Moonlark Turned Evil

Inktober Special: Dodge

Hello everyone, welcome back to MTE!! Hiatus is officially over!!!! WOOOOO🥂🎉🥳🎊

I want to start this off with three points regarding the timeline:

—The first scene in this special occurs before the special chapter "Hallway Chatter", and the second takes place after it. You don't have to go back and read it, this is just to clarify in case there's some confusion.

—The special itself is set after the events of Lakeshore Dyed Scarlet.

—Before anyone gets confused about how Elen is not included in the list of members of Fayn's Guild: at this point in time, Elen hasn't joined the Neverseen. Elen wasn't saved from wolves by Sophie until she was fifteen, and Fayn is three years younger than Elen. In this chapter, Fayn is still nine.

Look at me casually posting Inktober Specials in December-

This feels like it has literally nothing to do with the prompt, but if you squint... maybe...

Pixel's numerous workshops, scattered across different bases he'd been stationed in for long periods of time, were the go-to place for troubled children.

He had no idea how it happened, but emotionally and physically wounded kids often ended up on his doorstep. After it'd happened a few times, he'd simply accepted that this was nature's way of telling him that if he wasn't the Neverseen's Technopath he would've ended up being an orphanage director and just decided to roll with it.

On this particular day, it was Alvar Vacker who stumbled through the door on shaky legs. He smelled faintly of cheap booze and cigarettes, and Pixel spent a moment staring at the Vacker boy in astonishment.

Then Alvar collapsed.

Pixel managed to make it across the room and catch him before he hit the ground. With some effort, he hoisted the boy onto a chair and threw a quilt over him. He made sure to check for a pulse, and after confirming that Alvar had only passed out, he turned back to his work.

Alvar woke nearly an hour later, his eyes slowly opening to take in the dimly lit room. Pixel had set aside his heavy duty machinery to give the Vacker some time to sleep, and was thus tinkering with a tiny little gadget at his desk.

"Where am I?" Alvar asked quietly, sitting upright with a light wince. His neck had been tilted in an uncomfortable position, so it was no surprise that it was sore.

"You stumbled in here," Pixel said, turning around on his rolling chair to face his guest. "This is my workshop. I'm Pixel, by the way."

"From the senior council?"

"Yes, that's me."

Alvar seemed to be trying to grab for words as he glanced around the room. ". . . Thank you," he murmured.

"It was no big deal," Pixel said. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Sharp blue eyes met his, not the famed teal of Alden Vacker's irises, but a startlingly beautiful cobalt blue.

The boy said slowly, "About what?"

"You went drinking."

"I guess you could say that."

"Why did you go?"

"Elvin alcohol seemed too boring, and I needed something." Alvar was fiddling with the buttons on the sleeves of his suit. His fancy, fancy suit that seemed so out of place in the corridors of the Neverseen headquarters where people wore battle gear or worn hand me downs they couldn't bring themselves to throw away just yet.