to the castle wall where she climbed over with more care, as she noticed a graze on her knee leaking with the yellow-amber liquid slightly. She ignored it and jumped off the top before panting and recollecting her breath. Never had she once done something so fast. But she had the shell and with more care, granted she was fatigued and slightly winded, she climbed through an open window which wasn't Minerva's bedroom window (as it was closed). Knocking on the door of the lightly chattering dining room, she stuck her head in and beckoned for Tubbo. Tommy peered as if he were trying to decipher what Inka was trying to do, he had sat back down and was talking without a plate in front of him.

Tubbo joined Inka and she showed him the shell, he offered a low whistle of understanding and took Inka to his room of secrets, sparking a pile of coal and wood with a flint and steel before tossing the ignition into the crucible above. As the bottom glowed red with heat, Tubbo tossed in more metals, gold, iron, flint and even some minuscule fragments of obsidian. The mixture once melted was red like the bottom of the metal pot they were stored in and Inka, who stood by the door as Tubbo fixed on a mask, watched as he poured it out around narrow metal poles and beat them until cool. The sizzling of water from the fired up forge and the contact with still madly hot alloy was satisfying, not something Inka heard often but enjoyed the sound of. He cooled it down and beat on it once more with a heated hammer, repetitively before taking the shell. He took a brush (a unique choice in Inka's opinion) and painted over the divots of the shell with the left over metal, he hoisted it up with a pole he rotated with a pedal and delicately painted the metal on. Inka heard the shell snap but not fall apart, the metal was keeping it together; fortified as that too was dipped to cool in water. Tubbo pierced through the shell with a hot needle underwater, Inka was astonished to see the hole neatly through the shell, where Tubbo threaded through the incredibly thin but resistant chain.

Then it was left to rest, to set and cool while Tubbo sighed and patted his face down with a towel. But he sighed in surprise and sniffed, inhaling and looking at Inka, "why doesn't it smell like ash and burnt metal? He asked as she shrugged, he then sighed in understanding and nodded, leaning back and taking a deep breath of the oxygen Inka was releasing in response to the heat.

They delivered the necklace as he left and Inka kissed his forehead in a farewell. They wished they had more time together but they had barely given him the necklace in time.